Part 9

“They don’t have private views in Asia, I suppose,” he laughed. “But what a pity that for this year, even in this gorged city, they’re pretty well over.”

“Well, next year will do, for I hope you believe we’re going to be friends always. Here he comes!” Miss Fancourt continued before Paul had time to respond.

He made out St. George in the gaps of the crowd, and this perhaps led to his hurrying a little to say: “I hope that doesn’t mean I’m to wait till next year to see you.”

“No, no—aren’t we to meet at dinner on the twenty-fifth?” she panted with an eagerness as happy as his own.

“That’s almost next year. Is there no means of seeing you before?”

She stared with all her brightness. “Do you mean you’d come?”

“Like a shot, if you’ll be so good as to ask me!”

“On Sunday then—this next Sunday?”

“What have I done that you should doubt it?” the young man asked with delight.

Miss Fancourt turned instantly to St. George, who had now joined them, and announced triumphantly: “He’s coming on Sunday—this next Sunday!”

“Ah my day—my day too!” said the famous novelist, laughing, to their companion.

“Yes, but not yours only. You shall meet in Manchester Square; you shall talk—you shall be wonderful!”

“We don’t meet often enough,” St. George allowed, shaking hands with his disciple. “Too many things—ah too many things! But we must make it up in the country in September. You won’t forget you’ve promised me that?”

“Why he’s coming on the twenty-fifth—you’ll see him then,” said the girl.

“On the twenty-fifth?” St. George asked vaguely.

“We dine with you; I hope you haven’t forgotten. He’s dining out that day,” she added gaily to Paul.

“Oh bless me, yes—that’s charming! And you’re coming? My wife didn’t tell me,” St. George said to him. “Too many things—too many things!” he repeated.

“Too many people—too many people!” Paul exclaimed, giving ground before the penetration of an elbow.

“You oughtn’t to say that. They all read you.”

“Me? I should like to see them! Only two or three at most,” the young man returned.

“Did you ever hear anything like that? He knows, haughtily, how good he is!” St. George declared, laughing to Miss Fancourt. “They read me, but that doesn’t make me like them any better. Come away from them, come away!” And he led the way out of the exhibition.

“He’s going to take me to the Park,” Miss Fancourt observed to Overt with elation as they passed along the corridor that led to the street.

“Ah does he go there?” Paul asked, taking the fact for a somewhat unexpected illustration of St. George’s moeurs.

“It’s a beautiful day—there’ll be a great crowd. We’re going to look at the people, to look at types,” the girl went on. “We shall sit under the trees; we shall walk by the Row.”

“I go once a year—on business,” said St. George, who had overheard Paul’s question.

“Or with a country cousin, didn’t you tell me? I’m the country cousin!” she continued over her shoulder to Paul as their friend drew her toward a hansom to which he had signalled. The young man watched them get in; he returned, as he stood there, the friendly wave of the hand with which, ensconced in the vehicle beside her, St. George took leave of him. He even lingered to see the vehicle start away and lose itself in the confusion of Bond Street. He followed it with his eyes; it put to him embarrassing things. “She’s not for me!” the great novelist had said emphatically at Summersoft; but his manner of conducting himself toward her appeared not quite in harmony with such a conviction. How could he have behaved differently if she had been for him? An indefinite envy rose in Paul Overt’s heart as he took his way on foot alone; a feeling addressed alike strangely enough, to each of the occupants of the hansom. How much he should like to rattle about London with such a girl! How much he should like to go and look at “types” with St. George!

The next Sunday at four o’clock he called in Manchester Square, where his secret wish was gratified by his finding Miss Fancourt alone. She was in a large bright friendly occupied room, which was painted red all over, draped with the quaint cheap florid stuffs that are represented as coming from southern and eastern countries, where they are fabled to serve as the counterpanes of the peasantry, and bedecked with pottery of vivid hues, ranged on casual shelves, and with many water-colour drawings from the hand (as the visitor learned) of the young lady herself, commemorating with a brave breadth the sunsets, the mountains, the temples and palaces of India. He sat an hour—more than an hour, two hours—and all the while no one came in. His hostess was so good as to remark, with her liberal humanity, that it was delightful they weren’t interrupted; it was so rare in London, especially at that season, that people got a good talk. But luckily now, of a fine Sunday, half the world went out of town, and that made it better for those who didn’t go, when these others were in sympathy. It was the defect of London—one of two or three, the very short list of those she recognised in the teeming world-city she adored—that there were too few good chances for talk; you never had time to carry anything far.

“Too many things—too many things!” Paul said, quoting St. George’s exclamation of a few days before.