The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton (ebook smartphone .txt) 📖

>distrustful coldness under the Princess Mother’s cordial glance,

and had concluded that she perhaps suspected him of being an

obstacle to her son’s aspirations. He had no idea of playing

that part, but was not sorry to appear to; for he was sincerely

attached to Coral Hicks, and hoped for her a more human fate

than that of becoming Prince Anastasius’s consort.

 

This evening, however, he was struck by the beaming alacrity of

the aide-de-camp’s greeting. Whatever cloud had hung between

them had lifted: the Teutoburg clan, for one reason or another,

no longer feared or distrusted him. The change was conveyed in

a mere hand-pressure, a brief exchange of words, for the aide-de-camp was hastening after a well-known dowager of the old

Roman world, whom he helped into a large coronetted brougham

which looked as if it had been extracted, for some ceremonial

purpose, from a museum of historic vehicles. And in an instant

it flashed on Lansing that this lady had been the person chosen

to lay the Prince’s offer at Miss Hicks’s feet.

 

The discovery piqued him; and instead of making straight for his

own room he went up to Mrs. Hicks’s drawing-room.

 

The room was empty, but traces of elaborate tea pervaded it, and

an immense bouquet of stiff roses lay on the centre table. As

he turned away, Eldorada Tooker, flushed and tear-stained,

abruptly entered.

 

“Oh, Mr. Lansing—we were looking everywhere for you.”

 

“Looking for me?”

 

“Yes. Coral especially … she wants to see you. She wants you

to come to her own sitting-room.”

 

She led him across the ante-chamber and down the passage to the

separate suite which Miss Hicks inhabited. On the threshold

Eldorada gasped out emotionally: “You’ll find her looking

lovely—” and jerked away with a sob as he entered.

 

Coral Hicks was never lovely: but she certainly looked

unusually handsome. Perhaps it was the long dress of black

velvet which, outlined against a shaded lamp, made her strong

build seem slenderer, or perhaps the slight flush on her dusky

cheek: a bloom of womanhood hung upon her which she made no

effort to dissemble. Indeed, it was one of her originalities

that she always gravely and courageously revealed the utmost of

whatever mood possessed her.

 

“How splendid you look!” he said, smiling at her.

 

She threw her head back and gazed him straight in the eyes.

“That’s going to be my future job.”

 

“To look splendid?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“And wear a crown?”

 

“And wear a crown ….”

 

They continued to consider each other without speaking. Nick’s

heart contracted with pity and perplexity.

 

“Oh, Coral—it’s not decided?”

 

She scrutinized him for a last penetrating moment; then she

looked away. “I’m never long deciding.”

 

He hesitated, choking with contradictory impulses, and afraid to

formulate any, lest they should either mislead or pain her.

 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he questioned lamely; and instantly

perceived his blunder.

 

She sat down, and looked up at him under brooding lashes—had he

ever noticed the thickness of her lashes before?

 

“Would it have made any difference if I had told you?”

 

“Any difference—?”

 

“Sit down by me,” she commanded. “I want to talk to you. You

can say now whatever you might have said sooner. I’m not

married yet: I’m still free.”

 

“You haven’t given your answer?”

 

“It doesn’t matter if I have.”

 

The retort frightened him with the glimpse of what she still

expected of him, and what he was still so unable to give.

 

“That means you’ve said yes?” he pursued, to gain time.

 

“Yes or no—it doesn’t matter. I had to say something. What I

want is your advice.”

 

“At the eleventh hour?”

 

“Or the twelfth.” She paused. “What shall I do?” she

questioned, with a sudden accent of helplessness.

 

He looked at her as helplessly. He could not say: “Ask

yourself—ask your parents.” Her next word would sweep away

such frail hypocrisies. Her “What shall I do?” meant “What are

you going to do?” and he knew it, and knew that she knew it.

 

“I’m a bad person to give any one matrimonial advice,” he began,

with a strained smile; “but I had such a different vision for

you.”

 

“What kind of a vision?” She was merciless.

 

“Merely what people call happiness, dear.”

 

“‘People call’—you see you don’t believe in it yourself! Well,

neither do I—in that form, at any rate. “

 

He considered. “I believe in trying for it—even if the trying’s

the best of it.”

 

“Well, I’ve tried, and failed. And I’m twenty-two, and I never

was young. I suppose I haven’t enough imagination.” She drew a

deep breath. “Now I want something different.” She appeared to

search for the word. “I want to be—prominent,” she declared.

 

“Prominent?”

 

She reddened swarthily. “Oh, you smile—you think it’s

ridiculous: it doesn’t seem worth while to you. That’s because

you’ve always had all those things. But I haven’t. I know what

father pushed up from, and I want to push up as high again—

higher. No, I haven’t got much imagination. I’ve always liked

Facts. And I find I shall like the fact of being a Princess—

choosing the people I associate with, and being up above all

these European grandees that father and mother bow down to,

though they think they despise them. You can be up above these

people by just being yourself; you know how. But I need a

platform—a sky-scraper. Father and mother slaved to give me my

education. They thought education was the important thing; but,

since we’ve all three of us got mediocre minds, it has just

landed us among mediocre people. Don’t you suppose I see

through all the sham science and sham art and sham everything

we’re surrounded with? That’s why I want to buy a place at the

very top, where I shall be powerful enough to get about me the

people I want, the big people, the right people, and to help

them I want to promote culture, like those Renaissance women

you’re always talking about. I want to do it for Apex City; do

you understand? And for father and mother too. I want all

those titles carved on my tombstone. They’re facts, anyhow!

Don’t laugh at me ….” She broke off with one of her clumsy

smiles, and moved away from him to the other end of the room.

 

He sat looking at her with a curious feeling of admiration. Her

harsh positivism was like a tonic to his disenchanted mood, and

he thought: “What a pity!”

 

Aloud he said: “I don’t feel like laughing at you. You’re a

great woman.”

 

“Then I shall be a great Princess.”

 

“Oh—but you might have been something so much greater!”

 

Her face flamed again. “Don’t say that!”

 

He stood up involuntarily, and drew near her.

 

“Why not?”

 

“Because you’re the only man with whom I can imagine the other

kind of greatness.”

 

It moved him—moved him unexpectedly. He got as far as saying

to himself: “Good God, if she were not so hideously rich—” and

then of yielding for a moment to the persuasive vision of all

that he and she might do with those very riches which he

dreaded. After all, there was nothing mean in her ideals they

were hard and material, in keeping with her primitive and

massive person; but they had a certain grim nobility. And when

she spoke of “the other kind of greatness” he knew that she

understood what she was talking of, and was not merely saying

something to draw him on, to get him to commit himself. There

was not a drop of guile in her, except that which her very

honesty distilled.

 

“The other kind of greatness?” he repeated.

 

“Well, isn’t that what you said happiness was? I wanted to be

happy … but one can’t choose.”

 

He went up to her. “No, one can’t choose. And how can anyone

give you happiness who hasn’t got it himself?” He took her

hands, feeling how large, muscular and voluntary they were, even

as they melted in his palms.

 

“My poor Coral, of what use can I ever be to you? What you need

is to be loved.”

 

She drew back and gave him one of her straight strong glances:

“No,” she said gallantly, “but just to love.”