H. B. Marriott Watson

“ Lady Herapath had not collected a menagerie of interesting people this time. Indeed, I fear that on the whole we were an unexciting lot; but as I was privileged to sit next to Miss Livingston at dinner, I did not resent that. I noticed that she had a hearty appetite, and that her laugh was ingenuous. She betrayed health in everything about her. Her conversation was ingenuous also, as I discovered.
“Mr. Weston,” said she, with a sort of brisk earnestness, “you know Sir George Lincoln well. What is he going to do?” ”

“ George was inordinately grateful, which was somewhat embarrassing.
“I will take your advice,” said he warmly: “I believe you're right. You're a good old chap, and you have seen a good deal of her. You're pretty chummy with her, I know. She trusts you, I can see. You've got a shrewd eye for any one's character, Weston. You've influence with her. By Jove, you're right.”
It was true that I had seen a good deal of her, as I have hinted, and I think it is true that I have a shrewd eye for character. But that I had any influence with Miss Livingston was more than doubtful to me. ”

“ Miss Livingston did imagine that she could stand up to the assaults of fact. I suppose all women do, and can't. They shrink aside. She was not yet put to the world, but was a shy wilding. Oh yes, her spirits were haggards always.... I looked up from my reverie and saw them. George, poor fool, had already been there for some minutes, and, if you please, had brought his golf-ball and some of those things they call stymies or brassies or cleeks. He was encouraging his spirits to the jump. He practised with the eye and hand of ardour. I had marked him, and turned to my Browning. ”

“ We certainly did get on well, as Lady Herapath reminded me with her diplomatic smile.
We had gone to the library to look up a disputed point in Browning; and of course there is the traditional air of romance about a library. The library at Pleating House is somewhat disappointing from the point of view of romance. It is well lighted, and there are no bays and refuges in it. It stands four square, so to speak, to publicity. But Miss Livingston and I, as a matter of fact, were its only tenants that evening. ”

“ The phrase was passed this time without protest, and Miss Livingston ran on a little hurriedly. “You see it has always been impossible for one to be valued or liked for what one is oneself. People have always appreciated one for one's money or one's—one's appearance, so to speak.” ”

“ I murmured.
“And you?” she asked in her quick way.
“God forbid!” said I, for of golf and bridge I am profoundly ignorant.
She broke into light and pleasant laughter, and I am sure we should have got on even better together if at that moment the ladies had not left the table.
In the billiard-room later Lincoln sought me with some awkwardness. He had always respected my opinion—as, of course, he should.
“What do you think of her?” he asked.
“If you mean Miss Livingston,” I answered, “I think she is astonishingly pretty.”
“Pretty!” he echoed impatiently—“I think she's lovely.” ”

“ Pleating is always a delightful place, particularly when Lady Herapath takes the trouble, as she sometimes does, to select her company with care. For my part I have got beyond the age when every new face must of necessity be interesting. ”

“ To have lived forty years odd in the world and to have failed is to justify the accents of Timon.”
“Not Timon,” said she in her quick way—“never Timon; and besides, to have failed! What is failure? Is it success to ride, hunt, drive, sleep, and play billiards?” ”

“ I hastily agreed, declaring that save for the paltry compliments of the ballroom it was the only way in which I could understand talk.
“That is exactly what I mean,” said she. “This ballroom talk is carried through life as if life were a ballroom.”
“It is a field of battle,” said I emphatically.
“I knew you agreed with me,” she said triumphantly. “You see, Mr. Weston, I am under a disadvantage: I am an heiress.”
“A great pity,” I said, with a shake of my head.
“It is not so much that I object to having the money,” continued Miss Livingston hastily ”

“ After all, it would be wiser with a girl of character like Miss Livingston to come to the point boldly. If she was going to reject George, as was only too certain, she would respect him for his manly advance. Let him die honourably, if he were going to die at all. ”

“ Down the park where the stream winds in a rowdy current below the saw-mill is a low-lying stretch of land, planted with an avenue of young birches, elders, and bird-cherries, and populous with kingcups in May. It is a pretty walk, and you can watch the trout race in the eddies if you will, or (in summer) can cross to the arbour in the islet under the shadow of willows. It was from this arbour, bare now and blighted, that I watched the meeting. I had Browning with me, not to read so much as to muse over, and I was thinking of those lines ”

“ You are going to do something. Your talent is not likely to be thrown away.”
You will admit that this was very pleasant hearing, and I will confess that I should like to have prolonged it, despite the fact that I might presently have had to confess that I had not only never had a brief, but never wanted one. It was clear that Miss Livingston had formed in her precipitate way an opinion of me as flattering as her opinion of George Lincoln was depreciatory. I had a prick of conscience at the thought of poor George, and introduced him somewhat clumsily, as I was aware. ”

“ I almost shouted.
“No; I hadn't got as far as proposing,” he said. “I was trying to screw myself up, and indeed I was just going to do it when I somehow slipped off the bridge. After that, you know, hang it all, a fellow couldn't——”
Well, I got rid of him and went to bed, and the “pale soft sweet disempassioned moon” shone on the cedars on the lawn. After all, the hamadryad answered to that description. Attended with her retinue of haggards she was like Diana. Or—was she not? ”