In considering Stephen's attitude towards a woman so firmly embedded in the various social movements of the day, it must be remembered that he represented that large class of men who, unhappily too cultivated to put aside, like Mr. Purcey, all blue subjects, or deny the need for movements to make them less blue, still could not move, for fear of being out of order. He was also temperamentally distrustful of anything too feminine; and Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace was undoubtedly extremely feminine. Her merit, in his eyes, consisted of her attachment to Societies. So long as mankind worked through Societies, Stephen, who knew the power of rules and minute books, did not despair of too little progress being made. He sat down beside her, and turned the conversation on her chief work--"the Maids in Peril."Searching his face with those eyes so like little black bees sipping honey from all the flowers that grew, Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace said:
"Why don't you get your wife to take an interest in our work?"To Stephen this question was naturally both unexpected and annoying, one's wife being the last person he wished to interest in other people's movements. He kept his head.
"Ah well!" he said, "we haven't all got a talent for that sort of thing."The voice of Mr. Purcey travelled suddenly across the room.
"Do tell me! How do you go to work to worm things out of them?"Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace, prone to laughter, bubbled.
"Oh, that is such a delicious expression, Mr. Purcey! I almost think we ought to use it in our Report. Thank you!"Mr. Purcey bowed. "Not at all!" he said.
Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace turned again to Stephen.
"We have our trained inquirers. That is the advantage of Societies such as ours; so that we don't personally have the unpleasantness.
Some cases do baffle everybody. It's such very delicate work.""You sometimes find you let in a rotter?" said Mr. Purcey, "or, Ishould say, a rotter lets you in! Ha, ha!"
Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace's eyes flew deliciously down his figure.
"Not often," she said; and turning rather markedly once more to Stephen: "Have you any special case that you are interested in, Mr. Dallison?"
Stephen consulted Cecilia with one of those masculine half-glances so discreet that Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace intercepted it without looking up. She found it rather harder to catch Cecilia's reply, but she caught it before Stephen did. It was, 'You'd better wait, perhaps,' conveyed by a tiny raising of the left eyebrow and a slight movement to the right of the lower lip. Putting two and two together, she felt within her bones that they were thinking of the little model.
And she remembered the interesting moment in the omnibus when that attractive-looking man had got out so hastily.
There was no danger whatever from Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace feeling anything. The circle in which she moved did not now talk scandal, or, indeed, allude to matters of that sort without deep sympathy;and in the second place she was really far too good a fellow, with far too dear a love of life, to interfere with anybody else's love of it. At the same time it was interesting.
"That little model, now," she said, "what about her?""Is that the girl I saw?" broke in Mr. Purcey, with his accustomed shrewdness.
Stephen gave him the look with which he was accustomed to curdle the blood of persons who gave evidence before Commissions.
'This fellow is impossible,' he thought.
The little black bees flying below Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace's dark hair, done in the Early Italian fashion, tranquilly sucked honey from Stephen's face.
"She seemed to me," she answered, "such a very likely type.""Ah!" murmured Stephen, "there would be, I suppose, a danger---" And he looked angrily at Cecilia.
Without ceasing to converse with Mr. Purcey and Signor Egregio Pozzi, she moved her left eye upwards. Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace understood this to mean: 'Be frank, and guarded!' Stephen, however, interpreted it otherwise. To him it signified: 'What the deuce do you look at me for?' And he felt justly hurt. He therefore said abruptly:
"What would you do in a case like that?"
Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace, sliding her face sideways, with a really charming little smile, asked softly:
"In a case like what?"
And her little eyes fled to Thyme, who had slipped into the room, and was whispering to her mother.
Cecilia rose.
"You know my daughter," she said. "Will you excuse me just a minute?
I'm so very sorry." She glided towards the door, and threw a flying look back. It was one of those social moments precious to those who are escaping them.
Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace was smiling, Stephen frowning at his boots;Mr. Purcey stared admiringly at Thyme, and Thyme, sitting very upright, was calmly regarding the unfortunate Egregio Pozzi, who apparently could not bring himself to speak.
When Cecilia found herself outside, she stood still a moment to compose her nerves. Thyme had told her that Hilary was in the dining-room, and wanted specially to see her.
As in most women of her class and bringing-up, Cecilia's qualities of reticence and subtlety, the delicate treading of her spirit, were seen to advantage in a situation such as this. Unlike Stephen, who had shown at once that he had something on his mind, she received Hilary with that exact shade of friendly, intimate, yet cool affection long established by her as the proper manner towards her husband's brother. It was not quite sisterly, but it was very nearly so. It seemed to say: 'We understand each other as far as it is right and fitting that we should; we even sympathise with the difficulties we have each of us experienced in marrying the other's sister or brother, as the case may be. We know the worst. And we like to see each other, too, because there are bars between us, which make it almost piquant.'
