Mr. Fulton was scrupulously polite towards women. His American training showed in this particular more strongly than in any other, and caused him to contrast advantageously with the pompous and self-engrossed Mr. Carruthers of Poynings, who was not a general favourite in the small society with whom he condescended to mix while in "foreign parts," as he carefully designated the places of his sojourn which were so unfortunate as not to be under British rule. Mr. Carruthers was apt to apologize, or rather to explain, the temporary seclusion in which Mrs. Carruthers's delicate health obliged him to remain, on the rare occasions when he encountered any of his acquaintances with a highly offensive air of understanding and regretting the loss he was obliged to inflict upon them; and the innocent and worthy gentleman would have been very much astonished if it had been revealed to him that his condescension had generally the effect of irritating some and amusing others among the number of its recipients. The manners of his brother-in-law were at once more simple and more refined. There was no taint of egotism in them, and, though his engrossing cares, added to a naturally grave disposition, made him serious and reserved, every one liked Mr. Felton.
Except Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge, who disliked him as much as she could be at the trouble of disliking anybody--which, indeed, was not much, for her real nature was essentially trivial, and her affections, except for herself and her enmities, alike wavering, weak, and contemptible. Mr. Felton neither liked nor respected the brilliant woman who was so much admired and so very much "talked about" at Homburg; but he said nothing of his contumacious dissent from the general opinion except to George, and was gravely courteous and acquiescent when the lady, her dress, her ponies, her "dash," and her wealth--the latter estimated with the usual liberality of society in such cases--were discussed in his presence. They had been pretty freely discussed during a few days which preceded the conversation concerning her which had taken place between the uncle and nephew. When they met again on the following morning, George asked Mr. Felton when he intended to visit Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge, and was informed that his uncle purposed writing to the lady to inquire at what time it be her pleasure and convenience to receive him. George looked a little doubtful on hearing this. The remembrance of Harriet's strongly expressed opinion was in his mind, and he had a notion that his uncle would have done more wisely had he sought her presence unannounced. But such a proceeding would have been entirely inconsistent with Mr. Felton's notions of the proper and polite, and his nephew dismissed the subject; reflecting that, after all, as she had said "he knows where to find me if he wants to know what I can tell him," she could not refuse to see him. So Mr. Felton's note was written and sent, and an answer returned which perfectly justified George's misgiving that if Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge were afforded an opportunity of offering Mr. Felton an impertinence, she would not hesitate to avail herself of it.
The answer was curt and decisive. Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge was particularly engaged that day, and would be particularly engaged the next; on the third she would receive Mr. Felton at three o'clock. Mr. Felton handed the missive to his nephew with an expression of countenance partly disconcerted and partly amused.
"I thought so," said George, as he tossed the dainty sheet of paper, with its undecipherable monogram and its perfume of the latest fashion, upon the table--"I thought so. We must only wait until Thursday, that is, unless we chance to meet your fair correspondent in our walks between to-day and Thursday."
But Mr. Felton and his nephew did not chance to meet Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge either on that or on the succeeding day. Once they saw her pony-carriage coming towards them, but it turned off into another road, and was out of sight before they reached the turn.
"I am pretty sure she saw and recognized us," George Dallas thought; "but why she should avoid my uncle, except out of sheer spite, I cannot imagine."
There was no farther to look for the lady's motive. Sheer spite was the highest flight of Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge's powers of revenge or anger. She was an accomplished and systematic coquette; and, having more brains than heart, however mediocre her endowments in either sense, she was perfectly successful. She disliked Mr. Felton, because he had never betrayed any admiration or even consciousness of her beauty, and it was very annoying to a woman of her stamp to have tried her arts unsuccessfully on an elderly man. She had tried them merely in an idle hour, and with the amiable purpose of enjoying the novelty of such a conquest; but she had failed, and she was irritated by her failure.
If Mr. Felton had even sheltered himself behind the rampart of his years, it would have been more tolerable--if he had extended a kind of paternal protection to her, for instance. But he did not; he simply paid her ordinary attentions in his customary grave way, whenever he was brought in contact with her, and, for the rest, calmly ignored her. When his son appeared in her train, she had not the satisfaction of believing she could make the father wretched by encouraging him. Mr. Felton had graver cause than any she could help to procure for him, for disapproval of his son's conduct in most respects. She counted for nothing in the sum of his dissatisfaction, but she certainly became more distasteful to him when she was added to the number of its components. Mark Felton had wounded the sensitive self-love of a woman who knew no deeper passion. She was animated by genuine spite towards him, when she declined to accede to his request for an immediate interview.
By what feeling was Stewart Routh, who was with her when she received Mr. Felton's note, and who strongly urged the answer she sent to it, actuated t He would have found it difficult to tell. Not jealousy; the tone in which she had spoken of Arthur Felton precluded that feeling. Routh had felt that it was genuine, even while he knew that this woman was deliberately enslaving him, and therefore was naturally suspicious of every tone in which she spoke of any one. But his judgment was not yet entirely clouded by passion; he had felt, in their brief conversation relative to Arthur Felton, that her tone had been true. He hated George Dallas now; he did not deceive himself about that. There was a vague dread and trouble in his thoughts concerning the young man. Once he had only despised him. He no longer despised him; but he hated him instead. And this hatred, further reaching than love, included all who were connected with George, and especially Mr. Felton, whose grave and distant manner, whose calm and penetrating glance, conveyed keen offence to Stewart Routh. They had not spoken of the matter to each other; but Routh had felt, as soon and as strongly as Harriet, that his influence over Dallas was at an end. As it happened, he had successfully used that influence for the last time in which he could foresee any need for its employment, and therefore Mr. Felton had not done him any practical injury; but that did not matter: he hated him all the same.
He had watched the smile with which Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge read Mr. Felton's note a little anxiously. He did not dare to ask her from whom the missive came, but she graciously gave him the information.
"He wants to see me, to find out Master Arthur's doings," she said, with a ringing mischievous laugh. "Not that I know anything about him since he left Paris, and I shall have to look serious and listen to more preaching than goes well with the sunshine of to-day. It's rather a nuisance;" and the lady pouted her scarlet lips very effectively.
"Don't see him," said Routh, as he leant forward and gazed at her with eager admiration. "Don't see him. Don't lose this beautiful day, or any part of it, for him. You can't give him any real information."
"Except that his son is coming here," she said, slyly.
"I forgot," said Stewart Routh, as he rose and walked moodily to the window.
Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge smiled a little triumphantly, and said, gaily: "He shall wait for the news. I dare say it will be quite as welcome to-morrow."
"Don't say to-morrow either," said Routh, approaching her again, as she seated herself at her writing-table, and bending so as to look into her eyes.
"Why?" she asked, as she selected a pen.
"Because I must go away on Thursday. I have an appointment, to meet a man at Frankfort. I shall be away all day. Let this anxious parent come to you in my absence; don't waste the time upon him."
"And if the time does not seem so wonderfully precious to me, what then?" said the lady, looking straight at him, and giving to her voice a truly irresistible charm, a tone in which the least possible rebuke of his presumption was mingled with the subtlest encouragement. "What then?" she repeated. ("Decidedly, he is dreadfully in earnest," she thought.)
"Then," said Routh, in a low hoarse voice, "then I do not say you are deceiving me, but I am deceiving myself."
So Mr. Felton received the answer to his note, and found that he must wait until the following Thursday.
People talked about Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge at Homburg as they had talked about her at New York and at Paris, at Florence and at Naples; in fact, in every place where she had shone and sparkled, distributed her flashing glances, and dispensed her apparently inexhaustible dollars. They talked of her at all the places of public resort, and in all the private circles. Mr. Felton was eagerly questioned about his beautiful compatriot by the people whom he met at the springs and in the gardens, and even by the visitors to Mr. and Mrs. Carruthers. Probably he did not know much about her; certainly he said little. She was a widow, without near relations, childless, and possessed of a large fortune. There was no doubt at all about that. Was she "received" in her own country? Yes, certainly. He had never heard anything against her. Her manners were very independent, rather too independent for European ideas. Very likely Mr. Felton was not a judge. At all events, ladies rarely visited the brilliant American. Indeed! But that did not surprise him. Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge did not care for ladies' society--disliked it, in fact--and had no hesitation about saying so. Women did not amuse her, and she cared only for being amused. This, with the numerous amplifications which would naturally attend such a discussion, had all been heard by George, and was just the sort of thing calculated to excite the curiosity and interest of a young man of his disposition and antecedents. But it all failed to attract him now. Life had become very serious and real to George Dallas of late, and the image he carried about with him, enshrined in his memory, and sanctified in his heart, had nothing in common with the prosperous and insolent beauty which was the American's panoply.
It was rather late in the afternoon of the day on which Mr. Felton had received Mrs. Bembridge's note, before George presented himself at Harriet's lodgings. He had been detained by his mother, who had kept him talking to her a much longer time than usual. Mrs. Carruthers was daily gaining strength, and her pleasure in her son's society was touching to witness, especially when her husband was also present. She would lie on her sofa, while the two conversed, more and more freely, as the air of making one another's acquaintance which had attended their first few days together wore off, and was replaced by pleasant companionship. At such times George would look at his mother with his heart full of remorse and repentance, and think mournfully how he had caused her all the suffering which had indirectly led to the result for which she had not dared to hope.............