Girls never do anything morally wrong. But it is far worse, Phillis, far worse; it is unspeakably vulgar."
"Oh," said Phillis, "I am so sorry!"
"And, my dear, one thing more. Do not cultivate the power of mimicry, which you undoubtedly possess. Men are afraid of young ladies who can imitate them. For actresses, authors, artists, and common people of that sort, of course it does not matter. But for us it is different. And now, Phillis, I must leave you till to-morrow. I have great hopes of you. You have an excellent figure, a very pretty and attractive face, winning eyes, and a taste in dress which only wants cultivation. And that we will begin to-morrow at Melton and Mowbray's."
"Oh yes," said Phillis, clapping her hands, "that will be delightful! I have never seen a shop yet."
"She has – never – seen – a Shop!" cried Mrs. Cassilis. "Child, it is hard indeed to realise your Awful condition of mind. That a girl of nineteen should be able to say that she has never seen a Shop! My dear, your education has been absolutely unchristian. And poor Mr. Dyson, I fear, cut off suddenly in his sins, without the chance of repentance."
CHAPTER VII
"Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear."
Joseph Jagenal and his charge were the last arrivals at Mrs. Cassilis's dinner. It was not a large party. There were two ladies of the conventional type, well dressed, well looking, and not particularly interesting; with them their two husbands, young men of an almost preternatural solemnity – such solemnity as sometimes results from a too concentrated attention to the Money Market. They were there as friends of Mr. Cassilis, whom they regarded with the reverence justly due to success. They longed to speak to him privately on investments, but did not dare. There were also two lions, newly captured. Ladds, the "Dragoon" of the joint literary venture – "The Little Sphere, by the Dragoon and the Younger Son" – is standing in that contemplative attitude by which hungry men, awaiting the announcement of dinner, veil an indecent eagerness to begin. The other, the "Younger Son," is talking to Mr. Cassilis.
Phillis remarked that the room was furnished in a manner quite beyond anything she knew. Where would be the dingy old chairs, sofas, and tables of Mr. Dyson's, or the solid splendour of Joseph Jagenal's drawing-room, compared with the glories of decorative art which Mrs. Cassilis had called to her aid? She had no time to make more than a general survey as she went to greet her hostess.
Mrs. Cassilis, for her part, observed that Phillis was dressed carefully, and was looking her best. She had on a simple white dress of that soft stuff called, I think, Indian muslin, which falls in graceful folds. A pale lavender sash relieved the monotony of the white, and set off her shapely figure. Her hair, done up in the simplest fashion, was adorned with a single white rose. Her cheeks were a little flushed with excitement, but her eyes were steady.
Phillis stole a glance at the other ladies. They were dressed, she was glad to observe, in the same style as herself, but not better. That naturally raised her spirits.
Then Mrs. Cassilis introduced her husband.
When Phillis next day attempted to reproduce her impressions of the evening, she had no difficulty in recording the likeness of Mr. Gabriel Cassilis with great fidelity. He was exactly like old Time.
The long lean limbs, the pronounced features, the stooping figure, the forelock which our enemy will not allow us to take, the head, bald save for that single ornamental curl and a fringe of gray hair over the ears – all the attributes of Time were there except the scythe. Perhaps he kept that at his office.
He was a very rich man. His house was in Kensington Palace Gardens, a fact which speaks volumes; its furnishing was a miracle of modern art; his paintings were undoubted; his portfolios of water-colours were worth many thousands; and his horses were perfect.
He was a director of many companies – but you cannot live in Kensington Palace Garden by directing companies and he had an office in the City which consisted of three rooms. In the first were four or five clerks, always writing; in the second was the secretary, always writing; in the third was Mr. Gabriel Cassilis himself, always giving audience.
He married at sixty-three, because he wanted an establishment in his old age. He was too old to expect love from a woman, and too young to fall in love with a girl. He did not marry in order to make a pet of his wife – indeed, he might as well have tried stroking a statue of Minerva as petting Victoria Pengelley; and he made no secret of his motive in proposing for the young lady. As delicately as possible he urged that, though her family was good, her income was small; that it is better to be rich and married than poor and single; and he offered, if she consented to become his wife, to give her all that she could wish for or ask on the material and artistic side of life.
Victoria Pengelley, on receipt of the offer, which was communicated by a third person, her cousin, behaved very strangely. She first refused absolutely; then she declared that she would have taken the man, but that it was now impossible; then she retracted the last statement, and, after a week of agitation, accepted the offer.
"And I must say, Victoria," said her cousin, "that you have made a strange fuss about accepting an offer from one of the richest men in London. He is elderly, it is true; but the difference between eight and twenty and sixty lies mostly in the imagination. I will write to Mr. Cassilis to-night."
Which she did, and they were married.
She trembled a great deal during the marriage ceremony. Mr. Cassilis was pleased at this appearance of emotion, which he attributed to causes quite remote from any thought in the lady's mind. "Calm to all outward seeming," he said to himself, "Victoria is capable of the deepest passion."
They had now been married between two and three years. They had one child – a boy.
It is only to be added that Mr. Cassilis settled the sum of fifteen thousand pounds upon the wedding-day on his wife, and that they lived together in that perfect happiness which is to be expected from well-bred people who marry without pretending to love each other.
Their dinners were beyond praise; the wine was incomparable; but their evenings were a little frigid. A sense of cold splendour filled the house – the child which belongs to new things and to new men.
The new man thirty years ago was loud, ostentatious, and vulgar. The new man now – there are a great many more of them – is very often quiet, unpretending, and well-bred. He understands art, and is a patron; he enjoys the advantages which his wealth affords him; he knows how to bear his riches with dignity and with reserve. The only objection to him is that he wants to go where other men, who were new in the last generation, go, and do what they do.
Mr. Cassilis welcomed Miss Fleming and Joseph Jagenal, and resumed his conversation with Jack Dunquerque. That young man looked much the same as when we saw him last on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada. His tall figure had not filled out, but his slight moustache had just a little increased in size. And now he looked a good deal bored.
"I have never, I confess," his host was saying, wielding a double eye-glass instead of his scythe, – "I have never been attracted by the manners and customs of uncivilised people. My sympathies cease, I fear, where Banks end."
"You are only interested in the country of Lombardy?"
"Yes; very good: precisely so."
"Outside the pale of Banks men certainly carry their money about with them – "
"Which prevents the accumulation of wealth, my dear sir. Civilisation was born when men learned to confide in each other. Modern history begins with the Fuggers, of whom you may have read."
"I
