The Second Fiddle Part 3

The drawing-room ran the whole length of the house, and was pink and gray, because the Youngs knew that pink and gray go well together, just as blue and gold do, only that blue fades.

The chairs were very comfortable, the little tables had the right kind of ornaments, the pictures were a harmless, unenlightening addition to the gray-satin walls.

The books that lay about were novels. They were often a little improper, but never seriously so, and they always ended in people getting what they wanted legally.

It was a clean, comfortable, fresh room and nothing was ever out of place in it.

Marian was sitting under a high vase of pink canterbury-bells; by some happy chance her dress was the same pale pink as the bells. She looked, with her hands in her lap, her throat lifted, and the sun on her hair, like a flower of the same family. Her manner was a charming mixture of ease and diffidence.

Stella was late, and Lady Verny and Julian had arrived before her.

Lady Verny was like her son. She was very tall and graceful, and carried herself as if she had never had to stoop. Her eyes had the steady, frosty blueness of Julian's, with lightly chiseled edges; her lips were ironic, curved, and a little thin.

She had piles of white hair drawn back over her forehead. When Marian introduced her to Stella, she rose and turned away from the tea-table.

"I hope you will come and talk to me a little," she said in a clear, musical voice. "We can leave Julian and Marian to themselves."

Lady Verny leaned back in the chair she had chosen for herself and regarded Stella with steady, imperturbable eyes. It struck Stella as a little alarming that they should all know where they wanted to sit, and with whom they wanted to talk, without any indecision. She thought that chairs would walk across the room to Lady Verny if she looked at them, and kettles boil the moment Julian thought that it was time for tea. But though she was even more frightened at this calm, unconscious competency than she had expected to be, she saw it didn't matter about her clothes.

She knew they were all wrong, as cheap clothes always are, particularly cheap clothes that you've been in a hurry over and not clever enough to match. Her boots and her gloves weren't good, and her hat was horrid and probably on the back of her head. Her blue-serge coat and skirt had indefinite edges. But Stella was aware that Lady Verny, beautifully dressed as she was, was taking no notice whatever of Stella's clothes.

They might make an extra point against her if she didn't like her.

Stella could hear her saying, "Funny that Marian should make friends with a sloppy little scarecrow." But if she did like her, she would say nothing about Stella's clothes. As far as the Vernys were concerned, the appearances of things were always subsidiary.

"Engagements are such interrupted times," Lady Verny observed, with a charming smile. "One likes to poke a little opportunity toward the poor dears when one can."

"Yes," said Stella, eagerly, with her little, rapid flight of words.

"You're always running away when you're engaged, and never getting there, aren't you? And then, of course, when you're married, you're there, and can't run away. It's such a pity they can't be more mixed up."

"Perhaps," said Lady Verny, still smiling. "But marriage is like a delicate clock; it has to be wound up very carefully, and the less you take its works to pieces afterward the better. Have you known Marian a long time?"

"Three years," said Stella; "but when you say 'know,' I am only an accident. I don't in any real sense belong to Marian's life; I belong only to Marian. You see, I work." She thought she ought, in common fairness to Lady Verny, not let her think that she was one of Marian's real friends.

Lady Verny overlooked this implication.

"And what is your work, may I ask?" she inquired, with her grave, solid politeness, which reminded Stella of nothing so much as a procession in a cathedral.

"I was a secretary to Professor Paulson," Stella explained, "the great naturalist. He was a perfect dear, too,--it wasn't only beetles and things,--and when he died, I went into a town hall,--I've been there for two years,--and that's more exciting than you can think. It isn't theories and experiments, of course, but it's like being a part of the hub of the universe. Rates and taxes, sanitary inspectors, old-age pensions, and the health of babies run through my hands like water through a sieve. You wouldn't believe how entertaining civic laws and customs are--and such charming people! Of course I miss the other work, too,--it was like having one's ear against nature,--but this is more like having one's ear against life."

"I think you must have very catholic tastes," said Lady Verny, gently.

"My son knew Professor Paulson; it will interest him to know that you worked for him. And Marian--did she take any interest in your scientific experiences?"

Stella moved warily across this question; she had never spoken to Marian about her work at all. Marian, as she knew, thought it all very tiresome.

"You see," she explained, "they weren't my experiences; they were Professor Paulson's. Marian couldn't very well be thrilled at third hand; the thrill only got as far as me. Besides, half of what I do as a secretary is confidential, and the other half sounds dull. Of course it isn't really. I've been so lucky in that way. I've never had anything dull to do."

"I can quite imagine that," said Lady Verny, kindly. "Dullness is in the eye, not in the object. Does Marian like life better than intellect, too?"

"Ah, Marian's life," said Stella, a little doubtfully, "is so different!"

They glanced across at the distant tea-table. Julian was leaning toward Marian with eyes that held her with the closeness of a frame to a picture.

He was laughing at her a little, with the indulgent, delighted laughter of a man very deeply in love. She was explaining something to him, simply and gravely, without undue emphasis. Stella guessed that it was one of the things Marian wanted, and she did not think that Julian could get out of giving it to her by laughter.

"Marian's life hasn't got divisions in it like mine," she explained.

"She's just a beautiful human creature. She is equable and strong and delightful and absolutely honest. She's as honest as crystal; but she hasn't had to bother about choosing."

"Ah," said Lady Verny, "you think that, do you? But, my dear Miss Waring, sooner or later we all have to bother about choosing. Beauty and strength don't save us. Absolute honesty often lets us in, and sometimes, when the scales weigh against us, we cease to be equable."

"But they won't, you see," Stella said eagerly. "They can't weigh against her now, Lady Verny. Don't you see? There's your son--it's why one's so delighted. An engagement to him is like some thumping insurance which somehow or other prevents one's house being burned."

Lady Verny laughed.

"Let us hope your theory is a correct one," she said, rising from her seat. "I am going to talk to her now, and you can talk to the insurance company."

Stella gasped. She wanted to run away, to catch Lady Verny's graceful scarf and tell her she couldn't really talk to anybody's son. Agreeable, ma.s.sive beings who explored continents and lived in clubs oughtn't to come her way. But Julian crossed the room to her side with the quickness of a military order. His manners hid his reluctance. He was at her service in a moment. His keen eyes, harder than his mother's and more metallic, met hers once and glanced easily away. They said nothing to Stella except that he was a watchful human being who couldn't be taken in, and was sometimes perhaps unduly aware that he couldn't be taken in.

"I'm very glad indeed," he said cordially, "to meet Marian's greatest friend. You must tell me all about her. You see, I'm a new-comer; I've known her only six weeks, and I've been so busy trying to impress her with my point of view that I quite feel I may have overlooked some of hers. Women always understand women, don't they?"

He wasn't going to be difficult to talk to. That unnecessary ingredient in his composition saved Stella. As long as she had a brain to call to, and wasn't only to be awed by splendor of appearance and forms as difficult for her to cross as five-barred gates, she needn't be afraid of him. It never was people that Stella was afraid of, but the things, generally the silly things, that separated her from them.

"We do and we don't understand each other," she said swiftly. "I don't think women can tell what another woman will do; but granted she's done it, I dare say most could say why."

Julian laughed.

"Then have the kindness to inform me," he said, "why Marian has consented to marry me. Incidentally, your reply will no doubt throw a light for me upon her mental processes."

Stella saw he did not want any light thrown anywhere; he was simply giving his mother time to get to know Marian. Then he was going back to her; that was his light.

She gave a vague little smile at the sublimated concentration of lovers.

She liked to watch them; she would never have to be one.

It was like seeing some beautiful wild creature of the woods. It wouldn't be like you at all, and yet it would be exceedingly amusing and touching to watch, and sometimes it would make you think of what it would feel like to be wild and in those woods.

She reminded herself sharply, as her eyes turned back to Julian, that it wouldn't do to let him think she thought him wild. He was behaving very well, and the least she could do was to let him think so. She gave herself up to his question.

"You're very strong," she said consideringly. "Marian likes strength.

She's strong herself, you know; probably that's one of her reasons."

"Good," he said cheerfully. "Physically strong, d' you mean, or an iron will? Iron wills are quite in my line, I a.s.sure you. Any other reason?"

"Strong both ways," said Stella; "and you're secure. I mean, what you've taken you'll keep. I think some women like a man they can be sure of."

"Let us hope they all do," said Sir Julian, laughing. "It would imply a very bad business instinct if they didn't."

"I do not think I agree with you," said Stella, firmly. "The best business is often an adventure, a risk. Safe business does not go far; it goes only as far as safety."

"Well, I'm not sure that I want women to go particularly far," said Sir Julian. "I like 'em to be safe; let 'em leave the better business with the risk in it to men. I shall be content if Marian does that."

"I think Marian will," said Stella. "But there are other things, of course, besides you and Marian: there's life. You can only take all the risk there is if you take all the life. I see what you would like, Sir Julian: you want a figurehead guaranteed against collisions.