Part 82

"'Show me a study for Déjanire,' I say.

"'Oh! I'll draw Déjanire for you,' and he takes a soft pencil and a piece of smooth card-board, and in five minutes draws me an outline of a naked woman on a centaur's back, a creature of touching beauty no other hand in the world could produce--so aristocratically delicately English and of to-day--so severely, so nobly and classically Greek. C'est la chasteté même--mais ce n'est pas Déjanire!

"He gives me this sketch, which I rechristen Godiva, and value as I value few things I possess.

"Then he shows me pencil studies of children's heads, from nature, and I exclaim:

"'O Heaven, what a dream of childhood! Childhood is never so beautiful as that.'

"'Oh yes it is, in England, I assure you,' says he. 'I'll show you my children presently; and you, have you any children?'

"'Alas! no,' I reply; 'I am a bachelor.'

"I remark that from time to time, just as the moon veils itself behind a passing cloud, the radiance of his brilliant and jovial physiognomy is eclipsed by the expression of a sadness immense, mysterious, infinite; this is followed by a look of angelic candor and sweetness and gentle heroism, that moves you strangely, even to the heart, and makes appeal to all your warmest and deepest sympathies--the look of a very masculine Joan of Arc! You don't know why, but you feel you would make any sacrifice for a man who looks at you like that, follow him to the death--lead a forlorn hope at his bidding.

"He does not exact from me anything so arduous as this, but passing round my neck his powerful arm, he says:

"'Come and drink some tea; I should like to present you to my wife.'

"And he leads me through another corridor to a charming drawing-room that gives on to the green lawn of the garden.

"There are several people there taking the tea.

"He presents me first to Madame Josselin. If the husband is enormously handsome, the wife is a beauty absolutely divine; she, also, is very tall--très élégante; she has soft wavy black hair, and eyes and eyebrows d'un noir de jais, and a complexion d'une blancheur de lis, with just a point of carmine in the cheeks. She does not say much--she speaks French with difficulty; but she expresses with her smiling eyes so cordial and sincere a welcome that one feels glad to be in the same room with her, one feels it is a happy privilege, it does one good--one ceases to feel one may possibly be an intruder--one almost feels one is wanted there.

"I am then presented to three or four other ladies; and it would seem that the greatest beauties of London have given each other rendezvous in Madame Josselin's salon--this London, where are to be found the most beautiful women in the world and the ugliest.

"First, I salute the Countess of Ironsides--ah, mon Dieu, la Diane chasseresse--la Sapho de Pradier! Then Madame Cornelys, the wife of the great sculptor, who lives next door--a daughter of the ancient gods of Greece! Then a magnificent blonde, an old friend of theirs, who speaks French absolutely like a Frenchwoman, and says thee and thou to M. Josselin, and introduces me to her brother, un vrai type de colosse bon enfant, d'une tenue irréprochable [thank you, M. Paroly], who also speaks the French of France, for he was at school there--a school-fellow of our host.

"There are two or three children, girls, more beautiful than anything or anybody else in the house--in the world, I think! They give me tea and cakes, and bread and butter; most delicious tartines, as thin as wafers, and speak French well, and relate to me the biographies of their animals, une vraie ménagerie which I afterwards have to visit--immense dogs, rabbits, hedgehogs, squirrels, white mice, and a gigantic owl, who answers to the name of Minerva.

"I find myself, ma foi, very happy among these wonderful people, and preserve an impression of beauty, of bonhomie, of naturalness and domestic felicity quite unlike anything I have ever been privileged to see--an impression never to be forgotten.

"But as for Étoiles Mortes and Les Trépassées de François Villon, I really have to give them up; the beautiful big dogs are more important than all the books in the world, even the master's--even the master himself!

"However, I want no explanation to see and understand how M. Josselin has written most of his chefs-d'oeuvre from the depths of a happy consciousness habituated to all that is most graceful and charming and seductive in real life--and a deeply sympathetic, poignant, and compassionate sense of the contrast to all this.

"Happy mortal, happy family, happy country where grow (poussent) such people, and where such children flourish! The souvenir of that so brief hour spent at Gretna Lodge is one of the most beautiful souvenirs of my life--and, above all, the souvenir of the belle châtelaine who filled my hansom with beautiful roses culled by her own fair hand, which gave me at parting that cordial English pressure so much more suggestive of Au revoir than Adieu!

"It is with sincere regret one leaves people who part with one so regretfully.

"Alphonse Paroly."

* * * * *

Except that good and happy women have no history, I should almost like to write the history of Barty's wife, and call it the history of the busiest and most hard-working woman in Great Britain.

Barty left everything to her--to the very signing of cheques. He would have nothing to do with any business of any kind.

He wouldn't even carve at lunch or dinner. Leah did, unless I was there.

It is but fair to say he worked as hard as any man I know. When he was not writing or drawing, he was thinking about drawing or writing; when they got to Marsfield, he hardly ever stirred outside the grounds.

There he would garden with gardeners or cut down trees, or do carpenter's work at his short intervals of rest, or groom a horse.