The Irrational Knot Part 41

Conolly looked a shade graver at his wife's failure in perfect self-control; but he by no means shared her feelings toward the intrusive pa.s.senger. Marian and he were in different humors; and he did not wish to be left alone with her.

As they walked from Addison Road railway station to their house, Conolly mused in silence with his eyes on the gardens by the way. Marian, who wished to talk, followed his measured steps with impatience.

"Let me take your arm, Ned: I cannot keep up with you."

"Certainly."

"I hope I am not inconveniencing you," she said, after a further interval of silence.

"Hm--no."

"I am afraid I am. It does not matter. I can get on by myself."

"Arm in arm is such an inconvenient and ridiculous mode of locomotion--you need not struggle in the public street: now that you have got my arm you shall keep it--I say it is such an inconvenient and ridiculous mode of locomotion that if you were any one else I should prefer to wheel you home in a barrow. Our present mode of proceeding would be inexcusable if I were a traction-engine, and you my tender."

"Then let me go. What will the people think if they see a great engineer violating the laws of mechanics by dragging his wife by the arm?"

"They will appreciate my motives; and, in fact, if you watch them, you will detect a thinly-disguised envy in their countenances. I violate the laws of mechanics--to use your own sarcastic phrase--for many reasons. I like to be envied when there are solid reasons for it. It gratifies my vanity to be seen in this artistic quarter with a pretty woman on my arm. Again, the sense of possessing you is no longer an abstraction when I hold you bodily, and feel the impossibility of keeping step with you.

Besides, Man, who was a savage only yesterday, has his infirmities, and finds a poetic pleasure in the touch of the woman he loves. And I may add that you have been in such a bad temper all the afternoon that I suspect you of an itching to box my ears, and therefore feel safer with your arm in my custody."

"Oh! _Indeed_ I have not been in a bad temper. I have been most anxious to spend a happy day."

"And I have been placidly reflective, and not anxious at all. Is that what has provoked you?"

"I am not provoked. But you might tell me what your reflections are about."

"They would fill volumes, if I could recollect them."

"You must recollect some of them. From the time we left the station until a moment ago, when we began to talk, you were pondering something with the deepest seriousness. What was it?"

"I forget."

"Of course you forget--just because I want to know. What a crowded road this is!" She disengaged herself from his arm; and this time he did not resist her.

"That reminds me of it. The crowd consists partly of people going to the pro-Cathedral. The pro-Cathedral contains an altar. An altar suggests kneeling on hard stone; and that brings me to the disease called 'housemaids' knee,' which was the subject of my reflections."

"A pleasant subject for a fine Sunday! Thank you. I dont want to hear any more."

"But you will hear more of it; for I am going to have the steps of our house taken away and replaced by marble, or slate, or something that can be cleaned with a mop and a pail of water in five minutes."

"Why?"

"My chain of thought began at the door steps we have pa.s.sed, all whitened beautifully so as to display every footprint, and all representing an expenditure of useless, injurious labor in hearthstoning, that ought to madden an intelligent housemaid. I dont think our Armande is particularly intelligent; but I am resolved to spare her knees and her temper in future by banishing hearthstone from our establishment forever. I shudder to think that I have been walking upon those white steps and flag ways of ours every day without awakening to a sense of their immorality."

"I cannot understand why you are always disparaging Armande. And I hate an ill-kept house front. None of our housemaids ever objected to hearthstoning, or were any the worse for it."

"No. They would not have gained anything by objecting: they would only have lost their situations. You need not fear for your house front. I will order a porch with porphyry steps and alabaster pillars to replace your beloved hearthstone."

"Yes. That will be clever. Do you know how easy it is to stain marble?

Armande will be on her knees all day with a bottle of turpentine and a bit of flannel."

"You are thinking of inkstains, Marian. You forget that it does not rain ink, and that Nelly will hardly select the porch to write her novels in."

"Lots of people bring ink on a doorstep. Tax collectors and gasmen carry bottles in their pockets."

"Ask them into the drawing-room when they call, my dear; or, better still, dont pay them, so that they will have no need to write a receipt.

Let me remind you that ink shews as much on white hearthstone as it can possibly do on marble. Yet extensive disfigurements of steps from the visits of tax collectors are not common."

"Now, Ned, you know that you are talking utter nonsense."

"Yes, my dear. I think I perceive Nelly looking out of the window for us. Here she is at the door."

Marian hastened forward and embraced her cousin. Miss McQuinch looked older; and her complexion was drier than before. But she had apparently begun to study her appearance; for her hat and shoes were neat and even elegant, which they had never been within Marian's previous experience of her.

"_You_ are not changed in the least," she said, as she gave Conolly her hand. "I have just been wondering at the alteration in Marian. She has grown lovely."

"I have been telling her so all day, in the vain hope of getting her into a better temper. Come into the drawing-room. Have you been waiting for us long?"

"About fifteen minutes. I have been admiring your organ. I should have tried the piano; but I did not know whether that was allowable on Sunday."

"Oh! Why did you not pound it to your heart's content? Ned scandalizes the neighbors every Sunday by continually playing. Armande: dinner as soon as possible, please."

"I like this house. It is exactly my idea of a comfortable modern home."

"You must stay long enough to find out its defects," said Conolly. "We read your novel at Verona; but we could not agree as to which characters you meant to be taken as the good ones."

"That was only Ned's nonsense," said Marian. "Most novels are such rubbish! I am sure you will be able to live by writing just as well as Mrs. Fairfax can." Conolly shewed Miss McQuinch his opinion of this unhappy remark by a whimsical glance, which she repudiated by turning sharply away from him, and speaking as affectionately as she could to Marian.

After dinner they returned to the drawing-room, which ran from the front to the back of the house. Marian opened a large window which gave access to the garden, and sat down with Elinor on a little terrace outside. Conolly went to the organ.

"May I play a voluntary while you talk?" he asked. "I shall not scandalize any one: the neighbors think all music sacred when it is played on the organ."

"We have a nice view of the sunset from here," said Marian, in a low voice, turning her forehead to the cool evening breeze.

"Stuff!" said Elinor. "We didnt come here to talk about the sunset, and what a pretty house you have, and so forth. I want to know--good heavens! what a thundering sound that organ makes!"

"Please dont say anything about it to him: he likes it," said Marian.

"When he wishes to exalt himself, he goes to it and makes it roar until the whole house shakes. Whenever he feels an emotional impulse, he vents it at the organ or the piano, or by singing. When he stops, he is satisfied; his mind is cleared; and he is in a good-humored, playful frame of mind, such as _I_ can gratify."

"But you were always very fond of music. Dont you ever play together, as we used to do; or sing to one another's accompaniments?"

"I cannot. I hardly ever touch the piano when he is in the house."

"Why? Are you afraid of preventing him from having his turn?"

"No: it is not so much that. But--it sounds very silly--if I attempt to play or sing in his presence, I become so frightfully nervous that I hardly know what I am doing. I know he does not like my singing."

"Are you sure that is not merely your fancy? It sounds very like it."