第49章

She plunged at once into the centre of the difficulty, appealing to him, in the name of all the Everards, to descend there with her to the rescue of her darling.She wasn't, she was sure, addressing herself in vain to one whose person, whose "tone," whose traditions so brilliantly declared his indebtedness to the principles she besought him to defend.Her own reception of Darrow, the confidence she had at once accorded him, must have shown him that she had instinctively felt their unanimity of sentiment on these fundamental questions.She had in fact recognized in him the one person whom, without pain to her maternal piety, she could welcome as her son's successor; and it was almost as to Owen's father that she now appealed to Darrow to aid in rescuing the wretched boy.

"Don't think, please, that I'm casting the least reflection on Anna, or showing any want of sympathy for her, when I say that I consider her partly responsible for what's happened.

Anna is 'modern'--I believe that's what it's called when you read unsettling books and admire hideous pictures.Indeed,"Madame de Chantelle continued, leaning confidentially forward, "I myself have always more or less lived in that atmosphere: my son, you know, was very revolutionary.Only he didn't, of course, apply his ideas: they were purely intellectual.That's what dear Anna has always failed to understand.And I'm afraid she's created the same kind of confusion in Owen's mind--led him to mix up things you read about with things you do...You know, of course, that she sides with him in this wretched business?"Developing at length upon this theme, she finally narrowed down to the point of Darrow's intervention."My grandson, Mr.Darrow, calls me illogical and uncharitable because my feelings toward Miss Viner have changed since I've heard this news.Well! You've known her, it appears, for some years: Anna tells me you used to see her when she was a companion, or secretary or something, to a dreadfully vulgar Mrs.Murrett.And I ask you as a friend, I ask you as one of US, to tell me if you think a girl who has had to knock about the world in that kind of position, and at the orders of all kinds of people, is fitted to be Owen's wife I'm not implying anything against her! I LIKED the girl, Mr.Darrow...But what's that got to do with it? I don't want her to marry my grandson.If I'd been looking for a wife for Owen, I shouldn't have applied to the Farlows to find me one.That's what Anna won't understand; and what you must help me to make her see."Darrow, to this appeal, could oppose only the repeated assurance of his inability to interfere.He tried to make Madame de Chantelle see that the very position he hoped to take in the household made his intervention the more hazardous.He brought up the usual arguments, and sounded the expected note of sympathy; but Madame de Chantelle's alarm had dispelled her habitual imprecision, and, though she had not many reasons to advance, her argument clung to its point like a frightened sharp-clawed animal.

"Well, then," she summed up, in response to his repeated assertions that he saw no way of helping her, "you can, at least, even if you won't say a word to the others, tell me frankly and fairly--and quite between ourselves--your personal opinion of Miss Viner, since you've known her so much longer than we have."He protested that, if he had known her longer, he had known her much less well, and that he had already, on this point, convinced Anna of his inability to pronounce an opinion.

Madame de Chantelle drew a deep sigh of intelligence."Your opinion of Mrs.Murrett is enough! I don't suppose you pretend to conceal THAT? And heaven knows what other unspeakable people she's been mixed up with.The only friends she can produce are called Hoke...Don't try to reason with me, Mr.Darrow.There are feelings that go deeper than facts...And I KNOW she thought of studying for the stage..." Madame de Chantelle raised the corner of her lace handkerchief to her eyes."I'm old-fashioned--like my furniture," she murmured."And I thought I could count on you, Mr.Darrow..."When Darrow, that night, regained his room, he reflected with a flash of irony that each time he entered it he brought a fresh troop of perplexities to trouble its serene seclusion.Since the day after his arrival, only forty-eight hours before, when he had set his window open to the night, and his hopes had seemed as many as its stars, each evening had brought its new problem and its renewed distress.But nothing, as yet, had approached the blank misery of mind with which he now set himself to face the fresh questions confronting him.

Sophy Viner had not shown herself at dinner, so that he had had no glimpse of her in her new character, and no means of divining the real nature of the tie between herself and Owen Leath.One thing, however, was clear: whatever her real feelings were, and however much or little she had at stake, if she had made up her mind to marry Owen she had more than enough skill and tenacity to defeat any arts that poor Madame de Chantelle could oppose to her.

Darrow himself was in fact the only person who might possibly turn her from her purpose: Madame de Chantelle, at haphazard, had hit on the surest means of saving Owen--if to prevent his marriage were to save him! Darrow, on this point, did not pretend to any fixed opinion; one feeling alone was clear and insistent in him: he did not mean, if he could help it, to let the marriage take place.