IV
GARNETT had always foreseen that Mrs. Newell might some day ask him
to do something he should greatly dislike. He had never gone so far
as to conjecture what it might be, but had simply felt that if he
allowed his acquaintance with her to pass from spectatorship to
participation he must be prepared to find himself, at any moment, in
a queer situation.
The moment had come; and he was relieved to find that he could meet
it by refusing her request. He had not always been sure that she
would leave him this alternative. She had a way of involving people
in her complications without their being aware of it, and Garnett
had pictured himself in holes so tight that there might not be room
for a wriggle. Happily in this case he could still move freely.
Nothing compelled him to act as an intermediary between Mrs. Newell
and her husband, and it was preposterous to suppose that, even in a
life of such perpetual upheaval as hers, there were no roots which
struck deeper than her casual intimacy with himself. She had simply
laid hands on him because he happened to be within reach, and he
would put himself out of reach by leaving for London on the morrow.
Having thus inwardly asserted his independence, he felt free to let
his fancy dwell on the strangeness of the situation. He had always
supposed that Mrs. Newell, in her flight through life, must have
thrown a good many victims to the wolves, and had assumed that Mr.
Newell had been among the number. That he had been dropped overboard
at an early stage in the lady's career seemed probable from the fact
that neither his wife nor his daughter ever mentioned him. Mrs.
Newell was incapable of reticence, and if her husband had still been
an active element in her life he would certainly have figured in her
conversation. Garnett, if he thought of the matter at all, had
concluded that divorce must long since have eliminated Mr. Newell;
but he now saw how he had underrated his friend's faculty for using
up the waste material of life. She had always struck him as the most
extravagant of women, yet it turned out that by a miracle of thrift
she had for years kept a superfluous husband on the chance that he
might some day be useful to her. The day had come, and Mr. Newell
was to be called from his obscurity. Garnett wondered what had
become of him in the interval, and in what shape he would respond to
the evocation. The fact that his wife feared he might not respond to
it at all, seemed to show that his exile was voluntary, or had at
least come to appear preferable to other alternatives; but if that
were the case it was curious that he should not have taken legal
means to free himself. He could hardly have had his wife's motives
for wishing to maintain the vague tie between them; but conjecture
lost itself in trying to picture what his point of view was likely
to be, and Garnett, on his way to the Hubbards' dinner that evening,
could not help regretting that circumstances denied him the
opportunity of meeting so enigmatic a person. The young man's
knowledge of Mrs. Newell's methods made him feel that her husband
might be an interesting study. This, however, did not affect his
resolve to keep clear of the business. He entered the Hubbards'
dining-room with the firm intention of refusing to execute Mrs.
Newell's commission, and if he changed his mind in the course of the
evening it was not owing to that lady's persuasions.
Garnett's curiosity as to the Hubbards' share in Hermione's marriage
was appeased before he had been seated five minutes at their table.
Mrs. Woolsey Hubbard was an expansive blonde, whose ample but
disciplined outline seemed the result of a well-matched struggle
between her cook and her corset-maker. She talked a great deal of
what was appropriate in dress and conduct, and seemed to regard Mrs.
Newell as a final arbiter on both points. To do or to wear anything
inappropriate would have been extremely mortifying to Mrs. Hubbard,
and she was evidently resolved, at the price of eternal vigilance,
to prove her familiarity with what she frequently referred to as
"the right thing." Mr. Hubbard appeared to have no such
preoccupations. Garnett, if called upon to describe him, would have
done so by saying that he was the American who always pays. The
young man, in the course of his foreign wanderings, had come across
many fellow-citizens of Mr. Hubbard's type, in the most diverse
company and surroundings; and wherever they were to be found, they
always had their hands in their pockets. Mr. Hubbard's standard of
gentility was the extent of a man's capacity to "foot the bill"; and
as no one but an occasional compatriot cared to dispute the
privilege with him, he seldom had reason to doubt his social
superiority.
Garnett, nevertheless, did not believe that this lavish pair were,
as Mrs. Newell would have phrased it, "putting up" Hermione's _dot_.
They would go very far in diamonds, but they would hang back from
securities. Their readiness to pay was indefinably mingled with a
dread of being expected to, and their prodigalities would take
flight at the first hint of coercion. Mrs. Newell, who had had a
good deal of experience in managing this type of millionaire, could
be trusted not to arouse their susceptibilities, and Garnett was
therefore certain that the chimerical legacy had been extracted from
other pockets. There were none in view but those of Baron
Schenkelderff, who, seated at Mrs. Hubbard's right, with a new order
in his button-hole, and a fresh glaze upon his features, enchanted
that lady by his careless references to crowned heads and his
condescending approval of the champagne. Garnett was more than ever
certain that it was the Baron who was paying; and it was this
conviction which made him suddenly feel that, at any cost,
Hermione's marriage must take place. He had felt no special interest
in the marriage except as one more proof of Mrs. Newell's
extraordinary capacity; but now it appealed to him from the girl's
own stand-point. For he saw, with a touch of compunction, that in
the mephitic air of her surroundings a love-story of surprising
freshness had miraculously flowered. He had only to intercept the
glances which the young couple exchanged to find himself transported
to the candid region of romance. It was evident that Hermione adored
and was adored; that the lovers believed in each other and in every
one about them, and that even the legacy of the defunct aunt had not
been too great a strain on their faith in human nature.
His first glance at the Comte Louis du Trayas showed Garnett that,
by some marvel of fitness, Hermione had happened upon a kindred
nature. If the young man's long mild features and short-sighted
glance revealed no special force of character, they showed a
benevolence and simplicity as incorruptible as her own, and declared
that their possessor, whatever his failings, would never imperil the
illusions she had so miraculously preserved. The fact that the girl
took her good fortune naturally, and did not regard herself as
suddenly snatched from the jaws of death, added poignancy to the
situation; for if she missed this way of escape, and was thrown back
on her former life, the day of discovery could not be long deferred.
It made Garnett shiver to think of her growing old between her
mother and Schenkelderff, or such successors of the Baron's as might
probably attend on Mrs. Newell's waning fortunes; for it was clear
to him that the Baron marked the first stage in his friend's
decline. When Garnett took leave that evening he had promised Mrs.
Newell that he would try to find her husband.
