Geoffrey Hampstead: A Novel

If Jack "fancied himself" as a dancer, Geoffrey had a better right to do so. His stature aided him also, and men with retreating chins were rather inclined to give him the road. He had a set look about the lower part of his face which in crowds was an advantage to him. It suggested some vis major– perhaps a locomotive, which no one cares to encounter.

In two minutes after they had embarked on this hazardous voyage Nina had but one idea, or rather she was conscious of a pervading sense of pleasure, that ran away with her calmer self. No thought of anything definite was with her, only a vague consciousness of turning and floating, of being admired, of being impelled by music and by Geoffrey. As the dance went on it seemed like some master power that led through the mazes delightfully and resistlessly.

When the music ended, for they had never stopped, she sighed with sorrow. It had been too short. She had yielded herself so completely to its fascination that she seemed like one awakening from a dream. And then her conscience smote her when she thought of Jack, and how in some way she had enjoyed herself too much, and did not seem to be quite the same girl that she had been half an hour before; but these thoughts left her as they walked about and spoke a few words together. While circling the long room she noticed Geoffrey bowing to a tall young lady whose long white silk train swept behind her majestically. There was a respect and gravity in his bow which Nina, with her quick observation, noticed.

"Who is that you are bowing to?" she asked.

"That is Miss Margaret Mackintosh."

"Oh, I think she is perfectly lovely," said Nina, as she looked back admiringly.

"So do I," said Geoffrey.

Nina turned about now with curiosity, in order to meet her again. Miss Mackintosh came down the room once more with a partner who was one of the very young persons who now are the dancing men in Toronto – called the "infants" by a lady (still unwon) who remembers when there were marriageable men to be found dancing at parties. This detrimental with Miss Mackintosh was having an enjoyable time of it. What with the beauty of his partner, her stately figure, gracious manner, and the rapidity with which she talked to him, the little man did not quite know where he was, and he could do little else than turn occasionally and murmur complete acquiescence in what she was saying, while he sometimes glanced at her active face for a moment. In doing this, though, he would lose the thread of her discourse, in consequence of his unfeigned admiration, and, as he was straining every nerve to follow her quick ideas, this was a risky thing to do. Once or twice, seeing him turn toward her so attentively, she turned also and said, "Don't you think so?" and then the little man would endeavor to mentally pull himself together, and with some appearance of deep thought would again acquiesce with unction. Certainly he thought he did think so – every time.

The close scrutiny of Hampstead and Nina did not seem to affect her as she passed them with her face unlifted and earnest. She did not seem to have any side eyes open to see who were regarding her. When the handsome dress that had made such a cavern in her allowance money was trodden on, she gathered it up with an active movement – not seeming to notice the unpleasantness, nor for a moment abating the earnestness of her conversation. Her idea seemed to be to prevent the dress from interrupting her rather than to save it. One could see that, once on, the dress was perhaps not thought of again, that it was not the main part of her pleasure, but was lost in her endeavor to make herself agreeable, and in this way to enjoy herself.

"I am sure she must have a very kind heart," said Nina, smiling.

"Why?" asked Geoffrey.

"Because she takes so much trouble over such a poor specimen of a man."

"Perhaps, as Douglas Jerrold said, she belongs to the Royal Humane Society," added Geoffrey.

As Nina could not remember being acquainted with any Mr. Jerrold, the remark lost some of its weight. The true inwardness of the old wit that comes down to us in books is our knowledge of the reputation of the joker.

"And does she dance well?" asked Nina.

"No," said Geoffrey, as he still looked after Miss Mackintosh with grave and thoughtful eyes. "I don't think she has in her enough of what Gœthe calls the 'dæmonic element' of our nature to dance well."

"Not very complimentary, to those who can dance well," said Nina, archly pointing to herself.

Geoffrey shrugged his shoulders, as he looked at his partner. "Some people prefer the dæmonic element," said he. But he turned again from the rose to the tall, white lily, who was once more approaching them, with something of a melancholy idea in his mind that men like him ought to confine themselves entirely to the rose, and not aspire above their moral level. Margaret Mackintosh was the one person he revered. She was the symbol to him of all that was good and pure. He had almost forgotten what these words meant, but the presence of Margaret always re-interpreted the lost language.

"And do you admire her very much?" Nina inquired.

"I admire her more than any person I ever saw."

Sooner or later, it would have gone hard with Geoffrey for making this speech, if he had been any one else. But it occurred to Nina that he did not care whether she took offense or not. He was leaning against the wall, apparently oblivious, for the moment, to any of her ideas, charms, or graces, but looking, withal, exceedingly handsome, and a thought came to her which should not come to an engaged young lady. She made up her mind that she would make him care for her a great deal and then would snub him and marry Jack.

The music commenced again.

"Come now," said Nina, gayly, "and try a little more of the dæmonic element."

Geoffrey turned to her quickly, and his face flushed as, to quote Shakespeare's sonnet, "his bad angel fired his good one out." He saw in her face her intention to subjugate him, and knew that he had accidentally paved the way for this new foolish notion of hers by his candid admiration of Miss Mackintosh.

"Have you any of it to spare?" said he, as his arm encircled her for the dance.

No verbal answer was given, but they floated away among the dancers. Here she forgot her slight feelings of resentment and retained only the desire to attract him, without further wish to punish him afterward. A few turns around the room, and she was in as much of a whirl as she had been before. They danced throughout the music – almost without ceasing; and when it ended she unconsciously leaned, upon his arm, as they strolled off together, almost as if she were tired. The thought of how she was acting came to her, only it came now as an intruder. A usurper reigned with sovereign sway, and Right was quickly ousted on his approach. A little while ago, and the power to decide, for Jack or against him, was more evenly balanced; but now, how different! She was wandering on with no other impulse than the indefinite wish to please Geoffrey. If she had been a man, sophisms and excuses might have occurred to her. But it was not her habit to analyze self much, and even sophisms require some thought.

They passed through the conservatory and out to the broad walk of pressed gravel, where several couples were promenading. Here they walked up and down once or twice in the cool breeze that seemed delicious after the invisible dust of the ball-room. Nina was saying nothing, but leaning on his arm, and it seemed to her that his low, deep tones vibrated through her – as a sympathetic note sometimes makes glass ring – as if in echo.

Geoffrey was pondering where all the pride and self-assertion had gone to in this girl who now seemed so trustful and docile. Even her answers seemed mechanical and vague, as if she were in some way bewildered.

Jack, in the mean time, was elbowing his way through a crowd, trying to get one of his partners something to eat. He was the only person likely to notice her absence, and this he did not do, and, as Geoffrey was down for five dances, he knew no others would be looking for her. So he walked on past the end of the terrace, and, descending some steps, proceeded farther till they came to more steps leading down into a path dark with overhanging trees. Nina hesitated, and said she was always afraid to go among dark trees, but Geoffrey said, "Oh, I'll take care of you." Then she thought it was pleasant to have an athlete for a protector, and she glanced at his strong face and frame with confidence. She no longer went with him as she had danced, with her mind in a whirl, but peacefully and calmly, with no other thought than to be with him. He took her hand as they descended the stairs, and, though she shrank a little from a proceeding new to her, it seemed natural enough, and gave her a sense of protection in the dark paths. It did not occur to her that she could have done without it. She did not notice their silence. Geoffrey, too, thought it pleasant enough in the balmy air without conversation. He was interested by her beauty and her sudden partiality for him.

At length he stopped in one of the distant paths as they came to a seat between the trunks of two large trees. Here they sat down at opposite sides of the seat, and Geoffrey leaned back against the tree beside him. The leaves on the overhanging boughs quivered in the light of the moon, and the delicate perfume in the air spoke of flower-beds near by. He thought it extremely pleasant here, and he laid his head back against the tree beside him to listen to the tinkling of the fountain and to enjoy the scent-laden night air. An idea was still with him that this was the girl Jack was engaged to, and he thought it would be as well to keep that idea before him. He said to himself that he liked Jack, and thought he was very considerate, under the circumstances, for his friend when he took out a little silver case and suggested that he would like a cigarette.

Nina did not answer him. She was in some phase of thought in which cigarettes had no place, and only looked toward him slowly, as if she had merely heard the sound of his voice and not the words. He selected from the case one of those innocuous tubes of rice-paper and prairie-grass, and, as he did so, the absent look on her face seemed peculiar. With a fuse in one hand and the cigarette in the other, he paused before striking a light, and they looked at each other for a moment as he thought of stories he had read of one person's influence over another. Like many, he had a general curiosity about strange phases of mankind, and it occurred to him that Nina would make an interesting subject for experiment. Presently he said, in resonant tones, deep and musical:

"Do you like to be here, Nina?"

She did not seem to notice that he called her by this familiar name, but she stood up and remained silently gazing at the moon through a break in the foliage. Her beauty was sublimated by the white light, and, as Geoffrey took a step towards her, he forgot about his cigarette, and, taking both her hands in his, he repeated his question two or three times before she answered. Then she turned impetuously.

"Oh, why do you make me do everything that is wrong? I should not be here. I should never have spoken to you. I was afraid of you from the first moment I saw you."

Geoffrey led her by one hand back to the seat.

"Now answer me. Do you like to be here – with me, Nina?"

She looked at the moon and at the ground and all about, but remained mute and apparently pondering.

He had forgotten Jack now as well as the cigarette, and was rapidly losing the remembrance that this was to be merely a scientific experiment.

"Your silence makes me all the more impatient. I will know now. Do you like to be here, Nina?"

A new earnestness in his tone thrilled her and made her tremble. She turned with a sudden impulse, as if something had made her reckless:

"You are forcing me to answer you," she said vehemently, as she looked at him with a constrained, though affectionate expression in her eyes. "But I will tell you if I die for it. Oh, I am so wicked to say so, but I must. You make me. Oh, now let us go into the house."

Geoffrey's generous intention to act rightly by Jack departed from him, and for a moment he drew her toward him, saying that she must not care too much for being there, "because, you know," he said, "this is only a little flirtation, and is quite too good to last."

She seemed not to be listening to him, but to be thinking; and after a moment she said, in long drawn out, sorrowful accents:

"Oh – poor – Jack!"

Something in the slow, melancholy way she said this, and the thought of the poor place that Jack certainly held at the present time in her affections, struck Geoffrey as irresistibly amusing, and he laughed aloud in an unsympathetic way, which presented him to her in a new light, and she sprang from him at once. Her emotion turned to anger as she thought that the laugh had been derisive, and her blood boiled to think he could bring her here to laugh at her after he had succeeded in winning her so completely.

"Come into the house at once," she cried. "I can't go in alone even if I knew the way."

Geoffrey rose and begged her pardon, assuring her that nothing but the peculiarity of her remark had caused his laugh.

"I will not stay here another instant. If you don't come at once I'll find my way alone." And she stamped her foot upon the ground.

Hampstead did not like to be stamped at, and his face altered. As long as she had been facile and pleasing, a sense of duty toward her and Jack had made him considerate. It had seemed to him while sitting there that this girl was his; and the sense of possession had made him kind, but now that she seemed to vex him unnecessarily it appeared to him like a denial of his influence. The idea of the experiment suddenly returned, together with a sense of power and a desire to compel submission which displaced his wish to be considerate. He sat down on the seat again facing her and said:

"I want you to come here." He motioned to the seat beside him.