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_ VOLUME I. BOOK FIRST. CHAPTER IX.
Ransom approached Mrs. Farrinder again, who had remained on her sofa
with Olive Chancellor; and as she turned her face to him he saw that she
had felt the universal contagion. Her keen eye sparkled, there was a
flush on her matronly cheek, and she had evidently made up her mind what
line to take. Olive Chancellor sat motionless; her eyes were fixed on
the floor with the rigid, alarmed expression of her moments of nervous
diffidence; she gave no sign of observing her kinsman's approach. He
said something to Mrs. Farrinder, something that imperfectly represented
his admiration of Verena; and this lady replied with dignity that it was
no wonder the girl spoke so well--she spoke in such a good cause. "She
is very graceful, has a fine command of language; her father says it's a
natural gift." Ransom saw that he should not in the least discover Mrs.
Farrinder's real opinion, and her dissimulation added to his impression
that she was a woman with a policy. It was none of his business whether
in her heart she thought Verena a parrot or a genius; it was perceptible
to him that she saw she would be effective, would help the cause. He
stood almost appalled for a moment, as he said to himself that she would
take her up and the girl would be ruined, would force her note and
become a screamer. But he quickly dodged this vision, taking refuge in a
mechanical appeal to his cousin, of whom he inquired how she liked Miss
Verena. Olive made no answer; her head remained averted, she bored the
carpet with her conscious eyes. Mrs. Farrinder glanced at her askance,
and then said to Ransom serenely:
"You praise the grace of your Southern ladies, but you have had to come
North to see a human gazelle. Miss Tarrant is of the best New England
stock--what _I_ call the best!"
"I'm sure from what I have seen of the Boston ladies, no manifestation
of grace can excite my surprise," Ransom rejoined, looking, with his
smile, at his cousin.
"She has been powerfully affected," Mrs. Farrinder explained, very
slightly dropping her voice, as Olive, apparently, still remained deaf.
Miss Birdseye drew near at this moment; she wanted to know if Mrs.
Farrinder didn't want to express some acknowledgment, on the part of the
company at large, for the real stimulus Miss Tarrant had given them.
Mrs. Farrinder said: Oh yes, she would speak now with pleasure; only she
must have a glass of water first. Miss Birdseye replied that there was
some coming in a moment; one of the ladies had asked for it, and Mr.
Pardon had just stepped down to draw some. Basil took advantage of this
intermission to ask Miss Birdseye if she would give him the great
privilege of an introduction to Miss Verena. "Mrs. Farrinder will thank
her for the company," he said, laughing, "but she won't thank her for
me."
Miss Birdseye manifested the greatest disposition to oblige him; she was
so glad he had been impressed. She was proceeding to lead him toward
Miss Tarrant when Olive Chancellor rose abruptly from her chair and laid
her hand, with an arresting movement, on the arm of her hostess. She
explained to her that she must go, that she was not very well, that her
carriage was there; also that she hoped Miss Birdseye, if it was not
asking too much, would accompany her to the door.
"Well, you are impressed too," said Miss Birdseye, looking at her
philosophically. "It seems as if no one had escaped."
Ransom was disappointed; he saw he was going to be taken away, and,
before he could suppress it, an exclamation burst from his lips--the
first exclamation he could think of that would perhaps check his
cousin's retreat: "Ah, Miss Olive, are you going to give up Mrs.
Farrinder?"
At this Miss Olive looked at him, showed him an extraordinary face, a
face he scarcely understood or even recognised. It was portentously
grave, the eyes were enlarged, there was a red spot in each of the
cheeks, and as directed to him, a quick, piercing question, a kind of
leaping challenge, in the whole expression. He could only answer this
sudden gleam with a stare, and wonder afresh what trick his Northern
kinswoman was destined to play him. Impressed too? He should think he
had been! Mrs. Farrinder, who was decidedly a woman of the world, came
to his assistance, or to Miss Chancellor's, and said she hoped very much
Olive wouldn't stay--she felt these things too much. "If you stay, I
won't speak," she added; "I should upset you altogether." And then she
continued, tenderly, for so preponderantly intellectual a nature: "When
women feel as you do, how can I doubt that we shall come out all right?"
"Oh, we shall come out all right, I guess," murmured Miss Birdseye.
"But you must remember Beacon Street," Mrs. Farrinder subjoined. "You
must take advantage of your position--you must wake up the Back Bay!"
"I'm sick of the Back Bay!" said Olive fiercely; and she passed to the
door with Miss Birdseye, bidding good-bye to no one. She was so agitated
that, evidently, she could not trust herself, and there was nothing for
Ransom but to follow. At the door of the room, however, he was checked
by a sudden pause on the part of the two ladies: Olive stopped and stood
there hesitating. She looked round the room and spied out Verena, where
she sat with her mother, the centre of a gratified group; then, throwing
back her head with an air of decision, she crossed over to her. Ransom
said to himself that now, perhaps, was his chance, and he quickly
accompanied Miss Chancellor. The little knot of reformers watched her as
she arrived; their faces expressed a suspicion of her social importance,
mingled with conscientious scruples as to whether it were right to
recognise it. Verena Tarrant saw that she was the object of this
manifestation, and she got up to meet the lady whose approach was so
full of point. Ransom perceived, however, or thought he perceived, that
she recognised nothing; she had no suspicions of social importance. Yet
she smiled with all her radiance, as she looked from Miss Chancellor to
him; smiled because she liked to smile, to please, to feel her
success--or was it because she was a perfect little actress, and this
was part of her training? She took the hand that Olive put out to her;
the others, rather solemnly, sat looking up from their chairs.
"You don't know me, but I want to know you," Olive said. "I can thank
you now. Will you come and see me?"
"Oh yes; where do you live?" Verena answered, in the tone of a girl for
whom an invitation (she hadn't so many) was always an invitation.
Miss Chancellor syllabled her address, and Mrs. Tarrant came forward,
smiling. "I know about you, Miss Chancellor. I guess your father knew my
father--Mr. Greenstreet. Verena will be very glad to visit you. We shall
be very happy to see you in _our_ home."
Basil Ransom, while the mother spoke, wanted to say something to the
daughter, who stood there so near him, but he could think of nothing
that would do; certain words that came to him, his Mississippi phrases,
seemed patronising and ponderous. Besides, he didn't wish to assent to
what she had said; he wished simply to tell her she was delightful, and
it was difficult to mark that difference. So he only smiled at her in
silence, and she smiled back at him--a smile that seemed to him quite
for himself.
"Where do you live?" Olive asked; and Mrs. Tarrant replied that they
lived at Cambridge, and that the horse-cars passed just near their door.
Whereupon Olive insisted "Will you come very soon?" and Verena said, Oh
yes, she would come very soon, and repeated the number in Charles
Street, to show that she had taken heed of it. This was done with
childlike good faith. Ransom saw that she would come and see any one who
would ask her like that, and he regretted for a minute that he was not a
Boston lady, so that he might extend to her such an invitation. Olive
Chancellor held her hand a moment longer, looked at her in farewell, and
then, saying, "Come, Mr. Ransom," drew him out of the room. In the hall
they met Mr. Pardon, coming up from the lower regions with a jug of
water and a tumbler. Miss Chancellor's hackney-coach was there, and when
Basil had put her into it she said to him that she wouldn't trouble him
to drive with her--his hotel was not near Charles Street. He had so
little desire to sit by her side--he wanted to smoke--that it was only
after the vehicle had rolled off that he reflected upon her coolness,
and asked himself why the deuce she had brought him away. She _was_ a
very odd cousin, was this Boston cousin of his. He stood there a moment,
looking at the light in Miss Birdseye's windows and greatly minded to
re-enter the house, now he might speak to the girl. But he contented
himself with the memory of her smile, and turned away with a sense of
relief, after all, at having got out of such wild company, as well as
with (in a different order) a vulgar consciousness of being very
thirsty. _
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