it was sunday afternoon, and they had been taking tea with mrs. fazakerly. this was the second time that durant had had the opportunity of studying mrs. fazakerly at home, of filling in the little figure on its own appropriate background. the first thing that struck him was that the background was not appropriate, or rather that it was inadequate. mrs. fazakerly's drawing-room had an air of uneasy elegance, of appearances painfully supported on the thin edge of two hundred a year. it was furnished with a too conspicuous care; the most insignificant details were arranged so as to lead up to and set off her good things, which were few and far between. there was no rest in it for the eye that was perpetually seized and riveted on some bit of old silver, or oriental drapery, some chippendale cabinet or chair. such things were the commonplaces of coton manor, and there they fell unobtrusively into their place. here they were touched up and handled, posed out of all simplicity; [pg 280] they bore themselves accordingly with a shining consciousness of their own rarity; they made an unblushing bid for praise. in mrs. fazakerly's drawing-room the note of taste was forced.
the invitation had come as a sort of farewell attention to durant. its valedictory character was further emphasized by mrs. fazakerly's proposing to walk home with them, and finally falling into the rear with durant.
as a turn in the drive brought them within sight of coton manor, mrs. fazakerly balanced her pince-nez on the bridge of her nose. it remained there, and he judged that mrs. fazakerly was in no mood for mirth.
"that house," said mrs. fazakerly, "annoys me."
"why?"
"because it hasn't had justice done to it."
"i should have thought that was a ground for pity rather than resentment."
mrs. fazakerly shrugged her shoulders ever so little. "that drawing-room—did you ever see anything like it? and such possibilities in it, too. i can't bear to think of all those beautiful things wasted, just for want of a little taste, a little arrangement—the right touch."
the widow's white fingers twitched. it was not vulgar cupidity; it was the passion of the born genius, of the lover of art for art's sake, who sees his opportunity given into the hands of an inferior. if only she had the ordering, the decoration of coton manor! durant thought of the cottage at the gates, her cramped and humble sphere; it was not her fault so much as the defect of her instrument, that forcing of the note of taste; no wonder that she longed for the rich harmonies of coton manor under "the right touch," the touch of the master. [pg 281]
she continued, "but poor dear miss tancred, you know, she will have it left just as it was in mrs. tancred's time; she won't change a picture or a chair in it. that's frida all over. she's made that house a monument to her mother's memory. and think what she might have made it."
"i'm thinking what she might have made of her life. she seems to be making that a monument to her father's memory."
"ah! and the things she could have done with it."
impossible to say whether mrs. fazakerly referred to miss tancred's house or her life. durant smiled at her probable conception of coton manor, with its tragedy of splendid possibilities gone to waste; but mrs. fazakerly's idea cut both ways.
she sighed wearily.
"these drives were not made to be walked up. there's another mile and a half of it, and i'm half-dead already. i shall sit down."
she led the way to an elm tree fallen in the grass, examined it critically, sat down, and made a place for him at her side.
"so you're going to-morrow? is that so?"
"it is—probably."
"it's a pity—just as you and miss tancred have made friends."
"the best of friends must part," said he lightly.
"yes. well, i'm glad you've managed to be nice to her, after all. she's come out in the most astonishing manner since you came. what have you been doing to her?"
"i've done nothing to her, i assure you."
"ah, you mean you've not been making love to her."
"i don't mean anything of the sort."
durant was angry. it was borne in upon him that [pg 282] mrs. fazakerly was vulgar, after all. she looked at him, and her pince-nez balanced itself on the bridge of her nose, then leapt its suicidal leap. she was amused with the ambiguity of his reply.
"that's all right. heaven help the man who does make love to her, if he means it. that girl's a riddle to me. i used to think she cared a little for her father; but it's my belief that frida tancred cares for nobody, not even herself. she simply doesn't know what love is, and she doesn't want to know. why am i saying these alarming things to you? i'm saying them because i'm old enough to be your mother, and because i like you. you're clever, and you've got a sense of humor, too, though i can't say it's been much use to you since you came here. but, with all your cleverness, you'll never understand frida tancred. she's not like other women, the sort you've flirted with so much. don't tell me you haven't; for you have. she can't help it. her mother was a queer fantastic creature, and frida's just like her, only stronger, much stronger, and deeper, which makes it worse. i'm sorry for her, because you see i'm very fond of her, and i think there's nothing—positively nothing—i wouldn't do to help her."
"it's an intolerable existence for her."
"intolerable? ah, my dear mr. durant, you're delightfully young; so is frida, though you mightn't think it; and you young people are all so tragic. frida's absurd about her father; she's always been going about with that face of hers, playing at being antigone, and as the poor, dear colonel is as blind as what's-his-name? he naturally doesn't see it. she's brought it all on herself. she looks on her father as her fate, and treats him accordingly—in the grand style—and it doesn't suit him. what a subject like [pg 283] the colonel wants is a light touch. with me, for instance, he's a dear."
"is he? i thought he rather bored you," said durant maliciously.
"when did you think that? oh, that first night when we all laughed so much, except poor frida. i wasn't bored—not a bit; on the contrary, i was amused at the expression of your face, and at your atrocious manners and still more atrocious puns. nothing ever bores me. it's only you young people who let yourselves be bored. tragedy again. too much tragedy for my taste."
mrs. fazakerly paused to let her communications sink in and take root. there was a deep hush on the landscape, as if in deference to her awful confidences. a deer stood knee-deep in the grass and gazed at them inquiringly. and as mrs. fazakerly stared unabashed into the face of nature, durant thought of frida's remark, and wondered if she found it "soothing."
"mind you, i don't mean to say that she's cold. on the contrary, i believe she's capable of a tremendous passion for something—i don't quite know what. it might be a person,"—she rose—"but let me tell you it's much more likely to be a thing."
they were talking quite innocently about art and literature when they appeared at the house.
durant vainly tried to unravel the possible motives for her confidence. they were so many and so mixed. it was possible that she honestly suspected him of a dawning passion for frida and that she meant to warn him of the hopelessness of such an attachment; apparently she understood her friend. or the conversation may have been designed as an apology for her own future conduct. durant knew that she would not refuse to marry colonel tancred if he made the offer; [pg 284] he knew, or thought he knew, her inmost opinion of that ridiculous person. she must be aware that her own dignity was considerably compromised by the situation; perhaps she hoped by rehabilitating the colonel's behavior to justify her own. but why that insistence on the enigma of frida tancred's? why this superfluous and elaborate cover for her own very simple meaning?
unless, indeed, she was not quite so simple as she seemed. in courtship the colonel had shown himself vacillating, to say the least of it. if mrs. fazakerly wanted to bring him to the point it was obviously her interest to get miss tancred out of her way. in other words, to throw her in durant's way. his delicacy shrank from the baseness of this conjecture, but his reason, as well as his experience, suggested that the thing was not impossible. mrs. fazakerly had been studying him, and she was shrewd enough to see that the surest way to interest him in miss tancred was to set his intellect to work on her. she had doubtless observed his fin de siècle contempt for the obvious, his passion for the thing beyond his grasp, his worship of the far-fetched, the intangible, the obscure. thus she thought to inflame his curiosity by hinting that frida tancred was incomprehensible, while she touched the very soul of desire by representing her as unattainable. all this was no doubt very clever of mrs. fazakerly; but it was not quite what he had expected of her.
his suspicions were confirmed by frida's behavior. ever since their last interview she had relapsed into something like her former reticence. to-night, as if she had an inkling of the atrocious plot, she avoided him with a sort of terror.
