"Something important, great, something that would make her famous, but of
course now"--she paused--"now it's too late," she concluded. "Marriage
destroys, not creates talent. Some celebrated man--I forget which--has
said something like that."
"Perhaps he'd destroyed his wife's. I think Hermione might be a great
mother."
Miss Townly blushed faintly. She did nearly everything faintly. That was
partly why she admired Hermione.
"And a great mother is rare," continued Mrs. Creswick. "Good mothers are,
thank God, quite common even in London, whatever those foolish people who
rail at the society they can't get into may say. But great mothers are
seldom met with. I don't know one."
"What do you mean by a great mother?" inquired Miss Townly.
"A mother who makes seeds grow. Hermione has a genius for friendship and
a special gift for inspiring others. If she ever has a child, I can
imagine that she will make of that child something wonderful."
"Do you mean an infant prodigy?" asked Miss Townly, innocently.
"No, dear, I don't!" said Mrs. Creswick; "I mean nothing of the sort.
Never mind!"
When Mrs. Creswick said "Never mind!" Miss Townly usually got up to go.
She got up to go now, and went forth into Sloane Street meditating, as
she would have expressed it, "profoundly."
Meanwhile Artois went back to the Hans Crescent Hotel on foot. He walked
slowly along the greasy pavement through the yellow November fog, trying
to combat a sensation of dreariness which had floated round his spirit,
as the fog floated round his body, directly he stepped into the street.
He often felt depressed without a special cause, but this afternoon
there was a special cause for his melancholy. Hermione was going to be
married.
She often came to Paris, where she had many friends, and some years ago
they had met at a dinner given by a brilliant Jewess, who delighted in
clever people, not because she was stupid, but for the opposite reason.
Artois was already famous, though not loved, as a novelist. He had
published two books; works of art, cruel, piercing, brutal, true.
Hermione had read them. Her intellect had revelled in them, but they had
set ice about her heart, and when Madame Enthoven told her who was going
to take her in to dinner, she very nearly begged to be given another
partner. She felt that her nature must be in opposition to this man's.
Artois was not eager for the honor of her company. He was a careful
dissecter of women, and, therefore, understood how mysterious women are;
but in his intimate life they counted for little. He regarded them there
rather as the European traveller regards the Mousmés of Japan, as
playthings, and insisted on one thing only--that they must be pretty. A
Frenchman, despite his unusual intellectual power, he was not wholly
emancipated from the la petite femme tradition, which will never be
outmoded in Paris while Paris hums with life, and, therefore, when he was
informed that he was to take in to dinner the tall, solidly built,
big-waisted, rugged-faced woman, whom he had been observing from a
distance ever since he came into the drawing-room, he felt that he was
being badly treated by his hostess.