The plain upshot, then, was as follows:
Mrs. John Z. Adelboden's familiar little note to the Prince arrived the same evening as Mrs. Palmer wrote hers. H. R. T. accepted it in his own hand with some effusion. Mrs. Palmer's card arrived next morning. H. R. T. read it in bed, thought to himself—the 'Indiscriminate' did it-' That will be more amusing.' He had forgotten altogether about his acceptance of the Newport invitation, and if he had remembered it he would not have done differently. So, after a light and wholesome breakfast of a peach, washed down with some hock and soda, he accepted Mrs. Palmer's invitation.
The news was all over Newport (that he was coming there) before evening, and theGutter Snipegave his portrait and biography (both unrecognisable). The news was all over Long Island (that he was coming there) by evening, and theStartlergave the portrait and biography of Mrs. Lewis S. Palmer. Then followed two days of suspense and anxiety which can only be called sickening. Eventually the two announcements were laid before Prince Fritz by his trembling secretary, who asked him what he meant to do. He flew into a violent passion, and exclaimed with a strong German accent: 'Olso, I shall go where I choose, and when I choose, and how I choose.' And suspense continued to reign.
So the momentous afternoon arrived that was to bring the Prince in Mrs. Adelboden's private railway-carriage to Newport or in Mrs. Palmer's motor to Mon Repos, and still no word of enlightenment had come which should pierce the thick clouds of doubt which hid the face of the future. Newport and Long Island were bothen fête, and at the rail-way-station of the one, and on the lawns of Mon Repos at the other, the rival factions were awaiting the supreme moment in a tense, unnatural calm. Mrs. Palmer alone was absent from her guests, sitting at the telephone. At length it sounded, and with a quivering lip she unhooked the receiver. Then she gave one long sob of relief, and rejoined her guests. The motor-car had started, and the Prince was in it. And the Revels began.
At the supreme moment of his arrival, when all attention was breathlessly concentrated on him, a large signboard, bearing the mystic inscription 'To the Pearl Fishery,' had been erected at the head of the staircase leading down to the lagoon, and with charming directness the Prince pointed to it, and said: 'What does that mean, Mrs. Adelboden—I should say, Mrs. Palmer?' And Mrs. Palmer replied: 'I guess, sir, we'll go and see.'
The expectant crowd followed them; it was felt that the secret on which so much fruitless curiosity had been wasted was about to be revealed, but, like a good secret, it baffled conjecture up till the very last moment. The crowd screamed and chattered through the woods, following their illustrious leader, and at last emerged on to the beach. There an immense sort of bathing establishment had been erected, containing hundreds of little cabinets; there were two wings—one for men, one for women—and in each cabinet for women was a blue serge skirt and sandals, a leather pouch, and a small fishing-net; in each cabinet for men was the same apparatus minus the skirt. The lagoon itself smelt strongly of rose-water, for thousands of gallons had just been emptied into it, and the surface was covered with floating tables laden with refreshments, and large artificial water-lilies. And scattered over the bottom of the lagoon—scattered, too, with a liberal hand—were hundreds of pearl oysters.
There was no time wasted; as soon as Prince Fritz grasped the situation, and it had been made clear to him that he might keep any pearls he found, he rushed madly to the nearest cabin, rolled his trousers up to the knee, put the sandals on his rather large, ungainly feet, and plunged into the rose-watered lagoon. Nor were the rest slow to follow his example, and in five minutes it was a perfect mob of serge-skirted women and bare-legged men. Mr. Palmer himself did not join in the wading, for, in addition to a slight cold, wading was bad for his chronic indigestion; but he seized a net, and puddled about with it from the shore. Shrieks of ecstasy greeted the finding of the pearls; cries of dismay arose if the shell was found to contain nothing. Faster and more furious grew the efforts of all to secure them; for a time the floating refreshment-tables attracted not the smallest attention. In particular, the Prince was entranced, and, not waiting to open the shells where the oyster was still alive (most, however, had been killed by the rose-water or the journey, and gaped open), he stowed them away in his pockets, in order to examine them afterwards—not waste the precious moments when so many were in competition with him; and his raucous cries of 'Ach, Himmel! there is a peauty!' resounded like a bass through the shrill din. He paid no attention whatever to the throng round him; for the present he was intent on the entertainment, and paused once only to empty a bottle of Munich beer which had been especially provided for him on a table with a scarlet tablecloth; for the day was hot, and the exertions of grubbing in the sand quite severe.
Bertie Keynes had not entered the water with the first wild scramble, but had stood on the bank a few minutes, divided between amazement and helpless giggling as he observed Mrs. Cyrus F. Bimm, a stout, middle-aged woman, lately widowed, plunge in without even pausing to take her stockings off, and fall flat on her face. But, though soaked, she was utterly undismayed, and, grasping her net, Wasted no time in idle laments or in changing her clothes. Her hat was naturally black, and streams of dye poured down her face and neck. Her dress was black, too, and as wet as her hat. But then the indescribable frolic of the thing—there is no other word for it—seized him, and just as Amelie, looking like a nymph of Grecian waterways, hurried past him, radiant, slim-limbed, an embodiment of joy, and beckoned to him, he delayed no longer, but joined the rest. But, 'Oh, if Judy could see me now!' he said to himself, as he took off his socks.
For an hour or more the pearl-hunting went on, and every oyster had been fished up and the whole lagoon churned into mud long before the Prince could be persuaded to leave it. Twice he made a false start, and came out of the water, only to seize his net again and hurry back on the chance of finding another, his pockets bulging with the shells he had not yet opened. All the time the telegraph was whirring and clicking the news of the huge success of Mrs. Palmer's first afternoon of Revels and the ecstasies of the Prince all over the country; and Mrs. John Z. Adelboden, like Marius, sat and wept among the ruins of Newport.
Bilton and Mrs. Emsworth had driven down together in a motor from New York, but the latter had to get back in time to act that evening, to return late on Saturday night, stop over Sunday, and act at Mon Repos on Sunday evening. Bilton, on the other hand, had taken a rare holiday, and was not returning to town till the next week. Constitutionally, he disliked a holiday; this one, however, he had less objection to, since there was a definite aim he wished to accomplish during it. He was a man to be described as a person of appetites rather than of emotions, and his appetites partook of the nature of the rest of him. They were keen, definite, and orderly—not clamorous or brutal in the least degree, but hard and clear-cut. He was supposed not many years ago to have proposed by telegram to the lady who subsequently became Mrs. John Z. Adelboden, who had replied by the same medium, 'Much regret; am otherwise engaged.' This had tickled Bilton tremendously, and he had the telegram framed and put up in his flat.
During the past summer Mrs. Massington had seen a good deal of him in London, and though she had frankly conceded that, according, anyhow, to Charlie Brancepeth's notions, he was a cad, there was a great deal about him she liked immensely. Just as she liked the clearness of line, absence of 'fluff,' in a room, so she liked—more than liked —precision of mind in a person. He was quick, definite, and reasonable in the sense that he acted, and could always be counted on to act, strictly in accordance with conclusions at which he had arrived, and which would be found to be based on sound reasoning. She liked also his spare, business-like habit of body, his scrupulous tidiness of attire, his quick, firm movements, his extreme efficiency of person. Underlying this, and but dimly present to her consciousness, was the fact that he so much resembled in face and frame Charlie Brancepeth, towards whom she had always felt a good deal of affection—whose devotion to her touched, though at times it irritated, her. Had things been different, she would have married him, but since matrimonially he was impossible, she did not in the least propose to practise celibacy. As she had told Judy, she believed she was incapable of what many other people would call love; but she was a great believer in happiness, and knew that she had a fine appetite for it. Many things might contribute to it, but love was by no means an essential constituent. And more and more, especially since her arrival in America, she liked the quality of mind which may be broadly called sensibleness. Americans—except when they were revelling—seemed to her to have a great deal of it.
The pearl-fishing had been succeeded by bridge, bridge by dinner, and dinner by a ball in the room entirely papered with roses. Sensationally—from the point of view, that is, of cost—it was a great success, but practically the scent was so overpowering that it was impossible to dance there for more than a few minutes at a time without, so to speak, coming up to breathe. Consequently, there was a good deal of sitting-out done, and Bilton firmly and collectedly managed to spend a large part of the evening with Sybil Massington.
'I should so like to know what you really think of us all,' he said on one of these occasions in his quiet, English-sounding voice.
'I adore you,' said she—' collectively, I mean.'
'Ah, that spoils it all,' said he; 'we all want to be adored individually.'
'There are too many of you for me to do that,' she said; 'I should have to cut my heart up into so many little bits. Wherever I go—there's a song about it—I leave my heart behind me. I always do that. People seem to me very nice.'
'You are taking the rest of the stuffing out,' remarked he in a slightly injured voice.
She laughed.
'Well, I find you all charming,' she said again. 'Will that do?'
'I suppose it will have to. And your friend, Lord Keynes?'
'Ah, he finds one person so charming that I don't think he thinks much about the rest,' she said. Look, there they are.'
Bilton did not look; he had already seen them; he usually saw things first.
'Do you think he will marry her?' he asked.
'Yes; certainly, I hope so. If he marries at all, he must marry money.'
'And Nature clearly designed Miss Palmer to be a peeress. In fact, the match was made in heaven.'
'I hope it will be ratified on earth,' she said. 'Why are you cynical about it?'
'I am never cynical; what makes you think that?'
'Well, simple, direct; it comes to the same thing. To tell the truth is often the most cynical thing you can do.'
'Not if it is a pleasant truth. And it will be very pleasant to Miss Palmer to be an English peeress. And, as you said yourself, it is only possible for Lord Keynes to marry money. And he is fortunate in his money-bag,' he added.
She frowned a little; there was something in this speech which, with all her admiration for his countrymen, struck her as both characteristic and disagreeable. He saw it.
'Ah, that offends you,' he said quickly. 'I apologize. I wish you would teach me better. You know there is a something, an inherent coarseness, about us, which I have seen get, ever so slightly, on to your nerves fifty times a day.'
She laughed.
'Teach you!' she said; 'I am learning far too much myself.'
'You learning? What, for instance?'
'Not to be finicking, not to be slack and dawdling. To go ahead and do something. If a person of my nature was in Mr. Palmer's place, do you suppose I should go on working as he does? I would never touch a business question again.'
He shook his head.
'Believe me, you would; you would not be able to help it. Lewis Palmer can't stop; his wife can't stop; I can't stop, in my small way. But you at present have the power of stopping. It is the most exquisite thing in the world. To us, to me, I assure you, it is like a cool breeze on a hot day to see you leisurely English people. In England you have a leisured class; we have none. Our wealthy class is the least leisured of all. If you adore us, as you say, grant us the privilege of seeing you like that.'
There was something in this speech that rather touched her—something also that certainly pleased her, and that was the tone of honest deference in which he spoke.
'In fact, you want to be English,' she said, laughing it off, 'and I want to be American.' And she looked at him, smiling.
But he did not smile at all, only again his brown eyes grew hot and black. That, too, pleased her. Then suddenly she felt vaguely frightened; she had not definitely intended to give him his chance now, and she did not wish him to take it. So she rose.
'Take me back,' she said. 'Take me into a crowd of your people. I want to learn a little more.'
The Revels ended on Saturday, on which day the wonder-stricken guests for the most part dispersed, their faces probably shining like Moses' at this social revelation, and went back to their humble homes. The success of them had been gigantic. Nobody (except Newport) talked about anything else for days, and to find news of international importance in the papers was almost impossible, for everything else except the Revels was tucked away into odd corners. Newport alone maintained an icy silence, but disaffection was already at work there, and those who were only struggling on the fringe of Newport society said openly that they would go to Long Island next year, since there really seemed to be some gaiety there, whereas Newport was like a wet Sunday afternoon. Mrs. Palmer's two English guests, however, stopped on. So also did Bilton; and Mrs. Emsworth, having decided not to go to Mass on Sunday morning, was coming down with the larger part of her company on Saturday night after her performance in New York. Sunday, however, was going to be a quiet day, with the exception that there was a large dinner-party in the evening and a play in the theatre afterwards. Ping-pong Armstrong also remained, for he was the recognised tame cat without claws about the house. Mrs. Palmer sometimes secretly wished, in her full consciousness of innocence, that people would 'talk' just a little about him and her, but nobody ever did. Even theGutter Snipenever alluded to his constant presence in the house, but this was probably due to the fact that the editor—who knew a good deal about the meaner side of human nature—guessed that it would have pleased Mrs. Palmer. For it is a most extraordinary, though common, phenomenon to find that perfectly virtuous and upright people often like to be thought just a little wicked, whereas bad people are totally indifferent for the most part as to whether anyone thinks them good or not.
During the two or three days that had elapsed since Bilton and Mrs. Massington had their talk together, his conduct had been immensely pleasing to her. He had taken the hint she had given him like a gentleman, and had not allowed himself to drift into intimate conversation with her until she gave him the signal. He had been diplomatic and delicate—above all, he had been intelligent, not blundering, and she could not help contrasting him, much to his advantage, with the average Englishman, who either insists on 'talking the thing out,' or else looks sulky and wears a woebegone aspect. But Bilton had done neither; he had remained brisk, not brusque, and had resisted, apparently without effort, any attempt to bring her to the point, while remaining himself absolutely normal. In the meantime, during the self-imposed pause in her own affairs, Mrs. Massington watched with extreme satisfaction the development of that mission which had brought Bertie Keynes to America. Affairs for him certainly appeared to be running very smooth; she almost wished for some slightcontretempsto take place in order to put things on the proper proverbial footing. In other words, Amelie and Bertie had made great friends, and owing to the extraordinary freedom which eligible young folk are given in America, with a view to letting them improve their acquaintance, they had got under way with much rapidity. The house being full, they had many opportunities for finding the isolation which exists in crowds, and took advantage of it. Mr. Palmer, however, with a strong sense of paternal duty, thought it well not to let the matter go too far without satisfying himself that he was justified in letting it go to all lengths. With this in his mind he went to his wife's rooms on Sunday morning to have a quiet talk, as was his custom.
'Pleased with your party?' he asked amiably.
'Lewis, I'm just sick with satisfaction,' she said. 'Long Island, I tell you, is made, and Newport will crumble into the sea. But what am I to do next year? Why, I believe that if at this moment I built a house on Sandy Hook, I could make it fashionable.'
'That would be very convenient,' said he. 'We could flag the liners and save half a day. I'm glad you are satisfied. Now, what do you get by it all?'
'Same as what you get when you've made a million dollars,' said Mrs. Palmer with some perspicacity. 'You don't want them. You don't know you've got them. But you like getting them.'
His bright gray eyes gleamed suddenly, and he looked at her approvingly.
'I guess that's true,' he said. 'I guess you've hit the nail on the head, as you do every time. We've got to get, you and I; and when we've got, we've got to get again. It's the getting we go for.'
His eyes wandered round the room a moment, and he went to a cabinet ofbric-à-bracthat stood between the windows.
'Where did you get that Tanagra figure from?' he asked. 'It's a forgery.' And he took it up and threw it into the grate, where it smashed to atoms.
'Well, I suppose you know,' said Mrs. Palmer calmly. 'Bilton sold it me.'
Lewis laughed.
'Spoiled his market,' he remarked. 'That man's very clever, but he lacks—he lacks length of vision.'
'Perhaps he didn't know it was a forgery,' said Mrs. Palmer charitably.
'That's worse. Give him the credit of knowing.'
Mrs. Palmer put down the paper she was reading.
'Lewis, you didn't come here just to break my things,' she said. 'What is it?'
'Lord Keynes. What do you know of him?' he asked, with his usual directness.
Had Mrs. Palmer been in the company of other people, she would have executed her famous scream, because she was amused. But she never wasted it, and it would have been quite wasted on her husband.
'He's charming,' she said. 'He's in excellent style; he's intheset in London. And he wants a wife with a competency. That's why I brought him here.'
'But what does he do?' asked her husband. 'Does he just exist?'
'Yes, I guess he exists. Men do exist in England; here they don't. They get.'
'Some exist here. Ping-pong does.'
'And who's Ping-pong?' she asked.
'Why, Armstrong. Amelie thought of it. He is a ping-pong, you know.'
This time Mrs. Palmer gave the scream, for she was so much amused as to forget the absence of an audience.
'Well, I'm sure, if Amelie isn't bright,' she said. 'But you're pretty far out, Lewis, if you think that Lord Keynes is a ping-pong. If he was an American, and did nothing, he would be. But men do nothing in England without being.'
'England's a ping-pong, I think sometimes,' remarked Lewis. 'She just plays about. However, we're not discussing that. Now I see you mean business with Lord Keynes. You'll run it through on your own lines, I suppose. But remember '—he paused a moment—' I guess it's rather difficult for one to say it,' he said, 'but it's just this: When a girl marries a man, if she doesn't hit it off, the best thing she can do is to make believe she does. But I doubt if Amelie can make believe worth a cent.'
'Well, she just adores him,' said Mrs. Palmer.
'That's good as far as it goes.'
'It goes just about to the end of the world,' said she.
Mr. Palmer considered this.
'The end of the world occurs sooner than you think sometimes,' he said. 'I'll get you a genuine Tanagra, if you like,' he added, 'and I'll guy Bilton about the other. I'll pretend he thought it was genuine. That'll make him tender.'
Though Mrs. Palmer had no objection to exaggeration in a good cause, she had not in the least been guilty of it when she said that Amelie adored Bertie Keynes. Most girls have daydreams of some kind, and Amelie, with the vividness that characterized her, had conjured up before now with some completeness her own complement. Unless a woman is celibate by nature (a thing happily rare), she is frequently conscious of the empty place in herself which it is her duty and her constant, though often unconscious, quest to find the tenant for. And Amelie was not in the least of a celibate nature; her warm blood beat generously, and the love of her nature that should one day pour itself on one at present overflowed in runnels of tenderness for all living things. The sprouts of the springing daisies were dear to her—dogs, horses, even the wild riot of the Revels, was worthy of her affectionate interest. But the rather unreasonable attention she bestowed on these numberless objects of affection was only the overflow from the cistern. One day it would be all given in full flood, its waters would bathe one who had chosen her, and whom her heart chose.
This morning she was riding through the woods with Bertie Keynes, the charmingly sensible laws of American etiquette making it possible for her to ride with anyone she wished, alone and unattended. They had just pulled up from a gallop through the flowering wood paths, and the two horses, muscle-stretched and quiet, were willing to walk unfrettingly side by side.
'Oh, it all smells good, it smells very good,' she said. 'And this morning somehow—I suppose it's after mamma's fête—I like the fresh, green out-of-doors more than ever. I think we live altogether too much indoors in America.'
'But the fêtes were entirely out of doors,' said Bertie.
'Yes; but the pearl-party was just the most indoor thing I ever saw,' said she. 'Certainly it was out of doors, but all the time I wanted somebody to open the windows, let in a breath—a breath of——'and she paused for a word.
'I know what you mean,' he said.
'Did you feel it too? I want to know?'
'In that case, I did.'
He looked at her a moment.
'But all the time you were my breath of out-of-doors,' he said.
Amelie was not fool enough to take this as a compliment, or to simper acknowledgments. As he spoke he wondered how she would take it, hoped she would look at him, anyhow, then hoped she would not.
'Ping-pong is indoors enough,' she said. 'Do tell me what you think of him.'
'I don't think of him,' said Bertie. 'If I sat down to think of him I should instantly begin, without meaning to, to think about something else.'
'Do you loathe him?' she asked.
'Good heavens, no! But—but there are people like husks. Just husks.'
She considered this.
'Husky Ping-pong,' she said, half to herself. 'Poor Husky Ping-Pong. Do you grow them in England?'
'Yes, heaps. They grow in London. They are always at every party, and they know everybody, and make themselves immensely agreeable. It is all they do. And you see them in the back seats of motor-cars.'
She looked at him with some mischief in her eyes.
'And what do you do?' she asked.
'No more than they. Anyone is at liberty to call one a ping-pong. Only I'm not.'
'I know. I was wondering what the difference was according to your description.'
'There is none, I suppose. But don't confuse me with ping-pongs.'
She laughed.
'Lord Keynes, you are just adorable,' she said. 'I'll race you to the end of the avenue.'
'Adoring me all the time?'
'Unless you win,' she said.
'Then I will lose on purpose.'
'That will be mean. I never adore meanness. Are you ready?'
And her beautiful horse gathered his legs up under him and whirled her down the grassy ride. Bertie got not so good a start, and rode the gauntlet of the flying turf scattered by his heels, till, a bend of the path favouring him, he drew nearly abreast, pursuing her through sunshine and the flecked shadows on the grass. He had seen her day after day in the Revels, night after night at ball or concert, yet never had her beauty seemed to him so compelling as it did now, as, swaying the rein with dainty finger-tip, her body moving utterly in harmony with the grand swing of her horse's stride, she turned her smiling face to him, all ecstasy at the exhilaration of the gallop, all wide-eyed smile of consternation at the decreasing lead which she had got at the start. And all at once, for the first time, his blood was kindled; he had admired her form as one may admire a perfect piece of sculptured grace, he had admired her splendid vitality, her charming companionship, her intensejoie de vivre. But now all the separate, isolated admirations were fused and glowed flamelike. Suddenly she laughed aloud, as he had nearly caught her up.
'Ride, ride!' she cried, in a sudden burst of intimate, upwelling joy that came from she knew not where. 'You will win.'
Apollo pursued Daphne in the vale of Tempe, and in the vales of Long Island Bertie Keynes rode hard after Amelie. And she encouraged him to win, she even drew rein a shade—just a shade—though she had wanted to win so much.
All the afternoon motor-cars, bicycles, carts, tandems, brakes, were arriving, for though it was a quiet Sunday, Mrs. Palmer, it was well-known, liked to see a few friends about teatime, who usually stopped for dinner, and before evening it was as if the Revels were extended a day longer. The weather was extremely hot, and in consequence dinner was served in the great marquee on the terrace. Among others, Mrs. Emsworth had come with those of her company who were to act that night in the theatre. Thepetit saletéto be produced had never been presented on any stage before, the Lord-Chamberlain of England, with a fatherly regard for the morals of the nation entrusted to him, having deemed that it was toosale; and, as a matter of fact, Mrs. Emsworth rather embraced this opportunity of playing it before a private audience, with a view to seeing whether her public in New York, with their strange mixture of cynical indifference to anything but money, and the even stranger survival of the Puritan spirit, which crops up every now and then as some rare border plant will crop up among the weeds and grasses of a long overgrown garden, would be likely to swallow it. She herself was a little nervous of presenting it there. Bilton, on the other hand, who might be supposed to know the taste of the patrons for whom he catered so successfully, thought it would be an immense success.
'After all, Paris loved it,' he said, as he had a few words with her when they went up to dress for dinner. 'And what is bad enough for Paris is good enough for New York. You may take my word for it that what Paris swallows America will gobble.'
'You mean they are more—more emancipated here?'
'Not at all, but that they are eager to accept anything that has been a success in London or Paris. Why, I produced "Dram-drinking" here. Dead failure. I took it to London, where it ran well, and brought it back here. Tremendous success. We Americans, I mean, are entirely devoid of artistic taste. But we give our decided approbation to what other people say is artistic, which, for your purpose and mine, is the same thing. Left to ourselves, we like David Harum. I produce "Hamlet" here next week. The house is full for the next month. But alter the name and say it is by a new author, and it won't run a week. The papers, to begin with, would all damn it.'
'But the critics. Do you mean they don'tknow"Hamlet"?'
'There are no critics, and they don't know anything. They are violent ignoramuses who write for unreadable papers.'
'Then why do you ever consider them?'
'Because they are not critics, and because in New York everyone reads the unreadable. This is my room—you are next door, I think.'
'I shan't come to dinner,' she said. 'I am rather tired. By the way, is that large, beautiful girl Mrs. Palmer's daughter?'
'Probably. Why?'
'Will she be at the play to-night?'
'Probably. Why?'
Mrs. Emsworth frowned.
'It is not fit,' she said.
Bilton raised his eyebrows. This was indeed a woman of 'infinite variety.'
'You cannot alter your play for fear she will be there,' he said.
'No; I suppose not. I say, what devils we are!'
The play was an enormous success, and Mrs. Emsworth's personality seemed to lift it out of the regions of the equivocal. The part, that of a woman who represented the triumph of mind over morals, fitted her like a glove, and it was as impossible to be shocked as it is when a child uses a coarse or profane expression. Her impropriety was no more improper than is the natural instinct of a bird or animal improper; by a supreme effort of nature rather than art she seemed to roll up like an undecipherable manuscript the whole moral code, and say, 'Now, let's begin again.' Her gaiety covered her sins; more than that it transformed them into something so sunlit that the shadows vanished. Even as we laugh at Fricka when she inveighs against Siegmund and Sieglinde, feeling that condemnation is impossible, because praise or blame is uncalled for and irrelevant, so the ethical question (indeed, there was no question) of whether the person whom Mrs. Emsworth represented behaved quite 'like a lady 'never occurred to anyone. Her vitality dominated the situation.
Of all her audience, there was none so utterly surprised at the performance as Bilton. He knew her fairly well, but he had never seen in her half so clearly the triumph of temperament. Knowing her as he did, he knew it was not art; it was only an effort, unique and unsurpassable, to be herself. Again and again he longed to be a play-wright; he could write her, he felt, could he write at all, a part that would be she. For never before had she so revealed herself a sunlit pagan. And as the play went on, his wonder increased. She was admirable. Then Mrs. Massington, who sat next him, laughed at something he had not seen, and for the moment he was vexed to have been called down from the stage to a woman less vivid, for his sensualism was of a rather high order.
Late that night, after the supper that followed the entertainment, he went upstairs. In Mon Repos there was no barbaric quenching of electric light at puritanical hours, no stranding of belated guests in strange passages, and he walked up from the smoking-room with his hands in his pockets, unimpeded by any guttering bedroom candle. The evening had been a triumph for Dorothy—in the mercantile way it had been as great a triumph for him, for thecachetof success at Mrs. Palmer's would certainly float the play in New York. TheGutter Snipe, he reflected, would have at least a column of virulent abuse, since it had been performed at Mon Repos. So much the better; he would have a whole procession of sandwich men, London fashion, parading Fifth Avenue, every alternate one bearing the most infamous extracts from that paper. To use abuse as a means of advertisement was a new idea ... it interested him. Certainly, Dorothy had been marvellous. She was a witch ... no one knew all her incantations ... and he paused at his bedroom door. She had gone upstairs only five minutes before him. Since the performance she had been queen bee to the whole party; he himself had not had a word with her. Surely even Puritanical Long Island would not be shocked if he just went to her even now for a minute, and congratulated her. Besides, Puritanical Long Island would never know. So he tapped softly and entered, after the manner of a man whose tap merely means 'I am coming.'
The room was brilliantly lit. Mrs. Emsworth was standing by the bed. By her, having looked in for a go-to-bed chat, was Sybil Massington.
Mrs. Emsworth had a rehearsal early next morning at New York, and in consequence she had to leave by the Stock Exchange train at nine, while most of the inhabitants of Mon Repos were still reposing. She herself was down and out before anyone had appeared, for she had slept but badly, and had awoke, definitely and irrevocably, soon after six. Sleeping, as her custom was, with blinds up and curtains undrawn, the glory of the morning quickly weaned her from her bed, and by soon after seven she was strolling about outside in the perfection of an early September hour. There had been a little thunder during the night, and betwixt waking and sleeping she had heard somewhat heavy rain sluicing on to the shrubberies and thirsty grass, and now, when she went out, the moisture was lying like unthreaded diamonds in the sun, and like a carpet of pearls in the shade. Many gardeners were already at work, some on the grass and flower-beds, others bringing up fruit from the greenhouses, and all looked with wide-eyed yokel amazement at the famous actress as she walked up and down. One of them had brought his small child, a boy of about six years old, with him, and the little lad, with a bunch of Michaelmas daisies in his cap, very gravely pushed at one handle of his father's wheelbarrow.
Now, children and Mrs. Emsworth were mutually irresistible, and the barrow was stopped, and the father stood by in a sort of proud, admiring sheepishness, while Mrs. Emsworth made herself fascinating. She had a story to tell about those particular flowers the child had in his hat. The fairies had made them during the night. One had brought the white silk out of which they were cut, another had brought oil-paints to colour them, a third had brought a watering-pot with a rose to sprinkle them. But the bad fairy had seen them, and had come on her broomstick, surrounded by an army of flying toads and spiders and slugs, to destroy the flowers. And a toad had just begun to eat the top of one of the flowers when the sun said, 'Pop, I'm coming,' and before the bad fairy could get under shelter it had shone on her, so that she instantly curled up like a burnt feather, and died with a pain so awful that stomach-ache was nothing to it.
This was so absorbing both to the narrator and the audience that neither had observed that someone else was listening, and as the boy broke out into childish laughter, crying, 'That was nice!' at the awful fate of the wicked fairy, Mrs. Emsworth looked behind her, half hearing a sudden rustle, and saw Amelie standing there, also absorbed.
She instantly sat down on the other handle of the barrow.
'Yes, Tommy, that was nice,' she echoed. 'And do you think the lady will tell us another story? Ask her.'
The lady was so kind as to oblige them again. This time it was about a real live person, who was always very good in the morning, and sat down and did her work as she should, with the good fairy sitting beside her. But later on the good fairy would sometimes go to sleep, and as soon as she was asleep all the bad fairies who had not curled up like burnt feathers came in. And one of them made her eat peas with her knife, and another made her spill her bread-and-milk down her new dress, and another made her lose her temper, and another made her make mud pies in the middle of her nice room, so that it had to be swept again. And she was very unhappy about this, and used to put pins in the good fairy's seat to prevent her going to sleep, and give her strong coffee to drink for the same purpose. But it was all no good, until one day she noticed that as long as a child was with her the good fairy kept awake. So the poor lady set to work again, and tried to see a child every day, because even if she talked to a child for a little in the morning, and especially if it gave her a kiss, the good fairy was much less sleepy.
Tommy's eyes grew wide.
'Oh, I do love you!' he said, and hoisted himself with his dirty boots into her lap. Then, smitten with a child's sudden shyness, he clambered down again, and the wheelbarrow went on its way.
The two others strolled on in silence for a moment over the grass, Amelie with a strange lump in her throat. Then she put her arm round Mrs. Emsworth's waist.
'Good-morning,' she said quietly, and they kissed.
'I think I love you too,' she said. 'I came out to tell you that.'
Mrs. Emsworth kissed her again.
'That is nice too,' she said. 'But what makes you?'
'I don't know. I think it was seeing you in that horrid play last night. You were like a sunbeam in—in a cesspool. But why do that sort of thing?'
Mrs. Emsworth shrugged her shoulders.
'Because people are beasts, my dear,' she said—'because they like that sort of thing. And one has to live.'
Amelie thought a moment, with her face growing grave.
'Oh, I am sorry, I am sorry,' she said.
A sudden impatience and ungovernable irritation filled Dorothy. She felt as if she was being hauled back to her ordinary life, when she was so happy in the sweetness of the early morning hour. Why did this stupid, gawky girl come and speak to her like this? But with an effort at self-control stronger than she usually bothered herself to make, she mastered it.
'Oh, never mind, never mind,' she said. 'Walk with me a little further, and let me look at you because you are beautiful, and the trees because they are beautiful, and the grass and the sky. What a heavenly moment! Do not let us waste it. Look, the lawns are empty, where yesterday they were full with all sorts of silly and wicked people. Is that an insult to your mother's guests? I think it is. Anyhow, I was one of the silly, wicked people. But now I am not silly or wicked; I am very good, and very innocent, and I want to take everything into my arms and stroke it. My God! what a beautiful world! I am so glad I did not die in the night.'
Amelie laughed. This mood found in her a ready response.
'Yes, yes,' she cried; 'go on. I know what you mean. You want to be rid of all else, to be just a consciousness in the world. I have felt that. What does it say?'
Dorothy shook her head.
'It never says the same thing for five minutes,' she said. 'Just now you and I feel that. If we sat here for a quarter of an hour we should begin to talkchiffon.If we sat here longer we might talk scandal. Only I think these moments are given us as a sort of refreshment. God washes our faces every now and then, and we proceed to soil them instantly.'
She turned to her companion eagerly.
'Don't soil yours,' she said. 'Don't let others soil it. It grows on you; it is like using rouge,' and she broke off suddenly.
There was silence a moment, then Amelie said:
'Look, here is Tommy coming back from the house.'
Mrs. Emsworth rose.
'Let us go in,' she said. 'It is time for me to have breakfast, as I am going by the early train. But remember that I was good for ten minutes—if '—and her voice quavered—' if people, as they are sure to do, tell you things.'
They passed Tommy, who paused as they got near. Mrs. Emsworth seemed not to notice him. Then she looked back.
'Dear little chap,' she said, and, retracing her steps, kissed him again.
It must be allowed that by the time they got to the station there was nothing of the early-morning Mrs. Emsworth left about her. On the platform Bilton approached her with rather an anxious face.
'I particularly want to speak to you, Dorothy,' he said in a low voice. 'You can help me.'
She looked at him with extremely vivid virulence.
'Oh, go away, you beast!' she said. 'I can help you, you say. No doubt I can. But I won't. Go away!'
Bilton had the sense to see that he needed help, for there had been a very awkward moment when he went into Mrs. Emsworth's room the night before. He himself was very good at acting quickly in any emergency he had foreseen, but this one was utterly unforeseen, and had found him helplessly unprepared. Had he had even a moment's preparation, he felt sure that he could have said something which would anyhow have been palliative; but since the thing was done, he did not trouble his head about what the palliative would have been. For he had come in—his knock unheard—and found the two ladies together. Upon which Dorothy laughed, Mrs. Massington turned pink, and he retreated. There was the situation. And the most unpromising feature of it was that Dorothy had laughed. With all his quickness he could see no way out. It was clearly impossible for him to open the subject again to Mrs. Massington; it was equally obvious that she would put a construction on his presence. The only person who could conceivably help him was Dorothy, and now she had called him a beast.
But, apparently, during the journey to New York she relented, for as they boarded the mangy-looking ferry-boat that conveyed them across the river, she threw a word to him over her shoulder.
'I shall be in at lunch,' she said. 'You can come if you like.'
He did not like that either, though it was better than nothing, for he felt that she had in a sense the whip-hand of him, and knew it. And Bilton was not accustomed to let anybody have the whip-hand of him.
Mrs. Emsworth always took her rehearsals herself; she had a stage-manager, it is true, who sat meekly in the wings, and whom she contradicted from time to time, his office being to be contradicted, and to write down stage directions which she gave him. Occasionally Bilton looked in for an hour or two; him she contradicted also at the time, but usually incorporated his suggestions afterwards. Her author, if it was a new play, was also in attendance in the stalls; his office was to cut lines out or put lines in. Though, perhaps, she could not act, she certainly had a strong sense of drama; that was why she had laughed at Bilton's entrance the night before, for the situation struck her as admirably constructed. She had seen, with a woman's sixth sense, as correctly and minutely as in a photograph on what footing he and Mrs. Massington were, and though she was not in the slightest degree in love with the man—or, indeed, ever had been—yet she looked on him as her possession, and while she did not want him, she distinctly did not wish him to change hands. Jealousy of the ordinary green variety had something to do with it. A shrewd eye to business, the knowledge of how much better her career went if the great impresario was her devoted admirer, had about as much. Only, if her devoted admirer was to become the confirmed, settled, and sealed-up admirer of someone else, she did not propose to be the candle at which the sealing was done. To be cat's-paw to an act of treason against herself was a feat of altruism of which she was hopelessly incapable. Then, finally, in this jumble of feelings which had resulted in her calling Bilton a beast, there was something neither sordid nor selfish—namely, the determination, distinct and honest, that Mrs. Massington, a woman whom she both liked and respected, should not, at any rate by any auxiliary help of hers, be deceived as to what Bilton really was. She herself, no doubt, with the aid of liquid eyes and a mouth so beautiful that it looked as if it must be made for the utterance of perfect verity, could persuade Mrs. Massington that she and Bilton had never been in intimate relations, and assure her, even to conviction, that his slightly informal visit last night was only—as was indeed true—a visit for the utterance of a few words of congratulation on her success. But she did not intend—from motives good, bad, and indifferent, all mixed—to do this for him. Only, into the composition of this intention the good and honest and fine motive entered.
It was not wonderful that thispot-au-feuof feeling, amounting to positive agitation, did not tend towards the comfort of her company at the rehearsal, nor indeed, on the part of the manageress, toward the calm attitude of the thoughtful critic. In consequence, before the rehearsal was an hour old—it was the first 'without books' rehearsal —the second leading lady was next door to tears, the leading gentleman in sulks, the author in despair, and Mrs. Emsworth in a mood of dangerous suavity that made the aspiring actors heart-sick.
'Miss Dayrell,' she was saying, 'would you mind not turning your back completely on the audience when you speak those lines. Mr. Yates'—this was the leading gentleman—' I amsosorry to interrupt your conversation, but my throat is rather sore this morning, and I cannot hear myself speak if you talk so loud to your friends. Yes; I think, as you are not on the stage just now, it would be better if you left it. Yes, Miss Dayrell, you see these are perhaps the most important lines in the play which you have to speak, and the audience will have a better chance of understanding it if you let them hear what Mr. Farquar has given you to say. Mr. Farquar, I am afraid the second act is about twice as long as it ought to be. I have cut some of it—at least, with your approval, I propose to cut some of it.'
Mr. Farquar sighed heavily in the stalls. He had spent the greater part of the last three nights in writing more of the second act, because it was not long enough.
'Thank you,' continued Mrs. Emsworth, interpreting the sigh as silence. 'You will see my alterations when we get to them. Would you kindly begin, Miss Dayrell, at "If I had a pitch-fork."'
Suddenly her voice changed to a wheedling tenderness.
'And if my own Teddy Roosevelt hasn't come down of his own delicious accord to see his aunt in her pretty theatre! Teddy, the world is very evil, and my mother bids me bind my hair. I beg your pardon, ladies and gentlemen, but I had to say a word to Popsie Tootsicums. Now, dear Miss Dayrell, let's begin again. You enter. Excellent. You turn. Yes, that's exactly what I want. Now.'
A murmur of relief went round, and the faded actors and actresses raised their drooped heads as when a shower has passed over a drought-dried garden. And Teddy R., the angel in disguise, sat sparsely down in the middle of the stage, and smiled on the spectacle of his beneficent work.
But because the happy appearance of Teddy Roosevelt had madele beau tempsfor the members of Mrs. Emsworth's company, it did not at all follow that Bilton, when he came to lunch, would find the same sunshine awaiting him, even as there is no guarantee that, because at twelve o'clock on an April day pellucid tranquillity flooded the earth, there will not be a smart hail-storm an hour afterwards. On the contrary, it was safe to bet that, whatever mood Mrs. Emsworth was in, she would be in a different one before long. The spring-day temperament of hers was, in fact, the only thing to be reckoned on. Consequently, since Bilton had not witnessed the varied phases exhibited at the theatre, he hoped, somehow sanguinely, that she would not be in a temper that so roundly labelled him 'beast' at Port Washington Station.
She seemed to have forgotten he was coming to lunch—as a matter of fact, she had, and welcomed him charmingly.
'Dear man,' she said, 'how nice of you to look in. I'm nearly dead with fatigue; let's have lunch at once. Harold, I've acted every part in 'Telegrams' through from beginning to end this morning. Those people are so hard-working, but they are so stupid. In fact, I know every part but my own. That I have promised them to be word perfect in by five o'clock this afternoon.'
'You don't rehearse again this afternoon?' asked he.
'Oh yes, I do. Three hours more this afternoon, then just time for dinner, then theatre again till half-past eleven, then supper at the Waldorf. To-morrow, rehearsal all morning, matinee, evening performance, every interval filled up with reporters and milliners and lime-light people. Oh, well, thank God, we shall all soon be dead. Time to rest then, and time to lunch now.'
'Don't overdo it, Dolly,' said he, as they sat down.
'Overdo it?' My dear boy, it is rather late in the day to recommend me not to overdo it. Besides, we women, and in special this woman, are so much stronger than men. My company follow me through hours of rehearsal, faint yet pursuing. They drop asleep, and I wake them with a gentle touch on their shoulders, and they say, "Is it morning yet?" And I say, "Kindly wake up for ten minutes, and go through this scene, dear, and then you shall go to sleep again." Then, at the end, when I say, "That is all for to-night, ladies and gentlemen," they all hurry away in desperate fear lest I should ask them to supper. "Il faut lutter pour l'art," as Daudet says. I'm so glad I'm not a prig, Harold, who thinks about the exigencies of the artistic temperament. I'm not an artist at all. People come to see me act because I'm (a) rather good-looking, (b) in rollicking good spirits. What delicious cantaloupe! I like my food.'
'All the same, I wish you would take more care of yourself,' said he, fostering her present temper with a light and, he hoped, skilful hand. 'I'm sure you do too much, and some day you will break down. You are spending more than your income of nervous energy, you are living on the capital.'
'Just what I mean to do. Like Mr. Carnegie, I think it would be a disgrace to die with an ounce of nervous force left in one. What use is it when one is dead? I am living on the capital; I intend to spend it all. I shall die sooner, no doubt—but, oh, Harold, what an awful old person I should be at sixty if I proposed, which I do not, to live as long. Look at the old women who have spent their youth as I have done. Rouge on their raddled cheeks, clinging to life, mortally afraid of dying, trying to get a few more successes, with one bleary eye anxiously fixed on some back door into heaven, the other roaming round to see if they can't have another little flirtation before they die. No; let me die at the height of my success. I don't want to stumble down-hill into my grave. I want to find it on the mountain-top. And I shall lie down in it quite content, for I have had a good time, and ask no further questions. And, Harold, plant a great crimson rambler, and a vine like Omar, and a few daffodils, and some Michaelmas daisies, on my grave, so that I shall flower all the year round. And come, if you like, once a year to it, and think over any occasion when I have pleased or amused you, and say to yourself if you can, "She was rather a good sort." Then go away to the woman who happens at the time to—oh, I forgot. We've got to have a talk. And I've been doing all the talking. Have you finished lunch? Come into the next room.'
The April day was behaving quite characteristically. It had got cold and cloudy, and a bitter wind blew suddenly. Mentally he shivered, and followed her.
She had thrown herself down on the big Louis XV. couch. Teddy Roosevelt was having his dinner. There was no mitigation within the horizon.
'About Sybil Massington,' she said, and shut her mouth again as if it worked on a steel spring.
Bilton lit his cigar, and took his time, wishing to appear not nervous.
'Ah, yes,' he said. 'I remember.'
'That line is no good,' remarked Dorothy critically. 'You must get more sincerity into it, or drop it.'
He dropped it, and sat down.
'I've been wanting to tell you for some time, Dorothy,' he said, 'that I hope to marry Mrs. Massington. I should have done so before, only it's an awkward thing to say.'
'There is always a slight crudeness in that situation,' said she. 'Men always try to explain away what can't be explained at all. So cut it short. I know you must say a few words, but let them be few.'
'Well, it's just this,', said he: 'we've been great friends, we've got along excellently; you have always been charming to me, and I hope I haven't treated you badly.'
'Oh no, first-class time,' said she, thegamincoming to the surface.
'Well, now I want to marry,' he said, 'and I come to you for your help. If you had been in my position, I would have helped you.'
'Thanks. Well?'
'You know it was a devilish awkward moment last night. And you made it worse. You laughed. You shouldn't have done that.'
Dorothy's face relaxed.
'I couldn't help it,' she said. 'Dramatically, it was perfect, and so funny. Harold, if you could have seen your own face of blank amazement, I really believe you would have laughed too.'
He frowned.
'A pal ought to help a man out,' he said.
'I'm sure you went out pretty quick,' she interpolated. 'Oh, don't peashoot me,' he said. 'Now, a word from you will help me. I can't offer any explanation to Mrs. Massington, simply because, if I tried, she would be convinced there is something to explain. You can. A half word from you will do it. Represent me as your business manager—very business—with an urgent question to ask, and in my stupid, unconventional American way, it not occurring to me that there was any impropriety——'
'And my laugh? How shall I explain that?'
'Because it did occur to you what construction Mrs. Massington would put on it. Because my face of horror when I saw what I had done was so funny. You said so yourself.'
Dorothy paused.
'In other words,' said she slowly, 'I am to tell Mrs. Massington, either directly or by implication, that you and I are you and I, not we—that—just that.'
'Quite so,' he said, 'and very neatly put.'
She sat up.
'I refuse,' she said.
'Why? For what possible reason?'
'For a reason you couldn't appreciate.'
'Let me try.'
'I can't explain it even. But the outline is this: I respect and like Sybil Massington, therefore I will not assist you to marry her. It is not my business to open her eyes—you may marry her if you can—but neither is it my business to close them. Even if you wished it, I would not marry you myself, because I don't think you would be a—well, a satisfactory husband. So I will not help you.' 'Bilton's face was clearly given him to conceal his thoughts. On this occasion it expressed nothing whatever, though he thought a good deal.
'You want to stand in my light, then,' he said.
'Not at all, only I won't hold the candle for you.'
'You refuse to tell the truth to Mrs. Massington; you refuse to tell her what you know—namely, that I came to your room last night merely to congratulate you on your success?'
'I refuse to tell her a fag-end of the truth like that—a truth that is designed to deceive.'
His eye wandered round the room before he replied, and in its course fell on the grate. To-day also there was a torn letter lying in it. A slight tinge of colour came into his face.
'I can't understand you,' he said. 'As far as I know, you on the whole wish me well; you have assured me that you would not marry me yourself. What do you want, then? Do you want to be paid for doing it? If you are not unreasonable in your demands, I will meet them.' She got up, her eyes blazing.
'That is enough,' she said. 'Not another word, Harold, or I assure you I will throw the heaviest and hardest thing I can lift at you. I mean it.'
A rather ugly light came into his eyes—a stale, unwholesome sort of glow.
'Pray don't,' he said; 'we will leave the subject. I think you are behaving most ungenerously—that is all. I should like a few words with you about your dresses in "Telegrams." I will wait till you are ready to discuss them with me. Take a cigarette.'
She looked at him a moment in silence. In spite of herself, she could not help feeling the infernal mastery he had over her. As always, the more violent she became the more he seemed steeped in a calm compound of indifference and almost boredom. And since it is obviously more exhausting to continue violent than to continue calm, it followed that she had to compose herself, thus changing first, while he merely remained unmoved. It had happened often before, and it happened now.
'What is it you want me to say to Mrs. Massington?' she asked at length.
'Pray do not let us discuss it. You might throw something at me,' said he, smiling inwardly.
'Don't you see my point?' she asked. 'Besides, a word from me would do no good. She saw the terms we were on. It was obvious, blatant.'
'Then no harm would be done by your saying a word. She would not be deceived.'
'No; but she would think I tried to deceive her.'
'Would you mind that?' he asked.
'Very much. I like her.'
Bilton knew well the value of the waiting game in an argument, the futility of trying to persuade a woman to do something, especially if she shows the least sign of persuading herself. So he said nothing whatever, since her re-opening the subject pointed to an already existing indecision. But her final answer, when it came, was not in the least what he expected.
'And I refuse finally to help you,' she said. 'If you wish, I will discuss the dresses.'
Bilton would never have made himself so successful a career as he had had he not possessed to a very high degree the power of concentrating his mind on one thing, to the complete exclusion of other preoccupations, and for the next half-hour no cloud of what had happened crossed in his mind the very clear sky of the new play's prospects. He was able to give his whole and complete attention to it, until between them they had settled what he desired to settle. Then, since, like all other days, it was a busy day with him, he rose.
'Good-bye, Dorothy,' he said, 'and don't overdo it.'
Once again she wavered.
'And do you forgive me?' she asked.
'Not in the least. But I don't imagine you care.'
'But I do care.'
He drew on his gloves with great precision.
'I beg your pardon; if you really cared you would do as I ask,' he said. 'Good-bye. I shall be at the theatre this evening.'
She let him go without further words, and, in spite of the heat, he walked briskly down Fifth Avenue. He was not a forgiving man, and though he would not put himself out to revenge himself on anyone, since he had more lucrative ways of employing his time and energies, he was perfectly ready, even anxious, to do her an ill-turn if he had the opportunity. And certainly it seemed to him that there was a handle ready to his grasping when he remembered the torn note from Bertie Keynes which he had picked up in the grate. How exactly to use it he did not at present see, but it seemed to him an asset.
One afternoon late in October Ginger was sitting cross-legged on the hearthrug of Judy's drawing-room. Outside a remarkably fine London fog had sat down on the town during the morning, and, like the frog footman in 'Alice in Wonderland,' proposed to sit there till to-morrow, if not for days and days. But a large fire was burning in the grate, for Judy detested unfired rooms, and the electric light was burning. The windows were not shuttered nor the blinds drawn, because Ginger, a Sybarite in sensations, said it made him so much more comfortable to see how disgusting it was outside. So the jaundiced gloom peered in through the windows, and by contrast gave an added animation to Ginger's conversation. He had usually a good deal to say, whether events of interest had occurred lately or not. But just now events of some importance to him and Judy had been occurring with bewildering rapidity, and in consequence conversation showed even less signs than usual of flagging.
'In fact, the world is like a morning paper, so crammed with news that one can't read any one paragraph without another catching one's eye. And your new paragraph, Judy, is most exciting. What has happened, do you suppose?'
'Nothing—probably nothing; Sybil is just tired of it all. She is like that. She goes on enjoying things enormously till a moment comes; at that moment she finds them instantly and immediately intolerable. I am only surprised that it didn't occur sooner.'
'Well, she had enough of New York pretty soon,' said Ginger. 'She only stopped down at Long Island for ten days. Then she had a month's travelling; she returns to New York on a Monday, and leaves for England forty-eight hours afterwards. You know, she enjoyed it enormously at first. I think something did happen.'
Judy shook her head.
'No; on her return she found she couldn't endure it for a single moment longer. And I'm sure I don't wonder. The description of the pearl-fishing party made me sick. Besides, what could have happened?'
Ginger handed his cup for some more tea.
'If you want me to guess, I will,' he said; 'but I don't think you'll like it.'
'Pray guess,' said she.
'Well, I guess that Bilton—her own Bilton—suddenly behaved like—like Bilton.'
'Why?' said Judy.
'Because she wrote me a letter full of Bilton one week, since when his name has not occurred.'
Judy nodded.
'The same applies to Mrs. Emsworth,' she said. 'Do you think——?'
'Yes,' said Ginger.
'For a fool, you are rather sharp,' said Judy. 'I wonder if it is so.'
'I don't; I know it,' said Ginger. 'By the way, I saw poor Charlie yesterday.'
'Were you down at Sheringham?'
'No; he has left Sheringham. Apparently you have to get up when a bell rings, and eat all that is given you, and live out of doors till another bell rings. Charlie said he would sooner die like a gentleman than live like a Strasburg goose. So he left. He is down at Brighton in his mother's house, living out of doors.'
Judy stirred her tea thoughtfully.
'Has he told Sybil yet?' she asked. 'You remember he would not let us tell her; he said he wished to tell her himself.'
'I don't know; I know he meant to.'
'Humanly speaking, what chance has he got?' she asked.
'A good one, if he will be sensible; he probably won't. But one person could make him sensible.'
Judy never asked unnecessary questions, and let this pass in silence.
'And have you heard from the millionaire?' she asked.
'Bertie? Yes. Bertie seems uncommonly happy. So should I be if I was going to marry the richest girl in the five continents. Also I think he's in love with her.'
'Isn't Gallio delighted?'
'Yes; for the first time in his life, he really takes an interest in Bertie. He says a man's efficiency is measured by his success. Success means income, you know. Gallio speaks of himself as the most inefficient man of his own acquaintance. But the pictures have to be sold, all the same. Bertie's news came a little too late.'
'Pictures?' asked Judy.
'Hadn't you heard. You see, Gallio, about a month ago, suddenly became aware that he had a genius for speculating on the Stock Exchange. He chose American rails to exercise his genius on. But the American rails went flat, and knocked him flat. So all the Dutch pictures are up at Christie's next week. He doesn't care. As soon as he gets the money for them, he is going to speculate again. He has written to Bertie in case he can get any sort of special information from Palmer. He has stockbrokers to dinner, and lunches with bulls and bears.'
Judy was silent a moment.
'What about Mrs. Emsworth?' she asked suddenly.
Ginger had got hold of a large Persian cat, and was stroking it. The animal was in the full ecstasy of sensuous pleasure, with eyes shut and neck strained to his hand. But, as Judy asked this, he paused a moment, and stroked it the wrong way. It hit at him with its paw, and fled in violent indignation.
'Well, what about Mrs. Emsworth?' he repeated.
'Ginger, don't be ridiculous. It is loyal of you to pretend not to know what I mean, but still ridiculous. How has Bertie managed to do this under her very guns?'
'I suppose he silenced them first,' said Ginger cautiously. 'Or perhaps she has no guns.'
'Why, then, two years ago, did we all talk about nothing else but her and Bertie?'
'Because we are gossips,' said he.
'Do you mean that?'
Ginger examined his injured hand.
'Yes, I mean that,' he said. 'Bertie told me all that happened. He fell desperately in love with her; he wrote her a very foolish letter, which proposed, oh, all sorts of things—marriage among them. Immediately afterwards she—well, we all began talking about her and Bilton.'
'What happened to the letter?' asked Judy.
'Don't know,' said he.
Judy was silent a little.
'Anyhow, it all hangs together with your idea about Sybil and Bilton,' she said at length.
'I wondered if you were going to see that,' said Ginger rather loftily.
Judy went to the window and looked out.
'I like that fog,' she said, 'because it renders all traffic and business of all sorts out of the question. I like the feeling that London, anyhow, has to pause, and just twiddle its thumbs until God makes the wind blow.'
'After all, a fog comes from smoke, and it was man who lit the fires,' remarked Ginger parenthetically.
'You needn't remind one of that,' said she. 'Now, Sybil told me there were no fogs in New York. That is awful. Her letters were awful. The whole of life was a ceaseless grind; if you stopped for a moment, you were left behind. How hopelessly materialistic! Why, the only people who do any good in the world—apart from making Pullman cars and telephones, that is to say—are exactly those who do stop—who sit down and think. All the same, it is possible to stop too much. You are always stopping. Ginger, why don't you ever do something?'
'Because it is so vastly more amusing to observe other people doing things,' said he. 'As a rule, they do them so badly. Besides, Sybil seems to me an awful warning. She deliberately went to seek the strenuous life. Well, something has happened; the strenuous life has been one too many for her. Oh, by the way, I have more news for you -the most important of all, nearly. You have been talking so much that I couldn't get a word in.'
'Slander,' said Judy. 'Get it in now.'
'Gallio, as you know, has been trying to sell Molesworth. Well, advances have been made to him through an agent about it. He wants to know the name of the purchaser, but he can't find out.'
'What does Gallio care as long as the price is a good one?'
'You can't tell about Gallio; he has some charming prejudices. Besides—I don't understand the ins and outs of it—Bertie's consent has to be obtained. But he is offered two hundred thousand for a barrack he never lives in, and some acres of land which nobody will farm. He has telegraphed to Bertie about it to-day.'
'Well, I suppose it's no use being old-fashioned,' said Judy; 'but I think it's horrible to sell what has been yours so long. Probably the buyer is some awful South African Jew.'
'Very likely. But it's nothing new. Money has always possessed its own buying power—it always will. Only there's such a devil of a lot of it now in certain hands that a poor man can't keep anything of his own. And the hands that own it are not English. But they want England. Anyhow, as you say, it is no use being old-fashioned; but it is an immense luxury. You are luxurious, Judy.'
'What do you mean?'
'Well, the greatest luxury of your life was refusing to ask Mrs. Palmer to your house. How you could afford it I don't know.'
'It was delicious,' said Judy with great appreciation.
'Sybil was so sensible about it. She took just your view; she said she couldn't afford it herself, but that I was my own mistress. I wonder—I really wonder—why I find that class of person so intolerable.'
'Because you are old-fashioned; because you do not believe what is undoubtedly true—that wealth will get you anything——'
'Anything material it certainly will get you.'
'Quite so. And this is a materialistic age. I must go, as I'm dining out. Mind you let me know anything fresh in all these events that concern us.'
Ginger went out into the thick, dim-coloured evening with a sense of quickened interest in things. His only passion in life was the observation of other people, but for the last month or two he had found very little to observe. Apart from his work as a clerk in the Foreign Office, which could have been done quite as well in half the time by an ordinary bank clerk at a quarter of his salary, his life was valueless from an economical point of view, while as far as his work went (from the same point of view) he was positively fraudulent. Thus, judged by the relentless standards of America, where work is paid for strictly by the demand which exists for it, and that demand is tested simply and solely by the criterion of whether it adds directly or indirectly to the wealth of the country, Ginger's services would have been dispensed with. For he was—though the wedge was being pulled out, not pushed in—the thin end of that wedge which in the days of George III. had provided so amply for the younger sons, nephews, and connections of the nobility. But the leisured ease in which those fortunate people could live in those days was rapidly passing away, and Ginger, from an economical point of view, was a very small specimen of an interesting survival. For, provided that a thing is done equally well in a cheap way as in an expensive way, it is inexcusable in the public service not to have it done as cheaply as possible. Whether the complete application of this principle will be found wholly successful in its working will be for succeeding generations to determine. But even to-day we have, so to speak, a working model of it in America. The money, once earned, of course becomes the entire property of the individual, and it is perfectly right that beggars should starve for a crust, while on the foreshore of Mon Repos the glutted vulgarocracy gabble and search for pearls.