The Magician by W. Somerset Maugham (ebook reader macos TXT) 📕

smiled with happy pride. For all her good-nature, Susie could not prevent the pang that wrung her heart; for she too was capable of love. There was in her a wealth of passionate affection that none had sought to find. None had ever whispered in her ears the charming nonsense that she read in books. She recognised that she had no beauty to help her, but once she had at least the charm of vivacious youth. That was gone now, and the freedom to go into the world had come too late; yet her instinct told her that she was made to be a decent man’s wife and the mother of children. She stopped in the middle of her bright chatter, fearing to trust her voice, but Margaret and Arthur were too much occupied to notice that she had ceased to speak. They sat side by side and enjoyed the happiness of one another’s company.

“What a fool I am!” thought Susie.

She had learnt long ago that common sense, intelligence, good-nature, and strength of character were unimportant in comparison with a pretty face. She shrugged her shoulders.

“I don’t know if you young things realise that it’s growing late. If you want us to dine at the Chien Noir, you must leave us now, so that we can make ourselves tidy.”

“Very well,” said Arthur, getting up. “I’ll go back to my hotel and have a wash. We’ll meet at half-past seven.”

When Margaret had closed the door on him, she turned to her friend.

“Well, what do you think?” she asked, smiling.

“You can’t expect me to form a definite opinion of a man whom I’ve seen for so short a time.”

“Nonsense!” said Margaret.

Susie hesitated for a moment.

“I think he has an extraordinarily good face,” she said at last gravely. “I’ve never seen a man whose honesty of purpose was so transparent.”

Susie Boyd was so lazy that she could never be induced to occupy herself with household matters and, while Margaret put the tea things away, she began to draw the caricature which every new face suggested to her. She made a little sketch of Arthur, abnormally lanky, with a colossal nose, with the wings and the bow and arrow of the God of Love, but it was not half done before she thought it silly. She tore it up with impatience. When Margaret came back, she turned round and looked at her steadily.

“Well?” said the girl, smiling under the scrutiny.

She stood in the middle of the lofty studio. Half-finished canvases leaned with their faces against the wall; pieces of stuff were hung here and there, and photographs of well-known pictures. She had fallen unconsciously into a wonderful pose, and her beauty gave her, notwithstanding her youth, a rare dignity. Susie smiled mockingly.

“You look like a Greek goddess in a Paris frock,” she said.

“What have you to say to me?” asked Margaret, divining from the searching look that something was in her friend’s mind.

Susie stood up and went to her.

“You know, before I’d seen him I hoped with all my heart that he’d make you happy. Notwithstanding all you’d told me of him, I was afraid. I knew he was much older than you. He was the first man you’d ever known. I could scarcely bear to entrust you to him in case you were miserable.”

“I don’t think you need have any fear.”

“But now I hope with all my heart that you’ll make him happy. It’s not you I’m frightened for now, but him.”

Margaret did not answer; she could not understand what Susie meant.

“I’ve never seen anyone with such a capacity for wretchedness as that man has. I don’t think you can conceive how desperately he might suffer. Be very careful, Margaret, and be very good to him, for you have the power to make him more unhappy than any human being should be.”

“Oh, but I want him to be happy,” cried Margaret vehemently. “You know that I owe everything to him. I’d do all I could to make him happy, even if I had to sacrifice myself. But I can’t sacrifice myself, because I love him so much that all I do is pure delight.”

Her eyes filled with tears and her voice broke. Susie, with a little laugh that was half hysterical, kissed her.

“My dear, for heaven’s sake don’t cry! You know I can’t bear people who weep, and if he sees your eyes red, he’ll never forgive me.”

III

The Chien Noir, where Susie Boyd and Margaret generally dined, was the most charming restaurant in the quarter. Downstairs was a public room, where all and sundry devoured their food, for the little place had a reputation for good cooking combined with cheapness; and the patron, a retired horse-dealer who had taken to victualling in order to build up a business for his son, was a cheery soul whose loud-voiced friendliness attracted custom. But on the first floor was a narrow room, with three tables arranged in a horseshoe, which was reserved for a small party of English or American painters and a few Frenchmen with their wives. At least, they were so nearly wives, and their manner had such a matrimonial respectability, that Susie, when first she and Margaret were introduced into this society, judged it would be vulgar to turn up her nose. She held that it was prudish to insist upon the conventions of Notting Hill in the Boulevard du Montparnasse. The young women who had thrown in their lives with these painters were modest in demeanour and quiet in dress. They were model housewives, who had preserved their self-respect notwithstanding a difficult position, and did not look upon their relation with less seriousness because they had not muttered a few words before Monsieur le Maire.

The room was full when Arthur Burdon entered, but Margaret had kept him an empty seat between herself and Miss Boyd. Everyone was speaking at once, in French, at the top of his voice,