第69章 The Steel Wasp(4)

There,at the far back end of the long room,I sat alone at my table,pretending to be engaged over a sandwich that was no more in existence--external,I mean--and a totally empty cup of chocolate.I lifted the cup,and bowed over the plate,and used the paper Japanese napkin,and generally went through the various discreet paces of eating,quite breathless,all the while,to know which of them was coming out ahead.

There was no fairness in their positions;Hortense had Eliza in a cage,penned in by every fact;but it doesn't do to go too near some birds,even when they're caged,and,while these two birds had been giving their sweet manifestations of song,Eliza had driven a peck or two home through the bars,which,though they did not draw visible blood,as I have said,probably taught Hortense that a Newport education is not the only instruction which fits you for drawing-room war to the knife.

Her small reckoning was paid,and she had drawn on one long,tawny glove.

Even this act was a luxury to watch,so full it was of the feminine,of the stretching,indolent ease that the flesh and the spirit of this creature invariably seemed to move with.But why didn't she go?This became my wonder now,while she slowly drew on the second glove.She was taking more time than it needed.

"Your flowers are for sale,too?"

This,after her silence,struck me as being something planned out after her original plan.The original plan had finished with that second assertion of her ownership of John (or,I had better say,of his ownership in her),that doubt she had expressed as to his being willing to consent to any further postponement of their marriage.Of course she had expected,and got herself ready for,some thrust on the postponement subject.

Eliza crossed from behind her counter to where the Exchange flowers stood on the opposite side of the room and took some of them up.

"But those are inferior,"said Hortense."These."And she touched rightly the bowl in which my roses stood close beside Eliza's ledger.

Eliza paused for one second."Those are not for sale."Hortense paused,too.Then she hung to it."They are so much the best."She was holding her purse.

"I think so,too,"said Eliza."But I cannot let any one have them."Hortense put her purse away."You know best.Shall you furnish us flowers as well as cake?"Eliza's sweetness rose an octave,softer and softer."Why,they have flowers there!Didn't you know?"And to this last and frightful peck through the bars Hortense found no retaliation.With a bow to Eliza,and a total oblivion of me,she went out of the Exchange.She had flaunted "her"John in Eliza's face,she had,as they say,rubbed it in that he was "her"John;--but was it such a neat,tidy victory,after all?She had given away the last word to Eliza,presented her with that poisonous speech which when translated meant:--"Yes,he's 'your'John;and you're climbing up him into houses where you'd otherwise be arrested for trespass."For it was in one of the various St.Michael houses that the marriage would be held,owing to the nomadic state of the Rieppes.