The Street Called Straight Part 43

He found himself reciting glibly Ashley's claims as a suitor in the way of family, position, and fortune.

"So that it would be what some people might call a good match."

"The best sort of match. It's the kind of thing she's made for--that she'd be happy in--regiments, and uniforms, and glory, and presenting prizes, and all that."

"Hm. I shall have nothing to do with it." She rose with dignity. "If my niece had only held out a little finger--"

"It was a case, madame," he argued, rising, too--"it was a case in which she couldn't hold out a little finger without offering her whole hand."

"You know nothing about it. I'm wrong to discuss it with you at all. I'm sure I don't know why I do, except that--"

"Except that I'm an American," he suggested--"one of your own."

"One of my own! Quelle idee! Do you like him--this Englishman?"

He hedged. "Miss Guion likes him."

"But you don't."

"I haven't said so. I might like him well enough if--"

"If you got your money back."

He smiled and nodded.

"Is she in love with him?"

"Oh--deep!"

"How do _you_ know? Has she told you so?"

"Y-es; I think I may say--she has."

"Did you ask her?"

He colored. "I had to--about something."

"You weren't proposing to her yourself, were you?"

He tried to take this humorously. "Oh no, madame--"

"You can't be in love with her, or you wouldn't be trying so hard to marry her to some one else--not unless you're a bigger fool than you look."

"I hope I'm not that," he laughed.

"Well, I shall have nothing to do with it--nothing. Between my niece and me--tout est fini." She darted from him, swerving again like a bird on the wing. "I don't know you. You come here with what may be no more than a c.o.c.k-and-bull story, to get inside the chateau."

"I shouldn't expect you to do anything, madame, without verifying all I've told you. For the matter of that, it'll be easy enough. You've only to write to your men of business, or--which would be better still--take a trip to America for yourself."

She threw out her arms with a tragic gesture. "My good man, I haven't been in America for forty years. I nearly died of it then. What it must be like now--"

"It wouldn't be so fine as this, madame, nor so picturesque. But it would be full of people who'd be fond of you, not for the sou--but for yourself."

She did her best to be offended. "You're taking liberties, monsieur.

C'est bien american, cela."

"Excuse me, madame," he said, humbly. "I only mean that they _are_ fond of you--at least, I I know Miss Guion is. Two nights before I sailed I heard her almost crying for you--yes, almost crying. That's why I came.

I thought I'd come and tell you. I should think it might mean something to you--over here so long--all alone--to have some one like that--such a--such a--such a wonderful young lady wanting you--in her trouble--"

"And such a wonderful young man wanting his money back. Oh, I'm not blind, monsieur. I see a great deal more than you think. I see through and through you. You fancy you're throwing dust in my eyes, and you haven't thrown a grain. Pouff! Oh, la, la! Mais, c'est fini. As for my niece--le bon Dieu l' a bien punie. For me to step in now would be to interfere with the chastis.e.m.e.nt of Providence. Le bon Dieu is always right. I'll say that for Him. Good morning." She touched a bell. "The man will show you to the door. If you like to stroll about the grounds--now that you've got in--well, you can."

With sleeves blowing she sped down the room as if on pinions. The man-servant waited respectfully. Davenant stood his ground, hoping for some sign of her relenting. It was almost over her shoulder that she called back:

"Where are you staying?"

He told her.

"Stupid place. You'll find the Chariot d'Or at Melcourt a great deal nicer. Simple, but clean. An old chef of mine keeps it. Tell him I sent you. And ask for his poularde au riz."

XXI

"What do you think of him?"

Ashley's tone indicated some uncertainty as to what he thought himself.

Indeed, uncertainty was indicated elsewhere than in his tone. It seemed to hang about him, to look from his eyes, to take form in his person.

Perhaps this was the one change wrought in him by a month's residence in America. When he arrived everything had bespoken him a man aggressively positive with the habit of being sure. His very att.i.tude, now, as he sat in Rodney Temple's office in the Harvard Gallery of Fine Arts, his hands thrust into his pockets, his legs stretched apart, his hat on the back of his head, suggested one who feels the foundations of the earth to have s.h.i.+fted.

Rodney Temple, making his arrangements for leaving for the day, met one question with another. "What do _you?_"

"You know him," Ashley urged, "and I don't."

"I thought you did. I thought you'd read him right off--as a cow-puncher."

"He looks like one, by Jove! and he speaks like one, too. You wouldn't call him a gentleman? What?"

"If you mean by a gentleman one who's always been able to take the best in the world for granted, perhaps he isn't. But that isn't our test--over here."

"Then, what is?"

"I'm not sure that I could tell you so that you'd understand--at any rate, not unless you start out with the fact that the English gentleman and the American differ not only in species, but in genus. I'd go so far as to say that they've got to be recognized by different sets of faculties. You get at your man by the eye and the ear; we have to use a subtler apparatus. If we didn't we should let a good many go uncounted.

Some of our finest are even more uncouth with their consonants than good friend Davenant. They'd drop right out of your list, but they take a high place in ours. To try to discern one by the methods created for the other is like what George Eliot says of putting on spectacles to detect odors. Ignorance of this basic social fact on both sides has given rise to much international misjudgment. See?"

"Can't say that I do."

"No, you wouldn't. But until you do you won't understand a big simple type--"