Josephine was saying good-bye to Lady Severn and Amber was doing her best to induce her to stay. As the two men paused outside the drawing-room door there was afrou-frouof laughter within the room—the rustle of the drapery of a flying jest at Amber’s insistence.
“You will not go, please,” said Pierce when Amber appealed to him to stand between the door and Josephine. “You cannot go just at the moment of my return, especially as Miss Severn has promised to show me the roses.”
“The argument is irresistible,” said Josephine with a little shrug following a moment of irresolution. “But that was not Amber’s argument, I assure you.”
“I merely said that I expected some of my friends to come to me to report their progress,” said Amber.
“That seems to me to be an irresistible reason for a hurried departure,” said Sir Creighton.
“Oh, I wouldn’t suggest that they were so interesting as that,” said Josephine, with a laugh, a laugh that made one—some one—think of the laughter of a brook among mossy stones.
“Interesting enough to run away from?” said Pierce. “Well, any one who is interesting enough for Miss West to run away from is certainly interesting enough for an ordinary person to stay for—but for that matter, I did not suggest that I was going away.”
“You saved us the trouble of insisting on your staying—for some time, at any rate,” said Lady Severn.
“As long as you can after the arrival of the objects of interest,” said Sir Creighton.
“And now I think we may go among the roses without reproach,” said Josephine.
She led the way out to the terrace and then down the steps into the garden, and was followed by Amber and Pierce, and for half an hour they strolled about the rose beds, Amber being every minute more amazed at the self-repression of Josephine in regard to Mr. Winwood. Although she had frankly acknowledged that she had formed a dislike to Mr. Winwood, she had not only come to lunch when she knew that he would be the only other guest, but she had allowed herself to be easily persuaded to stay on after the hour when without being thought impolite, she might have gone away.
And she was not even content with these tokens of self-abnegation, for here she was after the lapse of half an hour, still conversing with Mr. Winwood when really she had no need to remain for longer than ten minutes in the garden!
And she was actually pretending to take an interest in all that he was saying, an interest so absorbing as to give Amber herself an impression of being neglected.
She had always felt that Josephine was indeed a true friend, but she had never before had offered to her so impressive a series of tokens of her friendship. The friendship that dissembles a rooted dislike for a fellow-visitor is of sterling quality Amber felt; and with this feeling there was joined one of admiration for the way in which her friend played her part.
Poor Mr. Winwood! He might really have believed from her manner that he had favourably impressed Josephine. Once or twice Amber fancied that she saw on his face a certain look that suggested that he was gratified at his success in holding the attention of the fair dissembler by his side.
Poor Mr. Winwood!
Perhaps Josephine was carrying the thing too far—perhaps she was over-emphasising her attitude of polite attention. It would, the kind-hearted young woman felt, be a very melancholy thing if so good a sort of man as this Mr. Winwood were led to fancy that—that—oh, well, no doubt in the colonies young men were more simple-minded than those at home—more susceptible to the charming manners of a beautiful girl, being less aware of the frequency with which charming manners are used—innocently perhaps—to cloak a girl’s real feelings. It would, she felt, be truly sad if this man were to go away under the belief that he was creating a lasting impression upon Josephine; whereas, all the time, it was only her exquisite sense of what was due to her host and hostess—it was only her delicate appreciation of what her friendship for Amber herself demanded of her, that led her to simulate a certain pleasure from associating with Mr. Winwood.
The kind thoughtfulness of Miss Severn not merely for the present but for the future comfort of at least one of her guests was causing her some slight uneasiness. She became aware of the fact that her mother was making a sign to her from one of the windows of the drawing-room that opened upon the terrace walk.
“Some of my visitors must have arrived already,” she cried. “Oh, yes, it is Guy. You must not run away. He would feel that you were rude.”
“And he would be right: he has his sensitive intervals,” said Winwood. “We should not hurt his feelings.”
“You will not run away at once?” said Amber tripping towards the house. “Oh, thank you.”
They showed no sign of having any great desire to run away.
“I never felt less inclined to run away than I do just now,” said Winwood, looking at the girl who remained by his side.
“You are so fond of roses—you said so.”
She was holding up to her face a handful of crimson petals that she had picked off one of the beds.
“Yes, I am fond of—of roses,” he said. “Somehow England and all things that I like in England are associated in my mind with roses.”
“It is the association of the East with the West,” said she. “The rose that breathes its scent through every eastern love song is still an English emblem; just as that typical Oriental animal, the cat, suggests no more of its native jungle than is to be found in the Rectory Garden.”
“And the turtle of the tropics does not send one’s thoughts straying to Enoch Arden’s island and the coral lagoon but only to the Mansion House and a city dinner.”
She laughed.
“I am sorry I mentioned the cat,” she said. “The first English rose I ever saw was when we were in camp with Methuen at the Modder River,” he said.
He had taken her by surprise. “You went through the campaign?” she cried and he saw a new interest shining in her eyes. “I did not hear that you had been a soldier. You did not mention it when you sat beside me at Ranelagh. You were one of the Australians?”
“We were talking of roses,” said he. “It was out there I saw an English rose at Christmas. It had been sent out to a trooper who had been at Chelsea Barracks, by his sweetheart. Her brother was a gardener and the rose had evidently been grown under glass to send out to him.”
“There is one English love-story with the scent of the rose breathing through it,” she cried. “‘My luv is like a redde redde rose’ is an English song—the rose you speak of was red, of course.”
“Yes,” he replied after a little pause; “it was red—red when I found it—under his tunic.”
She caught her breath with the sound of a little sob in her throat.
“The pity of it! the pity of it! she had sent it out for his grave.”
She put her face once again down to the crimson petals which remained in her hands; and when she let them drop to the grass he saw that two of them were clinging together.
“That was the first time I saw an English rose,” he said, “and I have never seen one since without thinking of what it symbolised. The love that is stronger than death.”
“Yes,” she said, “yes.”
And, curiously enough, it seemed that that word was the most complete commentary upon the little story that he had told to her in so few sentences. It also seemed to suggest something of the nature of a comment upon his last remark—a confidential comment.
He nodded, repeating the word, but with a longer interval between the repetition of it:
“Yes—yes.”
For a few moments they stood together in silence. The sound of voices—a faint murmur—came from the open window of the drawing-room. The note of a blackbird from Kensington Gardens thrilled through the air.
As if under the influence of the one impulse, Josephine and her companion walked once more down the garden—slowly—musingly—silently. It was not until they had made a complete circuit of the rose beds and had returned to the parterre where they had been standing, that he said:
“Yes—yes: I know that I shall never see a rose again without thinking that—that—I have been among the roses with you.”
He noticed that she gave a little start—was it a shudder?—and then glanced quickly towards him. She made a motion with one of her hands—she drew a sudden breath and said quickly in a low tone:
“Mr. Winwood—I think—that is—oh, let us go into the house. I never wish to walk in a garden of roses again.”
He knew that whatever she had meant to say when she drew that long breath, she had not said it: she had broken down and uttered something quite different from what had been on her mind—on her lips.
Already she was half way to the terrace steps, and she had run up them and was within the room before he moved.
She was greeting some one in the room. How loud her laugh was!
And yet he had thought half an hour before that he had never heard so low a laugh as hers!—the laughter of a brook among mossy stones.
But a spate had taken place.
He went down once more to the end of the garden alone thinking his thoughts.
And when, five minutes later, he went slowly up the terrace steps he found that Josephine had gone away.
“She said good-bye to you before she left the garden, did she not?” cried Amber, while he glanced round the room.
“Oh, yes, she said good-bye,” he replied.
And then he cried out, seeing Guy Overton on a stool:
“Hullo, you here? Why, I thought that this was one of your school days.”
Amber had never before heard him speak in so boisterous a tone. He usually spoke in a low voice.
And she had also noticed that Josephine had laughed much louder than was her wont.
But she was sure that Josephine had not been rude to him. Josephine was not one of those horrid girls who cannot be clever without being rude.
Guy has been telling me all about his great investment,” cried Amber. “You never mentioned it to us, Mr. Winwood. But perhaps you didn’t hear of it?”
“You were the first one to whom I told it,” said Guy looking at her sentimentally. His tone was syrupy with sentimentality.
Pierce laughed quite boisterously. “What has he been doing?” he said. “I certainly heard nothing of it. It hasn’t yet been put into the hands of that Mr. Bateman, the advertiser whom I have been eluding for the past fortnight. Have you bought the Duke’s racers or what?”
“Not much,” said Guy. “I’ve got something more solid for my money.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” said Pierce. “I saw one of the Duke’s racers and in the matter of solidity—but what have you bought?”
“The Gables—I’ve just bought The Gables. You must come down and see me, Pierce, old chap—you really must.”
He had the air of the old-fashioned proprietor—the owner of broad acres and so forth.
“I can see you quite well enough from where I stand—that is, when you keep still. Don’t wriggle about, sonny, but tell me what are The Gables? Whose gables have you been buying?”
“What are The Gables? What are—oh, he has just come from Australia. He has never heard of the historic mansion—see the agent’s catalogue—The historic mansion known as The Gables. Why, don’t you know enough of the history of your native land to be aware of the fact that it was at The Gables that King Charles the First—or was it Henry the First?—signed something or other.”
“Magna Charta?” suggested Pierce blandly.
“No, not Magna Charta,” said Guy with the natural irritation of a great scholar who, on forgetting for a moment an important name or date, hears the haphazard prompting of a tyro. “Not Magna Charta—that was somewhere else. Never mind, Nell Gwyn once lived at The Gables,” he added proudly. “You’ve heard of Nell Gwyn, I suppose?”
“Not in connection with the history of my native land, Mr. Overton. You will search in vain the history of Australia from the earliest date to find any allusion there to a visit from Nell Gwyn,” said Pierce. “But I’ve had fifteen houses pointed out to me within the four-mile radius, in each of which Nell Gwyn lived. And yet the greatest authority on the subject says she never lived in any but two.”
“Well, The Gables was one of them,” said Guy. “I should know it for the place is mine. I’ve just bought it.”
“The dearest old house by the river that was ever seen,” said Amber. “You must have seen it, Mr. Winwood. On the way to Hurley—you told us you went to Hurley. The river is at the bottom of the lawn.”
“Yes, in summer; but in the winter the lawn is at the bottom of the river—why it was Guy himself who told me that some friend of his had said that,” laughed Pierce. “Anyhow you’ve bought the place. Bravo, Guy! You got it cheap?”
“Not so cheap as I meant to when I set out to do it,” said Guy. “But another chap was in the running for it too—a brewer chap! Disgusting, isn’t it, that all these fine old places are getting into the hands of that sort of man?”
“It is revolting to the old stock like you and me, Guy,” responded Pierce with great solemnity.
“I got the historic mansion, the grounds with the wreck of three boats and two boathouses—the stables and a piggery—a decent sized piggery—accommodate a family of seventeen. I don’t suppose that I’ll ever want more than seventeen pigs at one time. The piggery is the only part of the place that has been occupied for the past two years. I got the furniture at a valuation too.”
“And the pigs?” suggested Pierce.
“Oh, I won’t need the pigs. I’m going to ask a crowd of you chaps down some Saturday,” said Guy, and he could not for the life of him understand why Lady Severn as well as Amber and Winwood burst out laughing. He thought it as well to allow himself to be persuaded that he had said something witty, so he too began to laugh; but he laughed so entirely without conviction that every one else in the room roared.
“Why shouldn’t I have a crowd down to keep me company?” he enquired blandly. “What’s the good of having a country house unless to entertain one’s friends. I’m going down as soon as I can. I’m not such a fool as to keep up two establishments. I have been paying two pounds a week for my rooms in town up to the present. That’s a lot of money, you know.”
“You’ll be able to save something now,” said Pierce.
“Not so much in the beginning. The house is not more than a couple of miles from your place, Lady Severn,” said Guy, and at this further suggestion of cause and effect there was another laugh.
He felt that he had joined a merry party.
“I don’t believe that it can be more than four miles from The Weir,” said Amber, “so that we shall be constantly meeting.”
“Yes—yes—I foresaw that,” acquiesced Guy. “And I hope the first Sunday that you are at The Weir, you will come up to my place and give me a few hints about the furniture and things. Shouldn’t I have a cow? I’ve been thinking a lot about a cow. And yet I don’t know. If I get a cow I must have some one to look after it. And yet if I don’t get a cow I’m sure to be cheated in my milk and butter.”
“Yes, you are plainly on the horns of a dilemma,” said Pierce, going across the room to say good-bye to Lady Severn, and then returning to shake hands with Amber.
“I hope that you and papa had a satisfactory chat together,” she said with a note of enquiry in her voice.
“A most satisfactory chat: I think that I convinced him that I was not an impostor.”
And so he went away, narrowly watched by Guy, especially when he was speaking to Amber. Guy did not at all like that confidential exchange of phrases in an undertone. Pierce was clearly worth having an eye on.
“I knew you’d be interested in hearing of my purchase,” he remarked to Amber, assuming the confidential tone that Pierce had dropped.
“Oh, yes; we are both greatly interested, mother and I,” said Amber. “But what about your work at the school? I hope you don’t intend to give up your work at the school.”
There was something half-hearted in his disclaimer. He cried:
“Oh, no—no—of course not!” but it was plain that his words did not carry conviction with them to Amber, for she shook her head doubtfully.
“I’m afraid that if you give all your time up to considering the question of cows and things of that type you’ll not have much time left to perfect yourself in literature,” she said.
There was a kind of hang-literature expression on his face when she had spoken, and she did not fail to notice it; she had shaken her head once more before he hastened to assure her that he had acquired his new possession mainly to give himself a chance of doing some really consecutive literary work.
“The fact is,” said he, “I find that the distractions of the town are too great a strain on me. I feel that for a man to be at his very best in the literary way he should live a life of complete retirement—far from the madding crowd and that, you know. Now, I’ve been a constant attender at the school for the past three weeks—ask Barnum himself if I haven’t—I mean Richmond—Mr. Richmond. Why, only a few days ago he complimented me very highly on my purpose. He said that if I persevered I might one day be in a position to enter the Aunt Dorothy class. Now, when I’ve settled down properly at The Gables I mean to write an Aunt Dorothy letter every week. That’s why I want to be at my best—quite free from all the attractions of the town—I should like to have your opinion about the cow.”
But he was not fortunate enough to be able to learn all that she thought on this momentous question, for Arthur Galmyn was shown in and had a great deal to say regarding his progress in the city. He had learned what contango really did mean and he hoped that he was making the best use of the information which he had acquired. He was contemplating a poetical guide to the Stock Exchange, introducing the current price of the leading debenture issues; and, if treated lyrically, a Sophoclean Chorus dealing with Colonial securities; or should it be made theenvoiof a ballade or a Chaunt Royal? He was anxious to get Amber’s opinion on this point, there was so much to be said for and against each scheme.
Amber said she was distinctly opposed to the mingling of poetry and prices. She hoped that Mr. Galmyn was not showing signs of lapsing once again into the unprofitable paths of poetry. Of course she wished to think the best of every one, but she really felt that he should be warned in time. Would it not be a melancholy thing if he were to fall back into his old habits? she asked him.
And while he was assuring her that she need have no apprehension on this score, as he felt that he was completely cured of his old disorder, through six months contact with the flags of the Stock Exchange, Mr. Willie Bateman and Mr. Owen Glendower Richmond were announced, and each of them had a good deal to say to Amber.
What all these young men had to say to her was in the nature of reporting progress. Mr. Galmyn, whom she had turned from the excitement of poetry to the academic quietude of the Stock Exchange, had to tell her how thoughtfully he had made use of some fictitious information which he had disseminated for the purpose of “bulling” a particular stock; Mr. Bateman had a great deal to say regarding the system which he had perfected for bringing American heiresses under the notice of the old county families; he had also come to her for sympathy in respect of one of his failures. He had been entrusted with the indelicate duty of obtaining a knighthood for a certain gentleman of no conspicuous ability—a gentleman who was quite down to the level of the usual candidates for Knighthood. He had advised this gentleman to offer, through the public prints, to present his valuable collection of Old Masters to the Nation; and he had done so. For some reason or other—possibly because all the pictures were the most genuinely spurious collection ever brought together by one man—there was really no knowing why—the Nation had refused the gift.
This was one of his failures, Mr. Bateman said; and it was but indifferently compensated for by his success in obtaining a popular preacher to deliver a sermon on a novel lately published by a lady whom he had been making widely conspicuous for some months back as being the most retiring woman in England. The preacher had consented, and the novel, which was the most characteristic specimen of Nineteenth Century illiterature, was already in its sixth edition.
“But on the whole, I have no reason to complain of my progress in my art,—the art which is just now obtaining recognition as the most important in all grades of society,” said Mr. Bateman. “The Duchesses—well, just see the attitude of the various members of a Ducal House to-day. Her Grace is reciting for an imaginary charity on the boards of a Music Hall, and hopes by that to reach at a single bound the popularity of a Music Hallartiste; another member is pushing herself well to the front as the head of the committee for supplying the British army with Tam o’ Shanter caps, another of the ladies is writing a book on the late war and the most ambitious of all is, they say, going to see what the Divorce Court can do for her. Oh, no, the Duchesses don’t need my help; I sometimes envy them their resources. But think of the hundreds of the aristocracy—the best families in England, Miss Severn, who are falling behind in the great struggle to advertise themselves not from any longing after obscurity; but simply because they don’t know the A B C of the art. Yes, you’ll hear next week of a well-known and beautiful Countess—in personal advertising ‘Once beautiful always beautiful’ is an axiom, as you’ll notice in every Society Column you glance at—the beautiful Countess, I say, will occupy the pulpit of a high-class Conventicle.”
“Following your advice?” said Amber.
“I arranged every detail,” said Mr. Bateman proudly And then came the turn of Mr. Owen Glendower Richmond, to report the progress of the Technical School of Literature.
His report was not a long one.
“Miss Turquoise B. Hoskis, of Poseidon, in the State of Massachusetts, has joined the Historical Romance class,” said Mr. Richmond.
“What, the daughter of the Pie King?” cried Amber.
“The daughter of Hannibal P. Hoskis, the Pie King,” said Mr. Richmond.
Before the suspiration of surprise which passed round the drawing-room at this piece of news had melted into silence, the servant announced Lord Lullworth.
This was certainly a greater surprise for Amber than the news that the daughter of the great American, the head of the Pumpkin Pie Trust who was making his way rapidly in English society, had become a member of one of Mr. Richmond’s classes. And that was possibly why she was slightly put out by the appearance of the young man who had sat beside her at the Ranelagh dinner. She did not know that he had asked Lady Severn for permission to call upon her, and that Lady Severn had mentioned Friday afternoon to him.
She could not quite understand why she should feel pleased at his coming—pleased as well as flushed. She was acquainted with peers by the dozen and with the sons of peers by the score, and yet somehow now she felt as if she were distinctly flattered.
That was why she asked him how he was and apologised for the absence of her mother.
(Lady Severn had left her daughter in possession of the drawing-room when Mr. Bateman was talking about his Duchesses: she pretended that she had an appointment which it was necessary to keep.)
Lord Lullworth, while he was drinking his tea and admiring to the full the exquisite electrical apparatus by which it was prepared, was giving some attention to the other young men—Mr. Richmond might possibly still be thought of by some people as a young man—who occupied chairs or stools around Miss Severn’s seat. Guy Overton he knew pretty well, and he had never pretended that he thought highly of his talents—by talents Lord Lullworth meant his seat on a pony something between twelve and thirteen hands high—or of his disposition. (He had heard of his habitually dining at a greasy Italian restaurant and drinking Chianti in half flasks.)
He knew nothing about the other men, but he knew instinctively that he would never think much of them.
And then they began to talk, and she actually listened to them and pretended that she was interested in what they were talking about—he was anxious to think the best of her, so he took it for granted that her attention to what they were saying was only simulated. He was not fond of hearing himself talk, so he did not feel all left out in the cold while the others were—well, the exact word that was in his mind as he listened to them was the word “jabbering.” They were jabbering, the whole racket of them, weren’t they?
“We really can’t spare you another week, Miss Severn,” one of the racket was saying—the eldest of them, he was as high-toned as to his dress as a shopwalker in a first-class establishment; afigurantwhom he greatly resembled in Lord Lullworth’s judgment. “Oh, no; we cannot spare you so soon. I am holding a special class on The Novel With A Purpose. I think you may find it interesting, though doubtless you are acquainted with some points in thetechniqueof this class of fiction. The title, for instance; the title must be sharp, quick, straightforward, like the bark of a dog, you know: ‘The Atheist,’ ‘The Nigger,’ ‘The Haggis,’ ‘The Bog-trotter,’ ‘The Humbug’—all these are taking titles; they have bark in them. And then in regard to the Purpose—in The Novel With A Purpose, no one should have the least idea of what the Purpose is, but one must never be allowed to forget for a moment that the Purpose is there. It is, however, always as well for a writer of such a novel to engage the services of an interviewer on the eve of the publication of the novel to tell the public how great are his aims, and then he must not forget to talk of the sea—that sea, so full of wonder and mystery beside which The Novel With A Purpose must be written and a hint must be dropped that all the wonder and mystery of the sea, and the sound of the weeping of the women and the wailing of the children, and the strong true beating hearts of great men anxious to strangle women and to repent grandly in the last chapter, will be found in the book, together with a fine old story—as old as the Bible—if you forget to drag the Bible into the interview no one will know that you have written The Novel With A Purpose—one story will do duty for half a dozen novels: two women in love with one man—something Biblical like that. But doubtless you have studied thetechniqueof this class of fiction, Miss Severn.”
“I have never studied it so closely,” replied Amber. “I have always read books for pleasure, not for analysis.”
And Lord Lullworth kept staring away at Mr. Richmond, and then at Amber. What the mischief were they talking about anyway?
And then Willie Bateman chipped in.
“I have always regarded the Interview as obsolete,” said he. “It does not pay the photographer’s expenses. Even the bulldog as an advertising medium for an author has had his day—like every other dog. A publisher told me with tears in his eyes that he saw the time when the portrait of an author’s bull pup in a lady’s weekly journal would have exhausted a large edition of his novel—even a volume of pathetic poems has been known to run into a second edition of twenty-five copies after the appearance in an evening paper of the poet’s black-muzzled, pig-tailed pug. I’m going to give the Cat a trial some of these days. I believe that the Manx Cat has a brilliant future in store for it, and the Persian—perhaps a common or garden-wall cat will do as well as any other—I wouldn’t be bound with the stringency of the laws of the Medes and Persians as to the breed—I’d just give the Cat a chance. Properly run I believe that it will give an author of distinction as good a show as his boasted bull terrier.”
And Lord Lullworth stared away at the speaker. Great Queen of Sheba! What was he talking about anyway?
And then Amber, who had been listening very politely to both of the men who had been trying to impart their ideas to her, turned to Lord Lull-worth and asked him if he had heard that Mr. Over-ton had purchased The Gables, and when he replied with a grin that he hoped Overton hadn’t paid too much money for it, Overton hastened to place his mind at ease on this point. The purchase of the place had involved an immediate outlay of a considerable sum of money, he admitted, but by giving up his chambers in town and the exercise of a few radical economies he hoped to see his way through the transaction. Would Lord Lullworth come down some week’s end and have a look round?
Lord Lullworth smilingly asked for some superficial information regarding the Cellar.
And then Mr. Owen Glendower Richmond and Arthur Galmyn went off together, and when Guy Overton found that he had to hurry off—thecuisineat the Casa Maccaroni was at its best between the hours of six and seven—Willie Bateman, who wanted to have a quiet word with him went away by his side. (He wondered if Guy would think it worth his while to pay a hundred pounds to have a stereo-block made of the river view of The Gables for an evening paper, to be inserted with a historical sketch of the house and some account of the family of the new purchaser.)
Lord Lullworth laughed pleasantly—confidentially, when he and Amber were left alone together.
“They are all so clever,” said Amber apologetically. She had really quite a faculty interpreting people’s thoughts.
“Yes,” said he, “they are, as you say, a rummy lot.”
Then she too laughed.
“That’s your way of putting it,” she said.
“I suppose so. What fun chaps can find in jabbering away like that beats me. They’re a bit pinkeyed, aren’t they now?”
Amber evaded a question which might possibly be enigmatical, she thought.
“But they are really very clever,” said she. “Arthur Galmyn was a poet, but I saw that he had not patience enough to wait for fame to come to him.”
“Why couldn’t he buy a practice in a populous suburban district?” asked Lord Lullworth. “If a chap can’t succeed as a specialist in town he should set up as a general practitioner in the suburbs or in the provinces.”
“I suppose a poet is a sort of literary specialist,” said Amber. “Never mind,—he is all right now: he is making money on the Stock Exchange.”
“You made him go on the Stock Exchange?”
“Oh, yes; we talked it over together. And I got Guy Overton to join the Technical School of Literature, and I believe he is improved by doing so already.”
“And you got the other chap to set up the school, I suppose?”
“It was an old idea of mine. When people have a Conservatoire of Music, and the Academy School of Painting, why should the art of Literary Composition be allowed to struggle on as best it can without instruction or advice?”
“That’s just what I should like to know. And the other bounder—I mean the chap who talked that about bulldogs and the cats and things—a bit of a rotter he was, wasn’t he? Did you advise him in any direction? I didn’t quite make out what his line was.”
“Yes, it was I who suggested to him the splendid possibilities there were in the way of advertising things. I showed him in what a haphazard way people advertised just now, and persuaded him that there was money in any systematic scheme of advertising, and he has gone far ahead of anything I ever imagined to be possible.”
“I should think he has. And what are they up to, the lot of them, can you guess, Miss Severn?”
“Up to?—what are they up to? Why, haven’t I just explained that each of them is making a profession——”
“Oh, yes; but do you fancy that they’re doing it for love of the profession or for—for—any other reason?”
“I don’t quite see what you mean, Lord Lullworth.”
“It’s a bit rough to be frank with a girl; and it’s rarely that a chap has to say just what he means, but there are times...”
He spoke apologetically and paused, allowing his smile to rest upon her for a moment. It was the smile of a man who hopes he hasn’t gone too far, and trusts to get out of an untenable position by the aid of a temporising smile.
She returned his smile quite pleasantly. She knew that the sentences over the utterance of which men hesitate are invariably the most interesting that they have to speak.
“What is it?” she asked. “Everybody speaks frankly to me: they don’t treat me as they do other girls, you know.”
“It’s a dangerous experiment talking frankly to a girl,” said he. “But if it comes to that, it’s not so dangerous an experiment as a girl talking frankly to a man—leading him to do things that he hasn’t a mind to do—may be that he hates doing.”
“I was born in an atmosphere of experiments,” said she. “I delight in having dealings with new forces, and making out their respective coefficients of energy.”
“Oh; then you don’t happen to think that these chaps who were here just now are in love with you? That’s frank enough, isn’t it?”
Her face had become roseate, but she was not angry. Whatever she may have been she was sufficiently like other girls to be able to refrain from getting angry at the suggestion that four young men were in love with her at the same time.
“It’s nonsense enough,” she said. “You have quite misunderstood the situation, Lord Lullworth. I like Guy Overton and all the others greatly, and I hope they like me. But they are no more in love with me than I am in love with them.”
“Do you fancy that a chap allows himself to be led about by a girl all for the fun of the thing?” he asked.
“Why should a man think it ridiculous for a woman to be his friend and to give him the advice of a friend—the advice that he would welcome if it were to come from a brother?” she enquired.
“I don’t know why, but I know that he does,” said Lord Lullworth. “Anyhow, you don’t think of any of the chaps who were here as a lover?”
“I do not,” she cried emphatically—almost eagerly.
“That’s all right,” he said quietly—almost sympathetically.
“It is all right,” she said. “I believe in the value of friendship according to Plato.”
“Have you ever thought of calculating its coefficient of energy, or its breaking strain?” said he.
“I do not like people who make fun—who try to make fun of what I believe, Lord Lullworth,” said she.
“Do you dislike alarum clocks?” he asked blandly.
“Alarum clocks?” She was puzzled.
“Yes; I’m an alarum clock—one of the cheap make, I admit, but a going concern and quite effective. I want to rattle in your ears until your eyes are opened.”
“You certainly do the rattling very well. But I’m not asleep. I know what you mean to say about my friends.”
“I don’t mean to say anything about them. I don’t want to try to make them out to be quite such soft roes as you would have me think they are. I don’t want to talk of them; I want to talk of you.”
“Of me? Well?”
“Yes, and of me.”
“Excellent topics both.”
“Yes; but the two of us only make up one topic, and this is it. Now listen. Your mother asked me to call and have tea some afternoon. If she hadn’t asked me I would have asked her permission to do so. I came pretty soon after her invitation, didn’t I?”
“I’m so sorry that she has a Committee meeting this afternoon.”
“It doesn’t make any difference to me—that is, in what I have to say to you. And what I have to say to you is this; I came early to see you and I’m coming often—very often—you have no notion how often—I don’t believe I quite know it myself. Now no matter how often I come I want you to understand distinctly from the first that I disclaim all intention of using Plato as an umbrella to sit under with you. I am coming in a strictly anti-Platonic spirit.”
He had grown a bit red and she had flushed all over.
“Go on—go on; tell me all you have to say; it’s quite—quite—funny—yes, funny,” she said, and there was something of bewilderment in her voice. “I never—never—heard anything so—so queer—so straightforward. Go on.”
“I have really said all that I came to say—maybe a trifle more,” he said. “I’m not going to make an ass of myself leading you to fancy that I’m coming here as a casual acquaintance having no designs in my heart against you—I mean, for you. I don’t want you to fancy that I’m coming here to talk to you about books, or pictures, for the sake of exchanging opinions in a strictly platonic way. No, I want you to know from the outset that I’m coming as a possible lover.”
“I understand—oh, quite clearly—you have made the position quite clear to me; only let me tell you at once, Lord Lullworth that—that——”
“Now there you go treating me as disdainfully as if I had actually declared myself to be your lover. I’m nothing of the sort, let me tell you. I’m only the rough material out of which a lover may be formed. I’m a possible lover, so I should be treated very gently—just the way that you would treat a baby feeling that it may one day grow up to be a man. At the same time nothing may really come of the business. Cupid, the god of love is always shown as a child, because the people who started the idea had before them the statistics of infant mortality; so many little Loves die when they are young and never grow up at all.”
“They do—they do. Isn’t it a blessing? You have only seen me twice and yet you——”
“My dear Miss Severn, I’ve seen you very often. I have been looking at you for the past eighteen months, and I thought you the nicest girl I had ever seen. I found out who you were, and it was I who got old Shirley to get up his dinner to give me a chance of meeting you; and I found you nicer even than I allowed myself to hope you would be. So I’m coming to see you very often on the chance that something may come of it. If after a while—a year or so—you find me a bit of a bore, you just tell me to clear off, and I’ll clear without a back word. Now you know just what my idea is. I’m not a lover yet but I may grow up to be a lover. You may tell Lady Severn all this—and your father too, if you think it worth while—if you think anything will come of the business.”
“I won’t trouble either of them. It’s not worth while.”
“I dare say you are right—only... Well, you are forewarned anyway. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye,” said she. “This is the second time I have seen you in my life. I don’t care how soon you come again, but if you never do come again I promise you that my pillow will not be wet with bitter tears of disappointment.”
“Same here,” he cried briskly, when he was at the door. He laughed and went out and closed the door. In a moment, however, he opened the door, and took a step towards her.
“No; I find that I was wrong—I should not have said ‘same here.’ As a matter of fact, I find that I’m more of a lover than I thought. Since I have been with you here I am twice the lover that I was when I entered this room. No, I should be greatly disappointed if you were to tell me that I must not return.”
“Then I won’t; only... oh, take my advice and hurry away before I have time to say what I have on my mind to say.”
“I know it already; and I also know that you’ll never tell it to me. Good-bye again.”