Marriage a la mode Part 3

"Of course," said Roger hurriedly; "but you wouldn't think it a fair and square thing to do?"

"Think what?"

"Why, to marry a man, and then talk of divorcing him because people didn't invite you to their parties."

"She was very unhappy," said Daphne stubbornly.

"Well, by Jove!" cried the young man, "she doesn't look very happy now!"

"No," Miss Floyd admitted. "No. There are many people who think she'll never get over it."

"Well, I give it up." The Apollo shrugged his handsome shoulders. "You say it was she who proposed to divorce him?--yet when the wretched man removes himself, then she breaks her heart!"

"Naturally she didn't mean him to do it in that way," said the girl, with impatience. "Of course you misunderstood me entirely!--_entirely!_"

she added with an emphasis which suited with her heightened colour and evidently ruffled feelings.

Young Barnes looked at her with embarra.s.sment. What a queer, hot-tempered girl! Yet there was something in her which attracted him.

She was graceful even in her impatience. Her slender neck, and the dark head upon it, her little figure in the white muslin, her dainty arms and hands--these points in her delighted an honest eye, quite accustomed to appraise the charms of women. But, by George! she took herself seriously, this little music-teacher. The air of wilful command about her, the sharpness with which she had just rebuked him, amazed and challenged him.

"I am very sorry if I misunderstood you," he said, a little on his dignity; "but I thought you----"

"You thought I sympathized with Mrs. Verrier? So I do; though of course I am awfully sorry that such a dreadful thing happened. But you'll find, Mr. Barnes, that American girls----" The colour rushed into her small olive cheeks. "Well, we know all about the old ideas, and we know also too well that there's only one life, and we don't mean to have that one spoilt. The old notions of marriage--your English notions," cried the girl facing him--"make it tyranny! Why should people stay together when they see it's a mistake? We say everybody shall have their chance. And not one chance only, but more than one. People find out in marriage what they couldn't find out before, and so----"

"You let them chuck it just when they're tired of it?" laughed Barnes.

"And what about the----"

"The children?" said Miss Floyd calmly. "Well, of course, that has to be very carefully considered. But how can it do children any good to live in an unhappy home?"

"Had Mrs. Verrier any children?"

"Yes, one little girl."

"I suppose she meant to keep her?"

"Why, of course."

"And the father didn't care?"

"Well, I believe he did," said Daphne unwillingly. "Yes, that was very sad. He was quite devoted to her."

"And you think that's all right?" Barnes looked at his companion, smiling.

"Well, of course, it was a pity," she said, with fresh impatience; "I admit it was a pity. But then, why did she ever marry him? That was the horrible mistake."

"I suppose she thought she liked him."

"Oh, it was he who was so desperately in love with her. He plagued her into doing it."

"Poor devil!" said Barnes heartily. "All right, we're coming."

The last words were addressed to General Hobson, waving to them from the kitchen-garden. They hurried on to join the curator, who took the party for a stroll round some of the fields over which George Washington, in his early married life, was accustomed to ride in summer and winter dawns, inspecting his negroes, his plantation, and his barns. The gra.s.s in these Southern fields was already high; there were shining fruit-trees, blossom-laden, in an orchard copse; and the white dogwood glittered in the woods.

For two people to whom the traditions of the place were dear, this quiet walk through Washington's land had a charm far beyond that of the reconstructed interior of the house. Here were things unaltered and unalterable, boundaries, tracks, woods, haunted still by the figure of the young master and bridegroom who brought Patsy Curtis there in 1759.

To the gray-haired curator every foot of them was sacred and familiar; he knew these fields and the records of them better than any detail of his own personal affairs; for years now he had lived in spirit with Washington, through all the hours of the Mount Vernon day; his life was ruled by one great ghost, so that everything actual was comparatively dim. Boyson too, a fine soldier and a fine intelligence, had a mind stored with Washingtoniana. Every now and then he and the curator fell back on each other's company. They knew well that the others were not worthy of their opportunity; although General Hobson, seeing that most of the memories touched belonged to a period before the Revolution, obeyed the dictates of politeness, and made amends for his taciturnity indoors by a talkative vein outside.

Captain Boyson was not, however, wholly occupied with history or reminiscence. He perceived very plainly before the walk was over that the General's good-looking nephew and Miss Daphne Floyd were interested in each other's conversation. When they joined the party in the garden it seemed to him that they had been disputing. Miss Daphne was flushed and a little snappish when spoken to; and the young man looked embarra.s.sed. But presently he saw that they gravitated to each other, and that, whatever chance combination might be formed during the walk, it always ended for a time in the flight ahead of the two figures, the girl in the rose-coloured sash and the tall handsome youth. Towards the end of the walk they became separated from the rest of the party, and only arrived at the little station just in time before the cars started.

On this occasion again, they had been clearly arguing and disagreeing; and Daphne had the air of a ruffled bird, her dark eyes glittering, her mouth set in the obstinate lines that Boyson knew by heart. But again they sat together in the car, and talked and sparred all the way home; while Mrs. Verrier, in a corner of the carriage, shut her hollow eyes, and laid her thin hands one over the other, and in her purple draperies made a picture _a la Melisande_ which was not lost upon her companions.

Boyson's mind registered a good many grim or terse comments, as occasionally he found himself watching this lady. Scarcely a year since that hideous business at Niagara, and here she was in that extravagant dress! He wished his sister would not make a friend of her, and that Daphne Floyd saw less of her. Miss Daphne had quite enough bees in her own bonnet without adopting Mrs. Verrier's.

Meanwhile, it was the General who, on the return journey, was made to serve Miss Boyson's gift for monopoly. She took possession of him in a business-like way, inquiring into his engagements in Washington, his particular friends, his opinion of the place and the people, with a light-handed acuteness which was more than a match for the Englishman's instincts of defence. The General did not mean to give himself away; he intended, indeed, precisely the contrary; but, after every round of conversation Miss Boyson felt herself more and more richly provided with materials for satire at the expense of England and the English tourist, his invincible conceit, insularity, and condescension. She was a clever though tiresome woman; and expressed herself best in letters. She promised herself to write a "character" of General Hobson in her next letter to an intimate friend, which should be a masterpiece. Then, having led him successfully through the _role_ of the comic Englishman abroad, she repaid him with information. She told him, not without some secret amus.e.m.e.nt at the reprobation it excited, the tragic story of Mrs.

Verrier. She gave him a full history of her brother's honourable and brilliant career; and here let it be said that the _precieuse_ in her gave way to the sister, and that she talked with feeling. And finally she asked him with a smile whether he admired Miss Floyd. The General, who had in fact been observing Miss Floyd and his nephew with some little uneasiness during the preceding half-hour, replied guardedly that Miss Floyd was pretty and picturesque, and apparently a great talker.

Was she a native of Washington?

"You never heard of Miss Floyd?--of Daphne Floyd? No? Ah, well!"--and she laughed--"I suppose I ought to take it as a compliment, of a kind.

There are so many rich people now in this queer country of ours that even Daphne Floyds don't matter."

"Is Miss Floyd so tremendously rich?"

General Hobson turned a quickened countenance upon her, expressing no more than the interest felt by the ordinary man in all societies--more strongly, perhaps, at the present day than ever before--in the mere fact of money. But Miss Boyson gave it at once a personal meaning, and set herself to play on what she scornfully supposed to be the cupidity of the Englishman. She produced, indeed, a full and particular account of Daphne Floyd's parentage, possessions, and prospects, during which the General's countenance represented him with great fidelity. A trace of recalcitrance at the beginning--for it was his opinion that Miss Boyson, like most American women, talked decidedly too much--gave way to close attention, then to astonishment, and finally to a very animated observation of Miss Floyd's slender person as she sat a yard or two from him on the other side of the car, laughing, frowning, or chattering with Roger.

"And that poor child has the management of it all?" he said at last, in a tone which did him credit. He himself had lost an only daughter at twenty-one, and he held old-fashioned views as to the helplessness of women.

But Cecilia Boyson again misunderstood him.

"Oh, yes!" she said, with a cool smile. "Everything is in her own hands--everything! Mrs. Phillips would not dare to interfere. Daphne always has her own way."

The General said no more. Cecilia Boyson looked out of the window at the darkening landscape, thinking with malice of Daphne's dealings with the male s.e.x. It had been a Sleeping Beauty story so far. Treasure for the winning--a thorn hedge--and slain lovers! The handsome Englishman would try it next, no doubt. All young Englishmen, according to her, were on the look-out for American heiresses. Music teacher indeed! She would have given a good deal to hear the conversation of the uncle and nephew when the party broke up.

The General and young Barnes made their farewells at the railway station, and took their way on foot to their hotel. Washington was steeped in sunset. The White House, as they pa.s.sed it, glowed amid its quiet trees. Lafayette Square, with its fountains and statues, its white and pink magnolias, its strolling, chatting crowd, the fronts of the houses, the long vistas of tree-lined avenues, the street cars, the houses, the motors, all the openings and distances of the beautiful, leisurely place--they saw them rosily transfigured under a departing sun, which throughout the day had been weaving the quick spells of a southern spring.

"Jolly weather!" said Roger, looking about him. "And a very nice afternoon. How long are you staying here, Uncle Archie?"

"I ought to be off at the end of the week; and of course you want to get back to New York? I say, you seemed to be getting on with that young lady?"

The General turned a rather troubled eye upon his companion.

"She wasn't bad fun," said the young man graciously; "but rather an odd little thing! We quarrelled about every conceivable subject. And it's queer how much that kind of girl seems to go about in America. She goes everywhere and knows everything. I wonder how she manages it."

"What kind of girl do you suppose she is?" asked the General, stopping suddenly in the middle of Lafayette Square.

"She told me she taught singing," said Roger, in a puzzled voice, "to a cla.s.s of girls in New York."

The General laughed.

"She seems to have made a fool of you, my dear boy. She is one of the great heiresses of America."

Roger's face expressed a proper astonishment.

"Oh! that's it, is it? I thought once or twice there was something fishy--she was trying it on. Who told you?"