CHAPTER IV
A few days after the Baroness Munster had presented herself to herAmerican kinsfolk she came, with her brother, and took up her abode inthat small white house adjacent to Mr. Wentworth's own dwelling of whichmention has already been made. It was on going with his daughters toreturn her visit that Mr. Wentworth placed this comfortable cottage ather service; the offer being the result of a domestic colloquy, diffusedthrough the ensuing twenty-four hours, in the course of which thetwo foreign visitors were discussed and analyzed with a great deal ofearnestness and subtlety. The discussion went forward, as I say, inthe family circle; but that circle on the evening following Madame Munster'sreturn to town, as on many other occasions, included RobertActon and his pretty sister. If you had been present, it would probablynot have seemed to you that the advent of these brilliant strangerswas treated as an exhilarating occurrence, a pleasure the more in thistranquil household, a prospective source of entertainment. This wasnot Mr. Wentworth's way of treating any human occurrence. The suddenirruption into the well-ordered consciousness of the Wentworths of anelement not allowed for in its scheme of usual obligations requireda readjustment of that sense of responsibility which constituted itsprincipal furniture. To consider an event, crudely and baldly, in thelight of the pleasure it might bring them was an intellectualexercise with which Felix Young's American cousins were almost whollyunacquainted, and which they scarcely supposed to be largely pursued inany section of human society. The arrival of Felix and his sister wasa satisfaction, but it was a singularly joyless and inelasticsatisfaction. It was an extension of duty, of the exercise of the morerecondite virtues; but neither Mr. Wentworth, nor Charlotte, nor Mr.Brand, who, among these excellent people, was a great promoter ofreflection and aspiration, frankly adverted to it as an extension ofenjoyment. This function was ultimately assumed by Gertrude Wentworth,who was a peculiar girl, but the full compass of whose peculiarities hadnot been exhibited before they very ingeniously found their pretextin the presence of these possibly too agreeable foreigners. Gertrude,however, had to struggle with a great accumulation of obstructions,both of the subjective, as the metaphysicians say, and of the objective,order; and indeed it is no small part of the purpose of this littlehistory to set forth her struggle. What seemed paramount in this abruptenlargement of Mr. Wentworth's sympathies and those of his daughters wasan extension of the field of possible mistakes; and the doctrine, as itmay almost be called, of the oppressive gravity of mistakes was one ofthe most cherished traditions of the Wentworth family.
"I don't believe she wants to come and stay in this house," saidGertrude; Madame Munster, from this time forward, receiving no otherdesignation than the personal pronoun. Charlotte and Gertrude acquiredconsiderable facility in addressing her, directly, as "Eugenia;" but inspeaking of her to each other they rarely called her anything but "she."
"Does n't she think it good enough for her?" cried little LizzieActon, who was always asking unpractical questions that required, instrictness, no answer, and to which indeed she expected no otheranswer than such as she herself invariably furnished in a small,innocently-satirical laugh.
"She certainly expressed a willingness to come," said Mr. Wentworth.
"That was only politeness," Gertrude rejoined.
"Yes, she is very polite--very polite," said Mr. Wentworth.
"She is too polite," his son declared, in a softly growling tone whichwas habitual to him, but which was an indication of nothing worse than avaguely humorous intention. "It is very embarrassing."
"That is more than can be said of you, sir," said Lizzie Acton, with herlittle laugh.
"Well, I don't mean to encourage her," Clifford went on.
"I 'm sure I don't care if you do!" cried Lizzie.
"She will not think of you, Clifford," said Gertrude, gravely.
"I hope not!" Clifford exclaimed.
"She will think of Robert," Gertrude continued, in the same tone.
Robert Acton began to blush; but there was no occasion for it, for everyone was looking at Gertrude--every one, at least, save Lizzie, who, withher pretty head on one side, contemplated her brother.
"Why do you attribute motives, Gertrude?" asked Mr. Wentworth.
"I don't attribute motives, father," said Gertrude. "I only say she willthink of Robert; and she will!"
"Gertrude judges by herself!" Acton exclaimed, laughing. "Don't you,Gertrude? Of course the Baroness will think of me. She will think of mefrom morning till night."
"She will be very comfortable here," said Charlotte, with something ofa housewife's pride. "She can have the large northeast room. And theFrench bedstead," Charlotte added, with a constant sense of the lady'sforeignness.
"She will not like it," said Gertrude; "not even if you pin littletidies all over the chairs."
"Why not, dear?" asked Charlotte, perceiving a touch of irony here, butnot resenting it.
Gertrude had left her chair; she was walking about the room; her stiffsilk dress, which she had put on in honor of the Baroness, made a soundupon the carpet. "I don't know," she replied. "She will want somethingmore--more private."
"If she wants to be private she can stay in her room," Lizzie Actonremarked.
Gertrude paused in her walk, looking at her. "That would not bepleasant," she answered. "She wants privacy and pleasure together."
Robert Acton began to laugh again. "My dear cousin, what a picture!"
Charlotte had fixed her serious eyes upon her sister; she wonderedwhence she had suddenly derived these strange notions. Mr. Wentworthalso observed his younger daughter.
"I don't know what her manner of life may have been," he said; "but shecertainly never can have enjoyed a more refined and salubrious home."
Gertrude stood there looking at them all. "She is the wife of a Prince,"she said.
"We are all princes here," said Mr. Wentworth; "and I don't know of anypalace in this neighborhood that is to let."
"Cousin William," Robert Acton interposed, "do you want to do somethinghandsome? Make them a present, for three months, of the little houseover the way."
"You are very generous with other people's things!" cried his sister.
"Robert is very generous with his own things," Mr. Wentworth observeddispassionately, and looking, in cold meditation, at his kinsman.
"Gertrude," Lizzie went on, "I had an idea you were so fond of your newcousin."
"Which new cousin?" asked Gertrude.
"I don't mean the Baroness!" the young girl rejoined, with her laugh. "Ithought you expected to see so much of him."
"Of Felix? I hope to see a great deal of him," said Gertrude, simply.
"Then why do you want to keep him out of the house?"
Gertrude looked at Lizzie Acton, and then looked away.
"Should you want me to live in the house with you, Lizzie?" askedClifford.
"I hope you never will. I hate you!" Such was this young lady's reply.
"Father," said Gertrude, stopping before Mr. Wentworth and smiling, witha smile the sweeter, as her smile always was, for its rarity; "do letthem live in the little house over the way. It will be lovely!"
Robert Acton had been watching her. "Gertrude is right," he said."Gertrude is the cleverest girl in the world. If I might take theliberty, I should strongly recommend their living there."
"There is nothing there so pretty as the northeast room," Charlotteurged.
"She will make it pretty. Leave her alone!" Acton exclaimed.
Gertrude, at his compliment, had blushed and looked at him: it was as ifsome one less familiar had complimented her. "I am sure she will makeit pretty. It will be very interesting. It will be a place to go to. Itwill be a foreign house."
"Are we very sure that we need a foreign house?" Mr. Wentworth inquired."Do you think it desirable to establish a foreign house--in this quietplace?"
"You speak," said Acton, laughing, "as if it were a question of the poorBaroness opening a wine-shop or a gaming-table."
"It would b
e too lovely!" Gertrude declared again, laying her hand onthe back of her father's chair.
"That she should open a gaming-table?" Charlotte asked, with greatgravity.
Gertrude looked at her a moment, and then, "Yes, Charlotte," she said,simply.
"Gertrude is growing pert," Clifford Wentworth observed, with hishumorous young growl. "That comes of associating with foreigners."
Mr. Wentworth looked up at his daughter, who was standing beside him; hedrew her gently forward. "You must be careful," he said. "You must keepwatch. Indeed, we must all be careful. This is a great change; we areto be exposed to peculiar influences. I don't say they are bad. I don'tjudge them in advance. But they may perhaps make it necessary that weshould exercise a great deal of wisdom and self-control. It will be adifferent tone."
Gertrude was silent a moment, in deference to her father's speech; thenshe spoke in a manner that was not in the least an answer to it. "I wantto see how they will live. I am sure they will have different hours. Shewill do all kinds of little things differently. When we go over there itwill be like going to Europe. She will have a boudoir. She will inviteus to dinner--very late. She will breakfast in her room."
Charlotte gazed at her sister again. Gertrude's imagination seemed toher to be fairly running riot. She had always known that Gertrude hada great deal of imagination--she had been very proud of it. But at thesame time she had always felt that it was a dangerous and irresponsiblefaculty; and now, to her sense, for the moment, it seemed to threaten tomake her sister a strange person who should come in suddenly, as from ajourney, talking of the peculiar and possibly unpleasant things she hadobserved. Charlotte's imagination took no journeys whatever; shekept it, as it were, in her pocket, with the other furniture of thisreceptacle--a thimble, a little box of peppermint, and a morsel ofcourt-plaster. "I don't believe she would have any dinner--or anybreakfast," said Miss Wentworth. "I don't believe she knows how to doanything herself. I should have to get her ever so many servants, andshe would n't like them."
"She has a maid," said Gertrude; "a French maid. She mentioned her."
"I wonder if the maid has a little fluted cap and red slippers," saidLizzie Acton. "There was a French maid in that play that Robert took meto see. She had pink stockings; she was very wicked."
"She was a soubrette," Gertrude announced, who had never seen a playin her life. "They call that a soubrette. It will be a great chance tolearn French." Charlotte gave a little soft, helpless groan. She had avision of a wicked, theatrical person, clad in pink stockings and redshoes, and speaking, with confounding volubility, an incomprehensibletongue, flitting through the sacred penetralia of that large, cleanhouse. "That is one reason in favor of their coming here," Gertrude wenton. "But we can make Eugenia speak French to us, and Felix. I mean tobegin--the next time."
Mr. Wentworth had kept her standing near him, and he gave her hisearnest, thin, unresponsive glance again. "I want you to make me apromise, Gertrude," he said.
"What is it?" she asked, smiling.
"Not to get excited. Not to allow these--these occurrences to be anoccasion for excitement."
She looked down at him a moment, and then she shook her head. "I don'tthink I can promise that, father. I am excited already."
Mr. Wentworth was silent a while; they all were silent, as if inrecognition of something audacious and portentous.
"I think they had better go to the other house," said Charlotte,quietly.
"I shall keep them in the other house," Mr. Wentworth subjoined, morepregnantly.
Gertrude turned away; then she looked across at Robert Acton. Her cousinRobert was a great friend of hers; she often looked at him this wayinstead of saying things. Her glance on this occasion, however, struckhim as a substitute for a larger volume of diffident utterance thanusual, inviting him to observe, among other things, the inefficiency ofher father's design--if design it was--for diminishing, in theinterest of quiet nerves, their occasions of contact with their foreignrelatives. But Acton immediately complimented Mr. Wentworth upon hisliberality. "That 's a very nice thing to do," he said, "giving themthe little house. You will have treated them handsomely, and, whateverhappens, you will be glad of it." Mr. Wentworth was liberal, and he knewhe was liberal. It gave him pleasure to know it, to feel it, to see itrecorded; and this pleasure is the only palpable form of self-indulgencewith which the narrator of these incidents will be able to charge him.
"A three days' visit at most, over there, is all I should have foundpossible," Madame Munster remarked to her brother, after they hadtaken possession of the little white house. "It would have been toointime--decidedly too intime. Breakfast, dinner, and tea en famille--itwould have been the end of the world if I could have reached the thirdday." And she made the same observation to her maid Augustine, anintelligent person, who enjoyed a liberal share of her confidence. Felixdeclared that he would willingly spend his life in the bosom of theWentworth family; that they were the kindest, simplest, most amiablepeople in the world, and that he had taken a prodigious fancy to themall. The Baroness quite agreed with him that they were simple and kind;they were thoroughly nice people, and she liked them extremely. Thegirls were perfect ladies; it was impossible to be more of a lady thanCharlotte Wentworth, in spite of her little village air. "But as forthinking them the best company in the world," said the Baroness, "thatis another thing; and as for wishing to live porte-a-porte withthem, I should as soon think of wishing myself back in the conventagain, to wear a bombazine apron and sleep in a dormitory." And yet theBaroness was in high good humor; she had been very much pleased. Withher lively perception and her refined imagination, she was capable ofenjoying anything that was characteristic, anything that was good ofits kind. The Wentworth household seemed to her very perfect inits kind--wonderfully peaceful and unspotted; pervaded by a sort ofdove-colored freshness that had all the quietude and benevolence of whatshe deemed to be Quakerism, and yet seemed to be founded upon a degreeof material abundance for which, in certain matters of detail, onemight have looked in vain at the frugal little court ofSilberstadt-Schreckenstein. She perceived immediately that her Americanrelatives thought and talked very little about money; and this of itselfmade an impression upon Eugenia's imagination. She perceived at the sametime that if Charlotte or Gertrude should ask their father for a veryconsiderable sum he would at once place it in their hands; and this madea still greater impression. The greatest impression of all, perhaps,was made by another rapid induction. The Baroness had an immediateconviction that Robert Acton would put his hand into his pocket everyday in the week if that rattle-pated little sister of his should bidhim. The men in this country, said the Baroness, are evidently veryobliging. Her declaration that she was looking for rest and retirementhad been by no means wholly untrue; nothing that the Baroness said waswholly untrue. It is but fair to add, perhaps, that nothing that shesaid was wholly true. She wrote to a friend in Germany that it was areturn to nature; it was like drinking new milk, and she was very fondof new milk. She said to herself, of course, that it would be a littledull; but there can be no better proof of her good spirits than the factthat she thought she should not mind its being a little dull. It seemedto her, when from the piazza of her eleemosynary cottage she looked outover the soundless fields, the stony pastures, the clear-faced ponds,the rugged little orchards, that she had never been in the midst ofso peculiarly intense a stillness; it was almost a delicate sensualpleasure. It was all very good, very innocent and safe, and out of itsomething good must come. Augustine, indeed, who had an unbounded faithin her mistress's wisdom and far-sightedness, was a great deal perplexedand depressed. She was always ready to take her cue when she understoodit; but she liked to understand it, and on this occasion comprehensionfailed. What, indeed, was the Baroness doing dans cette galere? whatfish did she expect to land out of these very stagnant waters? The gamewas evidently a deep one. Augustine could trust her; but the sense ofwalking in the dark betrayed itself in the physiognomy of this spare,sober, sallow, middle-aged perso
n, who had nothing in common withGertrude Wentworth's conception of a soubrette, by the most ironicalscowl that had ever rested upon the unpretending tokens of the peace andplenty of the Wentworths. Fortunately, Augustine could quench skepticismin action. She quite agreed with her mistress--or rather she quiteout-stripped her mistress--in thinking that the little white housewas pitifully bare. "Il faudra," said Augustine, "lui faire un peu detoilette." And she began to hang up portieres in the doorways; to placewax candles, procured after some research, in unexpected situations;to dispose anomalous draperies over the arms of sofas and the backs ofchairs. The Baroness had brought with her to the New World a copiousprovision of the element of costume; and the two Miss Wentworths, whenthey came over to see her, were somewhat bewildered by the obtrusivedistribution of her wardrobe. There were India shawls suspended,curtain-wise, in the parlor door, and curious fabrics, corresponding toGertrude's metaphysical vision of an opera-cloak, tumbled about in thesitting-places. There were pink silk blinds in the windows, by which theroom was strangely bedimmed; and along the chimney-piece was disposed aremarkable band of velvet, covered with coarse, dirty-looking lace. "Ihave been making myself a little comfortable," said the Baroness, muchto the confusion of Charlotte, who had been on the point of proposing tocome and help her put her superfluous draperies away. But what Charlottemistook for an almost culpably delayed subsidence Gertrude verypresently perceived to be the most ingenious, the most interesting, themost romantic intention. "What is life, indeed, without curtains?" shesecretly asked herself; and she appeared to herself to have been leadinghitherto an existence singularly garish and totally devoid of festoons.
Felix was not a young man who troubled himself greatly aboutanything--least of all about the conditions of enjoyment. His faculty ofenjoyment was so large, so unconsciously eager, that it may be said ofit that it had a permanent advance upon embarrassment and sorrow. Hissentient faculty was intrinsically joyous, and novelty and change werein themselves a delight to him. As they had come to him with a greatdeal of frequency, his life had been more agreeable than appeared.Never was a nature more perfectly fortunate. It was not a restless,apprehensive, ambitious spirit, running a race with the tyranny of fate,but a temper so unsuspicious as to put Adversity off her guard, dodgingand evading her with the easy, natural motion of a wind-shiftedflower. Felix extracted entertainment from all things, and all hisfaculties--his imagination, his intelligence, his affections, hissenses--had a hand in the game. It seemed to him that Eugenia and he hadbeen very well treated; there was something absolutely touching in thatcombination of paternal liberality and social considerateness whichmarked Mr. Wentworth's deportment. It was most uncommonly kind of him,for instance, to have given them a house. Felix was positively amusedat having a house of his own; for the little white cottage among theapple-trees--the chalet, as Madame Munster always called it--was muchmore sensibly his own than any domiciliary quatrieme, looking upon acourt, with the rent overdue. Felix had spent a good deal of his lifein looking into courts, with a perhaps slightly tattered pair of elbowsresting upon the ledge of a high-perched window, and the thin smoke of acigarette rising into an atmosphere in which street-cries died away andthe vibration of chimes from ancient belfries became sensible. He hadnever known anything so infinitely rural as these New England fields;and he took a great fancy to all their pastoral roughnesses. He hadnever had a greater sense of luxurious security; and at the risk ofmaking him seem a rather sordid adventurer I must declare that he foundan irresistible charm in the fact that he might dine every day at hisuncle's. The charm was irresistible, however, because his fancy flunga rosy light over this homely privilege. He appreciated highly the farethat was set before him. There was a kind of fresh-looking abundanceabout it which made him think that people must have lived so inthe mythological era, when they spread their tables upon the grass,replenished them from cornucopias, and had no particular need of kitchenstoves. But the great thing that Felix enjoyed was having found afamily--sitting in the midst of gentle, generous people whom he mightcall by their first names. He had never known anything more charmingthan the attention they paid to what he said. It was like a large sheetof clean, fine-grained drawing-paper, all ready to be washed over witheffective splashes of water-color. He had never had any cousins, andhe had never before found himself in contact so unrestricted with youngunmarried ladies. He was extremely fond of the society of ladies, and itwas new to him that it might be enjoyed in just this manner. At first hehardly knew what to make of his state of mind. It seemed to him thathe was in love, indiscriminately, with three girls at once. He saw thatLizzie Acton was more brilliantly pretty than Charlotte and Gertrude;but this was scarcely a superiority. His pleasure came from somethingthey had in common--a part of which was, indeed, that physical delicacywhich seemed to make it proper that they should always dress in thinmaterials and clear colors. But they were delicate in other ways, andit was most agreeable to him to feel that these latter delicacies wereappreciable by contact, as it were. He had known, fortunately, manyvirtuous gentlewomen, but it now appeared to him that in his relationswith them (especially when they were unmarried) he had been looking atpictures under glass. He perceived at present what a nuisance the glasshad been--how it perverted and interfered, how it caught the reflectionof other objects and kept you walking from side to side. He had no needto ask himself whether Charlotte and Gertrude, and Lizzie Acton, werein the right light; they were always in the right light. He likedeverything about them: he was, for instance, not at all above liking thefact that they had very slender feet and high insteps. He liked theirpretty noses; he liked their surprised eyes and their hesitating, notat all positive way of speaking; he liked so much knowing that he wasperfectly at liberty to be alone for hours, anywhere, with either ofthem; that preference for one to the other, as a companion of solitude,remained a minor affair. Charlotte Wentworth's sweetly severe featureswere as agreeable as Lizzie Acton's wonderfully expressive blue eyes;and Gertrude's air of being always ready to walk about and listen wasas charming as anything else, especially as she walked very gracefully.After a while Felix began to distinguish; but even then he would oftenwish, suddenly, that they were not all so sad. Even Lizzie Acton,in spite of her fine little chatter and laughter, appeared sad. EvenClifford Wentworth, who had extreme youth in his favor, and kept a buggywith enormous wheels and a little sorrel mare with the prettiest legsin the world--even this fortunate lad was apt to have an averted,uncomfortable glance, and to edge away from you at times, in the mannerof a person with a bad conscience. The only person in the circle withno sense of oppression of any kind was, to Felix's perception, RobertActon.
It might perhaps have been feared that after the completion of thosegraceful domiciliary embellishments which have been mentioned Madame Munsterwould have found herself confronted with alarming possibilitiesof ennui. But as yet she had not taken the alarm. The Baroness was arestless soul, and she projected her restlessness, as it may be said,into any situation that lay before her. Up to a certain point herrestlessness might be counted upon to entertain her. She was alwaysexpecting something to happen, and, until it was disappointed,expectancy itself was a delicate pleasure. What the Baroness expectedjust now it would take some ingenuity to set forth; it is enoughthat while she looked about her she found something to occupy herimagination. She assured herself that she was enchanted with her newrelatives; she professed to herself that, like her brother, she feltit a sacred satisfaction to have found a family. It is certain that sheenjoyed to the utmost the gentleness of her kinsfolk's deference.She had, first and last, received a great deal of admiration, and herexperience of well-turned compliments was very considerable; but sheknew that she had never been so real a power, never counted for somuch, as now when, for the first time, the standard of comparison of herlittle circle was a prey to vagueness. The sense, indeed, that the goodpeople about her had, as regards her remarkable self, no standard ofcomparison at all gave her a feeling of almost illimitable power. It wastrue, as she said to herself, th
at if for this reason they would beable to discover nothing against her, so they would perhaps neglectto perceive some of her superior points; but she always wound up herreflections by declaring that she would take care of that.
Charlotte and Gertrude were in some perplexity between their desireto show all proper attention to Madame Munster and their fear of beingimportunate. The little house in the orchard had hitherto been occupiedduring the summer months by intimate friends of the family, or by poorrelations who found in Mr. Wentworth a landlord attentive to repairs andoblivious of quarter-day. Under these circumstances the open door of thesmall house and that of the large one, facing each other across theirhomely gardens, levied no tax upon hourly visits. But the MissesWentworth received an impression that Eugenia was no friend to theprimitive custom of "dropping in;" she evidently had no idea of livingwithout a door-keeper. "One goes into your house as into an inn--exceptthat there are no servants rushing forward," she said to Charlotte. Andshe added that that was very charming. Gertrude explained to her sisterthat she meant just the reverse; she did n't like it at all. Charlotteinquired why she should tell an untruth, and Gertrude answered thatthere was probably some very good reason for it which they shoulddiscover when they knew her better. "There can surely be no good reasonfor telling an untruth," said Charlotte. "I hope she does not think so."
They had of course desired, from the first, to do everything in the wayof helping her to arrange herself. It had seemed to Charlotte thatthere would be a great many things to talk about; but the Baroness wasapparently inclined to talk about nothing.
"Write her a note, asking her leave to come and see her. I think that iswhat she will like," said Gertrude.
"Why should I give her the trouble of answering me?" Charlotte asked."She will have to write a note and send it over."
"I don't think she will take any trouble," said Gertrude, profoundly.
"What then will she do?"
"That is what I am curious to see," said Gertrude, leaving her sisterwith an impression that her curiosity was morbid.
They went to see the Baroness without preliminary correspondence; and inthe little salon which she had already created, with its becoming lightand its festoons, they found Robert Acton.
Eugenia was intensely gracious, but she accused them of neglecting hercruelly. "You see Mr. Acton has had to take pity upon me," she said. "Mybrother goes off sketching, for hours; I can never depend upon him. So Iwas to send Mr. Acton to beg you to come and give me the benefit of yourwisdom."
Gertrude looked at her sister. She wanted to say, "That is what shewould have done." Charlotte said that they hoped the Baroness wouldalways come and dine with them; it would give them so much pleasure;and, in that case, she would spare herself the trouble of having a cook.
"Ah, but I must have a cook!" cried the Baroness. "An old negress in ayellow turban. I have set my heart upon that. I want to look out of mywindow and see her sitting there on the grass, against the background ofthose crooked, dusky little apple-trees, pulling the husks off a lapfulof Indian corn. That will be local color, you know. There is n't muchof it here--you don't mind my saying that, do you?--so one must makethe most of what one can get. I shall be most happy to dine with youwhenever you will let me; but I want to be able to ask you sometimes.And I want to be able to ask Mr. Acton," added the Baroness.
"You must come and ask me at home," said Acton. "You must come and seeme; you must dine with me first. I want to show you my place; I want tointroduce you to my mother." He called again upon Madame Munster,two days later. He was constantly at the other house; he used to walkacross the fields from his own place, and he appeared to have fewerscruples than his cousins with regard to dropping in. On this occasionhe found that Mr. Brand had come to pay his respects to the charmingstranger; but after Acton's arrival the young theologian said nothing.He sat in his chair with his two hands clasped, fixing upon his hostessa grave, fascinated stare. The Baroness talked to Robert Acton, but, asshe talked, she turned and smiled at Mr. Brand, who never took hiseyes off her. The two men walked away together; they were going to Mr.Wentworth's. Mr. Brand still said nothing; but after they had passedinto Mr. Wentworth's garden he stopped and looked back for some time atthe little white house. Then, looking at his companion, with his headbent a little to one side and his eyes somewhat contracted, "NowI suppose that 's what is called conversation," he said; "realconversation."
"It 's what I call a very clever woman," said Acton, laughing.
"It is most interesting," Mr. Brand continued. "I only wish she wouldspeak French; it would seem more in keeping. It must be quite thestyle that we have heard about, that we have read about--the style ofconversation of Madame de Stael, of Madame Recamier."
Acton also looked at Madame Munster's residence among its hollyhocks andapple-trees. "What I should like to know," he said, smiling, "is justwhat has brought Madame Recamier to live in that place!"