“Have you got enough change?” she whispered into his ear, still giggling.
“It’s not a question ofchange,” whispered back Ivor, pulling out notes.
“Good-night, sir,” said the taxi-driver, withempressement. “Sorry to ’ave woken you.”
Ivor stared at him.
“Not at all,” he said.
“Good-night,” said Pamela Star.
The taxi hurled itself down the hill of Hertford Street towards the blind turning to Shepherd’s Market. It was an astonishing taxi.
“I never been in a taxi before,” said Pamela Star childishly.
As they walked back through the wide and sombre hall of stone Ivor suddenly stopped; she stopped too. The light of a great idea was in his eyes.
“Let’s go out,” he said. “For a walk....”
And he swept a sudden gesture round the sombre hall.
“Out of this, Pamela Star....”
Theywalked. Dawn still lingered, and the night was gray and wan, yet it was clear with the clarity of scudding gray clouds far above the slower moving destinies of mankind. The pavements were dry, and the world was not yet conscious of this 2nd of May.
They walked up Park Lane, and the talk bubbled out of them; and they laughed at the things each said, for the things they said seemed funny to them.
They came to the Marble Arch, and their feet crossed the deserted place unbidden by them; and they stood at the corner where the wide place stretches out two fingers, one elegant and shapely towards Lancaster Gate beside the Park, the other lean and ugly up the Edgware Road towards the north. Every minute was tearing open the envelope of the night, and the gray clouds scudded frantically over London on their mystic and purposeless way.
“Our way is obvious!” cried Ivor to her inquiry. “Romance must plant its feet firmly on reality, for it’s life that makes us beautiful, not we that beautify life. So we will acknowledge our debt to life by walking up the ugly Edgware Road rather than towards the fat and horrid squares of Bayswater. Why, Pamela Star, anything might happen up the Edgware Road—even Cricklewood might happen, the legendary source of Bus 16!”
“I’ve got an aunt,” said Pamela Star, “who lives in Cricklewood. Fordwych Road. Aram and I used to go and see her often, and he flirted with her and she adored him. She’s knitting a muffler for him now. If she likes you she’ll knit one for you too....”
“No one has ever knitted a muffler forme,” said Ivor pathetically.
And, thus and thus, they came to speak of images, such as are not to be seen in museums. They spoke of images secretly, they spoke cabbalistically about the facelessness of images in hearts, and how an image might suddenly grow a face without a by-your-leave, but what they said about them is of no importance; and they forgot what they had said as soon as they had said it, which is a peculiarity of all cabbalistic conversations.
Theday was plain as they again neared Hertford Street; and six strokes of a clock hung loose in the still air as they entered it from the Park end. The sky overhead was mother-of-pearl, but an absurdly angry cloud still played darkly among the chimneys of Knightsbridge; and somewhere out of Whitechapel rose the pale gold of the London dawn. The world was awake to the 2nd of May, but Mayfair is not the world, and even the menials of Mayfair lie long abed. As they turned into Hertford Street they startled a robin from a poet’s head on the barren fountain, and he fled away with a cameo note. “There!” sighed Pamela Star.
Hertford Street was still as night as the two tall figures, the dark one-armed man and the woman with the hair that was of the colour of an October leaf, walked silently down it. Three fingers of her hand were lightly within his arm: they did not know how they had got there, but there they stayed, even to the pavement before her house—which stood where Hertford Street, having run a straight course, slopes suddenly downwards towards Shepherd’s Market.
They faced each other—their eyes almost level, she was so tall!—and he took her hand in his.
“I said ‘good-bye, Chinchilla,’ to you years ago,” he said. “But now I’m only going to say good-night.”
And he saw that her eyes were searching for something.
“My name is Ivor,” he said.
“Ivor!” she cried softly. “Ivor and Pamela.” ...
And there was a rushing and a turbulence in his ears, pierced sharply by Aunt Moira’s distant voice: “They met like birds, in the open....”
But that was not the only noise in that still moment, there was another, a great clattering as of tin against glass and glass against wood....
“Minuet de cœur!” she whispered.
But it came, they saw at last, from a milk-boy pushing his green hand-cart smartly up the slope of Hertford Street.
Ivor suddenly passed his hand over his eyes, he pressed his eyes, and the eyes of Pamela Star were queerly wet as they stared unseeing at the approaching milk-boy.
“If I don’t go this moment,” said Ivor fiercely, “I’ll never go!” And he strode away from her, down the slope.
“You’ll come back?” she cried softly, in the sudden fear of a great gladness.
“In a few hours,” he cried back over his shoulder, and went his way, determinedly. She watched the tall, striding figure, hat swinging from one hand, until it disappeared round the corner of the blind end of Hertford Street.
The clatter of the milk-cart had fallen to a gentle murmur, and Pamela Star found the milk-boy staring curiously at her.
“I s’pose this’ll be for you, lady,” said the boy politely, offering her one of those bottles of milk that are stopped with a cardboard disc. “As I leaves one ’ere, at No. 78, every morning.”
He surprised her.
“Do you mean to say that you’ve brought me mymilk all this time and that I’ve never seen you before!” she cried. “Why, you are one of the most important people in my life!”
The boy grinned; he was a very clean boy, in a cap, shirt-sleeves and an apron almost as white as his milk—for was he not born and bred in Shepherd’s Market, which is the aristocrat of slums?
“Well, it’s a bit early for you to be up as a rule, lady,” he excused her.
“Or a bit late,” she added softly. “And I’m not a lady anyway—not really. I had a brother just like you. Not so clean, though.”
The boy didn’t believe any of that. No one but a lady could have so suddenly pulled the cardboard disc from the bottle of milk and raised it to her lips, as she was doing now. The boy stared at her; he had seen her look after the one-armed man, and he was interested. Nothing like that had ever happened tohim.
The lady drank deep of the milk. And then she said, with a happy sigh: “I needed that!” She could feel, and the boy could see, the white dew of the milk clinging about her mouth. “I’ve forgotten my handkerchief,” she complained.
The boy tugged at his pocket and pulled out an amazingly crumpled but amazingly clean handkerchief. He offered it to her shyly.
“Not used it yet,” he said.
She touched her lips with his handkerchief, and she offered him some milk in return.
“’Ate milk,” said the boy.
She gave him back his handkerchief; and she asked him seriously: “Did you see that man?” And the plumber’s daughter jerked her head, just like a plumber’s daughter, in the direction of the man’s going.
The boy nodded.
“And do you know about images?” she asked him.
“Seen some,” he said, “in the Mooseum.”
“Ever seen an image without a face?”
The boy grinned. “Mother ’as got a bust of Queen Victoria without an ’ead,” he said.
“But I had an image without a face,” she told him softly, “until that man came and put a face to it....”
The boy stared at the door which closed behind the loveliest lady he had ever seen, and he decided that she was probably mad. But Pamela Star, alone again in the tomb of Aram Melekian, knew that she was mad and that the world was mad—the lovely world which could hold the contemptuous spirit of her stern old friend, those ghastly heaps of gold and the living image in her heart.
There will follow this a book—at an as yet uncertain date—telling of Revolution: and therein, of the strange destinies of Hamilton Snagg, a plumber of the Fulham Road, London, S.W.: of Sir Gabriel Silk, Bart., M.P., the brilliant and impassive Jew: and of Michael Paris, the inspired young fanatic of Marylebone: also, among other happenings, of the daring and death of Viscount Tarlyon, the Master of the Legion of Laughter: but more particularly of the marvellous fortunes and cruel deaths of Ivor Pelham Marlay and Pamela Star, his lady.
There will follow this a book—at an as yet uncertain date—telling of Revolution: and therein, of the strange destinies of Hamilton Snagg, a plumber of the Fulham Road, London, S.W.: of Sir Gabriel Silk, Bart., M.P., the brilliant and impassive Jew: and of Michael Paris, the inspired young fanatic of Marylebone: also, among other happenings, of the daring and death of Viscount Tarlyon, the Master of the Legion of Laughter: but more particularly of the marvellous fortunes and cruel deaths of Ivor Pelham Marlay and Pamela Star, his lady.
GLASGOW: W. COLLINS SONS AND CO., LTD.
MICHAEL ARLEN
“An Artist in a thousand and with uncanny psychology.”—Yorkshire Observer.
“An Artist in a thousand and with uncanny psychology.”—Yorkshire Observer.
6th Impression
THE GREEN HAT
A Romance for a Few People
7/6 NET
The novel sensation of the year; lavish praise and bitter abuse were showered upon it. Everyone read it—and still is reading it. A “best-seller” and a brilliant book.
The Romantic Lady 3/6
Fourth PrintingNet
These are airy, cynical, polished inquiries into the actions and reactions of women’s loves, tickling the reader’s sense of humour and sense of style from the moment he picks up the book, to find “The Romantic Lady” glancing down at Noel Anson from her box, to the last page, where the revolver smoke is veiling from her the husband of Iris Poole.
What the Press says
“For sheer wit and cynicism Mr. Arlen stands alone.”—Daily Express.
“Pure coquetry, of course, but what perfect technique.”—Evening Standard.
“Has all the ironic flippancy of a Schnitzler.”—Sunday Times.
These Charming People 7/6
Fourth PrintingNet
Being a tapestry, or, if you like, a panorama of the fortune, misfortunes, and gallanteries of Shelmerdene (that lovely lady), Lord Tarlyon, Mr. Michael Wagstaffe, Mr. Ralph Wyndham Trevor, and others of their friends of the lighter sort, written down by Mr. Ralph Wyndham Trevor and arranged by Mr. Michael Arlen.
What the Press says
“Its humour, its wit, its elegant charm....”—Rose Macaulayin theDaily News.
“The art of Guy de Maupassant is rare among English storytellers, but Michael Arlen can reflect glimpses of the great Frenchman’s genius. He has a story to tell, and he tells it.... Michael Arlen is a fine literary artist.”—Sunday Times.
“Belgravia’s best seller.”—Cassell’s Weekly.
FOOTNOTES:[A]But all that is changed now. It has lately been observed that the quality was never before held in such high esteem as it is at present. Some people say that this is a good sign, as denoting a healthy reaction against the spirit of Bolshevism that is abroad; but some people will say anything.[B]Fair Ladies of London!A Novel by Ivor Pelham Marlay (Heinemann, 1914).[C]The Legend of the Last Courtesan.A Romance by Ivor Pelham Marlay. Collins 8/6 (October, 1918). Eighth Impression.[D]The narrative of this favourite’s brilliant life and unhappy end will be found in that great romance by Miss Mary Johnston,By Order of the Company.[E]First Families of Virginia.
FOOTNOTES:
[A]But all that is changed now. It has lately been observed that the quality was never before held in such high esteem as it is at present. Some people say that this is a good sign, as denoting a healthy reaction against the spirit of Bolshevism that is abroad; but some people will say anything.
[A]But all that is changed now. It has lately been observed that the quality was never before held in such high esteem as it is at present. Some people say that this is a good sign, as denoting a healthy reaction against the spirit of Bolshevism that is abroad; but some people will say anything.
[B]Fair Ladies of London!A Novel by Ivor Pelham Marlay (Heinemann, 1914).
[B]Fair Ladies of London!A Novel by Ivor Pelham Marlay (Heinemann, 1914).
[C]The Legend of the Last Courtesan.A Romance by Ivor Pelham Marlay. Collins 8/6 (October, 1918). Eighth Impression.
[C]The Legend of the Last Courtesan.A Romance by Ivor Pelham Marlay. Collins 8/6 (October, 1918). Eighth Impression.
[D]The narrative of this favourite’s brilliant life and unhappy end will be found in that great romance by Miss Mary Johnston,By Order of the Company.
[D]The narrative of this favourite’s brilliant life and unhappy end will be found in that great romance by Miss Mary Johnston,By Order of the Company.
[E]First Families of Virginia.
[E]First Families of Virginia.