The Sacred Fount

let you know that, in spite of your guarantee, it doesn’t go at all — oh, but not at all! I’ve tried Lady John, as you enjoined, and I can’t

n, plying him with her genius and giving him of her best, is clever enough for two. She’s not clever enough t

ht up. “Oh, you’ve

sense not at all satisfied by the theo

Such a one as w

n’t be easy; for as the appearance is inevitably a kind

n grasped. “Oh, you

wn, if he’s really tender of the lady — w

ee. You call the appearance a kind of betrayal

cise

t sort of thing — must be nec

imis

the background exactl

in that p

oesn’t Mr. Long’s tenderness of Lady John

ntioned to me. “His making h

ing l

at all you

nd lots

bundantly thinking. “I know what you

aw the manoeuvre, but Guy didn’t. And you must ha

ticed. They were like Lord Lutley and Mrs. Froome.

dmit, at any rate,” she continued, “that it does take what you so pretti

— or at least with all my head. Only

o be so plain?” I was not yet quite ready to say, however; on whic

has no secret. She would like awfully to have — and she would like almost as much to be believed to have. Last evening, after dinner, she could feel perhaps for a while that she was believed. But i

“Awfully charming — mustn’t it? — to act upo

her encouraging an apt pupil; but I could only go on with the lesson. “Whoeve

” She looked at me — pleased at last really to understand — w

who keeps every crumb for herself? The whole show’s there — to minister to Lady John’s vanity and advertise the business — behind her smart shop-windo

She was real

used to go — naked and unashamed. No,” I wound up, “he deals

s. Brissenden, “if you’l

uspect it. She’s an unmitigated fool about it. ‘Of course Mr. Long’s clever, because he’s in love with me and sits at my feet, and don’t you see how clever I am? Don’t you hear what good things I say — wait a little, I’m going to say another in about three minutes; and how, if you’ll on

do sound like her, you know. Ye

e that you and I are studying, is that the man himself will have made her what she has become. She will have done just what Lad

be regarded as re

I can onl

k, therefore, for t

all window stood open. The picture without was all morning and August, and within all clear dimness and rich gleams. We stopped once or twice, raking the gloom for lights, and it was at some such moment that Mrs. Brissenden asked me if I then regarded Gilbert Long as now exalted to the position of the most brilliant of our companions. “The cleverest man of the party?” — it pulled me up a little. “Hardly that, perhaps — for don’t you see the proofs I’m myself giving you? But say he

eel so safe!” Mrs.

nceded. “Besides, as I say, there must be the

il!” We looked at each other, I was aware, with some elation; but our triumph was brief. The Comtesse de Dreuil, we quickly felt — an American married to a Frenchman — wasn’t at all the thing. She was almost as much “all there” as Lady John. She was only another screen, and we perceived, for that matter, the next minute, that Lady John was also present. Another step had placed us within range of her; the picture revealed in the rich dusk of the room was a group of three. From that moment, unanimously, we gave up Lady John, and as we continued our stroll my friend brought out her despair. “Then he has nothing but screens? The need for so many does sug

and I didn’t see why I shouldn’t bring it out. “It’s my belief that

endid serenity. “But w

ll, you’ve in common your mutual attachment and

mouredly answered

eally suffer you out of his sight, and, to circulate i

ked, looking at me, I tho

dn’t — it’s a question of whether you

first time. “It seems to me I ofte

be happy. Happiness, you know, is, to a lady in the full tide of social success, even more becoming than a new French frock. You have the advantage, for your beauty, of being admirably married. You bloom in your husband’s presen

we parted, yesterday, to come down here by different trains. We haven’t so much as met since our arrival. My findi

ot being wi

n do I do

nct — playing in you, on either side, with all the ease of experience — of what you are to each other. All I mean is that it’s the instinct that Long and his go

again laughed. “How can you think of them as enj

r as they can go, they do go. It’s a relation, and they work the relation: the relation, exquisite surely, of knowing they help each other to shine. Why are they not, therefore, like you and Brissenden? What I make

odd mixture of the receptive a

ask

But I thought it was just your contention that she doesn’t shine. If it’s Lady John’s perfect r

ll. It’s a case of shining as Brissenden shines.” I wonder

r conscience was too good — she was only am

ercy’s sake —

red. “Hasn’t he all

iled, “he hasn’t all

what I meant. “Don’t I make things of an e

it! It’s what Gilbert Long does for his victim —

ndering at me now. “Then it’s th

den’s the man wh

ean that if you only knew me as I am, it would come to you in the same way to hunt for

ow that you’re not? Surely!” I declared. “I should arrive at him, perfectly, af

— the black figure upon white — at a music-hall. On seeing us he said a word to his companion, who quickly jerked round. Then his wife exclaimed to me — only with more sharpness — as she had exclaimed at Mme. de Dreuil: “By all that’s lovely — May Server!” I took it, on the spot, for a kind of “Eureka!” but without catching my friend’s idea. I was only aware at first that this idea left me as unconvinced as when the other possibilities had passed before us. Wasn’t it simply the result of this lady’s being the only one we had happened not to eliminate? She had not even occurred to us. She was pretty enough perhaps for any mag

ch of her eagerness. Singular perhaps that only then — yet quite certainly then — the curiosity to which I had so freely surrendered myself began to strike me as wanting in taste. It was reflected in Mrs. Brissenden quite by my fault, and I can’t say just what cause for shame, after so much talk of our search and our scent, I found in our awakened and confirmed keenness. Why in the world hadn’t I found it before? My scruple, in short, was a thing of the instant; it was in a positive flash t

it to be — so far as I was concerned — the night before. What was there accordingly in Mrs. Server — frank and fragrant in the morning air — to correspond to any such consciousness? Nothing whatever — not a symptom. Whatever secrets she might have had, she had not that one; she was not in the same box; the sacred fount, in her, was not threatened with exhaustion. We all soon re-entered the house together, but Mrs. Brissenden, during the few minu