Читать книгу The Barrier: A Novel - French Allen - Страница 6

An Understanding

Mrs. Harmon was very petulant; indeed, her aspect in one of lower station would have been deemed sulky. Reviewing the afternoon, she was convinced that to have brought Ellis there was a great mistake. Why should she take up with him, anyway? He could give her nothing but – trinkets; the old acquaintance was not so close that she was bound to help him. It had been condescension on her part; she might as well stop it now; yes, she might as well.

Yet she thought with some uneasiness of those trinkets. To accept them had not bound her to him, had it? Their money value was nothing to him. She could break from him gradually – that would be simple enough – and she could make a beginning on the drive home, for silence could show her feelings.

Ellis understood her after one glance, which expressed not only his impatience with her instability, but also a sudden new repulsion. The afternoon had opened his eyes to what the finer women were. How could he have supposed that Mrs. Harmon was really in the inner circle? How she contrasted with Judith! She seemed so flat beside the girl; she was his own kind, while Judith was better. He wished that he might drop the woman and pin his hopes to the girl.

But he could not spare Mrs. Harmon, and he had no fear that she would drop him, for he knew all her weaknesses. She was ambitious to a certain degree, but after that, lazy; she was fond of comfort, fond of – trinkets, with a healthy indifference to ways and means. In fact, although Ellis did not so phrase it, there was a barbaric strain in her, a yearning for flesh-pots and show, in which her husband's tastes and means did not permit her to indulge herself. Ellis knew that he could manage her.

"Lydia," he said, "I want to thank you for the afternoon. It must have been a great bother to you. I'm afraid I spoiled your fun."

She could but respond. "Oh, not much."

"Look here," he went on. "You know me, I think; we understand each other pretty well. These people," and he waved his hand to include the whole golf club, "are not to be too much for us. Do you mind my saying a few words about myself?"

"Oh, no!" she exclaimed with involuntary interest; for he seldom spoke his thoughts.

"That girl, Miss Blanchard," he said, "was very good to me."

"She was?" Mrs. Harmon could not subdue an accent of surprise, but hastened to explain. "I've sometimes found her haughty."

"I shan't forget you introduced me to her," said Ellis. "I mean to follow up my acquaintance there."

"No girl," suggested Mrs. Harmon, "has much influence. No unmarried woman, I mean."

"But when Miss Blanchard marries she will have it then?"

"Yes," answered Mrs. Harmon thoughtfully, and then very positively: "Yes, I think she would be a leader of the younger set."

"I am sure she would." Ellis nodded confidently. Judith had faults, notably rashness, but under wise guidance she could develop masterly qualities.

"But why – " began Mrs. Harmon in some perplexity. Then she caught sight of her companion's expression. "What! you don't mean to say that you – you would?"

"Why not?" asked Ellis. "Is it so very strange?"

"You are over forty!" cried Mrs. Harmon.

"Nothing to do with the case," he replied shortly.

"N-no," agreed Mrs. Harmon slowly. "No, I believe not – not with Judith." She looked at her companion with sudden respect. "I believe you've hit upon it! I didn't know you thought of anything of the kind."

"I need you, just the same," said Ellis. "You will help me?"

"Yes, yes," she replied. She felt a nervous inclination to giggle. "It's a big affair."

"All the more credit if you engineer it," he answered, and shrewdly, for she felt stimulated. If she could engineer it! Then she could plume herself in the face of Mrs. Fenno, and would always have a strong ally in Judith.

"Yes," she cried eagerly, "it will mean a great deal to – to everybody if it happens. Why, I could – "

But Ellis would not let her run on. "Do you know her well?" he interrupted.

"I will know her better soon," she stated.

"Not too quick," he warned, fearing that she might blunder. "You know yourself that she is not a girl to be hurried. Tell me, now, what men are there of her family?"

"Only her father."

"And what sort of man is he?"

Mrs. Harmon's vocabulary was not wide. "Why, spreading," she explained. "Jaunty, you know."

"And his circumstances?"

"He is well off," she answered. "Keeps a carriage and spends freely. There was money in the family, and his wife had some too. You know how those old fortunes grow."

Or disappear, thought Ellis; he had been investigating the Colonel's standing. "Miss Blanchard has no cousins?" he asked aloud. "No other men attached to her?"

"Attached in one sense," she replied, "but not connected."

"Much obliged," he said. "Now, Lydia, if we stand by each other – "

Mrs. Harmon had forgotten her earlier thoughts. "Of course!" she cried. "Oh, it will be so interesting!"

Ellis added the finishing touch, abruptly changing the subject. "You have been to Price's recently?"

Now Price was the fashionable jeweller, and few women were indifferent to his name. Mrs. Harmon, recollecting the cause of her recent visit there, saw fit to be coy.

"Oh, yes," she said, turning her head away. "He keeps asking me to come."

"He's always picking up pretty things," said Ellis approvingly. "Did he have anything special this time?"

"Something of Orsini's," replied Mrs. Harmon, struggling to appear indifferent. For they had been lovely, those baroque pearls so gracefully set in dusky gold. Price had made her try the necklace on, and she had sighed before the glass. "I wish he wouldn't pester me so," she said irritably. "He knows I can't afford them."

"He knows you have taste," Ellis said warmly. "He calls it a great pleasure to show things to you."

"I know," she replied, mollified. "I think he means to flatter me. But, Stephen, it's getting late, and I must dress for the Fennos' ball this evening."

"Then," responded Ellis, "I will stop at Price's on my way down-town."

"Naughty! naughty!" she answered, but she radiated smiles.

Ellis, after he had left Mrs. Harmon at her door, went, as he had promised, to the establishment of the pushing Mr. Price, and asked for the proprietor.

"Got anything to show me?" Ellis demanded.

From his safe the jeweller brought out a leather case, and looked at Ellis impressively before opening it.

"Pretty small," commented Ellis.

"Ah, but – " replied the other, and opened the case. "Look – Orsini's make!"

"I don't know anything about that," Ellis said as he poked the jewels with his finger. "Look strange to me. The fashion, however?"

"The very latest," Price assured him. "Trust me, Mr. Ellis."

It was one secret of Ellis's success that he knew where to trust. He had ventured twice that day, with women at that, and the thought of it was to trouble him before he slept. But he could trust Price in matters of taste, and as to secrecy, the man was bound to him. Price had been in politics at the time when Ellis was getting "influence" in the city government; for the jeweller those days were past, but this store and certain blocks of stock were the result. Besides, he was adroit. Ellis gave the chains and pendants a final push with his finger.

"Send it, then," he said. "The usual place. By the way, how much? Whew! some things come dear, don't they? But send it, just the same, and at once. She's going out to some affair."

Thus it happened that Mrs. Harmon wore "the very latest" at her throat that night.