The Connoisseur

Chapter 20 - A Man of Infinite Impossibility

Sophia stood stock still.  Oscar returned to looking out of the window.  When she had retrieved her tongue from the roof of her mouth, she spoke.

“So you know that.  Okay.  Fine.”

“You can’t have imagined it was only you who knew?” said Oscar.

“No, but I hadn’t expected to meet anyone who did.”

“That’s fair.  As social sets go, all of history is rather broad.”

A bizarre sense of propriety struck Sophia.  Part of her saw the great writer, and wanted to be silent before him.  The other half saw only a man, and a terse, if brilliant one at that.  The latter attitude won out.

“What do you want to tell me?” she said.  “You say he’s dangerous.  Are you trying to warn me off?”

Wilde turned to her, smiling devilishly.  “Not in the slightest.  On the contrary, I believe you should stay with him, for all the danger.  Or rather that you should stay with him if you choose to, once you are in full possession of the facts.”

“And those are?”

“He does not love you.”

“I’m sorry?”

“He does not love you.  Perhaps by his definition he does, but not by yours.”

Sophia turned pale.  Trembling with anger, she made an effort to stand up straight.  “Right.  I see.  This is one of your games of wit, is it?  Am I meant to give you some clever response, then you’ll pat me on the head and say you don’t really mean anything you say?  Because if not, then you have no right to say that.”

“Perhaps not right, but I have reason.”

“Okay.  Fine.  Why should he love me?” said Sophia.  “I’m not some wide-eyed innocent teenager, I don’t expect a guy to fall in love with me on day one.  Relationships take time.”

“‘Teenager’?” said Wilde.  “Ah, I see – one who is in adolescence.  Interesting word.”

They paused.

“So?” said Sophia.

“I quite agree with you,” said Wilde.  “But I observed you in the front room.”

“Did you,” said Sophia, flushing. 

“You give every indication of being a couple very much in love.  That was not courtship, a couple learning to love.  If I did not know what I know about Alexander Hartigan, I would say that you were quite besotted with one another.  It was charming, in a way.  Ah, the desires of youth.  They are so beautiful.”

Sophia felt her anger ebb.  There was such a longing in Wilde’s words.  He wasn’t as aggressive as she first thought.  Instead, wariness replaced wrath.

“What do you know about Alexander Hartigan?” she said quietly.

“You will think me cruel.”

“You won’t mind.”

Oscar smiled.  “True.  Alexander Hartigan is selfish.  Not in a wicked way, you understand.  It is a symptom of his lifestyle.  Has he told you of his pursuits?  The search for the meaning of art and beauty, and so on?”

“He has.  I thought he sounded like you when he said it, like he was some sort of decadent aesthete.” Sophia sat down on a hard-backed chair and cleared her throat.  “How is he selfish, then?”

Wilde lowered himself into the chair beside her.  He flourished the tails of his frock coat behind him, slouched, and put his feet up on the table.  “Mr Hartigan travels through time attempting to experience every aspect of beauty that a human being can experience.  My dear Miss Deveaux, did you never consider that love and romance are included in that list?”