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The Shuttle Chapter 19 - Spring in Bond Street · The Frances Hodgson Burnett Library

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Speaker 1: CHAPTER XIX. SPRING IN BOND STREET The visit to London
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Speaker 1: was part of an evolution of both body and mind
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Speaker 1: to Rosalie Anstruthers. In one of the wonderful modern hotels
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Speaker 1: a suite of rooms was engaged for them. The luxury
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Speaker 1: which surrounded them was not of the order Rosalie had
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Speaker 1: vaguely connected with hotels. Hotel-keepers had apparently learned many things
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Speaker 1: during the years of her seclusion, Vanderpool's at least could
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Speaker 1: so establish themselves as not to greatly feel the hotel atmosphere.
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Speaker 1: Carefully chosen colours, textures, and appointments formed the background of
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Speaker 1: their days. The food they ate was a thing produced
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Speaker 1: by art. The servants who attended them were completely trained mechanisms.
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Speaker 1: To sit by a window and watch the kaleidoscopic human
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Speaker 1: tide passing by on its way to its pleasure, to
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Speaker 1: reach its work, to spend its money in unending shops—
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Speaker 1: to show itself and its equipage in the park was
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Speaker 1: a wonderful thing to Lady Anstruthers. It all seemed to
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Speaker 1: be a part of the life and quality of Betty,
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Speaker 1: little Betty whom she remembered only as a child, and
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Speaker 1: who had come to her a tall, strong young beauty,
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Speaker 1: who had, it was resplendently clear, never known a fear
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Speaker 1: in her life, and whose mere personality had the effect
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Speaker 1: of making fears seem unreal. She was taken out in
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Speaker 1: a luxurious little broom, to shops whose varied allurements were
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Speaker 1: placed eagerly at her disposal. Respectful persons, obedient to her
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Speaker 1: most faintly expressed desire, displayed garments as wonderful as those
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Speaker 1: the New York trunks had revealed. She was besought to
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Speaker 1: consider the fitness of articles whose exquisiteness she was almost
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Speaker 1: afraid to look at. Her thin little body was wonderfully fitted, managed,
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Speaker 1: encouraged to make the most of its long-ignored outlines. Her
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Speaker 1: ladyship's slenderness is a great advantage, said the wisely inciting ones.
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Speaker 1: There is no such advantage as delicacy of line. Summing
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Speaker 1: up the character of their customer with the saleswoman's eye,
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Speaker 1: they realised the discretion of turning to Miss Vanderpool for encouragement,
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Speaker 1: though she was the younger of the two and bore
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Speaker 1: no title. They were aware of the existence of persons
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Speaker 1: of rank who were not lavish patrons, but the name
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Speaker 1: of Vanderpool held most promising suggestions. To an English shopkeeper,
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Speaker 1: the American has, of late years, represented the spender the
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Speaker 1: type which whatsoever its rank and resources has mysteriously always
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Speaker 1: money to hand over counters in exchange for things it
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Speaker 1: chances to desire to possess each year surges across the
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Speaker 1: atlantic a horde of these fortunate persons who to the
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Speaker 1: sober commercial british mind appear to be free to devote
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Speaker 1: their existences to travel and expenditure this contingent appears shopping
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Speaker 1: in the various shopping thoroughfares it buys clothes jewels miscellaneous
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Speaker 1: attractive things making its purchases of articles useful or decorative
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Speaker 1: with a freedom from anxiety in its enjoyment which does
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Speaker 1: not mark the mood of the ordinary shopper. In the
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Speaker 1: everyday purchaser one is accustomed to take for granted, as
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Speaker 1: a factor in his expenditure, a certain deliberation and uncertainty.
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Speaker 1: To the travelling American in Europe shopping appears to be
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Speaker 1: part of the holiday which is being made the most of.
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Speaker 1: Surely all the neat, smart young persons who buy frocks
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Speaker 1: and blouses, hats and coats, hosiery and chains, cannot be
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Speaker 1: the possessors of large incomes. There must be, even in America,
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Speaker 1: a middle class of middle-class resources. Yet these young persons,
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Speaker 1: male and female, and most frequently unaccompanied by older persons,
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Speaker 1: seeing what they want, greet it with expressions of pleasure,
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Speaker 1: waste no time in appropriating and paying for it, and
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Speaker 1: go away as in relief and triumph.' not as in
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Speaker 1: that sober joy which is clouded by afterthought. The salespeople
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Speaker 1: are sometimes even vaguely cheered by their gay lack of
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Speaker 1: any doubt as to the wisdom of their getting what
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Speaker 1: they admire and rejoicing in it. If America always buys
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Speaker 1: in this holiday mood, it must be an enviable thing
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Speaker 1: to be a shopkeeper in their New York or Boston
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Speaker 1: or San Francisco. Who would not make a fortune among them?
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Speaker 1: They want what they want, and not something which seems
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Speaker 1: to them less desirable.' but they open their purses, and frequently,
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Speaker 1: with some amused uncertainty as to the differences between sovereigns
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Speaker 1: and half-sovereigns, florins and half-crowns, they pay their bills with
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Speaker 1: something almost like glee. They are remarkably prompt about bills,
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Speaker 1: which is an excellent thing, as they are nearly always
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Speaker 1: just going somewhere else, to France or Germany or Italy
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Speaker 1: or Scotland or Siberia. Those of us who are shopkeepers
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Speaker 1: or their salesmen do not dream that some of them
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Speaker 1: have incomes no larger than our own. that they work
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Speaker 1: for their livings, that they are teachers, journalists, small writers,
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Speaker 1: or illustrators of papers or magazines, that they are unimportant
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Speaker 1: soldiers of fortune. But with their queer American insistence on
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Speaker 1: exploration and the ignoring of limitations, they have somehow managed
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Speaker 1: to make this exultant dash for a few daring weeks
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Speaker 1: or months of freedom a new experience. If we knew this,
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Speaker 1: we should regard them from our conservative standpoint of provident
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Speaker 1: decorum as improvident lunatics, being ourselves unable to calculate with
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Speaker 1: their odd courage and their cheerful belief in themselves. What
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Speaker 1: we do know is that they spend, and we are
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Speaker 1: far from disdaining their patronage, though most of them have
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Speaker 1: an odd little familiarity of address, and are not stamped
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Speaker 1: with that distinction which causes us to realise the enormous
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Speaker 1: difference between the patron and the tradesman, and makes us
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Speaker 1: feel the worm we remotely like to feel ourselves, though
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Speaker 1: we would not for worlds acknowledge the fact.' Mentally, and
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Speaker 1: in our speech, both among our equals and our superiors,
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Speaker 1: we condescend to and patronise them a little, though that,
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Speaker 1: of course, is the fine old insular attitude it would
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Speaker 1: be un-British to discourage. But if we are not in
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Speaker 1: the least definite concerning the position and resources of these
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Speaker 1: spenders as a mass, we are quite sure of a
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Speaker 1: select number. There is mention of them in the newspapers,
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Speaker 1: of the townhouses, the castles, moors, and salmon-fishings they rent—
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Speaker 1: of their yachts, their presentations actually at our own courts,
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Speaker 1: of their presence at great balls at Ascot and Goodwood,
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Speaker 1: at the opera on Garland Heights. One staggers sometimes before
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Speaker 1: the public summings up of the amount of their fortunes.
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Speaker 1: These people, who have neither blood nor rank, these men
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Speaker 1: who labour in their business offices, are richer than our
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Speaker 1: great dukes, at the realising of whose wealth and possessions
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Speaker 1: we have at times almost turned pale. Them, chuffed a
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Speaker 1: costamonger over his barrow, Blimey, if some of them blokes
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Speaker 1: won't buy Buckingham Palace and the old Royal Family some
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Speaker 1: morning when they're out shopping!' The subservient attendants in more
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Speaker 1: than one fashionable shop Betty and her sister visit know
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Speaker 1: that Miss Vanderpool is of the circle, though her father
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Speaker 1: has not as yet bought or hired any great estate,
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Speaker 1: and his daughter has not been seen in London.' It' s
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Speaker 1: queer we've never heard of her being presented,' one shop-girl
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Speaker 1: says to another.' Just you look at her!' She evidently
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Speaker 1: knows what her ladyship ought to buy.' what can be
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Speaker 1: trusted not to overpower her faded fragility. The saleswomen, even
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Speaker 1: if they had not been devoured by alert curiosity, could
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Speaker 1: not have avoided seeing that her ladyship did not seem
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Speaker 1: to know what should be bought, and that Miss Vanderpool did,
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Speaker 1: though she did not direct her sister's selection, but merely
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Speaker 1: seemed to suggest with delicate restraint. Her taste was wonderfully perceptive.
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Speaker 1: The things bought were exquisite, but a little colourless woman
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Speaker 1: could wear them all with advantage to her restrictions of type.
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Speaker 1: As the broom drove down Bond Street, Betty called Lady
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Speaker 1: Anstruthers' attention to more than one passer-by.' Look, Rosie,' she said,'
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Speaker 1: there is Mrs. Treat-Hillier in the second carriage to the right.
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Speaker 1: You remember Josie Treat-Hillier married Lord Varick's son.' In the
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Speaker 1: land or designated, an elderly woman with wonderfully dressed white
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Speaker 1: hair sat smiling and bowing to friends who were walking.
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Speaker 1: Lady Anstruthers, despite her eagerness, shrank back a little, hoping
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Speaker 1: to escape being seen.' Oh, it's the low she's speaking to,
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Speaker 1: Tom and Alice. I didn't know they'd sailed yet.' The tall,
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Speaker 1: well-groomed young man, with a nice ugly face, was showing
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Speaker 1: white teeth in a gay smile of recognition, and his
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Speaker 1: pretty wife was lightly waving a slim hand in a
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Speaker 1: grey suede glove.' How cheerful and nice-tempered they look,' said Rosie.'
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Speaker 1: Tom was only twenty when I saw him last. Whom
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Speaker 1: did he marry?'' An English girl. Such a love. A
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Speaker 1: Devonshire gentleman's daughter.'' In New York his friends called her
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Speaker 1: Devonshire Cream and Roses.' She is one of the pretty,
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Speaker 1: flushy pink ones.'' How nice Bond Street is on a
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Speaker 1: spring morning like this,' said Lady Anstruthers.' You may laugh
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Speaker 1: at me for saying it, Betty,' but somehow it seems
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Speaker 1: to me more spring-like than the country.'' How clever of you,'
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Speaker 1: laughed Betty.' There is so much truth in it.'' The
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Speaker 1: people walking in the sunshine were all full of spring
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Speaker 1: thoughts and plans.' The colours they wore, the flowers in
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Speaker 1: the women's hats and the men's buttonholes belonged to the season.
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Speaker 1: The cheerful crowds of people and carriages had a sort
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Speaker 1: of rushing stir of movement which suggested freshness. Later in
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Speaker 1: the year everything looks more tired. Now things were beginning
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Speaker 1: and everyone was rather inclined to believe that this year
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Speaker 1: would be better than last.' Look at the shop windows,'
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Speaker 1: said Betty,' full of whites and pinks and yellows and blues,'
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Speaker 1: the colours of hyacinths and daffodil beds.' It seems as
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Speaker 1: if they insist that there never has been a winter
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Speaker 1: and never will be one. They insist that there never
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Speaker 1: was and never will be anything but spring. It's in
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Speaker 1: the air. Lady Anstruth's sigh was actually a happy one.
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Speaker 1: It's just what I used to feel in April when
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Speaker 1: we drove down Fifth Avenue. Among the crowds of freshly
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Speaker 1: dressed passers-by, women with flowery hats and light frocks and parasols,
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Speaker 1: men with touches of flower colour on the lapels of
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Speaker 1: their coats and the holiday look on their faces, She
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Speaker 1: noted so many of a familiar type that she began
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Speaker 1: to look for and try to pick them out with
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Speaker 1: quite excited interest.' I believe that woman is an American,'
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Speaker 1: she would say.' That girl looks as if she were
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Speaker 1: a New Yorker.' Again, that man's face looks as if
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Speaker 1: it belonged to Broadway. Oh, Betty, do you think I'm right?
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Speaker 1: I should say those girls getting out of the handsome
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Speaker 1: to go into Burnham and Staples came from out West
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Speaker 1: and are going to buy thousands of things. Don't they
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Speaker 1: look like it? She began to lean forward and look
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Speaker 1: on at things with an interest so unlike her stornum
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Speaker 1: listlessness that Betty's heart was moved. Her face looked alive,
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Speaker 1: and little waves of colour rose under her skin. Several
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Speaker 1: times she laughed the natural little laugh of her golf-hood,
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Speaker 1: which it had seemed almost too much to expect to
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Speaker 1: hear again. The first of these laughs came when she
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Speaker 1: encountered her tenth American, a tall Westerner of the cartoon type,
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Speaker 1: sauntering along with an expression of speculative enjoyment on his
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Speaker 1: odd face. and evidently though furtively chewing tobacco.' I absolutely
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Speaker 1: love him, Betty,' she cried.' You couldn't mistake him for
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Speaker 1: anything else.'' No,' answered Betty, feeling that she loved him herself,'
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Speaker 1: not if you found him embalmed in the pyramids.' They
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Speaker 1: pleased themselves immensely, trying to guess what he would buy
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Speaker 1: and take home to his wife and girls in his
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Speaker 1: western town, though western towns were very grand and amazing
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Speaker 1: in these days, Betty explained, and knew that they could
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Speaker 1: give points to New York. He would not buy the
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Speaker 1: things he would have bought fifteen years ago. Perhaps, in fact,
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Speaker 1: his wife and daughters had come with him to London
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Speaker 1: and stayed at the Metropole or the Savoy, and were
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Speaker 1: at this moment being fitted by tailors and modists patronised
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Speaker 1: by royalty. Rosie, look, do you see who that is?
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Speaker 1: Do you recognise her? It is Mrs. Bellingham. She was
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Speaker 1: little Mina Thalberg. She married Captain Bellingham. He was quite poor,
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Speaker 1: but very well born, a nephew of Lord Dunham's. He
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Speaker 1: could not have married a poor girl.' but they have
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Speaker 1: been so happy together that Mina is growing fat and
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Speaker 1: spends her days in taking reducing treatments. She says she
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Speaker 1: wouldn't care in the least, but Dickie fell in love
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Speaker 1: with her waist and shoulder line. The plump, pretty young
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Speaker 1: woman getting out of her Victoria before her fashionable hairdressers
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Speaker 1: looked radiant enough. She had not yet lost the waist
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Speaker 1: and shoulder line, though her pink frock fitted her with
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Speaker 1: discreet tightness. She paused a moment to pat and fuss
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Speaker 1: prettily over the two blooming, curly children who who were
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Speaker 1: to remain under the care of the nurse, who sat
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Speaker 1: in the back seat, holding the baby on her lap.
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Speaker 1: I should not have known her, said Rosie. She has
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Speaker 1: grown pretty. She wasn't a pretty child. It's happiness, and
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Speaker 1: the English climate, and Captain Dickie. They adore each other
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Speaker 1: and laugh at everything like a pair of children. They
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Speaker 1: were immensely popular in New York last winter when they
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Speaker 1: visited Mina's people. The effect of the morning upon Lady
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Speaker 1: Anstruthers was what Betty had hoped it might be. the
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Speaker 1: curious drawing near of the two nations began to dawn
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Speaker 1: upon her as a truth. Immured in the country, not
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Speaker 1: sufficiently interested in life to read newspapers, she had heard
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Speaker 1: rumours of some of the more important marriages, but had
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Speaker 1: known nothing of the thousand small details which made for
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Speaker 1: the weaving of the web. Mrs. Treat Hillier, driving in
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Speaker 1: a leisurely, accustomed fashion down Bond Street, and smiling casually
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Speaker 1: at her compatriots, whose sailing was as much a part
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Speaker 1: of the natural order of their luxurious lives as their carriage's,
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Speaker 1: gave a definiteness to the situation mina thalberg pulling down
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Speaker 1: the embroidered frocks over the round legs of her english-looking
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Speaker 1: children seemed to narrow the width of the atlantic ocean
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Speaker 1: between liverpool and the docks on the hudson river she
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Speaker 1: returned to the hotel with an appetite for lunch and
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Speaker 1: a new expression in her eyes which made utrid stare
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Speaker 1: at her mother he said you look different you look
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Speaker 1: well it isn't only your new dress and your hair
13:31
Speaker 1: the new style of her attire had certainly done much
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Speaker 1: and the maid who had been engaged to attend her
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Speaker 1: was a woman who knew her duties. She had been
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Speaker 1: called upon in her time to make the most of hair,
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Speaker 1: offering much less assistance to her skill than was supplied
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Speaker 1: by the fine fair colourlessness she had found dragged back
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Speaker 1: from her new mistress's forehead. It was not dragged back now,
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Speaker 1: but had really been done wonders with. Rosalie had smiled
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Speaker 1: a little when she had looked at herself in the
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Speaker 1: glass after the first time it was so dressed.' You
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Speaker 1: are trying to make me look as I did when
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Speaker 1: Mother saw me last, Betty,' she said.' I wonder if
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Speaker 1: you possibly could.'' Let us believe we can,' laughed Betty,'
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Speaker 1: and wait and see.' It seemed wise neither to make
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Speaker 1: nor receive visits. The time for such things had evidently
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Speaker 1: not yet come. Even the mention of the Worthingtons led
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Speaker 1: to the revelation that Rosalie shrank from immediate contact with people.
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Speaker 1: When she felt stronger, when she became more accustomed to
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Speaker 1: the thought she might feel differently— but just now to
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Speaker 1: be luxuriously one with the enviable part of London, to
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Speaker 1: look on, to drink in, to drive here and there,
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Speaker 1: doing the things she liked to do, ordering what was
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Speaker 1: required at Stornham, was like the creating for her of
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Speaker 1: a new heaven and a new earth. When one night
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Speaker 1: Betty took her with Uhtred to the theatre, it was
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Speaker 1: to see a play written by an American, played by
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Speaker 1: American actors, produced by an American manager. They had even
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Speaker 1: engaged in theatrical enterprise, it seemed— Their actors played before
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Speaker 1: London audiences, London actors played in American theatres, vibrating almost
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Speaker 1: yearly between the two continents and reaping rich harvests. Hearing
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Speaker 1: rumours of this in the past, Lady Anstruthers had scarcely
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Speaker 1: believed it entirely true. Now the practical reality was brought
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Speaker 1: before her. The French, who were only separated from the
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Speaker 1: English metropolis by a mere few miles of channel, did
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Speaker 1: not exchange their actors year after year in increasing numbers—
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Speaker 1: making a mere friendly barter of each other's territory, as
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Speaker 1: though each land was common ground and not divided by
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Speaker 1: leagues of ocean travel. It seems so wonderful, Lady Einstruthers argued.
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Speaker 1: I have always felt as if they hated each other.
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Speaker 1: They did once, but how could it last between those
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Speaker 1: of the same blood, of the same tongue? If we
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Speaker 1: were really aliens, we might be a menace, but we
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Speaker 1: are of their own. Betty leaned forward on the edge
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Speaker 1: of the box, looking out over the crowded house filled
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Speaker 1: with almost as many Americans as English faces. She smiled, reflecting.'
15:58
Speaker 1: We were children put out to nurse and breathe new
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Speaker 1: air in the country, and now we're coming home, vigorous
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Speaker 1: and full-grown.' She studied the audience for some minutes, and
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Speaker 1: as her glance wandered over the stalls it took in
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Speaker 1: more than one marked variety of type. Suddenly it fell
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Speaker 1: on a face she delightedly recognised— It was that of
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Speaker 1: the nice, speculative-eyed Westerner they had seen enjoying himself in
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Speaker 1: Bond Street.' Rosie,' she said,' there is the Western man
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Speaker 1: we love, near the end of the fourth row.' Lady
16:30
Speaker 1: Anstruthers looked for him with eagerness.' Oh, I see him,
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Speaker 1: next to the big one with the reddish hair.' Betty
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Speaker 1: turned her attention to the man in question whom she
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Speaker 1: had not chanced to notice. She uttered an exclamation of
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Speaker 1: surprise and interest.' The big man with the red hair.'
16:46
Speaker 1: How lovely that they should chance to sit side by side.
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Speaker 1: The big one is Lord Mount Dunstan. The necessity of
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Speaker 1: seeing his solicitors, who happened to be Messrs. Townlinson and Shepherd,
16:57
Speaker 1: had brought Lord Mount Dunstan to town. After a day
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Speaker 1: devoted to business affairs, he had been attracted by the
17:03
Speaker 1: idea of going to the theatre to see again a
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Speaker 1: play he had already seen in New York. It would
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Speaker 1: interest him to observe its exact effect upon a London audience.
17:12
Speaker 1: While he had been in New York, he had gone
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Speaker 1: with something of the same feeling, to see a great
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Speaker 1: English actor play to a crowded house. The great actor
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Speaker 1: had been one who had returned to the country for
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Speaker 1: a third or fourth time, and in the enthusiasm he
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Speaker 1: had felt in the atmosphere about him, Mount Dunstan had
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Speaker 1: seen not only pleasure and appreciation of the man's perfect art,
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Speaker 1: but at certain tumultuous outbursts, an almost emotional welcome. The Americans,
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Speaker 1: he had said to himself, were creatures of warmer blood
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Speaker 1: than the English. The audience on that occasion had been
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Speaker 1: in mass American. The audience he made one of now
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Speaker 1: was made up of both nationalities, and in glancing over
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Speaker 1: it he realised how large was the number of Americans
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Speaker 1: who came yearly to London. As Lady Anstruthers had done,
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Speaker 1: he found himself selecting from the assemblage the types which
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Speaker 1: were manifestly American, and those obviously English. In the seat
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Speaker 1: next to himself sat a man of a type he
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Speaker 1: felt he had learned by heart in the days of
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Speaker 1: his life as Jem Salter. At a short distance fluttered
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Speaker 1: brilliantly an English professional beauty, with her male and female
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Speaker 1: court about her. In the stage-box, made sumptuous with flowers,
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Speaker 1: was a royal party. As this party had entered, God
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Speaker 1: save the Queen had been played, and in rising with
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Speaker 1: the audience during the entry, he had recalled that the
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Speaker 1: tune was identical with that of an American national air.
18:31
Speaker 1: How unconsciously inseparable, in spite of the likeness with which
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Speaker 1: they regarded the curious tie between them, the two countries were!
18:39
Speaker 1: The people upon the stage were acting as if they
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Speaker 1: knew their public, their bearing suggesting no sense of any
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Speaker 1: barrier beyond the footlights. It was the unconsciousness and lightness
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Speaker 1: of the mutual attitude which had struck him of late.
18:52
Speaker 1: Punch had long gestured about fair Americans, who in their
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Speaker 1: first introduction to its pages used exotic and cryptic language,
18:59
Speaker 1: beginning every sentence either with I guess or say stranger.
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Speaker 1: Its male American had been of the Uncle Sam order.
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Speaker 1: and had invariably worn a goatee. American witticisms had represented
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Speaker 1: the Englishman in plaid trousers, opening his remarks with,' Truly,
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Speaker 1: dear fella,' and unfailingly missing the point of any joke.
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Speaker 1: Each country had cherished its type, and good-naturedly derided it.
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Speaker 1: In time this had modified itself, and the joke had
19:27
Speaker 1: changed in kind. Many other things had changed, but the
19:30
Speaker 1: lightness of treatment still remained and yet their blood was
19:34
Speaker 1: mingling itself with that of england's noblest and oldest of
19:37
Speaker 1: name their wealth was making solid again towers and halls
19:40
Speaker 1: which had threatened to crumble ancient family jewels glittered on
19:44
Speaker 1: slender young american necks and above sometimes somewhat careless young
19:48
Speaker 1: american brows and yet so far one was casual in
19:52
Speaker 1: one's thought of it all still ON HIS OWN PART
19:55
Speaker 1: HE WAS OBSTINATE BRITAIN ENOUGH TO REBEL AGAINST AND RESENT IT.
19:58
Speaker 1: THEY WERE INTRUDERS. HE RESENTED THEM, AS HE HAD RESENTED
20:02
Speaker 1: IN HIS BOYHOOD, THE HISTORICAL FACT THAT AFTER ALL AN
20:05
Speaker 1: ENGLISHMAN WAS A GERMAN, A SAVAGE WHO FIVE HUNDRED YEARS
20:08
Speaker 1: AFTER THE BIRTH OF CHRIST HAD SWOOPED UPON EARLY BRITAIN
20:11
Speaker 1: FROM HIS YINGLE LAND AND JUTLAND, AND RAVAGING WITH FIRE
20:14
Speaker 1: AND SWORD, HAD CONQUERED AND MADE THE LAND HIS POSSESSION,
20:17
Speaker 1: RAVISHING ITS VERY NAME FROM IT AND GIVING IT HIS OWN.
20:21
Speaker 1: These people did not come with fire and sword, but
20:23
Speaker 1: with cable and telephone, and bribes of gold and fair women,
20:27
Speaker 1: but they were encroaching like the sea, which in certain
20:30
Speaker 1: parts of the coast gained a few inches or so
20:32
Speaker 1: each year. He shook his shoulders impatiently and stiffened, feeling
20:36
Speaker 1: illogically antagonistic towards the good-natured lantern-jawed man at his side.
20:41
Speaker 1: The lantern-jawed man looked good-natured because he was smiling, and
20:44
Speaker 1: he was smiling because he saw something which pleased him
20:47
Speaker 1: in one of the boxes. His expression of unqualified approval
20:51
Speaker 1: naturally directed Mount Dunstan's eye to the point in question
20:54
Speaker 1: where it remained for some moments. This was because he
20:57
Speaker 1: found it resting upon Miss Vanderpool, who sat before him
21:00
Speaker 1: in luminous white garments and with a brilliant spark of
21:03
Speaker 1: ornament in the dense shadow of her hair. His sensation
21:07
Speaker 1: at the unexpected sight of her would, if it had
21:10
Speaker 1: expressed itself physically, have taken the form of a slight start.
21:14
Speaker 1: The luminous quality did not confine itself to the whiteness
21:17
Speaker 1: of her garments. He was aware of feeling that she
21:20
Speaker 1: looked luminous herself. Her eyes, her cheek, the smile she
21:24
Speaker 1: bent upon the little woman who was her companion— she was
21:27
Speaker 1: a beautifully living thing. Naturally, she was being looked at
21:31
Speaker 1: by others than himself. She was one of those towards
21:34
Speaker 1: whom glasses in a theatre turn themselves inevitably. The sweep
21:38
Speaker 1: and lift of her black hair would have drawn them,
21:40
Speaker 1: even if she had offered no other charm. Yes, he thought,
21:43
Speaker 1: here was another of them. To whom was she bringing
21:46
Speaker 1: her good looks and her millions? There were men enough
21:49
Speaker 1: who needed money, even if they must accept it under
21:51
Speaker 1: less alluring conditions. In the box next to the one
21:55
Speaker 1: occupied by the royal party was a man who was
21:58
Speaker 1: known to be waiting for the advent of some such opportunity.
22:01
Speaker 1: His was a case of dire, if outwardly stately, need.
22:05
Speaker 1: He was young, but a fool, and not noted for
22:07
Speaker 1: personal charms, yet he had in one sense great things
22:11
Speaker 1: to offer. There were, of course, many chances that he
22:14
Speaker 1: might offer them to her. If this happened, would she
22:17
Speaker 1: accept them? There was really no objection to him but
22:20
Speaker 1: his dullness. Consequently, there seemed many chances that she might.
22:24
Speaker 1: There was something akin to the pomp of royalty in
22:27
Speaker 1: the power her father's wealth implied. She could scarcely make
22:30
Speaker 1: an ordinary marriage. It would naturally be a sort of
22:33
Speaker 1: state affair. There were few men who had enough to
22:36
Speaker 1: offer in exchange for Vanderpool millions, and of the few,
22:40
Speaker 1: none had special attractions.' The one in the box next
22:43
Speaker 1: to the royal party was a decent enough fellow, as
22:46
Speaker 1: young princesses were not infrequently called upon, by the mere
22:49
Speaker 1: exclusion of royal blood, to become united to young or
22:53
Speaker 1: mature princes without charm. So American young persons who were
22:57
Speaker 1: of royal possessions must find themselves limited. If you felt
23:00
Speaker 1: free to pick and choose from among young men in
23:03
Speaker 1: the guards, or young attaches in the diplomatic service, with
23:05
Speaker 1: tuppence a year, you might get beauty, or wit, or temperament,
23:09
Speaker 1: or all three by good luck. but if you were
23:11
Speaker 1: of a royal house of New York or Chicago, you
23:14
Speaker 1: would probably feel you must draw lines and choose only
23:16
Speaker 1: such splendours as accorded with, even while differing from your own.
23:21
Speaker 1: Any possible connection of himself with such a case did
23:23
Speaker 1: not present itself to him. If it had done so,
23:26
Speaker 1: he would have counted himself haughtily as beyond the pale.
23:30
Speaker 1: It was for other men to do things of the sort.
23:32
Speaker 1: A remote antagonism of his whole being warred against the
23:35
Speaker 1: mere idea. It was bigoted prejudice, perhaps, but it was
23:39
Speaker 1: a strong thing. a lovely shoulder and a brilliant head
23:43
Speaker 1: set on a long and slender neck, have no nationality
23:46
Speaker 1: which can prevent a man's glance turning naturally towards them.
23:50
Speaker 1: His turned again during the last act of the play,
23:52
Speaker 1: and at a moment when he saw something rather like
23:55
Speaker 1: the thing he had seen when the Meridiana moved away
23:57
Speaker 1: from the dock, and the exalted Miss Vanderpool, leaning upon
24:00
Speaker 1: the rail, had held out her arms towards the child
24:03
Speaker 1: who had brought his toy to her as a farewell offering.
24:06
Speaker 1: Sitting by her to-night was a boy with a crooked back,
24:09
Speaker 1: Aunt Dunstan remembered hearing that the Anstruthers had a deformed son,
24:13
Speaker 1: and she was leaning towards him, her hand resting on
24:16
Speaker 1: his shoulder, explaining something he had not quite grasped in
24:19
Speaker 1: the action of the play. The absolute adoration in the
24:22
Speaker 1: boy's uplifted eyes was an interesting thing to take in,
24:26
Speaker 1: and the radiant warmth of her bright look was as
24:28
Speaker 1: unconscious of onlookers as it had been when he had
24:31
Speaker 1: seen it yearning towards the child on the wharf. Hers
24:34
Speaker 1: was the temperament which gave, which gave. He found himself
24:38
Speaker 1: restraining a smile, because her look brought back to him
24:41
Speaker 1: the actual sound of the New York youngster's voice.' I
24:44
Speaker 1: wanted to kiss you, Betty. Oh, I did so want
24:47
Speaker 1: to kiss you!' And Struthers' boy, poor little beggar, looked
24:51
Speaker 1: as if he, too, in the face of actors and
24:53
Speaker 1: audience and brilliance of light, wanted to kiss her. End
24:58
Speaker 1: of chapter nineteen