Americans are extremely ambitious. These international marriages are often singular things. Now—apparently without having been expected—the sister appears. Vanderpoel is the name— Miss Vanderpoel.”
“I crossed the Atlantic with her in the Meridiana,” said Mount Dunstan.
“Indeed! That is interesting. You did not, of course, know that she was coming here.”
“I knew nothing of her but that she was a saloon passenger with a suite of staterooms, and I was in the second cabin. Nothing? That is not quite true, perhaps. Stewards and passengers gossip, and one cannot close one’s ears. Of course one heard constant reiteration of the number of millions her father possessed, and the number of cabins she managed to occupy. During the confusion and alarm of the collision, we spoke to each other.”
He did not mention the other occasion on which he had seen her. There seemed, on the whole, no special reason why he should.
“Then you would recognise her, if you saw her. I heard to-day that she seems an unusual young woman, and has beauty.”
“Her eyes and lashes are remarkable. She is tall. The Americans are setting up a new type.”
“Yes, they used to send over slender, fragile little women. Lady Anstruthers was the type. I confess to an interest in the sister.”
“Why?”
“She has made a curious impression. She has begun to do things. Stornham village has lost its breath.” He laughed a little. “She has been going over the place and discussing repairs.”
Mount Dunstan laughed also. He remembered what she had said. And she had actually begun.
“That is practical,” he commented.
“It is really interesting. Why should a young woman turn her attention to repairs? If it had been her father—the omnipotent Mr. Vanderpoel—who had appeared, one would not have wondered at such practical activity. But a young lady—with remarkable eyelashes!”
His elbows were on the arm of his chair, and he had placed the tips of his fingers together, wearing an expression of such absorbed contemplation that Mount Dunstan laughed again.
“You look quite dreamy over it,” he said.
“It allures me. Unknown quantities in character always allure me. I should like to know her. A community like this is made up of the absolutely known quantity—of types repeating themselves through centuries. A new one is almost a startling thing. Gossip over teacups is not usually entertaining to me, but I found myself listening to little Miss Laura Brunel this afternoon with rather marked attention. I confess to having gone so far as to make an inquiry or so. Sir Nigel Anstruthers is not often at Stornham. He is away now. It is plainly not he who is interested in repairs.”
“He is on the Riviera, in retreat, in a place he is fond of,” Mount Dunstan said drily. “He took a companion with him. A new infatuation. He will not return soon.”
CHAPTER XIX
SPRING IN BOND STREET
The visit to London was part of an evolution of both body and mind to Rosalie Anstruthers. In one of the wonderful modern hotels a suite of rooms was engaged for them. The luxury which surrounded them was not of the order Rosalie had vaguely connected with hotels. Hotel-keepers had apparently learned many things during the years of her seclusion.
Vanderpoels, at least, could so establish themselves as not to greatly feel the hotel atmosphere. Carefully chosen colours textures, and appointments formed the background of their days, the food they ate was a thing produced by art, the servants who attended them were completely-trained mechanisms. To sit by a window and watch the kaleidoscopic human tide passing by on its way to its pleasure, to reach its work, to spend its money in unending shops, to show itself and its equipage in the park, was a wonderful thing to Lady Anstruthers. It all seemed to be a part of the life and quality of Betty, little Betty, whom she had remembered only as a child, and who had come to her a tall, strong young beauty, who had—it was resplendently clear—never known a fear in her life, and whose mere personality had the effect of making fears seem unreal.
She was taken out in a luxurious little brougham to shops whose varied allurements were placed eagerly at her disposal. Respectful persons, obedient to her most faintly-expressed desire, displayed garments as wonderful as those the New York trunks had revealed. She was besought to consider the fitness of articles whose exquisiteness she was almost afraid to look at. Her thin little body was wonderfully fitted, managed, encouraged to make the most of its long-ignored outlines.
“Her ladyship’s slenderness is a great advantage,” said the wisely inciting ones. “There is no such advantage as delicacy of line.”
Summing up the character of their customer with the sales-woman’s eye, they realised the discretion of turning to Miss Vanderpoel for encouragement, though she was the younger of the two, and bore no title. They were aware of the existence of persons of rank who were not lavish patrons, but the name of Vanderpoel held most promising suggestions. To an English shopkeeper the American has, of late years, represented the spender—the type which, whatsoever its rank and resources, has, mysteriously, always money to hand over counters in exchange for things it chances to desire to possess. Each year surges across the Atlantic a horde of these fortunate persons, who, to the sober, commercial British mind, appear to be free to devote their existences to travel and expenditure. This contingent appears shopping in the various shopping thoroughfares; it buys clothes, jewels, miscellaneous attractive things, making its purchases of articles useful or decorative with a freedom from anxiety in its enjoyment which does not mark the mood of the ordinary shopper. In the everyday purchaser one is accustomed to take for granted, as a factor in his expenditure, a certain deliberation and uncertainty; to the travelling American in Europe, shopping appears to be part of the holiday which is being made the most of. Surely, all the neat, smart young persons who buy frocks and blouses, hats and coats, hosiery and chains, cannot be the possessors of large incomes; there must be, even in America, a middle class of middle-class resources, yet these young persons, male and female, and most frequently unaccompanied by older persons—seeing what they want, greet it with expressions of pleasure, waste no time in appropriating and paying for it, and go away as in relief and triumph—not as in that sober joy which is clouded by afterthought. Thesalespeople are sometimes even vaguely cheered by their gay lack of any doubt as to the wisdom of their getting what theyadmire, and rejoicing in it. If America always buys in this holiday mood, it must be an enviable thing to be a shopkeeper in their New York or Boston or San Francisco. Who would not make a fortune among them? They want what they want, and not something which seems to them
