Willa Cather

Alexander's Bridge Willa Cather

On the night of his arrival in London, Alexander went immediately to the hotel on theEmbankment at which he always stopped, and in the lobby he was accosted by an old acquaintance, Maurice Mainhall, who fell upon him with effusive cordiality and indicated a willingness to dine withhim. Bartley never dined alone if he could help it, and Mainhall was a good gossip who always knewwhat had been going on in town; especially, he knew everything that was not printed in thenewspapers. The nephew of one of the standard Victorian novelists, Mainhall bobbed about amongthe various literary cliques of London and its outlying suburbs, careful to lose touch with none ofthem. He had written a number of books himself; among them a "History of Dancing," a "Historyof Costume," a "Key to Shakespeare's Sonnets," a study of "The Poetry of Ernest Dowson," etc. Although Mainhall's enthusiasm was often tiresome, and although he was often unable todistinguish between facts and vivid figments of his imagination, his imperturbable good natureovercame even the people whom he bored most, so that they ended by becoming, in a reluctantmanner, his friends. In appearance, Mainhall was astonishingly like the conventional stageEnglishman of American drama: tall and thin, with high, hitching shoulders and a small headglistening with closely brushed yellow hair. He spoke with an extreme Oxford accent, and when hewas talking well, his face sometimes wore the rapt expression of a very emotional man listening tomusic. Mainhall liked Alexander because he was an engineer. He had preconceived ideas abouteverything, and his idea about Americans was that they should be engineers or mechanics. He hatedthem when they presumed to be anything else. While they sat at dinner Mainhall acquainted Bartley with the fortunes of his old friends inLondon, and as they left the table he proposed that they should go to see Hugh MacConnell's newcomedy, "Bog Lights.""It's really quite the best thing MacConnell's done," he explained as they got into a hansom. "It'stremendously well put on, too. Florence Merrill and Cyril Henderson. But Hilda Burgoyne's the hitof the piece. Hugh's written a delightful part for her, and she's quite inexpressible. It's been on onlytwo weeks, and I've been half a dozen times already. I happen to have MacConnell's box for tonightor there'd be no chance of our getting places. There's everything in seeing Hilda while she's fresh ina part. She's apt to grow a bit stale after a time. The ones who have any imagination do.""Hilda Burgoyne!" Alexander exclaimed mildly. "Why, I haven't heard of her for-years."Mainhall laughed. "Then you can't have heard much at all, my dear Alexander. It's only lately, since MacConnell and his set have got hold of her, that she's come up. Myself, I always knew shehad it in her. If we had one real critic in London-but what can one expect? Do you know, Alexander,"-Mainhall looked with perplexity up into the top of the hansom and rubbed his pinkcheek with his gloved finger, -"do you know, I sometimes think of taking to criticism seriouslymyself. In a way, it would be a sacrifice; but, dear me, we do need some o