There was a little group round them by this time,--men generally collected wherever Beau Lovelace aired his opinions,--and a double attraction drew them together now in the person of the lovely woman to whom he was holding forth.
Marcia Van Clupp stared mightily--surely the Norwegian peasant would not understand Beau's similes,--for they were certainly incomprehensible to Marcia. As for his last remark--why! she had read all Zola's novels in the secrecy of her own room, and had gloated over them;--no words could describe her intense admiration of books that were so indelicately realistic! "He is jealous of other writers, I suppose," she thought; "these literary people hate each other like poison."
Meanwhile Thelma's blue eyes looked puzzled. "I do not know that name," she said. "Zola!--what is he? He cannot be great. Shakespeare I know,--he is the glory of the world, of course; I think him as noble as Homer. Then for Walter Scott--I love all his beautiful stories--I have read them many, many times, nearly as often as I have read Homer and the Norse Sagas. And the world must surely love such writings--or how should they last so long?" She laughed and shook her bright head archly. "Chiffonnier! Point du tout! Monsieur, les divines pensets que vous avez donne au monde ne sont pas des chiffons."
Beau smiled again, and offered her his arm. "Let me find you a chair!" he said. "It will be rather a difficult matter,--still I can but try. You will be fatigued if you stand too long." And he moved through the swaying crowd, with her little gloved hand resting lightly on his coat-sleeve,--while Marcia Van Clupp and her mother exchanged looks of wonder and dismay. The "fisherwoman" could speak French,--moreover, she could speak it with a wonderfully soft and perfect accent,--the "person" had studied Homer and Shakespeare, and was conversant with the best literature,--and, bitterest sting of all, the "peasant" could give every woman in the room a lesson in deportment, grace, and perfect taste in dress. Every costume looked tawdry beside her richly flowing velvet draperies--every low bodice became indecent compared with the modesty of that small square opening at Thelma's white throat--an opening just sufficient to display her collar of diamonds--and every figure seemed either dumpy and awkward, too big or too fat, or too lean and too lanky--when brought into contrast with her statuesque outlines.
The die was cast,--the authority of Beau Lovelace was nearly supreme in fashionable and artistic circles, and from the moment he was seen devoting his attention to the "new beauty," excited whispers began to flit from mouth to mouth,--"She will be the rage this season!"--"We must ask her to come to us!"--"Do ask Lady Winsleigh to introduce us!"--"She must come to our house!" and so on. And Lady Winsleigh was neither blind nor deaf--she saw and heard plainly enough that her reign was over, and in her secret soul she was furious. The "common farmer's daughter" was neither vulgar nor uneducated--and she was surpassingly lovely--even Lady Winsleigh could not deny so plain and absolute a fact. But her ladyship was a woman of the world, and she perceived at once that Thelma was not. Philip had married a creature with the bodily loveliness of a goddess and the innocent soul of a child--and it was just that child-like, pure soul looking serenely out of Thelma's eyes that had brought the long-forgotten blush of shame to Clara Winsleigh's cheek. But that feeling of self-contempt soon passed--she was no better and no worse than other women of her set, she thought--after all, what had she to be ashamed of? Nothing, except--except--perhaps, her "little affair" with "Lennie." A new emotion now stirred her blood--one of malice and hatred, mingled with a sense of outraged love and ungratified passion--for she still admired Philip to a foolish excess. Her dark eyes flashed scornfully as she noted the attitude of Sir Francis Lennox,--he was leaning against the marble mantel-piece, stroking his moustache with one hand, absorbed in watching Thelma, who, seated in an easy chair which Beau Lovelace had found for her, was talking and laughing gaily with those immediately around her, a group which increased in size every moment, and in which the men were most predominant.