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Thus it was that Sir Creighton’s daughter found it necessary to make use of a serious exclamation when she found that when she had looked for wisdom from her father he had given her a phrase—the lace cerement of wisdom.
And then she gave a more emphatic exclamation when she reflected upon the possibility of Josephine’s polite demeanour being as opaque as her father’s paradoxes. She had believed that the embroidered domino of politeness—that makes a variation from the rather flimsy trope of the lace—concealed within its folds only her friend’s dislike for the presence of Mr. Winwood; but now it had been suggested to her that there was a good deal below the billowy surface of the ornamented fabric that she had never suspected to exist there.
She said “Psha!” also “Phu!” and “Phi,” and gave vent to all those delicately modulated breathings with long-drawn sibilants which moments of staccato derision suggest to those young women who have not trained themselves to the more robust verbiage of condemnation—sounds like the stamping of Alpine heels upon a solid pavement.
It was of course a great relief to the girl to give way to those half tones of vituperation—those dainty slipper-taps as it were, of impatience. But after all the real relief that she experienced was in diverting her thoughts from the possible dissimulation of her father and her friend to the plain and simple language made use of by Lord Lullworth in her presence.
Lord Lullworth was, of course, a fellow with no pretensions to brain-power—with no delicate appreciation of the subtleties of language; but beyond a shadow of doubt Amber felt the greatest relief to her mind through reflecting upon his extraordinary frankness. There at any rate was a man who knew exactly what he meant and who was able to communicate to another person exactly what he meant. To be sure what he did mean was something too absurd to be entertained for a moment; still it had been clearly defined and—yes, it was not without picturesqueness and—yes, it was undeniably a relief to think about him.
Only an hour had passed since she had been lying back among her cushions, reflecting, with the help of the Florentine mirror, upon the situation of the moment. She had at that time been led, out of a feeling that Lord Lullworth should have fair play, to think of him in active and brutal contest with the other young men who had been drinking tea with her; but now she found that, even judged from a lofty standpoint, he was susceptible of being thought about with positive pleasure—well, if not absolute pleasure certainly with satisfaction, the satisfaction which comes from a sense of relief.
And then she found that really his frankness had not been unpicturesque as a pose. She began to feel that a great misapprehension existed in the minds of most people in regard to frankness. The impression undoubtedly did prevail that frankness was only candour in hob-nailed boots. She knew that the general feeling is that if candour is insolence in a white surplice, frankness is rudeness in rags. That misapprehension was allowed to exist simply because so many people who were really clever, never found that it suited them to be frank. They had given all their attention to the art of not being frank, just as some women give up all their time to their dress, neglecting their bodies, to say nothing of their souls, in order that they may appear well-dressed. She felt convinced that if a really clever man were to study frankness as an art he might be able to make a good thing out of it. At any rate it would be a novelty.
Yes, Lord Lullworth had certainly struck out a path for himself, and had made some progress—quite enough to impress her, and to cause her some remorse when she reflected upon her having thought of him as a fool.
Lord Lullworth undoubtedly had made an appreciable amount of progress when he had impelled the girl who had first thought of him only as a young fool, to give herself over to the consideration of his position as an athlete, then of his position as a relieving influence coming after the distractions of intellectuality; and, finally, of his position as an original thinker—the pioneer of a cult which might yet become a power in a society where dissimulation, flourishes.
And what marked the extent of his progress the more vividly was the fact that the result of her consideration of the young man from every successive standpoint only strengthened his place in her esteem.
Then her mother wrote the invitation to Mr. Win-wood for Saturday week and he accepted it in due course; and it was on the Wednesday next before that Saturday that Amber met Josephine on the terrace of the great historic house in Kensington, and reminded her that she had engaged herself to go up the river to The Weir from Saturday to Monday.
That was not the only engagement of which Josephine was conscious.
Still she had been able to shoot a dart of pretty badinage with a barb touched with sugar instead of gall, in the direction of Mr. Winwood at that moment; and thus Amber had gone home more amazed than ever.
But not before she had been charmed by her gracious reception at the hands of the Countess of Castlethorpe.
No young man with a mother so perfectly charming could be unworthy of consideration, she felt.
And thus Lord Lullworth took another stride along the perilous path upon which he had set his feet.
Even when he was living for two days in the retirement of his cottage on the bank of the River Thames, Sir Creighton Severn was too busy a man to find time to join the little company who set out in his launch on the Sunday to pay the visit which his daughter had promised to the new proprietor of The Gables. He was not so utterly overwhelmed with business, however, but that he could look forward to two hours of solitude and slumber during their absence. He calculated, without the aid of logarithms, that the little company would be absent for two hours, and he proposed spending twenty minutes of this space in the enjoyment of his solitary cigar on the lawn and the remaining hour and forty minutes on one of the long cane chairs in a bower over-clustered by clematis, blue and white, and hidden away from the intrusive enquiries of impressionable flies and impossible visitors.
He had no doubt that a visit to The Gables would have been very interesting—as a matter of fact he found most things in the world very interesting—but, as he remarked with a sigh that fully expressed his gratification at the thought, a busy man must make up his mind to forego a good many of those enjoyments which he most detested.
The utmost enjoyment that he could allow himself in connection with this expedition was seeing the departure of the electric launch from the little staging at the water’s edge. But this enjoyment though only lasting a few minutes, was intense while it did last. His wife understood his feelings thoroughly. It was not often that she was able when up the river to withdraw her guests in so solid a body, leaving Sir Creighton to the solitude of his bower.
