"I don't think," said Jenny. "Or if she did, it must have lain in the window and got forgotten since the year before last. Besides, what a shocking color. It's like anchovy paste."
Madge Wilson and Maudie Chapman now appeared from round a corner, and, since Maurice was already on hisway downstairs, Jenny ran after him to prevent a double journey.
"Wait, wait," she called after him. "Madge and Maudie are coming, too."
He stopped and waved to her.
"Jenny—quick, one kiss—over the banisters. Do."
"Do, do, do, I want you to," she mocked in quotation. But all the same she kissed him.
"I absolutely adore you," he whispered. "Do you love me as much to-day as you did yesterday?"
"Oh, I couldn't answer all that in my head. I should have to put it down on paper."
"No, don't tease. Do you? Do you?"
"Of course, baby," she assured him.
"Angel!" he shouted, and rushed downstairs two steps at a time to admit the bunch of guests on his doorstep.
In a minute or two the studio was full of introductions, in the middle of which Maudie Chapman, a jolly girl with a big nose and a loud voice, explained the adventures of Madge and herself in arriving at 422 Grosvenor Road.
"Where we got to, my dear, well, that wants knowing. I was saying, when we got off the tram at Vauxhall Bridge, 'Wherever is this man's house?' and Madge she was giggling and then I asked the time, and it was only half-past three, and I said, 'Whatever shall we do, we're most shocking early.' So we got inside a big building near here—full of pictures and a pond with gold-fish. I thought at first it was an aquarium, and then we saw some statues and I thought it was a Catholic church."
"Isn't she a lad?" said Jenny, admiring the spirited piece of narrative.
"Well, we had a good look at the pictures,whichwe didn't think much of, and I slipped on the floor and burnt my hand on a sort of grating, and then we couldn't find the way out. Wecouldn'tfind the way out. We got upstairs somewhere, and I called out, 'Management,' and a fellow with his hairnailed down and spectacles, said: 'Are you looking for the Watts?' and I said, 'No, we're looking for the What Ho's!' and he said, 'You've made a mistake, miss; they're in the National Gallery,' and Madge, you know what a shocking giggler she is, she burst out laughing and I didn't know where to look. So I said, 'Can you tell me where Grosvenor Road is?' and he looked very annoyed and walked off."
"Oh, but it really was difficult to find the way out," Madge corroborated.
"And what did you think of the pictures?" asked Ronnie Walker, who was a painter himself and still young enough to be interested in a question's answer.
"Oh, don't askme," said Maudie.
"Nor me," said Madge.
"They never looked at no pictures," said Jenny. "I bet you they was all the time trying to get off with the keeper. I know Madge and Maudie."
Castleton suddenly laughed very loudly.
"What's Fuz laughing at?" asked Jenny.
"I was thinking of Madge and Maudie getting off with the Curator of the Tate Gallery. It struck me as funny. I apologize."
Jenny looked at him suspiciously. Castleton, however, large, wide-faced and honest, could not be malicious.
"Well, they do. They did at the Zoo once. Only he got annoyed when they asked him if he slept in a cage."
At this point the bell interrupted reminiscence.
"That must be Lilli Vergoe," said Jenny. "I'll go down and let her in. She'll feel uncomfortable walking into a crowd by herself."
"I'll come as well," Maurice volunteered.
The two of them took almost longer to descend than to come up, so much discussion was there of the immortality of affection, so much weighing up of comparative emotion. When they reached the studio with Lilli, the party had settled down into various groups of conversation.
"What about tea?" said the host. "Jenny shall pour out."
"But what a terrible teapot," cried the latter when she had accepted the task. "It's like my sister's watering-can. What's the matter with it?"
"Age," said Castleton solemnly. "It's old Lowestoft. If you look inside, you'll see 'A Present from Lowestoft.'"
"Shut up," said Maurice, "and pass the Chelsea buns."
"A bit of old Chelsea," murmured Castleton.
"Shut up making rotten jokes," said Cunningham.
"You must excuse him," said Maurice. "He isn't funny, but he's very nice. Good Lord!" he went on. "I've never wished Jenny 'many happy returns of the day.'"
"Yes, it's a pity you waited till after she's seen those buns," said Castleton. "However!"
"And the cake," said Maurice, diving into the cupboard.
"Don't look so sad," Castleton whispered to the guest of honor. "It isn't really a tombstone."
"Isn't he awful?" said Jenny, laughing.
"I say," cried Maurice. "Look here!"
Across the white cake was written in pink icing: "Sacred to the Memory of a Good Appetite."
"Rotten!" said Cunningham. "Castleton, of course."
"Of course," said Maurice. "And now we haven't got any candles."
"Let's light the gas instead," Castleton suggested.
"You are mad," said Jenny.
Tea went on with wild laughter, with clinking of saucers and spoons, with desperate carving of the birthday cake, with solemn jokes from Castleton, with lightning caricatures from Ronnie Walker.
Once Jenny whispered to Maurice:
"Why did you say I shouldn't like Fuz? I think he's nice. You know, funny; but very nice."
"I'm glad," Maurice whispered back. "I like you to like my friends."
After tea they all wandered round the studio in commentary of its contents.
"Maurice!" said Castleton, stopping before the wax model of Aphrodite. "You don't feed your pets regularly enough. This lady's outrageously thin."
"Isn't he shocking?" said Maudie. "What would you do with him?"
"He's a nut," said Madge.
"Isn't he?" said Elsie and Gladys in chorus. These two very seldom penetrated beyond the exclamatory interrogative.
"A nut, you think?" said Castleton. "A Brasilero of the old breed with waxed pistachios and cocoanut-matted locks?"
"Oh, dry up," said Maurice. "I want the girls to look at this dancing girl."
"No one couldn't stand in that pŏsīsh," said Jenny. "Could they, Lilli?"
"Not very easily," the latter agreed.
"Really?" asked Maurice, somewhat piqued.
"Of course they could," Maudie contradicted.
"Certainly," said Irene, highly contemptuous.
"I say they couldn't then," Jenny persisted.
"She'd be a rotten dancer if she couldn't."
"I don't think so," Jenny said frigidly.
The girls unanimously attempted to get into the position conceived by Maurice; but in the end they all had to agree that Jenny and Lilli were right. The pose was impossible.
"Is that your mother?" asked Madge, pointing to Mona Lisa.
"Don't be silly, Madge Wilson," Jenny corrected. "It's a picture, and Idon'tthink much of her," she continued. "What a terrible mouth! Her hands is nice, though—very nice. And what's all those rocks at the back—low tide at Clacton, I should think."
"But don't you like her marvelous smile?" asked Maurice.
"I don't call that a smile."
"I knew those flute-players annoyed her," said Castleton."Down with creative criticism. She's nothing but a lady with a bad temper."
"Of course she is," said Jenny.
"Would you smile, Jenny, if Ronnie here painted you with a gramophone behind a curtain?"
"No, I shouldn't."
"Catch the fleeting petulance, and you become as famous as Leonardo, my Ronnie."
Philip IV was voted a little love with rather too big a head, and the Prince of Orange was a dear. Botticelli's Venus was not alluded to. The acquaintanceship was not considered ripe enough to justify any comment in that direction; although later on Jenny, her eyes pectinated with mirth and flashing wickedly, sang, pointing to the embarrassed goddess: "She sells seashells on the seashore." Primavera concluded the tour of inspection, and by some Primavera herself was thought to be not unlike Jenny.
"She's more like one of those angels with candles at Berlin," said Ronnie Walker.
"Anyway," said Maurice, with a note of satisfaction, "she's a Botticelli."
"Well, now you've all settled my position in life," said Jenny, "what's Irene?"
But somehow it was not so interesting to discover Irene's prototype, and her similarity to the ideal of any single old master was left undecided.
Now came the singing of coon songs with ridiculous words and haunting refrains, while dusk descended upon London. Maudie was at the piano, where a candle flickered on each side of the music and lit up the size of her nose. When all the favorites of the moment had been sung, older and now almost forgotten successes were rescued from the dust of obscurity.
"Weareamong the 'has beens,'" said Jenny. "Why, I remember that at the Islington panto when I went to see you, Lilli, and that's donkey's years ago. We've properly gone back to the year dot."
Gradually, however, the jolly dead tunes produced a sentimental effect upon the party, commemorating as they did many bygone enjoyments. The sense of fleeting time, evoked by the revival of discarded melodies, began to temper their spirits. They sang the choruses more softly, as if the undated tunes had become fragile with age and demanded a gentler treatment. Perhaps in the gathering gloom each girl saw herself once more in short frocks. Perhaps Lilli Vergoe distinguished the smiling ghost of old ambition. Certainly Jenny thought of Mr. Vergoe and Madame Aldavini and the Four Jumping Beans.
Maudie Chapman suddenly jumped up:
"Somebody else's turn."
Maurice looked at Cunningham.
"Won't you play some Chopin, old chap?"
"All right," said Cunningham, a dark, very thin young man with a high, narrow face, seating himself at the piano. The girls composed themselves to listen idly. Maurice drew Jenny over to an arm-chair by the window. The studio grew darker. The notes of the piano with the rapid execution of the player seemed phosphorescent in the candle-light. The fire glowed crimson and dull. The atmosphere was wreathed with the smoke of many cigarettes. The emotions of the audience were swayed by dreams that, sustained by music, floated about the heavy air in a pervading melancholy, inexpressibly sensuous. It was such an hour as only music can attempt to portray. Here was youth in meditation untrammeled by the energy of action. Age, wrought upon by music, may know regret, but only youth can see aspiration almost incarnate. Jenny, buried in the arm-chair, with Maurice's caressing hand upon her cheeks, thought it was all glorious, thought that Cunningham played gloriously, that the river with a blurred light was glorious, that love was glorious. She had a novel wish to bring May to such a party, and wondered if May would enjoy the experience. Time as an abstraction did not mean much to Jenny; but as the plangent harmonies wrung the heart of thevery night with unattainable desires, she felt again the vague fear of age that used to distress her before she met her lover. She caught his hand, clasping it tightly, twisting his fingers in a passionate clutch as if he were fading from her life into the shadows all around. She began to feel, so sharply the music rent her imagination, a pleasure in the idea of instant death, not because she disliked the living world, but because she feared something that might spoil the perfection of love: they were too happy. She knew the primitive emotion of joy in absolute quiescence, the relief of Daphne avoiding responsibility. Why could not she and Maurice stop still in an ecstasy and live like the statues opposite glimmering faintly? Then, with a sudden ardor, life overpowered the enchantment of repose; and she, leaping to meet the impulse of action, conscious only of darkness and melody, spurred, perhaps, by one loud and solitary chord, pulled Maurice down to her arms and kissed him wildly, almost despairingly. The music went on from ballad to waltz, from waltz to polonaise. Sometimes matches were lit for cigarettes, matches that were typical of all the life in that room, a little flame in the sound of music.
At last, on the delicate tinkle of a dying mazurka, Cunningham stopped quite suddenly, and silence succeeded for a while. Outside in the street was the sound of people walking with Sabbath footsteps. Out over the river there was a hail from some distant loud-voiced waterman. The church bell resumed its hurried monotone. Castleton got up and lit the gas. The windows now looked gray and very dreary; it was pleasant to veil them with crimson birds and vine-leaves. The fire was roused to a roaring blaze; the girls began to arrange their hair; it was time to think of supper. Such was Jenny's birthday—intolerably fugitive.
JENNY did not see Maurice after the party until the following night, when he waited in the court to take her out.
"Come quick," he said. "Quick. I've got something to show you."
"Well, don't run," she commanded, moderating the pace by tugging at his coat. "You're like a young race-horse."
"First of all," asked Maurice eagerly, "do you like opals?"
"They're all right."
"Only all right?"
"Well, I think they're a bit like soapsuds."
"I'm sorry," said Maurice, "I've bought you opals for a birthday present."
"I do like them," she explained, "only they're unlucky."
"Not if you're an October girl. They're very lucky then."
They were walking through jostling crowds down Coventry Street towards the Café de l'Afrique where Castleton would meet them to discuss a project of gayety. Jenny's soft hand on his arm was not successful in banishing the aggrieved notes from Maurice's petulant defense of opals.
"Oh, you miserable old thing!" she said. "Don't look so cross."
"It's a little disappointing to choose a present and then be told by the person it's intended for that she dislikes it."
"Oh, don't be silly. I never said I didn't like it. How could I? I haven't seen it yet."
"It's hardly worth while showing it to you. You won'tlike it. I'd throw it in the gutter, if it wasn't for this beastly crowd of fools that will bump into us all the time."
"You are stupid. Give it to me. Please, Maurice."
"No, I'll get you something else," he retorted, determined to be injured. "I'm sorry I can't afford diamonds. I took a good deal of trouble to find you something old and charming. I ransacked every curiosity shop in London. That's why I couldn't meet you till to-night. Damned lot of use it's been. I'd much better have bought you a turquoise beetle with pink topaz eyes or a lizard in garnets or a dragon-fly that gave you quite a turn, it was so like a real one, or a——"
"Oh, shut up," said Jenny, withdrawing her arm.
"It's so frightfully disheartening."
"But what are you making yourself miserable over? I haven't said I don't like your present. I haven't seen it."
"No, and you never will. Rotten thing!"
"You are unkind."
"So are you."
"Oh, good job."
"You're absolutely heartless. I don't believe you care a bit about me. I wish to God I'd never met you. I can't think about anything but you. I can't work. What's the good of being in love? It's a fool's game. It's unsettling. It's hopeless. I think I won't see you any more after to-night. I can't stand it."
Jenny had listened to his tirade without interruption; but now as they were passing the Empire, she stopped suddenly, and said in a voice cold and remote:
"Good night. I'm off."
"But we're going to meet Castleton."
"You may be. I'm not."
"What excuse shall I make to him?"
"I don't care what you tell him. He's nothing to me. Nor you either."
"You don't mean that?" he gasped.
"Don't I?"
"But Jenny! Oh, I say, do come into the Afrique. We can't argue here. People will begin to stare."
"People! I thought you didn't mind about people?"
"Look here, I'm sorry. I am really. Do stay."
"No, I don't want to."
Jenny's lips were set; her eyes dull with anger.
"I know I'm a bad-tempered ass," Maurice admitted. "But do stay. I meant it to be such a jolly evening. Only I was hurt about the opals. Do stay, Jenny. I really am frightfully sorry. Won't you have the brooch? I'm absolutely to blame. I deserve anything you say or do. Only won't you stay? Just this once. Do."
Jenny was not proof against such pleading. There was in Maurice's effect upon her character something so indescribably disarming that, although in this case she felt in the right, she, it seemed, must always give way; and for her to give way, right or wrong, was out of order.
"Soppy me again," was all she said.
"No, darling you," Maurice whispered. "Such a darling, too. I hope Castleton hasn't arrived yet. I want to tell you all over again how frightfully sorry I am."
But when they had walked past the Buddha-like manager who, massive and enigmatical, broods over the entrance to the cafe, they could see Castleton in the corner. It was a pity; for the constraint of a lovers' quarrel, not absolutely adjusted, hung over them still in the presence of a third person before whom they had to simulate ease. Maurice, indeed, was so boisterously cordial that Jenny resented his dramatic ability, and, being incapable of simulation herself, showed plainly all was not perfectly smooth.
"What is the matter with our Jenny to-night?" Castleton inquired.
"Nothing," she answered moodily.
"She feels rather seedy," Maurice explained.
"No, I don't."
"Do you like the opal brooch?" Castleton asked.
"I haven't seen it," Jenny replied.
"I was waiting to give it to her in here," Maurice suggested.
Jenny, who was examining herself in a pocket mirror, looked over at him from narrowing eyes. He turned to her, defending himself against the imputation of a lie.
"Castleton helped me to choose it. Look," he said, "it's an old brooch."
He produced from his pocket a worn leather case on the faded mauve velvet of whose lining lay the brooch. It was an opal of some size set unusually in silver filigree with seed pearls and brilliants.
"It's rather pretty," Jenny commented without enthusiasm. In her heart she loved the old-fashioned trinket, and wanted to show her delight to Maurice; but the presence of Castleton was a barrier, and she was strangely afraid of tears that seemed not far away. Maurice, who was by now thoroughly miserable, offered to pin the brooch where it would look most charming; but Jenny said she would put it in her bag, and he sat back in the chair biting his lips and hating Castleton for not immediately getting up and going home. The latter, realizing something was the matter, tried to change the subject.
"What about this Second Empire masquerade at Covent Garden?"
"I don't think we shall be able to bring it off. Ronnie Walker would be ridiculous as Balzac."
"There are others."
"Besides, I don't think I want to be Théophile Gautier."
"Don't be, then," advised Castleton.
"Anyway, it's a rotten idea," declared Maurice.
"What extraordinary tacks your opinions do take!" retorted his friend. "Only this afternoon you were full of the most glittering plans and had found a prototype in 1850 for half your friends."
"I've been thinking it over," said Maurice. "And I'm sure we can't work it."
"Good-by, Gustave Flaubert," said Castleton. "I confess I regret Flaubert; especially if I could have persuaded Mrs. Wadman to be George Sand and smoke a cigar. However, perhaps it's just as well."
"Who's Mrs. Wadman?" asked Jenny.
"The aged female iniquity who 'does' for Maurice and me at Grosvenor Road. I'm sure on second thoughts it would be unwise to let her acquire the cigar habit. I might be rich next year, and I should hate to see her dusting with a Corona stuck jauntily between toothless gums."
"Oh, don't be funny," said Maurice. "You've no idea how annoying you are sometimes. Confound you, waiter," he cried, turning to vent his temper in another direction. "I ordered Munich and you've brought Pilsener."
"Very sorry, sir," apologized the waiter.
"It was I who demanded the blond beer," Castleton explained. Then, as the waiter retired, he said:
"Why not get him to come as Balzac?"
"Who?"
"The waiter."
"Don't be funny any more," Maurice begged wearily.
"Poor Fuz," said Jenny. "You're crushed."
"I now know the meaning of Blake's worm that flies in the heart of the storm."
Even Castleton was ultimately affected by the general depression; and Jenny at last broke the silence by saying she must go home.
"I'll drive you back," said Maurice.
"Hearse or hansom, sir?" Castleton asked.
"Good night, Fuz," said Jenny on the pavement. "I'll bring Madge and Maudie to see you some time soon."
"Do," he answered. "They would invigorate even a sleepy pear. Good night, dear Jenny, and pray send Maurice back in a pleasanter mood."
For a few minutes the lovers drove along in silence.
It was Maurice who spoke first:
"Jenny, I've been an idiot, and spoilt the evening. Do forgive me, Jenny," he cried, burying his face in her shoulder. "My vile temper wouldn't have lasted a moment if I could just have been kissed once; but Castleton got on my nerves and the waiter would hover about all the time and everybody enraged me. Forgive me, sweet thing, will you?"
Jenny abandoning at once every tradition of obstinacy, caught him to her.
"You silly old thing."
"I know I am, and you're a little darling."
"And he wasn't ever going to see me again. What a liberty! Not ever."
"I am an insufferable ass."
"And he wished he'd never met me. Oh, Maurice, you do say unkind things."
"Were you nearly crying once?" he asked. "When I gave you the brooch?"
"Perhaps."
"Jenny, precious one, are you nearly crying now?" he whispered.
"No, of course not."
Yet when he kissed her eyelids they were wet.
"Shall I pin the brooch now?"
She nodded.
"Jenny, you don't know how I hate myself for being unkind to you. I hate myself. I shall fret about this all night."
"Not still a miserable old thing?" she asked, fingering the smooth face of the opal that had caused such a waste of emotion.
"Happy now. So happy." He sighed on her breast.
"So am I."
"You're more to me every moment."
"Am I?"
"You're so sweet and patient. Such a pearl, such a treasure."
"You think so."
"My little Queen of Hearts, you've a genius for love."
"What's that?"
"I mean, you're just right. You never make a mistake. You're patient with my wretched artistic temperament. Like a perfect work of art, you're a perfect work of love."
"Maurice, youarea darling," she sighed on the authentic note of passionate youth in love.
"When you whisper like that, it takes my breath away.... Jenny are you ever going to be more to me even than you are now?"
"What do you mean, more?" she asked.
"Well, everything that a woman can be to a man. You see I'm an artist, and an artist longs for the completion of a great work. My love for you is the biggest thing in my life so far, and I long to complete it. Don't you understand what I mean?"
"I suppose I do," she said very quietly.
"Are you going to let me?"
"Some day I suppose I shall."
"Not at once?"
"No."
"Why not? Don't you trust me?"
"Yes."
"Well?"
"Kiss me," she said. "I can't explain. Don't let's talk about it any more."
"I can't understand women," Maurice declared.
"Ah!"
She smiled; but in the smile there was more of sadness than mirth.
"Why waste time?" he demanded passionately. "God knows we have little enough time. Jenny, I warn you, I beg you not to waste time. You're making a mistake. Like all girls, you're keeping one foot in a sort of washy respectability."
"Don't go on," Jenny said. "I've told you I will one day."
"Why not come abroad with me if you're afraid of what your people will say?"
"I couldn't. Not while my mother was alive."
"Well, don't do that; but still it's easy enough not—to waste time. Your mother need never find out. I'm not a fool."
"Ah, but I should feel a sneak."
Maurice sighed at such scruples.
"Besides," she added, "I don't want to—not yet. Can't we be happy like we have been? I will one day."
"You can't play with love," Maurice warned her.
"I'm not. I'm more in earnest than what you are."
"I don't think you are."
"But I am. Supposing if you got tired of me?"
"I couldn't."
"Ah, but that's where men are funny. All of a sudden you might take a sudden fancy to another girl. And then what about me? What should I do?"
"It comes to this," he argued. "You don't trust me yet. You don't believe in me. Good heavens, what can I do to show you I'm sincere?"
"Can't you wait a little while?" she gently asked.
"I must."
"And you won't ask me again?"
"I won't promise that."
"Well, not for a long time?" Jenny pleaded.
"I won't even promise that. You see I honestly think you're making a mistake—a mistake for which you'll be very sorry one day. I wish you understood my character better."
"All men are the same." She sighed out the generalization.
"That's absurd, my dear girl. I might as well say all women are the same."
"Well, they are. They're all soppy."
"Isn't it rather soppy to go as far as you have with me, and not go farther?" Maurice spoke tentatively.
"Oh,I'veproperly joined the soppy brigade. I did think I was different, but I'm not. I'm well in the first line."
"Don't you think," Maurice suggested—"of course, I'm not saying you haven't had plenty of experience—but don't youthink there's a difference between a gentleman and a man who isn't a gentleman?"
"I think gentlemen are the biggest rotters of all."
"I don't agree with you."
"I do. Listen. You asked me just now to come away with you. You didn't ask me to marry you."
Maurice bubbled over with undelivered explanations.
"Wait. I wouldn't marry you not if you asked me. I don't want you to ask me. Only—"
"Only what?" Maurice inquired gloomily.
"Only if I did all you wanted, I'd be giving everything—more than you'd give, even if you married a ballet girl."
"Do let me explain," Maurice begged. "You absolutely misunderstand me.... Oh, Lord, we're nearly at Hagworth Street.... I've only time to say quite baldly what I mean. Look here, if you married me you wouldn't like it. You wouldn't like meeting all my people and having to be conventional and pay calls and adapt yourself to a life that you hadn't been brought up to. I'd marry you like a shot. I don't believe in class distinctions or any of that humbug. But you'd be happier not married. Can't you see that? You'd be happier the other way.... There's your turning. There's no time for more.... Only do think over what I've said and don't misjudge me ... darling girl, good night."
"Good night."
"A long kiss."
Reasons, policies, plans and all the paraphernalia of expediency vanished when she from the steps of her home listened to the bells of the hansom dying away in the distance, and when he, huddled in a corner of the cab, was conscious but of the perfume of one who was lately beside him.
In her bedroom Jenny examined the brooch. Perhaps what showed more clearly than anything the reality of her love was the affection she felt for Maurice when he was away from her. She was never inclined to criticise the faults so easily forgotten in the charms which she remembered more vividly. Now,with the brooch before her, as she sat dangling her legs from the end of the bed, she recalled lovingly his eagerness to display the unfortunate opal. She remembered the brightness of his blue eyes and the vibrant attraction of his voice. He was a darling, and she had been unkind about opals. He was always a darling to her. He never jarred her nerves or probed roughly a tender mood.
Jenny scarcely sifted so finely her attitude towards Maurice. She summed him up to herself in a generalization. In her mind's eye he appeared in contrast to everybody else. All that the rest of mankind lacked he possessed. Whatever mild approval she had vouchsafed to any other man his existence obliterated. She had never created for herself an ideal whose tenuity would one day envelop a human being. Therefore, since there had never floated through her day-dreams a nebula with perfect profile, immense wealth and euphonious titles, Maurice had not to be fitted in with a preconception. Nor would it be reasonable to identify her with one of the world's Psyches in love with the abstraction of a state of mind and destined to rue its incarnation. She had, it may be granted, been inclined to fall in love in response to the demand of her being; but it would be wrong to suppose her desire was gratified by the first person who came along. On the contrary, Maurice had risen suddenly to overthrow all that had gone before, and, as it seemed now, was likely to overthrow anything that might come after.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, she was hypnotized into a meditative coma by the steady twin flames of the candle and its reflection in the toilet-glass. She was invested with the accessories favorable to crystal-gazing, and the brooch served to concentrate faculties that would under ordinary circumstances have lacked an object. Contrast as an absolute idea is often visualized during slightly abnormal mental phases. Fever often fatigues the brain with a reiteration of images in tremendous contrast, generally of mere size, when the mind is forced to contemplate again and again with increasing resentmentthe horrible disparity between a pin's point and a pyramid. In Jenny's mind Maurice was contrasted with the rest of the universe. He was so overpowering and tremendous that everything else became a mere speck. In fact, during this semi-trance, Jenny lost all sense of proportion, and Maurice became an obsession.
Then suddenly the flame of the candle began to jig and flicker; the spell was broken, and Jenny realized it would be advisable to undress.
Action set her brain working normally, and the vast, absorbing generalization faded. She began to think again in detail. How she longed for to-morrow, when she would be much nicer to Maurice than she had ever been before. She thought with a glow of the delightful time in front of them. She pictured wet afternoons spent cosily in the studio. She imagined herself, tired and bored, coming down the court from the stage door, with Maurice suddenly appearing round the corner to drive weariness out of London. It was glorious to think of someone who could make the worst headache insignificant and turn the most unsatisfactory morning to a perfect afternoon. Quickened by such thoughts, she got into bed without waking May, so that in a flutter of soft kisses she could sink deliciously to sleep, enclosed in the arms of her lover as an orchard by sunlight.
About two o'clock Jenny woke up to another psychic experience not unusual with hypersensitive temperaments. The ardor of the farewell embrace had consumed all the difficulties of the situation discussed on the journey home. This ardor of merely sensuous love had lasted long enough to carry her off to sleep drowsed by a passionate content. Meanwhile her brain, working on what was originally the more vital emotion, brought her back to consciousness in the middle of the problem's statement. Lying there in the darkness, Jenny blushed hotly, so instant was the mental attitude produced by Maurice's demand. In previous encounters over this subject, her protagonists had all been so manifestly contemptible, their expectations so evidentfrom the beginning, that their impudence had been extinguished by the fire of merely social indignation. Jenny had defeated them as the representative of her sex rather than herself. She had never comprehended the application of their desires to herself as a feasible proposition. They were a fact merely objectively unpleasant like monkeys in a cage, physically dangerous, however, with certain opportunities Jenny's worldly wisdom would never afford. In the case of Maurice the encounter was actual, involving a clash of personalities: the course of her behavior would have to be settled. No longer fortified by the hostility of massed opinion, she would be compelled to entrust her decision to personal resolution and individual judgment. For the first time she was confronted with the great paradox that simultaneously restricts and extends a woman's life. She remembered the effect of Edie's announcement of surrender. It had sickened her with virginal wrath and impressed her with a sense of man's malignity, and now here was she at the cross-roads of experience with sign-posts unmistakable to dominate her mental vision.
It was not astonishing that Jenny should blush with the consciousness of herself as a vital entity; for the situation was merely an elaboration of the commonplace self-consciousness incident to so small an action as entering alone a crowded room. Years ago, as a little girl, she had once woken up with an idea she no longer existed, an idea dispelled by the sight of her clothes lying as usual across the chair. Now she was frightened by the overwhelming realization of herself: she existed too actually. This analysis of her mental attitude shows that Jenny did not possess the comfortable mind which owes volition to external forces. Her brain registered sensations too finely; her sense of contact was too fastidious. Acquiescence was never possible without the agony of experience. Her ambition to dance was in childhood a force which was killed by unimaginative treatment. Once killed, nothing could revive it. So it would be with her love. In the first place, she was aware of the importance of surrender to a man. She did not regardthe step as an incident of opportunity. All her impulses urged her to give way. Every passionate fire and fever of love was burning her soul with reckless intentions. On the other hand, she felt that if she yielded herself and tasted the bitterness of disillusionment, she would be forevermore liable to acquiesce. She would demand of her lover attributes which he might not possess, and out of his failure by the completeness of her personality she would create for herself a tragedy.
Finally a third aspect presented itself in the finality of the proposed surrender. She was now for the first time enjoying life with a fullness of appreciation which formerly she had never imagined. She was happy in a sense of joy. When Cunningham was playing in the studio, she had felt how insecure such happiness was, how impatient of any design to imprison it in the walls of time. Indeed, perhaps she had seen it escaping on the echoes of a melody. Then suddenly over all this confusion of prudence, debate, hesitation, breathless abandonment and scorching blushes, sleep resumed its sway, subduing the unnatural activity of a normally indolent mind.
She lay there asleep in the darkness without a star to aid or cross her destiny. She and her brooch of opals were swept out into the surge of evolution; and she must be dependent on a fallible man to achieve her place in the infallible scheme of the universe.
FOR some weeks after the incident of the opal, there was no development of the problem of behavior. Maurice did not refer to the subject, and Jenny was very glad to put it out of her mind. As if by tacit agreement, they both took refuge from any solution in a gayety that might have been assumed, so sedulously was it cultivated. Everything else was set aside for a good time, and though there were interludes when in the seclusion of an afternoon spent together they would recapture the spirit of that golden and benign October, these lovers generally seemed anxious to share with their friends the responsibilities of enjoyment.
Thus it came about that a polity of pleasure was established whose citizens were linked together by ties of laughter. This city state of Bohemia, fortified against intrusion by experiences which the casual visitor was not privileged to share, stood for Jenny as the solidest influence upon her life so far. It gave her a background for Maurice, which made him somehow more real. Without this little society, acknowledging herself and him as supreme and accepting their love as the pivot on which its own existence revolved, she would have seen her lover as an actuality only when they were making love. Out of her sight, he would have faded into the uncertain mists of another social grade, floated incorporeal among photographs of Ellis and Walery in a legend of wealth and dignity beyond her conception. To Fuz and Ronnie and Cunningham she could talk of Maurice, thereby gleaning external impressions which confirmed her own attitude. In this atmosphere her love assumed a sanityand normality that might otherwise easily have been lost.
It must not be supposed that this little republic was content with the territory of 422 Grosvenor Road. On the contrary, throughout October, November and December, there were frequent sallies against convention and raids upon Philistia. There were noisy tea-parties in hostile strongholds like the Corner House, where ladies were not permitted to smoke and customers were kindly requested to pay at the desk. Perhaps their most successful foray was upon a fashionable tea-shop in St. James's Street, where a florin was the minimum charge for tea to include everything; on this occasion, prepared for by rigorous fasting, it included a very great deal. There were attempts by Ronnie Walker to make the girls enjoy picture-galleries, by Cunningham to convert them to Symphony Concerts. And once they all went to see a play by Mr. Bernard Shaw. But painting, music and the drama could not compete with skating rinks, where elegant and accomplished instructors complained of their rowdiness. But, as Jenny said, "What of it?We'reenjoying ourselves, any old way."
The pinnacle of their gay ambition was a Covent Garden Ball. This entertainment had continually to be postponed for lack of funds; for, though a Covent Garden Ball has usually a sober, even a chilling effect upon the company, it has dare-devil pretensions which Maurice and his retinue would not exploit unless they were assured of a conspicuous success.
So the Second Empire Masquerade was planned and debated a long time before it actually happened. That it happened at all was due to the death of Maurice's great-aunt, who left him one hundred pounds. This legacy being unexpected, was obviously bound to be spent at once. As the legatee pointed out to Jenny one dripping afternoon in early January, as they sat together in the studio:
"It's practically like finding money in the road. I know that one day my stockbroker uncle will leave me two thousand pounds. He's told me so often to raise my spirits on wet week-ends at his house. I've planned what to do with that. Everyfarthing is booked. But this hundred I never thought of. I was beginning to despair of ever raising the cash for Covent Garden, and here it is all of a sudden."
"You're not going to spend a hundred pounds in one evening?" Jenny exclaimed.
"Not all of it, because you've got to buy yourself some furs and three hats and those silk stockings with peach-colored clocks—oh, yes, and I've got to buy you that necklace of fire opals which we saw in Wardour Street and also that marquise ring, and I've got to buy myself a safety razor and a box of pastels, and I simply must get Thackeray'sLectures on the English Humoristsfor Fuz."
"There won't be much left of your hundred pounds," said Jenny.
"Well, let's draw up an estimate. I'll write down the possibles and then we'll delete nearly all of them."
Maurice got up from his chair and wandered round the room in search of note-paper. Not being able to find any, he pinned a large sheet of drawing-paper to a board and produced a pencil.
"Look at him," laughed Jenny. "Look at the Great Millionaire. Just because he's come into money, he can't write on anything smaller than a blanket."
"It's not ostentation," Maurice declared. "It's laziness—a privilege of the very poor, as you ought to know by this time. I can't find any note-paper."
"I should think you couldn't. I wonder you can find yourself in this room."
"Come along," urged the owner of it. "We must begin. Maurice and Jenny. Then Fuz and Maudie, Ronnie and Irene, Cunningham and Madge. Any more you can think of?"
"You don't mean to say you've taken that unnatural piece of paper just to write those few names which we could have thought of in our heads. What would you do with him?"
"We want another eight," Maurice declared.
"Oh, no, eight's plenty."
"Perhaps it is," he agreed. "Well, now, Maurice will be Théophile Gautier—no, he won't—the red waistcoat knocks him out—Edmond de Goncourt? No, he had a mustache. Chopin? Long hair. Look here, I don't think we'll be anybody in particular. We'll just be ladies and gentlemen of the period. You know you girls have got to wear crinolines and fichus and corkscrew curls."
"Like we used to wear in Bohême in the Opera?"
"That's it. You must see about your dresses at once. Good ones will cost about ten pounds to hire, and that ought to include some decent paste."
"We sha'n't have to pay forourtickets."
"Good. Four guineas saved. Dresses? Say twenty pounds for the eight of us. Supper with fizz another ten quid. Four salmon-colored taxis with tips, ten pounds."
"How much?" Jenny exclaimed. "Ten pounds just to take us to Covent Garden Ball and back?"
"Ah, but I've a plan. These salmon-colored taxis are going to be thechef d'œuvreas well as thehors d'œuvreof the entertainment. Hush, it's a secret. Let me see, our tickets—four guineas—forty-four pounds four shillings. Well, say fifty quid to include all tips and breakfast."
"Well, I think it's too much," Jenny declared.
"Not too much for an evening that shall be famous over all evenings—an evening that you, my Jenny, will remember when you're an ancient old woman—an evening that we'll talk over for the rest of our lives."
While Maurice was speaking, the shadow of a gigantic doubt passed over Jenny's mind. She endured one of those moments when only the profound uselessness of everything has any power to impress the reason. She suffered a complete loss of faith and hope. The moment was one of those black abysses before which the mind is aghast at effort and conceives annihilation. In the Middle Ages such an experience would have been ascribed to the direct and personal influence of Satan.
"What's the matter?" Maurice asked. "You look as if you didn't believe me."
But, while the question was still on his lips, the shadow passed, and Jenny laughed.
The famous evening was finally assigned to the twenty-seventh of January. The four girls took their places in the ballet as usual and, meeting from time to time in evolutions, would murmur as they danced by, "To-night, what, what?" or "Don't you wish it was eleven?" They would look at each other, too, from opposite sides of the stage, smiling in the sympathy of anticipated pleasure. When the curtains fell they hurried to their dressing-rooms to exchange tights and spangles for mid-Victorian frocks, whose dainty lace made all the other girls very envious indeed. Some were so envious as to suggest to Jenny that another color would have suited her better than pink or that her hair would be more becomingen chignonthan curled. But Jenny was not deceived by such professions of amiable advice.
"Yes, some of you would like to see me with my hair done different. Some of you wouldn't be half pleased if I went out looking a sight. Oh, no, it's only a rumor. Thanks, I'm not taking any. I know what suits me better thananyone,whichpink does."
"Don't take any notice of them," Maudie whispered to her friend.
"Take notice of them. What! Why, I should be all the time looking. My eyes would get as big as moons. They've been opened wide enough since I came to the Orient, as it is."
At last, having survived every criticism, the four girls were ready. The hall-porter's boy carried their luggage out to the salmon-colored taxis, whose drivers looked embarrassed by the salmon-colored carnations which Maurice insisted they should wear. The latter, with Fuz, Ronnie and Cunningham, stood in the entrance of the court, wrapped in full cloaks and wearing tall hats of a bygone fashion. They were leaning gracefully on their tasseled canes as the girls came along the court towardsthem. It was romantic to think that other girls in similar frocks had trod the same path and met men dressed like them fifty years ago. This sweet fancy was very vividly brought home to them when an old cleaner, grimed with half a century of Orient dust, passed by the laughing, chattering group, and, as she shuffled off towards Seven Dials, looked back over her shoulder with an expression of fear.
"Marie thinks we're ghosts," laughed Madge.
"Isn't it dreadful to think she was once in the ballet?" said Jenny. "Poor old crow, I do think it's dreadful."
The eight of them shivered at the thought.
"Really?" said Maurice. "How horrible."
The episode was a gaunt intrusion upon gayety; but it was soon forgotten in the noise and sheen of Piccadilly.
The taxis with much hooting hummed through the dazzling thoroughfares into the gloom and comparative stillness of Long Acre. As usual they tried to cut through Floral Street, only to be turned back by a policeman; but without much delay they swept at last under the great portico of the Opera House. Here many girls, blown into Covent Garden by the raw January winds, gave the effect of thistledown, so filmy were their dresses; and the rigid young men, stopping behind to pay their fares, looked stiff and awkward as groups of Pre-Raphaelite courtiers. Commissionaires decorated the steps without utility. In the vestibule merry people were greeting each other and nodding as they passed up and down the wide staircase. Here and there an isolated individual, buttoning and unbuttoning his gloves with unconscionable industry, gazed anxiously at every swing of the door. Presently Jenny and Madge and Maudie and Irene were ready and, as on the arms of their escort they took the floor of the ballroom, might have stepped from a notebook of Gavarni.
Covent Garden balls are distinguished by the atmosphere of a spectacle which pervades them. The floor itself has the character of an arena encircled by tiers of red boxes, many of which display marionettes, an unobtrusive audience, given overto fans and the tinkle of distant laughter; while the curtained glooms of others are haunted by invisible eyes. Here are no chaperons struggling with palms and hair-nets through a wearisome evening, creaking in wicker chairs and discussing draughts with neighbors. The old men, searching for bridge-players, are absent. There is neither host nor hostess; and not one anæmic young débutante is distressed by the bleakness of her unembarrassed programme.
Maurice announced that he had taken a box for the evening, so that his guests would be able, when tired of dancing, to cheat fatigue. Then he caught Jenny round the waist, and, regardless of their companions, the two of them were lost in the tide of dancers. They were only vaguely conscious of the swirl of petticoats and lisp of feet around their course. In the irresistible sweep of melodious violins all that really existed for Maurice and Jenny was nearness to each other, and eyes ablaze with rapture; and for him there was the silken coolness of her curls, for her the fever of his hand upon her waist.
During the interval between the sixth and seventh waltzes, Maurice, breathless at the memory of their perfect accord, said:
"I wonder if Paolo and Francesca enjoy swooning together on the winds of hell. Great Scott! as if one wouldn't prefer the seventh circle to bathing in pools of light with a blessed damosel. I'm surprised at Rosetti."
"Who's she?"
"The blessed damosel?"
"No—Rose Etty."
"Oh, Jenny, don't make me laugh."
"Well, I don't know what you're talking about."
"I was speculating. Hark! They're playing the Eton Boating Song. Come along. We mustn't miss a bar of it."
In the scent of frangipani and jicky and phulnana the familiar tune became queerly exotic. The melody, charged with regret for summer elms and the sounds of playing-fields, full of the vanished laughter of boyhood, held now the heartof romantic passion. It spoke of regret for the present rather than the past and, as it reveled in the lapse of moments, gave expression to the dazzling swiftness of such a night in a complaint for flying glances, sighs and happy words lost in their very utterance.
"Heart of hearts," whispered Maurice in the swirl of the dance.
"Oh, Maurice, I do love you," she sighed.
Now the moments fled faster as the beat quickened for the climax of the dance. Maurice held Jenny closer than before, sweeping her on through a mist of blurred lights in which her eyes stood out clear as jewels from the pallor of her face. Round the room they went, round and round, faster and faster. Jenny was now dead white. Her lips were parted slightly, her fingers strained at Maurice's sleeve. He, with flushed cheeks, wore elation all about him. No dream could have held the multitude of imaginations that thronged their minds; and when it seemed that life must end in the sharpness of an ecstasy that could never be recorded in mortality, the music stopped. There was a sound of many footsteps leaving the ballroom. Jenny leaned on Maurice's arm.
"You're tired," he said. "Jolly good dance that?"
"Wasn't it glorious? Oh, Maurice, it was lovely."
"Come and sit in the box when you've had some champagne, and I'll dance with the girls while you're resting. Shall I?"
She nodded.
Presently Maurice was tearing round the room with Maudie, both of them laughing very loudly, while Jenny sat back in a faded arm-chair thinking of the old Covent Garden days and nights, and wondering how she could ever have fancied she was happy before she met Maurice. In a few minutes Fuz came into the box to ask if she wanted to dance.
"No, I'm tired," she told him.
"It's just as well, perhaps," he said gravely. "For I am what you would describe as a very unnatural dancer."
"Oh, Fuz," she laughed; "are you? Oh, you must dance once round the room with me before it's over. Oh, you must. It tickles my fancy, the idea of Fuz dancing."
"At last I've earned a genuine laugh."
"Oh, Fuz, doesn't anyone else ever laugh at you, only me?"
"Very rarely."
"Shame!"
"So it is."
"Aren't Maurice and Maudie making a terrible noise?"
"They're certainly laughing loud enough," Fuz agreed. "But Maurice is always in spirits. I don't think he knows the meaning of depression."
"Doesn't he then!" Jenny exclaimed. "I think he getsverydepressed sometimes!"
"Not deeply. It's never more than a passing mood."
"That's quite right. It is a mood. But he works himself up into a state over his moods."
"Tell me, dear Jane," said Castleton suddenly. "No, on second thoughts, I won't ask."
"Oh, do tell me."
"No, it's not my business. Besides, you'd be annoyed, and I've no wish to make our Jenny angry."
"I won't be angry. Do tell me, Fuz, what you was going to ask."
"Well, I will," he said, after a pause. "Jenny, are you very fond of Maurice?"
"Oh, I love him."
"Really love him?"
"Of course."
"But you'd soon get over it if——"
"If what?"
"If Maurice was—was a disappointment—for instance, if he married somebody else quite suddenly? Don't look so frightened; he's not going to, as far as I know; or likely to, but if ... would it upset your life?"
Jenny burst into tears.
"My dearest Jane," Castleton cried, "I was only chaffing.Please don't cry. Jenny, Jenny, I'm only an inquisitive, speculative jackanapes. Maurice isn't going to do anything of the kind. Really. Besides, I thought—oh, Jane—I'm terribly ashamed of myself."
"Maurice said I shouldn't like you," Jenny sobbed. "And I don't. I hate you. Don't stay with me. Go out of the box. I'm going home. Where's Maurice? I want Maurice to come to me."
"He's dancing," said Castleton helplessly. "Jane, I'm an absolute beast. Jane, will you marry me and show your forgiving nature?"
"Don't go on teasing me," sobbed Jenny, louder than ever. "You're hateful. I hate you."
"No, but I mean it. Will you, Jenny? Really, I'm not joking. I'd marry you to-morrow."
Jenny's tears gradually turned to laughter, and at last she had to say:
"Oh, Fuz, you're hateful, but you are funny."
"It's a most extraordinary thing," he replied, "that the only person I don't want to laugh at me must do it. Jane!" He held out his hand. "Jane, are we pals again?"
"I suppose we've got to be," Jenny pouted.
"Good pals and jolly companions?"
"Oh, whoever was it said that to me once?" cried Jenny. "Years and years ago. Oh, whoever was it?"
"Years and years?" echoed Castleton, quizzing. "Who are you, ancient woman?"
"Don'tbe silly. It was. Someone said it when I was a little girl. Oh, Fuz, I'd go raving mad to remember who it was."
"Well, anyway, I've said it now. And is it a bargain?"
"What?"
"You and I being pals?"
"Of course."
"Which means that when I'm in trouble, I go to Jane foradvice, and when Jane's in trouble, she comes to Fuz. Shake hands on that."
Jenny, feeling very shy of him for the first time during their acquaintanceship, let him take her hand.
"And the tears are a secret?" he asked.
"Not if Maurice asks me. I'd have to tell him."
"Would you? All right, if he asks, tell him."
Maurice, however, did not ask, being full of arrangements for supper and in a quandary of taste between Pol Roger and Perrier Jouet.
"What about Perrier without Jouet?" Castleton suggested. "It would save money."
Supper (and in the end Maurice chose Pommery) was very jolly; but nothing for the lovers during the rest of the evening reached the height of those first waltzes together. After supper Fuz and Jenny danced a cake-walk, and Ronnie tried to hum a favorite tune to Cunningham in order that he could explain to the conductor what Ronnie wanted. Nothing came of it, however, as the latter never succeeded in disentangling it from two other tunes. So, with laughter and dancing, they kept the night merry to the last echo of music, and when at about half-past six they all stood in the vestibule waiting for the salmon-colored taxis to drive them home, all agreed that Maurice had done well.
"And I've not done yet," he said. "I suppose you all think you're going home to tumble sleepily into bed. Oh, no, we're going to have breakfast first at the old Sloop, Greenwich."
"Greenwich?" they repeated in chorus.
"I've ordered a thumping breakfast. The drive will do us good. We can see the dawn break over the river."
"And put our watches right," added Castleton.
"Then you girls can be driven home (your bags are all inside the taxis) and sleep all the rest of the morning and afternoon."
Maurice was so eager to carry this addendum that none of them had the heart to vote firmly for bed.
"I don't mind where we go," said Ronnie. "But whyGreenwich in particular? We can see the dawn break over the river just as well at Westminster."
"Greenwich is in the manner," Maurice answered.
"What manner?"
"The crinoline manner. The Sloop is absolutely typically mid-Victorian and already twice as romantic as your crumbling Gothic or overworked Georgian."
So the taxis hummed off to Greenwich through the murk of a wet and windy January morning. Wagons were being unloaded in Covent Garden as they started; and along the Strand workers were already hurrying through the rain. It was still too dark to see the river as they spun over Waterloo Bridge, but the air blew in through the open windows very freshly. In the New Kent Road factory girls, shuffling to work, turned to shout after the four taxis; and Madge Wilson leaned out to wave to her mother's shop as they passed.
All the way Jenny slept in Maurice's arms, and he from time to time would bend over and kiss very lightly the sculptured mouth. In Deptford High Street the gray dawn was beginning to define the houses, and in a rift of the heavy clouds stars were paling.
Jenny woke up with a start.
"Where am I? Where am I?" Then, aware of Maurice, she nestled closer.
"You've been asleep, dearest. We're almost at Greenwich. It's practically morning now."
"I'm cold."
"Are you, my sweet? I thought this fur coat would keep you warm. It's yours, you know. I bought it for you to-day—yesterday, I mean."
"It's lovely and warm," she said, "but I'm so sleepy."
"You are so perfect when you're lying asleep," he said; "I must make a statue of you. I shall call it The Tired Dancer. I'll begin as soon as possible and finish it this spring."
"I wish spring would come quick," she murmured. "I'm sick of winter."
"So am I," he agreed. "And we shall have the most exquisite adventures in the spring. We'll go out often into the country. Long country walks will do you good."
"Rather."
"Hullo!" cried Maurice. "Here we are at the Sloop. I hope breakfast is ready."
There was, however, no sign of life in the hotel by the water's side. It stared at them without any welcome.
"What an extraordinary thing," said Maurice. "I'll ring the bell. Great Scott! I never posted the letter telling them about breakfast."
"What would you do with him?" said Madge.
"Never mind. It's absurd to keep us waiting like this. We can surely get breakfast." He pealed the bell loudly as he spoke.
"Can't you get in, sir?" asked one of the drivers.
"And it's coming on to rain," said Jenny.
Maurice pealed the bell louder than ever; and finally a sad-eyed porter in shirt-sleeves opened the door and surveyed the party over a broom.
"We want breakfast," said Maurice; "breakfast for eight."
"Breakfast always is at eight," the man informed them.
"Breakfast for eight people and as quickly as possible."
The man looked doubtful.
"Good heavens!" Maurice cried irritably. "Surely in any decent hotel you can get breakfast for eight."
"What are you?" the man asked. "Theatricals?"
"No, no, no, we've been to a fancy dress ball—and we want breakfast."
In the end they were admitted, and, a chamber-maid having been discovered on a remote landing, the girls were shown into a bedroom.
"I thought this hotel professed to cater for excursions of pleasure," said Maurice frigidly.
"We don't get many of 'em here in winter."
"I'm not surprised. Good Lord, isn't the fire lighted in the coffee-room?"
"We don't use the coffee-room much—except for political meetings. Greenwich has gone out from what it used to be."
The girls came in, pale and tired, and the party foregathered round the coffee-room grate, from which a wisp of smoke ascended in steady promise.
"Well, Maurice," said Castleton, "I think very little of this ravished conservatory into which your historic sense has led us. How do you like Greenwich, girls?"
The girls all sighed.
"They don't."
"Hullo, here's a waiter," said Cunningham, turning round. "Good morning, waiter."
"Good morning, sir."
"Is breakfast going to be long?"
"It's on order sir. Eggs and bacon, I think you said."
"I should think somebody probably did. In fact, I'd almost bet on it," said Castleton. "What's the time, waiter?"
"I don't know, sir, but I'll find out for you."
"I always thought Greenwich was famous for its time."
"Whitebait, sir, more than anything."
Castleton sighed; and Maurice, who had gone downstairs to reassure the household, came back trying to look as if waiting for breakfast on a January morning after dancing all night was one of the jolliest experiences attainable by humanity.
"Maurice," said Ronnie Walker, "we think your night was splendid. But we think your morning is rotten."
"Oh, Maurice, why didn't you let us go to bed?" Jenny grumbled.
"You can't really blame the hotel people," Maurice began.
"We don't," interrupted Cunningham severely. "We blame you."
"I also blame myself," said Ronnie, "for giving way to your mad schemes."
"You're right," Jenny put in. "I think we was all mad.What must they have thought of us—a party of loonies, I should say."
"I meant it to be very charming," Maurice urged in apology.
"Oh, well, it'll all come out in the wash, but I wish they'd bring in this unnatural breakfast."
The company sighed in unison, and, as if encouraged by such an utterance of breath, the wisp of smoke broke into a thin blue flame.
"Come, that's better," said Maurice, unduly encouraged. "The fire's burning up quite cheerfully."
This and the entrance of breakfast revived everybody, and when a genuine blaze crackled in the grate they thought Greenwich was not so bad after all; though Maurice could not persuade anybody to stand by the bleak windows flecked with raindrops and watch the big ships going out on the ebb.
"But what shall we do?" Jenny demanded. "I can't go home after the milk. I shall get into a most shocking row."
"You can explain matters," Cunningham suggested.
"Yes, I should say. Who'd believe we should be so mad as to rush off to Greenwich on a pouring morning for breakfast? No, I must say I slept with Ireen."
"Well, why don't you come back and go to bed at my place?" Irene suggested. "You can go home tea-time."
"All right. I will."
Maudie and Madge decided to copy the example of the other two, by going back together to Mrs. Wilson's house near the Elephant and Castle.
"Only we ought to change our clothes first," Jenny said. "What of it though? We've got cloaks."
"I shouldn't mind changing," said Castleton. "These claret-colored overalls of mine will inevitably attract the public vision."
"Rot!" said Maurice. "We can all drive down to the Elephant—although, by the way, we ought to stop at the Marquis of Granby and look at the Museum."
"To the deuce with all museums," cried Ronnie. "I want my bed."
"You are an unsporting lot," Maurice protested. "Then we'll stop at the 'Elephant,' and the girls can go home in two taxis and we'll go back in the others."