Books: The Reverberator

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In November, in Paris--it was months and weeks before the artist began
to please himself--Gaston came often to the Avenue de Villiers toward
the end of a sitting and, till it was finished, not to disturb the
lovely model, cultivated conversation with the elder sister: the
representative of the Proberts was capable of that. Delia was always
there of course, but Mr. Dosson had not once turned up and the
newspaper-man happily appeared to have faded from view. The new aspirant
learned in fact from Miss Dosson that a crisis in the history of his
journal had recalled Mr. Flack to the seat of that publication. When the
young ladies had gone--and when he didn't go with them; he accompanied
them not rarely--the visitor was almost lyrical in his appreciation of
his friend's work; he had no jealousy of the act of appropriation that
rendered possible in its turn such an act of handing over, of which the
canvas constituted the field. He was sure Waterlow painted the girl too
well to be in love with her and that if he himself could have dealt with
her in that fashion he mightn't have wanted to deal in any other. She
bloomed there on the easel with all the purity of life, and the artist
had caught the very secret of her beauty. It was exactly the way in
which her lover would have chosen to see her shown, and yet it had
required a perfectly independent hand. Gaston mused on this mystery and
somehow felt proud of the picture and responsible for it, though it was
no more his property as yet than the young lady herself. When in
December he put before Waterlow his plan of campaign the latter made a
comment. "I'll do anything in the world you like--anything you think
will help you--but it passes me, my dear fellow, why in the world you
don't go to them and say: 'I've seen a girl who is as good as cake and
pretty as fire, she exactly suits me, I've taken time to think of it and
I know what I want; therefore I propose to make her my wife. If you
happen to like her so much the better; if you don't be so good as to
keep it to yourselves.' That's much the most excellent way. Why in the
name of goodness all these mysteries and machinations?"

"Oh you don't understand, you don't understand!" sighed Gaston, who had
never pulled so long a face. "One can't break with one's traditions in
an hour, especially when there's so much in them that one likes. I
shan't love her more if they like her, but I shall love THEM more, and I
care about that. You talk as a man who has nothing to consider. I've
everything to consider--and I'm glad I have. My pleasure in marrying her
will be double if my father and my sisters accept her, and I shall
greatly enjoy working out the business of bringing them round."

There were moments when Charles Waterlow resented the very vocabulary of
his friend; he hated to hear a man talk about the "acceptance" by any
one but himself of the woman he loved. One's own acceptance--of one's
bliss--in such a case ended the matter, and the effort to bring round
those who gave her the cold shoulder was scarcely consistent with the
highest spirit. Young Probert explained that of course he felt his
relatives would only have to know Francina to like her, to delight in
her, yet also that to know her they would first have to make her
acquaintance. This was the delicate point, for social commerce with such
malheureux as Mr. Dosson and Delia was not in the least in their usual
line and it was impossible to disconnect the poor girl from her
appendages. Therefore the whole question must be approached by an
oblique movement--it would never do to march straight up. The wedge
should have a narrow end, which Gaston now made sure he had found. His
sister Susan was another name for this subtle engine; he would break her
in first and she would help him to break in the others. She was his
favourite relation, his intimate friend--the most modern, the most
Parisian and inflammable member of the family. She had no suite dans les
idees, but she had perceptions, had imagination and humour, and was
capable of generosity, of enthusiasm and even of blind infatuation. She
had in fact taken two or three plunges of her own and ought to allow for
those of others. She wouldn't like the Dossons superficially any better
than his father or than Margaret or than Jane--he called these ladies by
their English names, but for themselves, their husbands, their friends
and each other they were Suzanne, Marguerite and Jeanne; but there was a
good chance of his gaining her to his side. She was as fond of beauty
and of the arts as he--this was one of their bonds of union. She
appreciated highly Charles Waterlow's talent and there had been talk of
her deciding to sit to him. It was true her husband viewed the project
with so much colder an eye that it had not been carried out.

According to Gaston's plan she was to come to the Avenue de Villiers to
see what the artist had done for Miss Francie; her brother was to have
worked upon her in advance by his careful rhapsodies, bearing wholly on
the achievement itself, the dazzling example of Waterlow's powers, and
not on the young lady, whom he was not to let her know at first that he
had so much as seen. Just at the last, just before her visit, he was to
mention to her that he had met the girl--at the studio--and that she was
as remarkable in her way as the picture. Seeing the picture and hearing
this, Mme. de Brecourt, as a disinterested lover of charming
impressions, and above all as an easy prey at all times to a rabid
curiosity, would express a desire also to enjoy a sight of so rare a
creature; on which Waterlow might pronounce it all arrangeable if she
would but come in some day when Miss Francie should sit. He would give
her two or three dates and Gaston would see that she didn't let the
opportunity pass. She would return alone--this time he wouldn't go with
her--and she would be as taken as could be hoped or needed. Everything
much depended on that, but it couldn't fail. The girl would have to take
her, but the girl could be trusted, especially if she didn't know who
the demonstrative French lady was, with her fine plain face, her hair so
blond as to be nearly white, her vividly red lips and protuberant
light-coloured eyes. Their host was to do no introducing and to reveal
the visitor's identity only after she had gone. That was a condition
indeed this participant grumbled at; he called the whole business an
odious comedy, though his friend knew that if he undertook it he would
acquit himself honourably. After Mme. de Brecourt had been captivated--
the question of how Francie would be affected received in advance no
consideration--her brother would throw off the mask and convince her
that she must now work with him. Another meeting would be managed for
her with the girl--in which each would appear in her proper character;
and in short the plot would thicken.

Gaston's forecast of his difficulties showed how finely he could
analyse; but that was not rare enough in any French connexion to make
his friend stare. He brought Suzanne de Brecourt, she was enchanted with
the portrait of the little American, and the rest of the drama began to
follow in its order. Mme. de Brecourt raved to Waterlow's face--she had
no opinions behind people's backs--about his mastery of his craft; she
could dispose the floral tributes of homage with a hand of practice all
her own. She was the reverse of egotistic and never spoke of herself;
her success in life sprang from a much wiser adoption of pronouns.
Waterlow, who liked her and had long wanted to paint her ugliness--it
was a gold-mine of charm--had two opinions about her: one of which was
that she knew a hundred times less than she thought, and even than her
brother thought, of what she talked about; and the other that she was
after all not such a humbug as she seemed. She passed in her family for
a rank radical, a bold Bohemian; she picked up expressions out of
newspapers and at the petits theatres, but her hands and feet were
celebrated, and her behaviour was not. That of her sisters, as well, had
never been disastrously exposed.

"But she must be charming, your young lady," she said to Gaston while
she turned her head this way and that as she stood before Francie's
image. "She's a little Renaissance statuette cast in silver, something
of Jean Goujon or Germain Pilon." The young men exchanged a glance, for
this struck them as the happiest comparison, and Gaston replied in a
detached way that the girl was well worth seeing.

He went in to have a cup of tea with his sister on the day he knew she
would have paid her second visit to the studio, and the first words she
greeted him with were: "But she's admirable--votre petite--admirable,
admirable!" There was a lady calling in the Place Beauvau at the moment
--old Mme. d'Outreville--who naturally asked for news of the object of
such enthusiasm. Gaston suffered Susan to answer all questions and was
attentive to her account of the new beauty. She described his young
friend almost as well as he would have done, from the point of view of
her type, her graces, her plastic value, using various technical and
critical terms to which the old lady listened in silence, solemnly,
rather coldly, as if she thought such talk much of a galimatias: she
belonged to the old-fashioned school and held a pretty person
sufficiently catalogued when it had been said she had a dazzling
complexion or the finest eyes in the world.

"Qu'est-ce que c'est que cette merveille?" she enquired; to which Mme.
de Brecourt made answer that it was a little American her brother had
somewhere dug up. "And what do you propose to do with it, may one ask?"
Mme. d'Outreville demanded, looking at Gaston with an eye that seemed to
read his secret and that brought him for half a minute to the point of
breaking out: "I propose to marry it--there!" But he contained himself,
only pleading for the present his wish to ascertain the uses to which
she was adapted; meanwhile, he added, there was nothing he so much liked
as to look at her, in the measure in which she would allow him. "Ah that
may take you far!" their visitor cried as she got up to go; and the
young man glanced at his sister to see if she too were ironic. But she
seemed almost awkwardly free from alarm; if she had been suspicious it
would have been easier to make his confession. When he came back from
accompanying their old friend Outreville to her carriage he asked her if
Waterlow's charming sitter had known who she was and if she had been
frightened. Mme. de Brecourt stared; she evidently thought that kind of
sensibility implied an initiation--and into dangers--which a little
American accidentally encountered couldn't possibly have. "Why should
she be frightened? She wouldn't be even if she had known who I was; much
less therefore when I was nothing for her."

"Oh you weren't nothing for her!" the brooding youth declared; and when
his sister rejoined that he was trop aimable he brought out his lurking
fact. He had seen the lovely creature more often than he had mentioned;
he had particularly wished that SHE should see her. Now he wanted his
father and Jane and Margaret to do the same, and above all he wanted
them to like her even as she, Susan, liked her. He was delighted she had
been taken--he had been so taken himself. Mme. de Brecourt protested
that she had reserved her independence of judgement, and he answered
that if she thought Miss Dosson repulsive he might have expressed it in
another way. When she begged him to tell her what he was talking about
and what he wanted them all to do with the child he said: "I want you to
treat her kindly, tenderly, for such as you see her I'm thinking of
bringing her into the family."

"Mercy on us--you haven't proposed for her?" cried Mme. de Brecourt.

"No, but I've sounded her sister as to THEIR dispositions, and she tells
me that if I present myself there will be no difficulty."

"Her sister?--the awful little woman with the big head?"

"Her head's rather out of drawing, but it isn't a part of the affair.
She's very inoffensive; she would be devoted to me."

"For heaven's sake then keep quiet. She's as common as a dressmaker's
bill."

"Not when you know her. Besides, that has nothing to do with Francie.
You couldn't find words enough a moment ago to express that Francie's
exquisite, and now you'll be so good as to stick to that. Come--feel it
all; since you HAVE such a free mind."

"Do you call her by her little name like that?" Mme. de Brecourt asked,
giving him another cup of tea.

"Only to you. She's perfectly simple. It's impossible to imagine
anything better. And think of the delight of having that charming object
before one's eyes--always, always! It makes a different look-out for
life."

Mme. Brecourt's lively head tossed this argument as high as if she had
carried a pair of horns. "My poor child, what are you thinking of? You
can't pick up a wife like that--the first little American that comes
along. You know I hoped you wouldn't marry at all--what a pity I think
it for a man. At any rate if you expect us to like Miss--what's her
name?--Miss Fancy, all I can say is we won't. We can't DO that sort of
thing!"

"I shall marry her then," the young man returned, "without your leave
given!"

"Very good. But if she deprives you of our approval--you've always had
it, you're used to it and depend on it, it's a part of your life--you'll
hate her like poison at the end of a month."

"I don't care then. I shall have always had my month."

"And she--poor thing?"

"Poor thing exactly! You'll begin to pity her, and that will make you
cultivate charity, and cultivate HER WITH it; which will then make you
find out how adorable she is. Then you'll like her, then you'll love
her, then you'll see what a perfect sense for the right thing, the right
thing for ME, I've had, and we shall all be happy together again."

"But how can you possibly know, with such people," Mme. de Brecourt
demanded, "what you've got hold of?"

"By having a feeling for what's really, what's delicately good and
charming. You pretend to have it, and yet in such a case as this you try
to be stupid. Give that up; you might as well first as last, for the
girl's an exquisite fact, she'll PREVAIL, and it will be better to
accept her than to let her accept you."

Mme. de Brecourt asked him if Miss Dosson had a fortune, and he said he
knew nothing about that. Her father certainly must be rich, but he
didn't mean to ask for a penny with her. American fortunes moreover were
the last things to count upon; a truth of which they had seen too many
examples. To this his sister had replied: "Papa will never listen to
that."

"Listen to what?"

"To your not finding out, to your not asking for settlements--comme cela
se fait."

"Pardon me, papa will find out for himself; and he'll know perfectly
whether to ask or whether to leave it alone. That's the sort of thing he
does know. And he knows quite as well that I'm very difficult to place."

"You'll be difficult, my dear, if we lose you," Mme. de Brecourt
laughed, "to replace!"

"Always at any rate to find a wife for. I'm neither fish nor flesh. I've
no country, no career, no future; I offer nothing; I bring nothing. What
position under the sun do I confer? There's a fatuity in our talking as
if we could make grand terms. You and the others are well enough: qui
prend mari prend pays, and you've names about which your husbands take a
great stand. But papa and I--I ask you!"

"As a family nous sommes tres-bien," said Mme. de Brecourt. "You know
what we are--it doesn't need any explanation. We're as good as anything
there is and have always been thought so. You might do anything you
like."

"Well, I shall never like to marry--when it comes to that--a
Frenchwoman."

"Thank you, my dear"--and Mme. de Brecourt tossed her head.

"No sister of mine's really French," returned the young man.

"No brother of mine's really mad. Marry whomever you like," Susan went
on; "only let her be the best of her kind. Let her be at least a
gentlewoman. Trust me, I've studied life. That's the only thing that's
safe."

"Francie's the equal of the first lady in the land."

"With that sister--with that hat? Never--never!"

"What's the matter with her hat?"

"The sister's told a story. It was a document--it described them, it
classed them. And such a PATOIS as they speak!"

"My dear, her English is quite as good as yours. You don't even know how
bad yours is," the young man went on with assurance.

"Well, I don't say 'Parus' and I never asked an Englishman to marry me.
You know what our feelings are," his companion as ardently pursued; "our
convictions, our susceptibilities. We may be wrong, we may be hollow, we
may be pretentious, we mayn't be able to say on what it all rests; but
there we are, and the fact's insurmountable. It's simply impossible for
us to live with vulgar people. It's a defect, no doubt; it's an immense
inconvenience, and in the days we live in it's sadly against one's
interest. But we're made like that and we must understand ourselves.
It's of the very essence of our nature, and of yours exactly as much as
of mine or of that of the others. Don't make a mistake about it--you'll
prepare for yourself a bitter future. I know what becomes of us. We
suffer, we go through tortures, we die!"

The accent of passionate prophecy was in this lady's voice, but her
brother made her no immediate answer, only indulging restlessly in
several turns about the room. At last he took up his hat. "I shall come
to an understanding with her to-morrow, and the next day, about this
hour, I shall bring her to see you. Meanwhile please say nothing to any
one."

Mme. de Brecourt's eyes lingered on him; he had grasped the knob of the
door. "What do you mean by her father's being certainly rich? That's
such a vague term. What do you suppose his fortune to be?"

"Ah that's a question SHE would never ask!" her brother cried as he left
her.

VI

The next morning he found himself seated on one of the red-satin sofas
beside Mr. Dosson in this gentleman's private room at the Hotel de
l'Univers et de Cheltenham. Delia and Francie had established their
father in the old quarters; they expected to finish the winter in Paris,
but had not taken independent apartments, for they had an idea that when
you lived that way it was grand but lonely--you didn't meet people on
the staircase. The temperature was now such as to deprive the good
gentleman of his usual resource of sitting in the court, and he had not
yet discovered an effective substitute for this recreation. Without Mr.
Flack, at the cafes, he felt too much a non-consumer. But he was patient
and ruminant; young Probert grew to like him and tried to invent
amusements for him; took him to see the great markets, the sewers and
the Bank of France, and put him, with the lushest disinterestedness, in
the way of acquiring a beautiful pair of horses, which Mr. Dosson,
little as he resembles a sporting character, found it a great resource,
on fine afternoons, to drive with a highly scientific hand and from a
smart Americaine, in the Bois de Boulogne. There was a reading-room at
the bankers' where he spent hours engaged in a manner best known to
himself, and he shared the great interest, the constant topic of his
daughters--the portrait that was going forward in the Avenue de
Villiers.

This was the subject round which the thoughts of these young ladies
clustered and their activity revolved; it gave free play to their
faculty for endless repetition, for monotonous insistence, for vague and
aimless discussion. On leaving Mme. de Brecourt Francie's lover had
written to Delia that he desired half an hour's private conversation
with her father on the morrow at half-past eleven; his impatience
forbade him to wait for a more canonical hour. He asked her to be so
good as to arrange that Mr. Dosson should be there to receive him and to
keep Francie out of the way. Delia acquitted herself to the letter.

"Well, sir, what have you got to show?" asked Francie's father, leaning
far back on the sofa and moving nothing but his head, and that very
little, toward his interlocutor. Gaston was placed sidewise, a hand on
each knee, almost facing him, on the edge of the seat.

"To show, sir--what do you mean?"

"What do you do for a living? How do you subsist?"

"Oh comfortably enough. Of course it would be remiss in you not to
satisfy yourself on that point. My income's derived from three sources.
First some property left me by my dear mother. Second a legacy from my
poor brother--he had inherited a small fortune from an old relation of
ours who took a great fancy to him (he went to America to see her) which
he divided among the four of us in the will he made at the time of the
War."'

"The war--what war?" asked Mr. Dosson.

"Why the Franco-German--"

"Oh THAT old war!" And Mr. Dosson almost laughed. "Well?" he mildly
continued.

"Then my father's so good as to make me a decent allowance; and some day
I shall have more--from him."

Mr. Dosson appeared to think these things over. "Why, you seem to have
fixed it so you live mostly on other folks."

"I shall never attempt to live on you, sir!" This was spoken with some
vivacity by our young man; he felt the next moment that he had said
something that might provoke a retort. But his companion showed no
sharpness.

"Well, I guess there won't be any trouble about that. And what does my
daughter say?"

"I haven't spoken to her yet."

"Haven't spoken to the person most interested?"

"I thought it more orthodox to break ground with you first."

"Well, when I was after Mrs. Dosson I guess I spoke to her quick
enough," Francie's father just a little dryly stated. There was an
element of reproach in this and Gaston was mystified, for the question
about his means a moment before had been in the nature of a challenge.

"How will you feel if she won't have you after you've exposed yourself
this way to me?" Mr. Dosson went on.

"Well, I've a sort of confidence. It may be vain, but God grant not! I
think she likes me personally, but what I'm afraid of is that she may
consider she knows too little about me. She has never seen my people--
she doesn't know what may be before her."

"Do you mean your family--the folks at home?" said Mr. Dosson. "Don't
you believe that. Delia has moused around--SHE has found out. Delia's
thorough!"

"Well, we're very simple kindly respectable people, as you'll see in a
day or two for yourself. My father and sisters will do themselves the
honour to wait upon you," the young man announced with a temerity the
sense of which made his voice tremble.

"We shall be very happy to see them, sir," his host cheerfully returned.
"Well now, let's see," the good gentleman socially mused. "Don't you
expect to embrace any regular occupation?"

Gaston smiled at him as from depths. "Have YOU anything of that sort,
sir?"

"Well, you have me there!" Mr. Dosson resignedly sighed. "It doesn't
seem as if I required anything, I'm looked after so well. The fact is
the girls support me."

"I shall not expect Miss Francie to support me," said Gaston Probert.

"You're prepared to enable her to live in the style to which she's
accustomed?" And his friend turned on him an eye as of quite patient
speculation.

"Well, I don't think she'll miss anything. That is if she does she'll
find other things instead."

"I presume she'll miss Delia, and even me a little," it occurred to Mr.
Dosson to mention.

"Oh it's easy to prevent that," the young man threw off.

"Well, of course we shall be on hand." After which Mr. Dosson continued
to follow the subject as at the same respectful distance. "You'll
continue to reside in Paris?"

"I'll live anywhere in the world she likes. Of course my people are
here--that's a great tie. I'm not without hope that it may--with time--
become a reason for your daughter," Gaston handsomely wound up.

"Oh any reason'll do where Paris is concerned. Take some lunch?" Mr.
Dosson added, looking at his watch.

They rose to their feet, but before they had gone many steps--the meals
of this amiable family were now served in an adjoining room--the young
man stopped his companion. "I can't tell you how kind I think it--the
way you treat me, and how I'm touched by your confidence. You take me
just as I am, with no recommendation beyond my own word."

"Well, Mr. Probert," said his host, "if we didn't like you we wouldn't
smile on you. Recommendations in that case wouldn't be any good. And
since we do like you there ain't any call for them either. I trust my
daughters; if I didn't I'd have stayed at home. And if I trust them, and
they trust you, it's the same as if _I_ trusted you, ain't it?"

"I guess it is!" Gaston delightedly smiled.

His companion laid a hand on the door, but paused a moment. "Now are you
very sure?"

"I thought I was, but you make me nervous."

"Because there was a gentleman here last year--I'd have put my money on
HIM."

Gaston wondered. "A gentleman--last year?"

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