The Rosary [39]
them, handing Pauline's aunt a letter she had dropped.
"Good-night, Miss Champion," he said, and for one instant his eyes met hers, but he did not hold out his hand, or appear to see hers half extended.
The three women mounted the staircase together, then went different ways. Miss Lister trailed away down a passage to the right, her aunt trotting in her wake.
"There's been a tiff there," said Mrs. Parker Bangs.
"Poor thing!" said Miss Lister softly. "I like her. She's a real good sort. I should have thought she would have been more sensible than the rest of us."
"A real plain sort," said her aunt, ignoring the last sentence.
"Well, she didn't make her own face," said Miss Lister generously.
"No, and she don't pay other people to make it for her. She's what Sir Walter Scott calls: 'Nature in all its ruggedness.'"
"Dear aunt," remarked Miss Lister wearily, "I wish you wouldn't trouble to quote the English classics to me when we are alone. It is pure waste of breath, because you see I KNOW you have read them all. Here is my door. Now come right in and make yourself comfy on that couch. I am going to sit in this palatial arm-chair opposite, and do a little very needful explaining. My! How they fix one to the floor! These ancestral castles are all right so far as they go, but they don't know a thing about rockers. Now I have a word or two to say about Miss Champion. She's a real good sort, and I like her. She's not a beauty; but she has a fine figure, and she dresses right. She has heaps of money, and could have rarer pearls than mine; but she knows better than to put pearls on that brown skin. I like a woman who knows her limitations and is sensible over them. All the men adore her, not for what she looks but for what she is, and, my word, aunt, that's what pays in the long run. That is what lasts. Ten years hence the Honourable Jane will still be what she is, and I shall be trying to look what I'm not. As for Garth Dalmain, he has eyes for all of us and a heart for none. His pretty speeches and admiring looks don't mean marriage, because he is a man with an ideal of womanhood and he can't see himself marrying below it. If the Sistine Madonna could step down off those clouds and hand the infant to the young woman on her left, he might marry HER; but even then he would be afraid he might see some one next day who did her hair more becomingly, or that her foot would not look so well on his Persian rugs as it does on that cloud. He won't marry money, because he has plenty of it. And even if he hadn't, money made in candles would not appeal to him. He won't marry beauty, because he thinks too much about it. He adores so many lovely faces, that he is never sure for twenty-four hours which of them he admires most, bar the fact that, as in the case of fruit trees, the unattainable are usually the most desired. He won't marry goodness--virtue--worth-- whatever you choose to call the sterling qualities of character-- because in all these the Honourable Jane Champion is his ideal, and she is too sensible a woman to tie such an epicure to her plain face. Besides, she considers herself his grandmother, and doesn't require him to teach her to suck eggs. But Garth Dalmain, poor boy, is so sublimely lacking in self-consciousness that he never questions whether he can win his ideal. He possesses her already in his soul, and it will be a fearful smack in the face when she says 'No,' as she assuredly will do, for reasons aforesaid. These three days, while he has been playing around with me, and you and other dear match-making old donkeys have gambolled about us, and made sure we were falling in love, he has been worshipping the ground she walks on, and counting the hours until he should see her walk on it again. He enjoyed being with me more than with the other girls, because I understood, and helped him to work all conversations round to her, and he knew, when she arrived here, I could be trusted to develop sudden anxiety about you, or have important letters to write, if she came in sight. But that is all there will ever
"Good-night, Miss Champion," he said, and for one instant his eyes met hers, but he did not hold out his hand, or appear to see hers half extended.
The three women mounted the staircase together, then went different ways. Miss Lister trailed away down a passage to the right, her aunt trotting in her wake.
"There's been a tiff there," said Mrs. Parker Bangs.
"Poor thing!" said Miss Lister softly. "I like her. She's a real good sort. I should have thought she would have been more sensible than the rest of us."
"A real plain sort," said her aunt, ignoring the last sentence.
"Well, she didn't make her own face," said Miss Lister generously.
"No, and she don't pay other people to make it for her. She's what Sir Walter Scott calls: 'Nature in all its ruggedness.'"
"Dear aunt," remarked Miss Lister wearily, "I wish you wouldn't trouble to quote the English classics to me when we are alone. It is pure waste of breath, because you see I KNOW you have read them all. Here is my door. Now come right in and make yourself comfy on that couch. I am going to sit in this palatial arm-chair opposite, and do a little very needful explaining. My! How they fix one to the floor! These ancestral castles are all right so far as they go, but they don't know a thing about rockers. Now I have a word or two to say about Miss Champion. She's a real good sort, and I like her. She's not a beauty; but she has a fine figure, and she dresses right. She has heaps of money, and could have rarer pearls than mine; but she knows better than to put pearls on that brown skin. I like a woman who knows her limitations and is sensible over them. All the men adore her, not for what she looks but for what she is, and, my word, aunt, that's what pays in the long run. That is what lasts. Ten years hence the Honourable Jane will still be what she is, and I shall be trying to look what I'm not. As for Garth Dalmain, he has eyes for all of us and a heart for none. His pretty speeches and admiring looks don't mean marriage, because he is a man with an ideal of womanhood and he can't see himself marrying below it. If the Sistine Madonna could step down off those clouds and hand the infant to the young woman on her left, he might marry HER; but even then he would be afraid he might see some one next day who did her hair more becomingly, or that her foot would not look so well on his Persian rugs as it does on that cloud. He won't marry money, because he has plenty of it. And even if he hadn't, money made in candles would not appeal to him. He won't marry beauty, because he thinks too much about it. He adores so many lovely faces, that he is never sure for twenty-four hours which of them he admires most, bar the fact that, as in the case of fruit trees, the unattainable are usually the most desired. He won't marry goodness--virtue--worth-- whatever you choose to call the sterling qualities of character-- because in all these the Honourable Jane Champion is his ideal, and she is too sensible a woman to tie such an epicure to her plain face. Besides, she considers herself his grandmother, and doesn't require him to teach her to suck eggs. But Garth Dalmain, poor boy, is so sublimely lacking in self-consciousness that he never questions whether he can win his ideal. He possesses her already in his soul, and it will be a fearful smack in the face when she says 'No,' as she assuredly will do, for reasons aforesaid. These three days, while he has been playing around with me, and you and other dear match-making old donkeys have gambolled about us, and made sure we were falling in love, he has been worshipping the ground she walks on, and counting the hours until he should see her walk on it again. He enjoyed being with me more than with the other girls, because I understood, and helped him to work all conversations round to her, and he knew, when she arrived here, I could be trusted to develop sudden anxiety about you, or have important letters to write, if she came in sight. But that is all there will ever