第6章

When she came back to England, telling me she had got all the continent could give her, Leolin was a broad-shouldered, red-faced young man, with an immense wardrobe and an extraordinary assurance of manner.She was fondly obstinate about her having taken the right course with him, and proud of all that he knew and had seen.He was now quite ready to begin, and a little while later she told me he HADbegun.He had written something tremendously clever, and it was coming out in the Cheapside.I believe it came out; I had no time to look for it; I never heard anything about it.I took for granted that if this contribution had passed through his mother's hands it had practically become a specimen of her own genius, and it was interesting to consider Mrs.Stormer's future in the light of her having to write her son's novels as well as her own.This was not the way she looked at it herself; she took the charming ground that he would help her to write hers.She used to tell me that he supplied passages of the greatest value to her own work--all sorts of technical things, about hunting and yachting and wine--that she couldn't be expected to get very straight.It was all so much practice for him and so much alleviation for her.I was unable to identify these pages, for I had long since ceased to "keep up" with Greville Fane; but I was quite able to believe that the wine-question had been put, by Leolin's good offices, on a better footing, for the dear lady used to mix her drinks (she was perpetually serving the most splendid suppers) in the queerest fashion.I could see that he was willing enough to accept a commission to look after that department.It occurred to me indeed, when Mrs.Stormer settled in England again, that by making a shrewd use of both her children she might be able to rejuvenate her style.Ethel had come back to gratify her young ambition, and if she couldn't take her mother into society she would at least go into it herself.Silently, stiffly, almost grimly, this young lady held up her head, clenched her long teeth, squared her lean elbows and made her way up the staircases she had elected.The only communication she ever made to me, the only effusion of confidence with which she ever honoured me, was when she said: "I don't want to know the people mamma knows; I mean to know others." I took due note of the remark, for I was not one of the "others." I couldn't trace therefore the steps of her process; Icould only admire it at a distance and congratulate her mother on the results.The results were that Ethel went to "big" parties and got people to take her.Some of them were people she had met abroad, and others were people whom the people she had met abroad had met.They ministered alike to Miss Ethel's convenience, and I wondered how she extracted so many favours without the expenditure of a smile.Her smile was the dimmest thing in the world, diluted lemonade, without sugar, and she had arrived precociously at social wisdom, recognising that if she was neither pretty enough nor rich enough nor clever enough, she could at least in her muscular youth be rude enough.

Therefore if she was able to tell her mother what really took place in the mansions of the great, give her notes to work from, the quill could be driven at home to better purpose and precisely at a moment when it would have to be more active than ever.But if she did tell, it would appear that poor Mrs.Stormer didn't believe.As regards many points this was not a wonder; at any rate I heard nothing of Greville Fane's having developed a new manner.She had only one manner from start to finish, as Leolin would have said.

She was tired at last, but she mentioned to me that she couldn't afford to pause.She continued to speak of Leolin's work as the great hope of their future (she had saved no money) though the young man wore to my sense an aspect more and more professional if you like, but less and less literary.At the end of a couple of years there was something monstrous in the impudence with which he played his part in the comedy.When I wondered how she could play HER part I had to perceive that her good faith was complete and that what kept it so was simply her extravagant fondness.She loved the young impostor with a simple, blind, benighted love, and of all the heroes of romance who had passed before her eyes he was by far the most brilliant.