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diff --git a/27554-h/27554-h.htm b/27554-h/27554-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7d59c73 --- /dev/null +++ b/27554-h/27554-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8876 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Twelfth Hour, by Ada Leverson</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +.fm2 {font-size: 125%; + text-align: center; + font-weight: bold; +} + +.fm3 {font-size: 100%; + text-align: center; + font-weight: bold; +} + +.fm4 {font-size: 90%; + text-align: center; + font-weight: bold; +} +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +table {margin: auto; text-align: center; width: 35em;} +td.tdl {text-align: left; padding-right: .5em;} +td.tdr {text-align: right; padding-left: .5em;} +td.tdc {text-align: center} +td.page {font-size: 90%;} + +.author {text-align: right; margin-right: 18%;} +.author2 {text-align: right; margin-right: 24%;} +.author3 {text-align: right; margin-right: 15%;} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + color: silver; +} /* page numbers */ + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.transnote { background-color: #ADD8E6; color: inherit; margin: 2em 10% 1em 10%; font-size: 80%; padding: 0.5em 1em 0.5em 1em;} +.transnote p { text-align: left;} +a.correction {text-decoration: none; border-bottom: thin dotted red; color: inherit; background-color: inherit;} +a.correction:hover {text-decoration: none;} + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +.poem span.i4 { + display: block; + margin-left: 4em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i6 { + display: block; + margin-left: 6em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + + hr.full { width: 100%; + margin-top: 3em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + height: 4px; + border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ + border-style: solid; + border-color: #000000; + clear: both; } + pre {font-size: 85%;} +// --> +/* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Twelfth Hour, by Ada Leverson</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: The Twelfth Hour</p> +<p>Author: Ada Leverson</p> +<p>Release Date: December 17, 2008 [eBook #27554]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TWELFTH HOUR***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Carla Foust,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3> +<p> </p> +<div class="transnote"> +<h3>Transcriber's note</h3> +<p>Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Printer +errors have been changed, and they are indicated with +a <a class="correction" title="like this" href="#tnotes">mouse-hover</a> +and listed at the +<a href="#tnotes">end of this book</a>. All other +inconsistencies are as in the original.</p> +</div> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h1>THE<br /> +TWELFTH HOUR</h1> + +<p class="fm4">BY<br /></p> + +<p class="fm2">ADA LEVERSON<br /></p> +<p><br /></p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p class="fm2">LONDON<br /> +CHAPMAN & HALL</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p class="fm3">Originally published 1907 by Grant Richards Ltd.<br /> +Reissued 1951 by arrangement with the Richards Press Ltd.<br /> +<br /> +Printed by Brüder Rosenbaum, Vienna, Austria<br /> +Cat. No. 5090/4<br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table summary="CONTENTS"> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Chapter</td> +<td class="tdl"> </td> +<td class="tdr page" colspan="3">Page</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">I</td> +<td class="tdl">FELICITY</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_7">7</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">II</td> +<td class="tdl">THE TRIALS OF WOODVILLE</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_23">23</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">III</td> +<td class="tdl">A LOVE SCENE</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_32">32</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">IV</td> +<td class="tdl">"AUNT WILLIAM"</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_40">40</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">V</td> +<td class="tdl">ARTHUR MERVYN AT HOME</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_55">55</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">VI</td> +<td class="tdl">AN AGREEABLE RATTLE</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_70">70</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">VII</td> +<td class="tdl">THE NIGHT OF THE PARTY</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_82">82</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">VIII</td> +<td class="tdl">FELICITY AND HER CLIENTS</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_100">100</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">IX</td> +<td class="tdl">A DINNER AT WILLIS'S</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_112">112</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">X</td> +<td class="tdl">THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_125">125</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">XI</td> +<td class="tdl">SAVILE AND SYLVIA</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_138">138</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">XII</td> +<td class="tdl">AT THE STUDIO</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_148">148</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">XIII</td> +<td class="tdl">AT MRS. OGILVIE'S</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_155">155</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">XIV</td> +<td class="tdl">LORD CHETWODE</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_166">166</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">XV</td> +<td class="tdl">MADAME TUSSAUD'S</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_175">175</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">XVI</td> +<td class="tdl">A GOLDEN DAY</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_189">189</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">XVII</td> +<td class="tdl">SAVILE TAKES A LINE</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_195">195</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">XVIII</td> +<td class="tdl">FELICITY'S ENGAGEMENTS</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_202">202</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">XIX</td> +<td class="tdl">THE VELVET CASE</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_216">216</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">XX</td> +<td class="tdl">ZERO, THE SOOTHSAYER</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_232">232</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">XXI</td> +<td class="tdl">"THE OTHER GIRL"</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_246">246</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">XXII</td> +<td class="tdl">SAVILE AND JASMYN</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_255">255</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">XXIII</td> +<td class="tdl">SAVILE AND BERTIE</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_261">261</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">XXIV</td> +<td class="tdl">THE EXPLANATION</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_267">267</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">XXV</td> +<td class="tdl">THE QUARREL</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_274">274</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">XXVI</td> +<td class="tdl">VERA'S ADVENTURE</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_282">282</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">XXVII</td> +<td class="tdl">AUNT WILLIAM'S DAY</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_292">292</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">XXVIII</td> +<td class="tdl">THE TWELFTH HOUR</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_302">302</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>FELICITY</h3> + + +<p>"Hallo, Greenstock! Lady Chetwode in?"</p> + +<p>"Her ladyship is not at home, sir. But she is sure to see you, Master +Savile," said the butler, with a sudden and depressing change of manner, +from correct impassibility to the conventional familiarity of a +patronising old retainer.</p> + +<p>"Dressing, eh? You look all right Greenstock."</p> + +<p>"Well, I am well, and I am not well, Master Savile, if you can +understand that, sir. My harsthma" (so he pronounced it), "'as been +exceedingly troublesome lately."</p> + +<p>"Ah, that's capital!" Not listening, the boy—he was sixteen, dark, and +very handsome, with a determined expression, and generally with an air +of more self-control than seemed required for the occasion—walked up +deliberately, three steps at a time, knocked, with emphasis, at his +sister's dressing-room door, and said—</p> + +<p>"I say, Felicity, can I come in?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Who's there? Don't come in!"</p> + +<p>Upon which invitation he entered the room with a firm step.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's you, Savile darling. I am glad to see you! Dear pet! Come and +tell me all about everything—papa and the party—and, look out, dear, +don't tread on my dresses! Give Mr. Crofton a chair, Everett. Even you +mustn't sit down on a perfectly new hat!"</p> + +<p>Felicity was a lovely little blonde creature about twenty-five years +old, dressed in a floating Watteau-like garment of vaporous blue, +painted with faded pink roses. She was seated in a large carved and +gilded chair, opposite an excessively Louis-Quinze mirror, while her +pale golden hair was being brushed out by a brown, inanimate-looking +maid. Her little oval face, with its soft cloudy hair growing low on the +forehead, long blue eyes, and rosebud mouth, had something of the +romantic improbability of an eighteenth-century miniature. From the age +of two Felicity had been an acknowledged beauty. She profited by her +grasp of this fact merely by being more frank than most charming people, +and more natural than most disagreeable ones. With little +self-consciousness, she took a cool sportsmanlike pleasure in the effect +she produced, and perhaps enjoyed the envy and admiration she had +excited in her perambulator in Kensington Gardens<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> almost as much as her +most showy successes in later life.</p> + +<p>The most effective of these (so far) had been her marriage. Hopelessly +bowled over, as he called it, by her detailed loveliness, and not even +frightened by her general brilliance, Lord Chetwode had insisted on her +making the match of the previous season. He was a good-looking, amiable, +and wealthy young man, who was as lavish as if he had not had a penny, +and who showed his extravagantly long descent chiefly by being (for a +racing man) rather eccentrically interested in the subject of +decoration.</p> + +<p>He was an owner of racehorses and a collector of curiosities, and these +tastes gave him certain interests apart from his wife. He was, however, +very much in love with her, and showed it chiefly by writing her nearly +every day long, elaborate, and conspicuously illegible love-letters. She +was not an expert in +<a name="corr1" id="corr1"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn1" title="changed from 'hand-writing'">handwriting</a>, +nor had she time or patience to +decipher them. So she merely treasured them (unread) in a green and +white striped silk box. For under all her outward sentimentality, +Felicity was full of tenderness, especially for her husband. This was +not surprising, for he was a most agreeable companion, a great friend, +quite devoted to her, to his pretty home in London, and his picturesque +old house in the country, from all of which,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> however, he was as a rule +markedly absent. If one asked after Chetwode, the answer was nearly +always that he was away.</p> + +<p>He had chosen every detail of the house in Park Street with a patience +worthy of his passion. In the bedroom, especially, not a concession was +made, not a point stretched. All was purest Louis-Quinze. But in spite +of this, and amidst all her tapestry and old French furniture, Felicity +had a very contemporary air. About everything was the recent look +characteristic of the home of a lately married couple. The room looked +as if it had been decorated the day before for a twentieth-century +Madame de Pompadour. But, if the background was almost archæological, +the atmosphere was absolutely modern. In this incongruity was a certain +fascination.</p> + +<p>Though the bridal freshness still lingered, a more wilful element was +also observable. Invitation-cards, race-cards, the <i>Daily Mail</i>, +magazines, English and French novels, and cigarettes were freely +scattered about, and an expert would have seen at a glance that the +dresses lying in every direction could not have formed part of any +trousseau. They had obviously been chosen with (or against) the advice +of Lord Chetwode.</p> + +<p>Savile sat down on a pink curved sofa, and said definitely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>—</p> + +<p>"Look here, Felicity, I want to speak to you."</p> + +<p>"Yes, darling?"</p> + +<p>"Does Chetwode know what's going to win the Cambridgeshire?"</p> + +<p>"How can he know, darling? Would it be fair? Of course he has some vague +<i>idea</i>. Candid Friend he said was the favourite. He says it's a +certainty. But <i>his</i> certainties! (Everett, look out. You've been +overdoing the waving lately. Remember how careful I have to be not to +look like a wax-doll in a hair-dresser's shop ... with <i>my</i> complexion)! +Go on, Savile,—what's the party going to be like?"</p> + +<p>"Like nothing on earth, my dear, as usual. One of the governor's +baffling entertainments."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't care what people say, Savile! I think papa's parties are +the greatest fun one can get anywhere. It's a wonderful mixture,—a sort +of Russian salad. How exciting it is, for instance, never being quite +sure whether one is going to be taken to dinner by—Lord Rosebery, +or—Little Tich!"</p> + +<p>"As it happens, my dear, they've both refused," said Savile ironically.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Savile, don't be funny when I've no time to laugh. Do you deny +papa's peculiar talent for celebrities? Is De Valdez coming?"</p> + +<p>"The Spanish composer? Oh, rather! He's coming over about his new opera. +He's all right.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> At least, I +<a name="corr2" id="corr2"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn2" title="changed from 'bar'">bear</a> him rather, but girls like him."</p> + +<p>"And who will be the great card this time, Savile?"</p> + +<p>"Of course, Roy Beaumont, the inventor."</p> + +<p>"What on earth's he invented?"</p> + +<p>"Himself, I should think. He's only about twenty-one. Roy's a capital +chap, really. The only thing is, he wears hats that he thinks suit him. +Otherwise he dresses rather well, for a dandy."</p> + +<p>"Why on earth shouldn't his hats suit him?" said Lady Chetwode in +surprise.</p> + +<p>"Oh, never mind! I can't go into all that. Why, because you ought to +wear things, because they're <i>right</i>, not because——Oh, girls don't +understand dress! Don't let's fatigue ourselves discussing it. Any one +can see you've never been to Eton."</p> + +<p>"Well, I should rather hope they could," murmured Felicity, looking in +the glass.</p> + +<p>"F. J. Rivers and Arthur Mervyn, the actor, are coming, and—oh, a lot +more."</p> + +<p>"I see, it's a clever party. Isn't it fun, Savile, being the only stupid +person in a crowd of clever people? They make such a fuss about one. +Aren't any real people coming?"</p> + +<p>"A few. Some heavy M.P.'s and their wives, and Aunt William, and of +course old Ridokanaki."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, the Greek millionaire,—the banker?"</p> + +<p>"Don't call him the banker; it reminds me of <i>The Hunting of the +Snark</i>."</p> + +<p>Felicity laughed.</p> + +<p>"Yes; Mr. Ridokanaki is rather like a sort of Snark, and you and papa +are hunting him for Sylvia. Will it come off?"</p> + +<p>"Shouldn't think so," said Savile thoughtfully. "He's rather a bore, but +he's a good sort. Of course, Sylvia ought to marry him. All the pretty +girls are marrying these Anglo-Aliens. He's very keen. But about my +affairs—I say, Everett, do take away these fluffy rustling things."</p> + +<p>Everett having completed her task, with a stiff smile, and a rainbow of +chiffons over her arm, faded away.</p> + +<p>Felicity, completely dressed, turned her chair round and put up her +absurd little high-heeled shoes.</p> + +<p>"Now then, fire away, old boy."</p> + +<p>Savile, taking this command literally, stretched out his hand for the +cigarettes. Felicity snatched them away.</p> + +<p>"How dare you! You won't grow any more! Here, have a chocolate!"</p> + +<p>Savile looked at her with a pitying smile and said slowly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>—</p> + +<p>"What rot! Grow! As if I wanted to grow! As if I had the time! I've got +more serious things than that to do I can tell you. I have two rather +awful troubles. Look here. Things are a bit off at home just now. The +Governor is furious about Chetwode not coming to the party."</p> + +<p>Lady Chetwode's colour deepened.</p> + +<p>"Well, what about me, Savile? Do you think I'm pleased? Is it my fault +the Cambridgeshire's run on Wednesday? Do be just to me! Do I make the +racing engagements? You can't pretend that I can alter the rules of +Newmarket because papa chooses to give a lot of absurd parties!"</p> + +<p>"I know, old girl—but can't you make him give it up?"</p> + +<p>"Who ever yet made Chetwode give up anything he wants to do? Besides, +it's not like a dinner-party, or his wedding, or anything like that, +Savile, you know. After all, he isn't <i>bound</i> to be there!"</p> + +<p>"All right; only it's the first thing we've given since your marriage +and——"</p> + +<p>"I know, dear. I'm very angry about it. Very. Besides, I'm sure I don't +care if the darling prefers racing! Don't you know by this time that +whenever Chetwode is particularly wanted he is sure to be either at +Kempton or at Christie's?"</p> + +<p>"Spending at Christie's what he's lost at Kempton, I suppose."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Naturally, Savile. And if he prefers his horses, and his jockeys, and +his bookmakers, and even his old furniture, to taking his own wife to +her own father's party——"</p> + +<p>"Hallo, old girl, don't tell me you haven't everything under the sun you +want! Because that would be a bit too thick," said Savile, sitting up.</p> + +<p>"Who says I haven't?"</p> + +<p>"No one, if you don't."</p> + +<p>"I should hope not!"</p> + +<p>Then Felicity murmured relentingly—</p> + +<p>"Dear Chetwode! He's so heavenly in some ways. No, I won't worry and +oppose him, it's a fatal mistake. We'll make it up to you later—stay +with you on the river in August or something. What price you, dear? +What's your trouble?"</p> + +<p>Savile fumbled a good deal with a tassel, laughed mirthlessly, frowned +gloomily, and then said with a jerk: "What price me? No price. It's her. +You know."</p> + +<p>Felicity replied patiently.</p> + +<p>"You always say that, and you never get any further,—never."</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear, don't you see—there's two things."</p> + +<p>"Go on."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What ought a chap to do who,—I've consulted men of the world, and yet +I think you know best. You're so celebrated as a confidante."</p> + +<p>"Well?" said his sister.</p> + +<p>"What ought a chap to do—who ... oh, well ... if a chap—say a chap +has—well—a girl, say, frightfully keen on him (for the sake of the +argument), and she's a decent sort of girl, and at the same time the +poor chap is frightfully keen on another girl, who is frightfully keen +on another chap—who is a very decent chap too, mind you ... what ought +he to do?"</p> + +<p>"Which chap, Savile?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't be so muddle-headed, Felicity! Pull yourself together, can't +you? <i>Me</i>, of course!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, you!"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"You mean Dolly Clive is in love with you" (Savile winced at the +feminine explicitness), "and you are in love with some one else, and +it's quite hopeless."</p> + +<p>"I don't quite say that. But there are tremendous difficulties."</p> + +<p>"Is she married? Oh, I do believe she's married. Oh, Savile! How +extraordinary and horrid of you!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's all right, Felicity," said Savile, with a reassuring nod, at +which she laughed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'm sure it is, dear. But who on earth is it?"</p> + +<p>Savile took a photograph out of his pocket, and blushingly showed it to +his sister, with his head turned away.</p> + +<p>As she looked at it her face expressed the most unfeigned bewilderment.</p> + +<p>"Aunt William? But this is very sudden.... Oh, it's some mistake, +surely! You <i>can't</i> be in love with Aunt William!"</p> + +<p>With a howl of fury Savile snatched the portrait from her.</p> + +<p>It was a quaint, faded photograph of an elderly aunt of his taken in the +early seventies. It represented a woman with an amiable expression and a +pointed face; parted hair, with a roll on the top, and what was in those +days known as an Alexandra curl on the left shoulder. She was leaning +her head on her hand, and her elbow on a vague shelf or balcony. The +photograph was oval in shape, and looked as if the lady were looking out +of a window. At the base of the window was a kind of board, on which was +written in her own handwriting, magnified (in white letters, relieved on +black), the beautiful words, "Yours truly, Mary Crofton."</p> + +<p>"You are an idiot, Felicity!" said Savile angrily. "You make fun of +everything! I gave it you by mistake. I took it from Aunt William's +album for a joke. Give it me."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Don't snatch! I want another prehistoric peep—and now tell me the real +person, dear," said Felicity, trying not to laugh.</p> + +<p>"Oh no, you don't! I just shan't now."</p> + +<p>"Mayn't I see the real one?"</p> + +<p>Savile, after a glance at Aunt William, gave a short laugh, and said, +putting it away—</p> + +<p>"Look here, and try to listen. This is how I stand. Last holidays, at +Christmas, I proposed to Dolly Clive in the square. She accepted me. +Very well. This holidays, I saw some one else; what is a fellow to do? +And then I went completely off my head about her, as any chap with a +grain of sense would do, and Doll's no more to me now than——"</p> + +<p>"Aunt William," said Lady Chetwode.</p> + +<p>"As a gentleman, I'm bound to Dolly; though, <i>don't</i> forget I always +told her that if when she came out she met a chap she liked better, she +was quite free; (not but what I jolly well intended to punch the chap's +head). Still, there it was! Then this happens! And this time I fell +really in love."</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"Never mind where. At a concert."</p> + +<p>"But what concert, Savile?"</p> + +<p>"<i>A</i> concert."</p> + +<p>"Whose concert? You've only been to one in your life. I know——the +Albert Hall!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You've hit in once, my dear."</p> + +<p>"Is it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Adelina Patti."</p> + +<p>Savile got up and looked out of the window.</p> + +<p>Felicity looked serious. Then she said gaily—</p> + +<p>"Poor old boy! I think, dear, you should try and forget it."</p> + +<p>"I can't, Felicity! She haunts me! Oh, the way she sings 'Comin through +the Rye!' She's simply—well, ripping's the only word!"</p> + +<p>"It's hereditary. You're just like papa. He was madly in love with her +once."</p> + +<p>"Only once!" Savile was contemptuous.</p> + +<p>"Well, Savile dear, anyhow I advise you to break it off definitely with +Dolly. She's only just fourteen now, and it would interfere with her +lessons. Besides, I know her mother wants her to go in for Physical +Culture during the holidays. What are those exercises—Swedenborgian or +something—anyhow, it takes up time. Besides, I somehow feel that that +(the affair with Dolly) was more a sort of boy-and-girl fancy. Don't you +think so? This, of course, is the great romance of your life. It will +probably last for ever. Of course I know it's only a kind of distant +worship and adoration, but still——"</p> + +<p>"How well you know, by Jove! Felicity, I tell you what—I'm not going to +think about it any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> more. I <i>know</i> there's no hope. Is she likely to +sing again this season?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Felicity, let me come with you!... No, I won't. I'd rather go alone +in the balcony."</p> + +<p>"We'll see, dear. Now, what's the other trouble?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm rather worried about Sylvia."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear boy, that's a mania of yours! You're always harping on +about her marrying Mr. Ridokanaki."</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't she?"</p> + +<p>"Why should she, Savile? It wouldn't amuse her. And Sylvia is very happy +at home; the head of papa's house, perfect liberty, and only twenty——"</p> + +<p>"I know; but do you know I sometimes suspect ... look here. Do you think +Woodville—don't you think Sylvia ... likes him?"</p> + +<p>Felicity sat up with a jerk.</p> + +<p>"Frank Woodville! That highly-principled, highly-strung, +highly-cultivated, intellectual young man? Oh <i>no</i>! <i>Oh</i> no! Why he, as +papa's secretary, would no more try to——"</p> + +<p>"Who says he would? She might like him all right, I suppose. Besides, if +he <i>is</i> highly cultivated, as you call it, and all that, it's not his +fault, is it? He's a good-looking chap all the same. Face facts, I say! +and if the truth were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> known, and every one had their rights, he <i>may</i> +be human! You never know!"</p> + +<p>Felicity laughed, and then said—</p> + +<p>"I do hope he's not. It would be so impossible! Rather romantic too, a +puritanical secretary with a figure and a profile in love with the +pretty daughter of a pompous politician. He teaches her Latin too. Sort +of Abelard and Francesca—or something—But oh! I don't believe it."</p> + +<p>"Abelard! Oh, what rot! Do shut up! Well, remember I've given you a +hint, and I don't ask you not to tell—I treat you as an officer and a +gentleman."</p> + +<p>"Don't worry about me," said Felicity, smiling, "I talk so much that I +never have time to repeat a single thing about anybody—to the wrong +person."</p> + +<p>"I know. Will you dine with us to-morrow, as Chetwode's out of town?"</p> + +<p>"No, Savile darling, I can't. I'm dining with Mrs. Ogilvie. You needn't +mention it."</p> + +<p>Savile arranged his tie in the mirror, and said in his slow, impressive +way—</p> + +<p>"I don't mention things. But the Governor doesn't care for that go-ahead +set. And he's not wrong, either."</p> + +<p>"We're only going to dine at Ranelagh,—to try her new motor, dear," +said Felicity coaxingly.</p> + +<p>"Does Chetwode know?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I thought you knew he was at Newmarket."</p> + +<p>"Well! Take it as you like, and think me an interfering ass if you +choose, but if I were you I'd somehow get Chetwode back from +Newmarket,—and not go about so much with Mrs. Ogilvie."</p> + +<p>"Why not, Savile?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I shouldn't begin that drifting apart business, <i>just</i> yet. It's +really rather rot, quite so soon. You're too young, and so on—been +married a year, and I'm hanged if he's not fond of you still! Why do it? +That's what I say——"</p> + +<p>"A person may be very devoted, <i>and</i> a perfect husband, and sweet in +every way, and not dream of drifting apart for ages and ages, and yet +want to see Tobacco Trust run, darling!"</p> + +<p>"I know,—and I've put my last shilling on Penultimate!"</p> + +<p>"Naughty boy! I hope it was really your last shilling,—not your last +sovereign!"</p> + +<p>He laughed, kissed her, and walked downstairs, softly humming to +himself, "Gin a body meet a body...."</p> + +<p>When he had gone, Felicity looked quite sensible for a little while as +she pondered indulgently on the weaknesses of her husband, cheerfully on +the troubles of her brother, and with some real sisterly anxiety +concerning the alarming attractions of Frank Woodville.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>THE TRIALS OF WOODVILLE</h3> + + +<p>Several hours of the morning had been passed by Woodville in an +occupation that, one might think, would easily pall on a spirited young +man—addressing envelopes and filling in invitation cards. The cards +stated with tedious repetition that Miss Crofton and Sir James Crofton, +M.P., would be At Home on the 30th April at ten o'clock. In the +left-hand corner were the words, "Herr Yung's White Viennese Orchestra."</p> + +<p>Woodville's desk was close to the long French window, which opened on to +a charming garden. From this garden came the sound of excited +twitterings of birds and other pleasant suggestions of spring. Suddenly +a tall and graceful young girl, with hair like sunshine, came up to the +open window and smiled at him. She held up to show him some wonderful +mauve and blue hyacinths that she carried, and then passed on. Woodville +sighed. <i>It</i> was too symbolic. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> scent lingered. Like a +half-remembered melody, it seemed to have the insidious power of +recalling something in the past that was too wonderful ever to have +happened, and of suggesting vague hopes of the most improbable joys. +Sylvia seemed to the young man the incarnation of April. He put down his +pen, and shaded his eyes with his hand. Then the inner door from the +hall opened, and a pompous but genial voice exclaimed with heavy +briskness—</p> + +<p>"Well, Woodville, finished, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Not yet, Sir James, but I can go on later, if you want me now."</p> + +<p>The secretary spoke with a deference that seemed surprising. He did not +look like a man who would be supple to an employer, or obsequious to any +one—even a woman.</p> + +<p>"No hurry, no hurry," said Sir James, with that air of self-denial that +conveys the urgent necessity of intense speed. He was a handsome old +man, with thick grey hair, a white military moustache, bushy dark +eyebrows, and in his eyes that humorous twinkle that is so often seen in +those men of the last generation who are most devoid of a sense of +humour. Sir James was liable to the irritable changes of mood that would +nowadays be called neurotic or highly strung, but was in his young days +merely put down as bad temper. He had a high estimation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> of his mental +powers, and a poor opinion of those who did not share this estimation. +He took a special pride in his insight into character, and in that +instinctive penetration that is said to enable its fortunate possessor +to see as far through a brick wall as most people. (A modest ambition, +when all is said and done!) His contemporaries liked him: at least, they +smiled when his name was mentioned. He was warm-hearted and generous; he +had a curious mania for celebrities; was a hospitable host, a tedious +guest, and a loyal friend. His late wife (who was lovely, but weary) had +always described him in one word. The word was "trying".</p> + +<p>Sir James sat down slowly on a depressed leather uneasy chair, and said, +"Presently I want you to take notes of a speech I intend making in the +House on Russia—I mean the present situation in Russia," he added +instructively.</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Woodville, trying to look intelligently sympathetic, +and restraining his inclination to say that he had not expected a speech +at this time of day on our victories in the Crimea.</p> + +<p>"Do let's have the speech while it's fresh in your mind. I can easily +return to this afterwards, Sir James."</p> + +<p>"Later on, later on; when it's more matured<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>—more matured...." He +pondered a few moments about nothing whatever, and then said, "Sent a +card to Roy Beaumont, the young inventor? That's right. That boy has a +future. Mark my words, he has a future before him."</p> + +<p>"Oh! I thought it had begun some time ago, and was still going on. He is +quite twenty-three, isn't he?" asked Frank.</p> + +<p>"About that—about that. He's a young man with Ideas, Woodville."</p> + +<p>"Yes. I heard he had grown tired of button-holes, and is thinking of +training a creeper to crawl up the lapel of his coat."</p> + +<p>"An original notion," said Sir James judicially. "If practicable. And +what else did he invent?"</p> + +<p>"Wasn't it he who invented some new way of not posting letters—by +electricity?"</p> + +<p>"I rather think you're confusing him with Marconi," said Sir James, +shaking his head. "But I always detect genius! It's a curious thing, +Woodville, but I never make a mistake! By the way, I should like to send +a card to the Leader of the Opposition and his wife. Inquire of Sylvia +about their address. I don't know them, socially, but I fancy they would +be rather surprised if I omitted them."</p> + +<p>"It might, indeed, be rather marked," said Woodville, making a note, and +remembering<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> that it is as impossible nowadays to ask every one one +knows as to know every one one asks.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll leave you to your work, and we'll do the speech later, a +little later ... much later," and Sir James meditatively bent his elbows +on the arms of the chair, accurately placed all the tips of his fingers +together, and slowly blinked his eyes. He did not mean any harm by this. +In fact, he meant nothing. His gestures and expression had no +significance at all. He simply behaved like any other elderly +Anglo-Saxon who believes himself to be political and to resemble the +"Younger Pitt."</p> + +<p>"I rather wanted to ask Miss Crofton about a change of address," said +Woodville, glancing swiftly and hypocritically through the Red Book.</p> + +<p>"I'll send her to you—I'll send her. Don't move. Sit still, sit still."</p> + +<p>Woodville followed with his eyes the closing of the door; then he put +down his pen and gazed at the closed door. Sometimes he thought his life +was like a closed door. Yet, perhaps, there might be some one on the +other side of the door? (According to Maeterlinck—or is it Owen +Seaman?—there is always some one on the other side of a door.)</p> + +<p>At a casual glance Woodville seemed the conventional type of a +good-looking young Englishman, tall, fair-haired, and well built. He +pos<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>sessed, however, a forehead unnecessarily intellectual; and a +sparkle of more than mere animal spirits lurked in the depths of his +dark brown eyes. An observer would also have noticed that his mouth and +chin had something of the stern and sad look of fatalism that one sees +in the pictures of Rossetti and Burne-Jones. He had the unmistakable +public-school and University hall-mark, and if he had been fairly liked +at Eton, at Oxford, where (as Mr. Max Beerbohm so rightly says) the +nonsense knocked out of one at school is carefully and painlessly put +back, Woodville was really popular, and considered remarkably clever, +capable of enjoying, and even of conceiving, Ideas. Detesting the +ready-made cheap romantic, and yet in vague search of the unusual, he +often complained bitterly that his history—so far—was like the little +piece of explanation of the plot (for those who have missed it) at the +beginning of a chapter of a feuilleton in the <i>Daily Mail</i>. It was +rather hard to have to admit that he had been left an orphan at three +years old and adopted by his bachelor uncle, a baronet called Sir Bryce +Woodville, who had brought him up as his acknowledged heir, with the +prospect of a big estate.</p> + +<p>Frank had gone with careless gaiety through school and college, when his +apparently sane<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> and kind relative, growing tired of romantic drama, +suddenly behaved like a guardian in an old-fashioned farce. Instead of +making his wife his housekeeper, as most men do, he made his housekeeper +his wife. She was a depressing woman. In a year he had a son and heir, +and within two months after this event, he died, leaving his nephew +exactly one hundred pounds a year.</p> + +<p>This curiously unpractical joke taught the young man that absurdly +improbable things are quite as liable to happen in real life as in weak +literature.</p> + +<p>The legacy was, of course, abject poverty to a man who, having always +had an exceptionally large allowance, had naturally never thought about +money, and though Frank believed himself not to be extravagant because +he had never made large debts, his ideas of the ordinary necessities of +life were not conspicuously moderate, including, as they did, horses, +hospitality, travel, Art, and at least the common decency of a jolly +little motor of his own. He had often been warned by his uncle to spend +the twenty thousand a year to which he was heir freely but not lavishly.</p> + +<p>Why Sir Bryce Woodville had shown so sudden and marked an interest in a +child he had known but for two months (and who had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> screamed most of +that time), preferring him to a young man of talent and charm for whom +he had shown indulgent affection for twenty-two years, was one of those +mysteries that seem unsolvable in elderly gentlemen in general and in +wicked uncles in particular. Sir Bryce had always been particularly fond +of young people, and certainly greater youth and the nearer relationship +were obviously the only points in which the son had the advantage over +the nephew.</p> + +<p>When Woodville found himself really hard up he sought a certain +consolation in trying to do without things and in the strenuous hourly +endeavour to avoid spending sixpence; no easy task to a man whose head +was always in the clouds and his hand always in his pocket. As a novelty +even economy may have its pleasures, but they are not, perhaps to all +temperaments, either very sound or very lasting.</p> + +<p>At the moment when omnibuses, cheap cigarettes, and self-denial were +beginning to pall he had accepted the offer of the secretaryship, +intending to look about to try to get something more congenial; perhaps +to drift into diplomacy. Nothing could be less to his taste than the +post of shorthandwriter to a long-winded old gentleman, to writing out +speeches that in all probability would never be made, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> copying +pamphlets that would (most fortunately) never be printed. Often he +thought he would rather "break stones on the road," drive a hansom cab, +or even go on the stage, than be the superfluous secretary of such a +dull, though dear nonentity.</p> + +<p>Woodville also went in for painting: he had a little talent and a great +deal of taste, sufficient, indeed, to despise his own work though he +enjoyed doing it. In his leisure time he even tried to make money by +copying old masters, and often sold them for quite amazing prices +(amazingly low, I mean) to a few people who honestly preferred them to +the originals on the undeniable grounds that they were at once cleaner +and less costly. He was ambitious and knew he had brains and energy, +besides being rather unusually well-turned-out in the matter of culture. +And yet he had remained at Onslow Square for five years! As a career it +was nothing. It could lead to nothing. Was there, then, some other +attraction, something that outweighed, transcended for him all the petty +pangs and penalties of his position?</p> + +<p>This arch surmise of the writer will be found by the persevering reader +to be perfectly reasonable and founded on fact.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>A LOVE SCENE</h3> + + +<p>There was a knock at the door. Woodville looked up. It was Sylvia.</p> + +<p>Sylvia had that curious gift, abstract beauty, the sort of beauty that +recalls vaguely some ideal or antique memory. Hence, at various times +various people had remarked on her striking resemblance to Helen of +Troy, Cleopatra, Dante's Beatrice, the Venus of the Luxembourg, one of +Botticelli's angels, and La Giaconda!</p> + +<p>Her head was purely Greek, her hair, fine in texture, and in colour +golden-brown, grew very low in thick ripples on a broad forehead. The +illusion of the remote or mythical was intensified by the symmetry of +her slim figure, by her spiritual eyes, and beautiful, Pagan mouth. Tall +and slender, her rounded arms and fine hands with their short pointed +fingers seemed to terminate naturally in anything she held, such as a +fan or flower, or fell in graceful curves in her lap. Sylvia had not the +<i>chiffonnée</i> restless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> charm of the contemporary pretty woman; she did +not, like Felicity, arouse with stimulating intensity one's sense of the +modern.</p> + +<p>Goddess, heroine, or angel she might be (her height, indeed, suggested +heaven rather than hockey). Her beauty was of other days, not of the +Summer Number. She was not, however, to do her justice, intentionally +picturesque. She did not "<i>go in for the artistic style</i>"; that is to +say, she did not part her hair and draw it over her ears, wear +oddly-shaped blouses and bead necklaces, and look absent. The iron had +obviously entered into her hair (or into every seventh wave, at least, +of her hair), and her dresses fitted her as a flower its sheath. She was +natural, but not in the least wild; no primrose by a river's brim, nor +an artificial bloom, but rather a hothouse flower just plucked and very +carefully wired. Hence she was at once the despair of the portrait +painters, who had never as yet been able to help making her look on +canvas like a bad Leighton in a Doucet dress, and the joy of the +photographers, who in her honour set aside their pillars and their +baskets of flowers, their curtains and their picture hats, being certain +that she would pose herself exquisitely, and that her lines were so +right that not even a photographer could improve on them.</p> + +<p>Sylvia was so truly artistic in temperament<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> and so extremely +unpractical that it was not surprising she made an admirable +housekeeper, having fortunately that inborn gift for organisation, and +for seeing things on the whole, that is so much more important in home +life than any small fussing about the unimportant details. And she would +receive excuses from servants with a smile so sweet yet so incredulous +that it disarmed deceit and made incompetence hide its head (or give +notice).</p> + +<p>She came round to the writing-table, bent her head over his shoulder, +and said in a low voice of emotion, as though it were a secret—</p> + +<p>"How are you getting on? Did you want me to find anything—an address, +or anything?"</p> + +<p>He put his hand on hers and looked up at her. Then he looked away.</p> + +<p>"Don't, Sylvia. I wish you would go away. Or go to the other side of the +room ... I can't stand it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Frank! How rude and unkind!" But she was apparently not offended, +as she blushed and smiled while she moved a little away. Then she said, +looking at the cards—</p> + +<p>"Will the party be awful, do you think?"</p> + +<p>"No, it won't be bad. Except for me, of course. To see you talking to +other people. Not that I really care, because I know you have to. And +besides, you won't, will you?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I promise I won't! I'll just be a hostess, and talk to old ladies, or +stray girls, or perhaps just a few dull old married men."</p> + +<p>"I approve of that programme. But—of course I have no right to advise, +and I may be entirely wrong—supposing you were to leave out the old +married men? You will have to talk to all the clever young men, I am +afraid. Don't go to supper with F. G. Rivers. That's all I ask. I +couldn't bear it."</p> + +<p>"F. G. Rivers! Of course not! Felicity will do all that sort of thing. +She has a talent for celebrities—like papa. But why on earth <i>mustn't</i> +I go to supper with just F. G. Rivers?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know. You can if you like. <i>I</i> don't care," said Woodville +jealously.</p> + +<p>"I thought he was a wonderfully clever novelist, tremendously successful +and celebrated!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know. That's what I meant," Woodville said.</p> + +<p>"Aren't his books rather weird and uncanny ... and romantic,—all about +local colour, and awfully cynical?"</p> + +<p>"How well you know what to say about things! <i>Weird!</i> Delightful! I dare +say that's what Rivers would expect a nice girl to say of his books. He +spends half his time being afraid people should think his work is lurid, +and the rest in being simply terrified that people should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> think it's +not. He's very clever really, and a delightful companion."</p> + +<p>"Is he cynical?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"He's so sceptical, that he believes in everything, but especially hard +work, like table-turning, crystal-gazing, and Sandow's exercises.... I +was at Oxford with him, you know," Frank added explanatorily.</p> + +<p>"I see, it's an old affection. Anybody else I'm not to speak to?"</p> + +<p>"Nonsense, Sylvia; I want you to be charming to every one, of course. I +believe in that sort of thing. It's the right atmosphere for a party. +Don't think about <i>me</i>."</p> + +<p>"How can I help it?"</p> + +<p>Her grey eyes were reproachful.</p> + +<p>Woodville looked into them, then abruptly looked away.</p> + +<p>"What are you going to wear, Sylvia?"</p> + +<p>"My white satin, I think. Do you like it? Or don't you?"</p> + +<p>"No; it makes you look too much like a Gainsborough—or no, more like a +Sargent—which is worse. I mean worse for me, of course."</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear! why am I always <i>like</i> something? Well, what am I to wear, +Frank? I've just ordered a sort of fluffy grey chiffon—like a cloud."</p> + +<p>"Wear that. You're always in the clouds, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> I'm always looking up at +them.... I hope it has a silver lining?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it has. I don't know yet, it hasn't come home. Felicity's going +to wear a sort of Watteau-ish dress, pink and white and blue, you know. +Of course, she won't wear any jewels—she never will. You see, Chetwode +has such a lot of old ones in his family. She says she's afraid, if she +did, the <i>Perfect Lady</i> or <i>Home Chirps</i> might say 'Lady Chetwode as +usual appeared in the "Chetwode emeralds"'—or something idiotic of that +sort."</p> + +<p>"How like her! Then just wear your string of pearls."</p> + +<p>"Mayn't I wear the little turquoise heart that you—didn't give me, the +one I bought in the Brompton Road and gave it to myself from you, so +that I could honestly say you hadn't?"</p> + +<p>"Better not, Sylvia. It looks as if it came out of a cracker. And we +don't need any symbols and things, do we?"</p> + +<p>"Very well.... I'm afraid, Frank ... I shall have to go now."</p> + +<p>Woodville looked hurt.</p> + +<p>"What? Already! Then why did you waste the precious minutes alone in +making epigrams about F. G. Rivers? He's such a good fellow too, I +always got on with him at Oxford."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Did I make epigrams? How funny! I didn't know I could."</p> + +<p>She came a little nearer. Woodville said in a low voice, rather +quickly—</p> + +<p>"You looked really divine just now through the window, with the +hyacinths in your hands—like the goddess of something or other—spring, +I suppose.... When I look at you, I understand all the old poetry. <i>To +Amaryllis</i> and Herrick—and—you know."</p> + +<p>"Dear Frank!... Am I to find an address?"</p> + +<p>"You can't, dearest. There is no address. Besides, they've moved. And I +found it myself ever so long ago."</p> + +<p>She laughed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Frank!"</p> + +<p>Woodville put his hand out and took hers.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't go just yet!" he said imploringly.</p> + +<p>"Why, you told me to go away just now—or to the other side of the +room!"</p> + +<p>"Ah, but that was ages ago! Why, you haven't <i>been</i> here two minutes! +You can't be in such a hurry.... Anyhow, come here a second."</p> + +<p>She obeyed, and leant over his shoulder.... Then he said abruptly—</p> + +<p>"Yes, you had better go."</p> + +<p>Blushing, she glided away at once, without another word.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span></p> + +<p>Woodville remained at the desk, looking a little pale, and frowning. He +had a theory that he was a very scrupulous man, with a high sense of +honour. It was a worrying theory.</p> + +<p>With a sigh he returned to the invitation cards.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>"AUNT WILLIAM"</h3> + + +<p>Mrs. William Crofton, the widow of Sir James's brother, was, in her own +way, quite a personage in London; at least, in the London that she knew. +We have already seen her in the photograph in Savile's possession taken +some forty years ago (by Mayall and Son, at Brighton). She was now an +elderly lady, and still occupied the large ugly house in South Audley +Street, where the children remembered their Uncle Mary. Felicity, +Sylvia, and Savile had chosen to reverse the order in which they were +told to speak of their uncle and aunt. Felicity had pointed out that not +only was Aunt William more like an uncle, but that by this ingenious +device they dodged a kind of history lesson. The great object always was +to counteract carefully any information conveyed to them during the time +of their education. All historians and teachers alike were regarded as +natural enemies from Pinnock to Plato. On the same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> principle, Savile +would never eat <i>Reading</i> biscuits, because he feared that some form of +condensed study was being insidiously introduced into the system. Boys +had to be on their guard against any treachery of that kind.</p> + +<p>If there were a certain charm in the exterior of this old house—solid +and aggressively respectable—its interior gave most visitors at first a +nervous shock. Aunt William still firmly believed æstheticism to be +fashionable, and a fad that should be discouraged. Through every varying +whim of the mode she had stuck, with a praiseworthy persistence, to the +wax flowers under glass, Indian chessmen, circular tables in the centre +of the room, surrounded by large books, and the rep curtains (crimson, +with green borders) of pre-artistic days. Often she held forth to +wondering young people, for whom the 1880 fashions were but an echo of +ancient history, on the sad sinfulness of sunflowers and the fearful +folly of Japanese fans. Had the poor lady been but a decade or two more +old-fashioned she would have been considered quaint and up-to-date. (A +narrow escape, had she only known it!)</p> + +<p>She was a small, pointed person, with a depressing effect of having +(perhaps) been a beauty once, and she regarded Sylvia and Felicity with +that mingled affection, pride, and annoy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>ance compounded of a wish to +serve them, a desire to boast of them, and a longing to bully them that +is often characteristic of elderly relatives. The only special fault she +found was that they were too young, especially Sylvia. Mrs. Crofton did +not explain for what the girls were too young, but did her best to make +Sylvia at least older by boring her to death about etiquette, religion, +politics, cooking recipes, and kindred subjects. Aunt William was one of +those rare women of theory rather than practice who prefer a menu to a +dinner, and a recipe to either. Indeed, recipes were a hobby of hers, +and one of her pleasures was to send to a young housekeeper some such +manuscript as the following:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">To Make Elderberry Wine Required</span>—</p> + +<p> +Half a peck of ripe elderberries.<br /> +One and a half gallons of boiling water.<br /> +</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">To Each Gallon of Juice</span></p> + +<p> +Three pounds of loaf sugar,<br /> +Four cloves,<br /> +Six allspice.<br /> +</p></div> + +<p>Stalk the berries, put them into a large vessel with the boiling water, +cover it closely, and leave for twenty-four hours," and so on.</p> + +<p>To one person she was quite devoted—her nephew Savile.</p> + +<p>One morning Aunt William woke up at half-past<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> seven, and complained to +her maid that she had had insomnia for twenty minutes. Having glanced at +the enlarged and coloured photograph of the late William that decorated +every room, she ordered a luncheon of roast mutton and rice pudding, +rhubarb tart and cream, almonds and raisins, and oranges, thinking that +this menu would be at once suitable and attractive to a boy of sixteen. +In a more indulgent moment she then sent out for a large packet of +milk-chocolate, and prepared to receive Savile at lunch.</p> + +<p>When Savile arrived in his father's motor, Mrs. Crofton, who had been +looking out for him at the window, ran up to her room (she could run +when alone) and allowed him to be shown into the drawing-room by +himself. Aunt William resented automobiles as much as she disliked +picture postcards, week-ends, musical comedies, and bridge.</p> + +<p>Savile walked up and down the enormous room, lost in thought, and +scarcely observing his surroundings. He smiled slightly as he +contemplated the portrait of Uncle Mary, who was represented as leaning +rather weakly for support against a pedestal that looked by no means +secure, with a heavy curtain and a lowering sky in the background.</p> + +<p>"Jove! what short frock-coats those chaps<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> wore!" thought Savile. "What +rotters they must have been!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"And so Lord Chetwode is out of town again?" Aunt William said, as they +sat over dessert.</p> + +<p>"Gone to Newmarket."</p> + +<p>"I see in the <i>Morning Post</i> that your sister Sylvia was at Lady +Gaskaine's last night. I suppose she was the belle of the ball." She +offered him some preserved ginger.</p> + +<p>"No, she wasn't. There's no such thing as a belle of the ball now, Aunt +William. She danced with Heath and Broughton, of course, and Caldrey, +and those chaps. Broughton took her to supper."</p> + +<p>Aunt William seemed gratified.</p> + +<p>"Curious! I recollect Lord Broughton in kilts when he was a little +toddling pet of seven! His father was considered one of the most +fascinating men of his day, my dear. What a beautiful place Broughton +Hall is!" She pressed another orange on him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Sylvia's all right," said Savile, impartially declining the fruit +and producing an aluminium cigarette-case. Aunt William, pretending not +to see it, passed him the matches as if in a fit of absence of mind. As +a matter of fact, Savile was really more at home with Aunt William than +with any one, even his sisters.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And now, my dear boy, tell me about yourself."</p> + +<p>Savile took out of his pocket the envelope containing her photograph.</p> + +<p>"I say, I took this out of the album last time I came," he said +apologetically.</p> + +<p>Aunt William almost blushed. She was genuinely flattered.</p> + +<p>"But what's that—that green book I see in your pocket? I suppose it's +Euclid, or Greek, or something you're learning."</p> + +<p>"No, it's not; it's poetry. A ripping poem I've just found out. I know +you like that sort of rot, so I brought it for you."</p> + +<p>Her face softened. Savile was the only person who knew her romantic +side.</p> + +<p>"A poem!" she said in a lowered voice. "Oh, what is it about?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, about irises, and how 'In the Spring a Young Man's Fancy,' that +sort of thing—Tennyson, you know."</p> + +<p>"Tennyson!" exclaimed Aunt William. "Do you know Eliza Cook? I think +'The Old Armchair' one of the loveliest poems in the language."</p> + +<p>"Never heard of it."</p> + +<p>"Savile," said Aunt William, when they were sitting by the fire in the +drawing-room, "I'm glad you're fond of poetry. Have you ever written any +at all? You needn't be ashamed of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> it, my dear boy, if you have. I +admire sentiment, but only up to a certain point, of course."</p> + +<p>"Well, it's odd you should say that. I wrote something yesterday. I say, +you won't go and give it away, Aunt William?"</p> + +<p>"Most certainly not!"</p> + +<p>She grew animated.</p> + +<p>"Show it to me, if you have it with you. A taste for literature is in +the family. Once a second cousin of ours—you never knew him—wrote me a +sonnet!"</p> + +<p>"Did he, though? Well, I dare say it was all right. Here's my stuff. I +rather thought I'd consult you. I want to send it to some one."</p> + +<p>Concealing his nervousness under a stern, even harsh demeanour, Savile +took out a folded sheet of paper from a brown pigskin letter-case.</p> + +<p>Aunt William clasped her hands and leaned forward.</p> + +<p>Savile read aloud in an aggressive, matter-of-fact manner the following +words:——</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">"My singing bird, my singing bird,</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Oh sing, oh sing, oh sing, oh sing to me,</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Nothing like it has ever been heard,"</span> +</div></div> + +<p>(Here he dropped the letter-case, and picked it up, blushing at the +contents that had fallen out.)</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">"And I do love to hear thee sing."</span> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p> + +<p>His aunt looked a little faint. She leant back and fanned herself, +taking out her smelling-salts.</p> + +<p>"That's not all," said Savile. Warming to his work, he went on more +gruffly:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">"What should I do if you should stop?</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Oh wilt thou sing for me alone?</span><br /> +<span class="i4">For I will fly to hear your notes:</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Your tune would melt a heart of stone."</span> +</div></div> + +<p>"My gracious, my dear, it's a poem!" said Aunt William.</p> + +<p>"Who said it wasn't? But you can't judge till you've heard the whole +thing."</p> + +<p>She turned away her head and struggled with a smile, while he read the +last verse defiantly and quickly, growing rather red:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">"I haven't got a stony heart</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Or whatever it is, it belongs to you:</span><br /> +<span class="i4">I vow myself thy slave,</span><br /> +<span class="i4">And always I shall e'er be true!"</span><br /> +</div></div> + +<p>There was an embarrassed pause.</p> + +<p>"Well, I really think that last line is rather pretty," said Aunt +William, who had regained her self-control. "But do you think it is +quite—"</p> + +<p>"Is it all right to send to Her?" he said. "That's the point!"</p> + +<p>"Well, I can hardly say. Would your father——"</p> + +<p>"I say! You're not going to tell the Governor?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No, never, Savile dear. It shall be our secret," said Aunt William, +reassuringly.</p> + +<p>"Of course, I know this sort of thing is great rot," he said +apologetically, "but women like it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, do they really?" said Aunt William. "Well! what I always say is, if +you're born with a gift, you should cultivate it!"</p> + +<p>Savile (thinking this encouragement rather meagre) replaced the poem and +said: "I shall have to be going now, Aunt William. Got an appointment."</p> + +<p>"With whom, my dear?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Savile dryly. He did not approve of this direct method of +ascertaining what one wants to know. He would confide, but never +answered questions. She accepted the hint, but would not acknowledge it.</p> + +<p>"Ah, I see!" she said knowingly (wishing she did). "Well, if you must +go, you must!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Aunt William."</p> + +<p>"But before you go, about that party ... I'm coming, of course. In fact, +I'm having my peach brocade done up. Tell dear Sylvia that if there's +anything I can do—I mean in the way of helping her with regard to the +supper——"</p> + +<p>"We've telephoned to Benoist's. It's all fixed up. Thanks very much."</p> + +<p>"Oh! But still I think I'll send my recipe for salmon mayonnaise. Don't +you think I might?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It can't do any harm, when you come to think of it," he answered, +getting up.</p> + +<p>Before he left, Aunt William pressed a sovereign into his hand guiltily, +as if it were conscience money. He, on his side, took it as though it +were a doctor's fee, and both ignored the transaction.</p> + +<p>"Tell your father I'm sure I shall enjoy his entertainment, though why +on <i>earth</i> he still lives in Onslow Square, when he ought to be in +London, I can't and never shall, understand. However, I believe there's +quite a sort of society in Kensington, and no doubt <i>some</i> of the right +people will be there. Are any of the Primrose League coming, do you +know, Savile?"</p> + +<p>"Sure to be. There's Jasmyn Vere for one."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Lord Dorking's son. He's a Knight Harbinger."</p> + +<p>"Is he, though? He looks like a night porter," said Savile. "Good-bye." +He then turned back to murmur. "I say, Aunt William. Thanks most +awfully." She went back smiling.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>A few minutes later Savile was looking over the railings into Berkeley +Square.</p> + +<p>In a kind of summer-house among the trees sat a little girl of fourteen +dressed in grey. She wore a large straw hat on her head and a blue bow +in her hair, and had evidently provided<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> herself with materials of +amusement for the afternoon, for she had a "picture-postcard album" by +her side, and seemed absorbed in a thick volume of history.</p> + +<p>Dolly Clive resembled in expression and the shape of her face one of Sir +Joshua's angel's heads (if one could imagine them brunettes). She had +large brown eyes and a long black plait, and was a graceful example of +what was formerly called "the awkward age." It needed no connoisseur to +see that she was going to be a very pretty woman. When she saw Savile, +she rushed to the gate and let him in with a key.</p> + +<p>"Hallo, Dolly!"</p> + +<p>"I say, Savile, wasn't King Charles the Second an angel? I've just been +reading all about him, and you can't think what fun they used to have!"</p> + +<p>He seemed surprised at this greeting, walked slowly with her to the +arbour, and said rather suspiciously——</p> + +<p>"Who had fun?"</p> + +<p>"Why Lady Castlemaine, and Nell Gwynne, and the Duchess of +Portsmouth,—and all those people. It says so here, if you don't believe +it! I wish I'd lived at that time."</p> + +<p>"I don't. There's fun now, too."</p> + +<p>"Ah, but you don't know anything about it, Savile. I bet you anything +you like you can't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> tell me those clever lines about the poor darling +King's death!"</p> + +<p>"Of course I can. Everybody knows them." Savile made an effort and then +said, "You mean Fain would I climb but that ..."</p> + +<p>"Oh no, no, no! Oh, good gracious, no! One more try, now."</p> + +<p>"Had I but served my God as faithfully as I have served my king ..."</p> + +<p>"Wrong again. That's Sir Philip Sidney," she said, shutting up the book +with a bang. "It's</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">Here lies our Sovereign Lord the King</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Whose word no man relies on ..."</span> +</div></div> + +<p>"I say, old girl, I didn't come here to talk history, if you don't +mind."</p> + +<p>"Well, what do you want to talk about? Shall I show you my new one of +Zena Dare?" said Dolly, opening the postcard album.</p> + +<p>"Certainly not. I can't worry about Zena Dare. No, I've got something to +tell you—something rather serious. Zena Dare, indeed! What next?"</p> + +<p>"Oh dear, are you in a bad temper?"</p> + +<p>"How like a woman! No, I'm <i>not</i> in a bad temper. Talking sense doesn't +show that one's in a bad temper. But it's a beastly thing to have to +do."</p> + +<p>Dorothy sat on both the books, came nearer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> to Savile, and looked rather +pale, tactfully waiting, in silence.</p> + +<p>Then suddenly he said in a different tone, quite cheerily——</p> + +<p>"That's rather jolly, the way that blue bow is stuck in your hair, +Dolly."</p> + +<p>"I thought you wanted to talk sense, Savile. What is it? Have you found +out—anything?"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean? Yes, I've jolly well found out that I can't be +engaged to you any more. I've no right to be."</p> + +<p>She did not seem overwhelmed by the news.</p> + +<p>"Fancy! Just fancy! Oh—I see. Is there some one else? Who is it, +Savile?"</p> + +<p>He smiled in his most superior way.</p> + +<p>"My dear child, people don't go about mentioning women's names. Now look +here, Dolly, I meant to be straight, so I told you right out."</p> + +<p>She smiled.</p> + +<p>"I wonder what sort of girl she is! Well, it can't be Gladys: she's much +too hideous. That's <i>one</i> comfort!"</p> + +<p>"You're right, it can't. Besides, it's not."</p> + +<p>"Well, Savile, you're a dear good boy to come and tell me about it. And, +the fact is, I was just wanting to tell you myself that perhaps we had +better not be engaged any more. Just be pals instead, you know."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Who's the man?" He spoke sternly.</p> + +<p>She began to talk very volubly.</p> + +<p>"You know those people whom we met at Dinard last summer, the de Saules? +They're French, you know. Well, Madame de Saules,—you can't think how +pretty she is,—and dear little Thérèse, and Robert have just come over +here for the season. Thérèse is such a darling. You would love her. Only +a kid, of course, you know, but...."</p> + +<p>"And what price this beastly French boy? Now, listen to me. Foreigners +are all rotters. I can tell you that if you're engaged to him you'll +live to regret it. I speak as a friend, Dolly."</p> + +<p>"Oh dear no! We're not engaged! You don't understand! Private +engagements are not the proper thing in France. It isn't done. <i>Oh</i> no! +Why, his mother would write to my mother and then he would send a +bouquet, or something, and then——"</p> + +<p>"A bouquet! By Jove! Why, you're more prehistoric than Aunt William! +Well, look here, if this little blighter keeps his place I shan't +interfere. But, mind you, if I see the smallest sign of——"</p> + +<p>He rose to his feet.</p> + +<p>"Of what?" said Dolly, rising and looking angry. "He's a nice, handsome, +polite, dear boy. So there!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I should only wring his neck, that's all. Good-bye, old girl."</p> + +<p>They walked to the gate together.</p> + +<p>"It's only for your good, you know, Dolly. I don't mean to be a brute."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's all right, Savile."</p> + +<p>"Dolly, dear."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Savile."</p> + +<p>"I'm awfully fond of you, really."</p> + +<p>"Of course, I know, dear boy. Come again when you can, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Won't</i> I?" said Savile.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>ARTHUR MERVYN AT HOME</h3> + + +<p>Sometimes Sir James would confide in his secretary, and become after +dinner—he drank port—pompously communicative on the subject of the +alliances his daughter might contract—if she would. As he became more +and more confidential in fact, he would grow more and more distant in +manner, so that if they began dinner like old friends, they seemed +gradually to cool into acquaintances; and at the end of the +evening—such an evening!—Woodville felt as if they had barely been +introduced, or had met, accidentally, in a railway train. Yet he courted +these <i>tête-à-tête</i> as one perversely courts a certain kind of +suffering. At least, Sir James talked on the <i>only</i> interesting subject, +and Woodville was anxious to know everything about his rivals; for, +though he believed in Sylvia's affection, he was subject to acute, +almost morbid, attacks of physical jealousy. To see other men admire her +was torture, parti<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>cularly as he had to efface himself and be treated by +her father as a faithful vassal.</p> + +<p>And he really disliked deceiving Sir James, whose open liking was +evident and who thought him matrimonially as much out of the question as +the gardener.</p> + +<p>"Hang it all, Woodville's a gentleman!" Sir James would have cried +furiously at any suggestion that it was imprudent to leave the young man +and Sylvia so much together. Sir James always remembered that Woodville +was a gentleman and forgot that he was a man.</p> + +<p>Men who indulge in inexpensive cynicism say that women are complex and +difficult to understand. This may be true of an ambitious and hard +woman, but nothing can be more simple and direct than a woman in love.</p> + +<p>Sylvia suffered none of Woodville's complications. She did not see why +he should want to run away with her, still less why he should run away +from her. Nothing could be wrong in her eyes connected with her love, +for it was also her religion. Like most girls who can love at all, her +life consisted, in fact, of this emotion only. She might go to the +stores, wave her hair, buy new hats, ride in the Park, order dinner for +her father (with great care, for he was a gourmet), read innumerable +books (generally falling back on Swinburne and Ella Wheeler Wilcox), +re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>ceive and meet innumerable people, go to the opera, and do many other +agreeable, tedious, or trivial things; but her life was her love for +Woodville. And she had all the courage and dignity of real +self-surrender. Whatever he did was right. Whatever he said was clever. +Everything was perfect, so long as he was <i>there</i>. To his scruples, +despairs, delights, and doubts she always answered that, after all, they +were only privately engaged, like heaps of people. And since Woodville +had this peculiar—she secretly thought insane—objection to marrying +her because she was an heiress and he was poor, then they must wait. +Something would happen, and all was sure to come right. She did not wish +to tell her father of the understanding at present, because she feared +Woodville would probably have to go away at once. They would tell him +when she was twenty-one. Only one year, and everything would be open and +delightful.</p> + +<p>A strong motive that kept Woodville there was jealousy. Sylvia, discreet +as she was—no sparkling, teasing coquette—had yet all the irresistible +magnetism of a woman who is obviously made for tenderness. But she +showed as much deftness in keeping back her admirers as most girls do in +attracting them. She had curious deep delicacies; she disliked nothing +so much as to feel or show her power as a woman.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> Pride or vanity was +equally out of the question in her love; it was unselfish and yet it was +not exacting, as unselfish love generally is. So far as she knew, no +unselfishness was required from him. With the unconscious cruelty of +innocence she had kept him in this false position for years, looking +happily forward to a rose-coloured future.</p> + +<p>Was it consistent that, with all his scruples, Woodville had drifted +into this romance?</p> + +<p>A lovely girl of twenty and a remarkably +<a name="corr3" id="corr3"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn3" title="changed from 'goodlooking'">good-looking</a> young man of +twenty-eight meeting every day, every moment, at every meal—she, +romantic; he, the most impressionable of materialists! Surely nothing +could be expected but (for once) the obvious!</p> + +<p>The Greek banker, Mr. Ridokanaki, said to be one of the richest men in +England, had of late begun to pay Sylvia what he considered marked +attention. Huge baskets of flowers, sometimes in the form of silver +ships, sometimes of wicker wheelbarrows, or of brocaded sedan-chairs, +and filled with orchids, lilies, roses, everything that, in the opinion +of a middle-aged banker, would be likely to dazzle and delight a nice +young girl, were sent periodically to Onslow Square. These floral +tributes flattered Sir James and Savile; Woodville said they were +hideous; and Sylvia (who neither wrote to thank their sender<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> nor even +acknowledged them) always had them conveyed immediately to the +housekeeper's room. The Greek's intention of marrying Sylvia was in the +air. Woodville, Sylvia, and Savile were perhaps the only people who +doubted the event's coming off. Ridokanaki was a small, thin, yet rather +noticeable-looking man of fifty, with courteous cosmopolitan manners. He +had a triangular face, the details of which were vague though the +outline was clear, like a negative that had been left too long in the +sun. His slight foreign accent suggested diplomacy rather than the City; +he was a man of the world, had travelled everywhere, and had the +reputation of knowing absolutely everything. He was firm but kind—the +velvet hand beneath the mailed fist—irritatingly tactful, outwardly +conventional, <i>raffiné</i>, and rather tedious.</p> + +<p>He called occasionally on Thursdays (Sylvia's day). Woodville was +usually having jealous palpitations in the library while Ridokanaki +talked strong, vague politics with Sir James, and drank weak tea poured +out by Sylvia (who always forgot that he never took sugar). After these +visits the powerful will of the Greek seemed to have asserted itself +without a word. It was his habit to express all his ideas in the most +hackneyed phrases except when talking business, so that he seemed +surprisingly dull and harmless, con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>sidering how much he <i>must</i> know, +how much he must have seen and done. He had practically made his immense +fortune, and many people said that in his own line he was brilliant. It +was also often said of him (with surprise), "all the same Ridokanaki is +a very simple creature, <i>when you know him</i>." No one, however, had ever +yet really known him quite well enough to prove or justify this +description.</p> + +<p>In the cumbrous continental fashion he was working up to the point of a +proposal, and something seemed to herald his future success. The +servants were all looking forward to the wedding. Only Price, the +footman, sometimes put in a word for poor Mr. Woodville. To say that the +romance was known and discussed with freedom in the servant's hall +should be needless. The illusion that domestics are ever in the dark +about what we fondly suppose to be our little secrets is still immensely +prevalent among persons who are young enough to know better.</p> + +<p>"All I can say is, that's the man I'd marry if <i>I</i> were a young lady, +whether or no," Price would say, sometimes adding, "With all his flowers +and motors, what <i>is</i> the other gent after all but a sort of foreigner? +Mr. Woodville is the nephew of an English baronet. Give me an +Englishman!"</p> + +<p>To this the housemaid would reply—</p> + +<p>"Foreigner or no foreigner, Miss Sylvia is no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> fool; and, mark my words, +she would look all right in that house in Grosvenor Square!"</p> + +<p>These dark sayings silenced Price, but they did not succeed in chilling +his romantic enthusiasm, though the other servants took the more worldly +view. Much as they liked Woodville, it could not be forgotten that +Ridokanaki had the agreeable habit (at times practised by Jupiter with +so much success) of appearing invariably in a shower of gold. +Trillionaire though he was, no hard-up nobleman could be more lavish, +especially in small things. Nowadays the romance of wealth is more +fascinating than the romance of poverty, even in the servants' hall. And +Ridokanaki was not, as they remarked, like one of those mere parvenus +from South Africa or America. Belonging to an old Greek family of +bankers who had been wealthy for generations, he had recently made a +personal position that really counted in European politics. It had been +rumoured that he might have married into a Royal if not particularly +regal family. What he had done for Greece and England was hinted at, not +generally known.</p> + +<p>Sylvia's impersonal attitude, so obviously genuine, was a refreshing +change to a man who had been for years invited with so much assiduity +and who knew that he was still regarded in London not without hope as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> +splendid match. Surely, he would suddenly turn round, settle down, and +look for a refined and beautiful wife to be head of his house.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>There was a feeling in the air that Sir James's party, with its White +Viennese Band, its celebrities, and general elaborate preparations, was +really intended to be a background for the declaration. Undoubtedly, he +would propose that night. All Sylvia thought about was, that she meant +to wear the grey chiffon dress that Woodville liked, and he would think +she looked pretty. She intended to conceal the little turquoise heart +that she had bought herself (<i>from him</i>) in the Brompton Road in her +dress, and to tell him about it afterwards.</p> + +<p>To Felicity, the party was, like all entertainments, a kind of arena. +What is commonly called flirting, and what <i>she</i> called bowling people +over, she regarded as a species of field-sport. Her heart might ache a +little under the Watteau-ish dress, because it appeared that nothing on +earth would induce darling Chetwode to return from Newmarket. When +Sylvia said gently she feared wild horses would not persuade him to come +back, Felicity answered, with some show of reason, that wild horses were +not likely to try. Indeed, little Felicity was rather depressed. What +was the fun of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> bowling people over, like so many ninepins, unless dear +Chetwode, her usual admiring audience, were there to see them +overthrown? However, no doubt, it would be fun. Felicity's view of life +was that it was great fun. As she had never had any real troubles, she +had not yet discovered that a sense of humour adds acutely to one's +sufferings at the time, though it may help recovery. To see the +absurdity of a grief increases it. It entirely prevents that real +enjoyment in magnifying one's misfortunes in order to excite +sympathy—an attribute so often seen in women, from char-woman to +duchess. But Felicity was not destined to misfortune. Ridokanaki +sometimes compared her to a ray of sunshine, and her sister to a +moonbeam. The comparison, if not startlingly original, was fairly just. +Felicity retorted by saying that the Greek was like a wax-candle burnt +at both ends and in the middle, while Woodville resembled a carefully +shaded electric light. She was anxious to know the words in which +Ridokanaki would propose, and had already had several rehearsals of the +scene with her sister, inducing Sylvia sometimes to refuse and sometimes +to accept, just to see how it went. Felicity said that if he were +rejected the marriage would in the end be a certainty, as a little +difficulty would gratify and surprise him, and make him "<i>bother about +it</i>" more. Everything was generally made so easy for him that he would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> +certainly enjoy a little trouble, and the idea of obtaining a girl +rather against her inclination would be sure to appeal to him. +Opposition in such matters is always attractive to a spirited +second-rate man.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>All the preparations being complete, Woodville, part of whose absurd +duties was to make quantities of unnecessary lists and go over the wine, +went, the day before the party, to see a friend of his, where the +atmosphere was so entirely different from his own that he regarded these +visits as a change of air.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Mervyn in?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, sir. There's a rehearsal to-day. So Mr. Mervyn has lunched +early."</p> + +<p>A deep voice called from the inner room—</p> + +<p>"Hallo, Frank! Come in, old chap!"</p> + +<p>Arthur Mervyn had been at school and at Balliol with Woodville, and was +one of his favourite companions. The only son of a great tragic actor, +he possessed much of the genius of his late father, from whom he +inherited, also, his finely-cut features, like some old ivory carving, +his coal-black hair, and that sweet, humorous, yet sardonic smile that +relieved, like a sparkle in dark waters, his somewhat sinister good +looks.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p> + +<p>Arthur Mervyn lived in a large, luxuriously furnished flat in +Bloomsbury. The decorations were miracles of Morris: obviously they +dated back about twenty years ago. Mervyn was not, however, a young man +who was keen about his surroundings: he was indifferent to them; they +had been chosen by his father, to whom background and all visible things +had been of the first importance. The faintly outlined involuted plants +on the wall-papers, the black oak friezes and old prints gave Arthur +neither more nor less pleasure than he would have received from striped +silk, white paint, and other whims of Waring. There were no swords, +foils, signed photographs of royalties, pet dogs, or babies, invitation +cards on the mantelpiece, nor any of the other luxuries usually seen in +illustrated papers as characteristic of "Celebrities at Home". A palm, +on its last legs, draped in shabby green silk, was dying by the window. +The gloom was mitigated by an air of cosiness. There were books, +first-rate and second-hand. Books (their outsides) were a hobby with +Mervyn. Smoking in this den seemed as natural as breathing, and rather +easier, though its owner never touched tobacco. On the Chesterfield sofa +there was one jarring note. It was a new, perfectly clean satin cushion, +of a brilliant salmon-pink, covered with embroidered muslin. Evidently +it was that well-known<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> womanly touch that has such a fatal effect in +the rooms of a young man.</p> + +<p>Woodville found Mervyn neither studying a part, reading his notices, nor +looking in the glass. He had, as usual, the noble air of a student +occupied with an Idea, and seemed absorbed.</p> + +<p>"I say, Woodville, what do you think I've got?"</p> + +<p>"A piece of rope that somebody wasn't hanged with?" asked Woodville. +Arthur's curious craze for souvenirs of crime was a standing joke with +them both.</p> + +<p>"Better than that, old chap!" Mervyn spoke slowly, and always paused +between each sentence. "What do you think I did yesterday? You know +Jackson—chap who murdered people in a farm? I found out where he went +to school in the north of England—and I said to myself—this fellow +must have been photographed in a group as a boy."</p> + +<p>There was a pause, disproportionately long.</p> + +<p>"Sort of thing you <i>would</i> say to yourself," said Woodville a little +irritably, as he lit a cigarette.</p> + +<p>"Yes!—I took the 2.15—awful train. I went up there and went all over +the school, called at the photographers—and actually got the group! +And—there you are!"</p> + +<p>Mervyn seemed very animated on the subject,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> and clapped his friend +several times on the back with short, delighted laughs.</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" said Woodville, looking at the photograph.</p> + +<p>"Why do you say 'By Jove!'?" asked Mervyn suspiciously.</p> + +<p>"Why? Well! I must say <i>something</i>! You always show me things on which +no other comment is possible but an exclamation, or you tell me things +so unanswerable that there's nothing to say at all."</p> + +<p>"So I do," admitted Mervyn, smiling, as he locked away the souvenir. +Then he sat down, and his animation dropped to a calmness bordering on +apathy.</p> + +<p>"And how are you getting on?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all."</p> + +<p>"Aren't you, though?" Mervyn pushed the matches sympathetically towards +his friend, and seemed to fall into a reverie. Then he suddenly said, +brightly: "I say, Woodville, you want cheering up. Come with me and +see...."</p> + +<p>"My dear chap, I'm not in the mood for theatres."</p> + +<p>"Frank!" His friend looked at him with hurt reproach. "As though I'd +<i>let</i> you see me in this new thing they're bringing out! No.—But I've +got a seat at the Old Bailey for to-morrow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> morning to see the trial;—I +think I could take you."</p> + +<p>Woodville smiled.</p> + +<p>"I appreciate immensely your methods of cheering people, Arthur, and I +know what that offer is from you. But I really don't care about it."</p> + +<p>"Don't you?—What <i>do</i> you care about?"</p> + +<p>Woodville was silent. Then Mervyn said suddenly, "I say, how's Miss +Crofton and her sister? I like little Lady Chetwode awfully. She's a +pretty little thing, awfully amusing, and quite clever.—She's very keen +on crime, too, you know."</p> + +<p>"Oh no, nonsense, Arthur! She only pretends to be, to humour you. It's +chaff. She hates it, really."</p> + +<p>"Hates it! Does she, though?—Well, anyhow she promised to go with me to +the Chamber of Horrors one day. Make up a party, you know. And she says +she thinks all the criminals there have the most wonderful faces +physiognomically; benevolent foreheads, kindly eyes, and that sort of +thing; and then she said, well, perhaps any one <i>would</i> look good with +such lovely complexions as they have! She says <i>she</i> would have been +taken in! She would have engaged all the Hannahs—she says that +murderesses are always called Hannah—as housekeepers, they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> looked so +respectable—except for the glassy eye. Oh, we had a long talk. Yes, and +she'll bring her sister. You might come, too, one afternoon."</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course I'll come. It would be rather jolly," said Woodville.</p> + +<p>"Well, when this new thing is once out we'll fix it up, eh? I shall see +Lady Chetwode to-morrow—at your party."</p> + +<p>"Oh, are you coming?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes I'm going. Every one's going."</p> + +<p>At this moment they heard outside the house a tremendous uproar, the +snorting, panting, puffing, and agonised throbbing that could only +proceed from a motor in distress.</p> + +<p>"Who's that?" said Woodville, going to look out of the window.</p> + +<p>Mervyn closed his eyes and leant back in his chair.</p> + +<p>"It's nothing," he said. "It's Bertie—Bertie Wilton, you know."</p> + +<p>"Oh! Good. Bertie's always exhilarating."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>AN AGREEABLE RATTLE</h3> + + +<p>A moment later there entered the room a slim, good-looking young man of +about twenty-five years old, whose eyes were very bright and whose +clothes were very smart, and who gave the impression of being at once in +the highest spirits and at least a year in advance of the very latest +expression of the mode. He was very fair, clean shaven, with smooth +blond hair, white teeth, and the most mischievous smile in London.</p> + +<p>Bertie Wilton had the reputation of being the wittiest of all the +dandies, but his one great weakness was a mania for being <i>dans le +mouvement</i>, and a certain contempt for any ideas, however valuable, that +had been suggested earlier than, say, yesterday afternoon. Extremely +good-natured, lively, and voluble, he was immensely popular, being +considered, as indeed he was, one of the last of the conversationalists. +He might be frivolous, but he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> always interesting. He could talk +about anything—and he did.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know you'd got a motor, Bertie," said Woodville.</p> + +<p>Wilton looked at it lovingly out of the window, arranged the gardenia in +his button-hole, and said—</p> + +<p>"Oh yes! I'm mad on motors. I've had three! This is my new toy. It's a +ripper, the only <i>right</i> kind. It <i>can</i> go, I'll say that for it. I've +been fined twice for exceeding the speed limit already."</p> + +<p>"But you've never done anything else," said Woodville.</p> + +<p>Bertie laughed.</p> + +<p>"Ah! no; perhaps not. Well, anyway, I simply love it. I haven't even +come here this morning <i>merely</i> to see you, Mervyn, or on the off-chance +of meeting old Woodville, but simply to try the new Daimler before +lunching in it—at least, not exactly lunching <i>in</i> it, but <i>with</i> +it,—no, no, not <i>with</i> it, you know what I mean—with the dearest old +gentleman who lives in the wilds of West Kensington. He's simply devoted +to me. Why, I can't think. But he's got a sort of idea that I saved his +life on a hill near Hastings. What really happened was, that his idiot +of a chauffeur had utterly smashed up the car, and he and the old +gentleman were sitting on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> Downs with every probability of remaining +there for the rest of their natural lives!"</p> + +<p>"And this, I suppose, is where you came in," said Woodville.</p> + +<p>"Rather! I was spinning along from Brighton, and I saw those poor +creatures in their pitiable position. To hop out of the motor, have an +explanation with the old gentleman (who was stone deaf, by the way), to +persuade him to come with me, to drive him to his <i>intensely</i> +comfortable and charming country house in the heart of Hastings, and to +send for a surgeon to attend to the internal injuries of the car, was, +for me, the work of a moment! I made up quite a romance about the old +gentleman. You're a reading man, Woodville, and so you know, from books, +that the slightest politeness to an eccentric millionaire sets you up in +gilded luxury for life, don't you? I expected, of course, that he would +cut off his family with a shilling, and would leave me at the <i>very</i> +least £20,000 a year. Isn't it funny, my being wrong? It turned out that +he neither could nor would do anything of the sort. He was neither +eccentric nor a millionaire—though he was very well off and very +clever. But, perhaps you ask yourself, had he a lovely daughter, whose +hand he would offer me in marriage? Not he! He has only a hideous +married son and daughter-in-law who live in Manchester, and all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> I've +got out of the adventure, so far, is lunching with him, and talking to +him, and heaps of practice in shouting; he's so deaf. Besides, he's a +dear."</p> + +<p>"What a wonderful chap you are! The last time I saw you, weren't you +secretary to a foreign Duke, with a brilliant diplomatic future before +you, or something?" said Woodville, while Mervyn appeared to be lost in +thought.</p> + +<p>"I know, but that was <i>last</i> season! Lots of people are just as keen as +I am, you know. Broughton, for instance, has actually invented a car of +his own. I once permitted myself to speak rather disrespectfully of +Broughton's quite ridiculous car, and, of course, some kind friend told +him practically every word I said; and he was quite hurt. We had a +regular sort of scene about it."</p> + +<p>"What did you say against the car?" said Mervyn judicially, waking up.</p> + +<p>"Well, I may be wrong, but it seems to me that it isn't an ideally +convenient arrangement (particularly for ladies) to have to climb into a +motor, by means of a ladder, over the back! I understood that though +Broughton's design had all sorts of capital new arrangements with regard +to cushions and clocks and looking-glasses, and mud-guards, he had, +<i>most</i> unfortunately, quite forgotten the door.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, we met at the Bellairs' Fancy Ball (I went as Louis the +Nineteenth) last week, you know, and had an explanation, and sort of +made it up, but I'm afraid, like that uncomfortable old king, though he +smiled at the jest, he never forgave the satire.</p> + +<p>"I say, I must fly now. I have to lunch with the old gentleman. Can I +drop you anywhere, Woodville?"</p> + +<p>"I've got to be at the theatre at one, to rehearse," said Mervyn +suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Then you must be quick, old boy. It's a quarter to two now," said +Bertie.</p> + +<p>They took their leave.</p> + +<p>After many tender inquiries after its health from the chauffeur, Bertie +sprang into the motor with Woodville, and they started off.</p> + +<p>"I say, Woodville," began Bertie, as they spun along, "I want to talk +about Lady Chetwode. I'm awfully in love with her."</p> + +<p>"Didn't know you knew her."</p> + +<p>"I don't. That's nothing to do with it. You can be awfully in love with +a person you don't know. In fact, I believe <i>I</i> can be far more +seriously devoted to a perfect stranger than to a woman I know +personally. But I've often seen her at the Opera. And I'm <i>going</i> to +know her. I'm going to be brought to your party to-morrow night by Mrs. +Ogilvie. Didn't you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> know? Tell me, why isn't Chetwode ever <i>there</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Don't be an ass! They're devoted to each other. Turtle-doves aren't in +it."</p> + +<p>Bertie's eyes sparkled.</p> + +<p>"I <i>know</i>! I suppose he stays away for fear of her getting tired of him. +Quaint idea. Never been done before quite like that. Well, it may be +very clever, but I shouldn't do it! Frankly, I should always be there or +thereabouts, at all risks! You don't seem to understand (knowing them so +intimately, of course you wouldn't) what Lady Chetwode is going to be. +Why, she's simply <i>the</i> person already. I hear of her everywhere, and +the sister, Miss Crofton; I saw her too the other night. She's quite +beautiful. I don't believe they know what to do with her."</p> + +<p>"What on earth do you mean?" said Woodville.</p> + +<p>"My dear boy, I have my faults, but I have one little gift, and that is +a <i>flair</i> for success. It will be all very well for Miss Sylvia to marry +the Greek man to begin with——"</p> + +<p>"Do you propose she should marry any one else to go on with then?"</p> + +<p>"Don't be absurd. I mean, of course, that would start her, and so on. +He's a friend of exalted personages and that sort of thing, and it would +certainly bring her forward. Although I think she could do better. But +she ought to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> come out in tableaux or something and be really seen, +quite soon; while she's a novelty."</p> + +<p>"I really think there's something wrong with your tonneau," said +Woodville.</p> + +<p>Bertie smiled cheerfully. "Don't worry, my chauffeur's one of the best +drivers in London. But, about tableaux; next month at Worcester +House——"</p> + +<p>"Miss Crofton doesn't care about that sort of thing," said Woodville.</p> + +<p>"No? I heard she had rather a line of her own. What is her pose? She +ought to settle on it. You know there is nothing so uncomfortable as not +having settled on one's pose. Oh!" Bertie gave a start. "I beg your +pardon. I see the whole thing! But of course! You're in love with her. +What a fool I am!"</p> + +<p>"You are indeed. I see very little of Miss Crofton. You're generally +positive, and always wrong."</p> + +<p>"Oh, is it as bad as that? My dear Woodville, I'm so sorry! What a +tactless idiot I am! But Lady Chetwode, now. Her great friend, Vera +Ogilvie, I know very well indeed. I met her last Tuesday, so she's quite +an old friend. Mrs. Ogilvie's the pretty woman who thinks she has a +Byzantine profile. She's all over strange jewels and scarabs, and uncut +turquoises and things.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> She has a box on the second tier, and it was +there that it all happened."</p> + +<p>"That what happened?"</p> + +<p>"Why, my falling in love at first sight; I mean, with Lady Chetwode, of +course; and what makes me so bad is that I hear of her everywhere. +Nothing worse than that! Her frocks and her mots,—it seems she's very +clever, I hear, and says the most delightful things. And there's another +thing, if I don't make a dash for it this season, I shan't have a chance +next. I see that."</p> + +<p>"Didn't I tell you she's simply wrapped up in her husband?"</p> + +<p>"Of course. That's just the point. I don't know Chetwode, but he's the +fellow who has the wonderful collection. First Empire things, and china, +and all that. Besides, he goes racing. They say his horse has a chance +of winning the Derby. Oh, you don't know what a distinguished family +they are! Well, anyhow, you see he's busy, and if they <i>do</i> have +honeymoons every now and then—as no doubt they do—I really hardly see +what that matters to me."</p> + +<p>"Frankly, nor do I," said Woodville.</p> + +<p>"No, indeed; I like it better, because I don't mind telling you I've got +heaps of things on just now."</p> + +<p>"You look as if you had," said Woodville dryly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Is this meant for an attack on my tie? You'll be wearing one like it +yourself in a fortnight! Mrs. Ogilvie's great fun. Yesterday she took me +with her and a sort of country girl, a clergyman's daughter from Earl's +Court, to buy a hat at Lewis's; (for the girl I mean). It was +<i>extraordinary</i>! The girl isn't at all bad-looking, but naturally wears +her hair <i>perfectly</i> flat, with a kind of knob at the back, the wrong +kind. On the top of this the milliners stuck, first, the most enormous +hat, eccentric beyond the dreams of the Rue de la Paix, all feathers, +and said, Oh, quel joli mouvement, Madame! The poor girl, frightened to +death, thinking the birds were alive, tore it off. So then they tried on +those absurd, tiny, high, little things that require at least +twenty-five imitation curls to keep them up, and show them off, and in +which poor Miss Winter looked like an escaped lunatic. We tried +everything in the shop, and at last Mrs. Ogilvie said, 'Perhaps we had +better come again, later in the season, when the hats would be smaller, +or not so large.'—Do you know Miss Winter? She has <i>rather</i> pretty red +hair, and a dazed intellectual expression. She's the sort of girl who +can only wear a sailor hat (I never saw a sailor in a straw), as they +call them, or perhaps something considered picturesque in the suburbs; +you know, with skyblue <i>crêpe de chine</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> strings under the chin. If +she'd only been an athletic girl we could have gone straight to Scott's, +and then we should have known where we were—but she's artistic, poor +thing." Bertie smiled mischievously.</p> + +<p>"Your valuable advice doesn't seem to have been much use, then?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Rather</i> not! Especially as Mrs. Ogilvie has this craze about thinking +she's Oriental (I wonder who put it into her head), and <i>would</i> order +absurd beaded things, like Roman helmets, when of course she'd look +delightful in a dark claret-coloured velvet sort of Gainsborough, with +dull brown feathers. But women are so perverse. Look how they won't wear +black when nothing suits them so well!"</p> + +<p>"Won't they? I wonder you don't go into the millinery business. I think +you'd do very well."</p> + +<p>"Don't talk rot. I'm only interested as an amateur; it's art for art's +sake. But I <i>do</i> understand frocks. I will say that I think women's +dress is the only thing worth being really extravagant on. Don't you?"</p> + +<p>"No, I don't."</p> + +<p>They were now proceeding down Bond Street at a pace that the crowd +compelled to be rather leisurely.</p> + +<p>"There's Aunt William in her old-fashioned barouche with the grey +horses. It's <i>such</i> a comfort<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> to me, always, to see Mrs. Crofton; it +makes one feel at least there is something stationary in this changeable +world. Who's that boy looking at?—at you? Isn't it the Crofton boy?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Let's stop a minute; I want to speak to him."</p> + +<p>Savile, seeing them, crossed the road, and said, before Bertie could +begin—</p> + +<p>"Extraordinary weather for the time of—year!"</p> + +<p>"Come off the roof!" said Woodville, smiling. "What are you doing in +Bond Street?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, only going to Chappell's, the music shop, to get a song. One of +those Sylvia doesn't sing," said Savile, looking straight at him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know what it is," said Bertie; "it's Pale Hands that Burn, or +Tosti's Good-bye!"</p> + +<p>"No, it just isn't."</p> + +<p>"Then it's something out of The Telephone Girl or something. Do tell us +what it is. I hate these musical mysteries."</p> + +<p>"It's not a mystery at all. It's Home sweet Home," said Savile.</p> + +<p>They tried to persuade him to join them, but he walked off.</p> + +<p>"Delightful boy," said Bertie, after a moment. "So correct. I'm sure +he's <i>the</i> person at home, and spoilt, and does what he likes with them +all, doesn't he? Of course, he's the person to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> friends with if you +want anything fixed up! Well, here we are at Onslow Square. It was jolly +seeing you again. You must come for another longer spin soon. Isn't +Mervyn a good chap? He's so really distinguished that it wouldn't ever +matter what he wore, or where he went, or when. And you'd never <i>dream</i> +he was an actor, would you?"</p> + +<p>"Not unless you saw him act," said Woodville, getting out.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>THE NIGHT OF THE PARTY</h3> + + +<p>Sir James was in one of those heroic moods that were peculiarly alarming +to his valet. He was so abnormally good-tempered, and seemed so +exceedingly elated about something, that it was probable he might +suddenly, in Price's pathetic phrase, turn off nasty, or fly out.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, Sir James was dominated by what are called mixed +feelings. The letter that he read and re-read as he walked about his +library enchanted him. But the appearance of that library was maddening. +It had been transformed into a ladies' cloak-room. On his own +writing-desk were an oval silver mirror, a large powder-puff, and +several packets of hairpins. All trace of politics seemed to have been +completely wiped out. Sir James thoroughly enjoyed picturing to himself +Mr. Ridokanaki in this room on the following morning, asking for a +blessing, on his knees, and to fancy himself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> saying solemnly, "Take +her, my boy, she is yours!" or words to that effect.</p> + +<p>Not only had the trillionaire sent Sylvia six feet of flowers in a +gun-metal motor-car studded with sapphires, but Sir James, also, had +received a respectful request (practically a species of royal command) +for consent to his addresses. Ridokanaki stated that he had not as yet, +of course, said anything to Sylvia, but proposed, unless her father +objected, to try to win her fair hand that very evening. It was a +triumph, even for Sylvia. Sir James laughed, as he only laughed when +alone. But on looking up from the letter what he saw jarred on him. How +he could well imagine the wrap that would be placed carelessly over the +bust of Pitt in the corner, and all the cloaks and frivolous chiffons +which would lie on that solemn study table! Rage had the upper hand. Sir +James broke out, and rang the bell violently.</p> + +<p>"Price, where's Miss Crofton? Tell her I want her immediately. This +instant! Lose no time. But tell her on no account to hurry. In fact, any +time will do as long as she comes at once. Wait a moment, wait a moment. +Don't be so precipitate, Price. You leave the room before you hear your +orders. I've had to speak to you about this before.... Is Miss Crofton +dressed yet?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes, Sir James. Miss Crofton is quite ready. Lady Chetwode is with +her."</p> + +<p>"Oh! then tell her it doesn't matter. She needn't trouble."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Sir James."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The sisters were standing in Sylvia's pale blue bedroom in front of the +long mirror. Felicity's fair, almost silvery hair, puffed out round her +wilful little face, looked as though it were <i>poudré</i>. She wore a +striped brocade gown all over rosebuds, and resembled a Dresden china +figure. Sylvia's exquisitely modelled face and white shoulders emerged +from clouds of grey tulle.</p> + +<p>"It's rather a shame, Sylvia; you'll bowl over everybody. Roy Beaumont +will say you look mythological. Oh, and poor Mr. Ridokanaki! You'll +refuse him to-night, I suppose! What fun it must be to be a pretty girl +going about refusing people in conservatories—like a short story in a +magazine! I've forgotten how I did it. In a year, darling? Quite. I say, +have I overdone the dix-huitième business? Do I look like a fancy ball? +Pass me a hairpin, dear. No, don't. I suppose you know that Chetwode has +never seen this dress! What do you think of <i>that</i>? One would think we +were an old married couple."</p> + +<p>"Hardly, dear. Put it on to go and meet him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> at the station," said +Sylvia, rather unpractically. "No, you're not too last-century. I think +you look more like the next."</p> + +<p>"Well, I hope so," said Felicity, fluttering a tiny Pompadour fan; "and +if De Valdez says I look like a Marquise of the olden times, as he once +did, I simply won't stand it. Let's go down. But first tell me what you +will say when Mr. Rid ... Oh, bother, I can't say all that. Let us call +him the man. 'Miss Crofton, might I respectfully venture to presume to +propose to hope to ask to have a word with you? You are like a grey +rose', or something or other."</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't be absurd. Sometimes I think the whole thing is all your +fancy, and Savile's."</p> + +<p>"My fancy! Then what was that enormous, immense thing in the hall I fell +over—a sort of tin jewelled bath, crammed with orchids and carnations? +Frank Woodville was helping Price to cart it away, and trying to break +some of the flowers by accident."</p> + +<p>"Oh, was Mr. Woodville taking it away?" Sylvia smiled.</p> + +<p>At that moment a firm knock at the door, and the words, "I say, Sylvia," +announced Savile's entrance. He walked in slowly, brushed his sisters +aside like flies, and stood looking at himself in the long mirror, which +reached nearly from the ceiling to the floor. It was a solemn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> moment. +He was wearing his very first evening-dress suit.</p> + +<p>They watched him breathlessly. He carefully kept every trace of +expression out of his face. Then he sat down, and said seriously to +himself—</p> + +<p>"Right as rain. You're all right, girls, too. Rather rot Chetwode not +being here. Rather a pose, Felicity not wearing jewels. Why is the +Governor in such a state? He's frightfully pleased about something. He +flew out at me and said I ought to work for my button-holes, as he did. +Really rather rot! I said, 'Well, father, a pink carnation's all right. +The King wore one at Newmarket.' He said the <i>King</i> could afford it. +Cheek! Sylvia, I say, you <i>are</i> all right! I'm going down."</p> + +<p>Suddenly remembering his broken heart, Savile paused at the door, caught +Felicity's eye, and sighed with an effort, heavily. Then, with his usual +air of polite self-restraint, out of proportion to the occasion, he left +the room.</p> + +<p>Soon the White Viennese Band was tuning up, and the house, which was +built like a large bungalow, decorated all over with crimson rambler +rosebuds, looked very gay and charming. Sir James beamed as various +names, more or less well known in various worlds, were incorrectly +announced. Felicity went into a small room that had been arranged for +con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>versation to see through the window that the garden had been +artistically darkened for the occasion.</p> + +<p>In the room were several men. Roy Beaumont the young inventor with his +calm face and inscrutable air was looking up as he spoke to De Valdez, +the famous composer. Roy Beaumont wore minute boot-buttons on his cuffs +and shirt front.</p> + +<p>De Valdez (more difficult to secure at a party than a Prime Minister) +was a very handsome, unaffected, genial man who, though an Englishman, +had much of the Spanish grandee in his manner and bearing. He had a +great contempt for the smaller amenities of dress, and his thick curling +hair made more noticeable his likeness to the portraits of Byron.</p> + +<p>Felicity at once said, as if in great anxiety—</p> + +<p>"You <i>mustn't</i> call me a Marquise of the olden time! Will you?" She +smiled at the composer as Roy Beaumont went upstairs, leaving Felicity +to begin the evening by trying the room with De Valdez.</p> + +<p>Comparatively early, and quite suddenly, the rooms were crowded on the +usual principle that no one will arrive till every one is there. They +were filled with that inaudible yet loud chatter and the uncomfortable +throng which is the one certain sign that a party is a success. The +in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>correct labelling of celebrities seemed to be an even more entrancing +occupation than flirting to the strains of the Viennese Band. A young +girl with red hair and eager eye-glasses, who had never in her life left +Kensington, except to go to Earl's Court, entreated a dark animated +young man who had just been introduced to her, but whose name she did +not catch, to "sit down quietly and tell her all about everybody."</p> + +<p>He amiably complied.</p> + +<p>"That," he said, "that man with the white beard is Henry Arthur James. +He writes all those books that no one can understand—and those clever +plays, you know, that every one goes to see."</p> + +<p>"Does he really? Fancy! Can you point me out the man who wrote, 'Oh the +Little Crimson Pansies' and 'The Garden of Alice'? I love his work. It's +so weird. F. J. Rivers, you know."</p> + +<p>"My dear Miss Winter, what a dreadful thing! I'm afraid you'll be very +disappointed. As a matter of fact, I am F. J. Rivers myself. Isn't it a +pity? I'm so sorry. And I'm afraid I am not weird. Do forgive me. I'd be +weird in a minute if I could. You know that, I'm sure. Don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Fancy! Just fancy!" She blushed crimson. "I was being so natural. I had +no idea I was talking to a clever person."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No wonder!"</p> + +<p>"You see, I'm interested in things. I particularly love the intellectual +atmosphere of this house, and I read all the serious magazines and +things, the <i>Bookman</i> and the <i>Saturday Review</i> and the <i>Sketch</i>; and so +on."</p> + +<p>"Should you say the atmosphere was really so intellectual here?" said +Rivers a little doubtfully.</p> + +<p>The Viennese Band was playing <i>Caresses</i> in its most Viennese way; +people were gaily coming up from supper or coquettishly going down, or +sitting in corners <i>à deux</i>, dreamily. The heavy scent of red rosebuds +hung over all. So becoming was the background at this particular moment +that nearly every woman looked fair and every man brave....</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid—I mean, I suppose—you take what they call an intelligent +interest in the subjects of the day, Miss Winter?"</p> + +<p>"I should think so, indeed!" she answered.</p> + +<p>"Oh dear!" Rivers looked depressed as he tried to remember what he knew +about Radium and Russia.</p> + +<p>"Somehow I don't feel frightened of <i>you</i>," she said. "Will you take me +to have a cup of tea?"</p> + +<p>He escorted her downstairs, endeavouring to make up for any +disappointment she might feel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> by pointing out with reckless lavishness +Mr. Chamberlain, Beerbohm Tree, Arthur Balfour, Madame Melba, Filsen +Young, George Alexander, and Winston Churchill, none of whom, by a +curious coincidence, happened to be present.</p> + +<p>"Surely I may talk to you a moment," Woodville murmured to Sylvia. +"Every one's happy eating, and you needn't bother. Just come out, one +second—on the verandah through the little room. After all, I'm a friend +of the family!"</p> + +<p>"Why, so you are!"</p> + +<p>She fluttered out with him through the French window of the little +conversation room to a part of the garden that had been boarded and +enclosed, forming with its striped awning and Japanese lanterns a kind +of verandah. No one was in sight.</p> + +<p>"This is the first second to-night I haven't been utterly wretched," +said Woodville firmly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Frank! How kind of you to talk like that!"</p> + +<p>"How beautiful of you to look like that!—And this is the sort of thing +I have to stand—utterly ignored—I suppose you know I worship you? Do +you really belong to me, Sylvia?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Frank! Why, I <i>love</i> you!"</p> + +<p>"Do you really?"</p> + +<p>"Of course. Look here, don't tell any one—not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> even yourself—but I'm +wearing the little locket after all."</p> + +<p>The kiss was short but disturbing. As they came down to earth with a +shock, they saw, looking at them steadily through the half-open window, +Mr. Ridokanaki. He seemed interested.</p> + +<p>At a look from Sylvia Mr. Woodville faded away, feeling as if he were +sneaking off. Sylvia went indoors.</p> + +<p>"Good evening, Miss Crofton," said the harsh yet sympathetic pleasant +voice; "I have been seeking you since this half-hour.... I was coming to +ask if I might have the great honour of taking you to supper. Of course, +it is an immense privilege—far more than I might expect. Still, may I +venture to hope?"</p> + +<p>"With pleasure," said Sylvia. She took his arm.</p> + +<p>"It is very kind of you, Miss Crofton. What a very interesting face that +young man has!"</p> + +<p>"Which young man?" Sylvia asked innocently.</p> + +<p>"The young man who was in the garden. I am sure he is clever. Your +father's—er—secretary, I think? <i>What</i> did you say his name was, +again?"</p> + +<p>"His name is Mr. Woodville. Yes, I think he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> is clever. Quite an old +friend, you know," Sylvia added rather lamely.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>One could see no difference in the Greek, since he talked on in his +usual urbane way, and made no allusion of any sort the whole evening, +either to the floral tribute he had sent, to his letter to Sir James, or +to the little scene he had interrupted.</p> + +<p>In the supper-room all was gaiety and laughter.</p> + +<p>"How hollow all this sort of thing is, isn't it?" said De Valdez, +presenting Felicity with a plover's egg, as he passed carrying a plate +laden with them to some one else.</p> + +<p>"They do seem rather hungry, don't they? But why aren't you eating any +supper, Mr. Wilton?"</p> + +<p>Having done her duty to all her old friends, Felicity was occupying +herself very congenially by steadily bowling over a completely new young +man. It was Bertie Wilton, whom Mrs. Ogilvie had brought on the grounds +that he could have danced if it had been a dance, and that he was the +son of Lady Nora Wilton. Felicity was very much pleased with his +condition. It seemed most promising, considering she had known him about +a quarter of an hour.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Supper! I should think two hot plates, one strawberry, and a sip of +champagne more than enough for a person who is falling every moment more +and more—Don't take that plover's egg, Lady Chetwode! It isn't fair! +You have given me the sole right to provide for you this evening, and +that man has no business to come interfering. Let him attend to his own +affairs."</p> + +<p>"He only dropped one plover's egg on my plate, as an old friend—out of +kindness! He meant no harm," pleaded Felicity.</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's all very well, but it was a liberty. It implies that I +cannot provide you with all that you require. He must learn better." Mr. +Wilton firmly removed the plover's egg and placed it on the next table, +at which Rivers and the red-haired girl were still chattering volubly. +Rivers immediately brought it back as lost property, courteously +presenting it to Felicity on a silver salver.</p> + +<p>"This is becoming unbearable! I shall have to write to the <i>Times</i>." +Wilton gave the egg to a waiter and a furious glance at Rivers, and then +sat down again. He was remarkably good-looking with his sparkling blue +eyes and mischievous expression, and Felicity glanced at him with +approval. He would do very well—for the evening. He was quite worth +powder—and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> shot. At least, he was, to her, a perfect stranger, and +there was a great dearth of spring novelties at the party to-night.</p> + +<p>"I've been waiting for you for years," said Bertie Wilton in a soft, +low, impressive voice.</p> + +<p>"Fancy! How patient of you!—How did you know it was me?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, instantaneous-sympathy, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"On your side, do you mean? I should call it telepathy, or +perhaps—conceit."</p> + +<p>"Call it what you like. But how is it you're so wonderful? Tell me +that."</p> + +<p>"I can't think," she said dreamily.</p> + +<p>"I'm certain I met you in a previous existence," continued the young +man.</p> + +<p>"What a good memory you must have, Mr. Wilton! It's as much as I can do +to remember the people I meet in <i>this</i> existence. I believe I saw you +in Mrs. Ogilvie's box at <i>Madame Butterfly</i>."</p> + +<p>"I know, I saw you from there. I was rooted to the spot—I believe +that's the right expression, though it sounds rather agricultural—while +at the same time you might have knocked me down with a feather! It's +really true, you might. But I know you wouldn't have, you're far too +good and kind."</p> + +<p>"I don't think I <i>had</i> any feathers with me," said Felicity.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span></p> + +<p>Bertie went on. "But this life is so short.—Do you think it's worth +it?—(Do have some mayonnaise.)—I mean the kind of thing one +does—waiting, waiting—at last asking, for instance, to call on your +day—only meeting in throngs—perhaps not getting a chance, for months, +to tell——"</p> + +<p>"I suppose life <i>is</i> rather long, isn't it?" Felicity said, as a +concession.</p> + +<p>"Then I may come and see you the day after to-morrow?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Not till the day after to-morrow!" she exclaimed in surprise. "Why wait +so long?"</p> + +<p>"At what time?" he persisted, smiling.</p> + +<p>"You may call next Monday—at five. Not this week."</p> + +<p>"That's impossible. I can't. It's too dreadful. I can't wait till +Monday, I can't.... Well, let me come on Tuesday, then?"</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> see. You're particularly engaged on Monday. After all, why trouble? +There are so many people for you to call on!"</p> + +<p>"If I might call to-morrow, <span class="smcap">ONCE</span>, I'll never be engaged again! I'll +never call on any one else during the whole of my natural life."</p> + +<p>"All right," she said absently. "Call to-morrow, <span class="smcap">ONCE</span>, as you say. Not +that I ever heard of any one calling twice the same day, at least not +the first day."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, Lady Chetwode, how kind of you! Did you say five? Can't you make it +half-past four?"</p> + +<p>"Very well."</p> + +<p>"<a name="corr4" id="corr4"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn4" title="changed from 'Wont'">Won't</a> +you make it three? I beg your pardon. I'll walk up and down in +front of the house strewing flowers from three till half-past four and +then come in, may I? And will there be crowds of people there?"</p> + +<p>"Well, you haven't given me much time," said Felicity. "I'll try to get +up a party by to-morrow, if you wish it."</p> + +<p>"How can you be so unkind! Do you think me very pushing—and vulgar?"</p> + +<p>"Very. No, only vulgar."</p> + +<p>"At any rate, I'm sincere. It's like Tristan and Ysolde; at least, it's +like Tristan. You can't look me straight in the eyes and tell me I'm not +sincere!"</p> + +<p>Felicity looked; and was quite satisfied.... How hard it was that +Chetwode was not there for her to tell him all about the conversation +going home! This thought vexed her so much that she became absent and +lost spirit to keep it up.</p> + +<p>Mr. Rivers had promised to send the red-haired girl, who had fallen +hopelessly in love with him, his latest book. He had arranged to take +her and her mother to a concert at the Queen's Hall the following Sunday +afternoon.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p> + +<p>Roy Beaumont was the centre of a crowd of interested people, chiefly +bearded men, who paid him sportive homage, and pretty women, as he +illustrated, by means of a wineglass, two knives, and a saltspoon, his +new invention for having one's boots fastened by electricity, which was +to do for Marconigrams, expose radium as a foolish fraud, and consign +clock-work to limbo. "You don't touch the buttons and the invention does +the rest," he pointed out.</p> + +<p>Aunt William in her peach gown was taken down to supper by Jasmyn. He +was a plump middle-aged young man, a very social person, and quite an +arbiter on matters of fashion; known for his kindness and politeness to +dear old ladies and shy young men. A romantic affection for a certain +widow, whom his friends said he spoke of as "Agatha, Mrs. Wilkinson," to +give the effect of a non-existent title, had prevented him, so far, from +marrying. He was bland and plaintive, looked distinguished, supremely +good-natured, and rather absurd.</p> + +<p>"It is too marvellous," said Aunt William, as she ate her <i>foie-gras</i>. +"What a collection my dear brother-in-law has assembled to-night. Half +the people here I have never heard of in the whole course of my life!"</p> + +<p>"And the other half," said Jasmyn, "you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> have perhaps heard of rather +too often. No strawberries, Mrs. Crofton?"</p> + +<p>"No thank you. I don't care for fruit, except in its proper season. My +dear husband always said strawberries were not eatable till the fourth +of June."</p> + +<p>"Ah, how right he was!" said Jasmyn absently, eating a very large one. +"I suppose he didn't care for <i>primeurs</i>. Personally, I admit that I am +absolutely sick of asparagus by April, but I think it best to eat and +drink as much as possible because I suffer so terribly from depression."</p> + +<p>"Depression! Yes, you would. Having everything on earth you want, and +being thoroughly spoilt, like all men of the present day, you would +naturally have low spirits."</p> + +<p>"Ah, I dare say you don't believe me. But I assure you, Mrs. Crofton, +that under all my outward misery I generally have an aching heart.... +How lovely Lady Chetwode's looking!"</p> + +<p>"Lady Chetwode," said Aunt William loyally, "is a most brilliant woman. +Her sister is a beautiful girl, and her brother Savile is doing well at +Eton. His last report——"</p> + +<p>"Do you know, I'm terribly frightened of Savile," said Jasmyn. "He's +such a man of the world that I feel positively crude beside him."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span></p> + +<p>Before the end of the evening, Ridokanaki took an opportunity to ask if +Woodville would dine with him.</p> + +<p>"I want to have a little talk with you," he said. "I have an idea—it +may be perfectly wrong—that what I have to say may interest you."</p> + +<p>Woodville accepted; surprised at his rival's cordiality.</p> + +<p>"At Willis's, then, at eight, Mr. Woodville?"</p> + +<p>"At eight. Thanks very much."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>FELICITY AND HER CLIENTS</h3> + + +<p>When Felicity woke up in her enormous, over-draped, over-decorated, +gilded, carved, and curved bed she was immediately as wide awake as +though she had been up several hours.</p> + +<p>There was no slow rousing to the realities of life, no sleepy yawning or +languid return from a land of dreams. She dashed the hair out of her +eyes, at once put on her glasses (for in private she was short-sighted), +and began immediately and systematically to tell her fortune by cards. +She did this regularly every morning. It was a preliminary to her day's +campaign, when Everett came in with the tea and letters, drew aside the +heavy blue curtains, embroidered all over with gold fleur-de-lys, and +let in a ray of April sunshine. According to her usual practice, +Felicity kept up a running commentary on her correspondence.</p> + +<p>"From darling Chetwode.—'My own beauti<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>ful little angel, It is +quite'—what's this? hop-picking? no—'heart-breaking that I can't get +back to you for another week. Tobacco Trust was beaten by a short head, +as of course you know, but Onlooker is a dead certainty for to-morrow. +Will wire result.</p> + +<p>"'I saw a most marvellous old cabinet in a cottage near here'—he +<i>would</i>!—'an extraordinary bargain. It will just go in the corner +of——'" She put the four closely written sheets down and opened some +more envelopes.</p> + +<p>"'Lady Virginia Creeper at home. Five to seven.' Well, I can't help it. +Let her stop at home. It's the best place for her.</p> + +<p>"'Dearest Lady Chetwode, you haven't forgotten, I am sure, that you +promised to see me at three to-morrow. I come to you with my tears. You +are the greatest adviser and consoler in all heart troubles. Of late I +have been enamoured of sorrow. But for your wonderful "Bureau de +Consultation Sentimentale," where should we poor sentimentalists be! +Agatha has been simply brutal to me lately. I can find no other word. I +look forward to pouring my grief into your shell-like ear. I will bring +my new song, "Cruel as the Grave."' How cheering! Jasmyn Vere is +perfectly absurd about Agatha. He's a bore, anyhow.</p> + +<p>"'Dear old girl; I'm coming to lunch to-day.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> Everything is rather +rotten. I have news of <span class="smcap">HER</span>. Your aff. brother Savile.'</p> + +<p>"'Darling Felicity, be a perfect angel and let my maid see your mauve +tea-gown. I know you are so good-natured or I wouldn't dare to ask. I am +very anxious about <span class="smcap">HIM</span>. Oh, why are men always the same? I found out +that the wretch instead of being ill, the other day, had taken that +awful Lucy Winter to a picture-gallery. What a girl! All red hair and +eye-glasses. Let me see you soon. Your devoted friend, Vera Ogilvie.' I +am sure Vera needn't worry. Lucy Winter was evidently wild about F. J. +Rivers last night. I must tell her. What stupid letters! Oh! here's a +new handwriting.</p> + +<p>"'98 Half Moon Street, 2 o'clock a.m.—Dear Lady Chetwode, I should be +counting the minutes till 4.30, but they pass too slowly to be counted. +It's thirteen hours and a half, anyhow. I can't believe I shall really +see you again. How eternal yesterday was! Why do the gods follow each +feast day with a fast? By the way, I have a little Romney here so +marvellously like you that you really ought to see it.'" Felicity +smiled. "Steady! Rather a nice handwriting. 'Sincerely yours, Bertie +Wilton.' Very promising. 'P.S. I have left a long space between the +lines so that you should read between them.' Everett, I'll wear my +tailor-made dress this morning and for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> lunch. The mauve tea-gown at +four. I'm only going to the theatre to-night. Let me see, what is it? +Oh! the St. James's. The white <i>crêpe de chine</i>. Then, remind me to wire +to the Creepers on the evening of their afternoon to say I have a chill. +Have some gardenias and lilies for the drawing-room, and let me see +them. There's the telephone! I suppose Chetwode has rung me up again."</p> + +<p>Then followed a one-sided conversation through the telephone, which was +fixed by the side of the Louis Quinze bed.</p> + +<p>"Yes, darling.... Oh, all right.... Didn't he?... I say, you might come +back soon.... I really shouldn't bother about that screen.... What?... I +said screen, not scream.... We have heaps more than we want already.... +Oh! and ever so many people are coming this afternoon.... A perfectly +new young man.... What?... Oh, not bad!... Safety in numbers?... Even if +you take the numbers one at a time?... Good-bye."</p> + +<p>Savile at lunch was gloomy and taciturn. Absently he had partaken three +times of a certain favourite dish, made of chestnuts and cream, +repeatedly proffered, with <i>empressement</i> and a sort of respectful +sympathy, by Greenstock. Then he pushed his plate away, and said when +they were alone<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>—</p> + +<p>"Funny! I can't eat a thing! Sylvia says I live on nothing but oranges. +Pretty rotten sign, eh? Here's what I've heard about <span class="smcap">HER</span>."</p> + +<p>He took out of his purse a neatly-cut-out paragraph from <i>The Queen</i>. It +stated that Madame Patti had been warmly greeted by all the village of +Craig-y-nos, and was about to give an afternoon concert there for the +benefit of the poor.</p> + +<p>"I shan't have another chance to see <span class="smcap">HER</span> before I go back," said Savile, +looking steadily at his sister.</p> + +<p>She followed his idea in a second. "All right! Poor boy! There's no +great harm. Shall I give you the—change"—(to Savile, Felicity always +spoke of money as change)—"to run up to Wales and hear her sing, and +then come back the same evening? It doesn't really matter what time you +arrive home, you see. You can stay with me. I'll tell papa you're going +to a concert and I want you to stay with me."</p> + +<p>Savile was nearly purple with joy. "Would you really? What bricks girls +can be!" He shook hands with her with intense self-restraint, and +murmured, "I shan't forget this, old girl."</p> + +<p>Felicity completed the arrangements, and Savile left, a very happy boy.</p> + +<p>At three o'clock Felicity, in her wonderful orchid-mauve tea-gown, was +conversing pathetically with Jasmyn Vere, one of the habi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>tués of what +her friends called her sentimental bureau.</p> + +<p>He was not one of her favourite clients. He was egotistical, and his +mania for Agatha was becoming rather a bore. Agatha was a plain, +muscular, middle-aged widow who drove him to distraction by her temper +and her flirtations. Felicity only stood it at all because he sang and +played beautifully, imitated popular actors in his lighter moments, and +gave amusing dinners at restaurants.</p> + +<p>"What would you have done?" he said. "By mistake, Agatha posted this +letter to me!"</p> + +<p>He took out of a pale grey morocco case a note with "Stanhope Gate" and +a large "A" on it in scarlet and black.</p> + +<p>She read—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Dear Bob,</p> + +<p>Excuse rush. All rubbish about Jasmin. He's a hopeless idiot, but a +good old sort. Mind you fetch me in time for Lingfield Races +to-morrow and put me on to a good thing.</p> + +<p class="author2">Yours,</p> +<p class="author"><span class="smcap">Agatha.</span> +</p></div> + +<p>Felicity handed it back.</p> + +<p>"Just fancy, Lady Chetwode! I confronted her with this. She had put it +in the wrong<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> envelope and sent a note meant for me to Captain +Henderson. She only roared with laughter. I broke it off finally and she +said I should probably break it on again next day."</p> + +<p>"And did you?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing of the kind. I went away and wrote her a really beautiful +letter. I said that I would wipe out the past and begin afresh if she +promised never even to recognise Captain Henderson again in the +street—or anywhere."</p> + +<p>"What did she say, Mr. Vere?"</p> + +<p>"Say! She wired 'Sorry imprac.' So it's all over. Now, what do you +advise?"</p> + +<p>"If you would only leave her alone for about two minutes, she would come +round all right; she is so used to you. Or, make her jealous."</p> + +<p>"Well, I hope you'll forgive me, but I did try that. In our last +interview I said I was coming to see you, and that you were a really +womanly woman."</p> + +<p>"Oh, thanks very much," said Felicity angrily. "What did she say to +that?"</p> + +<p>"Laughed that awful laugh of hers, and said I need not worry, as you +were very busy."</p> + +<p>"She was perfectly right, I am," said Felicity. "Have you left her alone +since that?"</p> + +<p>"Practically. At least, I only sent her a little thing I thought she'd +like."</p> + +<p>"A diamond horse-shoe—by any chance?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, just a trifle as a souvenir of our long friendship. Then I +suggested we should have one final meeting—a <i>diner d'adieu</i>."</p> + +<p>"And she didn't send the trinket back, and she didn't refuse? Oh, you're +all right!"</p> + +<p>"I am not all right, dear Lady Chetwode."</p> + +<p>"When are you going to see her again?"</p> + +<p>"I'm bound to say that I hope to see her next Saturday evening. But just +think! She has actually spoken, written of me as a 'hopeless idiot'!"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I understood that."</p> + +<p>"Should a man forgive such a thing?"</p> + +<p>At this stage Felicity's eyes began straying to the clock. "Certainly, +if it is true," she said absently.</p> + +<p>He left a copy of "Cruel as the Grave" when he went, with many +expressions of gratitude, and Felicity said to herself: "What an +extraordinary thing! What can he see in Agatha? What can Agatha see in +Bob? And there is Vera Ogilvie—really pretty and charming—worrying +herself about that dull Captain Henderson, who makes love to every woman +he sees, and doesn't care two straws about her." At this point she took +up a very handsome photograph of her husband, and looked at it until the +tears came into her eyes. It was a charming portrait.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span></p> + +<p>When Bertie Wilton arrived, she brightened up a good deal. He looked +better in the afternoon than in the evening, she thought. She liked his +bright, intelligent face. And confidences about others do pall after a +time. The reaction from Jasmyn made her perhaps more encouraging than +she was aware of—she was so depressed about Chetwode's absence. After +tea and preliminary platitudes, Mr. Wilton sat beside her on the sofa +and took her hand.</p> + +<p>"What on earth do you mean by that?" she said, looking more annoyed than +surprised.</p> + +<p>"You said yourself that life was so short the other night! I haven't the +time—I tell you frankly—to be a tame cat and a hanger-on and one of +your collection!"</p> + +<p>"Really! Sorry you're so busy. I looked upon you as one of the +unemployed." She was amazed at his tactlessness.</p> + +<p>"You were mistaken. When a thing like this happens—a genuine +<i>coup-de-foudre</i>—a man is only a fool who doesn't face it and admit it +at once. I care for you really, though I haven't known you—very long. +I'll cut it out of my life unless you give me ever such a distant hope +that you will—like me—too."</p> + +<p>"Will you look at my husband's photograph, Mr. Wilton? He's really very +handsome—and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> particularly amusing. We've been married just thirteen +months."</p> + +<p>"An unlucky number! Yes, I know he's handsome—and, no doubt, +delightful. But he isn't here."</p> + +<p>"What's that got to do with it?"</p> + +<p>"Everything. You know he might be here—with you, and he's not."</p> + +<p>"That's his business."</p> + +<p>"And mine!" audaciously answered the young man.</p> + +<p>"Will you please not take my hand, and recollect that I'm not a +housemaid 'walking out' with her young man?"</p> + +<p>He did not obey her.</p> + +<p>"I should never have suspected you of such bank-holiday manners," she +said, at once amused and angry.</p> + +<p>"You can call it bank-holiday or anything you like—and if you don't +like it I'm sorry, but really you deserve it! You may drive people mad +with your little ways, and they may stand it if they like. I can't."</p> + +<p>Evidently Mr. Wilton was losing his head. It was quite interesting.</p> + +<p>"I saw from the first that firmness is my only chance with you," he said +half apologetically. He then made the terrible mistake of trying to kiss +her. She slid away like an acrobat, pressed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> the electric bell, and sat +down again with a heightened colour.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon," said Wilton humbly. "I know it was very wrong. I +couldn't help it. You needn't ring and turn me out of the house,—I'll +go."</p> + +<p>"I wasn't going to."</p> + +<p>Greenstock appeared.</p> + +<p>"Please bring a glass of iced-water," said Felicity in clear crystal +tones.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Lady Chetwode!"</p> + +<p>During the moment's somewhat awkward interval Felicity stroked up her +hair and looked tenderly at Lord Chetwode's photograph.</p> + +<p>When the iced-water was brought in he drank it.</p> + +<p>She burst out laughing.</p> + +<p>"What a penance! Just after tea! Well, I'll forgive you this once only. +I think it unspeakable. You're of course very young, so you shall have +another chance. You never will be like that again, will you?"</p> + +<p>He stood up.</p> + +<p>"I never will. I'm very sorry. I quite understand. I can see you are +accustomed to invertebrate admirers who spoil you. I made a mistake, +because you see I don't happen to be one."</p> + +<p>"Chetwode isn't invertebrate!"</p> + +<p>Bertie bowed. "Ah, I dare say not. Of that I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> have no kind of doubt. But +you see, he's not here. He's never here. Good-bye."</p> + +<p>He took his leave in a very final manner.</p> + +<p>Felicity thought over the question with interest. She was sure she would +never see Wilton again. Why was Chetwode always away like this? +Everybody noticed it.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>When Felicity came back from the +<a name="corr5" id="corr5"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn5" title="changed from 'St.James's'">St. James's</a> +Theatre that night she +thought that she was a little in love with Bertie Wilton. But she knew +she wasn't.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>A DINNER AT WILLIS'S</h3> + + +<p>"It seems to me," said Sylvia, "the most unnatural, <i>treacherous</i> thing +I ever heard of."</p> + +<p>She and Woodville were sitting in the library together after breakfast, +and he had just told her of Ridokanaki's invitation.</p> + +<p>"Besides, I thought you hated him, Frank!"</p> + +<p>"If we only dined with people we like, we should practically starve in +London."</p> + +<p>"But why dine with my enemies?"</p> + +<p>"He worships the ground you tread on."</p> + +<p>"Then it's all the worse! He wants to spoil our happiness for his own +selfish purpose. You know that, and yet you go!"</p> + +<p>"Darling, beautiful angel, do let me use my own judgment! I want to hear +what he has to say. Don't be angry, Sylvia. I couldn't very well refuse +on the ground that he was in love with you, when we—you and I—are not +officially—you see, dearest! Of course, it's better I should go."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span></p> + +<p>The door opened slowly and Sir James came in like a procession, and sat +down slowly, in his stately, urbane manner.</p> + +<p>"Excuse me one moment, Sir James," murmured Woodville, and he collected +some papers and vanished. Sylvia waited a few minutes and then rose.</p> + +<p>"Don't go, Sylvia," said her father mildly. She stopped. Sylvia was the +only person with whom Sir James was never peremptory.</p> + +<p>"What has become," he said, a little nervously, though with his usual +formality, "of that very sumptuous basket of flowers Mr. Ridokanaki was +so kind as to send you?"</p> + +<p>"It's in the housekeeper's room, papa." Sylvia's voice to-day was very +sweet and high; a sign to those who knew her of some perturbation or +cussedness, as Savile used to say.</p> + +<p>"Hum! There must be several floral offerings there. To the best of my +belief—correct me if I am mistaken—four arrived last week."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, there are <i>heaps</i>, papa! It's a perfect garden of flowers."</p> + +<p>"So I suppose.... Will you have them brought up to the drawing-room at +<i>once</i>!—or, when convenient, darling?"</p> + +<p>"No, papa. Several are rather faded."</p> + +<p>Sir James paused, then with an attempt at calm determination said, with +finality<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>—</p> + +<p>"If any more arrive, will you recollect, my dear, that I <i>wish</i> them to +be placed in the drawing-room?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't like so many flowers in the drawing-room, papa. But, if you +like, I might send them on to one of the hospitals. Perhaps the 'Home of +Rest for Chows and Poodles' might——"</p> + +<p>"Ridiculous, child! They would not be appreciated there. What do our +canine friends care for carnations?" He smiled with satisfaction at the +phrase.</p> + +<p>In his mind he saw a neat letter to the papers—the sort of thing he +dictated to Woodville, and never sent—about "Flowers and Our +Four-footed Favourites," signed "Paterfamilias." He was proud of his +well-turned phrases, but, though pompous, he was not persistent, and +when his secretary had once heard these rigmaroles, and their author had +seen them in type—I mean typewriting—Sir James felt for the moment +satisfied, and said he had "done a good morning's work."</p> + +<p>"I won't have them sent to any hospital, Sylvia. I forbid it."</p> + +<p>"Very well, papa. But they're <i>mine</i>; surely I can do what I like with +them?" she pouted.</p> + +<p>"Since they are, as you justly say, my dear, your own personal property, +it seems to me only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> proper that you should write and acknowledge them, +thanking the thoughtful sender in an appropriate note."</p> + +<p>"But, papa, the thoughtful sender is so <i>fearfully</i> floral! I should +have to spend nearly all my time writing appropriate notes."</p> + +<p>"I don't understand your tone, Sylvia. However, we may let that pass." +He opened the newspaper with much rustling and crackling, and said, as +if to end the discussion—</p> + +<p>"If you receive another basket, or other offering of the same +description, from our good friend Ridokanaki, you will write and thank +him, will you not?"</p> + +<p>"I will not," she answered amiably, as if assenting.</p> + +<p>"You <i>will not</i>?"</p> + +<p>He peered at the modern daughter from behind the <i>Times</i>, and recognised +in her grey eyes (with as much gratification as such meetings usually +afford us) a lifelong friend. It was his own hereditary obstinacy.</p> + +<p>Sylvia went to the door, then turned round and said a shade +apologetically—</p> + +<p>"You see, darling, it seems such a wicked <i>waste</i>! Surely the money +might be better spent! On—on the unemployed, or something. Why, the +other day he sent a thing from Gerard's so enormous that it came quite +alone in a van;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> and another came in a four-wheeler. And I wasn't rude, +you know—I kept it."</p> + +<p>"I don't quite follow you, my dear. You kept what? The cab?"</p> + +<p>"No, the flowers. And I must say it is a pleasure to go and give one's +orders now! The kitchen is like a fête at the Botanical Gardens."</p> + +<p>Sir James frowned absently, pretending to be suddenly absorbed in the +paper until she had gone away, and shut the door. Then he put down the +<i>Times</i> carefully, and shook with laughter, comfortably to himself, as +he only laughed when alone. His daughter's way of receiving homage was +very much to his taste.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>At the door of the little restaurant in King Street, waiting for him, +Woodville found Ridokanaki.</p> + +<p>Slight and thin as he was, with his weary, drooping grey moustache, he +looked always rather unusual and distinguished. He had black, wrinkled, +heavy-lidded eyes, in which Sylvia had discovered a remarkable +resemblance to the eyes of a parrot, though the fire in them was very +far from being extinguished. He wore a gay light red carnation, but the +flowerless Woodville looked far more festive. Woodville's enjoyment of +nearly all experiences which were not absolutely depressing was greater +than ever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> since his life of self-repression. To dine alone with the +great Ridokanaki on the brink of some kind of sentimental crisis was to +him a kind of intellectual, almost a literary joy, one which Sylvia +could never either share or understand.</p> + +<p>Ridokanaki received him with his most courteous manner. Ridokanaki, like +most people, had two remarkably different manners. In society, he had a +certain flowery formality, a conventional <i>empressement</i>, that, though +far from being English, was absolutely different from the geniality of +the German, from French tact and bonhomie, and from the Italian grace. +It is a manner I have noticed chiefly in Scotchmen and in modern Greeks; +its origin is, I fancy, a desire to please, of which the root is pride, +not mere amiability or vanity, as in the Latin races. As unfortunately, +in Ridokanaki's case, it entirely lacked charm, people simply found him +tedious; especially women. On the other hand, in business or, indeed, in +anything <i>really serious</i>, Ridokanaki was quite royally frank, and +natural as a child; considering not at all the feelings of other people +and consequently irritating them very little. He had a supreme contempt +for petty diplomacy in such matters, regarding it as only worthy of a +commercial traveller. His absolute reliability and brutal frankness had +made him personally liked in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> City, in spite of his phenomenal +success—a success that had led to an importance not merely social, but +political, and almost historical. Those who saw him in this blunt mood, +found him, for the first time, amusing. All really frank people <i>are</i> +amusing, and would remain so if they could remember that other people +may sometimes want to be frank and amusing too.</p> + +<p>"There is a subtle difference," remarked Woodville, looking round, +"between Willis's and other restaurants. At all others one feels the +meal is a means to an end; somehow, here, it seems to be the end itself. +Eating is treated as a sacred rite, and in the public preparations of +sauces by a head waiter there is something of a religious sacrifice. +Look at the waiters, like acolytes, standing round the maitre d'hotel, +watching him."</p> + +<p>"That's quite true," said Ridokanaki. "You mean people don't dine here +for amusement?"</p> + +<p>It was not until the coffee and cigar stage was reached that Ridokanaki +suddenly said in his <i>earlier manner</i>, rather quickly and abruptly: "And +why don't you do something better, Mr. Woodville?"</p> + +<p>"Could I be doing anything better?" said Woodville, laughing. "I +certainly couldn't be dining better."</p> + +<p>His host blinked his eyes, waved his hand, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> said quickly: "Any one +could do what you do for Sir James. It's quite ridiculous, with your +brains, that because your uncle didn't leave you a fortune, you should +have this absurd career. It isn't a career."</p> + +<p>Woodville felt the delightful excitement beginning. To increase it, he +reminded himself how Ridokanaki, by a stroke of the pen, could move the +fate of nations, and then he turned cold at the thought that Ridokanaki +was in love with Sylvia.</p> + +<p>"I know," he said, "that I am not doing any good, but I see no prospect +of anything better."</p> + +<p>Ridokanaki frowned, staring at Woodville rather rudely, and then said: +"Of course we're both thinking of the same thing. I mean the same lady."</p> + +<p>"Really, Mr. Ridokanaki, I have no idea what you are thinking about. But +there is no lady who can possibly concern <i>our</i> conversation."</p> + +<p>Ridokanaki looked at the clock. It immediately struck ten, tactfully, in +a clear subdued tone.</p> + +<p>"But"—he spoke rather impatiently—"with all reverence and the most +distant respect in the world, there's no reason why I shouldn't speak of +the lady. I'm sorry, as you seem to dislike it, but I'm afraid I have no +time for fencing now."</p> + +<p>Frank was silent.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Every day," said Ridokanaki in an undertone, "you see that beautiful +girl. You live under the same roof. I see her only occasionally, but I +understand your feelings." He laughed harshly. "I have the same—as you +know."</p> + +<p>"Your sentiments, no doubt, do you the greatest possible honour, Mr. +Ridokanaki. Mine are those of old friendship."</p> + +<p>"Indeed! Well! mine aren't! Can't you see I'm trying to play the game?" +He spoke almost coarsely. Woodville liked him better. There was a pause.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," continued the host, "you <i>think</i> you only want her +friendship, but I don't suppose <i>she</i> thinks so. In reality, of course, +you want her."</p> + +<p>"Really, Mr. Ridokanaki——!"</p> + +<p>"Listen, listen! You can't marry her in your present position. I could +in mine, but she will never like me while you're there—possibly never. +At my best I never had what the French call <i>le don de plaire aux +dames</i>. Not that age matters, nor ugliness. I haven't the knack. I never +had. I bore women. I always did. In that I've always failed, and know +it. And it's the only thing I ever cared about. My failure is my +tragedy." He smiled. "You have all the advantages on your side, Mr. +Woodville. But you're both young, and for that very reason any fancy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> +that may have sprung up <i>might</i> be forgotten. With me——"</p> + +<p>Woodville looked at him. No, it was not possible to be jealous of his +host. Whatever truth there was about his past failure, he could never +fascinate Sylvia. She appreciated too fully the plastic side of life; +she was a romanticist, and therefore she attached immense importance to +the material. (Are not all romantic heroes and heroines beautiful to +look at, and always either beautifully or picturesquely dressed?) Sylvia +cared far more about her own admiration for a man than for his +admiration for her. Homage, except from the <i>One</i>, was to her no +pleasure, and fortunately she knew exactly what she wanted. +Instinctively Woodville knew that she would always love him. Unless, +indeed, he should change. But that was impossible. He felt it to be +impossible.</p> + +<p>So, perhaps, after all, the reports about Ridokanaki's European +"successes" were all nonsense. Yes, he had revealed his wound quite +openly, and it was a bitter one. He had never been loved "for himself". +Woodville pitied him.</p> + +<p>"What do you propose?" said Woodville, falling into the Greek's laconic +tone.</p> + +<p>"Why should a man of your ability go twice a week in an omnibus to a +shabby studio, in hopes of making a few pounds a year by copy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>ing? +Because you're hard up. Why should you be so hard up? I met you once +going there, and thought how hard it was. It is dreadful to be hard +up.... This is what I propose. I can easily obtain for you a post in +connection with my bank. The salary to begin with will be two thousand +pounds a year. In Athens."</p> + +<p>"Athens!"</p> + +<p>"I propose that you try it for a year. During that year I will not see +the lady. I will efface myself. If at the end of that time you both +still feel the same I shall give up for ever my own wish. You can have a +similar post then in London."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Ridokanaki, you are too kind. But why, <i>why</i> should you?"</p> + +<p>"Because I hate to see you near her. If your attachment for each other +is the real thing it will stand this separation. Then I shall sink my +own feelings. Of course, you see I mean it."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Woodville, rather touched, and hesitating.</p> + +<p>"Please understand," continued Ridokanaki, "that I don't hope for one +<i>moment</i> there is in any case a chance for me. It's chiefly," he said +markedly, "to spare me a year's torture. I can't stand your being in the +same house with her. It kills me. I'll try, then, when you've given me +this chance, to turn into a friend, a godfather!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> He poured out some +old brandy and drank it. Woodville changed colour. "They speak of me as +a Don Juan, I believe, but I'm really much more of a Don Quixote. If you +spare me this year I'll do anything to help you both."</p> + +<p>He tapped the liqueur-glass on the table nervously, and went on. "I have +got this very badly. Very badly. Oh very."</p> + +<p>"<i>How</i> can I accept from you——"</p> + +<p>"You gain nothing by refusing. The favour is to <i>me</i>—remember <i>that</i>. +In a year you'll be in the position you are now, or worse—if you stay. +If you go to Athens you will, of course, have a delightful time. You +speak French; you will not have much to do. Only the sort of thing you +can do easily and well. Don't you want to see different places, +different things?... You are the man I have been looking for. There is +some very interesting society in Athens. You would be adored there. But +I know that's not what you care about."</p> + +<p>"No; I have not the 'true Hellenic spirit.' But I want to be +independent. I am afraid I couldn't."</p> + +<p>"I shall keep this thing open for a month," said Ridokanaki. "Come and +see me. All right.—Yes,—I must go.... You had rather write, not come +and see me, eh?"</p> + +<p>"You see, I must consult——"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Of course, you want to consult some one. But, listen. <i>Don't</i> go by +women! That would be really a pity. They don't know what's good for +them." He laughed a little vaguely.</p> + +<p>They both stood up.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Ridokanaki, you have been more than kind. It is difficult——"</p> + +<p>"Well, you'll think it over. Good-bye, Woodville."</p> + +<p>Woodville walked away from the restaurant feeling wildly excited. Mr. +Ridokanaki made hideous faces in the mirror in his carriage as he drove +away and said to himself—</p> + +<p>"He thinks I'm the Frog Prince, and he's Prince Charming. Useless! Waste +of time! What a fool I am! An evening thrown away! She'll never let him +go. He's too good-looking."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>I have not given Mr. Ridokanaki's exact words in his soliloquy. This +book is intended for general reading.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3>THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE</h3> + + +<p>Felicity was dressing to meet her husband at the station. She tried on +three new hats, and finally went back to one that Lord Chetwode had seen +before.</p> + +<p>"It's too absurd," she said to herself as she drove off. "The +extraordinary long time he has been away! Of course I know that nothing +but racing or furniture takes him from me. What long letters he +writes—he can't be forgetting me! When I see him I never like him to +think that I mind. I think a husband ought to have perfect freedom; it's +the only way to keep him. It seems to keep him away! Very odd!"</p> + +<p>Felicity arrived before the train was due. When it came in and no +Chetwode appeared, she blamed the porter and the guard, and asked to see +the station-master. He was very charmed with her, but could only +patiently repeat that there was not another train that day from the +remote little village where Chetwode had gone<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> from Newmarket to pick up +an old piece of furniture.</p> + +<p>"Really this is too much," said Felicity as she got into the carriage, +and with difficulty prevented herself from bursting into tears. "What +shall I do? How utterly sickening!" When she got home she found a +telegram from Chetwode putting off his return for a day or two, as there +was an old dresser in the kitchen of a farmhouse which the owner +wouldn't part with, and that he (Chetwode) was not going to lose. It +would be a crime to miss it. His telegram (they were always nearly as +long as his letters) concluded by saying that, given the information +straight from the stables, Peter Pan had a good chance at Sandown.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" she said again to herself. "Why, good gracious, I'm miserable! +I've put off everything to-day. The worst of it is I can't do anything +Chetwode wouldn't like, because he likes everything I do."</p> + +<p>She got back into the carriage, and told the coachman to drive to Mrs. +Ogilvie's. Poor Vera! She was unhappy too. On her way she met F. J. +Rivers walking with the red-haired girl, so she felt sure that Lucy +Winter was no longer a thorn in the flesh to Vera. And possibly Vera was +very happy to-day! So Felicity wasn't in the mood for her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span></p> + +<p>She drove to the Park instead (she had put aside all engagements because +Chetwode was coming home), and was thoughtful. Suddenly she caught sight +of Bertie Wilton chattering to another boy by the railings. He bowed +very formally. She stopped the carriage and beckoned to him.</p> + +<p>"Would you like to come for a drive?" she said in her sweetest, lowest +tone.</p> + +<p>"I should like to immensely, as you know only too well, Lady Chetwode, +but perhaps I'd better not. My bank-holiday manners might bore you."</p> + +<p>"How fickle you are. Come along," she commanded.</p> + +<p>He had just been on his way, he said, to an Exhibition of Old Masters to +see if there was anything there like the little Romney he had at Half +Moon Street that was so like her. So they drove to the New Gallery +together.</p> + +<p>"I was in the depths of despair when I met you. So much so that I was +trying to drown my sorrows in gossip," said Mr. Wilton.</p> + +<p>"And I am feeling rather sad," said Felicity; "if we are both horribly +depressed perhaps we shall cheer each other up."</p> + +<p>"Ah, but I was depressed about you, and you were depressed about some +one else. I wonder who it is."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Guess," she said.</p> + +<p>"About some one who isn't here? How extraordinary of him not to be here! +Perhaps that's why you like him so much. Perhaps it's very clever—with +a person like you—to be never there! Perhaps it's the only way to make +you think about him!"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by a person like me?"</p> + +<p>"You are right. There is no one like you. Anyhow, it's a cleverness I +could never pretend to. I know I should be always there, or thereabouts. +At all risks! Yes, all! I always say so."</p> + +<p>The New Gallery certainly did seem to raise their spirits. They sat +there for a long time exchanging ideas and avoiding the pictures in a +marked manner. Felicity had nothing whatever to do that evening, which +she had intended to spend with her husband. Savile, who was staying with +her, wouldn't be back from Craig-y-nos till heaven knew when. Oddly +enough, Mr. Wilton also had no engagement that evening. "So much so," he +said, that he had taken a large box at the Gaiety all by himself, to go +and see that new thing. Felicity, oddly enough—it was the first +night—had not seen the piece. He advised that she should. Then she +would have to dine all alone at home while poor Mr. Wilton was going to +dine in lonely solemnity at the Carlton. Matters were adjusted so far +that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> she agreed to meet him at the restaurant on condition he made up a +party.</p> + +<p>"Ask Vera Ogilvie and Captain Henderson. Perhaps the horrid noise and +vulgarity, and your society, may brighten me up," she said consolingly, +"or at least divert my thoughts."</p> + +<p>He sincerely hoped so. Much telephoning at the Club resulted in a +promise from Bob and Mrs. Ogilvie to come too, so all was well.</p> + +<p>But Felicity dressed for dinner in quite an irritable frame of mind, and +nearly cried because she accidentally broke a fan Chetwode had given +her.</p> + +<p>Mr. Wilton could not have been quite so depressed, really, for after +flying off in the adored motor to the Gaiety and the Carlton on urgent +matters of business, he went home and looked a very long time at the +little Romney quite cheerfully. He found himself beaming so markedly in +the mirror over his button-hole and white waistcoat when dressing, that +it suddenly struck him both the smile and the button-hole were overdone. +They were triumphant, and triumph was vulgar (and premature). He removed +them both, and went out with a suitable tinge of gentle restrained +melancholy, at once very becoming, respectful, and, he trusted, +interesting. He knew he had not lost much ground by his boldness at his +first visit.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> A woman can pardon a moment of audacity more easily than a +moment of misplaced respectful coldness. The one may be an attack on her +dignity, but the other is a slight to her charm. And Felicity had such +pretty manners; there was a touch of formality always with all her +gaiety that left a dashing young man in doubt. It was certainly an +interesting doubt.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"I never met any one quite so definite in my life as that young man," +said Felicity as she ate her toast, holding the <i>Daily Mail</i> upside +down. She and Savile were sitting rather late over a somewhat silent +breakfast. He appeared rather absent-minded and replied to her remark.</p> + +<p>"Yes, she was perfectly gorgeous, she looked magnificent. (Pass me the +toast, old girl. Thanks.) I say, she looked at me!"</p> + +<p>"He said such peculiar things. He's different from other people, +certainly," said Felicity argumentatively. "A really brilliant talker. +It's so rare."</p> + +<p>"No wonder she was called the Nightingale! Thanks very much. Don't talk +to me about Jenny Lind."</p> + +<p>"I wasn't. You see he's rather lonely and unhappy, after all, you know, +under all that cynicism and rattling. Every one has two sides<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> to their +character (I believe in Browning up to a certain point)—one to face the +world with, and the other to show."</p> + +<p>"As to Clara Butt, or any of these newfangled people, that's all rot! I +tell you straight, I don't believe it," said Savile.</p> + +<p>"You're quite right, dear. One can't deny that he's amusing. There's +something so ready about him, and he's so kind and good-hearted as well +as clever. He has personality. That's the word."</p> + +<p>"Yes, she's a ripping, glorious creature! Oh, it is a pity she married +again before I knew her! And a Swede too! But still, that's her +business...."</p> + +<p>"Of course I told him not to call again until I wrote. There's a good +deal in him—when you know him better, you know."</p> + +<p>Suddenly Savile looked up and said—</p> + +<p>"I say, Felicity, what are you doing to-night?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, I haven't thought of it."</p> + +<p>"Chetwode not turning up yesterday you were disappointed."</p> + +<p>"I know I was. And, yet—look at this letter!" she showed him another of +her husband's long elaborate love-letters.</p> + +<p>"Letters are all right, and of course no man, especially your husband, +would write all that stuff—I beg your pardon—unless everything was all +right. But Chetwode's eccentric."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I suppose he is. I think I shall dine out to-night, Savile, after all."</p> + +<p>"After all what?" asked Savile.</p> + +<p>"I'm engaged to-night, dear."</p> + +<p>"You're surely not going to dine with Mrs. Ogilvie and her pals—and +Wilton, at the Carlton again?"</p> + +<p>"How right you are! Clever boy! I'm not, we're going to the Savoy."</p> + +<p>"Same idea. Look here, Felicity, you're a bit off colour. It's about +Chetwode. He doesn't know it. He ought to."</p> + +<p>"Somehow I can't tell him I hate his being away. When he's here there's +no need. Besides it's pride, or the family obstinacy."</p> + +<p>"Look here, if I could go to Wales for myself, I can go to—what's the +name of the place—for you. I'll go off this morning, and pretend I've +come to help Chetwode to dig up old cabinets and things. I'll bring him +back, give him a hint that people talk. Oh, I know how to do it—and +there you are."</p> + +<p>"My dear boy, how sweet of you! But it must come from yourself, mind. +Perhaps you'd better not. Then I shall see him to-night? You'll bring +him."</p> + +<p>"I'll undertake to—if you'll give up your Savoy."</p> + +<p>Felicity hesitated. "I'll ask them to dine here.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> I should be too +nervous alone. Then you will just come in with Chetwode as early as you +can this evening!" (She clapped her hands.) "This evening, won't you? +He'll be at the village this afternoon, you know. He says he'll return +to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"And to-morrow he'll go straight on to York for the races. He only puts +it off because he doesn't know you want him. My dear old girl, this has +got to be put straight. Now, then, shut up, Felicity!"</p> + +<p>"But, Savile, darling—pet! Suppose——"</p> + +<p>"Pass me the Bradshaw!"</p> + +<p>Felicity made no objection. He again started off for a long and tedious +journey. He was supported by the feeling he was doing the right thing, +and by re-reading the programme of the Craig-y-nos concert and +remembering the look he firmly believed <span class="smcap">SHE</span> had given him.</p> + +<p>Felicity, after telegraphing to Bertie Wilton—"Come to dine here +to-night. Can't go out. Felicity Chetwode"—then went to Onslow Square, +where she found Sylvia in the garden. Sylvia was not reading a book, and +seemed very busy smiling—smiling to herself in a dream of some +rose-coloured happiness.</p> + +<p>They interchanged ideas without words for a time. Then Sylvia said, "I +do hope, Felicity, that Chetwode——"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span></p> + +<p>"He's coming back to-night," she answered decidedly; then said rather +abruptly—</p> + +<p>"How's Mr. Woodville?"</p> + +<p>For the first time Sylvia blushed at his name, as she bent down to pick +up the book she had dropped.</p> + +<p>"Oh, all right, I suppose. Won't it be nice when we go on the river? +We're going quite early—in July."</p> + +<p>"Is papa going to have the same house he had last year?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes; but he's having it all differently furnished. He means to buy +it, I think. And I'm to have a music-room opening out of my bedroom, in +pale green! Won't it be lovely?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Felicity, "lovely. And ... what did you say you thought of +Bertie Wilton? There's something I rather like about his face."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know what it is—he's very good-looking. Not only that, he might +be—well, rather too much of a good thing, if you know what I mean. I +wouldn't flirt with him, Felicity."</p> + +<p>"I know you wouldn't, darling." Felicity smiled.</p> + +<p>"You don't really, I know! It's only fun. Besides, people only love +once. You would never care for any one but Chetwode."</p> + +<p>"Care! I should think not. But Bertie Wilton's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> amusing. And he knows +simply everything. He's a perfectly brilliant gossip. What do you think +is the latest thing about the Valettas and Guy Scott?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ogilvie and Bob preferred the restaurant; Wilton accepted by +telephone, telegraphing afterwards to know if it was all right. A +<i>tête-à-tête</i> dinner on so short an acquaintance with the most +fascinating of hostesses seemed to him almost too great a privilege to +be real. Afterwards she told his fortune by cards and he told hers by +palmistry.</p> + +<p>"You don't tell me all," she said.</p> + +<p>"If I told you all—all you are to me—I suppose you would ring for a +glass of iced-water again?" said he.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, I shouldn't. I am in a very good temper to-night," said +Felicity, laughing.</p> + +<p>She had a telegram announcing Chetwode's arrival by the 9.15. She had +not mentioned it.</p> + +<p>Bertie Wilton looked at her. She seemed rather nervous. He persuaded +himself not to go too far again, but it was really rather wonderful that +she had, after the iced-water incident, asked him to spend the evening +with her.</p> + +<p>They had music. He had a voice, a way of singing, and a choice of songs +that had often been most useful to him in the beginning of his social +and sentimental career. But he was sur<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>prised to see that while he was +singing something about "my dream, my desire, my despair" she was +standing in front of the looking-glass making play with a powder-puff as +if he wasn't present, and then appeared to be listening at the door.</p> + +<p>He came from the piano and she thanked him with an absent-minded warmth.</p> + +<p>Incautiously he said, "It's just what you are, 'My dream.' Will you tell +me something? But I shall be in disgrace if I ask."</p> + +<p>"What is it?"</p> + +<p>"Will you always be my despair?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no; oh yes—I mean." Then she said, "There he is!"</p> + +<p>There was a sound of cabs outside. Then the door opened and Savile came +in, while a voice outside with a slight drawl said, "Where are you, +Felicity?"</p> + +<p>Felicity ran out of the room and shut the door.</p> + +<p>"Extraordinary weather for the time of year," remarked Savile, with a +condescending air of putting Wilton at his ease. The young man was +smiling, rather uncomfortably for him.</p> + +<p>"Very," he answered. "No, thanks," to Savile's hospitable offer of a +cigarette. "You've been travelling. How delightful."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I've just come back with Chetwode from Yorkshire. By the way, you'll +excuse my sister for a few minutes. You know what these newly married +couples are!"</p> + +<p>Bertie Wilton rose.</p> + +<p>"Do I not? I should be more than grieved to intrude on anything so +sacred as a—shall I say—a home chat? Thanks very much. No, I won't +stay now. Ask Lady Chetwode to excuse me. I shall hope to have the +pleasure of meeting your brother-in-law here some time quite soon."</p> + +<p>He took his leave very cordially, with his usual smiling courtesy, +Savile making no effort to detain him, and chuckling a little to himself +as he tried to fancy the language Wilton would probably use in the cab +on his way home. Then the boy, saying "Well, I've made that all right!" +went back to Onslow square.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3>SAVILE AND SYLVIA</h3> + + +<p>One gay irresponsible April afternoon Sir James and Woodville had gone +to the House, and Savile, thinking he might be useful as an escort, +strolled into Sylvia's boudoir. It was her favourite room, where she +received her intimate friends, played and sang, wrote letters, read +novels and poetry, and thought about Woodville. The scent from the lilac +in the vases seemed to harmonise with the chintz furniture, covered with +a design of large pink rosebuds and vivid green trellis-work; there was +a mandoline on the lacquered piano and old coloured prints on the walls; +books and music were scattered about in dainty disorder. Sylvia was +sitting on the sofa with her pretty fair head bent down and turned away. +She did not move when Savile came in, and he was shocked to see she was +crying.</p> + +<p>Savile turned quite pale with horror. Young as he was, nature and +training had made all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> outward manifestations of emotion so contrary to +his traditions and mode of life, and it seemed so unlike Sylvia, that he +felt a kind of shame even more strongly than sympathy. He shut the door +quietly, whistled to show he was there, and walked slowly up and down +the room. Then he stood by the latticed window, looking out, and tried +to think of something to say. What comforted girls when they cried? The +inspiration "Tea" suggested itself, but that would mean the entrance of +outsiders. Presently he said shyly and sympathetically, "Shall I smoke, +Sylvia?"</p> + +<p>She made a gesture signifying that nothing mattered now, and went on +crying.</p> + +<p>"I say," said Savile, striking a match, "it can't be as bad as all +that."</p> + +<p>He went up to the sofa and she held out her hand. Demonstrations of +sentiment made him acutely uncomfortable. He put the pretty hand back +carefully, and said in a level tone, "I tell you what I should do if I +were you. I should tell some one about it—Me, for instance. I've been +through a lot—more than any one knows." (Here he gave what he believed +to be a bitter smile.) "I might be some use; I'd do my best, anyway."</p> + +<p>"Darling boy!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, buck up, Sylvia! You're going to tell<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> me every word about it, and +more, once you start! I'll help you to start." He waited a moment and +then said rather loudly and sternly, "What's wrong between you and +Woodville?"</p> + +<p>Sylvia sat up, took her handkerchief from her eyes, and stared at him.</p> + +<p>"What? Have you guessed?"</p> + +<p>"Have I guessed! If I'm always as sharp as this I shall cut myself some +day," said the schoolboy ironically. "Why, what do you take me for? Do I +live here? Do I come down to breakfast? Aren't I and Woodville great +friends? Have I guessed?" He sighed in despair at her denseness.</p> + +<p>"Dear boy, I'm sure I'd tell you anything. You're so wonderful and so +clever, but how could I know you'd be so sweet about it? Why papa said +even you wanted me to marry Mr. Ridokanaki. He quoted you."</p> + +<p>"Well, why shouldn't he? I do wish it."</p> + +<p>Sylvia's eyes blazed, and she tapped her foot on the carpet.</p> + +<p>"Oh, do you? Very well, I'm sure I don't mind! You see it doesn't matter +in the very least what you think. After all you're only a little boy."</p> + +<p>Savile smiled with genuine amusement, patted her golden hair paternally, +and said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> "Of course. But if I'd happened to suggest your going to the +registry office with Woodville this afternoon (I believe there's one +somewhere in Kensington, near the work-house), I suppose I'd have been +what you call a <i>dear</i> little boy, and you'd have let me have some jam +for tea.... Poor girl! You must be bad." He laughed, and then said +quietly, "Now, then, go ahead."</p> + +<p>"Well, Savile, it's too dreadful, and I <i>will</i> confide in you. Last +night"—Sylvia began talking very volubly—"that horrid old brute—you +know, the Greek—asked Frank, Mr. Woodville, to dinner, and actually had +the impertinence to offer him a sort of post in a bank, starting at +£2000 a year, at Athens. <span class="smcap">ATHENS</span>! Do you hear? It's in Greece."</p> + +<p>"Don't rub it in. This is no time for geography. What else?"</p> + +<p>"Well, it was on these conditions. Frank was to go for a year, and all +that time the <i>fiend</i> has given word of honour never to come and see me, +or anything, and if at the end of the year Frank and I are still both +the same, <i>he</i> will give it up—about me, I mean—and get Frank the same +sort of berth in London. And if we're not—just fancy making such a +horrible proposition! At Willis's, too!"</p> + +<p>"Well, what's the matter with Willis's?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> Would it have been all right at +the 'Cheshire Cheese'?"</p> + +<p>"What's the 'Cheshire Cheese'?"</p> + +<p>"Never mind," said Savile mysteriously. (He didn't know.) "And if you're +<i>not</i> still the same?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>then</i>"—she began to cry again—"of course the wretch thinks there +might be a chance for him. He <i>must</i> be mad, mustn't he? But the +horrible part is that Frank actually thinks of <i>going</i>! Fancy! How +<i>degrading</i>! To accept a favour from my enemy! Isn't Ridokanaki exactly +like Machiavelli?"</p> + +<p>"Mac who? I see nothing Scotch in the offer. But if he were the living +image of Robert Bruce or Robinson Crusoe, that's not the point. Now +let's have it straight. Would you marry him in any case?"</p> + +<p>"Absolutely never," flashed Sylvia, showing all the celebrated family +obstinacy by her beautiful set mouth, "I'd rather——"</p> + +<p>"Never mind what you'd rather. <i>I know</i> what you'd rather, thanks very +much. All right, you mean it. Cross him out. And now we know where we +are."</p> + +<p>"But still I'm afraid ... you don't seem to think I ought to marry Mr. +Woodville, do you?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Not that exactly," said Savile. "But I think the man who's been making +love to my sister ought to marry <i>her</i>. What's more, he's got to."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Savile, how can you! Don't you think he cares for me?"</p> + +<p>"Off the rails as usual! Yes, I do think so, but it doesn't matter a +straw what my thoughts are. It matters what's going to be done."</p> + +<p>"But what can be done? Unless he goes away to Athens, I mean."</p> + +<p>"Great Scott!" exclaimed Savile, starting up. "What's the use of all his +friends—Chetwode, and Mervyn, and Wilton, Vere and Broughton, and heaps +more—if they can't get him something? A splendid chap like old +Woodville! He was looked upon as a brilliant man at Balliol. I happen to +know that—never mind how."</p> + +<p>She kissed him. "Do you think, then, that Arthur Mervyn would help him? +I mean, do you think that Frank might go on the stage?"</p> + +<p>He looked at her quite anxiously, as though he thought her troubles had +turned her brain.</p> + +<p>"Go on the <i>stage</i>! Go on <i>what</i> stage? Oh, you'd like to see your +husband prancing about like a painted mountebank with a chorus of +leading ladies, would you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no, indeed I shouldn't! But are leading ladies all dreadful? And I +thought you were in love with a singer yourself," said Sylvia.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span></p> + +<p>Savile threw away his cigarette, with what he hoped was a hollow laugh.</p> + +<p>"My dear child, what I choose to do and what I allow my sister to do are +two very different things."</p> + +<p>"I dare say they are, darling," said Sylvia mildly. "And, <i>please</i> don't +imagine for one moment that I suppose you ever do anything at all—I +mean, that you oughtn't."</p> + +<p>"No, I shouldn't worry about <i>me</i>," said Savile. "We're talking about +<i>your</i> troubles.... As if Woodville were such an ass! Catch him going in +for such rot!" He laughed. "Sylvia, do you suppose that he's stayed here +in this hole," said Savile in a muffled undertone, looking round the +exquisite room, and then repeating loudly and defiantly, "I say, in this +<i>Hole</i>, except for you? Do you think he can't do anything better? Mind +you, the Governor's fond of Woodville, it's only the cash and all that. +If that idiot of an uncle of his hadn't married his housekeeper, it +would have been all right."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Savile, fancy, I saw her once! She wore——"</p> + +<p>"Describe her dress some other day, dear, for Heaven's sake. What I say +is that Woodville is the sort of man who could make his mark."</p> + +<p>"Do you think he could make a name by painting?" she asked eagerly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span></p> + +<p>Savile looked rather sick, and said with patient resignation, "By +painting what? The front of the house? Look here, <i>some one's</i> got to +talk sense. Leave this to me." He then waited a minute, and said, +"<i>I'll</i> get him something to do!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Savile!—Angel!—Genius! How?"</p> + +<p>"Would you mind, very kindly, telling me what Chetwode's our +brother-in-law for?" said Savile. "What use is he? When's he ever seen +with Felicity? He can't live at curiosity shops and race-meetings. He +can't expect to. Why (keep this to yourself) I brought him back last +night from Yorkshire! Just in time, don't you know. Felicity was as +pleased as Punch."</p> + +<p>"My darling boy, I <i>know</i> you're sweet and clever, but you talk as if +you had any amount of power and influence, and all that!"</p> + +<p>"Well, I got Bertie Wilton a decoration!" He laughed. "The Order of the +Boot! Now, Sylvia, pull yourself together and I'll see it through. Don't +say a word to Woodville, mind that!"</p> + +<p>"I adore you for this, Savile." During the interview the girl of twenty +seemed to have grown much younger and more inexperienced, and the boy +four years her junior, to have become a man.</p> + +<p>"Tell me," she asked anxiously, "then am I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> to pretend to consent to his +going to Athens? Why, if he did <i>go</i>, well, it would kill me—to begin +with!"</p> + +<p>"And what to go on with? Rot! It wouldn't kill you. It might spoil your +looks, or give you a different sort of looks, that mightn't suit you so +well. Awfully jolly it would be, too, having an anxious sister looking +out for the post. Thanks! What a life for me! How soon has he to give an +answer?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, in a month," she answered.</p> + +<p>"Well, let things slide; let them remain in ... what's that word?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. In doubt? In ... Chancery?"</p> + +<p>"Chancery! Really, Sylvia! I know! In abeyance, that's the word," said +Savile. He seemed to take special pleasure in it. "Yes, <i>abeyance</i>," he +repeated, with a smile. "Well, good-bye! I'm going out." He looked to +see that his trousers were turned up and the last button of his +waistcoat left unfastened in the correct Eton fashion, and said, "Do +look all right in our box to-night, Sylvia. You can if you like, you +know."</p> + +<p>"I <i>promise</i>, Savile! I'd do <i>anything</i> for you! I shall never forget."</p> + +<p>"You know, looking decent can't do any harm anyway anyhow, to anybody. +Never be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> seen out of uniform." He stopped at the door to say very +kindly, "Buck up, dear, and don't go confiding in people—I know what +girls are. I suppose now," remarked Savile sarcastically, "that you want +a powder-puff, and a cup of tea. I'll tell Price—about the tea, I +mean."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3>AT THE STUDIO</h3> + + +<p>Woodville let himself in with the key, and sat down, in deep +despondency, in front of his easel. On it was a second copy of a copy +that some one had found him doing at the National Gallery of the great +Leonardo. It was not good, and it made him sick to look at it. The +studio was a battered little barn in the depths of Chelsea, with the +usual dull scent of stale paint and staler tobacco, and very little +else; it was quite devoid of the ordinary artistic trappings. From the +window shrill cries were heard from the ragged children, who fought and +played in the gutter of a sordid street. Woodville had come here to +think.</p> + +<p>He knew how shocked and distressed Sylvia had been when he had ventured +to say that he thought he saw something in the Athenian scheme. He +smiled with a slight reaction of gaiety at his surroundings, and +wondered, for the hundredth time, why that extraordinary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> old American +lady at the National Gallery had actually ordered from him the second +copy of his picture. How marvellously bad it was!</p> + +<p>An unusual noise in the street—that of a hansom cab rattling up to the +door—startled him. He went to the window, with a strange feeling at his +heart. It was impossible that it could be Sylvia; she did not even know +the address. It was Sylvia, in pale grey, gracefully paying the cabman +while dirty children collected round her feet. He saw through the window +that she smiled at them, and gave them a bunch of violets and some +money, for which they fought. Horrified, he almost fell down the stairs +and opened the door. There was no one else in the house.</p> + +<p>She followed him up to the studio, looking pale, but smiling bravely. He +closed the door and leant against it. He was panting.</p> + +<p>"<i>What—on—earth</i>," he said, "do you mean by this madness?"</p> + +<p>Sylvia, seeing he was angry, took the hatpin out of her hat, and looked +round for a place to sit down and quarrel comfortably.</p> + +<p>There was no seat, except a thing that had once been red and once a +sofa, but was now a skeleton, and looked so cold and bare that she +instinctively took off her chinchilla fur cloak and covered it up. Then +she said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>—</p> + +<p>"<i>Because—I—chose!</i> I never can get a word with you at home, and I +have a perfect right to come and talk to my future husband on a subject +that concerns my whole happiness."</p> + +<p>She had invented this speech coming along, being prepared for his anger.</p> + +<p>"But what would people——"</p> + +<p>"People! People! You live for people! Everything matters except me!"</p> + +<p>He resolved on calmness.</p> + +<p>"Sylvia, dear, since you <i>are</i> here," he said quietly, "let us talk +reasonably."</p> + +<p>He tried to sit next to her, but the sofa gave way, and he found himself +kneeling by her side.</p> + +<p>They both laughed angrily. He got up and stood by the mantelpiece.</p> + +<p>"So you think it is <i>decent</i> to accept money to leave the country to +please my enemy?" said Sylvia.</p> + +<p>"Will you tell me a really better plan by which we can marry in a year +on an assured income?" he asked patiently.</p> + +<p>"Income! Haven't I when I marry——" But he looked too angry. She +changed the sentence and became imploring.</p> + +<p>"Frank! If you love me <i>really</i>, you can't leave me. Think, every day, +every hour without you!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Very well! We'll tell your father to-night, and chance it. I won't +stand these subterfuges any more. After all, we have the right to do as +we like."</p> + +<p>"No, Frank, you will <i>not</i> tell him till I'm twenty-one. I haven't a +right before. You would only be called horrid things—have to go, +and—think how mean it is to poor Ridokanaki! Taking his kindness, only +to round on him next year! Have you no pride, Frank?"</p> + +<p>"Sylvia, that's all very well. But he knows all that. It's his idea."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it <i>would</i> be! As if I didn't see through his mean, sly scheme. +Why, it's not kindness at all!" she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Good God! Well, what is it? Does he think you'll forget me, do you +mean?" said Woodville.</p> + +<p>"No, he doesn't. He <i>knows you'll</i> forget <i>me</i>—in Athens. Oh, Frank," +and she suddenly burst out crying, "there'll be Greeks there!"</p> + +<p>At the sight of her tears Frank was deeply touched; but he smiled, +feeling more in the real world again—the world he knew.</p> + +<p>"My dear girl, I don't pretend for one moment to deny that there will be +Greeks there. One can't expect the whole country to be expatriated +because I go to Athens to work in a bank. What do you want there? +Spaniards?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh! Vulgar taunts and jokes!" She dried her eyes proudly, and then +said—</p> + +<p>"<i>Are you sure you'll be true to me?</i>"</p> + +<p>Woodville met unflinchingly that terrible gaze of the inquisitional +innocent woman, before which men, guilty or guiltless equally, assume +the same self-conscious air of shame. His eyes fell. He had no idea why +he felt guilty. Certainly there had never been in his life anything to +which Sylvia need have taken exception. Then his spirit asserted itself +again.</p> + +<p>"Oh, hang it all! I really can't stand this! All right, I won't go. Have +it your own way. Distrust me! I dare say you think I deserve it. Is it a +pleasure to leave you like this, surrounded by a lot of——Did any one +look at you as you came along in the cab?"</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> don't know," she said.</p> + +<p>He spoke tenderly, passionately now.</p> + +<p>"I worship you, Sylvia. You've got that? You take it in?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, dearest."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm yours. You can do what you like. I give in. I dare say your +woman's instinct is right. And, besides, I can't leave you. And now, my +darling, lovely, exquisite angel you will go—<span class="smcap">AT ONCE</span>!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Frank, forgive me."</p> + +<p>A violently loud knock startled them from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> each other's arms. There was +another cab at the door.</p> + +<p>"Keep still. Keep over here, Sylvia," commanded Woodville.</p> + +<p>From the window he saw, standing on the steps, Savile, in his Eton suit. +He smiled and waved his hand to the boy.</p> + +<p>"It's Savile. I'll open the door. It'll be all right. I expect he +followed you."</p> + +<p>In two seconds Sylvia was composed and calm, looking round at the +pictures in her chinchilla cloak.</p> + +<p>Savile followed his host up, laughing vaguely, and said when he saw +Sylvia, in a rather marked way—</p> + +<p>"Ah! You didn't believe me when I told you I'd come and fetch you! But, +you see, here I am."</p> + +<p>"Sweet of you, dear," said Sylvia.</p> + +<p>"And a fine place it is—well worth coming to see, isn't it?" said +Frank, laughing a great deal.</p> + +<p>"Well, we'd better be off. I kept the cab because of dining at Aunt +William's to-night. You know, Sylvia, we're late."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, dear. I'd almost given you up."</p> + +<p>As they went to the door, Savile suddenly turned round, and having +decided a debate in his mind, said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>—</p> + +<p>"I know all about it. I congratulate you, Woodville. But we'll keep it +dark a bit yet, eh?"</p> + +<p>Savile thought his knowing of the engagement made it more conventional.</p> + +<p>The brother and sister drove off.</p> + +<p>Sylvia was silent. Savile did not say a single word until they nearly +reached home. Then he remarked casually—</p> + +<p>"As I found out where you'd gone, I thought it would sort of look +better, eh, for me to fetch you? Didn't mean to be a bore or anything."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Savile dear, <i>thank</i> you! I'll never——"</p> + +<p>"Yes; it's not going to happen again. Go and dress, old girl. Wear your +pink. Motor'll be round in half an hour; heaps of time. I'm going too, +you know—at Aunt William's."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<h3>AT MRS. OGILVIE'S</h3> + + +<p>"I know what's the matter with you, Vera," said Felicity decidedly, as +she sat down in her friend's flat in Cadogan Place. "It's that you +haven't got the personal note!"</p> + +<p>"I?" said Vera indignantly.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ogilvie was a very pretty dark woman of about thirty, who minimised +her good looks and added to her apparent age by dressing in the style +which had always suited her. Her dainty drawing-rooms were curiously +conventional—the natural result of <i>carte-blanche</i> to a fashionable +upholsterer. She wore a blue-green Empire +<a name="corr6" id="corr6"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn6" title="changed from 'teagown'">tea-gown</a>, +a long chain of +uncut turquoises, a scarab ring, and a curious comb in her black, loose +hair, and was always trying, and always trying in vain, to be unusual. +Her name was Lucy (as any one who understood the subject of names must +have seen at a glance), but she had changed it to Vera, on the ground +that it was more Russian. There seemed no special object<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> in this, as +she had married a Scotchman. One really rare possession she certainly +had—a husband who, notwithstanding that he felt a mild dislike for her +merely, bullied her and interfered with her quite as much as if he were +wildly in love. He was a rising barrister, and nearly every evening Vera +had to undergo a very cross examination as to what she had done during +the day, while being only too well aware that he neither listened to her +answers, nor would have been interested if he had.</p> + +<p>She sought compensation by being in a continual state of vague +enthusiasm about some one or other, invariably choosing for the god of +her idolatry some young man who, for one reason or another, could not +possibly respond in any way. Yet she was always very much admired, +except by the objects of her own Platonic admiration. This gave a +certain interest to her life; and her other great pleasure was +worshipping and confiding in her friend Felicity.</p> + +<p>"Not the personal note!" repeated Mrs. Ogilvie, as if amazed. "I? I'm +nothing if not original! Why, I actually copied that extraordinary gown +we saw at the Gymnase when we were in Paris, and I wore it last night. +It was a good deal noticed too——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, you wore it; but you'd copied it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> That's just the point," +said Felicity. "You can't become original by imitating some one else's +peculiarities. The only way to be really unusual is to be oneself—which +hardly anybody is. I can't see, though, why on earth you should wish it. +It's much nicer to be like everybody else, I think."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that you can know from hearsay only, dear," said Vera. "Your +husband's come back, hasn't he?" she added irrelevantly.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Now, there <i>is</i> an unusual man, if you like!" said Felicity. "He +has no pose of any sort or kind, and he hasn't the ordinary standard +about anything in any way, but likes people really and genuinely on +their <i>own</i> merits—as he likes things—not because they're cheap or +dear!"</p> + +<p>"It seems to me so extraordinary that a racing man who is more or less +of a sportsman should think little ornaments matter so much! I mean, +should worry about china, and so on."</p> + +<p>"It is hereditary, dear," said Felicity calmly. "One of his ancestors +was a great collector, and the other wasn't—I forget what he was. I +<i>think</i> a friend of James I, or something military of that sort."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid Chetwode's rather a gambler—that's the only thing that +worries me for <i>you</i>, dear," said Vera.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What do you mean by that?" said Felicity.</p> + +<p>"Well ... I mean I shouldn't mind my husband attending sales and +bringing home a lot of useless beautiful things.... At Christie's you +know where you are to a certain extent ... but at Newmarket you don't."</p> + +<p>"Chetwode," said Felicity, "isn't a gambler in the ordinary sense. He +never plays cards. Little pictures on paste-board fidget him, he says; +he loathes Monte Carlo because it's vulgar, and he dislikes roulette and +bridge. He's only a gambler in the best sense of the word—and that's a +very fine sense!"</p> + +<p>"Oh dear, you <i>are</i> so clever, Felicity! What <i>do</i> you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Isn't every one worth anything more or less of a gambler? Isn't going +to a dinner-party a risk—that you may be bored? Isn't marriage a +lottery—and all that sort of thing? Chetwode is prepared to take risks. +That's what I admire about him!"</p> + +<p>"He certainly stays away a great deal," said Vera.</p> + +<p>"Now, you're only pretending to be disagreeable. You don't mean it. He +has just been explaining to me that he hates the sort of things that +amuse <i>me</i>,—dances and the opera, and social things. Why, then, should +he go with me? He does sometimes, but I know it's an agonis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>ing +sacrifice. What do you think he is going to do to-night? A really rather +dreadful thing."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> don't know."</p> + +<p>"Dine with me at Aunt William's! A sort of family dinner. Aunt William +has asked papa, Sylvia, Savile, and us, and I know just the sort of +thing it will be. She has got some excellent match to take Sylvia to +dinner, a boring married man for <i>me</i>, a suitable old widow or married +man's wife for papa, Dolly Clive for Savile (although she isn't out—but +then I suppose <span class="smcap">HE</span> isn't out either, but she spoils Savile), and probably +Chetwode will take <span class="smcap">HER</span> in. Fairly horrible, isn't it? And you know the +house. Wax flowers under glass, rep curtains. And the decorations on the +table! A strip of looking-glass, surrounded by smilax! And the dinner! +Twelve courses, port and sherry—all the fashions of 1860, or a little +later, which is worse. Not mahogany and walnuts. Almonds and raisins."</p> + +<p>"How is it that you're not ill, and unable to go?" said Vera, looking +really concerned, and almost anxious.</p> + +<p>"Because I happen to know that she has asked two or three people to come +in in the evening. Bertie Wilton is one. He amuses her."</p> + +<p>"Bertie Wilton?" +<a name="corr7" id="corr7"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn7" title="changed from 'axclaimed'">exclaimed</a> +Vera.</p> + +<p>"Yes. He's so clever and persevering! He's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> been making up steadily to +Aunt William for several days, so that she might ask him to meet me. At +last she has. As he says, everything comes to the man who won't wait."</p> + +<p>"I wonder she approves of him."</p> + +<p>"Well, she does in a sort of peculiar way, because he's of a good old +family, and hasn't gone into anything—like stockbroking or business of +any kind, and she thinks she can find him a nice suitable wife. She +thinks Lucy Winter would be very suitable. Aunt William lives for +suitability, you know. Isn't it funny of her?"</p> + +<p>Vera laughed. "Lucy? Why, I took him with Lucy and me to choose a hat, +and there wasn't a thing she could wear. They don't get on at all. Lucy +likes serious, intellectual men; she says Bertie's frothy and trivial. +She wants to marry a great author, or a politician. However, thank +goodness, she's left off bothering about Bobby Henderson." Here Vera +sighed heavily.</p> + +<p>"Has Bobby left off bothering about Agatha? That's the point."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> don't know," said Vera. "I don't understand him; we've been having +some very curious scenes together lately. I can't think what he means."</p> + +<p>"He doesn't mean anything at all," said Felicity "and that's what you +<i>won't</i> understand.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> What curious things, as you call them, has he been +doing lately?"</p> + +<p>"Well, he called yesterday by appointment."</p> + +<p>"<i>Your</i> appointment, I suppose?" said Felicity.</p> + +<p>"By telephone," said Vera evasively. "And stayed two hours. And at last +I took a very strong line."</p> + +<p>"Oh, good gracious! What were you wearing?"</p> + +<p>"My yellow gown—and the amber beads; it was quite late and the +lights—pink shades—were turned on—or else it would have been too +glaring, you know, dear."</p> + +<p>"What was your strong line?" said Felicity.</p> + +<p>"I suddenly said to him, like some one in a play, 'Do you dislike me, +Captain Henderson?'"</p> + +<p>Felicity began to laugh. "What a fine speech! What did he say?"</p> + +<p>"He answered, 'If I did, I shouldn't be here.' After that—not directly +after—he said, 'You look all right in yellow, Mrs. Ogilvie.' Do you +think that shows great admiration—or not?"</p> + +<p>"I've heard more passionate declarations," said Felicity impartially. +"It's the sort of thing Savile would say to <i>me</i>. What else did he talk +about?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, about horses and things, and the new play at the Gaiety, and then I +said, 'It's rather a tragic thing for a woman to say, perhaps, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> I'm +sure you don't care a bit for me, so perhaps you'd better not call any +more.'"</p> + +<p>"What on earth did he say to that?" said Felicity.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you the exact truth, dear," Vera answered. "He got up and +walked round the room, and then said, 'I say, would you think it too +awful if I asked for a drink?' What do you think that showed?"</p> + +<p>"It showed he was thirsty. I don't think he was going to faint away. +Still, I suppose he <i>had</i> a drink; and—then—what happened?"</p> + +<p>"I hardly like to tell you, dear."</p> + +<p>"Go on!"</p> + +<p>"I pressed him for his real opinion of me quite frankly, and he said: +'Frankly, I think you're a very pretty woman, and very jolly, but aren't +you a bit dotty on some subjects?' Of course I was very much hurt, and +said, 'Certainly not about <i>you</i>!' So then he said, 'For instance, you +always write that you have something particular to say to me, but you +never say it. I left several important appointments this afternoon to +come round, and you don't seem to have any news.' I <i>had</i> said it, you +see, but he didn't take it in. I was very much offended at his calling +me dotty, but he explained afterwards he only meant that I was +'artistic'!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span></p> + +<p>Felicity went into fits of laughter. "Well, how did it end?"</p> + +<p>"I asked him to dinner for next Wednesday, and he said he was going out +of town, and didn't know when he would be back. Now tell me, darling +Felicity, <i>do</i> you think he is going away to—try and conquer his +feelings—or anything of that sort? That is what I should like to +think," said Vera.</p> + +<p>"No," answered Felicity. "Either it was a lie, because your husband +bores him and he didn't <i>want</i> to come to dinner, or else he's really +going to Newmarket, and doesn't know when he'll be back."</p> + +<p>"Tell me, Felicity. I can bear it.... Then—he does not care about me, +and I ought to cut him out of my life?"</p> + +<p>"I think he likes you all right, but I really shouldn't worry about +him," said Felicity.</p> + +<p>"Then I certainly shan't. I am far too proud! <i>How</i> different Bertie +Wilton is," she went on. "So amusing, and lively and nice to every one! +But <i>he</i> is devoted to <i>you</i>."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you can have him if you like," said Felicity, "and if you can. You +wouldn't get on, really. You see, he isn't romantic, like you, and he +likes people best who don't run after him."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have often noticed that in people," said Vera thoughtfully. +"I'll tell you <i>some one</i>,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> though, who really interests me; that is +your friend, Arthur Mervyn, the actor. He has such a wonderful profile."</p> + +<p>"Yes—in fact, two. Oh, that reminds me, I came to ask you to come to +Madame Tussaud's to-morrow afternoon. We're making up a party to go to +the Chamber of Horrors. I'm taking Sylvia and Bertie. But I can't manage +Arthur Mervyn and Bertie too,—at least, not at the Waxworks,—so I'm +going some other day with him—I mean Arthur."</p> + +<p>"Oh, what fun! I should love to come! Thanks, dearest."</p> + +<p>"All right. Meet us there at four, and if you ever meet Arthur Mervyn +again, <i>don't</i> talk about the stage. He hates it."</p> + +<p>"What does he like?"</p> + +<p>"He's interested in murders, and things of that kind," said Felicity; +"or anything cheery, you know, but <i>not</i> the theatre."</p> + +<p>"Do you think he would come to see me if I asked him?" asked Vera.</p> + +<p>"He hates paying visits," said Felicity, and she glanced round the room +judicially, "but if you can make him believe that some horrible crime +has been acted here,—I must say it doesn't look like it, all pink and +white!—then I think he <i>would</i> call. Or, if you suggested—just +hinted—that you believed the liftman had once been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> mixed up in some +horrible case—I think he likes poisoning or strangling best—then he'd +come like a shot!"</p> + +<p>Felicity got up laughing.</p> + +<p>"I say," she continued as she fastened her white furs, "have you heard +the very latest thing about the Valettas and Guy Scott? Bertie's going +to tell me all about it to-night; he is the only <i>really</i> brilliant +gossip I know. He's raised it to such an art that it's no longer gossip: +it's modern history and psychology! First he gets his facts right; then +he takes a sort of vivid analytical interest in every one—always a +humorously sympathetic view, of course—and has so much imagination that +he makes you <i>see</i> the whole thing!"</p> + +<p>"Good gracious! I think I don't care for gossip about other people," +said Vera; "I'm sure I shouldn't like that at all. I am really only +interested in my own life."</p> + +<p>"Then no wonder you find it so difficult to be amused, darling."</p> + +<p>They parted, kissing affectionately.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<h3>LORD CHETWODE</h3> + + +<p>"I have to go down to Fulham this morning; don't let me forget it," said +Lord Chetwode.</p> + +<p>He was sitting in the green library with Felicity, markedly abstaining +from the newspapers surrounding him, and reading over an old catalogue. +He was a fair, delicate-looking young man of twenty-eight years the +amiability of whose expression seemed accentuated by the upward turning +of his minute blonde moustache. He had deep blue eyes, rather far apart, +regular features, and a full, very high forehead, on which the fair hair +was already growing scanty. Tall and slight, he had a rather casual, +boyish air, and beautiful but useful-looking white hands, the hands of +the artist. His voice and manner had the soft unobtrusive gentleness +that comes to those whose ancestors for long years have dared and +commanded. In time, when there's nothing more to fight for, the dash +naturally dies out.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span></p> + +<p>"My dear boy, why Fulham?" said Felicity, who was sitting at her +writing-table not answering letters.</p> + +<p>"About that bit of china."</p> + +<p>"We don't want any more china, dear."</p> + +<p>"It isn't a question of what we want! It is a question of what it would +be a crime to miss. Old Staffordshire going for nothing! Really, +Felicity!"</p> + +<p>Felicity gave up the point. "I see.... How long are you going to stay in +London?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Well, I was just thinking.... You know, I don't care much about the +season."</p> + +<p>"You haven't had ten days of it," his wife answered. "Don't you think it +looks rather odd always letting me go to dances and things alone?"</p> + +<p>"No. Why odd? You like them. I don't."</p> + +<p>She looked rather impatient. "Has it ever struck you that I'm—rather +young—and not absolutely hideous?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, very often," he said smiling. "Don't I show how it strikes me? +Why?"</p> + +<p>"It's so difficult to say. Don't you see; people try to flirt with me, +and that sort of thing."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, they would. Naturally."</p> + +<p>"Sometimes," said Felicity, darting a look at him like a needle, "I +shouldn't be surprised if people fell in love with me. So there!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You couldn't be less surprised than I should," said her husband, rather +proudly. "Shows their good taste."</p> + +<p>"Well, for instance—you know Bertie Wilton, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, I think I've seen him. A boy who rattles about in a staring red +motor-car. How any one on earth can stand those things when they can +have horses——"</p> + +<p>"That's not the point, Chetwode. I think Bertie Wilton is really in love +with me. I really do."</p> + +<p>Chetwode tried to look interested. "Is he though?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't like it," she said pettishly.</p> + +<p>"Then, don't stand it. But why? Isn't he a nice fellow?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, he's very <i>nice</i>. But he seems to—sort of think you neglect +me."</p> + +<p>"But other men go away, for months at a time, shooting big game, or +anything of that sort. Only shows he doesn't know.... <i>What</i> an ass he +must be!" Chetwode's voice showed slight irritation.</p> + +<p>"No he's not. He was quite disappointed that you came home the other +night when Savile went to fetch you. He went away at once."</p> + +<p>"Poor chap!—Well, ask him to dinner," relented Chetwode.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span></p> + +<p>She got up and went close to him. "You're hopeless! Chetwode, do you +really care for me—or do you like your curiosities and things better?"</p> + +<p>Lord Chetwode looked slightly nervous. His one mortal horror was +anything that bore the most distant resemblance to a scene.</p> + +<p>"My dear child, why, surely you know you are far and away the most +beautiful thing <i>I</i> am ever likely to have in my collection!" he said, +most admiringly.</p> + +<p>She turned away. She was terribly hurt; in her heart she had always +feared her husband regarded her as a bibelot. The subject was, to her, +too painful to discuss further. That he was sure of her—that showed +knowledge of her—that she deserved. But he ought to have <i>minded about +little things</i> as she would. And he ought not always to be satisfied to +leave her safe as the gem of the collection—and just come and look at +it sometimes.</p> + +<p>Chetwode returned to the catalogue, and then said, "Of course you know +I'm going to Teignmouth's for a week."</p> + +<p>"And you don't want <i>me</i> to go?"</p> + +<p>"It's a man's party, darling! Only a week."</p> + +<p>"But wouldn't you like me to go racing with you sometimes? I would. I +should love to."</p> + +<p>He looked up lazily. "I don't think a racecourse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> is the place for a +woman. I like you better here. Of course, come if you like. Whenever you +like. Would you like to see Princess Ida run?"</p> + +<p>"No, thanks.—Shall you be home to lunch?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I dare say I shall. Are you lunching at home?"</p> + +<p>"I was going to Vera's, but I'd rather stay at home—for you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't do that, dear," he said decidedly. "I may look in at +White's."</p> + +<p>"Well, when shall I see you?"</p> + +<p>"Why this evening, of course. Aren't we going to the opera, or +something?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Is it great agony for you to sit out Wagner?" She showed real sympathy. +"It's Tannhäuser, you know."</p> + +<p>"Can't say I'm keen about it," he answered in a depressed voice.</p> + +<p>"If you <i>like</i>," she said, slightly piqued, "I could easily go with +Sylvia and papa."</p> + +<p>"All right—or, I know—don't let us go at all!" said Chetwode. He was +now in the hall, and she followed him. "Anything I can do for you, +darling?" Then he added, "Don't move for a minute!" He was admiring her +golden hair against the tapestry, and smiled with the real pride of the +<i>collectionneur</i>. "Yes, you must really have your portrait painted, +Felicity,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> he said. "Sargent's the man, I think—or—well, we'll talk +it over." He went out, and the door banged relentlessly.</p> + +<p>Felicity moved back to the library and looked in the little carved +silver mirror that lay on the table. She saw tears gradually stealing +into her beautiful blue eyes, enlarging them, and she grew so sorry for +the lovely little sad face—in fact for herself!—that she hastily put +down the looking-glass, ran upstairs, and rang for her maid to dress her +to go out.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Chetwode completely failed in his mission, as the china-man, not +expecting him to call so soon, had gone out for the day. He strolled +down the Brompton Road, stopping from time to time to look at various +pretty things in little curiosity shops, and then he thought, as a +contrast, he would have a look at the Albert Memorial. But, changing his +mind again, he went a little way into Kensington Gardens. Suddenly, he +thought he recognised two people, rather beautiful people, who were +sitting under a tree, talking together with animation. It was his +sister-in-law, Sylvia, with her little dog, and Woodville. Before they +saw him, Sylvia got up and walked quickly towards the Row with the dog. +Woodville looked after her, and then strolled slowly towards the bridge. +How well the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> +sylvan surroundings suited them! Sylvia was a wood nymph +in a fashionable dress; Woodville, a faun in Bond Street clothes. +Chetwode smiled to himself. Then for a moment he was surprised.... It +seemed odd to see the secretary so far from his usual haunts. Why should +Sylvia sit in Kensington Gardens with him, and then go on alone to the +Row? However, he thought, it wasn't his business. As he walked towards +Knightsbridge, it struck him that he would tell Felicity. She would +understand, and explain. Then he thought he wouldn't tell Felicity. He +had a curious delicate dislike to mentioning anything he had seen +accidentally. He would chaff Sylvia about it when he saw her again.... +No, he wouldn't; it would be a shame to make a girl uncomfortable. He +would mention it to Woodville. Yes, that was it; he would chaff +Woodville about it....</p> + +<p>Seeing a hansom, he jumped into it and went to the Club. As he drove +there he remembered vaguely several little things that he had noticed +subconsciously before, and he began to think that probably Woodville and +Sylvia were in love with each other. What more natural! In that case one +wouldn't talk about it. It might annoy them. There was nothing on earth +Lord Chetwode disliked so much as the idea of anything that would annoy +any one.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span></p> + +<p>So he never did tell Woodville nor anybody else. When it did not slip +his memory, his almost morbid dread of anything disagreeable prevented +his mentioning it, and he left London without having spoken of the +incident. Probably it was of no importance after all.</p> + +<p>At this time Woodville was really miserable. Their position was more +difficult than ever. Of course he had kept his word to her, and written +to Ridokanaki that he could not accept the offer. They remained +privately engaged, and waiting; +<a name="corr8" id="corr8"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn8" title="changed from 'Saville'">Savile</a> +their only confidant. He had got +rid of the little studio, and was half sorry and half relieved not to be +able to go there as a retreat. It had some painful but also some +exquisite associations. Since he had made the sacrifice of Athens for +Sylvia—for it was a sacrifice—he was, of course, more in love with her +than before. That quarter of an hour in Kensington Gardens this morning +was the only clandestine appointment they had ever made in the course of +five years.</p> + +<p>How often he remembered the day he had first arrived at the Croftons! +Sylvia was fifteen then, and her governess, Miss Dawe, took the place, +as far as could be, of her dead mother, chaperoning Felicity and +teaching Sylvia. He remembered that it was bitterly cold and snowing +hard. As he passed the schoolroom, of which the door was open, to his +own room,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> escorted by the servant, he heard what sounded like a quarrel +going on. A poor old man with a battered accordion was making a pathetic +noise on the cold pavement.</p> + +<p>"You shall <i>not</i> do it, Sylvia!" Miss Dawe was speaking authoritatively. +"Your father did not give you five pounds to throw away. It isn't the +right thing for young ladies to run down to the hall." And Felicity's +voice said imperiously, he knew it afterwards, "Quick; ring the bell, +and tell Price to give him the money."</p> + +<p>While the electric bell was being rung he distinctly heard the window +flung wide open, and a soft thud on the pavement. Sylvia had thrown her +purse into the street. From his own room next to the schoolroom, he saw +the man pick it up and go away. The doors were closed now, but he +imagined the governess's anger. The incident had afterwards seemed very +characteristic of the two girls, and he often thought of it.... That +evening at dinner he met Sylvia for the first time, and he felt now as +if he had loved her ever since. But it was not until three years ago, +when she was seventeen, that he betrayed himself, by some word or +look.... As she grew into a woman she filled his life, became his one +joy and torment. On Felicity's wedding-day he had told Sylvia of his +love, and they had become engaged. How was it to end?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<h3>MADAME TUSSAUD'S</h3> + + +<p>"Savile," said Sylvia, smoothing his tie unnecessarily (a process that +he endured like a martyr who had been very well brought up), "Felicity's +coming to fetch me to go to Madame Tussaud's this afternoon. Would you +like to come too, dear?"</p> + +<p>"Who's your party?"</p> + +<p>"Frank is going to meet us there, and Mrs. Ogilvie and Bertie Wilton."</p> + +<p>"Oh, then, can I bring Dolly Clive?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course, she's sweet. But—will they let her come?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, they will with us. It's good for her history, and she can have a +look in at her precious Charles II. What time?"</p> + +<p>"Punctually about four," Felicity said. "Don't forget, Savile!"</p> + +<p>"Righto! I'll bring Dolly and take her back. I say, shall we have tea +there?"</p> + +<p>"Of course, if you want to. Why fancy, Frank<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> said it would be the +greatest joke to <i>dine</i> there! You can, you know, if you like; wouldn't +it be fun, and ghastly, with Byron and Peace, and Sir +Campbell-Bannerman, and people like that, looking on?"</p> + +<p>"No it wouldn't. These ghastly jokes never come off. They last too long. +While you're about it, have a good dinner for Heaven's sake. And I dare +say the people at the Savoy are quite as bad—if that's all—if you only +knew, and more up to date."</p> + +<p>"Yes, very likely, and people at real places often have no more +expression than the waxworks. But, Savile, I thought it was all off +between you and Dolly now?"</p> + +<p>He answered, with a sigh, "So it is, in a way, but you'll learn in this +life, old girl, that you must take what you can get—especially if +you're not sure you can get it! Mind you," lowering his voice, "that +little foreign bounder, de Saules, isn't going to have it all his own +way."</p> + +<p>"Oh," Sylvia, being in good spirits, was inclined to tease him, "I +should have thought it would be a capital opportunity to show an +intelligent foreigner the sights of London!"</p> + +<p>"The intelligent foreigners <i>are</i> the sights of London," said Savile as +he went out.</p> + +<p>The same morning Vera rustled into her friend's room, with her usual air +of vagueness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> and devotion, and said with a sort of despairing cry—</p> + +<p>"Oh, Felicity darling! you're the only person in the world who always +has clothes for every occasion, and knows everything. How on earth does +one dress for Tussaud's? Should you regard it as a Private View, or +treat it more like—say—Princes'?"</p> + +<p>"Neither. Why on earth Princes'? Were you thinking of bringing your +skates?"</p> + +<p>"Don't be absurd. Then I had better not wear my new Paquin?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not. Nothing trailing, or showy. But for Heaven's sake don't +dress for skating or bicycling. I fancy there is a notice up to say you +can't do either of those things there. And please not too much of your +Oriental embroideries."</p> + +<p>"Well, my new tailor-made dress then, and a large hat?"</p> + +<p>Felicity laughed.</p> + +<p>"My dear girl, what does it matter? If you fondly imagine that any one +will look at your dress while there are <i>real</i> horrors to see——!"</p> + +<p>"Darling little creature!" said Vera, who absolutely idolised Felicity, +and looked up to her in the most absurd way, although she was five years +younger—often taking her ironical advice quite literally, and regarding +her as a rare<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> combination of faultless angel, brilliant genius, and +perfect beauty.</p> + +<p>"And now," said Felicity, standing up to her full height—which was far +from imposing—"<i>Go</i>, please, Vera! I expect the hairdresser."</p> + +<p>"Oh, then, you're taking a little trouble, after all," Vera said, +laughing, and she vanished vaguely, behind a brocaded <i>portière</i>, +leaving a very faint perfume of gilliflower.</p> + +<p>The party met fairly punctually in the hideous hall, furnished with +draughts and red velvet. The gloom was intensified by the sound of an +emaciated orchestra playing "She was a Miller's Daughter," with a thin +reckless airiness that was almost ghostly.</p> + +<p>"Let's be a regular party," said Felicity, "and keep together, and get +that nice chasseur-looking person to show us round."</p> + +<p>Savile and Dolly preferred to stroll about alone, with a catalogue, and +"take the Royal Family in their order." Woodville and Sylvia sat down +near the band.</p> + +<p>The amiable chasseur, who greatly enjoyed his work, and who saw that the +living celebrities left our friends rather cold, showed them "The road +to ruing," as displayed in six tableaux.</p> + +<p>"No. 1, Temptation. 'Ere you see the young man being tempted to 'is +ruing by cards—and what not."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span></p> + +<p>The party gazed at the green table on which were strewn a few cards.</p> + +<p>"Fancy being able to be ruined by only half a pack of cards!" said +Felicity admiringly.</p> + +<p>"Who," asked Wilton with interest, "is the lady in crimson satin, with +pearls as big as oysters and diamonds like broken windows, holding out +her hand so cordially to welcome the young man with long hair and an +intelligent expression? (Obviously a very excellent model of Arthur +Symons, the poet)."</p> + +<p>"Why, she's the Decoy," said the chasseur, with intense relish. A +sinister man with very black hair (probably in collusion with the decoy) +was looking on, enjoying the scene.</p> + +<p>"How symbolic those two champagne-glasses are on the card-table! What is +that dark brown liquid in them?" asked Wilton.</p> + +<p>"Still champagne, I suppose," said Felicity.</p> + +<p>"Oh dear, yes, ma'am! It ain't been changed. Nothing's been changed."</p> + +<p>"How sad it all is!" sighed Vera.</p> + +<p>"It gets better later on," said Bertie consolingly.</p> + +<p>"No. 3. 'Ere you find 'im ruinged by gambling. Take notice of the evil +appearance of 'is accomplice."</p> + +<p>The young man was now forging ahead for all he was worth (and a great +deal more) with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> a cheque-book and a fountain pen. The sinister friend +was leaning over his shoulder as if to jog his elbow.</p> + +<p>"No. 4. 'Ere you see the sad result of all these goings on," said the +chasseur morally, if vaguely. "The pore young man is condemned to +several years."</p> + +<p>"Does he break out again?" asked Wilton.</p> + +<p>"Oh, lor', yes, sir! Don't you fret! <i>he</i> breaks out again all right. +And 'ere you 'ave <i>Revenge</i>! A dark resolve 'as taken distinct form in +the ruinged man's mind."</p> + +<p>"Poor man, how long his hair has grown in prison," murmured Felicity +sympathetically. "Who has he killed?"</p> + +<p>"Why, the decoy!" said the chasseur, "and (if you ask me) serve 'er +right!"</p> + +<p>"How helpful all this is," said Bertie Wilton. "I feel really a better +man since I've seen it. Seriously, I don't think I shall ever drink +champagne of that colour now that we have seen the appalling results. +It's a terrible lesson, isn't it, Lady Chetwode?"</p> + +<p>They left the young man to his fate and followed the showman.</p> + +<p>"'Ere we see Mary Manning, also Frederick George of same name, who, in +singularly atrocious circumstances, killed a retired custom-'ouse +officer."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Why?" asked Vera inquisitively.</p> + +<p>"They took against him, miss."</p> + +<p>"I think I like the ladies best," said Bertie. "Who is this really +terrible-looking woman?"</p> + +<p>The showman hurried towards him, still repeating like a parrot what he +wished to tell them about Manning.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Manning was a railway guard, and 'is wife was highly connected +with the best families—as lady's-maid. Ah, sir, you're looking at +Cathering Webster. She was executed for the murder of another lady at +Richmond. Jealousy was the reason of 'er motive for the crime."</p> + +<p>"I say," said Felicity suddenly, to the guide, "don't you find all this +terribly depressing? Do you hate all these creatures?"</p> + +<p>"No, miss," said the showman smilingly, "I'm so used to them. I regard +them almost like relations. 'Ere we 'ave a couple of French criminals. +<i>Their</i> little game, if you please, was to decoy to their 'ome young +ladies, and take away all their belongings, and everything else they +possessed."</p> + +<p>"Oh, how horrid of them!" said Vera indignantly.</p> + +<p>The chasseur grinned. "Yes, they weren't nice people, miss."</p> + +<p>"I think you would like Burke and Hare, sir,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> he said persuasively to +Wilton. "Let me tell you a bit about them."</p> + +<p>"He talks as if they were Marshall and Snelgrove," murmured Wilton.</p> + +<p>"What was the reason of their motive?" asked Felicity.</p> + +<p>"Strychnine, miss," readily answered the well-informed guide.</p> + +<p>"I suppose people get awfully hardened, eventually, to this sort of +thing? <i>I'm</i> not. I'm terribly nervous. I'm frightened out of my life. +If it weren't for you, Lady Chetwode, I should faint, and be carried out +by the emergency exit."</p> + +<p>While the chasseur went into atrocious details, Bertie was so frightened +that he had to hold Felicity's hand.... Vera felt quite out of it, and +in the cold. When once they got into the Chamber of Horrors, nobody had +taken any notice of her, nor even heard her remarks. Felicity and Bertie +were evidently at once excited and amused. As she was standing alone +pretending to look at some relics, the gallant chasseur came up and +said, "There's an emergency exit 'ere, if you like to go out 'ere, +madam."</p> + +<p>"There seems to be nothing else," said Bertie. "As soon as you get into +Madame Tussaud's the main object seems to be to drive you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> out. They +keep on telling you <i>how</i> you can get out, and <i>where</i> you can get out, +and when. How wonderful a fire would be here!"</p> + +<p>"Do you think Sylvia got out by one of the emergency exits? I haven't +seen her or Woodville for some time."</p> + +<p>"Oh, can't you let them have tea in peace?" said Bertie.</p> + +<p>"I'm sure they are not having tea. Sylvia hates Bath buns. But we'll go +and look for them, and the children too."</p> + +<p>Savile and Dolly were found on a red velvet sofa, sulking, while Sylvia +and Woodville were still listening to the band.</p> + +<p>Dolly complained that Savile had been "horrid to her about Charles II," +and that he said she was too young to see the Horrors.</p> + +<p>Sylvia and Woodville had simply forgotten all about the waxworks.</p> + +<p>The band was so very good and had been playing musical-comedy airs so +charmingly.</p> + +<p>Wilton declared his nerves were completely shattered and he must have a +rest cure in the form of being driven home by Felicity, he could not +possibly go alone.</p> + +<p>Vera had to fetch Mr. Ogilvie from the chambers. Savile, feeling very +grown-up, drove Dolly back in a hansom.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oughtn't I to take you?" said Felicity to Sylvia.</p> + +<p>"My dear Lady Chetwode, please remember that Woodville is staying in the +same house as Miss Crofton, and it is perfectly absurd, and cruelty to +the horses to drag them out of their way, when you live in Park Street, +and I only a stone's-throw from you! <i>Do</i> be practical!" cried Wilton.</p> + +<p>"Oh, all right."</p> + +<p>"Won't you take Miss Sylvia home?" said Bertie.</p> + +<p>"Oh, certainly," said Woodville, and they walked a little way towards +the cab together.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Ever since Ridokanaki's departure, Woodville, having consented to keep +their engagement secret until Sylvia was twenty-one, had sought, and +thought he had found, a solution, which was at once balm to his +conscience and support to his pride. Sylvia and he should make a compact +that they should be to one another in reality as they appeared to her +father, and to the world: friends only. They would neither seek nor +avoid <i>tête-a-têtes</i>, and when alone would ignore, crush, and +temporarily forget their tenderer relations. Sylvia had willingly, +eagerly agreed. She knew, in fact, that these were the only terms on +which he would remain there.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> And yet it was rather hard. She remembered +(how clearly!) that during all these years he had kissed her on seven +separate occasions only, and those occasions, after the first, were +always, or nearly always, at her suggestion—because it was her +birthday—or because it was Christmas Day—because she was unhappy—or +because he was in good spirits, and similar reasons. How admirable they +had seemed! How sophistically she argued!</p> + +<p>All this, Woodville had explained, must now cease. He tried with some +difficulty to point out to her that this innovation was because he loved +her, not less, but more. He could not trust himself, and did not intend +to try. She was so happy to think he had given up going to Athens that +she was only too glad to consent to anything.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>This was the first time they had been alone since the compact. She +looked at him beamingly as they started on their drive.</p> + +<p>"But I'm not going home," said Woodville.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you? Where are you going?"</p> + +<p>"To the Beafsteak Club. I'm dining with Mervyn, and we're not going to +dress. I'll take you home first, if you like."</p> + +<p>"No," said Sylvia. "I shall drive you nearly as far as the Club, drop +you, and then go home<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> by +myself." She spoke decidedly, and gave the +direction to the cabman. She had calculated that it would be a longer +drive.</p> + +<p>"It's twice as far!" she said with childish triumph. He looked at her +trusting, adoring eyes, her smiling, longing lips, and looked out of the +window. She put her hand on his arm, and he moved away quickly, almost +shaking her off. With a smile she sat as far from him as possible. They +began talking of all kinds of things—Sylvia talked most and most +gaily—then, gradually, they fell into silence.</p> + +<p>It was the end of a warm April day; they passed quickly, in the jingling +cab, through the stale London streets, breathing the spring air that +paradoxically suggested country walks, tender vows, sentiment and +romance.... Was she hurt at his coldness? On the contrary, it seemed to +exhilarate her. So close, yet so absolutely separated—not in mind, but +by his will only—by that extraordinary moral sense of his, that was, to +her, in her innocence, a dark mystery. Sylvia never forgot that drive. +She felt one of those unforgettable moments of exalted passion, like the +attainment of some great height that one may never reach again. She +worshipped him.</p> + +<p>As they reached the end of their drive, the personal magnetism was +almost too strong for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> her—she nearly took his hand again, but +resisted. The cab stopped.</p> + +<p>"I should like to drive you back, Sylvia," he said, as he got out, +"but—it's better not."</p> + +<p>"All right!—Good-bye! I suppose I shall see you to-morrow morning."</p> + +<p>"I hate leaving you here," he said.</p> + +<p>"Never mind!" She smiled brightly, and waved her hand. The cab drove +off, and he seemed to be swallowed up by the darkness of the street, +looking, as she thought, very wonderful, very handsome.... Then, quite +suddenly, she felt cold, quite lonely, almost forsaken....</p> + +<p>For hours she could not shake off the horrible impression of his walking +away from her into the darkness, leaving her alone.</p> + +<p>After her conventional evening at home, she shed bitter tears on her +pillow. Could he care for her really? She knew he did, and she suddenly +suspected that it was a sort of pleasure, a kind of indulgence to him to +play the ascetic when so near her, and at this fancy she felt a little +momentary resentment. But as soon as she saw him again, a word or a +smile was sunshine and life to her. She wanted so little, and she was +again her happy and gentle self.... At least, she could see him—while, +if he had gone to Athens.... Surely they would not have to wait a year? +No—Savile would find out some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> splendid arrangement that would make it +all right. She loved Woodville too much not to be hopeful; he cared too +much for her not to feel, almost, despair. The conditions of their +present existence were far harder for him, though she never knew it, and +did not dream how much she—not he—was exacting.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + +<h3>A GOLDEN DAY</h3> + + +<p>Woodville was sitting in the library, supposed to be digging up old +Bluebooks for Sir James, but, instead, he found himself lingering over a +curious book of poems with a white cover and a black mask on the +outside. He read (and sighed):</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">Dear, were you mine for one full hour,</span><br /> +<span class="i6">A lifetime, an hour, that is all I ask.</span><br /> +<span class="i4">Dear, like a thing of lace, or a flower</span><br /> +<span class="i6">Before the end would you drop your mask?</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">Dear, days and hours are not for me—</span><br /> +<span class="i6">I may not know you, nor forgive,</span><br /> +<span class="i4">For you are like the distant sea,</span><br /> +<span class="i6">And I upon the hills must live.</span><br /> +</div></div> + +<p>"This," he said to himself, "is rot for me! It isn't a good poem,—and +if it were a good poem (it has <i>some</i> good qualities) it's idiotic for +me to read poetry. What <i>is</i> the matter with me?" He put down all the +books, and went and looked at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> himself in the mirror. He saw a face +rather paler, more worn than some weeks ago.</p> + +<p>For the last few nights Woodville had suffered from insomnia—a trouble +at which he used to scoff and smile, firmly believing, until it had been +his own experience, that it was affectation. The second day that he had +gone to look out of the window at about five o'clock in the morning, +feeling that curious lucid clearness of brain, almost a kind of +second-sight, sometimes produced by unwonted sleeplessness, he still +thought that people made much too much fuss about a restless night or +two.</p> + +<p>"Suppose a fellow couldn't sleep for a time! Well, he can read, or work. +It was nothing." But, about eleven in the morning the exaltation of the +wakefulness had gone off, and he felt stupid and depressed. He suddenly +began to feel anxious about himself. Of course, it was all Sylvia! This +life, seeing her more or less all day, under the same roof, pretending +to be only friends, without any sort of vent, any expression, verbal or +otherwise, for his sentiment, was impossible! It was unbearable! He +ought to have gone to Athens.... Suddenly Sylvia came into the room. She +looked the picture of freshness and happiness. She had come to fetch a +book, she said. But she lingered a moment, to ask Woodville if he liked +her new dress. It was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> a Paris marvel of simplicity in pale grey, and +neither disguised nor over-emphasised the lines of her exquisite figure.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I think it's all right," said Woodville.</p> + +<p>"<i>All right!</i>" she exclaimed indignantly. "Don't you <i>see</i> how it fits? +Why, it's simply wonderful! How heartless you are!" There was just a +tinge of coquetry in her manner, which was rather unwonted. "You're not +looking very well to-day," she said, looking sympathetically at him.</p> + +<p>"I'm very well. I'm always all right."</p> + +<p>"Are you angry with me, Frank? What's the matter? What's that you're +reading?" She snatched the book of poems away from him, read the poem +and blushed with pleasure.</p> + +<p>"Yes! You see that's what I'm reduced to!" he said.</p> + +<p>"Frank, I don't think you go out enough. Look, what a lovely day it is!"</p> + +<p>"Where do you propose I should go? To the theatre to-night? I hate +theatres." He spoke irritably.</p> + +<p>"No," she said in a low, soft voice; "let's break the compact, just for +once—<i>just for once!</i>" She was instinctively taking advantage of a kind +of weakness he showed this morning for the first time—due to his +nervous fatigue—the weariness of long self-repression.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Certainly not!" he answered, with no conviction whatever. "Whose +birthday is it? It isn't Christmas Day—it isn't Midsummer Day. No! I +don't see any excuse for doing it."</p> + +<p>"Yes, there's a reason! It will be Sexagesima Sunday next week!"</p> + +<p>"So it will!"</p> + +<p>"Ah, you admit that! Well, let's go and have lunch at Richmond—or +somewhere like that!"</p> + +<p>"My poor dear child, what's the matter! You're not sane.... Besides, +it's impossible," said Woodville, hesitating, in a hopeful voice.</p> + +<p>"It isn't impossible. Papa's gone out for the whole day. Leave it to me! +I'll arrange it. If the worst came to the worst, I could tell papa that +I longed for a little air and made you take me down to Richmond! Why! +you know he wouldn't mind. He would see nothing in it. We'd be back +before five."</p> + +<p>Woodville looked tempted.</p> + +<p>"Besides, there would <i>be</i> nothing in it," added Sylvia softly.</p> + +<p>He took her hand. "Temptress!" he said. "Of course there wouldn't be any +earthly harm in it," he said doubtfully.</p> + +<p>"Then we're going to do it!"</p> + +<p>"Are we, Eve?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Frank!" she exclaimed passionately, "it's too absurd, too +unnatural! Why shouldn't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> we have a moment's happiness? Aren't we going +to be married next year?"</p> + +<p>"Probably, if I live through this one."</p> + +<p>She was smiling, for she knew she had won. "Yes, you'll live through it +all right—if you only have a little fresh air and change of scene now +and then!"</p> + +<p>"I couldn't do it, Sylvia!—How should we go?"</p> + +<p>"Drive in a hansom?"</p> + +<p>"No, I'll meet you at the Underground Railway at Earl's Court."</p> + +<p>"When?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"In twenty minutes."</p> + +<p>"All right. We'll have a holiday! Everybody has a holiday sometimes! +It's a heavenly day! We will go and walk in Richmond Park and forget all +about the compact worries till we come back at tea-time. Papa won't, +then, be back, and no one will ever know anything about it!" She clapped +her hands. He smiled at her.</p> + +<p>"It's settled," he said.</p> + +<p>As she went out of the door, she murmured, "In twenty minutes, then," +and vanished, radiant.</p> + +<p>When she had gone, he found all trace of his usual scruples had +inexplicably disappeared. It was natural, and (he said to himself) it +was right! What use was this continual sacrifice of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> the precious hours +and days of their youth—for an Idea? Besides, she looked so lovely. A +man must be a stone to refuse such a delightful suggestion, or a fool. +He was neither. The reaction was inevitable, and in half an hour they +were in the train together, in the highest spirits, all cares thrown +aside, in the hope of the spring, of sunlight, fresh air, and above all, +being together alone, free, for several hours. It seemed like a dream, a +dream with the added substantial tangible joy of being real.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + +<h3>SAVILE TAKES A LINE</h3> + + +<p>"Hallo, Savile!" said Felicity, who was putting the last touch to her +veil in front of the mirror. "Nice boy! You're just what I wanted. Come +out with me!"</p> + +<p>It was about twelve o'clock, a lovely warm morning. The first hum of the +season was just beginning, like the big orchestra of London tuning up. +There seemed a sort of suppressed excitement in the air. People of +average spirits appeared unusually happy; the very highly strung seemed +just a little wild; their eyes dancing, their tread lighter, and laughs +were heard on the smallest provocation. Certainly the vision that met +Felicity in the mirror was exhilarating enough. Dressed in the softest +of blues, with a large brown hat on her golden hair, she looked like a +pastel—a combination of the vagueness, remoteness, and delicacy of a +Whistler with the concrete piquancy of a sketch in <i>L'Art et La Mode</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span></p> + +<p>Savile, however, showed none of the intoxicating effect of a gay London +morning. He seemed more serious, more self-controlled, more correct even +than usual.</p> + +<p>"Where's Chetwode?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh, he's just going out, dear, I think. Do you want him? Shall I ring?"</p> + +<p>"No; I shouldn't ring. What's the point of that except to delay my +seeing him? No; I want to see him, so I'll go and look for him, and +perhaps go out with him. I suppose you're driving, and don't need me?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Need</i> you? Oh no, darling; not exactly. Only I thought it would be fun +to go out and look at the people in the Row—and laugh at them. Besides, +I always drive down Piccadilly and Bond Street when I have a new hat, to +find out whether it suits me. It's such fun. I can always tell."</p> + +<p>"Frightfully comic, no doubt, but I've got something more important to +think about this morning."</p> + +<p>"What a bad temper you're in, Savile! Anything wrong, darling?"</p> + +<p>"Just like a girl!" said Savile. "I never <i>yet</i> showed any woman I had +something to do that she didn't say I was in a bad temper."</p> + +<p>Felicity laughed. He went to the door and added<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>—</p> + +<p>"Oh, by the way, don't trouble to give my love to Wilton."</p> + +<p>She made a rush for him, and he ran out of the room.</p> + +<p>He found Lord Chetwode, as usual, in the green library, not reading the +newspapers, and reposefully smoking. Savile accepted a cigarette and sat +down.</p> + +<p>"Thought you were going out?" said Savile.</p> + +<p>"Yes, so did I. But why go out? It's all right here. Besides, I <i>am</i> +going out. No hurry."</p> + +<p>"Good," said Savile, and they smoked in silence.</p> + +<p>"You're not stopping in town long, are you?" said Savile.</p> + +<p>"No, old boy. Season's beginning. I hate London. I'm going week-ending +next Saturday."</p> + +<p>"And you won't come back?"</p> + +<p>"I shall probably stop ten days."</p> + +<p>"I've got something to say to you," said Savile.</p> + +<p>Lord Chetwode smiled encouragingly.</p> + +<p>"Fire away!"</p> + +<p>"There's something I want particularly to ask you."</p> + +<p>There was a pause. Such a remark as this from any one but Savile would +have alarmed Chetwode, suggesting something in the nature of a scene, +but he felt pretty safe with his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> brother-in-law of sixteen. He wondered +what on earth the boy wanted, and felt only good-humouredly amused. +Savile had chosen his words before he came, and had that rash longing we +all feel when we have made out a verbal programme, to make the suitable +remark before the occasion arises.</p> + +<p>"We're both men of the world," began Savile.</p> + +<p>"Are we, though?" said Chetwode. "Please spare me this irony! <i>You</i>'re a +man of the world all right, I know. <i>I</i> don't pretend to be."</p> + +<p>"May as well come to the point," said Savile. "You know Woodville, don't +you?"</p> + +<p>"Woodville? Rather. Capital chap. What's wrong with him?"</p> + +<p>"There's nothing wrong with him," said Savile, "but I want to get him +something to do."</p> + +<p>"Really? Doesn't he like being with you and Sir James and Sylvia, and +all that?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, he likes it all right. But he isn't much with Sylvia and all that. +He'd like to be more. So would she—a good deal more. That's the point."</p> + +<p>Chetwode instantly recollected the incident in the Park. He said without +turning a hair, "Quite so. Most natural, I'm sure——" and then thought +a moment. Savile was silent.</p> + +<p>"What Woodville <i>needs</i>," said Chetwode,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> lighting another cigarette, +"is, of course, less of you and Sir James, and a great deal more of +Sylvia; and he can't very well marry her while he's her father's +secretary. Though—by Jove!—I don't see why not!"</p> + +<p>"What rot!" said Savile.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you're right, Savile. It's true Sir James wouldn't give him a +minute's time for anything. Well, you want me to get him something to do +then?"</p> + +<p>"Now, look here, Chetwode, don't play the fool about this. Here's a +chap, considered a brilliant man at Oxford; in every way a thoroughly +good sort, and a gentleman, who, if it weren't for circumstances, would +have been called a good match."</p> + +<p>"If it weren't for circumstances, anybody would be called a good match," +said Chetwode casually.</p> + +<p>"What sort of thing do you think you can get him?" asked Savile, "before +Saturday?"</p> + +<p>"Before Saturday? Well, what sort of thing does he want before +Saturday?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, something political. Or some post—or something diplomatic."</p> + +<p>"You're pleased to be vague," said Chetwode, bowing.</p> + +<p>"Oh, all right! Then you can't do it?" Savile stood up.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Please, Savile, no violence! Take another cigarette. Of course, the +idea is that I must talk to somebody. Perhaps Teignmouth——"</p> + +<p>"Put the whole thing before him," said Savile.</p> + +<p>"The beastly part is no one will stand being talked to about things, and +everybody hates having the whole matter put before them—unless it's +gossip. Then, by Jove, won't they go into details!"</p> + +<p>Savile controlled his feelings, and said, "Well, here's a romantic +story, a lovely girl—young man disinherited——"</p> + +<p>Chetwode visibly shrank from the explicitness.</p> + +<p>"All right, old boy. Look here, I see your point—I give you my word +I'll try."</p> + +<p>Savile, terrified at the thought that he might have been a bore, got up +again and held out his hand.</p> + +<p>"When will you let me know?"</p> + +<p>"As soon as I've seen anybody or done anything that seems to help at +all.... Let's see, what's your telephone number?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't got any telephone number," said Savile, "at least, not on +<i>this</i> subject. Won't kill you to wire and let me know when I can see +you again."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Good! that's the idea. And look here, Savile, you think I am not going +to trouble, I can see that. But you happen to be wrong. I'll fix it up +all right."</p> + +<p>"I thought you would," said Savile.</p> + +<p>"And we won't talk it over, don't you know, to—a—women or anything. +Eh?"</p> + +<p>"Catch me," said Savile.</p> + +<p>"Well, I must go out now," said Chetwode. "Can I drop you?"</p> + +<p>"Think I'll walk," said Savile.</p> + +<p>They shook hands most cordially. Chetwode went out smiling to himself, +and strolled towards the Club.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + +<h3>FELICITY'S ENGAGEMENTS</h3> + + +<p>"Is Lady Chetwode at home?"</p> + +<p>Before Greenstock, who seemed about to give a negative answer, could +reply, Wilton went on.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, she <i>must</i> be at home; please ask her to read this note, and +send me down a verbal answer immediately."</p> + +<p>"Very well, sir."</p> + +<p>"I won't get out, Greenstock. I'll just wait in the motor till I get an +answer."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>Wilton turned to the chauffeur and said, "How do you think she's looking +to-day, Pearce?"</p> + +<p>The motor had recently been painted green, because Felicity had said it +was too compromising to drive with Wilton in a scarlet one.</p> + +<p>"Never better, sir," said the chauffeur.</p> + +<p>"You know I <i>was</i> right, Pearce. Green suits her much better than +scarlet. In fact, I rather<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> doubt whether you could point me out a case +in which I am ever wrong, Pearce. With regard to the motor, I mean, of +course."</p> + +<p>"Oh no, sir."</p> + +<p>"How do you mean 'Oh no'? Do you mean I'm ever wrong then?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no, sir."</p> + +<p>They both looked with suppressed pride at the automobile which was +snorting rather impatiently under these personal remarks.</p> + +<p>Greenstock appeared.</p> + +<p>"Will you step in, sir?"</p> + +<p>At the summons Wilton sprang out and ran quickly up into the +drawing-room.</p> + +<p>It was a beautiful room with hardly anything in it; a large, high, empty +room in pure First Empire style. A small yellow sofa with gilded claws, +and narrow bolster cushions, was near the fireplace; a light blue curved +settee, with animals' heads, was in the middle of the room. There was a +highly polished parquet floor with no carpet, a magnificent chandelier, +and the curtains were held up by elaborately carved and gilded cornices +with warlike ornaments.</p> + +<p>Bertie wandered round the room, tried, vainly, to see himself in the +narrow looking-glass, which was placed too high, and admired the +refreshing absence of fat cushions, unnecessary draperies, photographs, +and vases of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> flowers. On a small console-table was one immense basket +of mauve orchids. Bertie was looking at this with some curiosity, not +unmixed with annoyance, when Felicity came into the room.</p> + +<p>"How <i>marvellous</i> of you!" he exclaimed. "Again I'm thunderstruck at +your having <i>exactly</i> the right thing to wear, to come down early in the +morning to see a too persistent friend!" He looked at her dress. "Pale +green—how well it suits you; and how wonderful of you to be so +empireish—at this hour!"</p> + +<p>"What <i>do</i> you want, Bertie?" said Felicity, smiling, but impatiently.</p> + +<p>"Oh, please don't be so definite! and I thought you knew!"</p> + +<p>"Please don't be so imbecile; I don't want to know."</p> + +<p>They both sat down, and she held out the letter.</p> + +<p>"I didn't read all this," she said; "but you seem to have given me a +programme of your engagements for to-day. I can't think why."</p> + +<p>"Because I want to know yours. To come to the point," said Wilton. "If I +go to the Ogilvies', will you be there?"</p> + +<p>"Well, of course! As if Vera could have a musical afternoon without me!"</p> + +<p>"Good, that's settled. And what are you doing to-night?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, which do you advise?" she said. "The Creepers'? Or Jasmyn Vere's +party?"</p> + +<p>"If I might advise, <i>do</i> go there. His things are really rather jolly. +Is Chetwode coming?"</p> + +<p>"No, Chetwode's struck. He won't go to anything more. He's going away on +Saturday for the week end, so I shall stop at home with him to-morrow. +To-night I'll go to Jasmyn Vere's. What time does one get there?"</p> + +<p>"One gets there a little before you do, for the pleasure of the anxiety +and agonising suspense of dreading you won't come and knowing you will." +He got up. "If you would turn up at half-past ten—before the crush—we +could sort of sit out, and laugh at the people."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I shall," said Felicity.</p> + +<p>"Lady Chetwode, you are as good as you are beautiful."</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't carry on like that, Bertie! I suppose it's through your +having gone to that ball as Louis XIX; every now and then you seem to +think you're in the last century."</p> + +<p>"But when I'm here, I know I'm in the next," and he took his leave in +the highest spirits.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>At lunch, "Chetwode," said Felicity, "I shall be at Vera's till seven. +They're going to have the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> wonderful new child harpist. He looks like a +sort of cherub, with golden hair."</p> + +<p>"Little beast," said Chetwode, "he ought to be in bed."</p> + +<p>"Oh, darling, not at four in the afternoon! And what about to-night? I +suppose we dine together at home? and then I'm going to Jasmyn Vere's, +one of his musical parties."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes."</p> + +<p>"Chetwode dear, you know the horses will be out all the afternoon. I +thought I'd have the carriage just to <i>take</i> me to the party and come +home in a cab—it's only round the corner. Is there any off-chance of +your coming to fetch me? Oh <i>do</i>! You really might!"</p> + +<p>"No," said Chetwode. He added, "No doubt Wilton will see you home."</p> + +<p>She looked up quickly. Was there a tone of irony in his voice? Could he +be a shade jealous? How delightful!</p> + +<p>"Why, I can come home alone," she said. "It's not sure that Bertie and I +will both want to leave at the same time."</p> + +<p>"But I should think it's on the cards," said Chetwode, rather coldly.</p> + +<p>"No use bothering you to come?"</p> + +<p>"None at all. Who does the hostess at Jasmyn's parties?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, Bertie's mother, Lady Nora Wilton, you know."</p> + +<p>"I see."</p> + +<p>"Did you think," said Felicity, laughing, "that it would be Agatha, Mrs. +Wilkinson?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—you mean the woman who's so fond of horses. Why, is she a friend of +Vere's?"</p> + +<p>"Some people say so, of course I don't know."</p> + +<p>"I always see her," said Chetwode, "at races, with Bobby Henderson."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes," said Felicity, "but that's only intellectual sympathy! I can't +see the point of Bobby Henderson, can you? Vera likes him so much too."</p> + +<p>"There <i>is</i> no point about him. He's just the usual sporting, stupid +guardsman."</p> + +<p>Felicity lit her husband's cigarette and left him.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Her dress this afternoon had been very carefully thought out to contrast +with Vera's.</p> + +<p>Vera was dressed in dull flame colour, becoming to her white skin and +black hair. Felicity was in black and white. She wore a white hat, with +a black velvet bow, and one enormous gardenia. It was impossible not to +be pleased at Bertie's suppressed enthusiasm when she arrived. He was so +fastidious about clothes, and she knew she was a real success to-day.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, Felicity, isn't it too <i>horrible</i>? The chief person can't come!" +Vera was fluttering a telegram and evidently trying not to cry. "The +<i>great</i> tenor, you know." She turned to Wilton. "Isn't it cruel at the +last minute?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't worry, darling. Most likely no one will notice it—you see +you kept it dark as a surprise, luckily," said Felicity.</p> + +<p>"And it <i>is</i> a surprise—to me!" said Vera.</p> + +<p>"Oh, isn't the little harpy infant phenomenon coming?" asked Felicity.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, <i>that's</i> all right; he's here now, playing draughts with his +mother in my room to prevent him getting nervous; and eating bread and +jam. Thank goodness for that!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, what sort of jam?" asked Wilton eagerly. "Pray don't keep it from +me! Raspberry, greengage—<i>please</i> tell me, Mrs. Ogilvie!"</p> + +<p>"Why, what <i>can</i> it matter?"</p> + +<p>"It matters enormously."</p> + +<p>"One would think you were a reporter," said Felicity.</p> + +<p>"I'm not. I'm only a psychologist."</p> + +<p>"Same thing," said Felicity.</p> + +<p>"Well, anyhow, it's marmalade—so there!" said Vera.</p> + +<p>"Oh, how delightful," exclaimed Wilton; "to match his hair, of course. +Of course it's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> his mother's idea though. What a good mother she must +be!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, here he is, at last. Where are his wings?"</p> + +<p>The boy, with his white suit and golden hair and small harp, looked, +literally, angelic. There was a murmur of admiration.</p> + +<p>"There oughtn't to be a dry eye in the room when he plays Schumann," +said Felicity; "and fancy, Savile wouldn't come because he said he would +long to kick him, and he was afraid Vera wouldn't like it."</p> + +<p>"I rather agree with Vera there," said Bertie.</p> + +<p>"No one would like, at one's musical party, to have one's artists +kicked!"</p> + +<p>"Everything is all right," said Felicity, as she smiled and bowed to +some one.</p> + +<p>"Why is everything all right? You gave one of your <i>special</i> smiles just +now! Who was it?"</p> + +<p>"De Valdez. It's rather jolly of him to have come here to-day. He was +expected at the Spanish Embassy."</p> + +<p>"Probably going on afterwards."</p> + +<p>"Possibly not," said Felicity.</p> + +<p>"I admit I admire De Valdez very much," said Wilton. "Caring for nothing +on earth but music and philosophy, and the kindest-hearted man in the +world, he has been literally hounded into society by admiring women, and +all the fuss about him hasn't spoilt him a bit; he would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> keep a royal +party waiting for luncheon while he ran down to Bedford Park to spend +the day with an old friend."</p> + +<p>"The point is," said Felicity calmly, "that he's a genius."</p> + +<p>"Oh, is he? I don't know much about music," said Wilton rather +jealously.</p> + +<p>"I know you don't."</p> + +<p>"The point is, that he's remarkably handsome," said Bertie.</p> + +<p>"Now you're being disagreeable. Of course he's handsome, but that's +<i>not</i> the point."</p> + +<p>At this moment De Valdez joined them. Felicity took his arm and went +down to tea.</p> + +<p>The boy harpist created wildest enthusiasm; a little later De Valdez +sang (after which nearly every husband present suggested it was time to +go), and, on the whole, the afternoon was as great a success as these +things ever are.</p> + +<p>Quite late Bob Henderson arrived, full of tips—straight from the +stable. Vera did not try to detain her lingering guests. Mr. Ogilvie +never appeared on these occasions, but came home to dinner at eight, +cross-questioned Vera, and did not listen to her answers in his usual +amiable manner.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Jasmyn Vere was extremely anxious, as he always was, to have something a +little out of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span> the way for his party. He literally lived for society, +and, in a minor degree, for Agatha. As he was a bachelor, and had +devoted even more time and energy to knowing none of the wrong people +than to knowing all the right ones, a party of his was looked upon as +not a thing to miss, particularly as a decorous originality was always +to be expected.</p> + +<p>Lady Nora Wilton, a beauty of the early '80's, was a graceful and still +pretty woman of forty-five; it was probably from her that Bertie had +inherited his good looks and high spirits.</p> + +<p>"What <i>can</i> we do just a little original?" Jasmyn had asked her.</p> + +<p>"What sort of thing? You don't mean to be American and let all the +people come dressed as children, or ask some wild animals to look in in +the evening?"</p> + +<p>Jasmyn threw up his hands in horror.</p> + +<p>"My dear Lady Nora, don't make fun of me! No, some rather intelligent +people are coming."</p> + +<p>"Really? I thought your parties were always very smart!"</p> + +<p>"There'll be some people who can talk, don't you know."</p> + +<p>"What about?" said Lady Nora.</p> + +<p>"Ah! that's the point! Now, I propose that when supper's on there shall +be a special supper served at one table for ten in my little octagon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> +room, and <i>with</i> the menu a subject for conversation with each item! It +will, of course, not bore people, because, from the programme, they will +see there is an ordinary supper-room too, and they can choose!"</p> + +<p>"It will be a general conversation, remember; and people aren't very +keen on that," said Lady Nora.</p> + +<p>"Well, we shall see. So long as you don't disapprove (and one other lady +to whom I shall speak of it). I think it's not a bad idea. I shall not +have good music, Lady Nora. It isn't a concert—it's a conversazione."</p> + +<p>"But you won't have <i>bad</i> music? I can't imagine anything bad in your +house," said Lady Nora.</p> + +<p>"No, but music that encourages talk. De Valdez once sang at my +house—<i>Everybody</i> was there, and they <i>all</i> talked! He got up and said, +in the middle of Although, that lovely song, 'Here are five hundred +people who want to talk, and only one who wants to sing. The odds are +not fair. I give in.' And nothing would induce him to go on. But as he +remained and was most agreeable to every one, one could hardly call it +the caprice of a spoilt artist. Indeed, I think he was quite right."</p> + +<p>Lady Nora sighed. "But how uncomfortable! Well, then, you'd better have +the Blue Hun<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>garians and the Red ones too. Those who don't like the one +can listen to the other."</p> + +<p>He laughed and said, "Bertie's the image of his mother. I shall have a +first-rate band and second-rate music."</p> + +<p>"Agatha, Mrs. Wilkinson," was delighted at all the plans but said she +simply <i>must</i> go to supper with Bobby Henderson, as it would be too +marked to be escorted by the host.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, nothing Agatha did was ever noticed, because she +never did anything that was not extraordinary.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"Do I look all right, Chetwode?"</p> + +<p>"Quite unnecessarily so," said Chetwode, and he gave her a look, which +she recognised as the greatest compliment she ever received.</p> + +<p>Her eyes brightened and she blushed.</p> + +<p>"And who," said Chetwode, "may I ask, put it into your head to wear an +entirely gold dress with your golden hair?"</p> + +<p>She hesitated half a second.</p> + +<p>"Oh! not the dressmaker? and it wasn't your own idea? I can only think +of one other person. Do congratulate Wilton from me on his success as a +designer."</p> + +<p>"Chetwode! if I did ask him to design it, it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> was so that you should be +pleased with the dress."</p> + +<p>He smiled. "Quite so. And I am."</p> + +<p>"Oh, won't you come and fetch me?"</p> + +<p>"It's quite impossible. How late shall you stay?"</p> + +<p>"I'll come back just when you like."</p> + +<p>"Oh, enjoy yourself, dear. I'm going to stop at home."</p> + +<p>He seemed to have regained the equanimity that for a moment he seemed to +have lost.</p> + +<p>Driving along, Felicity thought, "Perhaps if Chetwode <i>could</i> be a shade +jealous of Bertie, it might be a good thing. Still, that sort of thing +is so commonplace. <i>We</i> oughtn't to have to descend to it."</p> + +<p>Surely Chetwode, who never went by the opinion of others, who absolutely +judged for himself, and for whom general success by no means raised the +value of his choice, could not care a shade more for his wife because +she was admired by Wilton, and would care less for her if he did not +think her incapable of admiring any one but himself.</p> + +<p>"Are any of those eternal vulgar theories about love really ever true?" +thought Felicity. Then wasn't Chetwode superior? Of course he was. That +was why she loved him, and in wishing him to be an ordinary jealous +man,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> she was wishing him to descend. However, when "Faute des roses" +greeted her (exquisitely played by the Hungarians), and she was sitting +in a bower of roses in her gold dress, with her respectfully worshipping +and delightfully amusing Bertie, Felicity forgot her anxiety and +thoroughly enjoyed herself. She was made much of, and admired; the +homage was intoxicating, she was young, and she imprudently gave every +one present the impression that she was flirting desperately with Bertie +Wilton.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + +<h3>THE VELVET CASE</h3> + + +<p>Savile, remembering that Chetwode had told him he was going away for 'a +week end for ten days', and that Felicity had said he was going away for +three days, went to see his sister. He had not received the promised +wire from Chetwode, but instead a cordial invitation to lunch at the +Savoy, in the course of which he told Savile that the whole thing had +been laid before Teignmouth; that Teignmouth was slow but sure; that he +was frightfully keen on arranging it, but said it can't be done in three +days. Savile forbore to press the matter, and said that he, of course, +disliked going back to school under the present circumstances; but if he +could rely on Chetwode and Teignmouth he would only worry <i>two</i> more +people. The spirit of emulation that Savile hoped to rouse in his +brother-in-law was not observable. But Savile knew him to be a man of +his word, and really felt certain of Teignmouth's influence—he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> +Aunt William and Jasmyn Vere up his sleeve. Aunt William was very rich +and very interested in politics, being an ardent member of the Primrose +League; Jasmyn Vere was so frightfully good-natured, and so anxious to +set people at their ease, that if Savile appeared with a shy request (he +smiled to himself as he thought of <i>his</i> being shy of old Jasmyn!) he +would probably grant the request if he could. In fact, having seen in +the <i>World</i> a paragraph speaking of Jasmyn as "one of the leaders of +society, the brilliancy of whose entertainments was only equalled by +their delightful originality" had decided Savile on the question.</p> + +<p>"A chap," he said to himself, "who has a room arranged on purpose for +bright conversation at supper, with the subjects on the menu, and spends +thousands on orchids and gardenias for his parties, and admires Mrs. +Wilkinson, and <i>yet</i> is at large, must have some peculiar power! I +should have thought he'd got nothing in him; but he's got such a +tremendous lot <i>on</i> him and around him, I suppose it does instead."</p> + +<p>Thus Savile, lost in these thoughts, rang rather judicially at the house +in Park Street that no ordinary house-agent could speak of without +emotion as a noble mansion; others, more genuinely enthusiastic still, +called it, with self-restraint, a commodious residence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span></p> + +<p>In the little blue-striped room that opened out of her bedroom he found +Felicity in tears and a +<a name="corr9" id="corr9"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn9" title="changed from 'teagown'">tea-gown</a>. +He remembered that day he had found +Sylvia crying, and congratulated himself; first, that he was not a girl, +secondly, that he and not another man had seen them thus grieving.</p> + +<p>Felicity looked up and said, "Oh, Savile, you're just the person I +want—an appalling thing has happened."</p> + +<p>Savile sat down, lit a cigarette, and offered one to her, which she +accepted.</p> + +<p>Her manner was rather like that of a young man who, though he dislikes +it, has decided to confide in a friend.</p> + +<p>"Look here," she said, "I've had a wire from Chetwode to say he's going +to stay on at the Tregellys till next week."</p> + +<p>"Well, what of that? <i>That</i> can't be all, surely?"</p> + +<p>"You're right, it's not. I was looking in one of his innumerable carved +chests for some novels, when I found a locked velvet case." She stopped +a minute. He was silent.</p> + +<p>"I found a key that fitted it," she went on.</p> + +<p>"Did you, though?" said Savile.</p> + +<p>"In it I found a lovely porcelain picture of a woman. Blanche Tregelly +was written on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span> back. Where he's staying, you know. I've never seen +her. I vaguely knew Tregelly was more or less married: he was at Oxford +with Chetwode; but as they live so far away I've never got to know +them."</p> + +<p>"Don't see your point," said Savile.</p> + +<p>"<i>Why</i> has he got that picture, <i>and</i> is staying on?"</p> + +<p>"Tregelly," said Savile, "probably gave it to Chetwode to get something +done to it—get it framed or something."</p> + +<p>"Chetwode's not a framemaker! Why is he staying on?"</p> + +<p>"Because he's having a good time."</p> + +<p>"You're shirking the whole thing. The point is that when he stays away +so long, it isn't only racing."</p> + +<p>"Of course not. At the Tregellys, it's bridge."</p> + +<p>"Yes—and Mrs. Tregelly."</p> + +<p>Angry tears again filled her eyes, but she brushed them away.</p> + +<p>"You know Chetwode <i>does</i> admire beauty," she said.</p> + +<p>Savile looked at the picture. "But only the very <i>most</i> beautiful. I've +never yet seen him admire anything second-rate. Have you?"</p> + +<p>She beamed and said, "Savile, <i>is</i> she second-rate?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps not, on porcelain."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Savile, you <i>know</i> that if Chetwode likes her, she's not only pretty, +but very charming. In fact, I'm certain Blanche is perfectly delightful! +Pretending to oneself that one's rival is hideous and vulgar is a bit +<i>too</i> cheap. It doesn't console me."</p> + +<p>"You're worse than an ordinary woman, Felicity," said Savile, with a +laugh. "What do you propose to do? Go and consult George Lewis?"</p> + +<p>"You're worse than an ordinary boy. I'm consulting you."</p> + +<p>"No, you're not. You're asking my opinion. Chetwode is very——" He +paused. "I've never seen him look at any other woman."</p> + +<p>"Let's face facts, dear," said Felicity. "It's not what we've seen, of +course."</p> + +<p>"What have you decided to do?" said Savile. "To write and tell him +you've found the photograph?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"I thought you wanted him to come home."</p> + +<p>"Don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, rather!" said Savile. "And I don't think he <i>would</i> come home if +he thought there was going to be a row of any kind. Lots of people love +rows. He doesn't."</p> + +<p>She looked rather at a loss, and then said,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> "Well, <i>what</i> would you do +if you were in my place?"</p> + +<p>He waited a minute and then said: "Don't you always write to him, when +he's away, as if you were enjoying yourself?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Doesn't he ever think that there's a good deal of Wilton one—way or +another?"</p> + +<p>"I think he has," she said, brightening up a little.</p> + +<p>"Well, for heaven's sake don't try that with Chetwode! The more he was +riled, the more he'd say to himself, 'Of course she's enjoying herself. +There's no harm in it. No hurry to go back.'"</p> + +<p>"Chetwode," said Felicity, "is one of those very English men who would +never own they're jealous unless things came to extremities, which, of +course, naturally, they never would."</p> + +<p>"Look here, you're making a fool of yourself," said Savile. "You're +making yourself miserable over nothing at all." He stood up. "Don't do +<i>anything</i> till after lunch, perhaps not till this evening. You've just +had a bit of a shock. You'll find you're wrong. Telephone when you want +me."</p> + +<p>He kissed her and went away.</p> + +<p>Felicity closed the velvet case. She then dressed very beautifully to go +out, but when it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> came to putting on her hat she couldn't. It requires +fairly good spirits to put on a modern hat and veil. She thought she +would go downstairs and think. Then she saw Bertie's green motor at the +door. She hesitated a moment about letting him come in; then she thought +that she would tell him about it, and according to how he behaved, would +test him once for all. If he didn't do exactly the right thing, she +would never see him again.</p> + +<p>As Wilton came in, all the fluent conversation and compliments, the +gossip and jokes he had been saving up to tell her, died away on his +lips. He saw she had been crying. He sat down further away than usual, +and said—</p> + +<p>"Don't tell me if you'd rather not. I'll go away, shall I? I'm quite +sure you're not in the mood for me."</p> + +<p>She said, "No, don't go."</p> + +<p>There was a moment's silence.</p> + +<p>"What was the party like last night at the Harpers?" she then asked.</p> + +<p>"I haven't the slightest idea," he answered.</p> + +<p>"But you must have been there? I didn't tell you I'd changed my mind +about going. I meant to, and then at the last minute something rather +dreadful happened, and I stayed at home."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'm almost sure I was there," said Wilton thoughtfully. "I think I +must have gone<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> if I expected to see you. But I don't remember anything +about it. I must look in the <i>Morning Post</i> and see if I'm in the list +of guests. I'm afraid you think I'm not the sort of friend to tell +anything serious to, but really, Lady Chetwode, you're wrong there. If +there was anything on earth that I could do——"</p> + +<p>"It's something so annoying, so horrid," she said. Her voice was +trembling.</p> + +<p>"Tell me."</p> + +<p>He looked so genuinely unhappy for her sake that, not being of the +disposition that conceals its sorrows from the sympathetic, Felicity of +course told him all about it.</p> + +<p>He waited a minute, pale with interest, and then said—</p> + +<p>"I appreciate your telling me this. But, of course, the whole trouble is +entirely imaginary. Oh, I know that doesn't make it any better for the +moment; but it's more evanescent."</p> + +<p>"Imaginary? Why do you think that?"</p> + +<p>"Well, the one thing that I pride myself on just the <i>least</i> little bit +is an instinct—an instinct for temperament. I would undertake to swear +that Chetwode is one of those exceptional people who only love one woman +in their lives. He would never think of looking at any one except you. +Of course, I know there are many men who don't really appreciate the +most perfect woman<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> if she happens to belong to them. But Chetwode isn't +like that. He hasn't a fickle nature; he doesn't seek for variety and +novelty. What you suppose is impossible to him. Not only now, but it +always will be."</p> + +<p>"You may be quite right about his temperament, Bertie. I dare say you +are. But how do you account for the picture?"</p> + +<p>"I don't. But there is an explanation. I don't pretend to be one of +those wonderful thought-readers who, in some public calamity, see in the +crystal everything they've read in the papers. You'll soon find out +about it. It's some mistake."</p> + +<p>She held out the picture to him.</p> + +<p>"But she's very pretty, Bertie."</p> + +<p>Wilton examined the picture.</p> + +<p>"A very dull, harmless, insipid style of prettiness," he said +consolingly. "The kind of face that once seen is never remembered, as +has been so well said of the characteristic British face. This woman is +devoted to her husband; goes to church every Sunday, takes great +interest in parish work, adores her children——"</p> + +<p>"How many has she?"</p> + +<p>He looked at the picture again.</p> + +<p>"From her expression, I should say two—two boys; and I'm quite sure +she's very much more interested in their reports and their colds, their +sins and their talents, than in—for in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>stance—Chetwode, or in anything +of the kind you seem to suggest."</p> + +<p>"She never comes to London," said Felicity. "They live nearly all the +year round at their country place."</p> + +<p>"Of course she doesn't come to London. Why should she? She has a +domestic face. Her home is her world. If she ever does come to town, she +wears a short serge skirt and a blouse with tight sleeves—because she +doesn't know they're coming in again—and takes one of the boys to the +dentist."</p> + +<p>"And you can see all that in the porcelain picture?" said Felicity, +laughing.</p> + +<p>"More. Far more. And all in your favour."</p> + +<p>"But I think you're rather prejudiced, Bertie. You're such a convinced +Londoner yourself that you think every one who lives in the country must +be a paragon of virtue, just as people who live in the country suppose +their London friends to be given up to wickedness and frivolity. Lots of +people have a very good time in the country."</p> + +<p>"No one knows that better than I do. I assure you I'm not a bit +prejudiced. I quite believe and realise that people can have a good time +anywhere. Why, even in provincial towns—what was that case at Bradford, +that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> astonished everybody so much? However, my point is, that Mrs. +Tregelly doesn't."</p> + +<p>"Why? I think she looks very happy," said Felicity.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Exactly. Happy, but perfectly calm. A woman placed as she is could +not possibly look as calm as that if she had a secret purple romance +with Chetwode, or with any other man. It just shows—if I may say +so—how blind Love is. If this had happened to anybody else, you would +be the first to see, on the face of it, that anything like a flirtation +between the Lady of the Velvet Case and your husband is one of those +hopeless impossibilities that only the wildly imaginative and charming +people who have no relation to real life, like yourself, could possibly +conceive."</p> + +<p>Felicity seemed comforted.</p> + +<p>"You think it utterly impossible?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I go further than that. I think it highly improbable. Can you see," +continued Wilton, "this gentle, harmless creature, a woman capable of +having her portrait painted on porcelain, from a photograph, and framed +in crimson velvet, who never in her life had a secret except when she +concealed from her husband her real reason for sending the housemaid +away in order to give the girl another chance by giving her a good +character—can you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> see <i>her</i>, I say, privately slipping this enormous +case into Chetwode's small and reluctant white hand just as she was +going to church, and saying, 'Keep it for my sake'?"</p> + +<p>"You make the whole thing so ridiculous, Bertie, I begin to think you're +right, but still it's very extraordinary that he did have it."</p> + +<p>"Our not knowing the reason is not nearly so extraordinary as your +explanation."</p> + +<p>"But I can't wait for the real explanation. Suspense is torture," she +said.</p> + +<p>"But delightful—or there'd be no gambling in the world. Still, if you +dislike it, why not telegraph?" Wilton suggested.</p> + +<p>"Because, you see, if there's nothing in it, I should appear so utterly +absurd. And if there was, <i>is</i> it likely that Chetwode would wire and +say so?"</p> + +<p>"Scarcely. You have sparks of real genius, Lady Chetwode, I must say! I +never thought of that! The best way would be to make him come back as +quickly as possible. Of course, he'd return if you were ill?"</p> + +<p>"Rather. Besides, I am. Very."</p> + +<p>"So you are. Then write to that effect."</p> + +<p>"I think I will, but not yet." She remembered Savile's advice to wait +till after dinner.</p> + +<p>"May I ask," inquired Wilton, "if you're delaying in order to confide in +women? This,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> I know, seems very impertinent of me, but I can't help +advising you not. You'd be so sorry afterwards! When you go and tell +Vera that it is all right after all, however pleased she is, there'll +always be an uncomfortable feeling on your side that perhaps she doesn't +quite believe you—that she thinks you're making the best of it. And +Miss Sylvia will be so gloriously indignant and jealous for you that she +won't do you any good."</p> + +<p>"I know, Bertie. You are absolutely right. But I never do confide in +women—only in men whom I can trust. Like you—and Savile."</p> + +<p>"Thank you. And how right you are! Then if you're going to delay any +action in the matter and put the picture aside, what are you going to do +<a name="corr10" id="corr10"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn10" title="changed from 'today'">to-day</a>?"</p> + +<p>"I half promised Vera to meet her marvellous new palmist, Madame Zero, +at her house this afternoon."</p> + +<p>She took Vera's note out of a long grey envelope sealed with an Egyptian +seal.</p> + +<p>"It seems she's <i>too</i> wonderful. Only one or two people are going."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Ogilvie kindly asked me," said Bertie modestly. "Of course you'll +go and hear what the soothsayer has to say about the velvet case?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps, but I'm not sure.... I feel restless.... I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span> must say, it does +seem unlikely there could be much harm in a woman who has her portrait +painted in porcelain from a photograph—by the young lady at the +photographer's, I dare say, who makes the appointments and touches up +the negatives. And yet—perhaps that very innocence—that sweet, blank +expression—even the tight sleeves and the two boys may make her all the +more attractive!"</p> + +<p>Wilton got up.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," he said. "You're perverse. It's no use, I see, telling you +not to worry; but please try to realise there's no occasion."</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't you say just the same if you thought there had been occasion?" +she persisted.</p> + +<p>"Absolutely. But that doesn't prove I'm not sincere now."</p> + +<p>He pressed her hand with a look that he hoped conveyed the highest +respect, the tenderest sympathy, a deep, though carefully suppressed +passion, and a longing to administer some refined and courteous +consolation, and went away.</p> + +<p>Wilton was only twenty-five, so, naturally, as soon as he got home, he +tried the expression in the mirror, and was horribly disappointed in it.</p> + +<p>"I must have looked as if I'd suddenly got an awful twinge of +neuralgia," he said to himself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It shows how careful one ought to be. Confound it!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Felicity, however, was not troubling herself about Wilton or his +expressive looks. The complicated glance, which he feared was a failure, +had not even been seen by her. What he had said cheered her for the +moment, and <i>au fond</i>, at the back of her brain, with her real sound +common sense, she did not actually believe in the cause of her grief. +But passion and jealousy, unfortunately, are not governed by sound +common sense; they work in circles. Argument and reasoning have but a +temporary effect on them; they come back to the point at which they +started.</p> + +<p>As she looked at Mrs. Tregelly's picture, the feverish chills of +suspicion again took possession of her. She told herself repeatedly that +she had only been married a year, that Chetwode was in love with her, +and had always seemed cold to other women. But he was continually away. +He was charming and attractive. Perhaps the other women he met thought +<i>she</i> lived for amusement and was utterly neglectful of him. She was +afraid she had been imprudent in being seen so much with Wilton, but +Chetwode never seemed, really, to mind. He trusted her as she deserved, +and as she ought to trust him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> Considering the terms that they were +on—far more like lovers than husband and wife—it would be real +treachery on his part. He was incapable of treachery. She would trust +him.</p> + +<p>Then the image of Chetwode making love to that pretty woman abruptly +forced itself on her mental vision in spite of all reasoning, like a +sudden violent physical pain, and she burst into tears.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>She controlled them as soon as possible, for she strongly dissented from +the old-fashioned idea that a good cry was consoling. On the contrary, +she thought that the headache and unbecoming traces of emotion that +followed tears had a particularly depressing effect, and left one with +nerves. She resolved to dismiss the subject for the moment, anyhow, and +to go to Vera's in the afternoon to meet Madame Zero and two or three of +Vera's most favoured and intimate friends.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> + +<h3>ZERO, THE SOOTHSAYER</h3> + + +<p>Mrs. Ogilvie looked more Egyptian than ever to-day. She always dressed +for her parts; and as a believer in the Unseen, she felt it right, in +honour of the sibyl, to wear her hair very low, with some green pins in +it, long earrings, and a flowing gown, with Japanese sleeves.</p> + +<p>"Vera, you're almost in fancy dress," said Felicity, as she arrived. +"It's very becoming; but why?"</p> + +<p>"Am I, dear? Well, it's as a sort of compliment to this wonderful girl. +I've been draping the little boudoir with gold embroideries—and burning +joss-sticks, too (though they give me a headache). I thought it would +bring out her gift—make her feel more at home, you know."</p> + +<p>"Good gracious, is she an Algerian or an Indian or anything?"</p> + +<p>"Oh dear no, darling. Of course not. She's a Highlander, that's all. It +runs in her family. To know things that haven't happened, I mean."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But that <i>will</i> happen?"</p> + +<p>"I hope so, I'm sure. She's in there," said Vera, pointing to a beaded +curtain, that concealed the small drawing-room. "She's gazing into the +crystal for Bob Henderson. You shall go next, darling."</p> + +<p>"I should have imagined Captain Henderson the very last person in the +world to dabble in the occult, as they call it in the newspapers. I +should have thought he would laugh at superstition."</p> + +<p>"Oh, so he does, dear, but he wants to know what's going to win the +Derby."</p> + +<p>"From all I've heard about racing," said Felicity, "if he wants to know +that, he'd better wait till it's run."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Felicity, don't cast a sort of damper on the thing before him! +Perhaps he'll be converted. He may take it quite seriously now. It would +do him good, he's so matter-of-fact."</p> + +<p>At this moment a very loud and hearty laugh was heard, and Captain +Henderson appeared through the beaded curtain and joined them.</p> + +<p>"What a long time you've been," said Vera.</p> + +<p>"She's a pretty girl," said Captain Henderson.</p> + +<p>"Any success?" asked Felicity.</p> + +<p>"She saw some horses in the crystal. But as she didn't know their names, +it was no earthly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> use to me. Says I'll back the winner for a place, +though. She's got second-rate sight—second sight, I mean."</p> + +<p>"A great many of these old Highland families have," said Felicity +seriously, to please Vera.</p> + +<p>"Have they, though? She says she's half Irish," said Henderson, with his +characteristic puzzled look. "She's been telling my character +too—reading between the lines, you know, the lines on my hand. She +doesn't seem to think much of me, Mrs. Ogilvie." He laughed again.</p> + +<p>"As soon as she's had some tea," said Vera, ringing, "you must go in, +Felicity. We mustn't tire her. It's frightfully exhausting work."</p> + +<p>"Must be," assented Bob.</p> + +<p>"It takes it out of her ever so much more with some people than with +others," said Vera.</p> + +<p>"Ah, it would," said Bob solemnly, shaking his head.</p> + +<p>"I suppose complicated people are more wearing than the simpler kind," +said Felicity. "There's more in them to find out."</p> + +<p>"You mean it must have been pretty plain sailing with me?" said +Henderson.</p> + +<p>Here Wilton arrived.</p> + +<p>"There's something about the tone of your delightful home to-day," he +said as he greeted Vera, "that makes me feel curiously Oriental. I don't +exactly know what it is, but I feel I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span> want to sit down cross-legged on +a mat and smoke a hookah. How do you account for it?"</p> + +<p>"You 'hear the East a-calling,' and all that sort of thing," said +Henderson, laughing. "Eh?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. But perhaps after all it's only the east wind. No, it's the +incense some one's been burning. At your shrine, of course, Mrs. +Ogilvie. What a talent you have for creating the right atmosphere."</p> + +<p>Vera was highly flattered.</p> + +<p>"And now I think you might go in, Felicity," she said.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Felicity found a young girl with bright pleasant eyes, seated in front +of a little yellow table. She had a magnifying-glass on one side of her +and a crystal ball on the other. She was very neatly dressed in the +tailor-made style, and had no superfluous decorations of any kind. +Anything less like a sibyl could not be easily imagined.</p> + +<p>Felicity took off her glove and placed her hand on a yellow cushion. As +she did so, she remembered charming things that Chetwode had said about +her hands, how he had compared them to white flowers; and she sighed....</p> + +<p>"You're vurry sensitive indeed," said the palmist, with a slight +American accent. "Your nerves seem to me to be vibrating."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But isn't that usual?" said Felicity shyly. "I thought nerves always +did."</p> + +<p>"Just hold the crystal in your hand for a minute or two. Thank you. Ah! +there's a slight cloud on your horizon at this moment, but it will pass +away—I see it passing away."</p> + +<p>"What else do you see?"</p> + +<p>"I see you in a large space surrounded by a hurrying crowd. There are +bookstalls, trucks of luggage, trains, I can't say precisely what it +is."</p> + +<p>"Surely a railway station?" said Felicity.</p> + +<p>"You are perfectly right. I should fancy from this that you are either +going to take a journey by rail, or that you are going to see a friend +off."</p> + +<p>"Do you advise me to take the journey?"</p> + +<p>"I fear advice one way or the other would have vurry little effect. I am +a believer in Fate. Either you're going to take that journey, or you're +not, in spite of anything I may suggest to the contrary."</p> + +<p>And the palmist smiled archly, then leant back and closed her eyes. +Felicity wondered if she were tired with the noise of the railway +station. But she opened them suddenly, and took Felicity's hand, which +she looked at through the magnifying-glass.</p> + +<p>"This is a most interesting hand. Mrs. Ogilvie's gentleman friend, who +was in here just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> now, also had a vurry interesting hand. She's a lovely +woman, and her hand is most interesting too...."</p> + +<p>She paused.</p> + +<p>"You have a curious temperament. You are easily impressed by the +personality of other people. You are impulsive and emotional, and yet +you have a remarkable amount of calm judgment, so that you can analyse, +and watch your own feelings and those of the other persons as well as if +it were a matter of indifference to you. Your strong affections never +blind you to the faults and weaknesses of their object, and those faults +do not make you care for them less, but in some cases attach you even +more strongly. You are fond of gaiety; your moods vary easily, because +you vibrate to music, bright surroundings, and sympathy. But you have +depth, and in an emergency I should say you could be capable even of +heroism. You have an astonishing amount of intuition."</p> + +<p>"What a horrid little creature!" said Felicity.</p> + +<p>"Your tact and knowledge of how to deal with people are so natural to +you that you are scarcely conscious of them. You should have been the +wife of a great diplomatist."</p> + +<p>"But aren't they always very ugly?" asked Felicity.</p> + +<p>"You're not as trivial as you wish to appear,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span> replied the palmist; +"you are very frank and straightforward, but reserved on subjects that +are nearest your heart.... Is there any question you would like to ask +me?"</p> + +<p>"I should like to know," said Felicity, giving herself away as the most +sceptical victim always does, "whether the person I care for is true to +me."</p> + +<p>As she said the words she thought they sounded as if she were a +sentimental shop-girl whose young man had shown signs of ceasing his +attentions. And why not? She felt exactly like that shop-girl. It was +precisely the same thing.</p> + +<p>The palmist smiled sympathetically, and said, "He has no other thought +but you. Believe me, you are his one object, and he will be true to you +through life."</p> + +<p>"And how on earth can you see that?" said Felicity, unreasonably +cheered, though inclined to laugh.</p> + +<p>"I can't say. It's not possible to explain these things; but here, you +see, your Fate line is a wonderfully good one, and it goes parallel (if +I may say so) with the heart line. Now, if the <i>Life</i> line had crossed +it, or reached the Mount of Luna—well, I should have said you were +destined to disappointment in love. But that is not so. You have a lucky +hand. You have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> artistic tastes, but would never work in any direction, +except the social—that is why I say a diplomatic circle would have +suited you."</p> + +<p>Felicity feared the soothsayer was getting rather bored with her, so she +said—</p> + +<p>"Thank you. Have you any advice to give me before I go?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. It would be to your advantage if you used your head less and +followed your natural impulses more."</p> + +<p>"Then I must throw something at Chetwode's head when I see him," thought +Felicity.</p> + +<p>As she got up, "I see two beautiful children in your hand," added the +palmist.</p> + +<p>"Oh, when?" said Felicity, starting, and accidentally knocking down the +crystal ball.</p> + +<p>"Within the next few years," answered the palmist cautiously.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"Now it's my turn," said Bertie, as Felicity joined them. "Do tell me," +he said in an undertone, "was there anything about me in your hand?"</p> + +<p>"Rather not—not a trace of you. Why, what did you expect?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, then I don't think much of her. I thought at least she would see my +initials all over your lifeline. I assure you, any good palmist would. +I'm afraid she's a fraud."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I trust not. She was rather consoling," said Felicity thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>"She was wonderful with me," said Vera, as Bertie disappeared. "I wonder +what her nationality really is."</p> + +<p>"Thought you said she was a Highlander." Bob looked more puzzled than +ever.</p> + +<p>"Well, so she is, partly. In a way. Unless I'm mixing her up with some +one else."</p> + +<p>"And yet Zero isn't a Scotch name," remarked Felicity thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>"No; and it's a rotten name too—doesn't suit her a bit. But it's not +her real name. On her card is Miss Cora G. Donovan," said Bob.</p> + +<p>"How do you know?" asked Vera sharply.</p> + +<p>"Well, I had to ask her address. I've got to see her again, don't you +know. Before the Derby. To make sure. Only fair to give it a chance," +said Bob, rather apologetically.</p> + +<p>"She's an Irish American," decided Felicity.</p> + +<p>"Is she? I dare say she is. I wonder what she'll say to Wilton now," +said Bob meditatively.</p> + +<p>"Bertie will tell her everything he knows about himself, and about every +one else in whom either he or she takes the slightest interest. Then +he'll go on to tell her character, and prophesy her future, and she'll +confide in him, and he'll give her good advice. He always tells +fortune-tellers their fortune. That's why<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span> he's so popular in the occult +world," said Felicity.</p> + +<p>"Wonder they stand it," said Bob.</p> + +<p>"Why, naturally, they enjoy it. Mustn't they get frightfully bored, poor +things, with talking all the time about other people, and be only too +thankful and delighted to be allowed to talk about themselves a little? +Fancy how refreshing it must be; what a relief! Think of the tedium of +always bothering about perfect strangers—pretending to care about their +luck and their love affairs, their fortunes and their failures, and all +their silly little private affairs. It must be absolutely fascinating +for them to meet a person so interested in other people as Bertie."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps he only does it out of kindness," said Vera. "I shouldn't +wonder. Asks them questions and shows interest just to please them."</p> + +<p>"Well, I call it infernal cheek," said Bob resentfully.</p> + +<p>"Not at all. Some people aren't always absorbed in themselves," said +Vera, with a reproachful look as she gave Bob a cup of tea.</p> + +<p>At this moment Sylvia was announced. She looked very happy and excited.</p> + +<p>"I hope I'm not too late. I only want to ask<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span> Madame Zero <i>one</i> +question. I shan't be a moment."</p> + +<p>"Of course you shall, dear, and I know you won't keep her long, as +she'll be very tired now after seeing us all. Now, Sylvia"—Vera turned +to Felicity—"is unusual. She's neither curious about other people nor +intensely interested in herself."</p> + +<p>"I don't mind how interested people are in themselves, so long as +they're interesting people," said Felicity.</p> + +<p>"Do you call it taking too much interest in oneself to want to back a +winner just once—for a change? I had tips straight from the stable +about three horses yesterday, at Haydock Park. And I give you my word, +Lady Chetwode, they all went down."</p> + +<p>"Dead certainties never seem to do anything else," Felicity answered.</p> + +<p>"Mind you, it was partly my own fault," continued Bob. "If I'd had the +sense to back Little Lady for the Warrington Handicap Hurdle Race—as +any chap in his senses would have done after her out-jumping the +favourite and securing a lead at the final obstacle in the Stayer +Steeplechase, I should have got home on the day—or at any rate on the +week. But then, you see, I'd seen her twice refuse at the water—and I +was a bit too cautious, I suppose!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You generally are," murmured Vera, but he did not hear, having sunk +into a racing reverie.</p> + +<p>Bertie appeared through the curtains.</p> + +<p>"I congratulate you, Mrs. Ogilvie. Your +<a name="corr11" id="corr11"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn11" title="changed from 'sooth-sayer'">soothsayer</a> +is a marvel."</p> + +<p>"Isn't she!" triumphantly said his hostess.</p> + +<p>"It's the most extraordinary thing I ever came across in my life. She +simply took my breath away. Yes, tea, please. She's a genius."</p> + +<p>"Does she seem very exhausted? Or do you think Sylvia might just ask her +one question?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, surely—Miss Sylvia's so reposeful," said Bertie. "I fancy I could +answer the one question myself," he added in a low voice to Sylvia, as +he held the curtains back for her to pass.</p> + +<p>"She's been a success with you, I see," said Felicity.</p> + +<p>"She has, indeed! She got right there every time—as she would say +herself in her quaint Eastern phraseology. She has one of the most +remarkable personalities I ever met. No one would believe what that girl +has gone through in her life—and she's been so brave and plucky through +it all! Did you notice what remarkable hands she has?"</p> + +<p>"I told you so," laughed Felicity. "She's been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> confiding in Bertie and +he's told <i>her</i> fortune! I knew it."</p> + +<p>Bertie coloured slightly as he ate a pink cake.</p> + +<p>"Shouldn't have thought that of her," grumbled Bob. "She seemed a +sensible sort of girl."</p> + +<p>"My dear Henderson, don't be absurd. After her wonderful divination +about me, of course I couldn't help asking her a few questions as to how +she developed the gift—and so on—and she told me the most amazing +things."</p> + +<p>"She would, I'm sure," said Vera sympathetically. "I wonder if she'll +tell Sylvia anything about what Mr. Ridokanaki is doing."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I can tell you all about him," said Bertie readily. "He's having a +very good time in Paris just now. I hear he's always about with the +Beaugardes. Miss Beaugarde's a very pretty girl just out of her convent. +Her mother's working it for all she's worth. Clever woman. I shouldn't +be surprised if it came off, if Madame Beaugarde can make him believe +the girl's in love with him for himself."</p> + +<p>"You see we really need no sibyls and soothsayers when we have Bertie," +said Felicity. "To know him really is a liberal education. He knows +everything."</p> + +<p>"Sort of walking <i>Harmsworth's Self-educator</i>," said Bob rather +bitterly, as he took his hat.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span></p> + +<p>Sylvia returned, evidently content. She told Felicity afterwards that +Madame Zero had seen her in the crystal in a large building of a sacred +character, dressed all in white and holding a bouquet. The sound of the +chanting of sweet boys' voices was in the air. What could it possibly +mean?</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Whether or not Madame Zero had demonstrated her gifts so convincingly as +to have converted a sceptic, there was no doubt that she had perceptibly +raised the spirits of the whole party (not excluding her own), so the +séance was quite deservedly pronounced an immense success.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<h3>"THE OTHER GIRL"</h3> + + +<p>Savile had received a note from Dolly, asking him to go and see her in +the square. Savile was feeling rather sore because Dolly and her French +friends had gone to a fancy ball the night before, a kind of +semi-juvenile party where all the children wore powdered hair. Dolly had +offered to get him an invitation, but he scornfully refused, knowing she +was going to dance the cotillon with Robert de Saules.</p> + +<p>So depressed had he seemed that evening that Sylvia had played "Home, +Sweet Home" to him five or six times. It made him miserable, which he +thoroughly enjoyed, and he was feeling altogether rather cynical and +bitter when he got Dolly's little note. He had heard nothing more of +Chetwode, and intended to see Jasmyn Vere before he left; there was only +another week before the end of his holidays. Should he be cool to Dolly? +or not let her know how he felt about the fancy ball?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span></p> + +<p>As soon as he arrived he thought she looked different. The powder had +been imperfectly brushed out of her hair; also she had been crying. She +greeted him very gently. She wore a pretty white dress and a pale blue +sash.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you've been very happy these holidays?" said Dolly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know! I've had a great deal to—to see to," said Savile.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you see a great deal of The Other Girl?" said Dolly.</p> + +<p>Considering that he had only been once to Wales to hear his idol sing at +a concert, there was a certain satisfaction in giving Dolly to +understand that he hadn't really had half a bad time; so he smiled and +didn't answer.</p> + +<p>"Is she grown up?" asked Dolly.</p> + +<p>Savile was cautiously reserved on the subject, but seemed to think he +might go so far as to say she <i>was</i> grown up.</p> + +<p>"Did you have fun last night?" he then asked.</p> + +<p>"No. I was simply miserable."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"I kept the cotillon for Robert, though he hadn't exactly asked for it, +and when the time came the girl of the house, who is eighteen, actually +danced it with him!"</p> + +<p>"Hope you didn't show you cared."</p> + +<p>"No, I didn't; but I danced with a lot of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span> stupid little boys, and I was +so bored! Besides, I <i>hate</i> Robert. Wasn't it mean of him? He went to +supper with this grown-up girl, who was awfully amused at his foreign +accent, and he behaved as if <i>I</i> was just a child, a friend of his +little sister Thérèse. Now, do you think, Savile, as a man of the world, +that I ought ever to speak to him again?"</p> + +<p>"When's he going away?" asked Savile.</p> + +<p>"Next week; at the end of the holidays."</p> + +<p>"If you cut him dead as he deserves," said Savile, "it's treating him as +if he mattered. Of course, you <i>really</i> showed you were offended?"</p> + +<p>"Well—I suppose I did. You see, his head was quite turned by these old +grown-up girls making a fuss about him."</p> + +<p>"What a rotter!" said Savile kindly. "Well, do you still like him?"</p> + +<p>"No; I simply hate him, I tell you," said Dolly.</p> + +<p>"Then don't bother about him any more."</p> + +<p>Savile forbore to say, "I told you so!" He was however naturally +gratified.</p> + +<p>"What I should like," said Dolly candidly, "would be to be able to tell +Thérèse—who would tell Robert—that I'm engaged to <i>you</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Well, tell her so, if you like."</p> + +<p>"Oh, what a brick you are! It's not very truthful though, is it?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span></p> + +<p>Savile said that didn't matter with foreigners.</p> + +<p>"It is a pity," Dolly murmured, with a sigh, "that it can't <i>be</i> true!"</p> + +<p>"Yes—isn't it?" said Savile.</p> + +<p>"After all," said Dolly, "you're not exactly <i>engaged</i> to the other +girl."</p> + +<p>"How do <i>you</i> know?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm sure you're not."</p> + +<p>"As a matter of fact I'm not."</p> + +<p>"But you think she might marry you when you're grown up?"</p> + +<p>Savile smiled. "Before there'll be a chance of marrying her, I shall be +dead of old age."</p> + +<p>"When shall you see her again?"</p> + +<p>"Next Wednesday, the day before I go away."</p> + +<p>Felicity had promised to take him to a concert where he might not only +see her but possibly even be introduced to her in the artists' room, +through the good nature of De Valdez, who had been told of Savile's +romantic devotion.</p> + +<p>But Savile was now feeling rather tenderly towards Dolly, who had +evidently learnt by experience to put her trust in Englishmen. In fact, +at this moment he was thoroughly enjoying himself again.</p> + +<p>"I don't think after all I <i>shall</i> say I'm engaged to you," said Dolly +sadly. "There's something depressing about it when it isn't true."</p> + +<p>"Oh well, let's make it true."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Really; but what about The Other Girl?"</p> + +<p>"You don't quite understand. That's a different thing. There she +is—but—that's all. It's nothing to do with being engaged to you."</p> + +<p>She looked bewildered.</p> + +<p>"But is she very fond of you?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all," said Savile.</p> + +<p>"Oh, she <i>must</i> be," said Dolly admiringly.</p> + +<p>Savile blushed and said, "My dear girl, she doesn't know me from Adam! +So there!"</p> + +<p>"Then why on earth did you break it off before?" said Dolly, clapping +her hands and beaming.</p> + +<p>"Well, you see, I think a good deal of her," said Savile, "and then, +what with one thing and another—you didn't seem to want me much."</p> + +<p>"But I do <i>now</i>!" said Dolly frankly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, all right. Well, look here, old girl, we'll be engaged, just as we +were before; but—I must have my freedom."</p> + +<p>"Indeed you shan't," said Dolly, with flashing eyes. "I never heard such +nonsense! What do you mean by your freedom? Then can't I have mine too?"</p> + +<p>"Rather not! What a baby you are, Dolly. Don't you know, there's one law +for a man and another for a woman?"</p> + +<p>She gasped with rage.</p> + +<p>"I never heard such nonsense in my life. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span> shall certainly not allow +anything of the kind. Either we're engaged or we're not."</p> + +<p>"Very well, my dear, keep calm about it. It doesn't matter. Here I +offer," said Savile, "to please you, to be engaged again, and you don't +like my terms. Then it's off."</p> + +<p>"I think you're more cruel than Robert," said Dolly.</p> + +<p>"But not such an ass," said Savile.</p> + +<p>"And not so treacherous," admitted Dolly, who seemed as if she did not +want him to go.</p> + +<p>"Just tell me what you <i>mean</i> by your freedom," she said pleadingly.</p> + +<p>"As I'm placed," said Savile mysteriously, "all I want is to see The +Other Girl once, on Wednesday. I shall probably only have a few words +with her. Then I believe they are going away, and I'm going back to +school."</p> + +<p>"<i>They</i> are going away," said Dolly, mystified. "Then is there more than +one?"</p> + +<p>"More than one? Good God, no! One's enough!" said Savile, with a sigh.</p> + +<p>"After all," said Dolly very prettily, "I do trust you, Savile."</p> + +<p>Savile was intensely pleased, but he only answered gruffly, "That's as +well to know!"</p> + +<p>"Then I'll try not to be jealous of her. I won't think about her at +all."</p> + +<p>"No, I shouldn't," said Savile.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Then we are engaged," said Dolly again, "definitely?"</p> + +<p>"Of course we are. And look here, you've got to do what I tell you."</p> + +<p>"What am I to do?"</p> + +<p>"You're to be jolly, just as you used to be; you're to come and meet me +here every day, and—I'm not quite sure we really saw Madame Tussaud's +properly that day."</p> + +<p>"Well, you were so cross, Savile."</p> + +<p>"I shan't be cross now. I'll take you there, and we'll have tea. Could +you go to-day?"</p> + +<p>"I think, just to-day," said Dolly, "I <i>might</i> be allowed. A particular +friend of mamma's is coming to-day whom she hasn't seen for ages. She +told me not to come into the drawing-room."</p> + +<p>"All right. Run in now and fix it up."</p> + +<p>"Mamma," said Dolly, "will expect me to go to the De Saules; but as my +holiday task is about Charles II, and we shall see him at the +waxworks——"</p> + +<p>"I leave all that to you," said Savile.</p> + +<p>"Very well, then. Come and fetch me at three. I'm sure I can arrange it. +Won't Robert be surprised!"</p> + +<p>"One more thing," said Savile rather sternly. "Remember that I don't +care <i>two</i> straws whether he's surprised or not, and I don't want his +name mentioned again."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Then it's not to annoy him?"</p> + +<p>"No. It's to please me. Us."</p> + +<p>"Very well."</p> + +<p>She gave him her hand.</p> + +<p>"And you won't even—now that we're engaged properly—give up +seeing—The Other Girl on Wednesday?" she pleaded.</p> + +<p>Savile frowned darkly.</p> + +<p>"You may be sure I shall do the right thing," he said rather grandly, +"and you're not to refer to her again. I've told you I shall only see +her once, and that's enough for you."</p> + +<p>"I think you are very tyrannical," said Dolly, pouting.</p> + +<p>"That won't do you any harm, my dear."</p> + +<p>"And—you don't seem fond of me a bit!"</p> + +<p>"Yes I am. What a fool you are! I'm awfully fond of you, Dolly."</p> + +<p>"And are you very happy?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, very fairly happy," said Savile. "And mind you have that powder +all brushed out of your hair. I don't like it."</p> + +<p>They walked to the gate.</p> + +<p>"I really have missed you awfully, dear," said Savile gently.</p> + +<p>"You have your faults, Savile, but you are reliable, I <i>will</i> say that."</p> + +<p>"Rather," said Savile. "I'll bring you a ring this afternoon or +to-morrow."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What! How lovely! But I shan't be allowed to wear it."</p> + +<p>"Then keep it till you can."</p> + +<p>"It's very sweet of you. Good-bye, Savile."</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, dear. I say, Dolly?"</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + +<h3>SAVILE AND JASMYN</h3> + + +<p>Savile had written asking Jasmyn Vere to see him on a matter of +importance.</p> + +<p>Jasmyn promptly and courteously made an appointment, and spent the +intervening hours chuckling to himself at the solemn tone of the letter, +and wondering what in Heaven's name the child could possibly want.</p> + +<p>He received Savile in a kind of winter garden, or conservatory at the +back of his house, and went to meet him with the most charming +cordiality, to put the boy at his ease. He would have been rather +surprised had he known that something about his reddish hair, and his +mouth open with hospitable welcome against the green background, +reminded the boy irresistibly of an amiable gold-fish.</p> + +<p>"So delighted, dear boy, that you should have thought of me. Anything, +of course, in the world that I could do for you, or for any of your +charming family, I should look upon as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span> real privilege. Have a +cigarette? You smoke, of course? You oughtn't to. Take this nice +comfortable chair—not that one, it's horrid—and tell me all about it."</p> + +<p>"Thanks, awfully," said Savile seriously, intensely amused at his host's +nervous, elaborate politeness, and trying hard to repress the +inclination to laugh that Jasmyn always inspired in him. How fluttered +and flattered the dear old thing seemed! Savile wasn't a bit frightened +of him.</p> + +<p>"I knew you know all about things, Mr. Vere," said Savile, accepting a +cigarette and a cushioned deck-chair, "and I thought I'd ask your advice +about something."</p> + +<p>Jasmyn was completely at a loss. Could it be a question of a tenner? It +so often was. But no, he felt sure that it was nothing quite so +commonplace, or quite so simple.</p> + +<p>In a few minutes he had heard and thoroughly taken in the whole story.</p> + +<p>He was most interested, and particularly sympathetic about Sylvia, +though from his own point of view—the worldly social-conventional +view—she ought to have done better. As he thought it over he walked up +and down the winter garden.</p> + +<p>Some birds were twittering in gold cages among the palms and plants, and +every now and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span> then he stopped to talk to them in the little language +one uses to pets, which irritated Savile to the verge of madness.</p> + +<p>"I know of one thing," said Jasmyn, "and only one, that might do. I know +a charming young fellow who's been ordered to travel for a year, and +needs a companion. He doesn't want to go, a bit; but his relatives might +be able to persuade him to, if he took a fancy to Woodville, and I'm +sure he would. He's just a little mad. That would be delightful for your +friend if he could get it: yachting for six months; a motoring tour in +Italy; all sorts of nice things. He's a man called Newman Ferguson."</p> + +<p>"But you see, it's Woodville himself who wants a companion," said +Savile. "I don't think in his present state he'd be particularly keen on +being shut up alone on a yacht with a raving lunatic, and struggling +with him in a padded state-room. I shouldn't think he'd do for the post. +Then, I don't see how his going away for a year would help."</p> + +<p>"True, my dear boy. How clever you are! Well, I suppose I must think it +over, and look round."</p> + +<p>Savile looked very disappointed.</p> + +<p>"I mustn't let you go without giving you some hope, though. I see how +much your heart is in it!" said Jasmyn good-naturedly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Can you give any general sort of advice?" Savile asked. "How <i>does</i> a +chap get things?"</p> + +<p>"It's very, very difficult, dear Savile, and it's getting more and more +difficult—unless you're related to somebody—or have heaps of money. +The really best thing, of course, for our friend, would be to go into +some kind of business. I'll look out and see if something turns up. Now +look here," and Jasmyn put his arm in Savile's, "if it's something of +that sort, and it's merely some—a—cash for capital that's required, +let him look upon me as his banker. Tell him that, Savile. You'll know +how."</p> + +<p>"No, I shan't know how, Mr. Vere. He wouldn't like it. And then, +besides, you see he doesn't know anything about it—I mean about my +coming to you like this. Sylvia doesn't, either. Of course, old +Woodville would be very pleased if I went and told him he'd got some +capital appointment. He'd soon forgive me then for my cheek in +interfering. But not what you've just said. Awfully jolly of you, +though."</p> + +<p>Jasmyn took a few steps back and stared at Savile.</p> + +<p>"You mean to say you've undertaken this all on your own? Why, you're a +marvel! Haven't you really mentioned it to a soul?"</p> + +<p>"As a matter of fact," said Savile scrupulously, "I <i>did</i> just mention +something about it—not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span> your name or theirs, of course—to the girl I'm +engaged to. But she doesn't know any more about it than she did before."</p> + +<p>Jasmyn exploded with laughter.</p> + +<p>"Savile, you'll go far. So much prudence combined with so much +pluck—why you'll end by being Prime Minister!"</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't care for that. Besides, I can't," Savile said +apologetically, "I'm going into the army."</p> + +<p>"And what about <i>your</i> engagement?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing about it. It won't make any difference."</p> + +<p>"To whom?"</p> + +<p>"Why, to me—or to <i>her</i> either—so far as that goes."</p> + +<p>"Tell me why you're so keen about Woodville, and what you're taking all +this trouble for, old boy?"</p> + +<p>"Why, for my sister, of course!" Savile answered, surprised.</p> + +<p>"You're a dear good boy. And you shan't be disappointed. As soon as I +hear of anything I'll let you know, and we'll talk it over again. When +do you go back to school?"</p> + +<p>"In a few days," said Savile, getting up to go.</p> + +<p>"Poor chap! Well, well, we'll see what happens. Must you go now? Cheer +up. It's sure to come all right. And I say, Savile——"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>"Remember me kindly to your fiancée, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"Of <i>course</i> I shan't! She's never heard of you. Her mother doesn't let +her read the papers, not even the <i>Morning Post</i>. And besides, it's +quite a private engagement."</p> + +<p>"You can trust me, Savile. Just tell me one thing," Jasmyn said, with an +inquisitive leer. "Is she dark or fair?"</p> + +<p>"Not very," said Savile.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + +<h3>SAVILE AND BERTIE</h3> + + +<p>As Wilton was convinced that a satisfactory ending to the trouble was +imminent, he naturally felt a great desire to be, somehow, the cause of +Felicity's renewed happiness; to get, as it were, the credit of it. That +his admiration (to put it mildly) should take the form of chivalrous +devotion would be, at least, something; especially as it was evident +that no other satisfaction was likely to come his way. Her one other +confidant was Savile; and it struck Bertie that a kind of confederation +with the boy might be a success.</p> + +<p>Besides, it would be fun.... Savile hadn't ever been cordial with him, +but had retained a rather cool, ironical manner, as if suspicious of his +attitude. Bertie had that peculiar vanity that consists in an acute +desire to be able to please everybody. He had always felt absurdly +annoyed at being unable to gain Savile's approval. And the wish to make +a conquest of every one connected with Her was no doubt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span> part of his +reason for sending Savile an urgent message to come and see him +immediately.</p> + +<p>He was now waiting in his rooms at Half-Moon Street for the boy's +arrival.</p> + +<p>Savile had promised to come round in a reserved and cautious note, but +the request had given him intense gratification and joy. He felt he +really was becoming a person of importance.</p> + +<p>The instant Savile arrived he made up his mind that as soon as he was +grown up and able to have rooms of his own, they should be arranged, in +every particular, exactly like Wilton's. But instead of the Romney, the +one picture that Bertie possessed, and which bore so striking a likeness +to Felicity, he decided he would have in its place a large portrait of +Madame Patti.</p> + +<p>"Look here, old boy, perhaps you think this rather cheek of me. But we +both know that your sister's rather worried just now."</p> + +<p>"She <i>is</i> a bit off colour," admitted Savile.</p> + +<p>"Well, why on earth don't you put it straight?"</p> + +<p>Savile's expression remained impassible. He said:</p> + +<p>"Think I ought?"</p> + +<p>"You're the only person who can."</p> + +<p>"All right," said Savile. "I'll write to Chetwode."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It'll take some time, writing and getting an answer," said Wilton.</p> + +<p>"No good expecting an answer," said Savile. "He's the sort of chap who +never writes letters unless they're unnecessary."</p> + +<p>"And Lady Chetwode will be in a hurry," observed Bertie.</p> + +<p>"You know her pretty well," said Savile.</p> + +<p>"Then what's your idea?"</p> + +<p>"I shall send him an enormous wire," said Savile—"he's more likely to +read it than a letter—explaining the whole thing, and telling him to +come home at once. I shan't ask for an answer."</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"Because I shouldn't get it."</p> + +<p>"Good. That's a capital idea. But—a—Savile, can you afford these +luxuries? I couldn't have, when I was a boy at Eton.—Look here, let +me——"</p> + +<p>Savile turned round and looked Wilton straight in the face.</p> + +<p>"No, thanks," he said deliberately, shaking his head. Bertie's colour +rose.</p> + +<p>"But, my dear boy, why on earth not?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I expect you know," said Savile. Then feeling a little remorseful +for the rebuff, he added: "Don't you bother about that. Besides, Aunt +William gave me a couple of quid the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span> other day to buy a ring for the +girl I'm engaged to. I shan't buy it just yet. That's all."</p> + +<p>Bertie concealed his amusement.</p> + +<p>"Then you'll have to keep the poor girl waiting," he said.</p> + +<p>"Keep her waiting?" said Savile. "Of course I shall. It's a very good +plan." He got up and took his hat. "Makes them more keen. Don't you find +it so?"</p> + +<p>"In <i>my</i> unfortunate experience nothing makes them keen at all, unless, +of course, it's some one one doesn't want. And then everything does."</p> + +<p>"Hard luck!" said Savile, shaking his head wisely, and took his leave, +thinking with a smile that Wilton, having obviously got the chuck, was +trying to keep in favour by playing the good friend. "He's not half a +bad chap," thought Savile. "And I'll send that wire; it's a good idea."</p> + +<p>He stood under a lamp at the corner of Half-Moon Street and counted his +money.</p> + +<p>"Confound it, I've only got a bob! It'll just pay for a cab to Aunt +William's."</p> + +<p>Thoroughly enjoying this exciting and adventurous life of diplomacy, he +arrived at his aunt's. She was dressing for dinner. Nevertheless, for +Savile, she came downstairs in a magenta wrapper.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I hope there's nothing wrong, my dear boy," she said.</p> + +<p>"No, everything's quite all right. But—you know what you gave me the +other day, Aunt William?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear."</p> + +<p>"Sorry to say it's all gone."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Savile!"</p> + +<p>"Before I go back," said Savile, with a note of pathos in his voice, +"I've one or two little presents I'm awfully keen on giving. I dare say +you understand."</p> + +<p>She didn't understand, but she gave him a five-pound note.</p> + +<p>He beamed, and said, "Well, of all the bricks!"</p> + +<p>"You promise me to spend it wisely, Savile dear. But I know I can trust +you."</p> + +<p>"Rather! This will be more frightfully useful than you can possibly +imagine. Well, it seems beastly to rush in and get all I can, and then +fly; but I've simply got to go. Besides, you want to dress," said +Savile, looking at the wrapper.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Get along with you, and I do hope that you won't turn out a +dreadful, extravagant, fast young man when you're grown up," said Aunt +William, with relish at the idea.</p> + +<p>Savile smiled.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Don't you worry about <i>that</i>, Aunt William! Why, you're thinking of +ages ago, or Ouida, or something. There's no such thing nowadays as a +fast young man, as you call it. They're always talking about how ill +they are, or how hard up, and how they don't want to be bothered with +women."</p> + +<p>"How do you mean, dear?"</p> + +<p>"Why, they're frightened to death of girls marrying them against their +will—or getting mixed up in things—oh, I don't know! Anyhow, women +seem to think it a great score to get hold of one. So that proves it, +don't you think?"</p> + +<p>"Then why is it that your sisters, for instance, are always surrounded +by admirers?" said Aunt William.</p> + +<p>"First of all, surrounded is bosh. Just as much as what you're always +saying, that Sylvia has the world at her feet. They happen to be +particularly pretty, and Felicity's jolly clever. But after all, they +have only one or two each—admirers, I mean. And <i>they</i>—the girls—are +exceptions."</p> + +<p>Aunt William sighed.</p> + +<p>"You're very worldly-wise, and you're a very clever boy, but you don't +know everything."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + +<h3>THE EXPLANATION</h3> + + +<p>The fact that Chetwode was returning more than a week sooner than she +had expected, seemed to Felicity a hopeful sign. She hesitated for about +half an hour as to whether or not she should go and meet him at the +station. Doubt and dignity suggested remaining at home, but impatience +carried the day.</p> + +<p>As she was waiting on the platform, the prophecy of Madame Zero occurred +to her, and she thought to herself, with a smile—</p> + +<p>"She doesn't seem so bad at prophesying what one's <i>going</i> to do. It's +when she prophesies what one <i>ought</i> to have done that the poor dear +gets out of her depth."</p> + +<p>When he had arrived, and they were driving off together, she thought he +looked neither more nor less serene and casual than usual; his actual +presence seemed to radiate calm and dispose of anxiety; her suspicions +began to melt away.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span></p> + +<p>They had dined together, and talked on generalities, and neither had +mentioned the subject. Chetwode's intense dislike to any disturbing +topic infected Felicity; she now felt a desire to let him off even an +explanation. She wished she had never seen the velvet case, or, at any +rate, that she had never mentioned it to any one. He didn't, she +fancied, look as if he were deceiving her in any way. His affection was +not more marked than usual, nor less so. She observed there was no tinge +in his manner of an attempt to make up for anything. Yet the question +had to be asked.</p> + +<p>"What did you do most of the time there?" began Felicity.</p> + +<p>"Nothing. Played bridge."</p> + +<p>"By the way," said Felicity, "you've never told me what <i>Mrs.</i> +Tregelly's like."</p> + +<p>"Of course I haven't. She isn't like anything."</p> + +<p>"Isn't she very pretty?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I suppose she's all right—for Tregelly," said Chetwode.</p> + +<p>"Then if you don't admire her at all, would you mind telling me why you +have her portrait locked up in a velvet case?" demanded Felicity in a +soft, sweet voice.</p> + +<p>"I wonder!" said Chetwode.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, don't be so irritating. Don't you <i>know</i> you have it?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't known it long."</p> + +<p>His coolness roused her, and she said angrily—</p> + +<p>"Then you ought to have known. I've been fearing that your casual ways +are a very convenient screen for——"</p> + +<p>"For what?" he asked, smiling. He was disposed to tease her for having +doubted him.</p> + +<p>She did not answer. He came and sat next to her.</p> + +<p>"And so you would have cared?"</p> + +<p>"Cared? I should think so. I've been miserable!"</p> + +<p>"What a shame! I'm very sorry—I mean, very glad. But you might have +spared yourself all this worry, dear, if you'd thought two minutes."</p> + +<p>"How? How do you prove that what I imagined isn't true?"</p> + +<p>"My dear girl, could you seriously suspect me of wanting to possess a +coloured portrait on porcelain taken from a photograph? Did you think +I'd have such a thing in the house—except inadvertently?"</p> + +<p>"It's a pretty face," she said.</p> + +<p>"But it's an appalling picture! Don't I <i>care</i> about things? I hope I +haven't got any silly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span> vanity about it, but I don't think I ever have +anything wrong—I mean, artistically."</p> + +<p>He looked round the room with the uncontrollable pride of the collector.</p> + +<p>"No, my dear," he went on, "you've done me an injustice. From you I'm +really surprised."</p> + +<p>"But <i>anything</i>, as a souvenir of a person you like very much ..." she +said hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, all right!" he answered. "Do you suppose if I'd an awful oleograph +of <i>you</i>, even—that I'd keep it as a souvenir? Good heavens, Felicity, +one doesn't bring sentiment into <i>that</i> sort of thing! You ought to have +known me better."</p> + +<p>She waited a moment.</p> + +<p>"Then on those grounds alone I'm to consider I'm utterly wrong?"</p> + +<p>"Rather! Suppose you'd found a wonderful early sketch by Whistler or +Burne-Jones, say, of a pretty woman—even then I should never have +believed you'd be such a Philistine as to suppose that the person who +<i>sat</i> for it had any interest for me. But a thing like that!" He laughed +and shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"How did it get there?"</p> + +<p>"How did it get there?" he answered. "Last time I stayed with them, +Tregelly sent it up to me for my critical opinion on it as a work of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span> +art." He laughed. "It made me so sick that I locked it up, and dropped +or lost the key, or else I told the man to put it away. As he's an ass, +I suppose he packed it among my things. I suppose Tregelly thought I +gave it to his wife, and she thought I gave it back to him, as I heard +no more about the thing then. But this time, as soon as I arrived," he +smiled, "it was passionately reclaimed by both—and I promised to have a +look."</p> + +<p>Felicity clapped her hands.</p> + +<p>"Then I'll send it back at once, and—will you have a look?"</p> + +<p>"Good God, no! Never let me see the thing again." He took up a paper as +if tired of the subject.</p> + +<p>"Did you come back to look for it?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I came back because I received a three-volume novel wire from Savile, +explaining what he called the situation."</p> + +<p>"Fancy! Isn't he wonderful?"</p> + +<p>"He's the limit," said Chetwode, laughing.</p> + +<p>"But you might tell me, dear Chetwode; it isn't really for her that you +go there?"</p> + +<p>"Really, Felicity! I hardly ever see her! She's always busy with her +children or rattling her house-keeping keys. Oh, she's all +<i>right</i>—suits Tregelly, poor chap! Are we through now?" he asked, with +patience.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No. Won't you kiss me and forgive me?"</p> + +<p>"Presently," he said, turning a page of the paper.</p> + +<p>"May I just say that nothing of this sort could ever have happened +if—if you didn't go away just a <i>little</i> too much? From the very first +you know you were always absolutely free. I've the greatest horror of +bothering you, or tyrannising in any way, but don't you think it's gone +a little too far? If we hadn't been rather separated, I couldn't have +made such a mistake about you. Suppose you'd found, privately locked up, +a similar portrait of Bertie Wilton, say, wouldn't <i>you</i> have thought +things?"</p> + +<p>"Wilton's an ass," said Chetwode. "But he does <i>know</i>. To give him his +due, I couldn't have found a similar portrait of him. He isn't capable +of allowing such a thing to exist."</p> + +<p>"Well, say a good portrait," said Felicity. "Do let us be perfectly +frank with each other."</p> + +<p>"We will," said Chetwode. "I <i>am</i> rather sick of Wilton."</p> + +<p>"He's really an awfully good boy," said Felicity.</p> + +<p>"Then let him be a good boy somewhere else. I'm tired of him."</p> + +<p>"I'll see less of him," she answered.</p> + +<p>"Good!" said Chetwode.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And—I know it was a very long speech I made just now, but don't you +think I'm right?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't hear," he answered. "I was listening to your voice."</p> + +<p>"Then must I say it all over again? I <i>really</i> want you to take it in, +Chetwode," she said pleadingly.</p> + +<p>"Say it all over again, and as much more as you like, dear."</p> + +<p>"And then will you tell me you haven't heard?"</p> + +<p>He threw down the newspaper.</p> + +<p>"Very likely. I shall have been looking at your lips."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + +<h3>THE QUARREL</h3> + + +<p>"The other day," said Sylvia, "you were perfectly sweet to me. I was +really happy; I knew you loved me, and that was quite enough. Now again +I feel that miserable doubtfulness."</p> + +<p>"May I ask," said Woodville, who was sitting in front of a pile of +papers, while Sylvia was leaning her head on her hand opposite him at +the table, "how it is that you're here again?"</p> + +<p>He spoke in a tone that was carefully not affectionate and that he tried +not to make irritable.</p> + +<p>"Certainly. I arranged to go out with Felicity—before papa—and then I +telephoned to her that I had a headache."</p> + +<p>"Isn't that what you did on Thursday?"</p> + +<p>"No; on Thursday I said I was going to the dentist. And came in here +instead."</p> + +<p>"Do you intend to do this often?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes, continually."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span></p> + +<p>He rustled the papers.</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't I? Don't you like it?" she said.</p> + +<p>"I can't help thinking it's rather risky. Suppose Felicity comes and +finds you in blooming health?"</p> + +<p>"Surely I can recover from my headache if I like? Besides, she +telephoned to me to get some aspirin. She won't expect me to be down +till this afternoon, and she won't come till then."</p> + +<p>"<i>Did</i> you get some?"</p> + +<p>"Frank, what idiotic questions you ask!"</p> + +<p>There was a pause.</p> + +<p>"Don't you think, dear," she said, "this is very jolly, to arrange to +have two hours like this alone together?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, delightful! But I don't see what's the good of it, as we're +placed."</p> + +<p>"Not to have a nice quiet talk?"</p> + +<p>"I have nothing to talk about." He seemed nervous.</p> + +<p>"Are you going to be like this when we're married?" asked Sylvia in a +disappointed voice.</p> + +<p>"Not at all!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm <i>so</i> glad! If you'll excuse my saying so, Frank darling, you +seem to me to have a rather sulky disposition."</p> + +<p>He seized the papers and threw them on the floor.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Sulky? <i>I, sulky?</i> You never made a greater mistake. You're not a good +judge of character, Sylvia. Don't go in for it. Leave it alone. You'll +never make anything of it, you haven't the gift. As it happens, I have a +very good temper, except that now and then I'm 'rather violent when +roused,' as the palmists say, but sulky—never!"</p> + +<p>Sylvia seemed to have made up her mind to be irritating. She laughed a +good deal. (She looked most lovely when laughing.)</p> + +<p>"What are you laughing at?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"At you. Pretending to be violent, good-tempered. Of course you're +neither. What you think is self-control is merely sulkiness."</p> + +<p>His eyes flashed.</p> + +<p>"What do you want?" he said, in an undertone.</p> + +<p>"Why, I want you to be sensible and jolly; like you were that day at +Richmond."</p> + +<p>"How can I be like I was that day at Richmond? It was a lovely day; we +were in the country; it was our escapade. It was an exceptional case."</p> + +<p>"Oh dear! Then will you only be <i>like that</i> as an exceptional case?"</p> + +<p>"My dear child, you don't understand. When a man has—has work to do," +he said rather hesitatingly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span></p> + +<p>She laughed again.</p> + +<p>"Work! It must be frightfully important work if you throw it on the +floor from temper."</p> + +<p>He bore this well, and answered, picking up the papers, "Important or +not, it's what I'm here for—it's what your father pays me for. How on +earth he can think I'm the slightest use to him I can't imagine."</p> + +<p>"Oh, he knows you're not, really, dear," said Sylvia soothingly. "But +he's grown used to you, and to have a secretary makes him feel he's a +sort of important public man. Don't you see?"</p> + +<p>"What! I'm <i>not</i> useful to him?" Woodville asked angrily. "I should like +to know——" Here he stopped.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you think he won't know what to do without you when we're +married," said Sylvia.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I do wish you'd leave off saying that, Sylvia."</p> + +<p>"Saying what?"</p> + +<p>"When we're married. You have no idea how irritating you are, darling."</p> + +<p>"Irritating? Oh dear, Frank, I'm so sorry. Do forgive me. Perhaps it is +rather bad taste, but I say it to cheer you up, to remind you you have +something to look forward to. Do you see?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span></p> + +<p>She looked at him sweetly, but he would not meet her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you're <i>not</i> looking forward to it?" she said in a piqued +voice.</p> + +<p>"Sylvia, would you mind going away?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, all right. Very well. I won't disturb you any more. It's very sweet +and conscientious of you to bother about the papers. I'll go. Shan't you +want me always with you when we're married?"</p> + +<p>"Never!" he answered. "At least, not if I have any other occupation."</p> + +<p>Her eyes brightened.</p> + +<p>"Oh! then it isn't that I worry you, but I sort of distract your +attention. Is that it?"</p> + +<p>He made no answer.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid," said Sylvia sadly, "that we shall quarrel dreadfully."</p> + +<p>"Quarrel? Rot!" said Woodville. "We shall <i>never</i> quarrel. You'll do +exactly what I tell you—and I shall devote myself to doing everything +for your good."</p> + +<p>"If I thought you meant anything as dull as that I should break it off +at once," said Sylvia. "The programme doesn't sound attractive."</p> + +<p>He laughed. "How do you think it ought to be then?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span></p> + +<p>"There'll be only one will between us," said Sylvia, "that is to say, +you'll do everything I want always, Frank. Do you hear? Won't you +answer? Well, I see you're in a bad temper." She got up. "Good-bye." She +held out her hand. "I shall hardly see you again all day, and Frank——I +see you don't want to kiss me once before I go."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you see that, do you?"</p> + +<p>"Of course, I think you're an ideal man and a darling in every way, and +I love you very much, but I think it's a pity you're so cold and +heartless." She came nearer to him.</p> + +<p>"Don't say that again," he said, with a rather dangerous look.</p> + +<p>"But you are! You're absolutely cold. I think you only love me as a +duty."</p> + +<p>At this Woodville seemed to lose his head. He seized her in his arms and +kissed her roughly and at random, holding her close to him.</p> + +<p>"Oh don't, Frank. How can you be so horrid? You're making my hair +untidy. Oh, Frank!"</p> + +<p>When he at last released her, he walked to the window and looked out. +She went to the looking-glass with tears in her eyes, and arranged her +hair.</p> + +<p>"I didn't think," she said reproachfully, "that you could behave like +that, Frank!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span></p> + +<p>He made no reply.</p> + +<p>As she stood at the door she said, pouting, "You didn't seem to care +whether <i>I</i> liked it or not."</p> + +<p>"And I didn't!" said Woodville. "I wasn't thinking about what you'd +like."</p> + +<p>"And—shan't you ever think about what I'd like?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I shall think a great deal about what you'd like," said Woodville, +"and I shall see that you like it. But that will be different. I don't +apologise; you brought it on yourself."</p> + +<p>"I'll try to forgive you," said Sylvia. "But now, I really <i>have</i> a +headache."</p> + +<p>"Take some aspirin," said Woodville.</p> + +<p>"How peculiar you are! Then I'm not to come in to-morrow morning?"</p> + +<p>"Do as you like; you know what to expect."</p> + +<p>"Why, you don't mean to say you would behave like that <i>again</i>?"</p> + +<p>"I shall make it a rule," he answered.</p> + +<p>"It's unkind of you to say that, because now you know I <i>can't</i> come."</p> + +<p>"This sort of thing is becoming impossible," said Woodville. "You make +it worse for me."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry," she said gently. "I assure you it wasn't what I wanted, +really."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I dare say not. But you don't understand."</p> + +<p>"Will you promise never to break the compact again?" said Sylvia, +looking up at him sweetly.</p> + +<p>"Will you go?" he answered in a low voice.</p> + +<p>This time she went.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + +<h3>VERA'S ADVENTURE</h3> + + +<p>Mrs. Ogilvie stopped at Hatchards' and fluttered in her usual vague way +to the bookshop.</p> + +<p>"I want some serious books," she said. "Something about Life or +Philosophy or anything of that kind."</p> + +<p>The young man said he understood exactly what she meant, and produced a +new book by Hichens.</p> + +<p>"But that's a novel! I want a real philosophical work."</p> + +<p>"<i>Maxims of Love</i>, by Stendhal," suggested the young man.</p> + +<p>"What a pretty book! No—I mean something <i>really</i> dull. Have you +anything by Schopenhauer? or Dr. Reich?"</p> + +<p>The young man said that he thought anything of that kind could be got, +and meanwhile suggested Benson.</p> + +<p>"No, that's too frivolous," said Vera seri<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span>ously. She then bought +casually <i>Mr. Punch on the Continong</i>, and left orders for books by +Plato, Herbert Spencer, and various other thoughtful writers, to be sent +to her without loss of time.</p> + +<p>She then drove to the dressmaker's. Whenever she had fallen freshly in +love she got new dresses and new books. To-day she ordered a rather ugly +but very expensive new evening dress, rather weakly, at the last moment, +buying a tea-gown that she did not want.</p> + +<p>Then she began to think she wanted to see Felicity, and yet she liked to +feel she had a sort of secret to herself for a little while. It really +had been a declaration, and Felicity had a way of inquiring into these +things and examining them until they were entirely analysed away.</p> + +<p>No, she thought she would like to see him again before saying anything +about it. He was a serious man. She had met him at a musical German +lunch, where she had not expected to be amused. He looked as if he had +suffered—or, perhaps, sat up too late.... He had dark blue eyes, which +she chose to call violet. He talked, beautifully about philosophy. He +made her feel she had a Soul—which was just the sort of thing she +needed; and though he was at a musical German lunch, he was neither +musical nor German, and his satisfaction in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span> sitting next to her instead +of next a celebrated German singer who was present was both obvious and +complimentary. Yet what had he really said?</p> + +<p>He had said, "My dear Mrs. Ogilvie, human nature is human nature all the +world over, and there's no getting away from it, try how you will. Oh! +don't get me on my hobby, because I'm afraid I shall bore you, but I'm a +bit of a philosopher in my way."</p> + +<p>How clever! But what did he mean? He told her to read philosophy. He +said she had the eyes of a mystic. She had spent several minutes looking +in the mirror trying to see the strange mysticism he saw in her eyes, +and remembering the prophesies of Zero.</p> + +<p>They talked a long time after lunch in the deep window seat, where the +music was audible but not disturbing, and she had not asked him to call. +She was always asking people to call, and they always called, and it was +always the same, nothing ever came of it. Probably some instinct told +her she would see him again, or she could not have resisted. Finally he +said, "We have known each other in a previous existence. This is an old +friendship. I shall come and see you to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Not to-morrow—Thursday," said Vera, thinking she would not have time +to get a new<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span> dress. So he was coming to-morrow. Perhaps he would give +her some new philosophy of life. He would make the riddle of existence +clear. He had bright and beautiful eyes, but—and here came in Vera's +weakness—she could not make up her mind even to fall in love without +some comment of Felicity's.</p> + +<p>Supposing Felicity said it was charming and just the right thing for +her, how delightful that would be! On the other hand, she might make one +of those terrible enlightening little remarks that smashed up all +illusions and practically spoilt the fun. How right she had been about +Bobby! "<i>Not worth worrying about.</i>" How right about many other people! +Then Felicity now settled nothing (with regard to people) without +consulting Bertie. Instead of taking a person just as he appeared as +Vera did, "Charming man, most cultured—I'm sure you'll like him," as +the hostess, Mrs. Dorfenstein, had said, Bertie would know everything +about him—who his father and mother were, why he happened to be at the +German lunch, his profession, his favourite hobbies, what was his usual +method, and a hundred other things likely to prevent any sort of +surprises. Really, Felicity and Bertie together were a rather formidable +couple of psychologists. Felicity often amused herself by experimenting +on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span> people that Bertie had discovered. What Vera feared more than +anything else was that Mr. Newman Ferguson would be pronounced a very +simple case. When she came home from her drive she saw a letter—a new +handwriting, which she instinctively felt certain was from Mr. Ferguson. +Therefore, although she was alone, she put it in her muff, went and +locked herself into her room, and began to read it.</p> + +<p>The first thing that struck her was the remarkably beautiful, carefully +formed handwriting, and the immense length of the letter.</p> + +<p>Pink with joy and excitement, her hat and furs still on, she read—</p> + +<p>"<i>My dear Mrs. Ogilvie, ... Ships that pass in the night.... Friends +signalling.... Elective affinities.</i>" ... "Oh, good gracious!" She +glanced hastily at the signature. "<i>Strange as it may seem, I am now and +for all time your devoted slave, Newman Ferguson.</i>"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>At last Vera's wish had been granted; some one had really fallen in love +with her. But she had not patience to read the letter through. Her +friend's counsel was necessary instantly.</p> + +<p>She flew to the telephone. "Felicity!—Oh, there you are!... I meant not +to tell you, but something <i>so</i> exciting has happened.... Yesterday at +the German lunch ... a wonderful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span> person.... His name?—Newman +Ferguson.... Have you ever heard of him?... You'll find out all about +him from Bertie.... Thanks.... Couldn't I see you to-day? Very well, +then, ring me up if you have any news.... Keep calm indeed! I <i>am</i> +keeping calm!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Ogilvie's knock was heard. Vera hid the letter and went downstairs.</p> + +<p>Felicity walked in at ten o'clock the next morning. Vera thought she had +rather a peculiar expression.</p> + +<p>"Don't you think it sounds lovely?" said Vera.</p> + +<p>"I should like to see the letter."</p> + +<p>They read the letter together.</p> + +<p>"What an extraordinary conglomeration! I can't make head or tail of it."</p> + +<p>"He's coming to see me this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"Is he, though?"</p> + +<p>"What do you know about him?"</p> + +<p>"Well, Bertie knows the Dorfensteins who gave the lunch, and he says +they don't know anything about him at all. He was just sort of brought +instead of some one else."</p> + +<p>"Does Bertie know him?" asked Vera.</p> + +<p>"Well, yes, he does a little, and he says he's very nice generally."</p> + +<p>"What <i>do</i> you mean by 'generally'?"</p> + +<p>At this moment the servant came in and said,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span> "Mr. Newman Ferguson has +called and wishes to see you immediately."</p> + +<p>"Good heavens!" said Vera.</p> + +<p>"Show him in!" said Felicity.</p> + +<p>They were sitting in the little yellow boudoir, Mr. Ogilvie having just +gone out.</p> + +<p>Mr. Newman Ferguson came in, carrying an enormous bouquet. He bowed most +courteously, offered Vera the bouquet, and said—</p> + +<p>"Human nature is human nature all the world over, my dear lady. There's +no getting away from it, try how you will."</p> + +<p>"It's very early for you to think of such a clever thing to say," said +Felicity.</p> + +<p>"I trust you don't think it's too early to call."</p> + +<p>"Not at all," said Vera, looking terrified.</p> + +<p>"The only thing is," said Felicity, "that my friend and I are just going +out."</p> + +<p>She stood up.</p> + +<p>"Then pray excuse me," said Mr. Newman Ferguson; "I will call a little +later on to-day instead."</p> + +<p>"Where did you say you were staying now?" said Felicity.</p> + +<p>"I'm at the Savoy at present, but I hope to move very soon," he said, +with a meaning look.</p> + +<p>Felicity saw him to the door where he had left his cab, came back, and +stood silently looking at her friend and the bouquet.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span></p> + +<p>"My dear Felicity, there's no doubt he's madly in love with me," said +Vera. "Can you deny it?"</p> + +<p>"My dear Vera, he's raving mad," answered Felicity.</p> + +<p>"What?" cried Vera.</p> + +<p>"Is it possible that you don't see it?"</p> + +<p>"But look at that clever letter!" said Vera.</p> + +<p>"It's the maddest letter I ever read. Besides, dear, I know about it. +Don't distress yourself. Bertie says he was always eccentric, but +sometimes he's quite all right for years. Then, any sudden excitement, +especially Falling in Love——"</p> + +<p>"Then you own he <i>did</i> fall in love with me?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course, of course! Certainly! No one denies that. But I really +think we ought to write to the Dorfensteins and get them to tell the +Savoy people to look after him. It's very sad. He has rather a nice +manner—nice eyes."</p> + +<p>Vera buried her face in her handkerchief.</p> + +<p>"Now don't worry, darling," said Felicity affectionately. "Be out when +he calls, and I'm quite sure we shall soon find some one quite sane who +will amuse you just as much."</p> + +<p>"Never!" sobbed Vera. "It's just like my luck! Oh, and the books I +ordered, and the new dress. I can never bear to look at them."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It's a very good thing we found it out," said Felicity.</p> + +<p>"But how on earth does Bertie know?"</p> + +<p>"He knows everything—about people, I mean—and he's always right. In +fact, he sent you a message to ask you to be very careful, and said he'd +come and see you about it."</p> + +<p>"Rather cool! It seems I can't have <i>any</i> secret to myself now," panted +Mrs. Ogilvie.</p> + +<p>"Well, you see, dear, you <i>did</i> ask me to get all the information I +could, and after all I only told Bertie you <i>met</i> Mr. Ferguson. He +guessed that he would fall in love with you, and bring you a bouquet +early in the morning, and write you a lot of letters about philosophy."</p> + +<p>"How did he know?"</p> + +<p>"Well, if you don't mind my saying so, dear, it's because it's what he +always does."</p> + +<p>Vera began to laugh.</p> + +<p>"Tell Bertie he need not trouble to call about it, I'd rather forget +it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course he won't <i>now</i>!"</p> + +<p>"He doesn't know, then, that I was in love with him? Besides, I wasn't."</p> + +<p>"Certainly he doesn't. Besides, you weren't."</p> + +<p>"I hate the sight of that bouquet," said Vera.</p> + +<p>"Yes, let's send it away; and now come for a drive with me."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span></p> + +<p>"All right, dear. I say, couldn't we countermand those philosophical +books?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course we will. What do you feel you'd like instead?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, something by Pett Ridge," said Vera, recklessly.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> + +<h3>AUNT WILLIAM'S DAY</h3> + + +<p>It was a chilly spring afternoon and Aunt William was seated by the fire +doing wool-work, for she disapproved of the idle habits of the present +day and thought that a lady should always have her fingers employed in +some way; not, of course, either with cards or cigarettes. She was +getting on steadily with the foot-stool she was making; a neat design of +a fox's head with a background of green leaves. In the course of her +life Aunt William had done many, many miles of wool-work. It was neither +embroidery nor tapestry; it was made on canvas with what is known for +some mysterious reason as Berlin wool; and was so simple that it used to +be called the Idiot Stitch; but the curious elaboration of the design +and sort of dignified middle-Victorian futility about it cast a glamour +over the whole, and dispelled any association of idiocy from the +complete work. A banner screen was now in front of the fire,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span> which Aunt +William had worked during a winter at St. Leonards, and which +represented enormous squashed roses like purple cauliflowers, with a +red-brown background—a shade called, in her youth, Bismarck brown, and +for which she always retained a certain weakness.</p> + +<p>It was her day, and on Aunt William's day she invariably wore a +shot-silk dress, shot with green and violet; the bodice trimmed with +bugles, the skirt plain and flowing. Aunt William did not have that +straight-fronted look that is such a consolation to our modern women who +are getting on in years, but went in decidedly at the waist, her figure +being like a neat pincushion. Her voice was deep, her mind of a somewhat +manly and decided order, so that the touches of feminine timidity or +sentiment taught her in early youth sat oddly enough on her now. In +reality she hated wool-work, but did it partly from tradition and partly +from a contrary disposition; because other people didn't like it, and +even because she didn't like it herself.</p> + +<p>Her first visitor was a very old and dear friend of hers whom she +particularly disliked and disapproved of, Lady Virginia Harper. Lady +Virginia was a very tall, thin, faded blonde, still full of shadowy +vitality, who wore a flaxen transformation so obviously artificial<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span> that +not the most censorious person by the utmost stretch of malice could +assume it was meant to deceive the public. With equal candour she wore a +magnificent set of teeth, and a touch of rouge on each cheek-bone. To +Aunt William's extreme annoyance Lady Virginia was dressed to-day in a +strange medley of the artistic style combined oddly with a rather wild +attempt at Parisian smartness. That is to say, in her cloak and furs she +looked almost like an outside coloured plate on the cover of <i>Paris +Fashions</i>; while when she threw it open one could see that she wore a +limp <i>crêpe de chine</i> Empire gown of an undecided mauve, with a waist +under the arms and puffed sleeves. On her head was a very smart bright +blue flower toque, put on entirely wrong, with a loose blue veil hanging +at the back. Had anything been required to decide the question of her +looking grotesque, I should mention that she wore long mauve <i>suède</i> +gloves. That settled it. A gold bag dangled from her left wrist, and she +carried a little fan of carved ivory. She looked, naturally,—or +unnaturally—slightly absurd, but had great distinction and no sort of +affectation, while an expression that alternated between amiable +enthusiasm and absent-minded depression characterised her shadowy +indefinite features.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span></p> + +<p>Aunt William received her with self-control, and she immediately asked +for tea.</p> + +<p>"Certainly. It is half-past three, and I regard five as tea-time. But as +you wish, dear Virginia." Aunt William pulled the bell with manly vigour +and ill-tempered hospitality.</p> + +<p>"Have you heard that <i>divine</i> new infant harpist? He's perfectly +exquisite—a genius. But <i>the</i> person I've come to talk to you about, +Mary, is the new singer, Delestin. He's perfectly heavenly! And so +good-looking! I've taken him up—quite—and I want you to be kind about +him, dear Mary."</p> + +<p>"I'll take two tickets for his concert," said Aunt William harshly. "But +I won't go to the concert and I won't come and hear him sing."</p> + +<p>"Now that's so like you, Mary! He isn't <i>giving</i> a concert, and I <i>want</i> +you to hear him sing. He's too charming. Such a gentle soft creature, +and so highly-strung. The other day after he had sung at my house—it +was something of Richard Strauss's, certainly a very enervating song, I +must own that—he simply fainted at the piano, and had to be taken away. +So, if you give a party, do have him, dear Mary! You will, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"Most certainly not! A protégé of yours who faints at the piano wouldn't +be at all suitable for one of <i>my</i> Evenings, thank you, Virginia."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span></p> + +<p>Lady Virginia did not answer. She evidently had not heard. She never +listened and never thought of one subject for more than two seconds at a +time. She used a long-handled lorgnette, but usually dropped it before +it had reached her eye.</p> + +<p>"Oh! and there's something else I wanted to speak to you about. A sweet +girl, a friend of mine (poor thing!), has lost her parents. They were +generals or clergymen or something, and she's obliged to do something, +so she's going in for hats. So sensible and brave of her! She's taken +the <i>sweetest</i> little shop just out of Bond Street. Do, dear, go and get +some toques there, for my sake. Won't you?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Some toques?</i>" repeated Aunt William. "I don't know what you mean. +Hats are not things you order by the half-dozen. I have my winter's +bonnet, my spring bonnet which I have got already, a sun-hat for +travelling in the summer, and so forth."</p> + +<p>"I got a beautiful picture-hat from her," said Lady Virginia dreamily. +"An enormous black one, with Nattier blue roses in front and white +feathers at the back—- only five guineas. But then she makes special +prices for me, of course."</p> + +<p>"No doubt she does," said Aunt William.</p> + +<p>"Of course I can't wear it, my dear," con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span>tinued Virginia. "I hate to +attract attention so, and I look too showy in a picture-hat with my fair +hair. But it was a kindness to the girl. Poor girl!"</p> + +<p>Aunt William was boiling over.</p> + +<p>"Of course you can't wear it. Do you imagine you can wear the hat you've +got on now, Virginia?"</p> + +<p>"What this? It's only a little flower toque."</p> + +<p>"At <i>our</i> age," said Aunt William, "<i>only</i> little flower toques, as you +call them, should be left to younger people. Oh how much nicer you would +look, Virginia, in a black or brown silk dress, and a close bonnet with +strings, say with a chrysanthemum or two, and a few bugles if you like. +It would be so much more suitable."</p> + +<p>"What <i>is</i> a close bonnet?" asked Lady Virginia, trying to concentrate +her thoughts and not in the least offended.</p> + +<p>The arrival of Savile at this moment created a diversion. His air of +inscrutability and self-restraint was neither more nor less marked than +usual; but, to the acute observer, it would have been evident that he +was crammed with suppressed and exciting information.</p> + +<p>"You remember my nephew, Virginia? My brother James's only son, you +know." Aunt William spoke proudly, as if his being an only son were some +remarkable merit of his own.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Not at all," murmured Savile indistinctly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, is he really? What a darling! I adore children," said Lady +Virginia, benevolently smiling at him. "And <i>so</i> tall for his age, too!"</p> + +<p>"You don't know his age," snapped Aunt William.</p> + +<p>"No, I don't; but I can see he's tall—a very fine child. What do you +learn at school, darling?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing much," said Savile, with patience.</p> + +<p>Lady Virginia laughed inconsequently.</p> + +<p>"What a clever boy he is! Children <i>are</i> so wonderful nowadays! When +Delestin was only six he played all Chopin's Valses and Liszt's +Rhapsodies by heart. Of course that's some time ago now, but it shows +what boys <i>can</i> do."</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" said Savile.</p> + +<p>"Who's your great friend at school, dear?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—I suppose Sweeny's my <i>greatest</i> pal. He's in the eleven," added +Savile explanatorily.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes! I daresay—a very nice boy too. He has a marvellous likeness +to you, Mary dear," Lady Virginia said, using the long-handled glass, +"especially about the—well—the ears—and forehead. Are you musical, my +dear?"</p> + +<p>"I like some of it," said Savile, with a sigh.</p> + +<p>"You're like James, too," said Lady Virginia, "and I think I see a look +of his mother, Mary."</p> + +<p>"You never saw her, and you know it," said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span> Aunt William, who always +tried in vain to pin Virginia down to facts.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but that was merely by chance," said Lady Virginia, getting into +her cloak. "Then I shall expect you, Mary, to come and hear Delestin +play? Oh, no, I forgot—you said you couldn't. I'm so sorry; but I +<i>must</i> fly.... I've a thousand things to do. You know my busy life! I'm +the President of the Young Girls' Typewriting Society, and I have to go +and see about it. How we poor women ever get through the season with all +the work we do is more than I can ever understand."</p> + +<p>Aunt William became much more cordial at the prospect of her friend's +departure, and when Virginia had at last fluttered out, after dropping +the gold bag and the ivory fan twice, Savile said—</p> + +<p>"Do you expect <i>many</i> more visitors like that to-day, Aunt William?"</p> + +<p>"None like that."</p> + +<p>"Well, while you're alone I've got some news to tell you. Sylvia would +have come herself, but she's engaged—this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"Not engaged to be married, I suppose!" said Aunt William, with a sort +of triumphal archness.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you've hit it in once. At least, up to a certain point. It'll be +all right. But the Governor's a bit nasty—and the fact is, we want you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span> +to come and see him, and sort of talk him over, you know."</p> + +<p>"Savile! Do you mean it? How charming!... But who's the young man—and +what's the objection?"</p> + +<p>Savile thought a moment, and remembered her tinge of snobbishness. "He's +Sir Bryce Woodville's nephew. Chap who died. I mean, the uncle died. +It's Woodville, <i>you</i> know!"</p> + +<p>"Your father's secretary?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and a rattling good chap, too. Sylvia's liked him for ages, and he +didn't like to come up to the scratch because he was hard up. Now +something's turned up. Old Ridokanaki's written him a letter—wants him +to go into his bank. He'll have three thousand a year. It's only <i>habit</i> +with the Governor to pretend to mind. But a few words with you will +settle it. I'll tell you more about it later on."</p> + +<p>"I <i>am</i> amazed at the news, Savile. He's a very fine young man, but——"</p> + +<p>"He's all right, Aunt William."</p> + +<p>"But I thought the Greek gentleman with the unpronounceable name was +madly in love with Sylvia himself? I've often talked it over with your +father. He and I took opposite views."</p> + +<p>"So he was, but he's got some one else now. It's simply <i>got</i> to come +off. Now <i>will</i> you come and see us?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Certainly. When?"</p> + +<p>"As soon as possible. I wish you'd come now."</p> + +<p>"But this is my Day, Savile! How can I go out on my <i>Day</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Of course you can. You'll have heaps of other days, but none like +this—for Sylvia."</p> + +<p>Aunt William hesitated, then her intense romantic curiosity got the +upper hand.</p> + +<p>"Savile, I'll come back with you now! Do you think James will listen to +reason? He never agrees with me. And I don't know yet what to think +myself."</p> + +<p>"Of course he will. You're a brick, Aunt William. I'll tell you more +about it in the cab. It's as right as rain for Sylvia, or you may be +pretty certain <i>I</i> shouldn't have allowed it," said Savile.</p> + +<p>To get Aunt William to go out on her Day, a thing she had not done for +thirty years, was so great a triumph that he had little fear of not +getting her to be on the right side. He knew she always made a point of +disagreeing with his father on every subject under heaven, so he rubbed +in Sir James's opposition, and gradually worked on her sentimental side +until she was almost tearfully enthusiastic.</p> + +<p>"How shall I behave? Go right in and tell your father he must +consent?—or what?"</p> + +<p>"Play for safety," said Savile.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> + +<h3>THE TWELFTH HOUR</h3> + + +<p>Sir James was extremely annoyed with the weather. In his young days, as +he remarked with bitterness, spring was spring, and it didn't thunder +and snow in April. He was prattling pompously of the sunshine in the +past, when a sudden heavy shower of hail, falling rather defiantly in +spite of his hints, made him lose his temper. Sir James, looking angrily +up at the sky, declared that unless it stopped within half an hour he +would write to the <i>Times</i> about it.</p> + +<p>Whether or not this threat had any real meteorological influence, there +is no doubt that the clouds dispersed rather hastily, the sun hurriedly +appeared, and the weather promptly prepared to enable Sir James to +venture out, which he did with a gracious wave of the hand to the entire +horizon, as though willing to say no more about it.</p> + +<p>Sylvia had been as anxious for the thermo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span>meter to go up as her father +himself, for it was several days now since she had seen Woodville alone. +And he had been nervously counting the minutes until the moment of +freedom, having, to-day, a stronger reason than ever before to desire a +quiet talk.</p> + +<p>Woodville had expressed some remorse—not much, though considerably more +than he felt—for what Sylvia called his conduct during their last +interview, and she meant this morning to forgive him.</p> + +<p>"I've only come," said Sylvia, sitting opposite him at the +writing-table, "because I saw you were <i>really</i> sorry for ... the other +day. <i>Are</i> you sorry?"</p> + +<p>"Awfully."</p> + +<p>"<i>That's</i> not very flattering," said Sylvia.</p> + +<p>"I wanted you, too, dreadfully this morning," he said eagerly. "I've got +something wonderful to tell you—to show you."</p> + +<p>"Anything dreadful?" she asked, turning pale.</p> + +<p>He took out a letter.</p> + +<p>"Listen! Since the other day I had made up my mind to go away from here. +I began to see I couldn't bear it. At least, for a time."</p> + +<p>"What!" cried Sylvia, rising to her feet.</p> + +<p>"Yes. But you needn't worry. I've changed my mind, darling. And before I +tell you any more——"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span></p> + +<p>He leant across the writing-table and kissed her softly, and at some +length.</p> + +<p>"Now," he said, "read this letter."</p> + +<p>"From the Greek fiend! Is he trying to take you away from me again?"</p> + +<p>"No, he's not. Read it aloud."</p> + +<p>Sylvia read:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="author"> +"'<span class="smcap">Ritz Hotel, Paris.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>"'My dear Woodville,—In the short time since I had the pleasure of +seeing you, certain changes have come over my views on many +subjects; my future is likely to be entirely different from what I +had supposed, and I felt impelled to let you know, before any one +else, of the unexpected happiness that is about to dawn for me.'</p></div> + +<p>"Oh, Frank, how long-winded and flowery!"</p> + +<p>"Never mind that. It's his style always when he's sentimental. Do go on +reading."</p> + +<p>Sylvia went on. "'I was greatly disappointed at first to know you were +unwilling to go to Athens. Perhaps, however, it is better as it is. +Briefly, I have found in la <i>ville lumière</i> what I had longed for and +despaired of—a reciprocal affection—that of a young and innocent +girl—'"</p> + +<p>"Sylvia, don't waste time. Go on!"</p> + +<p>"'My heart'"—Sylvia continued to read—"'is filled with joy; but I will +not take up all my letter to you with ecstatic rhapsodies; nor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span> will I +indulge myself by referring to her beauty, her charm, her Madonna-like +face and sylph-like form. Her extraordinary affection for me (I speak +with all humility)—tempered as it naturally was by the modesty of her +age (she is barely seventeen)—was, I think, what first drew me towards +her. We are to be married in May. You know that the sorrow of my life +was that I had never been loved for myself. I have been called a +successful man, but in my own heart I know that this is the only real +success I have ever had during fifty-five years. It is certainly a great +pleasure to think, as I do, that I shall be able to give my Gabrielle +all (humanly speaking) that she can desire....'"</p> + +<p>"Will you stop laughing? You <i>must</i> get through the preliminaries, +Sylvia!"</p> + +<p>"It seems all preliminaries," murmured Sylvia.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"'But, in my happiness, your troubles are not forgotten: and I hope now +to be able to remove them in all essentials.</p> + +<p>"'First, let me ask you to remember me to Miss Sylvia, and to tell her +that with the deepest respect I now formally relinquish all hopes of her +hand.'</p></div> + +<p>"Very kind of him! He seems to claim some merit for not wanting to marry +us both," Sylvia cried.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"'No doubt you remember my telling you of a post, similar to that +which I proposed for you in the bank at Athens, and that might be +vacant soon, in London. Since, to please my bride, (who is devoted +to her mother), I intend to make my home in Paris, I have made +arrangements for you to take that post now, if you will.</p> + +<p>"'Shortly after this epistle a formal note will reach you, +explaining all details. You will, I am sure, not refuse me the +great pleasure of smoothing a little your path, under the present +circumstances—since it is a very dear wish of mine to see you and +Miss Sylvia happy.</p> + +<p>"'I foresee no obstacles now to your wishes. Explain to Sir James +that I intend to be your best friend, and shall be able, no doubt, +to be of great assistance to you if you adopt this career.</p> + +<p>"'At some future date I hope to present to you Mademoiselle de +Beaugarde—and looking forward to your reply, I remain,</p> + +<p class="author2"> +"'My dear Woodville,</p> +<p class="author3">"'Yours, with a thousand good wishes,</p> +<p class="author">"'<span class="smcap">G. Ridokanaki</span>. +</p> + +<p>"'P.S.—I should have written at greater length, but I am expecting +Madame Beaugarde and her daughter, as I am to escort them to see +some pictures. You will, therefore, grant me <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span>your indulgence for +the bold, almost abrupt way in which I have conveyed to you my +news. You will make excuses for the happy lover! She has an oval +face, with a peach-like complexion. Her eyes resemble sapphires: +her teeth are like pearls. Let me hear from you soon.'"</p></div> + +<p>"Now, isn't he a wonderful chap?" asked Woodville. "And the best fellow +in the world. I always liked him. How gifted he is! He describes people +in detail, and by the yard, without giving one the very slightest idea +of their appearance. He has a real genius for platitudes."</p> + +<p>"And what an original description! Peach cheeks and sapphire eyes! Fruit +and jewellery! But I daresay she's a dear, and I forgive him now. And +Frank, <i>do</i> you realise what this means—to us?"</p> + +<p>"I've been realising it since the first post this morning, Sylvia."</p> + +<p>"You'll accept it?"</p> + +<p>"Naturally. Everything is right, as you said it would be. We'll tell Sir +James to-day."</p> + +<p>"Look here, darling Frank, let me ring up a messenger to send a wire at +<i>once</i> to accept, so that nothing can come between us!"</p> + +<p>"Not just yet," said Woodville.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Savile's only comment when they told him was, "Just like that rotter to +prefer another<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span> alien!" and he immediately wrote brief notes to Chetwode +and Jasmyn Vere.</p> + +<p>Sir James heard the news with real surprise and conventional +indignation, principally because it was his practice to receive news in +that way.</p> + +<p>He refused his consent, sent Sylvia to her room, and turning round on +Savile declared that the whole thing was caused by the disgraceful +idleness of that boy, who ought to be at school. Such long holidays were +not heard of in his younger days, and did the greatest harm mentally and +physically to the boys and all their relatives.</p> + +<p>The arrival of Aunt William diverted the storm. Sir James became far +more angry with her for defending the young people than with them for +requiring defence.</p> + +<p>When she had left, he said that perhaps he would take it into +consideration in a couple of years, if Woodville left the house at once, +and they neither met nor corresponded in the interval.</p> + +<p>At dinner he began to chaff them a little, and said Sylvia always got +her own way with him.</p> + +<p>After dinner, when he was smoking in the library, the desire to say +"Take her, you dog, and be happy," or words to that effect, was too +strong for him. He sent for Woodville, con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span>sented enthusiastically, and +from that moment began to believe that with farseeing thoughtfulness he +had planned her marriage from the very beginning. And he began to look +forward to the list of political and other celebrities that would appear +in the papers the day after the wedding.</p> + +<p>Of course it was to be a long engagement and a quiet wedding; but +entirely through the eager impetuosity of Sir James, they were married +in six weeks, and every one said that in general splendour and +gorgeousness it surpassed even the wedding of Sir James's elder +daughter. Savile's attitude as best man was of such extraordinary +correctness that it was the feature of the ceremony, and even distracted +public attention from the bride and bridegroom.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<p class="fm3">THE END</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="transnote"> +<h3>Transcriber's note<a name="tnotes" id="tnotes"></a></h3> + +<p> +The following changes have been made to the text:</p> + +<p>Page 9: "expert in hand-writing" changed to "expert in +<a name="cn1" id="cn1"></a><a href="#corr1">handwriting</a>".</p> + +<p>Page 12: "I bar him rather" changed to "I +<a name="cn2" id="cn2"></a><a href="#corr2">bear</a> him rather".</p> + +<p>Page 58: "goodlooking young man" changed to +"<a name="cn3" id="cn3"></a><a href="#corr3">good-looking</a> young man".</p> + +<p>Page 96: "Wont you make" changed to +"<a name="cn4" id="cn4"></a><a href="#corr4">Won't</a> you make".</p> + +<p>Page 111: "St.James's" changed to +"<a name="cn5" id="cn5"></a><a href="#corr5">St. James's</a>".</p> + +<p>Page 155: "blue-green Empire teagown" changed to "blue-green Empire +<a name="cn6" id="cn6"></a><a href="#corr6">tea-gown</a>".</p> + +<p>Page 159: ""Bertie Wilton?" axclaimed" changed to ""Bertie Wilton?" +<a name="cn7" id="cn7"></a><a href="#corr7">exclaimed</a>".</p> + +<p>Page 173: "Saville their only confidant" changed to +"<a name="cn8" id="cn8"></a><a href="#corr8">Savile</a> their only +confidant".</p> + +<p>Page 218: "in tears and a teagown" changed to "in tears and a +<a name="cn9" id="cn9"></a><a href="#corr9">tea-gown</a>".</p> + +<p>Page 228: "you going to do today" changed to "you going to do +<a name="cn10" id="cn10"></a><a href="#corr10">to-day</a>".</p> + +<p>Page 243: "sooth-sayer is a marvel" changed to +"<a name="cn11" id="cn11"></a><a href="#corr11">soothsayer</a> is a marvel".</p> +</div> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TWELFTH HOUR***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 27554-h.txt or 27554-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/5/5/27554">http://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/5/5/27554</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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