The Quest: A Romance. Forman Justus Miles

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СКАЧАТЬ of the house, which had its own street entrance, and knocked lightly at his door. She asked the admirable Peters, who opened to her —

      "Is he awake?" And being assured that he was, went into the vast chamber, dropping her cloak on a chair as she entered. David Stewart was sitting up in his monumental bed behind a sort of invalid's table which stretched across his knees without touching them. He wore over his night-clothes a Chinese Mandarin's jacket of old red satin, wadded with down, and very gorgeously embroidered with the cloud and bat designs and with large round panels of the Imperial five-clawed dragon in gold. He had a number of these jackets, they seemed to be his one vanity in things external, and they were so made that they could be slipped about him without disturbing him in his bed, since they hung down only to the waist or thereabouts. They kept the upper part of his body, which was not covered by the bedclothes, warm, and they certainly made him a very impressive figure.

      He said —

      "Ah, Helen! Come in! Come in! Sit down on the bed there and tell me what you have been doing!" He pushed aside the pack of cards which was spread out on the invalid's table before him, and with great care counted a sum of money in francs and half-francs and nickel twenty-five centime pieces.

      "I've won seven francs fifty from Peters to-night," he said, chuckling gently. "That is a very good evening indeed. Very good. Where have you been, and who were there?"

      "A dinner party at the de Saulnes'," said Miss Benham, making herself comfortable on the side of the great bed. "It's a very pleasant place. Marian is, of course, a dear, and they're quite English and unceremonious. You can talk to your neighbour at dinner instead of addressing the house from a platform, as it were. French dinner parties make me nervous."

      Old David gave a little growling laugh.

      "French dinner parties at least keep people up to the mark in the art of conversation," said he. "But that is a lost art anyhow, nowadays, so I suppose one might as well be quite informal and have done with it. Who were there?"

      "Oh, well – " she considered, "no one, I should think, who would interest you. Rather an indifferent set. Pleasant people but not inspiring. The Marquis had some young relative or connexion who was quite odious and made the most surprising noises over his food. I met a new man whom I think I am going to like very much indeed. He wouldn't interest you because he doesn't mean anything in particular – and, of course, he oughtn't to interest me for the same reason. He's just an idle pleasant young man, but – he has great charm. Very great charm. His name is Ste. Marie. Baron de Vries seems very fond of him, which surprised me rather."

      "Ste. Marie!" exclaimed the old gentleman in obvious astonishment. "Ste. Marie de Mont Perdu?"

      "Yes," she said. "Yes, that is the name, I believe. You know him then? I wonder he didn't mention it."

      "I knew his father," said old David. "And his grandfather, for that matter. They're Gascon, I think, or Bearnais, but this boy's mother will have been Irish, unless his father married again.

      "So you've been meeting a Ste. Marie, have you? And finding that he has great charm?" The old gentleman broke into one of his growling laughs, and reached for a long black cigar which he lighted, eyeing his granddaughter the while over the flaring match.

      "Well," he said, when the cigar was drawing, "they all have had charm. I should think there has never been a Ste. Marie without it. They're a sort of embodiment of romance, that family. This boy's great-grandfather lost his life defending a castle against a horde of peasants in 1799. His grandfather was killed in the French campaign in Mexico in '39 – at Vera Cruz, it was, I think; and his father died in a filibustering expedition ten years ago. I wonder what will become of the last Ste. Marie?" Old David's eyes suddenly sharpened.

      "You're not going to fall in love with Ste. Marie and marry him, are you?" he demanded.

      Miss Benham gave a little angry laugh, but her grandfather saw the colour rise in her cheeks for all that.

      "Certainly not!" she said with great decision. "What an absurd idea! Because I meet a man at a dinner party and say I like him, must I marry him to-morrow? I meet a great many men at dinners and things, and a few of them I like. Heavens!"

      "'Methinks the lady doth protest too much,'" muttered old David into his huge beard.

      "I beg your pardon?" asked Miss Benham politely. But he shook his head, still growling inarticulately, and began to draw enormous clouds of smoke from the long black cigar. After a time he took the cigar once more from his lips and looked thoughtfully at his granddaughter where she sat on the edge of the vast bed, upright and beautiful, perfect in the most meticulous detail. Most women when they return from a long evening out, look more or less the worse for it. Deadened eyes, pale cheeks, loosened coiffure tell their inevitable tale. Miss Benham looked as if she had just come from the hands of a very excellent maid. She looked as freshly soignée as she might have looked at eight that evening instead of at one. Not a wave of her perfectly undulated hair was loosened or displaced, not a fold of the lace at her breast had departed from its perfect arrangement.

      "It is odd," said old David Stewart, "you taking a fancy to young Ste. Marie. Of course it's natural too in a way, because you are complete opposites, I should think – that is, if this lad is like the rest of his race. What I mean is, that merely attractive young men don't as a rule attract you."

      "Well, no," she admitted, "they don't usually. Men with brains attract me most, I think – men who are making civilisation, men who are ruling the world or at least doing important things for it. That's your fault, you know. You taught me that."

      The old gentleman laughed.

      "Possibly," said he. "Possibly. Anyhow that is the sort of men you like and they like you. You're by no means a fool, Helen. In fact, you're a woman with brains. You could wield great influence married to the proper sort of man."

      "But not to M. Ste. Marie," she suggested, smiling across at him.

      "Well, no," he said. "No, not to Ste. Marie. It would be a mistake to marry Ste. Marie – if he is what the rest of his house have been. The Ste. Maries live a life compounded of romance and imagination and emotion. You're not emotional."

      "No," said Miss Benham slowly and thoughtfully. It was as if the idea were new to her. "No, I'm not, I suppose. No. Certainly not."

      "As a matter of fact," said old David, "you're by nature rather cold. I'm not sure it isn't a good thing. Emotional people, I observe, are usually in hot water of some sort. When you marry you're very likely to choose with a great deal of care and some wisdom. And you're also likely to have what is called a career. I repeat that you could wield great influence in the proper environment."

      The girl frowned across at her grandfather reflectively.

      "Do you mean by that," she asked after a little silence, "do you mean that you think I am likely to be moved by sheer ambition and nothing else in arranging my life? I've never thought of myself as a very ambitious person."

      "Let us substitute for ambition, common sense," said old David. "I think you have a great deal of common sense for a woman – and so young a woman. How old are you, by the way? Twenty-two? Yes, to be sure. I think you have great common sense and appreciation of values. And I think you're singularly free of the emotionalism that so often plays hob with them all. People with common sense fall in love in the right places."

      "I don't quite like the sound of it," said Miss Benham. "Perhaps I am rather ambitious – I don't know. Yes, perhaps. I should like to play some part in the world. I don't deny that. But – am I as cold as you say? I doubt it very much. I doubt that."

      "You're СКАЧАТЬ