She sought and met her husband's astonishment with the faintest, remotest of smiles. It seemed to him that never before had he appreciated her beauty. His daily companion had become this splendour in the sky. She came close by him with hand extended to greet Sir Philip Mottersham. He was sensible of the glow of her, as it were of a scented aura about her. He had a first full intimation of the cult and worship of woman and the magnificence of women, old as the Mediterranean and its goddesses, and altogether novel to his mind....
Christabel Morrison found him a pleasant but not very entertaining or exciting neighbor at the dinner-table, and was relieved when the time came for her to turn an ear to the artistic compliments of Radlett Barns. But Trafford was too interested and amused by the general effect of the dinner to devote himself to the rather heavy business of really exhilarating Christabel. He didn't give his mind to her. He found the transformation of Sir Rupert into a turbanned Oriental who might have come out of a picture by Carpaccio, gently stimulating and altogether delightful. His attention returned again and again to that genial swarthiness. Mrs. Lee on his left lived in her eyes, and didn't so much talk to him as rattle her mind at him almost absent-mindedly, as one might dangle keys at a baby while one talked to its mother. Yet it was evident she liked the look of him. Her glance went from his face to his robe, and up and down the table, at the bright dresses, the shining arms, the glass and light and silver. She asked him to tell her just where he had tramped and just what he had seen, and he had scarcely begun answering her question before her thoughts flew off to three trophies of china and silver, struggling groups of china boys bearing up great silver shells of fruit and flowers that stood down the centre of the table. "What do you think of my chubby boys?" she asked. "They're German work. They came from a show at Düsseldorf last week. Ben saw I liked them, and sent back for them secretly, and here they, are! I thought they might be too colourless. But are they?"
"No," said Trafford, "they're just cool. Under that glow of fruit. Is this salt-cellar English cut glass?"
"Old Dutch," said Mrs. Lee. "Isn't it jolly?" She embarked with a roving eye upon the story of her Dutch glass, which was abundant and admirable, and broke off abruptly to say, "Your wife is wonderful."
"Her hair goes back," she said, "like music. You know what I mean—a sort of easy rhythm. You don't mind my praising your wife?"
Trafford said he didn't.
"And there's a sort of dignity about her. All my life, Mr. Trafford, I've wanted to be tall. It stopped my growth."
She glanced off at a tangent. "Tell me, Mr. Trafford," she asked, "was your wife beautiful like this when you married her? I mean—of course she was a beautiful girl and adorable and all that; but wasn't she just a slender thing?"
She paused, but if she had a habit of asking disconcerting questions she did not at any rate insist upon answers, and she went on to confess that she believed she would be a happier woman poor than rich—"not that Ben isn't all he should be"—but that then she would have been a fashionable dressmaker. "People want help," she said, "so much more help than they get. They go about with themselves—what was it Mr. Radlett Barns said the other night—oh!—like people leading horses they daren't ride. I think he says such good things at times, don't you? So wonderful to be clever in two ways like that. Just look now at your wife—now I mean, that they've drawn that peacock-coloured curtain behind her. My brother-in-law has been telling me you keep the most wonderful and precious secrets locked up in your breast, that you know how to make gold and diamonds and all sorts of things. If I did,—I should make them."
She pounced suddenly upon Rex at her left with questions about the Keltic Renascence, was it still going on—or what? and Trafford was at liberty for a time to enjoy the bright effects about him, the shadowed profile and black hair of Christabel to the right of him, and the coruscating refractions and reflections of Lady Solomonson across the white and silver and ivory and blossom of the table. Then Mrs. Lee dragged him into a sudden conflict with Rex, by saying abruptly—
"Of course, Mr. Trafford wouldn't believe that."
He looked perhaps a little lost.
"I was telling Mrs. Lee," said Rex, "that I don't believe there's any economy of human toil in machinery whatever. I mean that the machine itself really embodies all the toil it seems to save, toil that went to the making of it and preparing it and getting coal for it...."
§ 12
Next morning they found their hostess at breakfast in the dining-room and now the sun was streaming through a high triple window that had been curtained overnight, and they looked out through clean, bright plate-glass upon mountains half-dissolved in a luminous mist, and a mist-veiled lake below. Great stone jars upon the terrace bore a blaze of urged and early blossom, and beyond were cypresses. Their hostess presided at one of two round tables, at a side table various breakfast dishes kept warm over spirit lamps, and two men servants dispensed tea and coffee. In the bay of the window was a fruit table, with piled fruit-plates and finger-bowls.
Mrs. Lee waved a welcoming hand, and drew Marjorie to a seat beside her. Rex was consuming trout and Christabel peaches, and Solomonson, all his overnight Orientalism abandoned, was in outspoken tweeds and quite under the impression that he was interested in golf. Trafford got frizzled bacon for Marjorie and himself, and dropped into a desultory conversation, chiefly sustained by Christabel, about the peculiarly exalting effect of beautiful scenery on Christabel's mind. Mrs. Lee was as usual distraught, and kept glancing towards the steps that led up from the hall. Lady Solomonson appeared with a rustle in a wrapper of pink Chinese silk. "I came down after all," she said. "I lay in bed weighing rolls and coffee and relaxed muscles against your English breakfast downstairs. And suddenly I remembered your little sausages!"
She sat down with a distribution of handkerchief, bag, letters, a gold fountain pen and suchlike equipments, and Trafford got her some of the coveted delicacies. Mrs. Lee suddenly cried out, "Here they come! Here they come!" and simultaneously the hall resonated with children's voices and the yapping of a Skye terrier.
Then a gay little procession appeared ascending the steps. First came a small but princely little boy of three, with a ruddy face and curly black hair, behind him was a slender, rather awkward girl of perhaps eleven, and a sturdier daughter of Israel of nine. A nurse in artistic purple followed, listening inattentively to some private whisperings of a knickerbockered young man of five, and then came another purple-robed nurse against contingencies, and then a nurse of a different, white-clad, and more elaborately costumed sort, carrying a sumptuous baby of eight or nine months. "Ah! the darlings!" cried Christabel, springing up quite beautifully, and Lady Solomonson echoed the cry. The procession broke against the tables and split about the breakfast party. The small boy in petticoats made a confident rush for Marjorie, Christabel set herself to fascinate his elder brother, the young woman of eleven scrutinized Trafford with speculative interest and edged towards him coyly, and Mrs. Lee interviewed her youngest born. The amiable inanities suitable to the occasion had scarcely begun before a violent clapping of hands announced the appearance of Lee.