第72章

At the same moment the door was thrown open, and Mrs. Gordon appeared on the threshold with a gentleman behind her.

Blanche stood an instant looking into the lighted room and hesitating--flushed a little, smiling, extremely pretty.

"May I come in?" she said, "and may I bring in Captain Lovelock?"

The two ladies, of course, fluttering toward her with every demonstration of hospitality, drew her into the room, while Bernard proceeded to greet the Captain, who advanced with a certain awkward and bashful majesty, almost sweeping with his great stature Mrs. Vivian's humble ceiling.

There was a tender exchange of embraces between Blanche and her friends, and the charming visitor, losing no time, began to chatter with her usual volubility. Mrs. Vivian and Angela made her companion graciously welcome; but Blanche begged they would n't mind him--she had only brought him as a watch-dog.

"His place is on the rug," she said. "Captain Lovelock, go and lie down on the rug."

"Upon my soul, there is nothing else but rugs in these French places!" the Captain rejoined, looking round Mrs. Vivian's salon. "Which rug do you mean?"

Mrs. Vivian had remarked to Blanche that it was very kind of her to come first, and Blanche declared that she could not have laid her head on her pillow before she had seen her dear Mrs. Vivian.

"Do you suppose I would wait because I am married?" she inquired, with a keen little smile in her charming eyes.

"I am not so much married as that, I can tell you! Do you think I look much as if I were married, with no one to bring me here to-night but Captain Lovelock?"

"I am sure Captain Lovelock is a very gallant escort," said Mrs. Vivian.

"Oh, he was not afraid--that is, he was not afraid of the journey, though it lay all through those dreadful wild Champs Elysees.

But when we arrived, he was afraid to come in--to come up here.

Captain Lovelock is so modest, you know--in spite of all the success he had in America. He will tell you about the success he had in America; it quite makes up for the defeat of the British army in the Revolution.

They were defeated in the Revolution, the British, were n't they?

I always told him so, but he insists they were not. 'How do we come to be free, then?' I always ask him; 'I suppose you admit that we are free.' Then he becomes personal and says that I am free enough, certainly. But it 's the general fact I mean; I wish you would tell him about the general fact. I think he would believe you, because he knows you know a great deal about history and all that.

I don't mean this evening, but some time when it is convenient.

He did n't want to come in--he wanted to stay in the carriage and smoke a cigar; he thought you would n't like it, his coming with me the first time. But I told him he need n't mind that, for I would certainly explain. I would be very careful to let you know that I brought him only as a substitute. A substitute for whom?

A substitute for my husband, of course. My dear Mrs. Vivian, of course I ought to bring you some pretty message from Gordon--that he is dying to come and see you, only that he had nineteen letters to write and that he could n't possibly stir from his fireside.

I suppose a good wife ought to invent excuses for her husband--ought to throw herself into the breach; is n't that what they call it?

But I am afraid I am not a good wife. Do you think I am a good wife, Mr. Longueville? You once stayed three months with us, and you had a chance to see. I don't ask you that seriously, because you never tell the truth. I always do; so I will say I am not a good wife.

And then the breach is too big, and I am too little. Oh, I am too little, Mrs. Vivian; I know I am too little. I am the smallest woman living; Gordon can scarcely see me with a microscope, and I believe he has the most powerful one in America. He is going to get another here; that is one of the things he came abroad for; perhaps it will do better. I do tell the truth, don't I, Mrs. Vivian?

I have that merit, if I have n't any other. You once told me so at Baden; you said you could say one thing for me, at any rate--that I did n't tell fibs. You were very nice to me at Baden,"

Blanche went on, with her little intent smile, laying her hand in that of her hostess. "You see, I have never forgotten it.

So, to keep up my reputation, I must tell the truth about Gordon.

He simply said he would n't come--voila! He gave no reason and he did n't send you any pretty message. He simply declined, and he went out somewhere else. So you see he is n't writing letters.

I don't know where he can have gone; perhaps he has gone to the theatre.

I know it is n't proper to go to the theatre on Sunday evening; but they say charity begins at home, and as Gordon's does n't begin at home, perhaps it does n't begin anywhere. I told him that if he would n't come with me I would come alone, and he said I might do as I chose--that he was not in a humor for making visits.

I wanted to come to you very much; I had been thinking about it all day; and I am so fond of a visit like this in the evening, without being invited. Then I thought perhaps you had a salon--does n't every one in Paris have a salon? I tried to have a salon in New York, only Gordon said it would n't do. He said it was n't in our manners. Is this a salon to-night, Mrs. Vivian? Oh, do say it is; I should like so much to see Captain Lovelock in a salon!

By good fortune he happened to have been dining with us; so I told him he must bring me here. I told you I would explain, Captain Lovelock," she added, "and I hope you think I have made it clear."

The Captain had turned very red during this wandering discourse.

He sat pulling his beard and shifting the position which, with his stalwart person, he had taken up on a little gilded chair--a piece of furniture which every now and then gave a delicate creak.

"I always understand you well enough till you begin to explain," he rejoined, with a candid, even if embarrassed, laugh. "Then, by Jove, I 'm quite in the woods. You see such a lot more in things than most people.

Does n't she, Miss Vivian?"

"Blanche has a fine imagination," said Angela, smiling frankly at the charming visitor.