The Reverberator (1 volume, American issue, London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1888)/Chapter 9
IX.
Mr. Flack's relations with his old friends did not, after his appearance in Paris, take on that familiarity and frequency which had marked their intercourse a year before: he let them know frankly that he could easily see the situation was quite different. They had got into the high set and they didn't care about the past: he alluded to the past as if it had been rich in mutual vows, in pledges now repudiated. "What's the matter? Won't you come round there with us some day?" Mr. Dosson asked; not having perceived for himself any reason why the young journalist should not be a welcome and congruous figure in the Cours la Reine.
Delia wanted to know what Mr. Flack was talking about: didn't he know a lot of people that they didn't know and wasn't it natural they should have their own society? The young man's treatment of the question was humorous, and it was with Delia that the discussion mainly went forward. When he maintained that the Dossons had "shed" him, Mr. Dosson exclaimed, "Well, I guess you'll grow again!" And Francie observed that it was no use for him to pose as a martyr, inasmuch as he knew perfectly well that with all the celebrated people he saw and the way he flew round he had the most enchanting time. She was aware she was a good deal less accessible than she had been the previous spring, for Mesdames de Brécourt and de Cliché (the former much more than the latter) took a considerable number of her hours. In spite of her protest to Gaston against a premature intimacy with his sisters, she spent whole days in their company (they had so much to tell her about what her new life would be, and it was generally very pleasant), and she thought it would be nice if in these intervals he should give himself to her father and even to Delia as he used to do.
But the flaw of a certain insincerity in Mr. Flack's nature seemed to be established by his present tendency to rare visits. He evidently did not care for her father for himself, and though Mr. Dosson was the least querulous of men she divined that he suspected their old companion had fallen away. There were no more wanderings in public places, no more tryings of new cafés. Mr. Dosson used to look sometimes as he had looked of old when George Flack "located" them somewhere; as if he expected to see their sharp cicerone rushing back to them, with his drab overcoat flying in the wind; but this expectation usually died away. He missed Gaston because Gaston this winter had so often ordered his dinner for him, and his society was not sought by the count and the marquis, whose mastery of English was small and their other distractions great. Mr. Probert, it was true, had shown something of a fraternising spirit; he had come twice to the hotel, since his son's departure, and he had said, smiling and reproachful, "You neglect us, you neglect us!" Mr. Dosson had not understood what he meant by this till Delia explained after the visitor withdrew, and even then the remedy for the neglect, administered two or three days later, had not borne any particular fruit. Mr. Dosson called alone, instructed by his daughter, in the Cours la Reine, but Mr. Probert was not at home. He only left a card, on which Delia had superscribed in advance the words "So sorry!" Her father had told her he would give the card if she wanted, but he would have nothing to do with the writing. There was a discussion as to whether Mr. Probert's remark was an allusion to a deficiency of politeness on the article of his sons-in-law. Ought not Mr. Dosson perhaps to call personally, and not simply through the medium of the visits paid by his daughters to their wives, on Messieurs de Brécourt and de Cliché? Once, when this subject came up in George Flack's presence, the old man said he would go round if Mr. Flack would accompany him. "All right!" said Mr. Flack, and this conception became a reality, with the accidental abatement that the objects of the demonstration were absent. "Suppose they get in?" Delia had said lugubriously to her sister.
"Well, what if they do?" Francie asked.
"Why, the count and the marquis won't be interested in Mr. Flack."
"Well then, perhaps he will be interested in them. He can write something about them. They will like that."
"Do you think they would?" Delia demanded, in solemn dubiousness.
"Why, yes, if he should say fine things."
"They do like fine things," said Delia. "They get off so many themselves. Only the way Mr. Flack does it—it's a different style."
"Well, people like to be praised in any style."
"That's so," Delia rejoined, musingly.
One afternoon, coming in about three o'clock, Mr. Flack found Francie alone. She had expressed a wish, after luncheon, for a couple of hours of independence: she intended to write to Gaston, and having accidentally missed a post promised herself that her letter should be of double its usual length. Her companions respected her desire for solicitude, Mr. Dosson taking himself off to his daily session in the reading-room of the American bank and Delia (the girls had now a luxurious coach at their command) driving away to the dressmaker's, a frequent errand, to superintend and urge forward the progress of her sister's wedding-clothes. Francie was not skilled in composition; she wrote slowly and in addressing her lover had a painful sense of literary responsibility. Her father and Delia had a theory that when she shut herself up that way she poured forth wonderful pages—it was part of her high cultivation. At any rate, when George Flack was ushered in she was still bending over her blotting-book on one of the gilded tables and there was an inkstain on her pointed forefinger. It was no disloyalty to Gaston but only at the most a sense of weariness in regard to the epistolary form that made her glad to see her visitor. She didn't know how to finish her letter; but Mr. Flack seemed in a manner to terminate it.
"I wouldn't have ventured to propose this, but I guess I can do with it, now it's come," the young man announced.
"What can you do with?" she asked, wiping her pen.
"Well this happy chance. Just you and me together."
"I don't know what it's a chance for."
"Well, for me to be a little less miserable for a quarter of an hour. It makes me so to see you look so happy."
"It makes you miserable?"
"You ought to understand, when I say something magnanimous." And settling himself on the sofa Mr. Flack continued, "Well, how do you get on without Mr. Probert?"
"Very well indeed, thank you."
The tone in which the girl spoke was not an encouragement to free pleasantry, so that if Mr. Flack continued his inquiries it was in a guarded and respectful manner. He was eminently capable of reflecting that it was not in his interest to strike her as indiscreet and profane; he only wanted to appear friendly, worthy of confidence. At the same time he was not averse to the idea that she should still perceive in him a certain sense of injury, and that could be indicated only by a touch of bitterness here and there. The injury, the bitterness might make her pity him. "Well, you are in the grand monde, I suppose," he resumed at last, not with an air of derision but resignedly, sympathetically.
"Oh, I'm not in anything; I'm just where I've always been."
"I'm sorry; I hoped you would tell me about it," said Mr. Flack, gravely.
"You think too much of that. What do you want to know about it for?"
"Dear Miss Francie, a poor devil of a journalist who has to get his living by studying up things, he has to think too much, sometimes, in order to think, or at any rate to do, enough. We find out what we can—as we can."
Francie listened to this as if it had had the note of pathos. "What do you want to study up?"
"Everything! I take in everything. It all depends on my opportunity. I try and learn—I try and improve. Every one has something to tell, and I listen and watch and make my profit of it. I hoped you would have something to tell. I don't believe but what you've seen a good deal of new life. You won't pretend they haven't roped you in, charming as you are."
"Do you mean if they've been kind to me? They've been very kind," Francie said. "They want to do even more than I'll let them."
"Ah, why won't you let them?" George Flack asked, almost coaxingly.
"Well, I do," the girl went on. "You can't resist them, really; they have such lovely ways."
"I should like to hear you talk about their ways," her companion observed, after a silence.
"Oh, I could talk enough if once I were to begin. But I don't see why it should interest you."
"Don't I care immensely for everything that concerns you? Didn't I tell you that once?"
"You're foolish if you do, and you would be foolish to say it again," Francie replied.
"Oh, I don't want to say anything, I've had my lesson. But I could listen to you all day." Francie gave an exclamation of impatience and incredulity and Mr. Flack pursued: "Don't you remember what you told me that time we had that talk at Saint-Germain, on the terrace? You said I might remain your friend."
"Well, that's all right," said the girl.
"Then ain't we interested in the development of our friends—in their impressions, their transformations, their adventures? Especially a person like me, who has got to know life—who has got to know the world."
"Do you mean to say I could teach you about life?" Francie demanded.
"About some kinds, certainly. You know a lot of people whom it's difficult to get at unless one takes some extraordinary measures, as you have done."
"What do you mean? What measures have I taken?"
"Well, they have—to get hold of you—and it's the same thing. Pouncing on you, to secure you; I call that energetic, and don't you think I ought to know?" asked Mr. Flack, smiling. "I thought I was energetic, but they got ahead of me. They're a society apart, and they must be very curious."
"Yes, they're curious," Francie admitted, with a little sigh. Then she inquired: "Do you want to put them in the paper?"
George Flack hesitated a moment; the air of the question was so candid, suggested so complete an exemption from prejudice. "Oh, I'm very careful about what I put in the paper. I want everything, as I told you: don't you remember the sketch I gave you of my ideals? But I want it in a certain particular way. If I can't get it in the shape I like it I don't want it at all; genuine, first-hand information, straight from the tap, is what I'm after. I don't want to hear what some one or other thinks that some one or other was told that some one or other repeated; and above all I don't want to print it. There's plenty of that flowing in, and the best part of the job is to keep it out. People just yearn to come in; they're dying to, all over the place; there's the biggest crowd at the door. But I say to them: 'You've got to do something first, then I'll see; or at any rate you've got to be something!'"
"We sometimes see the Reverberator; you have some fine pieces," Francie replied.
"Sometimes, only? Don't they send it to your father—the weekly edition? I thought I had fixed that," said George Flack.
"I don't know; it's usually lying round. But Delia reads it more than I; she reads pieces aloud. I like to read books; I read as many as I can."
"Well, it's all literature," said Mr. Flack; "it's all the press, the great institution of our time. Some of the finest books have come out first in the papers. It's the history of the age."
"I see you've got the same aspirations," Francie remarked, kindly.
"The same aspirations?"
"Those you told me about that day at Saint-Germain."
"Oh, I keep forgetting that I ever broke out to you that way; everything is so changed."
"Are you the proprietor of the paper now?" the girl went on, determined not to notice this sentimental allusion.
"What do you care? It wouldn't even be delicate in me to tell you; for I do remember the way you said you would try and get your father to help me. Don't say you've forgotten it, because you almost made me cry. Any way, that isn't the sort of help I want now and it wasn't the sort of help I meant to ask you for then. I want sympathy and interest; I want some one to whisper once in a while—'Courage, courage; you'll come out all right.' You see I'm a working man and I don't pretend to be anything else," Mr. Flack went on. "I don't live on the accumulations of my ancestors. What I have I earn—what I am I've fought for: I'm a travailleur, as they say here. I rejoice in it; but there is one dark spot in it, all the same."
"And what is that?" asked Francie.
"That it makes you ashamed of me."
"Oh, how can you say?" And she got up, as if a sense of oppression, of vague discomfort, had come over her. Her visitor made her fidgety.
"You wouldn't be ashamed to go round with me?"
"Round where?"
"Well, anywhere: just to have one more walk. The very last." George Flack had got up too and he stood there looking at her with his bright eyes, with his hands in the pockets of his overcoat. As she hesitated he continued, "Then I'm not such a friend after all."
Francie rested her eyes for a moment on the carpet; then, raising them—"Where should you like to go?"
"You could render me a service—a real service—without any inconvenience, probably, to yourself. Isn't your portrait finished?"
"Yes, but he won't give it up."
"Who won't give it up?"
"Why, Mr. Waterlow. He wants to keep it near him to look at in case he should take a fancy to change it. But I hope he won't change it—it's so pretty as it is!" Francie declared, smiling.
"I hear it's magnificent, and I want to see it," said George Flack.
"Then why don't you go?"
"I'll go if you'll take me; that's the service you can render me."
"Why, I thought you went everywhere—into the palaces of kings!" Francie cried.
"I go where I'm welcome, not where I'm not. I don't want to push into that studio alone; he doesn't like me. Oh, you needn't protest," the young man went on; "if one is sensitive one is sensitive. I feel those things in the shade of a tone of voice. He doesn't like newspaper-men. Some people don't, you know. I ought to tell you that frankly."
Francie considered again, but looking this time at her visitor. "Why, if it hadn't been for you"—I am afraid she said "hadn't have been"—"I never would have sat to him."
Mr. Flack smiled at her in silence for an instant. "If it hadn't been for me I think you never would have met your future husband."
"Perhaps not," said Francie; and suddenly she blushed red, rather to her companion's surprise.
"I only say that to remind you that after all I have a right to ask you to show me this one little favour. Let me drive with you to-morrow, or next day or any day, to the Avenue de Villiers, and I shall regard myself as amply repaid. With you I sha'n't be afraid to go in, for you have a right to take any one you like to see your picture. It's always done."
"Oh, the day you're afraid, Mr. Flack—!" Francie exclaimed, laughing. She had been much struck by his reminder of what they all owed him; for he truly had been their initiator, the instrument, under providence, that had opened a great new interest to them, and it shocked her generosity, the intimation that he saw himself cast off or disavowed after the prize was gained. Her mind had not lingered on her personal indebtedness to him, for it was not in the nature of her mind to linger; but at present she was glad to spring quickly, at the first word, into the attitude of acknowledgment. It had the effect that simplification always has, it raised her spirits, made her merry.
"Of course I must be quite square with you," the young man said. "If I want to see the picture it's because I want to write about it. The whole thing will go bang into the Reverberator. You must understand that, in advance. I wouldn't write about it without seeing it."
"J'espère bien!" said Francie, who was getting on famously with her French. "Of course if you praise him Mr. Waterlow will like it."
"I don't know that he cares for my praise and I don't care much whether he likes it or not. If you like it, that's the principal thing."
"Oh, I shall be awfully proud."
"I shall speak of you personally—I shall say you are the prettiest girl that has ever come over."
"You may say what you like," Francie rejoined. "It will be immense fun to be in the newspapers. Come for me at this hour day after to-morrow."
"You're too kind," said George Flack, taking up his hat. He smoothed it down a moment, with his glove; then he said—"I wonder if you will mind our going alone?"
"Alone?"
"I mean just you and me."
"Oh, don't you be afraid! Father and Delia have seen it about thirty times."
"That will be delightful, then. And it will help me to feel, more than anything else could make me do, that we are still old friends. I'll come at 3.15," Mr. Flack went on, but without even yet taking his departure. He asked two or three questions about the hotel, whether it were as good as last year and there were many people in it and they could keep their rooms warm; then, suddenly, in a different order and scarcely waiting for the girl's answer, he said: "And now, for instance, are they very bigoted? That's one of the things I should like to know."
"Very bigoted?"
"Ain't they tremendous Catholics—always talking about the Holy Father, and that sort of thing? I mean Mr. Probert, the old gentleman," Mr. Flack added. "And those ladies, and all the rest of them."
"They are very religious," said Francie. "They are the most religious people I ever saw. They just adore the Holy Father. They know him personally quite well. They are always going down to Rome."
"And do they mean to introduce you to him?"
"How do you mean, to introduce me?"
"Why, to make you a Catholic, to take you also down to Rome."
"Oh, we are going to Rome for our voyage de noces!" said Francie, gaily. "Just for a peep."
"And won't you have to have a Catholic marriage? They won't consent to a Protestant one."
"We are going to have a lovely one, just like one that Mme. de Brécourt took me to see at the Madeleine."
"And will it be at the Madeleine too?"
"Yes, unless we have it at Notre Dame."
"And how will your father and sister like that?"
"Our having it at Notre Dame?"
"Yes, or at the Madeleine. Your not having it at the American church."
"Oh, Delia wants it at the best place," said Francie, simply. Then she added: "And you know father ain't much on religion."
"Well now, that's what I call a genuine fact, the sort I was talking about," Mr. Flack replied. Whereupon he at last took himself off, repeating that he would come in two days later, at 3.15 sharp.
Francie gave an account of his visit to her sister, on the return of the latter young lady, and mentioned the agreement they had come to in relation to the drive. Delia, at this, looked grave, asseverating that she didn't know that it was right ("as" it was right, Delia usually said,) that Francie should be so intimate with other gentlemen after she was engaged.
"Intimate? You wouldn't think it's very intimate if you were to see me!" cried Francie, laughing.
"I'm sure I don't want to see you," Delia declared; and her sister, becoming strenuous, authoritative, went on: "Delia Dosson, do you realise that if it hadn't been for Mr. Flack we would never have had that picture, and that if it hadn't been for that picture I should never have got engaged?"
"It would have been better if you hadn't, if that's the way you are going to behave. Nothing would induce me to go with you."
This was what suited Francie; but she was nevertheless struck by Delia's rigidity. "I'm only going to take him to see Mr. Waterlow," she explained.
"Has he become all of a sudden too shy to go alone?"
"Well, you know Mr. Waterlow doesn't like him—and he has made him feel it. You know Gaston told us so."
"He told us he couldn't bear him: that's what he told us," said Delia.
"All the more reason I should be kind to him. Why, Delia, do realise," Francie went on.
"That's just what I do," returned the elder girl; "but things that are very different from those you want me to. You have queer reasons."
"I have others too that you may like better. He wants to put a piece in the paper about it."
"About your picture?"
"Yes, and about me. All about the whole thing."
Delia stared a moment. "Well, I hope it will be a good one!" she said with a little sigh of resignation, as if she were accepting the burden of a still larger fate.