“Stuff and nonsense! There you go, Brimby, trimming again. We’ve heard all that: ‘A great deal to be said on both sides,’”—(Mr. Wilkinson all but mimicked Mr Brimby). “There isn’t—not if you’re going to do anything! There’s only one side. You’ve got to shoot or be shot. I’m a shooter. Give me five hundred real men and plenty of barricadestuff——”
“Oh, oh, oh, my dear friend!” Mr. Brimby protested. “Why, if your principles were universallyapplied——”
“Who said anything about applying ’em universally? Hang your universal applications! I’m talkingabout the Industrial Revolution. I’ll tell you what’s the matter with you, Brimby: you don’t like the sight of blood. I’m not blaming you. Some men are like that. But it’s in every page of your writing. You’ve got a bloodless style. I don’t mind admitting that I liked some of your earlier work, while there still seemed a chance of your making up your mind someday——”
But here Mr. Wilkinson in his turn was drowned, this time by an incredulous laugh from Cosimo, who had joined Dickie and Laura.
“Van Gogh saysthat?” his voice mounted high. “Really? You’re sure he wasn’t joking? Ha ha, ha ha!... But it’s rather pathetic really. One would think Amory’d never painted ‘Barrage,’ nor the ‘White Slave,’ nor that—,” he pointed to the unfinished canvas of “The Triumph of Humane Government” on the wall. “By Jove, I must make an Appendix of that!... Here—Walter!—Have you told him, Dickie?—Walter!——”
But Walter was now at deadly grips with the man who had forgotten his miner’s lamp.
“I tell you I never used Saturnalia in that sense atall!——”
But the miner stood his ground.
“Happen ye didn’t, but I’ll ask ye one question: Have ye ever been to Blackpool of a August BankHoliday?——”
“My good man, you talk as if I proposed to do something with the stroke of a pen, to-morrow, before the world’s ready forit——”
“Have ye ever been to Blackpool of a Bank Holiday?”
“What on earth has Blackpool to do with it?——”
“Well, we’ll say Owdham Wakes week at t’ Isle o’ Man—Douglas——”
“Pooh! You’ve got hold of the wrong idea altogether! Do you know what Saturnaliameans?——”
“I know there’s a man on Douglas Head, at twelve o’clock i’ t’ day, wi’ t’ sun shining, going round wi’ a stick an’ prodding ’em up an’ telling ’em to breakaway——”
“I shouldn’t have thought anybody could have been soincrediblyslow to grasp an idea—!” cried Walter, his hands aloft.
“Have—you—ever—been—to—Blackpool—when—t’ Wakes—is on?”
Then Cosimo called again—
“Walter! I say! Come here!... Dickie’s just told me something that makes the ‘Life and Work’rathernecessary, Ithink!——”
And Walter turned his back on the miner and joined his wife and Dickie and Cosimo.
Anybody who wasn’t anybody might have supposed the noise to be a series of wrangles, but of course it wasn’t so at all really. Issues far too weighty hung in the balance. It is all very well for people whose mental range is limited bymatinéesand Brooklands and the newest car to talk in pleasant and unimpassioned voices, but what was going to happen to Art unless Cosimo hurled himself and the ‘Life and Work’ against this heretic Van Gogh, and what was to becomeof England if Walter allowed a pig-headed man who could say nothing but “Blackpool Pier, Blackpool Pier,” to shout him down, and what would happen to Civilization if Mr. Wilkinson did not, figuratively speaking, take hold of the dilettante Brimby and shake him as a terrier shakes a rat? No: there would be time enough for empty politenesses when the battle was won.
In the meantime, a mere nobody might have thought they were merely excessively rude to one another.
Then began fresh combinations and permutations of the talk. Mr. Wilkinson, whose square-cut pilot jacket somehow added to the truculence of his appearance, planted himself firmly for conversation before Dickie Lemesurier; the miner, whose head at a little distance appeared bald, but on a closer view was seen to be covered with football-cropped and plush-like bristles, nudged Cosimo’s hip, to attract his attention: and Walter Wyron sprang forward with a welcoming “Hallo, Kaffinger!” as the door opened and two young McGrath students were added to the crowd. For a minute no one voice preponderated in the racket; itwas—
“Hallo, Raff! Thought you weren’t coming!”
“I want a gun!” (This from Corin.)
“My dear Corin” (this from Bonniebell), “Miss Belchamber’s told you over and over again guns areanti-social——”
“Anybody smoking? Well, I know they don’tmind——”
“But, Miss Lemesurier, where a speaker reaches only a hundred or two, the writtenword——”
“Ah, but the personal, magnetic thrill——” (This was in Dickie’s rather deep voice.)
Then Walter, to somebody else, not the miner—
“I should have thoughtanybodywould have known that when I said Saturnalia Imeant——”
“Where’s Amory?”
“Sweet, in those little tunics!——”
“A subsidy from the State, of course——”
Then the miner, but not to Walter—
“I’ t’ daylight, proddin’ ’em up wi’ a stick—to say nowt o’ Port Skillian bathin’-place of a fineSunda’——”
“That hoary old lie, that Socialism means sharing——”
“Oh, at any artists’ colourman’s——”
“No; it will probably be published privately——”
“Van Gogh——”
“Oh, you’reentirelywrong!——”
And then, in the middle of a sudden and mysterious lull, the man who had come without his safety-lamp was heard addressing Cosimoagain:—
“Well, what about t’ new paaper? Owt settled yet?... Nay, ye needn’t look; Wilkinson telled me; it’s all right; nowt ’at’s said ’ll go beyond these fower walls. Wilkinson’s gotten a rare list together, names an’ right, I can tell ye! But t’ way I look at it isthis——”
Cosimo looked blank.
“But, my dear—I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name——,” he said.
“Crabtree—Eli Crabtree. This is t’ point I want to mak’, mister. Ye see, I can’t put things grammar;but there’s lots about ’at can; so I thowt we’d get a sec’etary, an’ I’d sit an’ smoke whol’ my thowts come, and then I’d tell him t’ tale. Ye see, ye want to go slap into t’ middle o’ t’ lives o’ t’ people. Now comin’ up o’ t’ tram-top I bethowt me of a champion series: ‘Back to Back Houses I’ve Known.’ I’ll bet a crahn that wi’ somb’dy to put it grammar forme——”
“My dear Crabtree, I’m afraid, don’t you know, that there’s been somemistake——”
And at this point, everybody becoming conscious at the same moment that they were listening, a fresh wave of sound flowed over the assembly; and presently Mr. Wilkinson was seen to take Cosimo aside and to be making the gestures of a man who is explaining some ridiculous mistake.
Then once more:—
“I beg your pardon—I thought you were Mrs.Pratt——”
“Put grammar—straight to fowk’s hearts—sinks and slopstones an’ all t’lot——”
“No, Balliol——”
“But listen, Pratt, the way the mistake arose——”
“Ellen Key, of course——”
“The ‘Times!’—As if the ‘Times’ wasn’talwayswrong!——”
“There’s a raucousness about her paint——”
“The Caxton Hall, at eight—do come!——”
“But we authors are so afraid of sentiment nowadays!——”
“Bombay, I think—or else Hyderabad——”
“Oh, he talks like a fool!——”
“Raff! Come here and recite ‘The King is Duller’——”
“But LoveisLaw!——”
“Suspend our judgments until we’ve heard the otherside——”
“Only water—but they couldn’t break her spirit—she was out again in threedays——”
And again there came an unexpected lull.
This time it was broken by, perhaps not the loudest, but certainly the most travelling voice yet—the voice of the caryatid beneath the bracket with the bust upon it. Miss Belchamber was dressed in a sleeveless surcoat chess-boarded with large black and white squares; the skirt beneath it was of dark blue linen; and there were beards of leather on her large brown brogues. One of the young Oxford men, greatly daring, had approached her and asked her a question. She turned slowly; she gave the young man the equal-soul-to-equal-soul look; and then the apparatus of perfect voice-production was set in motion. Easily and powerfully the air came from her magnificent chest, up the splendid six-inch main of her throat, rang upon the hard anterior portion of her palate, and was cut, as it were, to its proper length and shaped into perfect enunciation by her red tongue and beautiful white teeth.
“What?” she said.
The undergraduate fell a little back.
“Only—I only asked if you’d been to many theatres lately.”
“Not any.”
“Oh!... I—I suppose you know everybody here?”
“Yes.”
“Do point them out to me!”
“That’s Walter Wyron. That’s Mrs. Wyron. That’s Miss Lemesurier. I don’t know who the little man is. That’s Mr. Wilkinson. My name’s Belchamber.”
“Oh—I say—I mean, thanks awfully. We’ve heard of them all, of course,” the unhappy young man faltered.
“What?”
“All distinguished names, I mean.”
“Of course.”
“Rather!——”
And again everybody listened, became conscious of the fact, and broke out anew.
But where all this time was Amory?
Demonstrably, exactly where she ought to have been—in her bedroom. She was too dispirited to be accessible to the rational talk of others; she did not feel that she had energy enough to be a source of illumination herself; surely, then, merely because a lot of people, invited and uninvited, chose to come to The Witan, she need not put herself out to go and look after them. They might call themselves her “guests” if they liked; Amory didn’t care what form of words they employed; the underlying reality remained—that she was intensely bored, and too fundamentally polite to bore others by going down. Perhaps she would go down when Edgar came. She had left word that she was to be informed of his arrival. But he was very late.
Nevertheless, she knew that he would come. Lately she had grown a little more perspicacious about that. It had dawned on her that, everything else apart, she had some sort of hold on him through the “Novum,” and there had been a trace of command in her summons that he was pretty sure not to disregard. No doubt he would try to get away again almost directly, but she had arranged about that. She intended to keep him to supper. Also the Wyrons. And Britomart Belchamber too would be there. And of course Cosimo.
She moved restlessly between her narrow bed and the window, now polishing her nails, now glancing at her hair in the glass. From the window she could see over the privet hedge and down the road, but there was no sign of Edgar yet. She looked at herself again in the glass, without favour, and then sat down on the edge of her bed again.
Her meeting with Lady Tasker the week before had greatly unsettled her. Very stupidly, she had quite forgotten that Lady Tasker lived in Cromwell Gardens. She would have thought nothing at all of the meeting had Lady Tasker had a hat on her head and gloves on her hands; she would have set that down as an ordinary street-encounter; but Dorothy’s aunt had evidently seen her from some window, perhaps not for the first time, and, if not for the first, very likely for the third or fourth or fifth. In a word, Amory felt that she had been caught.
And, as she had been thinking of Edgar Strong at the moment when the old lady’s voice had startled her so, it was not beyond the bounds of possibility that herstart had seemed remarkable. Lady Tasker was so very sharp.
At all events, even Edgar was not going to have everything all his own way.
For she was sure now that she had the hold of the “Novum” on him, and that that hold was not altogether the single-minded devotion to his duty he had made it out to be on that day when she had last gone to the office. Not that she thought too unkindly of him on that account. The labourer, even in the field of Imperial Politics, is still worthy of his hire, and poor Edgar, like the rest of the world, had to make the best compromise he could between what he would have liked to do and what circumstances actually permitted him to do. Of course he would be anxious to keep his job. If he didn’t keep it a worse man would get it, and India would be no better off, but probably worse. She sighed that all work should be subject to compromises of this kind. Edgar, in a word, was no longer a hero to her, but, by his very weakness, something a little nearer and dearer still.
But for all that she had not hesitated to use her “pull” in order to get him to The Witan that day.
She saw him as she advanced to the glass again. He was nearly a quarter of a mile down the road. She found a little secret delight in watching his approach when he was unconscious of her watching. His figure was still very small, and she indulged herself with a fancy, closing her eyes for a moment in order to do so. Suppose he had been, not approaching, but going away—then when she opened her eyes again he would look smaller still.... She opened them, and experienced alittle thrill at seeing him nearer and plainer. She could distinguish the red spot of his tie. Now he turned his head to look at some people who passed. Now he stepped off the pavement to make room for somebody. Now he was on the pavement again—now hidden by a tree—now once more disclosed, and quitenear——
She straightened herself, gave a last look into the glass, and descended.
She met him in the hall. They shook hands, but did not speak. There was no need for him to ask whether anybody had come; the babble of noise could be plainly heard through the closed studio door. They walked along the passage, descended the two steps into the garden, and reached the studio.
Strong opened the door, and—
“Ha, ha, ha!I shall tell them that at theNursery!——”
“No—just living together——”
“Corin!—Corin!——”
“The eighteenth, at the Little Theatre——”
Then the voice of Mr. Crabtree vociferating to his friend Mr. Wilkinson.
“I thowt ye telled me ’at Pratt knew all aboutit——”
“One day in the High, just opposite Queens——”
“Not know the ‘Internationale’!—Debout, les damnés de laterre——!”
Next, sonorously, Miss Belchamber.
“Yes, I dance ‘Rufty Tufty’ and ‘Catching ofQuails’——”
“But my good chap, don’t you see that theReferendum——”
“Oh, throw it down anywhere—on the hearth——”
“Really, the bosh he talks——”
“The Minority Report——”
“Corin!——”
“Plato——”
“Prang——”
Then, before anybody had had time to notice the entry of Amory and Edgar Strong, an extraordinary, not to say a regrettable thing occurred.
Mr. Eli Crabtree had spent the last twenty minutes in going deliberately from one person to another, often thrusting himself unceremoniously between two people already engaged in conversation, and in subjecting them to questionings that had become less and less reticent the further he had passed round the room. And it appeared that this collier who had forgotten his Davy had yet another lamp with him—the lamp of his own narrow intelligence and inalienable, if worthless, experience. By the help of that darkness within him that he mistook for light, he had added inference to inference and conclusion to conclusion. Cosimo—Wilkinson—Walter Wyron—Brimby—the Balliol men—the young students of the McGrath—he had missed not one of them; but none knew the portent of his tour of the studio until he had reached the hearth again. Then he was seen to be standing with his hands behind him, as if calmly summing them up.
“By—Gow!” he said half to himself, his football-croppedhead moving this way and that and his eyes blinking rapidly as he sought somebody to address.
Then, all in a moment, he ceased his attempt to single out one more than another, and was addressing them in the lump, for all the world as if he had been allowed the entrée of the house, not as a high and memorable privilege and in order that he might learn something he had never suspected before, but as if, finding himself there,hemight as well tellthema thing or two while he was about it. And though his astonishment at what he had seen might well have rendered him dumb, his good temper did not for an instant forsake him.
“By—Gow!” he said again. “But this is a menagerie, an’ reight!”
The instantaneous dead silence and turn of every head might have disconcerted a prophet, but they made not the slightest impression on Mr. Crabtree.
“Itisa menagerie!” he continued superbly. “Ding, if onnybody’d told me I wadn’t ha’ believed ’em!—Let’s see how monny of ye thereis——”
And calmly he began to count them.
“Fowerteen—fifteen—sixteen countin’ them two ’at’s just come in an’ leavin’ out t’ barns. Sixteen of ye, grown men an’ women, an’ not a single one of ye knows ye’re born! Nay, it’s cappin’!—Him wi’ his Salmagundys or whativver he calls ’em, an’ niver been on Douglas Head!—T’ maister here, ’at doesn’t know what a back-to-back is, I’se warrant!—An’ yon chap—,” Mr. Crabtree’s forefinger was straight as a pistol between Mr. Brimby’s eyes, “—’at says there’s a deeal to be said o’ both sides an’ll be having his pocket’-ankercherout in a minute!—An’ these young men thro’ t’ Collidge!—Nay, if it doesn’t beat all! I ne’er thowt to live to see t’day!——”
And he made a T-t-t-ing with his tongue on his palate, while his sharp little eyes looked on them all with amusement and pity.
Out of the silence of consternation that had fallen on the studio Walter Wyron was the first to come. He nudged Cosimo, as if to warn him not to spoil everything, and then, with his hands deep in the pockets of his knickers and an anticipatory relish on his face, said “I say, old chap—make us a speech, won’t you?”
But if Walter thought to take a rise out of Mr. Crabtree he was quite, quite mistaken. With good-natured truculence the collier turned on him also.
“A speech?” he said. “Well, I wasn’t at t’ back o’ t’ door when t’ speechifyin’-powers was given out; it wadn’t be t’ first time I’d made a speech, nut by a mugfull. Mony’s t’ time they’ve put Eali Crabtree o’ t’ table i’ t’ ‘Arabian Horse’ at Aberford an’ called on him for a speech. I’d sooner mak’ a speech nor have a quart o’ ale teamed down my collar, an’ that’s all t’ choice there is when t’ lads begins to get lively!... I don’t suppose onny o’ ye’s ever been i’ t’ ‘Arabian Horse’? We owt to come, of a oppenin’-time of a Sunda’ morning. Ye’d see a bit o’ life. Happen ye might ha’ to get at t’ back o’ t’ door—if they started slinging pints about, that is—but it’s all love, and ye’ve got to do summat wi’ it when ye can’t sup onny more. I should like to have him ’at talks about t’ Paraphernalia there; it ’ld oppen his eyes a bit! An’ him ’at wor recitingabout t’ King an’ all—t’ little bastard i’ t’ cornerthere——”
At this word, used in so familiar and cheerful a sense, Laura Wyron stiffened and turned her back; but Walter still hoped for his “rise.”
“Go on,” he said; “give us some more, old chap.”
The child of nature needed no urging.
“Ay, as much as ivver ye like,” he said accommodatingly. “But I wish I’d browt my voice jewjewbes. Ay, I willn’t be t’ only one ’at isn’t talking! T’ rest on ye talks—ding, it’s like a lamb’s tail, waggin’ all day and nowt done at neet—so we mud as weel all be friendly-like! Talk! Ay, let’s have a talk! Here ye all are, all wi’ your fine voices an’ fine clothes, an’ ivvery one o’ ye wi’ t’ conveeanience i’ t’ house, I don’t doubt, an’ I’ll bet a gallon there isn’t one o’ ye’s ivver done a hands-turn i’ your lives! Nay, ye’re waur nor my Aunt Kate! Come down to Aberford an’ I’ll show ye summat! Come—it’s a invitaation—I’ll see it doesn’t cost ye nowt! T’ lads is all working, all but t’ youngest, an’ we’re nooan wi’ out! No, we’re nooan wi’out at our house! I’ll interdewce ye to t’ missis, an’ ye can help her to peel t’ potates, an’ ye can go down i’ t’ cage if ye like! Come, an’ I’ll kill a pig, just for love. Come of a Sunda’ dinnertime, when t’ beef’s hot. Wilkinson knows what I mean; he knows t’ life; he reckons not to when he’s wi’ his fine friends, but Wilkie’s had to lie i’ bed while his shirt was being mended afore to-day!... Nay, the hengments!” He broke into a jovial laugh. “Ye know nowt about it, an’ ye nivver will! These ’ere young pistills fro’ t’ Collidge—whatare they maalakin’ at? It doesn’t tak’ five thousand pound a year to learn a lad not to write a mucky word on a wall!” (Here Dickie Lemesurier turned her back on the speaker).... “They want to get back to their Collidges. T’ gap’s ower wide. They’ll get lost o’ t’ road. Same as him ’at wrote t’ book about t’ pop-shop——,” again Mr. Crabtree’s forefinger was levelled between Mr. Brimby’s eyes. “Brimbyin’ about, an’ they don’t know a black puddin’ from a Penny Duck! Has he ivver had to creep up again t’ chimley-wall to keep himself warm i’ bed, or to pull t’ kitchen blinds down while he washed himself of a Saturda’ afternooin? But ye can all come an’ see if ye like. We’ve had to tew for it, but we’re nooan wi’out now. An’ I’ll show ye a bit o’ sport too. We all have we’r whippets, an’ we can clock t’ pigeons in, an’ see what sort of a bat these young maisters can mak’ at knurr-an’-spell—eighteen-and-a-half score my youngest lad does! Ay, we enjoy we’rsens! An’ there’s quoits an’ all. Eighteen yards is my distance if onnybody wants to laake for a beast’s-heart supper! Come—ding it, t’ lot o’ ye come! We can sleep fower o’ ye, wed ’uns, heads to tails, if ye don’t mind all being i’ t’ littlecham’er——”
By this time Mr. Crabtree was having to struggle to keep his audience. Mr. Brimby too had turned away, and Mr. Wilkinson, and even Miss Belchamber had spoken several words of her own accord to the young Balliol boy. The tide of sound began to rise again, so that once more Mr. Crabtree’s voice was only one among many. Then Walter started forward withan “Ah, Amory!” and “Hallo, Strong!” Mr. Raffinger of the McGrath exclaimed....
“Perseverance Row, fower doors from t’ ‘Arabian Horse’——”, Mr. Crabtree bawled hospitably through the hubbub....
“Oh, youmustsee it—the New Greek Society, on theseventeenth——”
“But I say—whatis‘Catching of Quails,’ MissBelchamber——?”
“Mr. Wilkinson brought him, I think——”
“Fellow of All Souls, wasn’t he?——”
Then that genial Aberford man again:
“I tell ye t’ gap’s ower wide, young man—ye’ll get lost o’ t’road——”
“No, the children take her name——”
“Got a match, old fellow?——”
“Rot, my dear chap!——”
“But whatiscondonation if that isn’t?——”
“Oh, the ordinary brainless Army type——”
“I read it in the German——”
“They gained time by paying in pennies——”
“In Père Lachaise——”
“Well, we can talk about it at suppertime——”
“But with cheaper Divorce——”
“One an’ all—whenivver ye like—Eali Crabtree, Perseverance Row, Aberford, fower doors from t’ ‘ArabianHorse’——”
“Nietzsche——”
“Finot——”
“Weininger——”
“Wadham——”
“Aberford——”
“Rufty Tufty——”
“I—say!——”
“Wasn’the priceless!——”
“You got his address, Cosimo? Imustcultivatehim!——”
“Pure delight!——”
“You had come in, hadn’t you, Amory?——”
“HeshotBrimby!——”
“To all intents and purposes—with his finger——”
“Can you do his accent, Walter?——”
“I will in a week, or perish——”
“His bath in the kitchen!——”
“T’ wed ’uns can sleep i’ t’ littlechamber——”
“No—he didn’t sound the ‘b’ in ‘chamber,’ and there were at least three ‘a’s’ init——”
“‘T’ little chaaam’er’——”
“No, you haven’t quite got it——”
“Give me a little time——”
The party had dwindled to six—Cosimo and Amory, the Wyrons, and Britomart Belchamber and Mr. Strong. They were still in the studio, but they were only waiting for the supper-gong to ring. Cigarette ends were thickly strewn about the asbestos log. The bandying of short ecstatic phrases had been between Walter and his wife, with Cosimo a little less rapturously intervening;the subject of them was, of course, Mr. Crabtree. To his general harangue Mr. Crabtree had added, before leaving, more particular words of advice, making a second tour of the studio for the purpose; and he had distinguished Walter above all the rest by inviting him, not merely to the house four doors from the “Arabian Horse,” but to spend a warm afternoon with him on Douglas Head also.
But the Wyrons had these raptures pretty much to themselves. Perhaps Cosimo was thinking of Mr. Wilkinson, of some new paper of which he had never heard, and of the assumption that he, apparently, was to find the money for it. Miss Belchamber was rarely rapturous, so that her silence was nothing out of the way. Edgar Strong could be rapturous when he chose, but he evidently didn’t choose now. And Amory had far too much on her mind.
Her original idea in asking the Wyrons to stay to supper had been that they, as acknowledged experts in the subject that perplexed her, would be the proper people to keep the ring while the four persons immediately concerned talked the whole situation quietly and reasonably and thoroughly out. But she was rather inclined now to think again before submitting her case to them. It would be so much better, if the case must be submitted to anybody, that Cosimo should do it. Then she herself would be able to shape her course in the light of anything that might turn up. Nothing, she had to admit, had turned up yet, and Amory was not sure that in that very fact there did not lie a sufficient cause for resentment. Had Cosimo pleaded a passion for BritomartBelchamber he would have had Passion’s excuse. Lacking Passion, it could only be concluded that he was bored with Amory herself.
And that amounted to an insult....
The booming of the gong, however, cut short her brooding. They passed to the dining-room. Britomart and Walter sat with their backs to the tall black dresser with the willow pattern stretching up almost to the ceiling; Laura and Edgar took the German chairs that had their backs to the copper-hooded fireplace; and Cosimo and Amory occupied either end of the highly polished clothless table. This absence of cloth, by the way, gave a church-like appearance to the flames of the candles in the spidery brass sticks that had each of them a ring at the top to lift it up by; the preponderance of black oak and dull black frames on the walls further added to the effect of gloom; and the putting down of the little green pipkins of soup and the moving of the green-handled knives and round-bowled spoons made little knockings from time to time.
Again Walter and Laura, with not too much help from Cosimo, sustained the weight of the conversation; and it was not until Amory asked a question in a tone from which rapture was markedly absent that they sponged, as it were, the priceless memory of Mr. Crabtree from their minds. Amory’s question had been about Walter’s new Lecture, still in course of preparation, on “Post-Dated Passion”; and Walter cursorily ran over its heads for the general benefit.
“I admit I got the idea from Balzac,” he said between mouthfuls (whenever they came to The Witanthe Wyrons supped almost as heartily as did Edgar Strong himself). “‘Comment l’amour revient aux vieillards,’ you know. But of course that hasn’t any earthy interest for anybody. ‘Aux vieilles’ it ought to be. Then—well, then you’ve simply got ’em.”
“Why not ‘vieillards?’” Amory asked, not very genially.
“I say, Cosimo, I’ll have another cutlet if I may.—Why not ‘vieillards?’ Quite obvious. Men aren’t the interest. I’ve tried men, and you can ask Laura how the bookings went.—But ‘vieilles’ and I’ve got ’em. Really, Amory, you’re getting quite dull if you don’t see that! I’ll explain. You see, I’ve already got the younger ones, like Brit here—shove the claret along, Brit—but the others, of forty or fifty say, well, they’ve all had their affairs—or if they haven’t better still—and it’s merely a question of touching the right chord. Regrets, time they’ve lost, fatal words ‘Too late’ and so on—it’s simplymadefor me! Touch the chord and they do the rest for themselves. They probably won’t hear half of it for sobbing.—Of course I shall probably have to modify my style a bit—not quite so—what shall Isay——”
“Jaunty,” his wife suggested, “—in the best sense, Imean——”
“Hm—that’s not quite the word—but never mind. It’s a great field. Certainly women, not men, are the draw.”
Amory made a rather petulant objection, and the argument lasted some minutes. In the end Walter triumphantly gained his first point, that women and notmen were the “draw” in the box-office sense; and also his second one, namely, that not the Britomarts, but the older women, who would put their hearts into his hands and pay him for exploiting their helplessness and ache and tenderness and regret, and never suspect that they were being practised upon, were “simply made for him....” “What do you think of my title?” he asked.
And the title was discussed.
Amory was beginning to find Walter just a little grasping. She wished that after all she had not asked the Wyrons to stay to supper. Formerly she had thought that marriage-escapade of theirs big and heroic (that too, by the way, had been in the Latin Quarter, and probably on seven francs a day); but now she was less sure about that. Quite apart from the inapplicability of the Wyrons’ experience to her own case, she now wondered whether theirs had in fact been experience at all. Now that she came to think of it, they had taken no risks. Theyhadbeen married, and in the last event could always turn round on their critics and silence them with that fact....
Nor was she quite so ready now to lay even the souls of Britomart and Cosimo on the dissecting-table for the sake of seeing Walter exercise his professional skill upon them. This was not so much that she wanted to spare Cosimo and Britomart as that she did not want to give Walter a gratification. She was inclined to think that if Walter couldn’t be a little more careful about contradicting her he might find his advertisement omitted from the “Novum” one week, as Katie Deedes’had been omitted, and where would he be then? The way in which he had just said that she was “getting quite dull” had been next door to a rudeness....
But she had to admit that she felt dull. Edgar, who sat next to her, did not speak, and Cosimo, who faced her, was apparently still brooding on people who planned the spending of his money without thinking it necessary to consult him first. She was tired of the whole of the circumstances of her life. Paris on seven francs a day could hardly be much worse. Nor, if she could but shake off her lethargy, need that sum be fixed as low as seven francs. For she had lately remembered an arrangement made between herself and Cosimo before she had ever consented to become engaged to him. It was a long time since either of them had spoken of this arrangement—so long that Cosimo would have been almost within his rights had he maintained that the circumstances had so altered as to make it no longer binding; but there it was, or had been, and it had never been expressly revoked. It was the arrangement by which they had set apart a fund to insure themselves, either or both of them, against any evils that might arise from incompatibility. Amory had no idea how the matter now stood. She didn’t suppose for a moment that Cosimo had actually set a sum by each week or month; but, hard and fast or loose and fluid, he must have made, or be still ready to make, some provision. It was an inherent part of the contract that a solemn affirmation, with reason shown (spiritual, not mere legal reason) by either one or the other, should constitute a sufficient claim on this fund.
Therefore Paris need not necessarily be the worst penury.
But, for all her new inclination to leave the Wyrons out of it, she still thought it a prudent idea to carry the fight (not that there would be any fight—that was only a low way of expressing the high reasonableness that always prevailed at The Witan) to Cosimo and Britomart, rather than to have it centre about Edgar and herself. Walter’s eyes were mainly on the box-office nowadays. The original virtue of that fine protest of theirs was—there was no use in denying it—gone. He spread his Lectures frankly now as a net. Well, that was only one net more among the many nets of which she was becoming conscious. Edgar too, poor boy, was compelled to regard even the “Novum” as in some manner a net. Mr. Brimby, Amory more than guessed, had nets to spread. Mr. Wilkinson, in his own way, was out for a catch; and Dickie fished at the Suffrage Shop; and Katie had fished at the Eden; and the only one who didn’t fish was Mr. Prang, who wrote his articles about India for nothing, just to be practising his English.
All these nets were spread for somebody’s money—a good deal of it Cosimo’s. It had been the same, though perhaps not quite so bad, at Ludlow. That experiment on the country-side had been alarmingly costly. And all this did not include the dozens and dozens of nets of narrower mesh. The “Novum” might gulp down money by the hundred, but the lesser things were hardly less formidable in the sum of them—subscriptions, contributions, gifts, loans, investments,shares in the Eden and the Book Shop, mortgages, second mortgages, subsidies, sums to “tide over,” backings, guarantees, losses cut, more good money sent to bring back the bad, fresh means of spending devised by somebody or other almost every day. It had begun to weary even Amory. The people who came to The Witan became rather curiously better-dressed the longer their visiting continued; but the things they professed to hold dear appeared very little further advanced. All that first brightness and promise had gone. Amory’s interest had gone. She wanted to escape from it all, and to go away with Edgar appeared once more to be the readiest way out.
But, though she might now wish to keep Walter Wyron out of it all, that did not necessarily mean that Walter would be kept out. Thisex-officiospecialist on the (preferably female) heart, this professional rectifier of unfortunate marriages, had not done a number of years’ platform-work without having discovered the peculiar beauties of theargumentum ad hominem, and it was one of his practices to enforce his arguments with “Take the case of Brit here”—or “Let’s get down to the concrete: suppose Amory—” And these descents to the particular had always a curiously accusatory effect. Walter, interrupting Amory’s meditation, broke into one of them now.
“But my dear chap,”—this was to Cosimo, “—I can’t imagine what’s come over all of you to-night! First Amory, now you! You’re usually quicker than this! Let’s take a case.—Brithere——”
One sterno-mastoid majestically turned the caryatid’shead. Again Miss Belchamber’s grand thorax worked as if somebody had put a penny into the slot.
“What?” she said.
“Quiet, Brit; I’m only using you as an illustration.—Suppose Brit here was to develop a passion for somebody—Cosimo, say; yes, Cosimo’ll do capitally; awfully good instance of the cant that’s commonly talked about ‘treachery’ and ‘under his own roof’ and all the rest of it—as if a roof wasn’t a roof and it hadn’t got to be under somebody’s—unless they went out on the Heath!—Well, suppose it was to happen to Cosimo and Brit; what then? We’re civilized, I hope. We’re a little above the animals, I venture to think. Amory wouldn’t fly at Brit’s eyes, and Brit’s father wouldn’t come round with a razor to cut Cosimo’s throat. Infact——”
“My fa-ther al-ways uses a safety-razor,” said Miss Belchamber with a reminiscent air.
“Don’t interrupt, Brit.—I was going to say that the world’s got past all that. Nor Brit wouldn’t fly at Amory, nor Cosimo kick the old josser out of the house—though we should be much more ready to condone that part of it if they did—if it was only to get quits with the past abit——”
“My fa-ther’s forty-five,” Miss Belchamber announced, as the interesting result of an interesting mental process of computation. “Next June,” she added.
“More interruptions from the back of the hall.—In fact, I’m not sure thatwouldn’tbe entirely defensible—Brit going for Amory and Cosimo kicking the old dodderer out, I mean. That’s the justification of thecrime passionel. It’s the Will to Live. And by Live I mean Love. It’s the old saying, that kissing lips have no conscience. Or Jove laughs at lovers’ oaths. Quite right. It’s the New Greek Spirit. But for all that we’re modern and rational about these things. If Strong here wanted to take Laura from me I should simply say, ‘All you’ve got to do, my dear chap, is to table your reasons, and if they’re stronger than mine you take her.’ See?”
At that Edgar Strong, like Britomart, looked up. He spoke for the first time.—“What’s that you’re saying?” he asked.
“I don’t suppose you’d want her, but suppose you did....”
Mr. Strong dropped his eyes to his plate again.—“Ah, yes,” he said. “Ellen Key’s got something about that.” And he relapsed into silence again.
It sounded to Amory idiotic. Walter was so evidently “trying” it on them in order to see how it would go down with an audience afterwards. She wouldn’t have scratched Britomart’s eyes out for Cosimo,—but she coloured a little, and bit her lip, at the thought that somebody might want to come between herself and Edgar.... But perhaps that was what Walter meant—real affinities, as distinct from the ordinary vapid assumptions about marriages being made in Heaven. If so, she agreed with him—not that she was much fonder of him on that account. She wished he would keep his personalities for Cosimo and Britomart, and leave herself and Edgar alone.—Walter went on.
“And then, when you’ve got your New Greek Certificate, so to speak, it’s plainly the duty of everybody else, not to put obstacles in your way and to threaten you with razors and cutting off supplies, but to sink their personal feelings and to do everything they can to help you. And without snivelling either. I shouldn’t snivel, I hope, if anybody took Laura, and she wouldn’t if anybody tookme——”
Here Laura interposed softly.—“I don’t want any one to take you, dear,” she said.
Walter turned sharply.
“Eh?... Now you’ve put me off my argument.... What was I saying?... Haven’t I told you you mustneverdo that, Laura?... No, it’s quite gone.... You see....”
Laura murmured that she was very sorry....
“No, it’s gone,” said Walter, almost cheerfully, as if not sorry that for once the worth of what he had been about to say should be measured by the sense of loss. “So since Laura wishes it I’ll shut up.”
He passed up his plate for a second helping of trifle.
By this time Amory was perhaps rather glad that she had had the Wyrons after all. That about people not putting obstacles in the way was quite neat. “A plain duty,” he had said. She hoped Cosimo’d heard that, and would remember it when she raised the subject of the fund. And so far was she herself from putting obstacles inhisway that, although she could have sent Britomart Belchamber packing with her wages at any moment, she had not done so. That, as Walter hadsaid, would only have been another way of flying at her eyes.... Besides, Amory had been far too deeply occupied to formulate definitely her charges against Cosimo and Britomart. For all she knew it might have gone much, much further than she had thought. Sometimes, when Amory took breakfast in her own room, she did not see Cosimo until the evening, and Britomart too had heaps of time on her hands when she had finished with Corin and Bonniebell. Cosimo must not tell her that the “Life and Work” occupied him during every minute of his time....
Then, presently, she was sorry again that the Wyrons had been asked, for Walter had suddenly remembered the thread of his discourse, and, in continuing it, had been almost rude to Laura. She wondered whether he would have turned with a half angry “Why, what’s the matter?” had Laura cried. Perhaps it was really a good thing the Wyrons hadn’t any children, for this kind of thing would certainly have been a bad example for them. She herself was never rude to Cosimo before Corin and Bonniebell. She was always markedly polite. There were excuses to be made for Passion, but none for rudeness.
By this time Edgar Strong had finished his last piece of cheese and was wiping his lips with his napkin. Then he looked at his watch, and for the second time during the course of the meal spoke.
“Look here, Cosimo, I’ve got to be off presently, and we haven’t settled about those advertisements yet. And there’s something else I want to say to you too.Could we hurry coffee up? Where do we have it? In the studio, I suppose? Or do the others go into the studio and you and Walter and I have ours here?”
“We might as well all go into the studio,” said Cosimo, rising; and they left the sombre room and sought the studio, all except Miss Belchamber, who went upstairs.
The sight of the innumerable cigarette-ends about the asbestos log reminded Walter of Mr. Crabtree again; and for a minute or two—that is to say during the time that Walter, taking her aside, told her of the quiet but penetrating side-light Mr. Crabtree had innocently shed on Mr. Wilkinson’s scheme for some new paper or other that Cosimo was to finance—Amory was once more glad that the Wyrons had come. But the next moment, as Walter loitered away and Laura came and sat softly down beside her, she was sorry again. Laura was gently crying. That struck Amory as stupid. As if she hadn’t enough great troubles of her own, without burdening herself with the Wyrons’ trivial ones!
So, as she had nothing really helpful to say to Laura, she left her, and sat down on the footstool she had occupied on the day when Edgar Strong had said that he liked the casts and had asked her whether she had read something or other—she forgot what.
Edgar was talking in low tones to Cosimo, and Amory thought she heard the name of Mr. Prang. Then Cosimo, who always thought more Imperially with a map before him, got out the large atlas, and the two of them bent over it together. Walter joined them, and, after an interlude that appeared to be about the Lectures’advertisement, Walter strolled away again and joined Laura. Amory heard an “Eh?” and a moment later the word “touchy,” and Walter went off to the window with his hands in the pockets of his knickers, whistling. Edgar took not the least notice of Amory’s eyes intently fixed upon him. He continued to talk to Cosimo. Walter, who was examining a Japanese print, called over his shoulder, “This a new one, Amory? What is it—Utamaro?” Then he walked up to where Laura sat again. He was speaking in an undertone to her: “Rubbish ... take on like that ... better clear off then”; and a moment later, seeing Edgar Strong buttoning up his coat, he called out, “Wait a minute, Strong—we’re going down too—get your hat,Laura——”
Five minutes later Cosimo Pratt and his wife were alone.
It was the first time they had been so for nearly a fortnight. Indeed, for weeks the departure of the last visitor had been the signal for their own good-night, Cosimo going his way, she hers. There had never been anything even remotely approaching a “scene” to account for this. It had merely happened so.
Therefore, finding himself alone with his wife in the studio again, Cosimo yawned and stretched his arms above his head.
“Ah-h-h!... You going to bed?”
As he would hardly be likely to take himself off before she had answered his question, Amory did not reply at once. She sat down on the footstool and stretched her hands out to the asbestos log. Then, after a minute,and without looking up, she broke one of their tacitly accepted rules by asking a direct question.
“What were you and Edgar Strong discussing?” she asked.
He yawned again.—“Oh, the Bookshop advertisement—and advertisements generally. It begins to look as if we should have to be less exclusive about these things. Strong tells me that it’s unheard of for a paper to refuse any advertisement it can get.”
“I mean when you got out the atlas.”
“Oh—India, of course. The Indian policy. Strong isn’t altogether satisfied about Prang. He seems to think he might get us into trouble.”
“How? Why?” Amory said, her eyes reflectively on the purring gas-jets.
“Can’t make out. Some fancy of his. The policy hasn’t changed, and Prang hasn’t changed. I wonder whether Wilkinson’s right when he says Strong’s put his hand to the plough but is now ...ah!That reminds me!—Were you here when that preposterous fellow—what’s his name—Crabtree—rather let the cat out of the bag about Wilkinson?”
“You mean about another paper? No. But Walter said something about it.”
“Yes, by Jove! He seems to have it all cut-and-dried! Crabtree seems to think I knew all about it. Of course I did know that Wilkinson had a scheme, but I’d no idea he was jumping ahead at that rate. I don’t want two papers. One’s getting rather serious.”
Still without looking at her husband, Amory said, “How, serious?”
“Why, the expense. I’m not sure that we didn’t take the wrong line about the advertisements. Anyway, something will have to be done. Thirty pounds a week is getting too stiff. I’m seriously thinking of selling out from the Eden and the Bookshop. Do you know that with one thing and another we’re down more than three thousand pounds this year?”
Amory was surprised; but she realized instinctively that that was not the moment to show her surprise. Were she to show it, the moment would not be opportune for the raising of the subject of the fund, and she wanted to raise that subject. And she wanted to raise it in connexion with Cosimo and Britomart Belchamber. She continued to gaze at the log. The servants, she thought, might have taken the opportunity of dinner to sweep up the litter of cigarette-ends that surrounded it; and then she had a momentary fancy. It was, that the domestic relations that existed between herself and Cosimo were a thing that, like that mechanical substitute for a more generous fire, could be turned off and on as it were by the mere touching of a tap. She wondered what made her think of that....
Cosimo had taken out his penknife and was scraping his nails, moodily running over items of disbursement as he scraped; and then the silence fell between them again.
It was Amory who broke it, and in doing so she turned her head for the first time. She gave her husband a look that meant that, though he might talk about expenses, she also had a subject.
“Walter was excessively stupid to-night,” she said abruptly.
He said “Oh?” and went on scraping.
“At the best he’s never a model of tact, but I thought he rather overstepped the mark at dinner.”
Again he said “Oh?” and added, “What about?”
“His manners. His ideas are all right, I suppose, but I’m getting rather tired of his platform-tricks.”
“His habit of illustration and so on?”
“And his want of tact generally. In fact I’m not sure it isn’t more than that. In a strange house it would have been simply afaux pas, but he knows us well enough, and the arrangement between us. He might at any rate wait till he’s called in.”
Cosimo started on another nail.—“What arrangement?” he said.
Again Amory gave him that look that might have told him that, though he might think that only a lot of money had gone, she knew that something far more vital had gone with it.
“Do you mean that you didn’t hear what he was saying about you and Britomart Belchamber?”
“Yes, I heard that, of course. Of course I heard it.”
“Well?”
“Well!”
And this time their eyes met in a long look....
Cosimo had only himself to thank for what happened to him then. After all, you cannot watch a superb piece of female mechanism playing “Catchingof Quails,” and openly admire the way in which it can shut up like a clasp-knife and fold itself upon itself like a multiple lever, and pretend to be half in love with it lest sharp eyes should see that you are actually half in love with it, and take it for walks, and discuss Walter’s Lectures with it, and tell it frequently how different things might have been had you been ten years younger, and warn it to be a good girl because of dangerous young men, and stroke its hair, and tell it what beautiful eyes it has, and kiss its hand from time to time, and walk with your arm protectingly about its waist, and so on and so forth, day after day—you cannot, after all, do these things and be entirely unflurried when your ever-so-slightly tiresome wife reminds you that, be it only by way of illustration, a young expert in such matters has coupled your name with that of the passive object of your philanderings. Nor can you reasonably be surprised when that wife gives you a long look, that doesn’t reproach you for anything except for your stupidity or hypocrisy if you pretend not to understand, and then resumes her meditative gazing into a patent asbestos fire. Appearancesarefor the moment against you. You cannothelp for one moment seeing it as it must have appeared all the time to somebody else. Of course you know that you are in the right really, and the other person entirely wrong, and that with a little reasonableness on that other person’s part you could make this perfectly clear; but youarerather trapped, you know it, and the state of mind in which you find yourself is called by people who aren’t anybody in particular “flurry.”
Which is perhaps rather a long way of saying that Cosimo was suddenly and entirely disconcerted.
And his flurry included a certain crossness and impatience with Amory. She was—could be—only pretending. She knew perfectly well that there was nothing really. The least exercise of her imagination must have told her that to press Britomart Belchamber’s hand, for example, was the most innocent of creature-comforts. Why, he had pressed it with Amory herself there; he had said, jokingly, and Amory had heard him, that it was a desirable hand to press, and he had pressed it. And so with Britomart’s dancing of “Rufty Tufty.” Amory, who, like Cosimo, had had an artist’s training, ought to be the last person to deny that any eye so trained did not see a hundred beauties where eyes uneducated saw one only. And that of course meant chaste beauties. Such admiration was an exercise in analysis, not in amorousness.... No, it was far more likely that Amory was getting at him. She was smiling, a melancholy and indifferent little smile, at the asbestos log. She had no right to smile like that. It made him feel beastly. It made him so that he didn’t know what to say....
But she continued to smile, and when Cosimo did at last speak he hated himself for stammering.
“But—but—but—oh, come, Amory, thisisabsurd! You’re—you’re tired! Me and Britomart! Oh,c-c-come!——”
And then it occurred to him that this was a ridiculous answer, and that the proper answer to have made would have been simply to laugh. He did laugh.
“Ha, ha, ha! By Jove, for the moment you almost took me in! You really did get a rise out of me that time! Congratulations.—And I admit it is rather cool of Walter to pounce on the first name that occurs to him and make use of it in that way. Deuced cool when you come to think of it. It seems tome——”
But again that quite calm and unreproaching look silenced him. There was a loftiness and serenity about it that reminded him of the Amory of four or five years before. And she spoke almost with a note of wonder at him in her tone.
“My dear Cosimo,” she said very patiently, “what is the matter? You look at me as if I had accused you of something. Nothing was further from my thoughts. I suppose, when you examine it, it’s a matter for congratulation, not accusation at all. As Walter said, I don’t want to fly at anybody’s eyes. We foresaw this, and provided for it, you know.”
At this cool taking for granted of a preposterous thing Cosimo’s stammer became a splutter.—“But—but—but—,” he broke out: but Amory held up her hand.
“I raise no objection. I’ve no right to. What earthly right have I, when I concurred before ever we were married?”
“Concurred!... My dear girl, concurred in what? Really this is the most ridiculous situation I was ever in!”
Amory raised her brows.—“Oh?... I don’t see anything ridiculous about it. It received my sanction when Britomart stopped in the house, and I haven’tchanged my mind. As I say, we foresaw it, and provided for it.”
“‘It!’” Cosimo could only pipe—one little note, high and thin as that of a piccolo. Amory continued.
“I’m not asking a single question about it. I’m not even curious. I didn’t become your property when we married, and you’re not mine. Our souls are our own, both of us. I think we were very wise to foresee it quite at the beginning.—And don’t think I’m jealous. Perfectly truly, I wish you every happiness. Britomart’s a very pretty girl, and nobody can say she’s always making a display of her cleverness, like some of them. I respect your privacy, and want you to do the best you can with your life.”
The piccolo note changed to that of a bassoon.—“Amory—listen to me.”
“No. I’dverymuch rather not hear anything about it. As Walter said, LifeisLove, and I only mentioned this at all to-night because there is one quite small practical detail that doesn’t seem to me entirely satisfactory.”
She understood Cosimo to ask what that was.
“This: You ought to be fair to her. I know you’ll forgive my mentioning anything so vulgar, but it is—about money. She can’t be expected to think of such things herself just now,”—there were whole honeymoons in the reasonable little nod Amory gave, “—and soImention it. It’s my place to do so. For us all just to dip our hands into a common purse doesn’t seem to me very satisfactory. She’s rights too that I shouldn’t dream of disputing. And don’t think I’m assumingmore than there actually is. I only mean that I don’t see why, in certain events, you shouldn’t, et cetera; that’s all I mean. You see?... But I admit that for everybody’s sake I should like things put on a proper footing without loss of time.”
Cosimo had begun to wander up and down among the saddlebag chairs. His slender fingers rested aimlessly on the backs of them from time to time. Amory thought that he was about to try the remaining notes within the compass of his voice, but instead he suddenly straightened himself. He appeared to have come to a resolution. He strode towards the door.
“Where are you going?” Amory asked.
“I’m going to fetch Britomart,” he replied shortly. “This is preposterous.”
But again he hesitated, as perhaps Amory surmised he might. His offer, if it meant anything, ought to have meant that his conscience was so clear that Amory might catechize Britomart to her heart’s content; but therehadbeen those hair-strokings and hand-pattings, and—and—and Britomart, as Amory had said, was “not always making a display of her cleverness.” She might, indeed, let fall something even more disconcerting than therest—
Cosimo was trying a bluff.
In a word, between fetching Britomart and not fetching her, Amory had her husband by the short hairs.
She mused.—“Just a moment,” she said.
And then she rose from the footstool, put one hand on the edge of the mantelpiece, and with the other drewup her skirt an inch or two and stretched out her slipper to the log.
“It really isn’t necessary to fetch Britomart,” she said after a moment, looking up. “Fetch her if you prefer it, of course, but first I want to say something else—something quite different.”
That it was something quite different seemed to be a deep relief to Cosimo. He returned from the door again.
“What’s that?” he said.
“It’s different,” Amory said slowly, “but related. Let me think a moment how to put it.... You were speaking a few minutes ago of selling out from the Eden and the Suffrage Shop. If I understand you, things aren’t going altogether well.”
“They aren’t,” said Cosimo, almost grimly.
“And then,” Amory continued, “there’s Mr. Prang. Neither you nor Strong seem very satisfied about him.”
“It’s Strong who isn’t satisfied. I’ve no complaints to make about Prang.”
“Well, I’ve been thinking about that too, and I’ve had an idea. I’m not sure that after all Strong mayn’t be right. I admit Prang states a case as well as it could be stated; the question is whether it’s quite the case wewantstated. His case is ours to a large extent, but perhaps not altogether. And as matters stand we’re in his hands about India, simply because he knows more about it than we do. You see what I mean?”
“Not quite,” said Cosimo.
“No? Well, let me tell you what I’ve been thinking....”
Those people who are nobodys, and have not had the enormous advantage of being taken by the hand by the somebodys, are under a misconception about daring and original ideas. The ideals seem original and daring to them because the processes behind them are hidden. The inferior mind does not realize of itself that every sudden and miraculous blooming is already an old story to somebody.
But Cosimo occupied a sort of intermediary position between the sources of inspiration and the flat levels of popular understanding. Remember, he was in certain ways one of the public; but at the same time he was the author of the “Life and Work.” He took his Amory, so to speak, nascent. Therefore, when she gave utterance to a splendour, he credited himself with just that measure of participation in it that causes us humbler ones, when we see the airman’s spiral, to fancy our own hands upon the controls, or, when we read a great book, to sun ourselves in the flattering delusion that we do not merely read, but, in some mysterious sense, participate in the writing of it also.
And so the words which Amory spoke now—words which would have caused you or me to give a gasp of admiration—affected him less extraordinarily.
“Why don’t you go to India and see for yourself?” she said.
Nevertheless, Cosimo was not altogether unaffected. Even to his accustomed ear it was rather stupendous, and, if he hadn’t been again uneasily wondering whether he dared risk having Britomart down when Amory should return to the former subject again, might havebeen more stupendous still. He resumed his walk along the saddlebag chairs, and, when at last he did speak, did not mar a high occasion with too much vulgar demonstrativeness.
“That’s an idea,” he said simply.
“You see, Mr. Chamberlain went to South Africa,” Amory replied, as simply.
“Yes,” said Cosimo thoughtfully.... “It’s certainly an idea.”
“And you know how people have been getting at the ‘Novum’ lately, and even suggesting that Prang was merely a pen-name for Wilkinson himself.”
“Yes, yes.”
“Well, if you went, for six months, say, or even three, nobody’d be able to say after that that you didn’t know all about it.”
“No,” Cosimo replied.
“The stupid people go. Why not the people with eyes and minds?”
“Exactly,” said Cosimo, resuming his walk.
Then, as if he had been a mere you or a simple me, the beauty of the idea did begin to work a little in him. He walked for a space longer, and then, turning, said almost with joy, “I say, Amory—would youliketo go?”