Part 15

“Really?” said she. “What a coincidence.”

“Yes,” said he.

“And--and his book?” Her eyebrows went up, interrogative. “I expect, as you know the man, you think rather poorly of it?”

“On the contrary, in the teeth of verisimilitude, I think extremely well of it,” he answered firmly. “I admire it immensely. I think it's an altogether ripping little book. I think it's one of the nicest little books I've read for ages.

“How funny,” said she.

“Why funny?” asked he.

“It's so unlikely that one should seem a genius to one's old familiar friends.”

“Did I say he seemed a genius to me? I misled you. He does n't. In fact, he very frequently seems--but, for Charity's sake, I 'd best forbear to tell. However, I admire his book. And--to be entirely frank--it's a constant source of astonishment to me that he should ever have been able to do anything one-tenth so good.”

The Duchessa smiled pensively.

“Ah, well,” she mused, “we must assume that he has happy moments--or, perhaps, two soul-sides, one to face the world with, one to show his manuscripts when he's writing. You hint a fault, and hesitate dislike. That, indeed, is only natural, on the part of an old friend. But you pique my interest. What is the trouble with him? Is--is he conceited, for example?”

“The trouble with him?” Peter pondered. “Oh, it would be too long and too sad a story. Should I anatomise him to you as he is, I must blush and weep, and you must look pale and wonder. He has pretty nearly every weakness, not to mention vices, that flesh is heir to. But as for conceit... let me see. He concurs in my own high opinion of his work, I believe; but I don't know whether, as literary men go, it would be fair to call him conceited. He belongs, at any rate, to the comparatively modest minority who do not secretly fancy that Shakespeare has come back to life.”

“That Shakespeare has come back to life!” marvelled the Duchessa. “Do you mean to say that most literary men fancy that?”

“I think perhaps I am acquainted with three who don't,” Peter replied; “but one of them merely wears his rue with a difference. He fancies that it's Goethe.”

“How extravagantly--how exquisitely droll!” she laughed.

“I confess, it struck me so, until I got accustomed to it,” said he, “until I learned that it was one of the commonplaces, one of the normal attributes of the literary temperament. It's as much to be taken for granted, when you meet an author, as the tail is to be taken for granted, when you meet a cat.”

“I'm vastly your debtor for the information--it will stand me in stead with the next author who comes my way. But, in that case, your friend Mr. Felix Wildmay will be, as it were, a sort of Manx cat?” was her smiling deduction.

“Yes, if you like, in that particular, a sort of Manx cat,” acquiesced Peter, with a laugh.

The Duchessa laughed too; and then there was a little pause.

Overhead, never so light a breeze lisped never so faintly in the tree-tops; here and there bird-notes fell, liquid, desultory, like drops of rain after a shower; and constantly one heard the cool music of the river. The sun, filtering through worlds and worlds of leaves, shed upon everything a green-gold penumbra. The air, warm and still, was sweet with garden-scents. The lake, according to its habit at this hour of the afternoon, had drawn a grey veil over its face, a thin grey veil, through which its sapphire-blue shone furtively. Far away, in the summer haze, Monte Sfiorito seemed a mere dim spectre of itself--a stranger might easily have mistaken it for a vague mass of cloud floating above the horizon.

“Are you aware that it 's a singularly lovely afternoon?” the Duchessa asked, by and by.

“I have a hundred reasons for thinking it so,” Peter hazarded, with the least perceptible approach to a meaning bow.

In the Duchessa's face, perhaps, there flickered, for half-a-second, the least perceptible light, as of a comprehending and unresentful smile. But she went on, with fine aloofness.

“I rather envy you your river, you know. We are too far from it at the castle. Is n't the sound, the murmur, of it delicious? And its colour--how does it come by such a subtle colour? Is it green? Is it blue? And the diamonds on its surface--see how they glitter. You know, of course,” she questioned, “who the owner is of those unequalled gems?”

“Surely,” Peter answered, “the lady paramount of this demesne?”

“No, no.” She shook her head, smiling. “Undine. They are Undine's--her necklaces and tiaras. No mortal woman's jewel-case contains anything half so brilliant. But look at them--look at the long chains of them--how they float for a minute--and are then drawn down. They are Undine's--Undine and her companions are sporting with them just below the surface. A moment ago I caught a glimpse of a white arm.”

“Ah,” said Peter, nodding thoughtfully, “that's what it is to have 'the seeing eye.' But I'm grieved to hear of Undine in such a wanton mood. I had hoped she would still be weeping her unhappy love-affair.”

“What! with that horrid, stolid German--Hildebrandt, was his name?” cried the Duchessa. “Not she! Long ago, I'm glad to say, she learned to laugh at that, as a mere caprice of her immaturity. However, this is a digression. I want to return to our 'Man of Words.' Tell me--what is the quality you especially like in it?”

“I like its every quality,” Peter affirmed, unblushing. “Its style, its finish, its concentration; its wit, humour, sentiment; its texture, tone, atmosphere; its scenes, its subject; the paper it's printed on, the type, the binding. But above all, I like its heroine. I think Pauline de Fleuvieres the pearl of human women--the cleverest, the loveliest, the most desirable, the most exasperating. And also the most feminine. I can't think of her at all as a mere fiction, a mere shadow on paper. I think of her as a living, breathing, flesh-and-blood woman, whom I have actually known. I can see her before me now--I can see her eyes, full of mystery and mischief--I can see her exquisite little teeth, as she smiles--I can see her hair, her hands--I can almost catch the perfume of her garments. I 'm utterly infatuated with her--I could commit a hundred follies for her.”