The Yellow Book/Volume 5/Suggestion
Suggestion
IF Lady Winthrop had not spoken of me as "that intolerable, effeminate boy," she might have had some chance of marrying my father. She was a middle-aged widow; prosaic, fond of domineering, and an alarmingly excellent housekeeper; the serious work of her life was paying visits; in her lighter moments she collected autographs. She was highly suitable and altogether insupportable; and this unfortunate remark about me was, as people say, the last straw. Some encouragement from father Lady Winthrop must, I think, have received; for she took to calling at odd hours, asking my sister Marjorie sudden abrupt questions, and being generally impossible. A tradition existed that her advice was of use to our father in his household, and when, last year, he married his daughter's school-friend, a beautiful girl of twenty, it surprised every one except Marjorie and myself.
The whole thing was done, in fact, by suggestion. I shall never forget that summer evening when father first realised, with regard to Laura Egerton, the possible. He was giving a little dinner of eighteen people. Through a mistake of Marjorie's (my idea) Lady Winthrop did not receive her invitation till the very last minute. Of course she accepted—we knew she would—but unknowing that it was a dinner party, she came without putting on evening-dress.
Page:The Yellow Book - 05.djvu/278 Page:The Yellow Book - 05.djvu/279 Page:The Yellow Book - 05.djvu/280 Page:The Yellow Book - 05.djvu/281 Page:The Yellow Book - 05.djvu/282 Page:The Yellow Book - 05.djvu/283 Page:The Yellow Book - 05.djvu/284 "Go on, Cissy."
"She is one of those who must be appealed to, at first, by her imagination. She married our father because she thought he was lonely and misunderstood."
"I am lonely and misunderstood," said Adrian, his eyes flashing with delight.
"Ah, not twice! She doesn't like that now."
I finished my coffee slowly, and then I said,
"Go to the Clives' fancy-ball as Tristan."
Adrian pressed my hand. . . .
At the door of the restaurant we parted, and I drove home through the cool April night, wondering, wondering. Suddenly I thought of my mother—my beautiful sainted mother, who would have loved me, I am convinced, had she lived, with an extraordinary devotion. What would she have said to all this? What would she have thought? I know not why, but a mad reaction seized me. I felt recklessly conscientious. My father! After all, he was my father. I was possessed by passionate scruples. If I went back now to Adrian—if I went back and implored him, supplicated him never to see Laura again!
I felt I could persuade him. I have sufficient personal magnetism to do that, if I make up my mind. After one glance in the looking-glass, I put up my stick and stopped the hansom. I had taken a resolution. I told the man to drive to Adrian's rooms.
He turned round with a sharp jerk. In another second a brougham passed us—a swift little brougham that I knew. It slackened—it stopped—we passed it—I saw my father. He was getting out at one of the little houses opposite the Brompton Oratory.
"Turn round again," I shouted to the cabman. And he drove me straight home.