The Three Fates 5

The Three Fates 5

“Gratuitous mendacity,” suggested her companion. “Is the word ‘lie’ in

the swearing dictionary?”

 

“Perhaps not—but after all, George,” continued Mrs. Trimm with sudden

fervour, “there are often very nice things to be said quite truly about

people we do not like, and it is certainly charitable and magnanimous to

say them in spite of our personal feelings. One may just as well leave

out the disagreeable things.”

 

“Satan is a fallen angel. You hate him of course. If he chanced to be in

society you would leave out the detail of the fall and say that Satan is

an angel. Is that it?”

 

“Approximately,” laughed Totty, who was less shocked at the mention of

the devil than at hearing tact called lying. “I think you would succeed

in society. By-the-bye, there is another thing. You must never talk

about culture and books and such things, unless some celebrity begins

it. That is most important, you know. Of course you would not like to

feel that you were talking of things which other people could not

understand, would you?”

 

“What should I talk about, then?”

 

“Oh—people, of course, and—and horses and things—yachting and fashions

and what people generally do.”

 

“But I know so few people,” objected George, “and as for horses, I have

not ridden since I was a boy, and I never was on board of a yacht, and I

do not care a straw for the fashions.”

 

“Well, really, then I hardly know. Perhaps you had better not talk much

until you have learned about things.”

 

“Perhaps not. Perhaps I had better not try society after all.”

 

“Oh, that is ridiculous!” exclaimed Mrs. Trimm, who did not want to

discourage her pupil. “Now, George, be a good boy, and do not get such

absurd notions into your head. You are going to begin this very day.”

 

“Am I?” inquired the young man in a tone that promised very little.

 

“Of course you are. And it will be easy, too, for the Fearing girls are

clever——”

 

“Does that mean that I may talk about something besides horses,

fashions, and yachting?”

 

“How dreadfully literal you are, George! I did not mean precisely those

things, only I could think of nothing else just at that moment. I know,

yes—you are going to ask if I ever think of anything else. Well, I do

sometimes—there, now do be good and behave like a sensible being. Here

we are.”

 

They had reached a large, old-fashioned house in Washington Square,

which George had often noticed without knowing who lived in it, and

which had always attracted him. He liked the quiet neighbourhood, so

near the busiest part of the city and yet so completely separated from

it, and he often went there alone to sit upon one of the benches under

the trees and think of all that might have been even then happening to

him if things had not been precisely what they were. He stood upon the

door-step and rang the bell, wondering at the unexpected turn his day

had taken, and wondering what manner of young women these orphan sisters

might be, with whom cousin Totty was so anxious to make him acquainted.

His curiosity on this head was soon satisfied. In a few seconds he found

himself in a sombrely-furnished drawing-room, bowing before two young

girls, while Mrs. Trimm introduced him.

 

“Mr. Winton Wood—my cousin George, you know. You got my note? Yes—so

sweet of you to be at home. This is Miss Constance Fearing, and this is

Miss Grace, George. Thanks, no—we have just been having tea. Yes—we

walked. The weather is perfectly lovely, and now tell me all about

yourself, Conny dear!”

 

Thereupon Mrs. Sherrington Trimm took Miss Constance Fearing beside her,

held her hand affectionately, and engaged in an animated conversation of

smiles and questions, leaving George to amuse the younger sister as best

he could.

 

At first sight there appeared to be a strong resemblance between the two

girls, which was much increased by their both being dressed in black and

in precisely the same manner. They were very nearly of the same age,

Constance being barely twenty-two years old and her sister just twenty,

though Mrs. Trimm had said that both had reached their majority. Both

were tall, graceful girls, well-proportioned in every way, easy in their

bearing, their heads well set upon their shoulders, altogether well

grown and well bred. But there was in reality a marked difference

between them. Constance was fairer and more delicate than her younger

sister, evidently less self-reliant and probably less strong. Her eyes

were blue and quiet, and her hair had golden tinges not to be found in

Grace’s dark-brown locks. Her complexion was more transparent, her even

eyebrows less strongly marked, her sensitive lips less firm. Of the two

she was evidently the more gentle and feminine. Grace’s voice was deep

and smooth, whereas Constance spoke in a higher though a softer key. It

was easy to see that Constance would be the one more quickly moved by

womanly sympathies and passions, and that Grace, on the contrary, would

be at once more obstinate and more sure of herself.

 

George was pleasantly impressed by both from the first, and especially

by the odd contrast between them and their surroundings. The house was

old-fashioned within as well as without. It was clear that the girls’

father and mother had been conservatives of the most severe type. The

furniture was dark, massive, and imposing; the velvet carpet displayed

in deeper shades of claret, upon a claret-coloured ground, that old

familiar pattern formed by four curved scrolls which enclose as in a

lozenge an imposing nosegay of almost black roses. Full-length portraits

of the family adorned the walls, and the fireplace was innocent of high

art tiles, being composed of three slabs of carved white marble, two

upright and one horizontal, in the midst of which a black grate

supported a coal fire. Moreover, as in all old houses in New York, the

front drawing-room communicated with a second at the back of the first

by great polished mahogany folding-doors, which, being closed, produce

the impression that one-half of the room is a huge press. There were

stiff sofas set against the wall, stiff corner bookcases filled with

histories expensively bound in dark tree calf, a stiff mahogany table

under an even stiffer chandelier of gilded metal; there were two or

three heavy easy-chairs, square, dark and polished like everything else,

and covered with red velvet of the same colour as the carpet, each

having before it a footstool of the old style, curved and made of the

same materials as the chairs themselves. A few modern books in their

fresh, perishable bindings showed the beginning of a new influence,

together with half a dozen magazines and papers, and a work-basket

containing a quantity of coloured embroidering silks.

 

George looked about him as he took his place beside Grace Fearing, and

noticed the greater part of the details just described.

 

“Are you fond of horses, yachting, fashions, and things people generally

do, Miss Fearing?” he inquired.

 

“Not in the least,” answered Grace, fixing her dark eyes upon him with a

look of cold surprise.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER III.

 

 

The stare of astonishment with which Grace Fearing met George’s singular

method of beginning a conversation rather disconcerted him, although he

had half expected it. He had asked the question while still under the

impression of Totty’s absurd advice, unable any longer to refrain from

communicating his feelings to some one.

 

“You seem surprised,” he said. “I will explain. I do not care a straw

for any of those things myself, but as we walked here my cousin was

giving me a lecture about conversation in society.”

 

“And she advised you to talk to us about horses?” inquired Miss Grace,

beginning to smile.

 

“No. Not to you. She gave me to understand that you were both very

clever, but she gave me a list of things about which a man should talk

in general society, and I flatter myself that I have remembered the

catalogue pretty accurately.”

 

“Indeed you have!” This time Grace laughed.

 

“Yes. And now that we have eliminated horses, yachts, and fashions, by

mutual consent, shall we talk about less important things?”

 

“Certainly. Where shall we begin?”

 

“With whatever you prefer. What do you like best in the world?”

 

“My sister,” answered Grace promptly.

 

“That answers the question, ‘Whom do you like best—?’”

 

“Very well, Mr. Wood, and whom do you like best?”

 

“Myself, of course. Everybody does, except people who have sisters like

yours.”

 

“Are you an egotist, then?”

 

“Not by intention, but by original sin, and by the fault of fate which

has omitted to give me a sister.”

 

“Have you no near relations?” Grace asked.

 

“I have my father.”

 

“And you are not more fond of him than of yourself?”

 

“Is one not bound to believe one’s father, when he speaks on mature

reflection, and is a very good man besides?”