The Keepers of the People

349During the days that followed Ralph Falcon had all opportunities of observing English womanhood trained and developing according to the newest lights; and to all seeming he availed himself of them as little as might be. Lady Hammersmith for ever sought him out to impart to him her ideas on all the burning questions of the day, above all on India; but never had she found so indifferent and insensible a hearer. The loftiest flights of her impassioned eloquence seemed but to stir him to a faint weariness; and one night in the smoking-room he declared, to Lord Lisdor’s great joy, that she was an ignorant, ill-trained woman. He seemed no less insensible to the charm of Miss Freshington. She was not a beautiful woman; but she was tall, with a finely-proportioned figure, and the clear skin of admirable health; full of life and intelligence. By all the attractions of her person he seemed unmoved; and the brightness of her intelligence awoke in him no interest. She was used to provoke hostility, and it pleased her; to win admiration, and she held it her due; but to indifference she was unused, and it chafed her into assailing him with every weapon of which she was mistress. It was in vain. When she was talking her cleverest, and for a woman she was at times almost witty, she could not feel sure that he was even at the pains to be listening to her: her audacities, when she talked of what she called “The Complex Problems of our Modernity,” never disturbed his serenity to a smile or a frown. The laughter of Lord Lisdor and Prince Melinsky, the impatience of Lady Lisdor, and Lady Hammersmith’s horror, were not the tributes she sought; and her irritation grew, and with her irritation her interest.