Quisanté | Page 8

the
contrast no less strongly than this as she yielded to the impulse of the
minute and gave the lie to Marchmont's ideal of her by her reckless
acceptance of the immediate delights he offered. The ideal would no
doubt cause him to put a great deal of meaning into her acceptance;
whether such meaning were one she would be prepared to indorse her
mood did not allow her to consider. She showed him very marked
favour that evening, and in his company contrived to forget entirely the
puzzle of Quisanté and his moments, and the possible relation of those
moments to the limits about which her companion was so decisive.
At last, however, they were interrupted. The interruption came from
Dick Benyon, who had looked in somewhere else and arrived now at
the tail of the evening. Far too eager and engrossed in his great theme
to care whether his appearance were welcome, he dashed up to May,
crying out even before he reached her, "Well, what do you say about
him now? Wasn't he splendid?"
Clearly Dick forgot his earlier apologetic period; for him the moment
was the evening. A cool question from Marchmont, the cooler perhaps
for annoyance, forced Dick into explanations, and he sketched in his
summary fashion the incident which had aroused his enthusiasm and
made him look so confidently for a response from May. Marchmont
was unreservedly and almost scornfully antagonistic.
"Oh, you're too cultivated to live," cried Dick. "Now isn't he too elegant,
May?"
"I'm not the least elegant," said Marchmont, with quiet confidence.
"But I'm--well, I'm what Quisanté isn't. So are you, Dick."

"Suppose we are, and by Jove, isn't he what we aren't? I'm primitive, I
suppose. I think hands and brains are better than manners."
"I'll agree, but I don't like his hands or his brains either."
"He'll mount high."
"As high as Haman. I shouldn't be the least surprised to see it."
"Well, I'm not going to give him up because he doesn't shake hands at
the latest fashionable angle."
"All right, Dick. And I'm not going to take him up because he's a dab at
rodomontade."
"And you neither of you need fight about him," May put in, laughing.
They joined in her laugh, each excusing himself by good-natured abuse
of the other.
There was no question of a quarrel, but the divergence was complete,
striking, and even startling. To one all was black, to the other all white;
to one all tin, to the other all gold. Was there no possibility of
compromise? As she sat between the two, May thought that a
discriminating view of Quisanté ought to be attainable, not an
oscillation from disgust to admiration, but a well-balanced stable
judgment which should allow full value to merits and to defects, and
sum up the man as a whole. Something of the sort she tried to suggest;
neither disputant would hear of it, and Marchmont went off with an
unyielding assertion that the man was a cad, no more and no less than a
cad. Dick looked after him with a well-satisfied air; May fancied that
opposition and the failure of others to understand intensified his
satisfaction in his own discovery. But he grew mournful as he said to
her,
"I shan't have a chance with you now. You'll go with Marchmont of
course. And I did want you to like him."
"Mr. Marchmont doesn't control my opinions."

They were very old friends; Dick allowed himself a significant smile.
"I know what you mean," she said, smiling. "But it's nonsense. Besides,
look at yourself and Amy! She hates him, and yet you----"
"Oh, she's only half-serious, and Marchmont's in deadly earnest under
that deuced languid manner of his. I tell you what, he's a very limited
fellow, after all."
May laughed; the limits were being turned to a new use now.
"Awfully clever and well-read, but shut up inside a sort of compartment
of life. Don't you know what I mean? He's always ridden first-class,
and he won't believe there's anybody worth knowing in the thirds."
"You think he's like that?" she asked thoughtfully.
"You can see it for yourself. There's no better fellow, no better friend,
but, hang it, an oyster's got a broader mind."
"I like broad minds."
"Then you'll like Quis----"
"Absolutely you shan't mention that name again. Find mother for me
and tell her to tell me that it's time to go home."
Going home brought with it a discovery. May was considered to have
invited the world to take notice of her preference for Marchmont. This
fact was first conveyed to her by Lady Attlebridge's gently affectionate
and congratulatory air; at this May was little more than amused.
Evidence of greater significance lay in Fanny's demeanour; she came
into her sister's room