第13章

A young friend of mine--a man of good family--contracted a mesalliance: that is, he married the daughter of a Canadian farmer, a frank, amiable girl, bewitchingly pretty, with more character in her little finger than some girls possess in their whole body.I met him one day, some three months after his return to London.

[And only people would do Parlour Tricks who do them well!]

"Well," I asked him, "how is it shaping?""She is the dearest girl in the world," he answered."She has only got one fault; she believes what people say.""She will get over that," I suggested.

"I hope she does," he replied; "it's awkward at present.""I can see it leading her into difficulty," I agreed.

"She is not accomplished," he continued.He seemed to wish to talk about it to a sympathetic listener."She never pretended to be accomplished.I did not marry her for her accomplishments.But now she is beginning to think she must have been accomplished all the time, without knowing it.She plays the piano like a schoolgirl on a parents' visiting-day.She told them she did not play--not worth listening to--at least, she began by telling them so.They insisted that she did, that they had heard about her playing, and were thirsting to enjoy it.She is good nature itself.She would stand on her head if she thought it would give real joy to anyone.She took it they really wanted to hear her, and so let 'em have it.They tell her that her touch is something quite out of the common--which is the truth, if only she could understand it--why did she never think of taking up music as a profession? By this time she is wondering herself that she never did.They are not satisfied with hearing her once.They ask for more, and they get it.The other evening I had to keep quiet on my chair while she thumped through four pieces one after the other, including the Beethoven Sonata.We knew it was the Beethoven Sonata.She told us before she started it was going to be the Beethoven Sonata, otherwise, for all any of us could have guessed, it might have been the 'Battle of Prague.' We all sat round with wooden faces, staring at our boots.Afterwards those of them that couldn't get near enough to her to make a fool of her crowded round me.Wanted to know why I had never told them I had discovered a musical prodigy.I'll lose my temper one day and pull somebody's nose, I feel I shall.She's got a recitation; whether intended to be serious or comic I had never been able to make up my mind.The way she gives it confers upon it all the disadvantages of both.It is chiefly concerned with an angel and a child.But a dog comes into it about the middle, and from that point onward it is impossible to tell who is talking--sometimes you think it is the angel, and then it sounds more like the dog.The child is the easiest to follow: it talks all the time through its nose.If Ihave heard that recitation once I have heard it fifty times; and now she is busy learning an encore.

[And all the World had Sense!]

"What hurts me most," he went on, "is having to watch her making herself ridiculous.Yet what am I to do? If I explain things to her she will be miserable and ashamed of herself; added to which her frankness--perhaps her greatest charm--will be murdered.The trouble runs through everything.She won't take my advice about her frocks.

She laughs, and repeats to me--well, the lies that other women tell a girl who is spoiling herself by dressing absurdly; especially when she is a pretty girl and they are anxious she should go on spoiling herself.She bought a hat last week, one day when I was not with her.It only wants the candles to look like a Christmas tree.They insist on her taking it off so they may examine it more closely, with the idea of having one built like it for themselves; and she sits by delighted, and explains to them the secret of the thing.We get to parties half an hour before the opening time; she is afraid of being a minute late.They have told her that the party can't begin without her--isn't worth calling a party till she's there.We are always the last to go.The other people don't matter, but if she goes they will feel the whole thing has been a failure.She is dead for want of sleep, and they are sick and tired of us; but if I look at my watch they talk as if their hearts were breaking, and she thinks me a brute for wanting to leave friends so passionately attached to us.

"Why do we all play this silly game; what is the sense of it?" he wanted to know.

I could not tell him.