Chapter 5

The black silhouette that on the terrace had so perfunctorily symbolised Mr. Cardan transformed itself as he entered the lamp-lit saloon into the complete and genial man. His red face twinkled in the light; he was smiling.

“I know Lilian,” he was saying. “She’ll sit out there under the stars, feeling romantic and getting colder and colder, for hours. There’s nothing to be done, I assure you. To-morrow she’ll have rheumatism. We can only resign ourselves and try to bear her sufferings in patience.” He sat down in an arm-chair in front of the enormous empty hearth. “That’s better,” he said, sighing. Calamy and Miss Thriplow followed his example.

“But don’t you think I’d better bring her a shawl?” suggested Miss Thriplow after a pause.

“She’d only be annoyed,” Mr. Cardan answered. “If Lilian has said that it’s warm enough to sit out of doors, then it is warm enough. We’ve already proved ourselves fools by wanting to go indoors; if we brought her a shawl, we should become something worse than fools: we should be rude and impertinent, we should be giving her the lie. ‘My dear Lilian,’ we’d be as good as saying, ‘it isn’t warm. And when you say that it is, you’re talking nonsense. So we have brought you your shawl.’ No, no, Miss Mary. You must surely see yourself that it wouldn’t do.”

Miss Thriplow nodded. “How diplomatic!” she said. “You’re obviously right. We’re all children compared to you, Mr. Cardan. Only so high,” she added irrelevantly—but it was all in the childish part—reaching down her hand to within a foot or two of the floor. Childishly she smiled at him.

“Only so,” said Mr. Cardan ironically; and lifting his right hand to the level of his eyes, he measured between his thumb and forefinger a space of perhaps half an inch. With his winking eye he peeped at her through the gap. “I’ve seen children,” he went on, “compared to whom Miss Mary Thriplow would be...” He threw up his hands and let them fall with a clap on to his thighs, leaving the sentence to conclude itself in the pregnant silence.

Miss Thriplow resented this denial of her child-like simplicity. Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven. But circumstances did not permit her to insist on the fact too categorically in Mr. Cardan’s presence. The history of their friendship was a little unfortunate. At their first meeting, Mr. Cardan, summing her up at a glance (wrongly, Miss Thriplow insisted), had taken her into a kind of cynical and diabolic confidence, treating her as though she were a wholly “modern” and unprejudiced young woman, one of those young women who not only do what they like (which is nothing; for the demurest and the most “old-fashioned” can and do act), but who also airily and openly talk of their diversions. Inspired by her desire to please, and carried away by her facility for adapting herself to her spiritual environment, Miss Thriplow had gaily entered into the part assigned to her. How brilliant she had been, how charmingly and wickedly daring! until finally, twinkling benevolently all the time, Mr. Cardan had led the conversation along such strange and such outrageous paths that Miss Thriplow began to fear that she had put herself in a false position. Goodness only knew what mightn’t, with such a man, happen next. By imperceptible degrees Miss Thriplow transformed herself from a salamander, sporting gaily among the flames, into a primrose by the river’s brim. Henceforward, whenever she talked to Mr. Cardan, the serious young female novelist—so cultured and intelligent, but so unspoiled—put in an appearance. For his part, with that tact which distinguished him in all his social negotiations, Mr. Cardan accepted the female novelist without showing the least astonishment at the change. At most, he permitted himself from time to time to look at her through his winking eye and smile significantly. Miss Thriplow on these occasions pretended not to notice. In the circumstances, it was the best thing she could do.