V
As the women entered a large room on the opposite side of the centralhall, where coffee was to be served, Flora Thangue laid her handdeprecatingly on Isabel's arm. "I was so sorry not to be able to waitfor you," she said. "But I had a distracted note from Vicky at eightasking me to dress as quickly as I could and see if the cards on thetable were all right: the new butler is rather a muff, and such amartinet the footmen dare not interfere. I was delighted to see thatJack had taken charge of you. What do you think of our infant prodigy?"
"I have had little chance to think anything," said Isabel, evasively."Is he the typical Englishman--I mean apart from his peculiar gifts?"
"Only in certain qualities. You see he has Celtic blood in him: ofcourse the Gwynnes had their origin in Wales; and then he is one-fourthAmerican, isn't he? I can't say how far that inheritance has influencedhis character, but there is no doubt about the Celtic. Outwardly he iseven more impassive than the usual Oxford product, and if he had beenborn a generation earlier he would have had all sorts of affectations.But affectation, thank heaven, is out of date. We wouldn't tolerate aGrandcourt five minutes. Whom should you like to talk to? You will haveenough of me."
"I am sure there is no one I shall like half so well," said Isabel,truthfully; and Flora loved her for not being gracious. "I think Ishould like to know Mrs. Kaye."
"If you ever do, please give me the benefit of your investigations.There are as many opinions of her as there are of cats. Vicky believesin her and I don't. Jack is in love with her--with certain of his Celticinstincts gone wrong."
She led Isabel over to Mrs. Kaye, who sat alone on a small sofa, sippingher coffee and absently puffing at a cigarette. She was exquisitelydressed and jewelled, and her little figure was round and symmetrical;but nothing could obscure the ignoble modelling of her face. She mighthave been misunderstood for a housemaid masquerading had it not been foran air of assured power, a repose as monumental as that of a Chinesejoss.
She had cultivated a still radiance of expression which, when shethought it worth her while, broke into a tender or brilliant smile;although even then her large, ripe mouth retained a hint of theausterity her strong will had imposed upon it--to the more completeundoing of the masculine host. She smiled graciously as Miss Thanguemurmured the introduction and moved away, but did not offer the otherhalf of the sofa, and Isabel fetched a chair.
"You are the American cousin, of course," she said, with a slight lisp."We were all talking about you down at our end of the table, but I couldnot see you until just now. I long to go to America, your novelsinterest me so much. But one is always so busy--one never gets time forthe Atlantic. Lady Victoria says you come from that wonderful country,California, but of course you know New York and Newport still better.All Americans do."
"I have never seen Newport, and passed exactly a week in New York beforesailing."
Mrs. Kaye's expressive eyes, which had dwelt on Isabel with flatteringattention, fell to the tip of her cigarette. "No? I thought that allsmart Americans came from that sacred precinct."
"I am not in the least smart. I don't really _know_ half a dozen peoplein America outside of the county in which I have spent the greater partof my life--not even in San Francisco, where I was born." Isabel heldher cigarette poised in one slender hand, letting her eyes falldeliberately on the broad back and flat nails of the exquisitely keptsection on Mrs. Kaye's lap. "So far, in my small social ventures I havefelt the necessity of little beyond good manners and a small independentincome. This is my first excursion into the great world, and of coursemy cousin is too secure in her position to care whether I am smart ornot. Miss Thangue, the only other woman I have talked with, is far tooamiable and well-bred. Am I to understand that I shall be tried by NewYork measurements and found wanting?"
"Oh no!" Mrs. Kaye's bright color had darkened. "On the contrary, theEnglish are always rather amused at American distinctions. It onlyhappens that all my friends are New-Yorkers."
She was a very clever woman, for snobbery had blunted and demoralizedonly one small chamber of her brain, and she had as comprehensive aknowledge of the world as any woman in it. Nevertheless, as her powerfulmagnetic eyes met the ingenuous orbs opposite, she was unable todetermine whether the barbed words, quivering in a sore spot, had beenuttered in innocence or intent. "Of course one doesn't meet so manyAmericans, after all. Naturally, the New-Yorkers bring the bestletters." She paused a moment as if ruminating, then delivered herselfof an epigram: "New York is the great American invention for separatingthe wheat from the tares."
"Indeed!" Isabel was too surprised to strike back.
"It is well known that it is one of the most exclusive social bodies inthe world. You have far less difficulty over here."
"That may be merely owing to the fear that affects all new socialbodies. I have the honor to know the leader of society in St. Peter--atown of ten thousand inhabitants near my own--and she is frightfullyexclusive. She is so afraid of knowing the wrong sort of people that sheis barely on nodding terms with the several thousand new-comers thathave added to the wealth and importance of the town during the last tenyears. Consequently, her circle is as dull as an Anglo-Saxon Sunday. Ifancy the same may be said of New York, for its fashionable set is notlarge and its interests are far from various. From all I have heard,London society alone is perennially interesting, and the reason is,that, absolutely secure, it keeps itself from staleness by constantlyrefreshing its veins with new blood, exclusive only againstoffensiveness. Of course you are a daughter of a duke or something," sheadded, wickedly. "Everybody here seems to be. Don't you feel that yourancestors have given you the right to know whom you please?--instead ofeternally plugging the holes in the dike."
In spite of her sharpened wits, Mrs. Kaye smiled radiantly into Isabel'sguileless eyes. "I am not the daughter of a duke; I wish I were!" sheexclaimed, with a fair assumption of aristocratic frankness. "But yourpoint is quite correct." Again she appeared to ruminate; then added:"The British aristocracy is to society what God is to theworld--all-sufficient, all-merciful, all-powerful."
"And she would sacrifice Him and all his archangels to an epigram,"thought Isabel, who was somewhat shocked. "How fearfully clever youare!" she murmured. "Do you think in epigrams?"
"Epigrams? Have I made one? I wish I could. They are immensely thefashion."
"I should think you might have set it--"
She did not finish her sentence, for the ear to which it was addressedsuddenly closed. Lady Cecilia Spence had sauntered up, and Mrs. Kayehastily made room for her on the sofa, turning a shoulder upon Isabel. Afaint change, as by the agitation of depths on the far surface ofwaters, rippled her features, and Isabel, summoning the impersonalattitude, watched her curiously. It was her first experience of the snobin a grandiose setting, but it was the type that had aroused her mostimpassioned inward protest all her life: the smallest circles have theirsnobs, and, like all the unchosen of mammon, she had had her corrodingexperiences. But her high spirit resented the power of the baserinfluences, and, with her intellect, commanded her to accept the worldwith philosophy and the unsheathed weapon of self-respect. In thepresent stage of the world's development it was to be expected that thepettier characteristics of human nature would predominate; and perhapsthe intellectually exclusive would not have it otherwise.
Mrs. Kaye, polite tolerance giving place to the accent of intimacy,began: "Oh, Lady Cecilia, have you heard--" and plunged into a piece ofgossip, no doubt of absorbing interest to those that knew thecontributory circumstances and the surnames of the actors, but to theuninitiated as puzzling as success. Lady Cecilia's eyes twinkledappreciatively, and her wells of laughter bubbled close to the surface.Isabel, completely ignored, waited until the story was finished, andthen made a deliberate move.
"How interesting!" she exclaimed. "Won't you tell me the names of thepeople?"
Mrs. Kaye, without turning her head, murmured something indistinctly,and lit another cigarette. "Won't you have a light, Lady Cecilia?" sh
easked.
"Please give me one," said Isabel, sweetly. She reached out and took thecigarette from Mrs. Kaye's faintly resisting hand. "Thank you. I am lazyabout looking for matches. Do you smoke a lot?"
But Mrs. Kaye, irritated, or having reached the conclusion that thenewcomer was not in the very least worth while, said with soft fervor toher who was: "How delightful that dear Jack was returned! Of course youare as interested in his career as the rest of us."
"I should be a good deal more so if his mother had turned him across herknee a little oftener--or if I could shake him myself occasionally."
Isabel, satisfied, more amazed than ever at the infantile ingenuousnessof the snob, rose, and was about to turn away when she met LadyCecilia's eyes. They were full of amusement, and there was no mistakingits purport. In a flash Isabel had responded with a challenge of appeal,which that accomplished dame was quick to understand.
"Please don't go," she said. "I came over here to talk to you. We areall so interested in the idea that Vicky is half an American--we hadquite forgotten it. Did you ever see any one look less as if she hadAmerican cousins than Vicky? She might easily have a whole tribe ofSpanish ones."
"Well, she has, in a way." And in response to many questions Isabelfound herself relating the story of Rezanov and Concha Argueello, whileMrs. Kaye, whatever may have been her sensations, rose with an absentsmile and composedly transferred herself to an equally distinguishedneighborhood.
"I wonder if she has ever tried to condense rudeness into an epigram,"said Isabel viciously, pausing in her narrative.
Lady Cecilia shook expressively. "At least she has not made an art ofit," she said. "They never do."
Ancestors: A Novel Page 5