The Daughters of Danaus Part 66

She did not look pleased to see him, and as they shook hands, his mouth shut sharply, as it always did when his self-love was wounded. Then, a gleam of resolve or cunning came into his face, and the next instant he was at his suavest.

"Do you know, Mrs. Temperley, I scarcely recognized you when you first came in. 'Who can this beautiful, distinguished-looking woman be?' I said to myself."

Hadria smiled maliciously.

"You think I am so much changed?"

Professor Theobald began to chuckle.

"The trowel, I see, is still your weapon," she added, "but I am surprised that you have not learnt to wield the implement of sway with more dexterity, Professor."

"I am not accustomed to deal with such quick-witted ladies, Mrs.

Temperley."

"You shew your hand most frankly," she answered; "it almost disarms one."

A few introductory chords sounded through the room. Hadria was sitting in front of the window, across which the pale green curtains had been drawn. Many eyes wandered towards her.

"I should like to paint you just like that," murmured Lady Engleton; "you can't imagine what a perfect bit of harmony you make, with my brocade." A cousin of Lord Engleton was at the piano. He played an old French gavotte.

"That is the finishing touch," added Lady Engleton, below her breath. "I should like to paint you and the curtains and Claude Moreton's gavotte all together."

The performance was received with enthusiasm. It deepened Hadria's mood, set her pulses dancing. She a.s.sented readily to the request of her hostess that she should play. She chose something fantastic and dainty.

It had a certain remoteness from life.

"Like one of Watteau's pictures," said Claude Moreton, who was hanging over the piano. He was tall and dark, with an expression that betrayed his enthusiastic temperament. A group had collected, among them Professor Theobald. Beside him stood Marion Fenwick, the bride whose wedding had taken place at Craddock Church about eighteen months before.

It seemed as if Hadria were exercising some influence of a magnetic quality. She was always the point of attraction, whether she created a spell with her music, or her speech, or her mere personality. In her present mood, this was peculiarly gratifying. The long divorce from initiative work which events had compelled, the loss of nervous vigour, the destruction of dream and hope, had all tended to throw her back on more accessible forms of art and expression, and suggested pa.s.sive rather than active dealings with life. She was wearied with petty responsibilities, and what she called semi-detached duties. It was a relief to sit down in white silk and lace, and draw people to her simply by the cheap spell of good looks and personal magnetism. That she possessed these advantages, her life in Paris had made obvious. It was the first time that she had been in contact with a large number of widely differing types, and she had found that she could appeal to them all, if she would. Since her return to England, anxieties and influences extremely depressing had accustomed her to a somewhat gloomy atmosphere.

To-night the atmosphere was light and soft, brilliant and enervating.

"This is my Capua," she said laughingly, to her hostess.

It invited every luxurious instinct to come forth and sun itself. Marion Fenwick's soft, sweet voice, singing Italian songs to the accompaniment of the guitar, repeated the invitation.

It was like a fairy gift. Energy would be required to refuse it. And why, in heaven's name, if she might not have what she really wanted, was she to be denied even the poor little triumphs of ornamental womanhood?

Was the social order which had frustrated her own ambitions to dominate her conscience, and persuade her voluntarily to resign that _one_ kingdom which cannot be taken from a woman, so long as her beauty lasts?

Why should she abdicate? The human being was obviously susceptible to personality beyond all other things. And beauty moved that absurd creature preposterously. _There_, at least, the woman who chanced to be born with these superficial attractions, had a royal territory, so long as she could prevent her clamorous fellows from hara.s.sing and wearing those attractions away. By no direct attack could the jealous powers dethrone her. They could only do it indirectly, by appealing to the conscience which they had trained; to the principles that they had instilled; by convincing the woman that she owed herself, as a debt, to her legal owner, to be paid in coined fragments of her being, till she should end in inevitable bankruptcy, and the legal owner himself found her a poor investment!

It would have startled that roomful of people, who expressed everything circuitously, pleasantly, without rough edges, had they read beneath Mrs. Temperley's spoken words, these unspoken thoughts.

Marion Fenwick's songs and the alluring softness of her guitar, seemed the most fitting accompaniment to the warm summer night, whose breath stirred gently the curtains by the open window, at the far end of the room.

Lady Engleton was delighted with the success of her efforts. Mrs.

Temperley had not looked so brilliant, so full of life, since her mother's illness. Only yesterday, when she met her returning from the Cottage, her eyes were like those of a dying woman, and now----!

"People say ill-natured things about Mrs. Temperley," she confided to an intimate friend, "but that is because they don't understand her."

People might have been forgiven for not understanding her, as perhaps her hostess felt, noticing Hadria's animation, and the extraordinary power that she was wielding over everyone in the room, young and old.

That power seemed to burn in the deep eyes, whose expression changed from moment to moment. Hadria's cheeks, for once, had a faint tinge of colour. The mysterious character of her beauty became more marked.

Professor Theobald followed her, with admiring and studious gaze.

Whether she had felt remorseful for her somewhat unfriendly greeting at the beginning of the evening, or from some other cause, her manner to him had changed. It was softer, less mocking. He perceived it instantly, and pursued his advantage. The party still centred eagerly round the piano. Hadria was under the influence of music; therefore less careful and guarded than usual, more ready to sway on the waves of emotion. And beyond all these influences, tending in the same direction, was the underlying spirit of rebellion against the everlasting "Thou shalt not"

that met a woman at every point, and turned her back from all paths save one. And following that one (so ran Hadria's insurrectionary thoughts), the obedient creature had to give up every weapon of her womanhood; every grace, every power; tramping along that crowded highway, whereon wayworn sisters toil forward, with bandaged eyes, and bleeding feet; and as their charm fades, in the pursuing of their dusty pilgrimage, the shouts, and taunts, and insults, and laughter of their taskmasters follow them, while still they stumble on to the darkening land that awaits them, at the journey's end: Old Age, the vestibule of Death.

Hadria's eyes gleamed strangely.

"They shall not have their way with me too easily. I can at least give my pastors and masters a little trouble. I can at least fight for it, losing battle though it be."

The only person who seemed to resist Hadria's influence to-night, was Mrs. Jordan, the mother of Marion Fenwick.

"My dear madam," said Professor Theobald, bending over the portly form of Mrs. Jordan, "a woman's first duty is to be charming."

"Oh, that comes naturally, Professor," said Hadria, "though it is rather for _you_ than for _me_ to say that. You are always missing opportunities."

"Believe me, I will miss them no more," he said emphatically.

"Tell us _your_ idea of a woman's duty, Mrs. Jordan," prompted Madame Bertaux maliciously. Mrs. Jordan delivered herself of various immemorial sentiments which met the usual applause. But Madame Bertaux said brusquely that she thought if that sort of thing were preached at women much longer, they would end by throwing over duty altogether, in sheer disgust at the whole one-sided business. Mrs. Jordan bristled, and launched herself upon a long and virtuous sentence. Her daughter Marion looked up sharply when Madame Bertaux spoke. Then a timid, cautious glance fell on her mother. Marion had lost her freshness and her exquisite aetherial quality; otherwise there was little change in her appearance. Hadria was struck by the way in which she had looked at Madame Bertaux, and it occurred to her that Marion Fenwick was probably not quite so acquiescent and satisfied as her friends supposed. But she would not speak out. Early training had been too strong for her.

Professor Theobald was unusually serious to-night. He did not respond to Hadria's flippancy. He looked at her with grave, sympathetic eyes. He seemed to intimate that he understood all that was pa.s.sing in her mind, and was not balked by sprightly appearances. There was no sign of cynicism now, no bandying of compliments. His voice had a new ring of sincerity. It was a mood that Hadria had noticed in him once or twice before, and when it occurred, her sympathy was aroused; she felt that she had done him injustice. _This_ was evidently the real man; his ordinary manner must be merely the cloak that the civilized being acquires the habit of wrapping round him, as a protection against the curiosity of his fellows. The Professor himself expressed it almost in those words: "It is because of the infinite variety of type and the complexity of modern life which the individual is called upon to encounter, that a sort of fancy dress has to be worn by all of us, as a necessary shield to our individuality and our privacy. We cannot go through the complex process of adjustment to each new type that we come across, so by common consent, we wear our domino, and respect the unwritten laws of the great _bal masque_ that we call society."

The conversation took more and more intimate and serious turns. Mrs.

Jordan was the only check upon it. Madame Bertaux followed up her first heresy by others even more bold.

"Whenever one wants very particularly to have one's way about a matter,"

she said, "one sneaks off and gets somebody else persuaded that it is his duty to sacrifice himself for us--_c'est tout simple_--and the chances are that he meekly does it. If he doesn't, at least one has the satisfaction of making him feel a guilty wretch, and setting oneself up with a profitable grievance for life."

"To the true woman," said Mrs. Jordan, who had ruled her family with a rod of iron for thirty stern years, "there is no joy to equal that of self-sacrifice."

"Except that of exacting it," added Hadria.

"I advise everyone desirous of dominion to preach that duty, in and out of season," said Madame Bertaux. "It is seldom that the victims even howl, so well have we trained them."

"Truly I hope so!" cried Professor Theobald. "It must be most galling when their lamentations prevent one from committing one's justifiable homicide in peace and quietness. Imagine the discomfort of having a half-educated victim to deal with, who can't hold his tongue and let one perform the operation quietly and comfortably. It is enough to embitter any Christian!"

The party broke up, with many cordial expressions of pleasure, and several plans were made for immediately meeting again. Lady Engleton was delighted to see that Mrs. Temperley entered with animation, into some projects for picnics and excursions in the neighbourhood.

"Did I not tell you that all you wanted was a little lively society?"

she said, with genuine warmth, as the two women stood in the hall, a little apart from the others.

Hadria's eye-lids suddenly fell and reddened slightly.

"Oh, you are so kind!" she exclaimed, in a voice whose tones betrayed the presence of suppressed tears.

Lady Engleton, in astonishment, stretched out a sisterly hand, but Hadria had vanished through the open hall door into the darkness without.