The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER XXIV

MRS DOBBS BROUGHTON’S DIN­NER-​PAR­TY

Mr John Eames of the In­come-​Tax Of­fice, had in three days risen so high in that world that peo­ple in the west-​end of town, and very re­spectable peo­ple too–peo­ple liv­ing in South Kens­ing­ton, in neigh­bour­hoods not far from Bel­gravia, and in very hand­some hous­es round Bayswa­ter–were glad to ask him out to din­ner. Mon­ey had been left to him by an earl, and ru­mour had of course mag­ni­fied that mon­ey. He was a pri­vate sec­re­tary, which is in it­self a great ad­vance on be­ing a mere clerk. And he had be­come the par­tic­ular in­ti­mate friend of an artist who had pushed him­self in­to high fash­ion dur­ing the last year or two–one Con­way Dal­rym­ple, whom the rich En­glish world was be­gin­ning to pet and pelt with gilt sug­ar-​plums, and who seemed to take very kind­ly to pet­ting and gilt sug­ar-​plums. I don’t know whether the friend­ship of Con­way Dal­rym­ple had not done as much to se­cure John Eames his po­si­tion at the Bayswa­ter din­ner-​ta­bles, as had ei­ther the pri­vate sec­re­tary­ship, or the earl’s mon­ey; and yet, when they had first known each oth­er, now on­ly two or three years ago, Con­way Dal­rym­ple had been the poor­er man of the two. Some chance had brought them to­geth­er, and they had lived in the same room for near­ly two years. This ar­range­ment had been bro­ken up, and the Con­way Dal­rym­ple of these days had a stu­dio of his own, some­where near Kens­ing­ton Palace, where he paint­ed por­traits of young countess­es, and in which he had even paint­ed a young duchess. It was the pe­cu­liar mer­it of his pic­tures–so at least said the art-​lov­ing world–that though the like­ness was al­ways good, the stiff­ness of the mod­ern por­trait was nev­er there. There was al­so ev­er some sto­ry told in Dal­rym­ple’s pic­tures over and above the sto­ry of the por­trai­ture. This count­ess was drawn as a fairy with wings, that count­ess as a god­dess with a hel­met. The thing took for a time, and Con­way Dal­rym­ple was pick­ing up his gilt sug­ar-​plums with con­sid­er­able ra­pid­ity.

On a cer­tain day he and John Eames were to dine out to­geth­er at a cer­tain house in that Bayswa­ter dis­trict. It was a large man­sion, if not made of stone yet look­ing very stony, with thir­ty win­dows at least, all of them with cut-​stone frames, re­quir­ing, let me say, at least four thou­sand a year for its main­te­nance. And its own­er, Dobbs Broughton, a man very well known both in the City and over the grass in Northamp­ton­shire, was sup­posed to have a good deal more than four thou­sand a year. Mrs Dobbs Broughton, a very beau­ti­ful wom­an, who cer­tain­ly was not yet thir­ty-​five, let her worst en­emies say what they might, had been paint­ed by Con­way Dal­rym­ple as a Grace. There were, of course, three Graces in the pic­ture, but each Grace was Mrs Dobbs Broughton re­peat­ed. We all know how Graces stand some­times; two Graces look­ing one way, and one the oth­er. In this pic­ture, Mrs Dobbs Broughton as cen­tre Grace looked you full in the face. For this pret­ty toy Mr Con­way Dal­rym­ple had picked up a gilt sug­ar-​plum to the tune of six hun­dred pounds, and had, more­over, won the heart of both Mr and Mrs Dobbs Broughton. ‘Up­on my word, John­ny,’ Dal­rym­ple had said to his friend, ‘he’s a deuced good fel­low, has re­al­ly a good glass of claret–which is get­ting rar­er and rar­er ev­ery day–and will mount you for a day, when­ev­er you please, down Mar­ket Har­boro’. Come and dine with them.’ John­ny Eames con­de­scend­ed, and did go and dine with Mr Dobbs Broughton. I won­der whether he re­mem­bered, when Con­way Dal­rym­ple was talk­ing of the rar­ity of good claret, how much beer the young painter used to drink when they were out to­geth­er in the coun­try, as they used to do oc­ca­sion­al­ly, three years ago; and how the painter had then been used to com­plain that bit­ter cost three­pence a glass, in­stead of twopence, which had hith­er­to been the recog­nised price of the ar­ti­cle. In those days the sug­ar-​plums had not been gilt, and had been much rar­er.

John­ny Eames and his friend went to­geth­er to the house of Mr Dobbs Broughton. As Dal­rym­ple lived close to the Broughtons, Eames picked him up in a cab. ‘Filthy things, these cabs are,’ said Dal­rym­ple, as he got in­to the han­som.

‘I don’t know about that,’ said John­ny. ‘They’re pret­ty good, I think.’

‘Foul things,’ said Con­way. ‘Don’t you feel what a draught comes in here be­cause the glass is cracked. I’d have one of my own, on­ly I should nev­er know what to do with it.’

‘The great­est nui­sance on earth, I should think,’ said John­ny.

‘If you could al­ways have it stand­ing ready round the cor­ner,’ said the artist, ‘it would be de­light­ful. But one would want half-​a-​dozen hors­es, and two or three men for that.’

‘I think the stands are the best,’ said John­ny.

They were a lit­tle late–a lit­tle lat­er than they should have been had they con­sid­ered that Eames was to be in­tro­duced to his new ac­quain­tances. But he had al­ready lived long enough be­fore the world to be quite at his ease in such cir­cum­stances, and he en­tered Mrs Broughton’s draw­ing-​room with his pleas­an­test smile up­on his face. But as he en­tered he saw a sight which made him look se­ri­ous in spite of his ef­forts to the con­trary. Mr Adol­phus Cros­bie, sec­re­tary to the Board at the Gen­er­al Com­mit­tee Of­fice, was stand­ing on the rug be­fore the fire.

‘Who will be there?’ Eames had asked of his friend, when the sug­ges­tion to go and dine with Dobbs Broughton had been made to him.

‘Im­pos­si­ble to say,’ Con­way had replied. ‘A cer­tain hor­ri­ble fel­low by the name of Mus­sel­bro, will al­most cer­tain­ly be there. He al­ways is when they have any­thing of a swell din­ner-​par­ty. He is a sort of part­ner of Broughton’s in the City. He wears a lot of chains, and has elab­orate whiskers, and an elab­orate waist­coat, which is worse; and he doesn’t wash his hands as of­ten as he ought to do.’

‘An ob­jec­tion­able par­ty, rather, I should say,’ said Eames.

‘Well, yes; Mus­sel­bro is ob­jec­tion­able. He’s very good-​hu­moured you know, and good-​look­ing in a sort of way, and goes ev­ery­where; that is among peo­ple of this sort. Of course he’s not hand-​and-​glove with Lord Der­by; and I wish he could be made to wash his hands. They haven’t any oth­er stand­ing dish, and you may meet any­body. They al­ways have a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment; they gen­er­al­ly man­age to catch a Baronet; and I have met a Peer there. On that au­gust oc­ca­sion Mus­sel­bro was ab­sent.’

So in­struct­ed, Eames, on en­ter­ing that room, looked round at once for Mr Mus­sel­bro. ‘If I don’t see the whiskers and chain,’ he had said, I shall know there’s a Peer.’ Mr Mus­sel­bro was in the room, but Eames had de­scried Mr Cros­bie long be­fore he had seen Mr Mus­sel­bro.

There was no rea­son for con­fu­sion on his part in meet­ing Cros­bie. They had both loved Lily Dale. Cros­bie might have been suc­cess­ful, but for his own fault. Eames had on one oc­ca­sion been thrown in­to con­tact with him, and on that oc­ca­sion had quar­relled with him and had beat­en him, giv­ing him a black eye, and in this way ob­tained some mas­tery over him. There was no rea­son why he should be ashamed of meet­ing Cros­bie; and yet, when he saw him, the blood mount­ed all over his face, and he for­got to make any fur­ther search for Mr Mus­sel­bro.

‘I am so much obliged to Mr Dal­rym­ple for bring­ing you,’ said Mrs Dobbs Broughton very sweet­ly, ‘on­ly he ought to have come soon­er. Naughty man! I know it was his fault. Will you take Miss De­mo­lines down? Miss De­mo­lines–Mr Eames.’

Mr Dobbs Broughton was some­what sulky and had not wel­comed our hero very cor­dial­ly. He was be­gin­ning to think that Con­way gave him­self airs and did not suf­fi­cient­ly un­der­stand that a man who had hors­es at Mar­ket Har­boro’ and ‘41 Lafitte was at any rate as good as a painter who was pelt­ed with gilt sug­ar-​plums for paint­ing countess­es. But he was a man whose ill-​hu­mour nev­er last­ed long, and he was soon press­ing his wine on John­ny Eames as though he loved him dear­ly.

But there was a few min­utes be­fore they went down to din­ner, and John­ny Eames, as he en­deav­oured to find some­thing to say to Miss De­mo­lines–which was dif­fi­cult, as he did not in the least know Miss De­mo­lines’ line of con­ver­sa­tion–was aware that his ef­forts were im­ped­ed by thoughts of Mr Cros­bie. The man looked old­er than when he had last seen him–so much old­er that Eames was as­ton­ished. He was bald, or be­com­ing bald; and his whiskers were grey, or were be­com­ing grey, and he was much fat­ter. John­ny Eames, who was al­ways think­ing of Lily Dale, could not now keep him­self from think­ing of Adol­phus Cros­bie. He saw at a glance that the man was in mourn­ing, though there was noth­ing but his shirt-​studs by which to tell it; and he knew that he was in mourn­ing for his wife. ‘I wish she might have lived for ev­er,’ John­ny said to him­self.

He had not yet been def­inite­ly called up­on by the en­trance of the ser­vant to of­fer his arm to Miss De­mo­lines, when Cros­bie walked across to him from the rug and ad­dressed him.

‘Mr Eames,’ said he, ‘it is some time since we met.’ And he of­fered his hand to John­ny.

‘Yes, it is’ said John­ny, ac­cept­ing the prof­fered salu­ta­tion. ‘I don’t know ex­act­ly how long, but ev­er so long.’

‘I am very glad to have the op­por­tu­ni­ty of shak­ing hands with you,’ said Cros­bie; and then he re­tired, as it had be­come his du­ty to wait with his arm ready for Mrs Dobbs Broughton. Hav­ing mar­ried an earl’s daugh­ter he was se­lect­ed for that hon­our. There was a bar­ris­ter in the room, and Mrs Dobbs Broughton ought to have known bet­ter. As she pro­fessed to be guid­ed in such mat­ters by the rules laid down by the recog­nised au­thor­ities, she ought to have been aware that a man takes no rank from his wife. But she was en­ti­tled I think to mer­ci­ful con­sid­er­ation for her er­ror. A wom­an sit­uat­ed as was Mrs Dobbs Broughton can­not al­to­geth­er ig­nore these ter­ri­ble rules. She can­not let her guests draw lots for prece­dence. She must se­lect some­one for the hon­our of her arm. And amidst the in­tri­ca­cies of rank how is it pos­si­ble for wom­an to learn and to re­mem­ber ev­ery­thing? If Prov­idence would on­ly send Mrs Dobbs Broughton a Peer for ev­ery din­ner-​par­ty, the thing would go more eas­ily; but what wom­an will tell me, off-​hand, which should go out of a room first; a C.B., and Ad­mi­ral of the Blue, the Dean of Barch­ester, or the Dean of Arch­es? Who is to know who was ev­ery­body’s fa­ther? How am I to re­mem­ber that young Thomp­son’s pro­gen­itor was made a baronet and not a knight when he was Lord May­or? Per­haps Mrs Dobbs Broughton ought to have known that Mr Cros­bie could have gained noth­ing by his wife’s rank, and the bar­ris­ter may be con­sid­ered to have been not im­mod­er­ate­ly se­vere when he sim­ply spoke of her af­ter­wards as the sil­li­est and most ig­no­rant old wom­an he had ev­er met in his life. Eames with the love­ly Miss De­mo­lines on his arm was the last to move be­fore the host­ess. Mr Dobbs Broughton had led the way en­er­get­ical­ly with old La­dy De­mo­lines. There was no doubt about La­dy De­mo­lines–as his wife had told him, be­cause her ti­tle marked her. Her hus­band had been a physi­cian in Paris, and had been knight­ed in con­se­quence of some ben­efit sup­posed to have been done to some French scion of roy­al­ty–when such scions in France were roy­al and not im­pe­ri­al. La­dy De­mo­lines’ rank was not much cer­tain­ly; but it served to mark her, and was ben­efi­cial.

As he went down­stairs Eames was still think­ing of his meet­ing with Cros­bie, and had as yet hard­ly said a word to his neigh­bour, and his neigh­bour had not said a word to him. Now John­ny un­der­stood din­ners quite well enough to know that in a par­ty of twelve, among whom six are ladies, ev­ery­thing de­pends of your next neigh­bour, and gen­er­al­ly on the next neigh­bour who spe­cial­ly be­longs to you; and as he took his seat he was a lit­tle alarmed as to his prospect for the next two hours. On his oth­er hand sat Mrs Pon­son­by, the bar­ris­ter’s wife, and he did not much like the look of Mrs Pon­son­by. She was fat, heavy, and good-​look­ing; with a broad space be­tween her eyes, and light smooth hair;–a youth­ful British ma­tron ev­ery inch of her, of whom any bar­ris­ter with a young fam­ily of chil­dren might be proud. Now Miss De­mo­lines, though she was hard­ly to be called beau­ti­ful, was at any rate re­mark­able. She had large, dark, well-​shaped eyes, and very dark hair, which she wore tan­gled about in an ex­traor­di­nary man­ner, and she had an ex­pres­sive face–a face made ex­pres­sive by the own­er’s will. Such pow­er of ex­pres­sion is of­ten at­tained by dint of labour–though it nev­er reach­es to the ex­pres­sion of any­thing in par­tic­ular. She was al­most suf­fi­cient­ly good-​look­ing to be jus­ti­fied in con­sid­er­ing her­self a beau­ty.

But Miss De­mo­lines, though she had said noth­ing as yet, knew her game very well. A la­dy can­not be­gin con­ver­sa­tion to any good pur­pose in the draw­ing-​room, when she is seat­ed and the man is stand­ing;–nor can she know then how the ta­ble may sub­se­quent­ly ar­range it­self. Pow­der may be wast­ed, and of­ten is wast­ed, and the spir­it rebels against the ne­ces­si­ty of com­menc­ing a sec­ond en­ter­prise. But Miss De­mo­lines, when she found her­self seat­ed, and per­ceived that on the oth­er side of her was Mr Pon­son­by, a mar­ried man, com­menced her en­ter­prise at once, and our friend John Eames was im­me­di­ate­ly aware that he would have no dif­fi­cul­ty as to con­ver­sa­tion.

‘Don’t you like win­ter din­ner-​par­ties?’ be­gan Miss De­mo­lines. This was said just as John­ny was tak­ing his seat, and he had time to de­clare that he liked din­ner-​par­ties at all pe­ri­ods of the year if the din­ner was good and the peo­ple pleas­ant be­fore the host had mut­tered some­thing which was in­tend­ed to be un­der­stood to be a grace. ‘But I mean spe­cial­ly the win­ter,’ con­tin­ued Miss De­mo­lines. ‘I don’t think day­light should ev­er be ad­mit­ted at a din­ner-​ta­ble; and though you may shut out the day­light, you can’t shut out the heat. And then there are al­ways so many oth­er things to go to in May and June and Ju­ly. Din­ners should be stopped by Act of Par­lia­ment for those three months. I don’t care what peo­ple do af­ter­wards, be­cause we al­ways fly away on the first of Au­gust.’

‘That is good-​na­tured on your part.’

‘I’m sure what I say would be for the good of so­ci­ety;–but at this time of the year a din­ner is warm and com­fort­able.’

‘Very com­fort­able, I think.’

‘And peo­ple get to know each oth­er’;–in say­ing which Miss De­mo­lines looked very pleas­ant­ly in­to John­ny’s face.

‘There is a great deal in that,’ said he. ‘I won­der whether you and I will get to know each oth­er.’

‘Of course we shall;–that is, if I’m worth know­ing.’

‘There can be no doubt about that, I should say.’

‘Time alone can tell. But, Mr Eames, I see that Mr Cros­bie is a friend of yours.’

‘Hard­ly a friend.’

‘I know very well that men are friends when they step up and shake hands with each oth­er. It is the same when wom­en kiss.’

‘When I see wom­en kiss, I al­ways think there is deep ha­tred at the bot­tom of it.’

‘And there may be deep ha­tred be­tween you and Mr Cros­bie for any­thing I know to the con­trary,’ said Miss De­mo­lines.

‘The very deep­est,’ said John­ny, pre­tend­ing to look grave.

‘Ah; then I know he is your bo­som friend, and that you will tell him any­thing I say. What a strange his­to­ry that was of his mar­riage.’

‘So I have heard;–but he is not quite bo­som friend enough with me to have told me all the par­tic­ulars. I know that his wife is dead.’

‘Dead; oh, yes; she has been dead these two years I should say.’

‘Not so long as that, I should think.’

‘Well–per­haps not. But it’s ev­er so long ago;–quite long enough for him to be mar­ried again. Did you know her?’

‘I nev­er saw her in my life.’

‘I knew her–not well in­deed; but I am in­ti­mate with her sis­ter, La­dy Amelia Gaze­bee, and I have met her there. None of that fam­ily have mar­ried what you may call well. And now, Mr Eames, pray look at the menu and tell me what I am to eat. Ar­range for me a lit­tle din­ner of my own, out of the great bill of fare pro­vid­ed. I al­ways ex­pect some gen­tle­man to do that for me. Mr Cros­bie, you know, on­ly lived with his wife for one month.’

‘So I’ve been told.’

‘And a ter­ri­ble month they had of it. I used to hear of it. He doesn’t look that sort of man, does he?’

‘Well;–no. I don’t think he does. But what sort of man do you mean?’

‘Why, such a reg­ular Blue­beard! Of course you know how he treat­ed an­oth­er girl be­fore he mar­ried La­dy Alexan­dri­na. She died of it–with a bro­ken heart; ab­so­lute­ly died; and there he is, in­dif­fer­ent as pos­si­ble;–and would treat me in the same way to­mor­row if I would let him.’

John­ny Eames, find­ing it im­pos­si­ble to talk to Miss De­mo­lines about Lily Dale, took up the card of the din­ner and went to work in earnest, rec­om­mend­ing his neigh­bour what to eat and what to pass by. ‘But you have skipped the pate?’ said she, with en­er­gy.

‘Al­low me to ask you to choose mine for me in­stead. You are much more fit to do it.’ And she did choose his din­ner for him.

They were sit­ting at a round ta­ble, and in or­der that the ladies and gen­tle­men should al­ter­nate them­selves prop­er­ly, Mr Mus­sel­boro was op­po­site to the host. Next to him on his right was old Mrs Van Siev­er, the wid­ow of a Dutch mer­chant, who was very rich. She was a ghast­ly thing to look at, as well from the quan­ti­ty as from the na­ture of the wig­geries she wore. She had not on­ly a false front, but long false curls, as to which it can­not be con­ceived that she would sup­pose that any­one would be ig­no­rant as to their false­ness. She was very thin, too, and very small, and putting aside her wig­geries, you would think her to be all eyes. She was a ghast­ly old wom­an to the sight, and not al­to­geth­er pleas­ant in her mode of talk­ing. She seemed to know Mr Mus­sel­boro very well, for she called him by his name with­out any pre­fix. He had, in­deed, be­gun life as a clerk in her hus­band’s of­fice.

‘Why doesn’t What’s-​his-​name have re­al sil­ver forks?’ she said to him. Now Mrs What’s-​his-​name–Mrs Dobbs Broughton we will call her–was sit­ting on the oth­er side of Mr Mus­sel­boro, be­tween him and Mr Cros­bie; and, so placed, Mr Mus­sel­boro found it rather hard to an­swer the ques­tion, more es­pe­cial­ly as he was prob­ably aware that oth­er ques­tions would fol­low.

‘What’s the use?’ said Mr Mus­sel­boro. ‘Ev­ery­body has these plat­ed things now. What’s the use of a lot of cap­ital ly­ing dead?’

‘Ev­ery­body doesn’t. I don’t. You know as well as I do, Mus­sel­boro, that the ap­pear­ance of the thing goes for a great deal. Cap­ital isn’t ly­ing dead as long as peo­ple know that you’ve got it.’

Be­fore an­swer­ing this Mr Mus­sel­boro was driv­en to re­flect that Mrs Dobbs Broughton would prob­ably hear his re­ply. ‘You won’t find that there is any doubt on that head in the City as to Broughton,’ he said.

‘I shan’t ask in the City, and if I did, I should not be­lieve what peo­ple told me. I think there are sil­li­er folks in the City than any­where else. What did he give for that pic­ture up­stairs which the young man paint­ed?’

‘What, Mrs Dobbs Broughton’s por­trait?’

‘You don’t call that a por­trait, do you? I mean the one with the three naked wom­en?’ Mr Mus­sel­boro glanced around with one eye, and felt sure that Mrs Dobbs Broughton had heard the ques­tion. But the old wom­an was de­ter­mined to have an an­swer. ‘How much did he give for it, Mus­sel­boro?’

‘Six hun­dred pounds, I be­lieve,’ said Mr Mus­sel­boro, look­ing straight be­fore him as he an­swered, and pre­tend­ing to treat the sub­ject with per­fect in­dif­fer­ence.

‘Did he in­deed, now? Six hun­dred pounds! And yet he hasn’t got sil­ver spoons. How things are changed! Tell me, Mus­sel­boro, who was that young man who came in with the painter?’

Mr Mus­sel­boro turned round and asked Mrs Dobbs Broughton. ‘A Mr John Eames, Mrs Van Siev­er,’ said Mrs Dobbs Broughton, whis­per­ing across the front of Mr Mus­sel­boro. ‘He is pri­vate sec­re­tary to Lord–Lord–Lord I for­get who. Some one of the Min­is­ters, I know. And he had a great for­tune left him the oth­er day by Lord–Lord–Lord some­body else.’

‘All among the lords, I see,’ said Mrs Van Siev­er. Then Mrs Dobbs Broughton drew her­self back, re­mem­ber­ing some lit­tle at­tack which had been made on her by Mrs Van Siev­er when she her­self had had the re­al lord to dine with her.

There was a Miss Van Siev­er there al­so, sit­ting be­tween Cros­bie and Con­way Dal­rym­ple. Con­way Dal­rym­ple had been spe­cial­ly brought there to sit next to Miss Van Siev­er. ‘There’s no know­ing how much she’ll have,’ said Mrs Dobbs Broughton, in the warmth of their friend­ship. ‘But it’s all re­al. It is, in­deed. The moth­er is aw­ful­ly rich.’

‘But she’s aw­ful in an­oth­er way, too,’ said Dal­rym­ple.

‘In­deed she is, Con­way.’ Mrs Dobbs Broughton had got in­to a way of call­ing her young friend by his Chris­tian name. ‘All the world calls him Con­way,’ she had said to her hus­band once when her hus­band had caught her do­ing so. ‘She is aw­ful. Her hus­band made the busi­ness in the City, when things were very dif­fer­ent from what they are now, and I can’t help hav­ing her. She has trans­ac­tions of busi­ness with Dobbs. But there’s no mis­take about the mon­ey.’

‘She needn’t leave it to her daugh­ter, I sup­pose?’

‘But why shouldn’t she? She has no­body else. You might of­fer to paint her, you know. She’d make an ex­cel­lent pic­ture. So much char­ac­ter. You come and see her.’

Con­way Dal­rym­ple had ex­pressed his will­ing­ness to meet Miss Van Siev­er, say­ing some­thing, how­ev­er, as to his present po­si­tion be­ing one which did not ad­mit of any mat­ri­mo­ni­al spec­ula­tion. Then Mrs Dobbs Broughton had told him, with much se­ri­ous­ness, that he was al­to­geth­er wrong, and that were he to for­get him­self, or com­mit him­self, or mis­be­have him­self, there must be an end to their pleas­ant in­ti­ma­cy. In an­swer to which, Mr Dal­rym­ple had said that his Grace was sure­ly of all Graces the least gra­cious. And now he had come to meet Miss Van Siev­er, and was now seat­ed next to her at ta­ble.

Miss Van Siev­er, who at this time had per­haps reached her twen­ty-​fifth year, was cer­tain­ly a hand­some young wom­an. She was fair and large, bear­ing no like­ness what­ev­er to her moth­er. Her fea­tures were reg­ular, and her full, clear eyes had a bril­liance of their own, look­ing at you al­ways stead­fast­ly and bold­ly, though very sel­dom pleas­ant­ly. Her mouth would have been beau­ti­ful had it not been too strong for fem­inine beau­ty. Her teeth were per­fect–too per­fect–look­ing like minia­ture walls of carved ivory. She knew the fault of this per­fec­tion, and showed her teeth as lit­tle as she could. Her nose and chin were fine­ly chis­elled, and her head stood well up­on her shoul­ders. But there was some­thing hard about it all which re­pelled you. Dal­rym­ple, when he saw her, re­coiled from her, not out­ward­ly, but in­ward­ly. Yes, she was hand­some, as may be horse or a tiger; but there was about her noth­ing of fem­inine soft­ness. He could not bring him­self to think of tak­ing Clara Van Siev­er as the mod­el that was to sit be­fore him for the rest of his life. He cer­tain­ly could make a pic­ture of her, as had been sug­gest­ed by his friend, Mrs Broughton, but it must be as Ju­dith with the dis­sev­ered head, or as Jael us­ing her ham­mer over the tem­ple of Sis­era. Yes–he thought she would do as Jael; and if Mrs Van Siev­er would throw him a sug­ar-​plum–for he would want the sug­ar-​plum, see­ing that any oth­er re­sult was out of the ques­tion–the thing might be done. Such was the idea of Mr Con­way Dal­rym­ple re­spect­ing Miss Van Siev­er–be­fore he led her down to din­ner.

At first he found it hard to talk to her. She an­swered him, and not with mono­syl­la­bles. But she an­swered him with­out sym­pa­thy, or ap­par­ent plea­sure in talk­ing. Now the young artist was in the habit of be­ing flat­tered by ladies, and ex­pect­ed to have his small talk made very easy for him. He liked to give him­self lit­tle airs, and was not gen­er­al­ly dis­posed to labour very hard at the task of mak­ing him­self agree­able.

‘Were you ev­er paint­ed yet?’ he asked af­ter they had both been sit­ting silent for two or three min­utes.

‘Was I ev­er–paint­ed? In what way?’

‘I don’t mean rouged, or enam­elled, or got up by Madame Rachel; but have you ev­er had your por­trait tak­en?’

‘I have been pho­tographed of course.’

‘That’s why I asked you if you had been paint­ed–so as to make some lit­tle dis­tinc­tion be­tween the two. I am a painter by pro­fes­sion, and do por­traits.’

‘So Mrs Broughton told me.’

‘I am not ask­ing for a job, you know.’

‘I am quite sure of that.’

‘But I should have thought you would have been sure to have sat to some­body.’

‘I nev­er did. I nev­er thought of do­ing so. One does those things at the in­sti­ga­tion of one’s in­ti­mate friends–fa­thers, moth­ers, un­cles, and aunts and the like.’

‘Or hus­bands, per­haps–or lovers?’

‘Well, yes; my in­ti­mate friend is my moth­er, and she would nev­er dream of such a thing. She hates pic­tures.’

‘Hates pic­tures!’

‘And es­pe­cial­ly por­traits. And I’m afraid, Mr Dal­rym­ple, she hates artists.’

‘Good heav­ens; how cru­el! I sup­pose there is some sto­ry at­tached to it. There has been some fa­tal like­ness–some ter­ri­ble pic­ture–some­thing in her ear­ly days.’

‘Noth­ing of the kind, Mr Dal­rym­ple. It is mere­ly the fact that her sym­pa­thies are with ug­ly things, rather than with pret­ty things. I think she loves the ma­hogany din­ner-​ta­ble bet­ter than any­thing else in the house; and she likes to have ev­ery­thing dark, and plain, and sol­id.’

‘And good?’

‘Good of its kind, cer­tain­ly.’

‘If ev­ery­one was like your moth­er, how would the artist live?’

‘There would be none.’

‘And the world, you think, would be none the poor­er?’

‘I did not speak for my­self. I think the world would be very much the poor­er. I am very fond of an­cient mas­ters, though I do not sup­pose that I un­der­stand them.’

‘They are eas­ier un­der­stood than the mod­ern, I can tell you. Per­haps you don’t care for mod­ern pic­tures?’

‘Not in com­par­ison, cer­tain­ly. If that is un­civ­il, you have brought it on your­self. But I do not in truth mean any­thing deroga­to­ry to the painters of the day. When their pic­tures are old, they–that is the good ones among them–will be nice al­so.’

‘Pic­tures are like wine, and want age, you think?’

‘Yes, and stat­ues too, and build­ings above all things. The colours of new paint­ings are so glar­ing, and the faces are so bright and self-​con­scious, that they look to me when I go to the ex­hi­bi­tion like coloured prints in a child’s new pic­ture-​book. It is the same thing with build­ings. One sees all the points, and noth­ing is left to the imag­ina­tion.’

‘I find I have come across a re­al crit­ic.’

‘I hope so, at any rate, I am not a sham one’ and Miss Van Siev­er as she said this looked very sav­age.

‘I shouldn’t take you to be sham in any­thing.’

‘Ah, that would be say­ing a great deal for my­self. Who can un­der­take to say that he is not a sham in any­thing?’

As she said this the ladies were get­ting up. So Miss Van Siev­er al­so got up, and left Mr Con­way Dal­rym­ple to con­sid­er whether he could say or could think of him­self that he was not a sham in any­thing. As re­gard­ed Miss Clara Van Siev­er, he be­gan to think that he could not ob­ject to paint her por­trait, even though there might be no sug­ar-​plum. He would cer­tain­ly do it as Jael; and he would, if he dared, in­sert dim­ly in the back­ground some idea of the face of the moth­er, half-​ap­pear­ing, half-​van­ish­ing, as the spir­it of the sac­ri­fice. He was com­pos­ing the pic­ture, while Mr Dobbs Broughton was ar­rang­ing him­self and his bot­tles.

‘Mus­sel­boro,’ he said, ‘I’ll come up be­tween you and Cros­bie. Mr Eames, though I run away from you, the claret shall re­main; or, rather, it shall flow back­wards and for­wards as rapid­ly as you will.’

‘I’ll keep it mov­ing,’ said John­ny.

‘Do; there’s a good fel­low. It’s a nice glass of wine isn’t it? Old Rams­by, who keeps as good a stock of stuff as any wine-​mer­chant in Lon­don, gave me a hint, three or four years ago, that he’d a lot of tidy Bor­deaux. It’s ‘41, you know. He had nine­ty dozen, and I took it all.’

‘What was the fig­ure, Broughton?’ said Cros­bie, ask­ing the ques­tion which he knew was ex­pect­ed.

‘Well, I on­ly gave one hun­dred and four for it then; it’s worth a hun­dred and twen­ty now. I wouldn’t sell a bot­tle of it for any mon­ey. Come, Dal­rym­ple, pass it round; but fill your glass first.’

‘Thank you, no; I don’t like it. I’ll drink sher­ry.’

‘Don’t like it!’ said Dobbs Broughton.

‘It’s strange, isn’t it? But I don’t.’

‘I thought you par­tic­ular­ly told me to drink his claret?’ said John­ny to his friend af­ter­wards.

‘So I did,’ said Con­way; ‘and won­der­ful­ly good wine it is. But I make it a rule nev­er to eat or drink any­thing in a man’s house when he prais­es him­self and tells me the price of it.’

‘And I make it a rule nev­er to cut the nose off my own face,’ said John­ny.

Be­fore he went, John­ny Eames had been spe­cial­ly in­vit­ed to call on La­dy De­mo­lines, and had said that he would do so. ‘We live in Porch­ester Gar­dens,’ said Miss De­mo­lines. ‘Up­on my word, I be­lieve that the far­ther Lon­don stretch­es in that di­rec­tion, the far­ther mam­ma will go. She thinks the air so much bet­ter. I know it’s a long way.’

‘Dis­tance is noth­ing to me,’ said John­ny; ‘I can al­ways set off over night.

Con­way Dal­rym­ple did not get in­vit­ed to call on Mrs Van Siev­er, but be­fore he left the house he did say a word or two more to his friend Mrs Broughton as to Clara Van Siev­er. ‘She is a fine young wom­an,’ he said; ’she is in­deed.’

‘You have found it out, have you?’

‘Yes; I have found it out. I do not doubt that some day she’ll mur­der her hus­band or her moth­er, or star­tle the world by some new­ly-​in­vent­ed crime; but that on­ly makes her the more in­ter­est­ing.’

‘And when you add to that all the old wom­an’s mon­ey,’ said Mrs Dobbs Broughton, ‘you think that she might do?’

‘For a pic­ture, cer­tain­ly. I’m speak­ing of her sim­ply as a mod­el. Could we not man­age it? Get her once here, with­out her moth­er know­ing it, or Broughton, or any­one. I’ve got the sub­ject–Jael and Sis­era, you know. I should like to put Mus­sel­boro in as Sis­era, with the nail half driv­en in.’ Mrs Dobbs Broughton de­clared that the scheme was a great deal too wicked for her par­tic­ipa­tion, but at last she promised to think of it.

‘You might as well come up and have a cigar,’ Dal­rym­ple said, as he and his friend left Mrs Broughton’s house. John­ny said that he would go up and have a cigar or two. ‘And now tell me what you think of Mrs Dobbs Broughton and her set,’ said Con­way.

‘Well; I’ll tell you what I think of them. I think they stink of mon­ey, as peo­ple say; but I’m not sure that they’ve got any all the same.’

‘I should sup­pose he makes a large in­come.’

‘Very like­ly, and per­haps spends more than he makes. A good deal of it looked to me like make-​be­lieve. There’s no doubt about the claret, but the cham­pagne was ex­ecrable. A man is a crim­inal to have such stuff hand­ed round to his guests. And there isn’t the ring of re­al gold about the house.’

‘I hate the ring of gold, as you call it,’ said the artist.

‘So do I–I hate it like poi­son; but if it is there, I like it to be true. There is a sort of per­sons go­ing now–and one meets them out here and there ev­ery day in one’s life–who are down­right Brum­magem as such at the very first mo­ment. My hon­oured lord and mas­ter, Sir Raf­fle, is one such. There is no mis­tak­ing him. Clap him down up­on the counter, and he rings dull and un­true at once. Par­don me, my dear Con­way, if I say the same of your ex­cel­lent friend Mr Dobbs Broughton.’

‘I think you go a lit­tle too far, but I don’t de­ny it. What you mean is, that he’s not a gen­tle­man.’

‘I mean a great deal more than that. Bless you, when you come to talk of a gen­tle­man, who is to de­fine the word? How do I know whether or no I’m a gen­tle­man my­self? When I used to be in Bur­ton Cres­cent, I was hard­ly a gen­tle­men then–sit­ting at the same ta­ble with Mrs Rop­er and the Lu­pex­es;–do you re­mem­ber them, and the love­ly Amelia?’

‘I sup­pose you were a gen­tle­man, then, as well as now?’

‘You, if you had been paint­ing duchess­es then, with a stu­dio in Kens­ing­ton Gar­dens, would have said so, if you had hap­pened to come across me. I can’t de­fine a gen­tle­man, even in my own mind;–but I can de­fine a man with whom I think I can live pleas­ant­ly.’

‘And poor Dobbs doesn’t come with­in the line?’

‘N-o, not quite; a very nice fel­low, I’m quite sure, and I’m very much obliged to you for tak­ing me there.’

‘I nev­er will take you to any house again. And what did you think of the wife?’

‘That’s a horse of an­oth­er colour al­to­geth­er. A pret­ty wom­an with such a fine fig­ure as hers has got a right to be any­thing she pleas­es. I see you are a great favourite.’

‘No, I’m not;–not es­pe­cial­ly. I do like her. She wants to make up a match be­tween me and that Miss Van Siev­er. Miss Van is to have gold by the in­got, and jew­els by the bushel, and a hat­ful of back shares, and a whole mine in Corn­wall, for her for­tune.’

‘And is very hand­some in­to the bar­gain.’

‘Yes; she’s hand­some.’

‘So is her moth­er,’ said John­ny. ‘If you take the daugh­ter, I’ll take the moth­er, and see if I can’t do you out of a mine or two. Good-​night, old fel­low. I’m on­ly jok­ing about old Dobbs. I’ll go and dine there again to­mor­row, if you like it.’