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As Jane grew up, he sometimes avenged himself by wondering if his
wife was still sorry that they had not called her Muriel. Jane was
not ugly; she developed, indeed, a kind of categorical prettiness
that might have been a projection of her mind. She had a creditable
collection of features, but one had to take an inventory of them to
find out that she was good-looking. The fusing grace had been
omitted.
Mrs. Lethbury took a touching pride in her daughter's first steps in
the world. She expected Jane to take by her complexion those whom
she did not capture by her learning. But Jane's rosy freshness did
not work any perceptible ravages. Whether the young men guessed the
axioms on her lips and detected the encyclopaedia in her eye, or
whether they simply found no intrinsic interest in these features,
certain it is, that, in spite of her mother's heroic efforts, and of
incessant calls on Lethbury's purse, Jane, at the end of her first
season, had dropped hopelessly out of the running. A few duller
girls found her interesting, and one or two young men came to the
house with the object of meeting other young women; but she was
rapidly becoming one of the social supernumeraries who are asked out
only because they are on people's lists.
The blow was bitter to Mrs. Lethbury; but she consoled herself with
the idea that Jane had failed because she was too clever. Jane
probably shared this conviction; at all events she betrayed no
consciousness of failure. She had developed a pronounced taste for
society, and went out, unweariedly and obstinately, winter after
winter, while Mrs. Lethbury toiled in her wake, showering attentions
on oblivious hostesses. To Lethbury there was something at once
tragic and exasperating in the sight of their two figures, the one
conciliatory, the other dogged, both pursuing with unabated zeal the
elusive prize of popularity. He even began to feel a personal stake
in the pursuit, not as it concerned Jane, but as it affected his
wife. He saw that the latter was the victim of Jane's
disappointment: that Jane was not above the crude satisfaction of
"taking it out" of her mother. Experience checked the impulse to
come to his wife's defence; and when his resentment was at its
height, Jane disarmed him by giving up the struggle.
Nothing was said to mark her capitulation; but Lethbury noticed that
the visiting ceased, and that the dressmaker's bills diminished. At
the same time, Mrs. Lethbury made it known that Jane had taken up
charities; and before long Jane's conversation confirmed this
announcement. At first Lethbury congratulated himself on the change;
but Jane's domesticity soon began to weigh on him. During the day
she was sometimes absent on errands of mercy; but in the evening she
was always there. At first she and Mrs. Lethbury sat in the
drawing-room together, and Lethbury smoked in the library; but
presently Jane formed the habit of joining him there, and he began
to suspect that he was included among the objects of her
philanthropy.
Mrs. Lethbury confirmed the suspicion. "Jane has grown very
serious-minded lately," she said. "She imagines that she used to
neglect you, and she is trying to make up for it. Don't discourage
her," she added innocently.
Such a plea delivered Lethbury helpless to his daughter's
ministrations: and he found himself measuring the hours he spent
with her by the amount of relief they must be affording her mother.
There were even moments when he read a furtive gratitude in Mrs.
Lethbury's eye.
But Lethbury was no hero, and he had nearly reached the limit of
vicarious endurance when something wonderful happened. They never
quite knew afterward how it had come about, or who first perceived
it; but Mrs. Lethbury one day gave tremulous voice to their
inferences.
"Of course," she said, "he comes here because of Elise." The young
lady in question, a friend of Jane's, was possessed of attractions
which had already been found to explain the presence of masculine
visitors.
Lethbury risked a denial. "I don't think he does," he declared.
"But Elise is thought very pretty," Mrs. Lethbury insisted.
"I can't help that," said Lethbury doggedly.
He saw a faint light in his wife's eyes; but she remarked
carelessly: "Mr. Budd would be a very good match for Elise."
Lethbury could hardly repress a chuckle: he was so exquisitely aware
that she was trying to propitiate the gods.
For a few weeks neither said a word; then Mrs. Lethbury once more
reverted to the subject.
"It is a month since Elise went abroad," she said.
"Is it?"
"And Mr. Budd seems to come here just as often--"
"Ah," said Lethbury with heroic indifference; and his wife hastily
changed the subject.
Mr. Winstanley Budd was a young man who suffered from an excess of
manner. Politeness gushed from him in the driest seasons. He was
always performing feats of drawing-room chivalry, and the approach
of the most unobtrusive female threw him into attitudes which
endangered the furniture. His features, being of the cherubic order,
did not lend themselves to this role; but there were moments when he
appeared to dominate them, to force them into compliance with an
aquiline ideal. The range of Mr. Budd's social benevolence made its
object hard to distinguish. He spread his cloak so indiscriminately
that one could not always interpret the gesture, and Jane's
impassive manner had the effect of increasing his demonstrations:
she threw him into paroxysms of politeness.
At first he filled the house with his amenities; but gradually it
became apparent that his most dazzling effects were directed
exclusively to Jane. Lethbury and his wife held their breath and
looked away from each other. They pretended not to notice the
frequency of Mr. Budd's visits, they struggled against an imprudent
inclination to leave the young people too much alone. Their
conclusions were the result of indirect observation, for neither of
them dared to be caught watching Mr. Budd: they behaved like
naturalists on the trail of a rare butterfly.
In his efforts not to notice Mr. Budd, Lethbury centred his
attentions on Jane; and Jane, at this crucial moment, wrung from him
a reluctant admiration. While her parents went about dissembling
their emotions, she seemed to have none to conceal. She betrayed
neither eagerness nor surprise; so complete was her unconcern that
there were moments when Lethbury feared it was obtuseness, when he
could hardly help whispering to her that now was the moment to lower
the net.
Meanwhile the velocity of Mr. Budd's gyrations increased with the
ardor of courtship: his politeness became incandescent, and Jane
found herself the centre of a pyrotechnical display culminating in
the "set piece" of an offer of marriage.
Mrs. Lethbury imparted the news to her husband one evening after
their daughter had gone to bed. The announcement was made and
received with an air of detachment, as though both feared to be
betrayed into unseemly exultation; but Lethbury, as his wife ended,
could not repress the inquiry, "Have they decided on a day?"
Mrs. Lethbury's superior command of her features enabled her to look
shocked. "What can you be thinking of? He only offered himself at
five!"
"Of course--of course--" stammered Lethbury--"but nowadays people
marry after such short engagements--"
"Engagement!" said his wife solemnly. "There is no engagement."
Lethbury dropped his cigar. "What on earth do you mean?"
"Jane is thinking it over."
_"Thinking it over?"_ "She has asked for a month before deciding."
Lethbury sank back with a gasp. Was it genius or was it madness? He
felt incompetent to decide; and Mrs. Lethbury's next words showed
that she shared his difficulty.
"Of course I don't want to hurry Jane--"
"Of course not," he acquiesced.
"But I pointed out to her that a young man of Mr. Budd's impulsive
temperament might--might be easily discouraged--"
"Yes; and what did she say?"
"She said that if she was worth winning she was worth waiting for."
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