Part 21 (1/2)
No. Mary could not look at her and say so, for a very good reason. She had not the most distant idea what Chrysophrasia was talking about. On general principles, she had made a remark about being charitable, and was now held to account for it. She smiled timidly, as though to deprecate her sister's vengeance.
”Mary,” said Chrysophrasia, in a tone of sorrowful rebuke, ”I am afraid you are not listening to me.”
”Indeed I am,” said Mrs. Carvel, patiently.
”Well, then, Mary, I say it is a hollow sham, and that it cannot go on any longer.”
”Yes, my dear,” a.s.sented her sister. ”I have no doubt you are right; but what were you referring to as a hollow sham?”
”You are hopeless, Mary,--you have no intuitions. Of course I mean Paul.”
Even this was not perfectly clear, and Mrs. Carvel looked inquiringly at her sister.
”Is it possible you do not understand?” asked Chrysophrasia. ”Do you propose to allow my niece--my niece, Mary, and your daughter,” she repeated with awful emphasis--”to fall in love with her own cousin?”
”I am sure the dear child would never think of such a thing,” answered Mary Carvel, very gently, and as though not wis.h.i.+ng to contradict her sister. ”He has not been here twenty-four hours.”
”The dear child is thinking of it at this very moment,” said Chrysophrasia. ”And what is more, Paul has come here with the deliberate intention of marrying her. I have seen it from the first moment he entered the house. I can see it in his eyes.”
”Well, my dear, you may be right. But I have not noticed anything of the sort, and I think you go too far. You will jump at conclusions, Chrysophrasia.”
”If I went at them at all, Mary, I would glide,--I certainly would not jump,” replied the aesthetic lady, with a languid smile. Mrs. Carvel looked wearily out of the window. ”Besides,” continued Chrysophrasia, ”the thing is quite impossible. Paul is not at all a match. Hermy will be very rich, some day. John will not leave everything to Macaulay: I have heard him say so.”
”Why do you discuss the matter, Chrysophrasia?” objected Mrs. Carvel, with a little shade of very mild impatience. ”There is no question of Hermy marrying Paul.”
”Then Paul ought to go away at once.”
”We cannot send him away. Besides, I think he is a very good fellow. You forget that poor Annie is in the house, and he has a right to see her, at least for a week.”
”It seems to me that Annie might go and live with him.”
”He has no home, poor fellow,--he is in the diplomatic service. He is made to fly from Constantinople to Persia, and from Persia to St.
Petersburg; how could he take poor Annie with him?”
”If poor Annie chose,” said Chrysophrasia, sniffing the air with a disagreeable expression, ”poor Annie could go. If she has sense enough to dress herself gorgeously and to read dry books all day, she has sense enough to travel.”
”Oh, Chrysophrasia! How dreadfully unkind you are! You know how--ill she is.”
Mrs. Carvel did not like to p.r.o.nounce the word ”insane.” She always spoke of Madame Patoff's ”illness.”
”I do not believe it,” returned Miss Dabstreak. ”She is no more crazy than I am. I believe Professor Cutter knows it, too. Only he has been used to saying that she is mad for so long that he will not believe his senses, for fear of contradicting himself.”
”In any case I would rather trust to him than to my own judgment.”
”I would not. I am utterly sick of this perpetual disturbance about Annie's state of mind. It destroys the charm of a peaceful existence. If I had the strength, I would go to her and tell her that I know she is perfectly sane, and that she must leave the house. John is so silly about her. He turns the place into an asylum, just because she chooses to hold her tongue.”
Mrs. Carvel rose with great dignity.
”I will leave you, Chrysophrasia,” she said. ”I cannot bear to hear you talk in this way. You really ought to be more charitable.”
”You are angry, Mary,” replied her sister. ”Good-by. I cannot bear the strain of arguing with you. When you are calmer you will remember what I have said.”