Atlantic Narratives: Modern Short Stories — John Shaqi
Atlantic Narratives: Modern Short StoriesNesbit, E. (Edith)
General
Atlantic Narratives: Modern Short Stories
Nesbit, E. (Edith)
Short stories
Pink and white and gold as she was, and draped there on the chesterfield
in a profusion of youth and a frivolity that was yet all passivity, she
made her mother-in-law think, and with a certain sinking of the heart,
of a Dorothy Perkins rose, a flower she had never cared for; and Dollie
carried on the analogy in the sense she gave that there were such
myriads more just like her. On almost every page of every illustrated
weekly paper, one saw the ingenuous, limpid eyes, the display of
eyelash, the lips, their outline emphasized by just that touch of rouge,
those copious waves of hair. Like the Dorothy Perkins roses on their
pergolas, so these pretty faces seemed--looped, draped, festooned--to
climb over all the available spaces of the modern press.
But this, Mrs. Bradley told herself, was to see Dollie with a dry, hard
eye, was to see her superficially, from the social rather than from the
human point of view. Under the photographic creature must lie the young,
young girl--so young, so harmless that it would be very possible to
mould her, with all discretion, all tenderness, into some suitability as
Jack's wife. Dollie, from the moment that she had found her, a sodden,
battered rose indeed, in the London lodging-house, had shown herself
grateful, even humble, and endlessly acquiescent. She had not shown
herself at all abashed or apologetic, and that had been a relief; had
counted for her, indeed, in her mother-in-law's eyes, as a sort of
innocence, a sort of dignity. But if Dollie were contented with her new
mother, and very grateful to her, she was also contented with herself;
Mrs. Bradley had been aware of this at once; and she knew now that, if
she were being carefully and commendingly watched while she poured out
the tea, this concentration did not imply unqualified approval. Dollie
was the type of young woman to whom she herself stood as the type of the
'perfect lady'; but with the appreciation went the proviso of the sharp
little London mind,--versed in the whole ritual of smartness as it
displayed itself at theatre or restaurant,--that she was a rather dowdy
one. She was a lady, perfect but not smart, while, at the same time, the
quality of her defect was, she imagined, a little bewildering and
therefore a little impressive. Actually to awe Dollie and to make her
shy, it would be necessary to be smart; but it was far more pleasant and
perhaps as efficacious merely to impress her, and it was as well that
Dollie should be impressed; for anything in the nature of an advantage
that she could recognize would make it easier to direct, protect, and
mould her.
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