XXXII
Left to herself, Miss Hugonin meditated.
Miss Hugonin was in her kimono.
And oh, Madame Chrysastheme! oh, Madame Butterfly! Oh, Mimosa San, andPitti Sing, and Yum Yum, and all ye vaunted beauties of Japan! if youcould have seen her in that garb! Poor little ladies of the Orient,how hopelessly you would have wrung your henna-stained fingers! Poorlittle Ichabods of the East, whose glory departed irretrievably whenshe adopted this garment, I tremble to think of the heart-burnings andpalpitations and hari-karis that would have ensued.
It was pink--the pink of her cheeks to a shade. And scattered about itwere birds, and butterflies, and snaky, emaciated dragons, with backslike saw-teeth, and prodigious fangs, and claws, and very curly tails,such as they breed in Nankeen plates and used to breed on packages offire-crackers--all done in gold, the gold of her hair. Moreover, onemight catch a glimpse of her neck--which was a manifest favour of thegods--and about it mysterious, lacy white things intermingling withdivers tiny blue ribbons. I saw her in it once--by accident.
And now I fancy, as she stood rigid with indignation, her cheeksflushed, it must have been a heady spectacle to note how theirshell-pink repeated the pink of her fantastic garment like a chromaticecho; and how her sunny hair, a thought loosened, a shade dishevelled,clung heavily about her face, a golden snare for eye and heart; andhow her own eyes, enormous, cerulean--twin sapphires such as in theold days might have ransomed a brace of emperors--grew wistful like achild's who has been punished and does not know exactly why; and howher petulant mouth quivered and the long black lashes, golden at theroots, quivered, too--ah, yes, it must have been a heady spectacle.
"_Now_," she announced, "I see plainly what he intends doing. He isgoing to destroy that will, and burden me once more with a large andinfluential fortune. I don't want it, and I won't take it, and hemight just as well understand that in the very beginning. I don't careif Uncle Fred did leave it to me--I didn't ask him to, did I? Besides,he was a very foolish old man--if he had left the money to Billy_everything_ would have been all right. That's always the way--mydolls are invariably stuffed with sawdust, and I _never_ have a deargazelle to glad me with his dappled hide, but when he comes to know mewell he falls upon the buttered side--or something to that effect. Ihate poetry, anyhow--it's so mushy!"
And this from the Miss Hugonin who a week ago was interested in theFrench _decadents_ and partial to folk-songs from the Romaic! I thinkwe may fairly deduce that the reign of Felix Kennaston is over. Theking is dead; and Margaret's thoughts and affections and her verydreams have fallen loyally to crying, Long live the king--his MajestyBilly the First.
"Oh!" said Margaret, with an indignant gasp, what time her eyebrowsgesticulated, "I think Billy Woods is a meddlesome _piece_!--that'swhat I think! Does he suppose that after waiting all this time for theonly man in the world who can keep me interested for four hours ona stretch and send my pulse up to a hundred and make me feel thosethrilly thrills I've always longed for--does he suppose that nowI'm going to pay any attention to his silly notions about wills andthings? He's abominably selfish! I shan't!"
Margaret moved across the room, shimmering, rustling, glittering likea fairy in a pantomime. Then, to consider matters at greater ease, shecurled up on a divan in much the attitude of a tiny Cleopatra ridingat anchor on a carpeted Cydnus.
"Billy thinks I want the money--bless his boots! He thinks I'm astuck-up, grasping, purse-proud little pig, and he has every rightto think so after the way I talked to him, though he ought to haverealised I was in a temper about Kathleen Saumarez and have paid noattention to what I said. And he actually attempted to reason withme! If he'd had _any_ consideration for my feelings, he'd have simplysmacked me and made me behave--however, he's a man, and all men areselfish, and _she's_ a skinny old thing, and I _never_ had any use forher. Bother her lectures! I never understood a word of them, and Idon't believe she does, either. Women's clubs are _all_ silly, and Ithink the women who belong to them are _all_ bold-faced jigs! Ifthey had any sense, they'd stay at home and take care of the babies,instead of messing with philanthropy, and education, and theosophy,and anything else that they can't make head or tail of. And they callthat being cultured! Culture!--I hate the word! I don't want to becultured--I want to be happy."
This, you will observe, was, in effect, a sweeping recantation ofevery ideal Margaret had ever boasted. But Love is a canny pedagogue,and of late he had instructed Miss Hugonin in a variety of matters.
"Before God, loving you as I do, I wouldn't marry you for all thewealth in the world," she repeated, with a little shiver. "Even in hisdelirium he said that. But I _know_ now that he loves me. And I knowthat I adore him. And if this were a sensible world, I'd walk right inthere and explain things and ask him to marry me, and then it wouldn'tmatter in the least who had the money. But I can't, because itwouldn't be proper. Bother propriety!--but bothering it doesn't doany good. As long as I have the money, Billy will never come near me,because of the idiotic way I talked to him. And he's bent on my takingthe money simply because it happens to belong to me. I consider thata very silly reason. I'll _make_ Billy Woods take the money, andI'll make him see that I'm _not_ a little pig, and that I trust himimplicitly. And I think I'm quite justified in using a little--we'llcall it diplomacy--because otherwise he'd go back to France or someother objectionable place, and we'd both be _very_ unhappy."
Margaret began to laugh softly. "I've given him my word that I'lldo nothing further in the matter till he gets well. And I won't._But_----"
Miss Hugonin rose from the divan with a gesture of sweeping back herhair. And then--oh, treachery of tortoise-shell! oh, the villainy ofthose little gold hair-pins!--the fat twisted coils tumbled looseand slowly unravelled themselves, and her pink-and-white face,half-eclipsed, showed a delectable wedge between big, odourful,crinkly, ponderous masses of hair. It clung about her, a heavy cloak,all shimmering gold like the path of sunset over the June sea. AndMargaret, looking at herself in the mirror, laughed, and appearedperfectly content with what she saw there.
"But," said she, "if the Fates are kind to me--and I sometimes thinkI _have_ a pull with the gods--I'll make you happy, Billy Woods, inspite of yourself."
The mirror flashed back a smile. Margaret was strangely interested inthe mirror.
"She has ringlets in her hair," sang Margaret happily--a low,half-hushed little song. She held up a strand of it to demonstratethis fact.
"There's a dimple in her chin"--and, indeed, there was. And a dimplein either cheek, too.
For a long time afterward she continued to smile at the mirror. I amafraid Kathleen Saumarez was right. She was a vain little cat, wasMargaret.
But, barring a rearrangement of the cosmic scheme, I dare say maidswill continue to delight in their own comeliness so long as mirrorsspeak truth. Let us, then, leave Miss Hugonin to this innocentdiversion. The staidest of us are conscious of a brisk elation atsight of a pretty face; and surely no considerate person will deny itsowner a portion of the pleasure that daily she accords the beggar atthe street-corner.