he wondered a little why, expressing this
friendly disposition, it didn't occur to the doubtless eminent soldier to
pronounce the word that would put him in relation with Mrs. St. George.
If it was a question of introductions Miss Fancourt--apparently as yet
unmarried--was far away, while the wife of his illustrious confrere was
almost between them. This lady struck Paul Overt as altogether pretty,
with a surprising juvenility and a high smartness of aspect, something
that--he could scarcely have said why--served for mystification. St.
George certainly had every right to a charming wife, but he himself would
never have imagined the important little woman in the aggressively
Parisian dress the partner for life, the alter ego, of a man of letters.
That partner in general, he knew, that second self, was far from
presenting herself in a single type: observation had taught him that she
was not inveterately, not necessarily plain. But he had never before
seen her look so much as if her prosperity had deeper foundations than an
ink-spotted study-table littered with proof-sheets. Mrs. St. George
might have been the wife of a gentleman who "kept" books rather than
wrote them, who carried on great affairs in the City and made better
bargains than those that poets mostly make with publishers. With this
she hinted at a success more personal--a success peculiarly stamping the
age in which society, the world of conversation, is a great drawing-room
with the City for its antechamber. Overt numbered her years at first as
some thirty, and then ended by believing that she might approach her
fiftieth. But she somehow in this case juggled away the excess and the
difference--you only saw them in a rare glimpse, like the rabbit in the
conjurer's sleeve. She was extraordinarily white, and her every element
and item was pretty; her eyes, her ears, her hair, her voice, her hands,
her feet--to which her relaxed attitude in her wicker chair gave a great
publicity--and the numerous ribbons and trinkets with which she was
bedecked. She looked as if she had put on her best clothes to go to
church and then had decided they were too good for that and had stayed at
home. She told a story of some length about the shabby way Lady Jane had
treated the Duchess, as well as an anecdote in relation to a purchase she
had made in Paris--on her way back from Cannes; made for Lady Egbert, who
had never refunded the money. Paul Overt suspected her of a ten