Маленькая хозяйка большого дома / The Little Lady Of The Big House

3

The lunch-time came. Graham took his part in the conversation on breeds and breeding, but the delicate white of Paula on the back of a great horse was before his eyes the entire time.

All the guests drifted into the long dining room. Dick Forrest arrived and precipitated cocktails. And Graham impatiently waited the appearance of the woman who had worried his eyes since noon.

She entered. Graham’s lips gasped apart, and remained apart, his eyes ravished with the beauty and surprise. Here was no a child-woman or boy-girl on a stallion, but a grand lady[24].

As she crossed the floor, Graham saw two women: one, the grand lady, the mistress of the Big House; other, the lovely equestrienne beneath the dull-blue, golden-trimmed gown.

She was upon them, among them, and Graham’s hand held hers in the formal introduction. At table, across the corner from her, it was his hostess that mostly filled his eyes and his mind.

It was a company Graham had ever sat down to dinner with. The sheep-buyer, and the correspondent, men, women, and girls, fourteen in total. Graham could not remember their names. They were full of spirits, laughter, and the latest jokes.

“I see right now,” Graham told Paula, “your place is the caravanserai; I can’t even try to remember names and people.”

“I don’t blame you,” she laughed. “But these are neighbors. They visit us in any time. Mrs. Watson[25], there, next to Dick, is of the old land-aristocracy. That is her grandfather, and that pretty dark-eyed girl is her daughter …”

And while Paula was describing guests, Graham heard scarce half she said, so occupied was he in trying to understand of her. The pride. That was it! It was in her eye, in the poise of her head, in the curling tendrils of her hair, in her sensitive nostrils, in the mobile lips, in the angle of the rounded chin, in her hands, small, muscular and veined. Pride it was, in every muscle, nerve, and quiver of her—conscious, sentient, stinging pride.

She might be joyous and natural, boy and woman, fun and frolic; but always the pride was there, vibrant, tense, intrinsic. She was a woman, frank, outspoken, straight-looking, plastic, democratic; but she was not a toy.

“Our philosophers can’t fight tonight,” Paula said to Graham.

“Philosophers?” he questioned back. “Who and what are they? I don’t understand.”

“They—” Paula hesitated. “They live here. They call themselves the jungle-birds[26]. They have a camp in the woods a couple of miles away, where they read and talk. It’s great fun for Dick, and, besides, it saves him time. He’s a dreadfully hard worker, you know.”

“I understand that they … that Dick takes care of them?” Graham asked.

As she answered, he was occupied with her long, brown lashes. Perforce, he lifted his gaze to her eyebrows. When she smiled she smiled all of herself, generously, joyously.

“Yes,” she was saying. “They have nothing to worry about. Dick is most generous, and he encourages the idleness of men like them. For example, Terrence McFane[27] is an epicurean anarchist[28], if you know what that means. He will not hurt a flea. He has a pet cat I gave him, and he carefully picks her fleas, not injuring them, stores them in a box, and sets them free in the forest. And the one with a beard—Aaron Hancock[29]. Like Terrence, he doesn’t work. He says that there have always been peasants and fools who like to work. That’s why he wears a beard. To shave, he thinks, is unnecessary work, and, therefore, immoral. Dick had found him in Paris, and assured him: if you ever come back to America, you will have food and shelter. So here he is.”

“And the poet?” Graham asked, admiring the smile that played upon her face.

“Oh, Theo—Theodore Malken[30], though we call him Leo. He doesn’t work, either. His relatives are dreadfully wealthy; but they disowned him and he disowned them when he was fifteen. They say he is lunatic, and he says they are merely mad. He really writes remarkable verses … when he writes. He prefers to dream and live in the jungle with Terrence and Aaron.”

“And the Hindoo[31], there—who’s he?”

“That’s Dar Hyal[32]. He’s their guest, a revolutionist. He studied in France, Italy, Switzerland, he is a political refugee from India. Talks about a new synthetic system of philosophy, and about a rebellion against the British tyranny in India. He advocates individual terrorism. He and Aaron quarrel tremendously—that is, on philosophical matters. And now—” Paula sighed and erased the sigh with her smile—“and now, you know about everybody.”

One thing Graham noted as the dinner proceeded. The sages called Dick Forrest by his first name; but they always addressed Paula as “Mrs. Forrest,” although she called them by their first names. These people respected few things under the sun, and among such few things they recognized the certain definite aloofness in Dick Forrest’s wife.

It was the same thing, after dinner, in the big living room. Her laugh fascinated Graham. There was a fibrous thrill in it, most sweet to the ear, that differentiated it from any laugh he had ever heard.