The Muse's Tragedy - Page 2

sugar in his tea:

"Is it right this time? You're almost as particular as Mary Anerton."

"Mary Anerton?"

"Yes, I never _can_ remember how she likes her tea. Either it's lemon
_with_ sugar, or lemon without sugar, or cream without either, and
whichever it is must be put into the cup before the tea is poured in; and
if one hasn't remembered, one must begin all over again. I suppose it was
Vincent Rendle's way of taking his tea and has become a sacred rite."

"Do you _know_ Mrs. Anerton?" cried Danyers, disturbed by this careless
familiarity with the habits of his divinity.

"'And did I once see Shelley plain?' Mercy, yes! She and I were at school
together--she's an American, you know. We were at a _pension_ near Tours
for nearly a year; then she went back to New York, and I didn't see her
again till after her marriage. She and Anerton spent a winter in Rome
while my husband was attached to our Legation there, and she used to be
with us a great deal." Mrs. Memorall smiled reminiscently. "It was _the_
winter."

"The winter they first met?"

"Precisely--but unluckily I left Rome just before the meeting took place.
Wasn't it too bad? I might have been in the _Life and Letters_. You know
he mentions that stupid Madame Vodki, at whose house he first saw her."

"And did you see much of her after that?"

"Not during Rendle's life. You know she has lived in Europe almost
entirely, and though I used to see her off and on when I went abroad, she
was always so engrossed, so preoccupied, that one felt one wasn't wanted.
The fact is, she cared only about his friends--she separated herself
gradually from all her own people. Now, of course, it's different; she's
desperately lonely; she's taken to writing to me now and then; and last
year, when she heard I was going abroad, she asked me to meet her in
Venice, and I spent a week with her there."

"And Rendle?"

Mrs. Memorall smiled and shook her head. "Oh, I never was allowed a peep
at _him_; none of her old friends met him, except by accident. Ill-natured
people say that was the reason she kept him so long. If one happened in
while he was there, he was hustled into Anerton's study, and the husband
mounted guard till the inopportune visitor had departed. Anerton, you
know, was really much more ridiculous about it than his wife. Mary was too
clever to lose her head, or at least to show she'd lost it--but Anerton
couldn't conceal his pride in the conquest. I've seen Mary shiver when he
spoke of Rendle as _our poet_. Rendle always had to have a certain seat at
the dinner-table, away from the draught and not too near the fire,