He seemed to look at me quite without uneasiness now."Why, haven't you seen for yourself--?""How the case stands with her on that head? Do you mean haven't I talked with her? Well, scarcely; for it's a fact that every man in the house BUTI strikes me as having been deluged with that privilege: if indeed," Ilaughed, "her absence of topics suffers it to be either a privilege or a deluge! She affects me, in any case, as determined to have nothing to do with me.She walks all the rest of you about; she gives you each your turn; me only she skips, she systematically ignores.I'm half consoled for it, however," I wound up, "by seeing what short innings any individual of you has.You personally strike me as having had the longest."Brissenden appeared to wonder where I was coming out, yet not as if he feared it.There was even a particular place, if I could but guess it, where he would have liked me to come."Oh, she's extremely charming.But of course she's strikingly odd.""Odd?--really?"
"Why, in the sense, I mean, that I thought you suggested you've noticed.""That of extravagant vivacity? Oh, I've had to notice it at a distance, without knowing what it represents."He just hesitated."You haven't any idea at all what it represents?""How should I have," I smiled, "when she never comes near me? I've thought THAT, as I tell you, marked.What does her avoidance of ME represent? Has she happened, with you, to throw any light on it?""I think," said Brissenden after another moment, "that she's rather afraid of you."I could only be surprised."The most harmless man in the house?""ARE you really?" he asked--and there was a touch of the comic in hearing him put it with his inveterate gravity.
"If you take me for anything else," I replied, "I doubt if you'll find anyone to back you."My companion, on this, looked away for a little, turned about, fixed his eyes on the house, seemed, as with a drop of interest, on the point of leaving me.But instead of leaving me he brought out the next moment:
"I don't want anyone to back me.I don't care.I didn't mean just now,"he continued, "that Mrs.Server has said to me anything against you, or that she fears you because she dislikes you.She only told me she thought you disliked HER."It gave me a kind of shock."A creature so beautiful, and so--so--""So what?" he asked as I found myself checked by my desire to come to her aid.
"Well, so brilliantly happy."
I had all his attention again."Is that what she IS?""Then don't you, with your opportunities, know?" I was conscious of rather an inspiration, a part of which was to be jocose."What are you trying," I laughed, "to get out of me?"It struck me luckily that, though he remained as proof against gaiety as ever, he was, thanks to his preoccupation, not disagreeably affected by my tone."Of course if you've no idea, I can get nothing.""No idea of what?"
Then it was that I at last got it straight."Well, of what's the matter with her.""Is there anything particular? If there IS," I went on, "there's something that I've got out of YOU!""How so, if you don't know what it is?"
"Do you mean if you yourself don't?" But without detaining him on this, "Of what in especial do the signs," I asked, "consist?""Well, of everyone's thinking so--that there's something or other."This again struck me, but it struck me too much."Oh, everyone's a fool!"He saw, in his queer wan way, how it had done so."Then you HAVE your own idea?"I daresay my smile at him, while I waited, showed a discomfort."Do you mean people are talking about her?"But he waited himself."Haven't they shown you--?""No, no one has spoken.Moreover I wouldn't have let them.""Then there you ARE!" Brissenden exclaimed."If you've kept them off, it must be because you differ with them.""I shan't be sure of that," I returned, "till I know what they think!
However, I repeat," I added, "that I shouldn't even then care.I don't mind admitting that she much interests me.""There you are, there you are!" he said again.
"That's all that's the matter with her so far as i'm concerned.You see, at any rate, how little it need make her afraid of me.She's lovely and she's gentle and she's happy."My friend kept his eyes on me."What is there to interest you so in that? Isn't it a description that applies here to a dozen other women?
You can't say, you know, that you're interested in them, for you just spoke of them as so many fools."There was a certain surprise for me in so much acuteness, which, however, doubtless admonished me as to the need of presence of mind."I wasn't thinking of the ladies--I was thinking of the men.""That's amiable to me," he said with his gentle gloom.
"Oh, my dear Brissenden, I except 'you.'""And why should you?"
I felt a trifle pushed."I'll tell you some other time.And among the ladies I except Mrs.Brissenden, with whom, as you may have noticed, I've been having much talk.""And will you tell me some other time about that too?" On which, as I but amicably shook my head for no, he had his first dimness of pleasantry.
"I'll get it then from my wife."
"Never.She won't tell you."
"She has passed you her word? That won't alter the fact that she tells me everything."He really said it in a way that made me take refuge for an instant in looking at my watch."Are you going back to tea? If you are, I'll, in spite of my desire to roam, walk twenty steps with you." I had already again put my hand into his arm, and we strolled for a little till I threw off that I was sure Mrs.Server was waiting for him.To this he replied that if I wished to get rid of him he was as willing to take that as anything else for granted--an observation that I, on my side, answered with an inquiry, though an inquiry that had nothing to do with it."Do you also tell everything to Mrs.Brissenden?"It brought him up shorter than I had expected."Do you ask me that in order that I shan't speak to her of this?"I showed myself at a loss."Of 'this'--?""Why, of what we've made out--"