Chapter X
For several days Peter Sherringham had business in hand which left him neither time nor freedom of mind to occupy himself actively with the ladies of the Hôtel de la Garonne. There were moments when they brushed across his memory, but their passage was rapid and not lighted with complacent attention; for he shrank from bringing to the proof the question of whether Miriam would be an interest or only a bore. She had left him after their second meeting with a quickened sympathy, but in the course of a few hours that flame had burned dim. Like most other men he was a mixture of impulse and reflexion, but was peculiar in this, that thinking things over almost always made him think less conveniently. He found illusions necessary, so that in order to keep an adequate number going he often forbade himself any excess of that exercise. Mrs. Rooth and her daughter were there and could certainly be trusted to make themselves felt. He was conscious of their anxiety and their calculations as of a frequent oppression, and knew that whatever results might ensue he should have to do the costly thing for them. An idea of tenacity, of worrying feminine duration, associated itself with their presence; he would have assented with a silent nod to the proposition—enunciated by Gabriel Nash—that he was saddled with them. Remedies hovered before him, but these figured also at the same time as complications; ranging vaguely from the expenditure of money to the discovery that he was in love. This latter accident would be particularly tedious; he had a full perception of the arts by which the girl's mother might succeed in making it so. It wouldn't be a compensation for trouble, but a trouble which in itself would require compensations. Would that balm spring from the spectacle of the young lady's genius? The genius would have to be very great to justify a rising young diplomatist in making a fool of himself.
With the excuse of pressing work he put off Miss Rooth from day to day, and from day to day he expected to hear her knock at his door. It would be time enough when they ran him to earth again; and he was unable to see how after all he could serve them even then. He had proposed impetuously a course of the theatres; but that would be a considerable personal effort now that the summer was about to begin—a free bid for bad air, stale pieces, and tired actors. When, however, more than a week had elapsed without a reminder of his neglected promise it came over him that he must himself in honour give a sign. There was a delicacy in such unexpected and such difficult discretion—he was touched by being let alone. The flurry of work at the embassy was over and he had time to ask himself what in especial he should do. He wanted something definite to suggest before communicating with the Hôtel de la Garonne.
As a consequence of this speculation he went back to Madame Carré to ask her to reconsider her stern judgement and give the young English lady—to oblige him—a dozen lessons of the sort she knew so well how to give. He was aware that this request scarcely stood on its feet; for in the first place Madame Carré never reconsidered when once she had got her impression, and in the second never wasted herself on subjects whom nature had not formed to do her honour. He knew his asking her to strain a point to please him would give her a false idea—save that for that matter she had it already—of his relations, actual or prospective, with the girl; but he decided he needn't care for this, since Miriam herself probably wouldn't care. What he had mainly in mind was to say to the old actress that she had been mistaken—the jeune Anglaise wasn't such a grue. This would take some courage, but it would also add to the amusement of his visit.
He found her at home, but as soon as he had expressed his conviction she began: "Oh, your jeune Anglaise, I know a great deal more about her than you! She has been back to see me twice; she doesn't go the longest way round. She charges me like a grenadier and asks me to give her—guess a little what!—private recitations all to herself. If she doesn't succeed it won't be for want of knowing how to thump at doors. The other day when I came in she was waiting for me; she had been there two hours. My private recitations—have you an idea what people pay for them?"
"Between artists, you know, there are easier conditions," Sherringham laughed.
"How do I know if she's an artist? She won't open her mouth to me; what she wants is to make me say things to her. She does make me—I don't know how—and she sits there gaping at me with her big eyes. They look like open pockets!"
"I daresay she'll profit by it," said Sherringham.