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So-and-so and such-an-one, both friends, are going home in her, and some one else goes next week by the French mail. He, and he alone, it seems to him, must stay on; and it is so maddeningly easy to go for every one save himself. The boat's smoke dies out along the horizon, and he is left alone with the warm wind and the white dust of the Bund.
Then steps forward the man of letters, looking anxiously gazing as though he had a right to gaze in the stranger's face; and, throwing out his head, and particularly his chin, while he utters the hesitating interrogative "Sir?" And the stranger replies "You don't know me, I suppose? I am such-an-one, who was at your school at such a time." The instiller of knowledge starts
Mme. de Bargeton had drilled him into military subordination; he yielded a passive obedience to his wife. "Go and call on Monsieur So-and-So or Madame Such-an-One," she would say, and he went forthwith, like a soldier at the word of command. He stood at attention in her presence, and waited motionless for his orders.
Romeo is seldom the first. Pray you, what was there to prevent Juliet from admiring So-and-so's dancing? or from observing that Signor Such-an-one had remarkably expressive eyes? or from thinking of Tybalt as a dear, reckless fellow whom it was the duty of some good woman to rescue from perdition?
"As one imprisoned that hath lain alone And dreamed of sunlight where no vagrant gleam Of sunlight pierces, being freed, must deem This too but dreaming, and must dread the sun Whose glory dazzles, even as such-an-one Am I whose longing was but now supreme For this high hour, and, now it strikes, esteem I do but dream long dreamed-of goals are won. "Phyllis, I am not worthy of thy love.
Now there arose endless difficulties about 'engagements', about youthful brethren who 'went out walking' with even more youthful sisters. Glancing over my Father's notes, I observe the ceaseless repetition of cases in which So-and-So is 'courting' Such-an-one, followed by the melancholy record that he has 'deserted' her.
Women journalists would come and make a fuss of him, and get him to talk about his sentimental adventures. Others would make use of him to speak ill of such-an-one, or so-and-so. When Olivier came in he would find Christophe utterly downcast. "Another howler?" he would ask. "Of course," Christophe would reply in despair. "You are incorrigible!"
And all the while their acquaintances look on in stupor, and ask each other, with almost passionate emphasis, what so-and-so can see in that woman, or such-an-one in that man? I am sure, gentlemen, I cannot tell you. For my part, I cannot think what the women mean.
Nay, the gift is greater, for there are added certain half-strangers, towards whom we lose all shyness, and who turn to real friends when introduced by death and worked into our past; dear such-an-one, whom we scarcely knew, barely more than face and name then, but know and have the right to care for now.
Of course they were discussing the wedding, how lovely the bride and her attendants looked, how handsome the groom, how tasteful and becoming was the dress of this lady and that, how attentive was Mr. Such-an-one to Miss So-and-so, etc., etc.
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