“Don’t you worry,” said Fay kindly. “You’ve got a fine figure, and no one’ll overlook you. And your song’s a treat, a fair treat. Got three curtains last night, didn’t you?”
“Yes. Glad you like it. There’s a rattling good ’ouse to-night. See you later, Fay.”
“Used to be one of the prettiest girls on the halls,” explained Fay, as Miss Belle de Laney vanished; “used to know my mother. She’s a good sort, too. Husband’s a swine, and won’t do no work, and she keeps him and four kids, and makes no growl about it either. Now, Jack, I’m on in a few minutes. Take your sister round to the front. Old Moser’ll put you in a box ... la, la, la, la.... H’m!... How do I look? Knock ’em in the Old Kent Roadish? Emerald green and orange, my own idea. Got it from seeing some oranges lying with the spinach in the kitchen. Bit of shick, ain’t it? See the saucy garters?” She suddenly bestowed a hug upon Claudia. “I like you no end. I watched you just now, and you didn’t turn up your nose at Belle. Of course, she’s as common as dirt, I know that. Still, I believe in good hearts. We’re going to be real sisters, aren’t we? You can teach me the ways of high society, because I don’t want the boy to be ashamed of me. I’ll catch on quick enough if you’ll only give me a few tips, and I can keep my mouth shut if I want to.” She turned with a characteristically quick gesture—she reminded Claudia of an active robin—and caught Jack by the lapels of his coat.
“You’re not angry with me, Jumbo, are you? What does it matter?”
“I’m not exactly angry,” said Jack, looking into her face, “only, don’t you see, things are different now, and a—a man—can’t give jewellery—to a lady who is—is the wife of another man.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Moses in the bulrushes! why not? Most women would like to get the chance of having pendants. It’s a souvenny, Jack, for luck. And it’s so pretty. I’m straight now all right, so it don’t mean nothing. Crikey! that’s his second song. I must go down. Perkins, give me my coat. Here”—she rushed back again to the table and thrust a bunch of carnations into Claudia’s hand—“throw these down to me. It looks well. See you afterwards.”
CHAPTER X
“THE STAR TURN.”
Claudia had never been behind the scenes of a theatre, and she found the va et vient, the bustle and hurry of a music-hall almost bewildering, so that she received the vaguest impressions of her journey through to the front. She felt, rather than saw, the gloomy floor space behind the set littered with properties, all looking very ludicrous and childish. A man was evidently doing a song and patter turn to judge from the guffaws from the front of the house. She could see above her head men up in the flies controlling the limelight and the curtain, all of whom were in their shirt-sleeves. In fact, Jack was the only conventionally dressed person she had seen since she entered the theatre.
She was hurried along to a small door, which she found gave access to the house—Jack was evidently known to the man in charge, who nodded familiarly and called him “Capting”—and having descended some dusty, red-covered steps, she found herself suddenly in a little box in full view of the audience. Her first impression was that she had never seen so many people so tightly squeezed together before, and so intent on the comedian with the red nose and battered silk hat who was holding forth from the middle of the stage. All the theatres she had ever seen had been more or less roomy, but these people reminded her of an old-fashioned solid bouquet, except that there was practically no colour in the house. In a West-End theatre various bits of colour strike the eye, especially in the stalls and dress-circle; but as the curtain descended to great applause she saw that the house was a study in black and white—the clothing black, the faces white. There must have been some bits of colour, but they did not show. Her second impression was that she had never before realized how toiling humanity in a mass can smell. It was the odour of toil and scanty bathing, mingled with the inevitable orange and the reek of gas.
A number went up in the slot at the side—twelve—the star turn of the evening, The Girlie Girl.
The orchestra struck up one of her popular songs, and the audience, and especially the gallery boys—they looked to Claudia as though they were hanging on the ceiling by their eyelashes like flies—began to cheer and beat time to the music. She happened to glance at Jack, and she was amused to see a complacent smile taking the place of the dumbly-worried look he had been wearing since the episode of the pendant.
“They adore her,” he whispered. “She believes in making friends with the gallery boys. She says it’s the secret of her success.... I say, Claud, what could I do about that beastly pendant? She doesn’t see things as we do. She’s like a blessed babe, or a savage, in some things.”
A huge burst of cheering stopped any further conversation, and Claudia found herself looking down at her sister-in-law laughing and kissing her hands to the gallery. In the limelight she looked extraordinarily pretty and alive, and there was no man present that could have failed to see the gamine charm of her, though he might not have wanted to espouse her. Her blue eyes laughed in a friendly fashion at the house and her pretty feet began to dance to the measure while she waved aloft a sort of d’Orsay walking-stick tied up with green and orange ribbons.
Her voice, though sweet—unusually sweet for the music-halls—was nothing wonderful, and Claudia detected already signs of hard wear. She had a few particularly good notes in her top register, but it was not for her voice that she was so applauded. There was an air of infectious gaiety, a “I-like-you-and-you-like-me” camaraderie that made the vapid song and words—how incredibly bad the words were!—seem amusing.
The song was all about a ladybird and a rose in an old-fashioned garden. The rose was sweet and innocent, and the ladybird “knew a bit.” It was neither funny nor frankly improper; but the audience roared with laughter, especially when she completed each verse with a huge wink. At the end of the song she threw a kiss deliberately up to their box, which made the entire audience turn and look at them, and reduced Claudia to a state of helpless and fiery embarrassment.
“All right, boys, it’s my husband,” called out the Girlie Girl, with a chuckle, as she departed into the wings. There followed a burst of yelling, cat-calling and clapping, with cries of “Good luck!” “Send us a bit of cake, Girlie,” “Keep him in order,” “Wish you joy!”
Claudia was sorry she had not put on a veil or a more shady hat. She knew that her face was scarlet. She had never been in such a scene in her life, and she took no pleasure in being conspicuous at any time. Jack was looking sheepish, but evidently he was more used to such things.
The audience went on singing the chorus of her last song while Fay was changing in the wings. Then the orchestra struck up another tune as she appeared in a smart little vivandière costume of blue, with red facings, and a cap that was stuck coquettishly sideways on her huge bunch of curls. This time she led the singing of the chorus from the stage, every now and then ceasing to sing herself, and beating time with encouraging gestures to the rather hoarse, flat voices of the crowd. It was a wonderful sight to Claudia, who was so fascinated that she forgot her embarrassment and leaned forward. As she looked round the house all the lips seemed moving—men and women, boys and children.
The audience would not part with her, and after taking eight curtains she came back to sing the last verse once more.
“Now boys, I want you to sing loudly this time. Let’s raise the roof and take the slates off. Shan’t be coming to Milton Green for a long time. Don’t whisper—sing. All of you sing, Tom and Bill, and Kate and Mary. Sing out as you would if you got your wages doubled to-morrow. Now....”
The packed audience positively yelled, and Fay laughing, kept on encouraging them with remarks:
“Go it, boys!... It’s a cure for sore throats.... Get it off your chests.... Bill, you’re not opening your mouth wide enough; no flies to-night.... Mary, a bit louder....”
Then how the tragedy happened no one ever quite understood. Fay was laughing and kissing her little hands up to the gallery, as alive as a piece of quicksilver, when the heavy curtain came down suddenly, and before anyone could shout, struck her. Claudia, who had risen in horror, caught a look of almost childish surprise in the blue eyes before Fay lay flattened out on the ground the two pretty arms thrown out helplessly in front of her, the curtain, as it were, cutting her in two.
For a moment there was a horrible awed hush; then a woman in the audience gave vent to a piercing shriek, and immediately a tumult of cries and shouts filled the auditorium. Claudia, who had been almost stunned by the suddenness of the thing, had just time to see the men fighting their way to the front, apparently with some vague idea of raising the curtain off the little body, when she saw the curtain move up a few inches and half a dozen hands gently drag the body behind it. She turned to Jack. He was staring down at the stage, his face ashen grey, his eyes starting out of his head. But he made no movement to go to his wife.
“Jack,” she panted, “we must go round. Quick! Don’t you want to get to her?”
Still he did not move, nor did he seem to hear her. He was still staring down at the stage.
“Jack!” she shook his arm. “Rouse yourself! Come quick!”
He seemed to awaken with a shudder, and she drew him into the shadow of the box.
“I can’t,” he said, with dry lips and shaking from head to foot. “I can’t.... Is she dead?”
Claudia was unaware of the great weight of the curtain, and tried to speak encouragingly.
“No, no, of course not.... Jack, you must go to her.”
“I can’t stand things like that,” he whispered, passing his hand over his clammy forehead. “You know I never could.... Oh, my God! she’s dead! Fay’s dead, and I saw her killed!”
Claudia remembered that he never could stand ugly sights or any kind of illness or decay. His ordinary good-nature entirely deserted him at such times. He had refused to go and see an old schoolfellow in his last illness, and had always tried to escape visiting his grandmother, who had died slowly of cancer.
“Jack, you must!” cried Claudia hotly, propelling him to the door. “Don’t be a coward. Perhaps she’s only stunned and wants you. You’ve got to play the man, or I’ll never speak to you again.”
Even the biting contempt in her voice did not rouse him; but he allowed himself to be dragged like one in a dream through the door and up the red stairs.
“For the sake of your manhood and the honour of the Iversons, if not for poor Fay, pull yourself together,” said Claudia sharply, as they stepped upon the stage.
A group of men were bending down over something that had been laid on a pile of coats. Others were crowding together, talking in excited, frightened whispers. The stout lady came rushing on the stage, sobbing hysterically and wringing her red hands. The orchestra commenced to play again.
A man came pushing his way after them through the door from the auditorium. Accustomed as she was to the conventional garb of West End physicians, Claudia was surprised to hear this man in a pepper-and-salt suit say: “I’m a doctor. Let me go to her.”
Jack was still dazed. With a last glance of contempt at him, Claudia went forward and took command of the situation. “Please, doctor, do all you can. I am her sister-in-law. Tell me what we should do.”
She followed him towards the little group, inwardly shrinking and desperately frightened, but outwardly calm and collected. She stood with the stage hands, as one of them. She could see by their faces that they feared a bad verdict.
Various hoarse whispers reached her while she waited, feeling as though the world had suddenly turned topsy-turvy.
“ ... The next turn ... can’t go on.... Let the orchestra play.... Tell the audience she isn’t badly hurt ... turned my blood cold.... Hadn’t time to shout.... Who dropped the damned thing?... Must have broken her spine.... Rather anyone than The Girlie Girl.”
The doctor had risen from his examination and was coming towards her. She nerved herself for a shock; but she could hear her own heart thumping against her ribs.
“Not—not——” She could not get the words out of her dry lips.
The doctor gravely shook his head. “No, she’s alive. Bad injury to the spine, I should say. Get her to a hospital”—then taking in the quality of the woman who had said she was the sister-in-law—“or to her home at once and call in a specialist.”
Claudia read the look in his eyes, which was compounded of pity and deep emotion. She had seen that look once in the eyes of a man who had been entrusted with the task of breaking the news of her husband’s death to a poor woman on their country estate.
“Is she—very bad?” she whispered. “Will she die?”
“I’m afraid not—yet.”
Claudia reeled up against a piece of scenery. She never forgot that moment. The orchestra playing a rag-time melody, the stout woman sobbing, the regret in the eyes of the doctor.
“You mean——”
“It’s not likely she will ever move off her bed again. She’s paralysed.”
CHAPTER XI
“OUT AT SEA”
Such confusion as existed in Fay’s flat that night Claudia had never conceived possibly. Life in Circe’s household had been somewhat erratic occasionally, but there had been a sort of order in the disorder, and a certain peaceful current had always flowed over internal convulsions. But in Fay’s home everything in the way of discipline and order—if there ever were any—fell to pieces when she was carried home unconscious. The two domestics wailed and sobbed—Polly at first went into hysterics, and had to have cold water thrown over her—the telephone bell went incessantly, and almost before Fay had been put to bed by Claudia, newspaper reporters filled the hall with insistent inquiries.
Claudia, though she kept her head pretty well and controlled the panic in her heart, had always been accustomed to have competent underlings to do things for her, and she did not know what ought to be done in such a crisis, what specialist should be fetched, and where to obtain a nurse at a minute’s notice.
It was Colin Paton who came to the rescue in answer to her telephone inquiries, and reduced order out of chaos.
Directly she saw him walk into the hall Claudia felt a sense of instant relief. In a few minutes the reporters had all gone, the telephone-bell rang no more, and the specialist and nurse were on their way. No one seemed surprised that he should take command, the servants obeyed him without a query. He seemed to have an almost mesmeric calming effect on everyone.
“Where’s your brother?” he asked, as soon as he had a moment to spare for essentials.
“He’s shut himself in the dining-room.” She told him of his attitude.
“It’s partly physical, just as some men—the bravest—cannot stand the sight of blood. But I must talk to him.... Claudia, you are dead tired. There’s nothing more to be done at the moment. She’s still unconscious.” The clock in the room struck eleven, and she dropped wearily into a chair. His keen eyes suddenly took on a tenderness that she did not see as they searched her drawn face. “Have you had a meal this evening?”
She shook her head without raising her eyes, for she suddenly felt a weak sort of feeling, so that she was afraid if she looked up and met his gaze the tears would come running down her cheeks. He would despise her for such an exhibition, but everything—everything seemed so wrong and miserable.
“Then you’ll have one at once.... Yes, I know you feel as if you can’t eat, but you must.” He put his hand on her shoulder, and there was something so sympathetic and yet so invigorating in his touch that she felt new courage flow into her veins. She did not know that the sight of two tears that would escape down her cheeks ere she could overcome her weakness nearly unnerved him, and made the cheap tawdry little room suddenly blur before his eyes.
What he said to Jack, Claudia never knew, but ten minutes later Jack came out of the dining-room looking like a whipped cur, but holding his head with a certain forced rigidity, and his lips were steady as he said to her:
“Claudia, is there anything I can do? I’ve been a beast, I know. Shall I”—he could not control a wince of repugnance—“shall I go to her?”
She told him that she was still unconscious. “But when she recovers, if she asks for you, you must go to her.”
“Yes, I will, I will. Only, Claud, for God’s sake don’t go away and leave us to-night. I couldn’t stand that.”
Claudia looked at Paton inquiringly. Everyone seemed to be doing that to-night. There was a slight pinkness of her eyes, and somehow, to Paton, it gave her a new and rather pathetic character. The dark eyes were very heavy but curiously beautiful in the white face, and the hard brilliancy that had characterized them recently had temporarily vanished.
“I’ll stay, too, if you wish,” said Paton simply, “but in case she recovers consciousness she might like to see a woman she knows as well as her nurse. A woman is always such a comfort to another in time of illness, don’t you think?”
“I hardly know,” admitted Claudia, trying to force some soup down her throat, “you see, I’ve never been in contact with such things as—grave illnesses. Of course I’ll stay.”
The specialist had arrived by this time, and Paton left the brother and sister together. Claudia tried to comfort him as she would have a child.
“I don’t mean to be heartless,” blubbered Jack, his face working pitiably, “only you don’t know how I feel.... I do love her.... I’m sorry I was so cross about the pendant. She put it on for luck.... Oh, God!”
It struck Claudia what a ridiculously immature couple Fay and Jack were. They were small ships that should have kept near shore, and now Destiny had blown them suddenly out to sea. And she herself was tacking about in the wind, blown this way and that, and finding no place where she might safely anchor. Somewhere at the back of her mind she knew Frank Hamilton was no permanent anchorage for any woman. Surely, the children of Circe were not the luckiest of mortals!
It seemed ages before Paton came back to them. Jack was drinking himself into a fuddled state, and Claudia was too anxious herself to keep watch over him. Afterwards she realized that she could have written an inventory of that commonplace room.
His face told them that he had no good news before he spoke.
“Tell us the worst,” said Jack thickly, “always better to know everything.”
“The medical verdict is paraphlegia. Fatal injury to the nerves at the base of the spine.... She’s coming round now. She can’t feel any pain, that’s one blessing, poor child.”
“That means—she is paralysed?” whispered Claudia.
“From the waist downwards ... she may live for some time. I think, Claudia, it would be kind of you to go to her. The strange nurse might frighten her. I don’t think we ought—to tell her there’s no hope. The doctor says it is always better in such cases to let the patient think she will recover. Keeps the mind from dwelling on the inevitable. You understand, Jack?”
Jack nodded, and then dropping his head on his hands, commenced to cry.
“My little Fay.... Never to dance again. I can’t believe it.... Never still from morning till night.... I’m sorry I was cross about the pendant....”
Claudia stole softly into the garish, pretentious bedroom that seemed to mock them all with its air of coquetry. The nurse had reduced it to something like order, but the thousand and one knickknacks were still lying about, and Claudia found the pale blue satin bows odious. Two tiny white satin slippers were on a chair. Claudia averted her eyes from them. They would never dance gleefully any more.
She found Fay lying with her blue eyes fixed wonderingly on the nurse, who was trying to induce her to take a restorative.
“Why are you here?” she was saying wonderingly. “You’re a real nurse, aren’t you? I don’t understand. Why am I—Oh!” She gave a cry of relief at the sight of Claudia that accomplished the conquest of her sister-in-law’s heart. “You’ll tell me. I like you. What’s the matter? Oh! I do feel that tired, too tired to move!”
“Don’t you remember, dear, the curtain came down and hit you. You—you fainted, you know. We thought we’d get a nurse, because you—you’ll have to stop in bed and rest for a while, and nurses know how to make one so comfortable, don’t they?”
Her eyes jumped and snapped. “Ill? Me ill? Good gracious! then I can’t play next week at Shepherd’s Bush? I say, I must let them know at once. I’m topping the bill, and——”
“Don’t worry about that,” said Claudia soothingly, “we’ll arrange that for you.”
Fay was silent for quite a minute, and Claudia wondered of what she was thinking, but she did not dare to inquire. What was going on in that unformed, unreflective brain? Had she any suspicion?
“I heard of a man being struck by a curtain once,” she said suddenly. “I must claim damages immediately. You instruct Samuels.... The pendant didn’t bring me luck, after all.... I ought to get heavy damages. I’ll talk to Samuels about it to-morrow.”
CHAPTER XII
“ASHES”
The following Monday morning brought an ugly scene with Gilbert, who learned not only the tragic and sensational news from the daily paper, but his wife’s part in it. For somehow the reporters had found out that she was present at the performance, and “the beautiful Mrs. Currey” was credited in one sensational rag with having “dashed forward heroically to try and save her sister-in-law, The Girlie Girl, from the impact of the curtain.” Claudia had not reckoned for this notoriety, and if Gilbert had shown any human sympathy with poor Fay she would have forgiven his ebullition of temper as excusable under the circumstances.
“You deliberately took advantage of my being in the country to frequent low music-halls with this woman,” he flung at her, his eyes bloodshot with anger.
Claudia controlled her rising anger. “I went on the spur of the moment, Gilbert. Jack came in to fetch me on Saturday afternoon.”
“I suppose you’ve been planning it for some time,” he sneered. “It was a nice thing to have to explain to my father and mother. My mother! who has never been in a music-hall in her life.”
“Perhaps it would do her good if she had.... You talk as if I knew what was going to happen.”
“Scandal on scandal!”
“Scandal! Is that all you can call it?” cried Claudia, a picture of Fay, so pitifully flattened out under the curtain, rising before her eyes. “Do you realize that she is paralysed for life—that everything is finished for her?”
“It’s a pity she wasn’t killed outright,” returned Gilbert callously, “instead of remaining a disgrace to the family. But my mother warned me long ago,” he added injudiciously, almost beside himself with rage, for now these paroxysms grew on him and contorted any sense of fairness or kindness that had ever been in his composition.
“Of what did your mother warn you?” said Claudia, her nostrils dilating, her eyes flashing. “Of marrying me? I insist on an answer.”
“This isn’t the first scandal in your family, is it? I’m not throwing your mother’s sins up against you, you are not responsible for her; but why on earth have you got the same flair for the sensational? You’ve deliberately courted this by going to see this—this woman.”
“Don’t call her ‘this woman,’ as though she were a leper,” said Claudia passionately. “She’s earned her living by hard work ever since she was fourteen years old. How many women can boast of that? What if she hasn’t led a conventional life? A good many women whom you shake by the hand are a good deal less virtuous, and certainly far less honest. Because she hasn’t dodged behind a wedding-ring or covered up her tracks you look upon her with contempt. And even if she were the most unscrupulous, mercenary creature alive, you might be sorry now. Twenty-two, and life over for her!” To Claudia, with her Grecian appreciation of youth and life, this seemed a tragedy of tragedies. Once, as a child, when a gambolling puppy from the stables had got under the wheels of the brougham and been killed she had wept for days, and as she had looked down at the little fat white body that would never frisk any more, she had learned a lesson never to be forgotten. The puppy had taught her early to see the inestimable boon of youth and life. To be alive, to have all one’s faculties and powers of enjoyment, that is the great gift of the gods, she had told herself then. There had always been something of the pagan in her, and she had ever refused to believe that death is the gate of Life.
“So you are sprouting the modern jargon, are you?” said Gilbert angrily. “Listen, Claudia. You married me, and you must respect my name. I thought you were different from the women in your set, or I should not have married you. Apparently you are not different, but I am different from the husbands of those women. You’d better remember that. I allow you to go your own way, I give you perfect liberty, but on condition that you do not drag my name into club smoking-rooms and smart restaurants. There has never been a breath of talk about my mother, and there shall not be about my wife. If you want that kind of notoriety—you will not remain my wife.”
Claudia stood motionless, listening to this outburst, very erect, her head thrown up, her neck making a beautiful but disdainful line with her chin. A sarcastic, enigmatic smile played round her sensitive mouth, and her eyes were cold and keenly critical. She had suddenly seen the coarseness of his lips, the deadly, soul-destroying coldness of his self-satisfied, sombre eyes. He was merely a male, a high-handed, aggressive male, with the highly specialized brain of a lawyer. Heart? When had he ever shown any heart? She had never once touched his heart, only his senses. His feeling for his mother and father was only a sort of clannish family pride. Why, even Jack’s love for Fay, lacking as it was in all the big qualities that make love worth while, was a much finer thing than Gilbert’s feeling for her. For a moment a revulsion of shame, a feeling of humiliation swept over her at the thought of what she had given him.
“If you were not afraid of being laughed at, of being made to look small, you wouldn’t care a jot what I did, would you?” she said with deadly precision. “You have a profound contempt for women, haven’t you? You married me for my looks, because I aroused your passion, because it is the general habit of man to instal a woman in his home. I am installed here and I have the privilege of calling myself Mrs. Currey; otherwise, had I been a woman of lower station and more easy virtue, you would have fired me out long ago, wouldn’t you? I am to live on the ashes of your passion—I, a woman with no children! You are asking too much, my husband. As for that poor, maimed child, I shall go to her as often as she wants me.”
She was surprised, when he had gone, at the calmness with which she could turn to her ordinary occupations. She felt anger, contempt, the sting of her own humiliation, but he had no longer the power to wound her heart. She remembered the time—was it ages ago or only a year or so?—when, after an altercation or lack of response on his part, she had fled to her room and sobbed or brooded until she had made herself ill. Then her being had been shaken to its foundations, and she had felt the results on her nervous system for days.
But this morning, once the fierce blaze of her anger had burned out, she shrugged her shoulders and sat down to her escritoire. She must make her life without Gilbert. To allow a man she neither loved nor respected to destroy her balance would be a sign of weakness.
She was organizing, with Colin Paton, a concert in aid of a home for Penniless Gentlewomen, a charity which had always aroused her sympathy, and there was a good deal to be done. She was herself feeing Mrs. Milton to sing, and she had promised to come in that morning and give her some advice on the other artistes to be engaged.
It was not long before the maid showed her into her boudoir, but a much smarter-looking woman than she had been at Mrs. Rivington’s party. Claudia had contrived to make her accept one or two modish dresses without hurting her feelings or her dignity, and she had also secured her several lucrative engagements. It is needless to say that Margaret Milton’s generous heart held almost an adoration for Claudia.
“I hope I’m not late,” she said, as she came into the room, “but I had to do a little grave-digging before I could get away. Ugh! I thought the whole neighbourhood would be poisoned, the monkeys!”
Claudia laughingly inquired whose grave she had been digging.
“You must know that a favourite cat died about a month ago, and was gathered to—the other cats in limbo. I allowed the children to bury it in the back garden—quite deep—and erect a tombstone. This morning, just as I was coming out, I became aware of an awful effluvia in the house. I wondered if the drains had suddenly gone wrong, and rushed round distraught. I found it was worse at the back of the house. Then I looked out of the window and saw——”
“No!”
“Yes. They had disinterred the cat to see how ‘she was getting on.’”
After they had both laughed over the children’s enterprise, they got to work. Claudia asked her opinion about an accompanist.
“Lucy Hamilton used to accompany most sympathetically, but—no—I don’t suppose she would have decent clothes to come up in, and I daresay she may not have kept up her music.”
“Lucy Hamilton,” repeated Claudia, “not a sister of——?”
“Yes, Frank’s old-maid sister. Poor Lucy! She had such talent, and she was sacrificed to him right along.”
Claudia pondered a minute. “Does she still live somewhere in the country?”
“Salisbury. Yes, she gives music-lessons at a shilling an hour! It must be torture to her. Her old mother and she live in a tiny home together.”
“But, Mrs. Milton,” said Claudia, bewildered, “are they as poor as all that? How can they be when——?” She stopped, and then she decided to put the question that had been on her lips. “Will she not accept help from her son Frank?”
“Oh, yes! he does help her—a little.” Then she continued thoughtfully: “It does seem wrong, doesn’t it, that people won’t pay for pictures nowadays. I suppose we shall soon have no artists.”
Claudia stared. “But he gets big prices now for his pictures. A couple of years ago, I know, he was nearly starving, but he gets his own prices now.”
It was Mrs. Milton’s turn to look startled. For the moment she had forgotten that Claudia and he were friends. She tried to gloss over what might have been an indiscretion.
“I’m glad to hear it; perhaps—no doubt he will be able to help them more soon.... I think Miss Ronald would accompany splendidly, and I’ve got her address at home.”
“Mrs. Milton,” went on Claudia, a curious expression in her eyes, “have you heard from this Lucy Hamilton recently? And has—Mrs. Hamilton been a good mother to him—them both?”
“I heard from Lucy only yesterday. I wanted her to come up for a change—you can’t think how she revels in a few concerts, it’s a joy to take her, and I can always get tickets—but her own words were: ‘I’m much too shabby to come to town; such a lot of pupils owe me money, and mother’s illness in the winter was expensive.’” She did not add that the writer had gone on to say that her brother did not like her to come to town unless she was decently dressed, and that though he was getting on and acquiring reputation, he could not at the moment help them more than he was doing.
“As for Mrs. Hamilton being a good mother,” went on Mrs. Milton, “she’s been one of the best. Her husband was a small solicitor and left them very badly off. It was she who screwed the money out of the housekeeping that Frank should go to Paris and study painting. Lucy, who was just as clever at music, had to teach herself. I do hope, now he is getting on, that Frank will make their lives easier.”
“You don’t like him?” said Claudia abruptly. There was a subtle something in Mrs. Milton’s tone that convinced her.
Mrs. Milton hesitated.
“You can speak quite honestly. Why not? You knew him for some years, did you not?”
“Yes, we lived next door to them in the High Street for years.... I think artists are always rather egotistical and selfish, don’t you? His mother adored him, and perhaps that doesn’t do a man any good. I want my boys to have happy memories of their youth and me, but I do try not to spoil them. I try and remember that they will be husbands to some nice girls later on. He always let her do all the giving ... one shouldn’t give too much, however much one loves. One should insist on some exchange, if only for the sake of the loved one.”
“And yet,” said Claudia, scrawling weird figures on the blotting-pad, “they say that the ideal love means self-sacrifice, that true happiness is to be found in giving.”
“But it isn’t an ideal world in which we live, is it?” said Mrs. Milton gently. “Isn’t that sometimes a form of selfishness? I know by experience with the children that it’s often the tempting path, ‘the easiest way,’ but if one really loves the little minds and hearts, one must sometimes bear the tears and the sulks that follow when you are firm. You’ll know that one day, when you have children of your own.”
“And with men and women?”
“Many women, I think, have made themselves and their men unhappy by giving too much and too freely. It’s become a habit with women. We can’t stand their frowns and their tempers. But I’m sure it’s a mistake. My husband is the dearest of men, but at the beginning of our life together I nearly became a doormat—just of my own accord.... Shall we fix on Miss Ronald?”
They worked steadily for half an hour, when there was a loud commotion on the stairs. It startled Margaret Milton, but Claudia knew the cause. Pat had lately acquired a huge puppy sheepdog, with the result that her arrival was always somewhat like that of a circus in full swing.
Pat and the dog, who had been christened Socrates because he was such a fool, came tumbling in together.
“He’s chewed up half a mat downstairs while I was using your telephone, Claudia. How do you do, Mrs. Milton. Allow me, Mrs. Milton—Socrates. Socky, go and lie down and take a short snooze. He’s the terror of Mayfair. He upset two children and a mail-cart this morning, and he’s been in the Round Pond and splashed me from head to foot. How’s poor little Fay getting on?”
“No change,” said Claudia, with a sigh. “I’m going down there after lunch.”
Pat drew in her breath. “Heavens! if anything like that should happen to me, I’d go mad! I should yell the house down. She must know something. It’s a fortnight now. She must suspect something.”
“Sometimes I wonder,” said Claudia. “Sometimes I think I see panic in her eyes, then the next moment she’s asking me a conundrum she’s found in some penny journal and roaring with laughter at my wild guesses. She talks about getting up soon—she’s had the piano taken in, and yesterday she was singing ‘to keep her voice from getting mildewy,’ but—I don’t know. If she knows—if she’s got any suspicion, she’s the pluckiest little soul I’ve ever known.”
After that first awful night, it had become a practice for her to go down to the flat almost daily, each time devising some fresh forms of amusement—Fay was like a child—and directing the domestic machinery, which was now much smoother. The clinging helpless hands of Fay gave her a strange feeling, and a curious bond had sprung up between them. To Fay, Claudia, with her education and culture, was something wonderfully clever, something she had never known, something that made her long, in her generous, undisciplined heart, to emulate, to grow into. She considered Claudia’s knowledge of books and pictures amazing. She told all her fellow-professionals who flocked to see her—and they were a strange, bizarre crowd—that her sister-in-law was the most wonderful and splendid lady in the world, and when Jack occasionally talked carelessly of his sister, she was roused to such volleys of wrathful words that the nurse had to ask him not to excite her. In all her moods—sometimes babyish, when she would play with dolls and mechanical toys; sometimes fretful, when nothing pleased her and she wailed to get well; sometimes optimistic and full of ideas for new turns and songs—Claudia was always wanted and loudly welcomed. Fay did not always want Jack—perhaps she divined something of his repugnance to sickness—she did not always want her “pals,” but she always listened eagerly for Claudia’s step in the hall, and if she did not come, sent the nurse to the telephone.
Soon after, Mrs. Milton took her departure.
Pat sat in a low chair, her long legs sprawling half across the room. For a long time neither of them spoke. Claudia stood gazing out of the window across the Park. The trees were gloriously green now, and like fluttering heralds of summer, brilliant in the sunlight. The sun touched the gilt of the Albert Memorial so that it mingled with the tender greens and almost reconciled her to it. She was thinking of Mrs. Milton’s story of Hamilton’s mother and sister. She knew her statement was correct. She knew several large cheques had been despatched to him by people with whom she had brought him in touch. Was he—she shrank from the word like a loathsome disease—was he mean? He had evidently not wished to renew his acquaintance with Mrs. Milton that night at the Rivingtons. Why? Did he desire to forget his small beginnings—the obligations of which she must have reminded him? It was a corroding idea, and Claudia was glad when Pat commenced to speak in a—for her—thoughtful tone.
“I must be a throw-back. That’s the explanation always trotted out nowadays, isn’t it?”
“A throw-back, Pat? What on earth are you talking about?” She turned and looked at the fresh, boyish face, the slim, long limbs, the sophisticated and yet innocent eyes of her sister.
“We’re a funny family, aren’t we? We’ve just dragged ourselves up anyhow. I went to a lecture on heredity the other day. What do we inherit, I asked myself? Father’s an invertebrate jellyfish, and mother—well, mother’s Circe! Grandfather, on mother’s side, is a gay old dog still, and father’s father was a leader of lost causes and died young. Bit of a jumble, isn’t it? I’ve been puzzling over it for days. I heard someone say of you the other day—of course, they were discussing you in connection with The Girlie Girl—‘she’s Circe’s daughter.’ We’re both Circe’s daughters, and I’m not a bit like her. I say, I’m a throw-back somewhere. Mother always cared for men, never for women. I don’t care a scrap for men in any sexual way—oh, yes! don’t look so wise, I’ve experimented in a few flirtations—and I simply hate them—that way. I like hunting with them and playing golf and wading in the water, fishing, but directly they get sentimental and want to kiss me I curl up inside. Most girls, I’ve found out, like being kissed, even if they are not in love. I nearly murdered Dicky Trevor the other day because he kissed me unexpectedly on the nape of the neck. No, Circe hasn’t given me any heritage, and I don’t think I’m so backboneless as father. I’ve got a scheme growing in my head—I shan’t tell you about it till I’m sure of my own mind—but it doesn’t include a husband.”
Claudia looked attentively at her sister. For the first time it flashed across her that the baffling thing about Pat was that so far she was quite sexless. She had been eager to come out for the fun of the dancing and the parties, but she had never had that shy anticipation of love that makes so many girls of eighteen eager to be presented. The books she read as a child were always stirring adventure stories, travels and records of real achievements. Fairy-tales with the all-conquering prince had bored her, all except the passages that dealt with sanguinary fights and treasure-trove. Later on she had read one or two famous French romances out of curiosity, but they had failed to make any appeal whatever. Her enthusiasms, her outbursts of passion, her thrills, were reserved for golf and hockey, and she had once said that the greatest and most satisfying moments of life to her were when she was on the back of her favourite horse, following the hounds. She liked men. Indeed, on the whole, she preferred them to women, but only because they were better and more vigorous sportsmen and less liable to be petty and jealous. As Claudia surveyed her she realized that she neither could give nor did she wish to proffer advice. Pat must face her own problem. Before her marriage she would have rushed in where experience fears to tread, and talked to Pat of the joys of love, of the folly of the woman who disdained or belittled what man could offer. Now all her landmarks were gone. She had messed up her own life. All she could do was to listen and reflect what an awful muddle and enigma life was for women, and wonder why Providence had given them no chart to steer by.
“You see,” continued Pat, “I’ve thought the thing out, and it wouldn’t be playing cricket to marry a man if you didn’t want him—that way. I tried to tell a man the other day how I felt, and he said he’d be a chum and wouldn’t worry me; but I saw the look in his eyes even then, and I knew it would be hell for both of us. Men always want women that way.”
Who had said something like that recently? Ah, yes! it had been said by Jack, apropos of Colin Paton.
“You are very wise this morning,” said Claudia, with a forced laugh. “If you feel this way there may be men who also are celibates at heart.”
“Haven’t met any,” said Pat laconically, giving Socky a kick to stop his stentorian dreams. “He’s chasing bunnies in the Park.”
“Oh! there are men. A good many women complain of—lack of attention on the part of their husbands.”
“Then the attentions go to some other woman, or he’s an uninteresting money-grabber.”
“Don’t generalize so much.... What about a man like Colin Paton?”
Pat laughed derisively, so that Socky got up and barked. “Shut up, you fool; I’m laughing at my sister, who has the foolishness of a babe! Have you known Paton all these years and not seen beneath the surface? Gracious! even if he likes me—which he doesn’t expect to crack jokes with—that would be the last man I’d experiment with. He’s full of emotion underneath that quiet exterior. If I could return it, I’d rather like to be loved by Colin Paton. Why, he’d make the most tender and ardent of lovers if he gained the heart of the right woman. Have you seen him with his widowed mother? Oh! he’s perfectly sweet to her, and she adores him. She’s such a nice, cosy thing, too; you feel you want to sit on a footstool at her feet and have her stroke your hair.”
“If you’re right, it’s curious he hasn’t married.”
She was looking out of the window again, and she didn’t see the curious look her sister cast at her. Pat finished up the conversation with:
“Come on, Socks, we’re going to our happy home. Men like Colin Paton often get left because most women are fools where love is concerned. It’s been the study of their lives for centuries, and even now they can’t tell a piece of glass from a diamond. Because a man doesn’t come along like a raging whirlwind they think he’s cold, and because he loudly swears fidelity like a tinkling cymbal they think they can put their money on him. The metaphors are a bit mixed, but what I’m driving at is this. Women seldom have any judgment where men are concerned, and the nicer the woman the less sound is her judgment. Only bad women have good judgment regarding men. I—Patricia Iverson—have spoken. Selah! Socks!”
CHAPTER XIII
A DANGER SIGNAL
Fritz Neeburg was busily writing in his study when his man came to tell him that Carey Image had called to see him. He was just starting a chapter of his new book, entitled “Neurasthenia and its Causes,” but he at once put his pen down.
“This is good of you to receive me,” said Image warmly; “I can see you are busy.”
“Not too busy to stop and have a chat with you. I hope you don’t want to consult me professionally? You haven’t got the disease of the age, have you?”
Image shook his bird-like head and then sighed.
“No, but I came on behalf of someone else—someone in whom you are interested, or I shouldn’t waste your valuable time. Have you seen Gilbert Currey lately?”
“Not since the attack of influenza, when he”—dryly—“asked my advice and didn’t take it.”
“Ah! you must see him, Neeburg.”
Neeburg never looked surprised or startled, he had the Teutonic phlegmatic temperament. He waited for Image to go on.
“My dear fellow, I won’t usurp your province, but I don’t like the look of him at all. I’ve seen men before on the verge of a nervous breakdown. We got a good many out in India, and I’ve come to know that curious inward, burning look of the eyes.... I was very upset yesterday. I met him suddenly in King’s Bench Walk and he—didn’t know me.”
Neeburg opened his eyes a little.
“He passed it off by saying he was immersed in some difficult case; but I could see he was intensely annoyed with himself, and that led me to deduce it is not the first time his memory has played a trick on him. I needn’t say any more to you, as a physician, except that Robson, the Attorney-General, told me in confidence the other day that he is taking far too much work, and that he is not—doing it well. He’s noticed a great change in him, and he told me, as an old friend, to use my influence to make him take a holiday.”
The eyes of the two men met—Image’s brilliantly bright through his eyeglasses, those of the physician calmly reflective. Then Neeburg got up from his seat and paced the room without speaking.
“I’ve warned him repeatedly,” he said at length, “and I’ve watched it coming. But Gilbert is not an easy man to prescribe for. He is eaten up with ambition, he is so keen on ‘the game’ that he takes no heed of warnings, mine or Nature’s. That man has worked like a horse for the last five years; in fact, he has worked incessantly ever since his boyhood, when his father urged him to win scholarships for the glory of the Currey family.... The father has only been half a success; he had driving power but no judgment, and he was unpopular at the Bar. He took up politics, but he was too vehement and dogmatic for his party. He concentrated his ambition on Gilbert, and Gilbert is very like him—very. With Gilbert, what I call ‘the game’ is the very marrow of his bones. You might as well ask him to change his body as change his manner of life. He had a very good constitution, and I hoped it would stand the strain.... But it’s gone to pieces very badly of late. Outside people will say suddenly, but he’s been undermined for some time. If his memory is going ... God help him and Claudia!”
“Extraordinary he can be so blind to her charm and qualities ... extraordinary!... I am sometimes ashamed he is my godson.”
“The men in the Currey family have—to put it bluntly—used women. They have never rated them highly. Claudia is a very emotional, highly-strung woman, with all sorts of splendid qualities which he does not appreciate; she was never meant to marry a Currey.”
“In my young days we didn’t hear so much talk of ‘the game,’ this feverish desire to work one’s self into an early grave. Is it a modern failing, doctor?”
“No, men have always sacrificed themselves and devoted their best energies to it, but to-day we are suffering from it in an aggravated form, because most of the things men set their hopes upon are not worth while. It gets worse every year. This craze for luxury, for display—and that comes a good deal from our women-folk—first of all eggs a man on to accumulate money or make a position, then the spirit of the game gets into him, even if he isn’t born with it, and before he has time to turn round and reflect he is in the midst of the scrimmage and he doesn’t want to get out of it. It’s a poison that eats into the very flesh, that corrodes his blood, that makes him blind to the waste of his life. Oh! I’ve been watching it for years.”
Image’s bright eyes watched Neeburg.
“It’s worse in America than it is here, but every day the pace gets hotter, the gambling more feverish. The wrecks of men that have passed through my hands, men that at forty and earlier are practically used up, and no amount of drugs or rest will do them much good! They ‘get through’ the rest of their lives instead of living! While you were in India I practised in New York for a couple of years with Finlay McKay. One man came to me at the beginning of my stay, and begged me to pull him together. I preached a holiday, relaxation. He said ‘No,’ but as soon as he had made a couple of million dollars he’d stop. He’d set himself that task. A year later he came to me in such a frazzled state that I was ashamed of my sex. He’d made his pile, he’d gained his ambition. ‘Now rest,’ said I, ‘you have still a slender chance if you’re careful.’ ‘I can’t, doctor,’ he said. ‘I can’t do anything except work. I’ve done what I set out to do, but I can’t stop now. Life without my work wouldn’t be worth while. I thought it was a bank balance I wanted, but it’s “the game!”’ I told that man I would give him six months if he didn’t clear out of it and go for a long sea voyage. There, in my presence, he deliberately chose the six months. He died in four.... Most men nowadays are crazy to get ahead of other men. To a man, ‘the game’: to a woman, love; for whatever women may do or have done, love for them will always remain the great adventure.”
“Love was for me ‘the great adventure,’ as well as for her,” said Image quietly. “But there, I have something of the woman in me. I realize that.”
“And you have a thousand happy memories, and you still enjoy every minute of your life, don’t you? Everything in the world interests you. You have provided yourself with a future. You’re a wise man, Image.”
The little man shook his head with a smile. “A sweet and a brave woman was wise for me, Neeburg.... You will use your influence with Gilbert?”
“Yes, I will try and frighten him. I did that once very successfully, but my patient was not so stubborn as Gilbert. He had a wife and four children, and she begged me to stop him while there was yet time. He was already in such a state of nerves that the home was all misery and apprehension. Generally we tell patients that they are better than they really are, but this man I frightened stiff. He went for a long sea-voyage, and the fright and the cleansing breath of Nature—oh! so kindly, if we would only heed her!—cured him. He’s doing exceedingly well now—he’s rapidly becoming famous—but he’s going slow, and they are bringing up their boys to ignore this modern competitive spirit.... I’ll do my best, Image, you may be sure of that. But his vigorous early manhood is against him. He won’t believe, I fear, in the danger that threatens.... Have you heard about Colin Paton? I was told yesterday by Sir Andrew Morgan that he’s going to create a sensation shortly by one of the finest books on Sociology that has so far been written. Sir Andrew read it for a publishing firm, and he confessed it staggered him—the knowledge and judgment of the thing. I’m glad; I always knew there was real stuff in Paton!”
CHAPTER XIV
AN UNEMOTIONAL FISH
Claudia had been giving a little luncheon-party, and she had kept Mr. Littleton, the American publisher, in order to have a talk with him on a new volume of poetry she had been reading. The other guests had all gone, and she always enjoyed talking to him. It was left to him to give her the news of Paton’s book.
“By and by,” he said casually, “Mr. Colin Paton is a friend of yours, is he not? I think I have heard you mention his name?”
“Oh, yes!” returned Claudia easily, “I have known him for years. He has always been a guide, philosopher and friend, and especially in your department.”
“Don’t! It sounds as if I sold ribbons at the stores.... Then, of course, you know about this book of his on Sociology that is bound to make a stir this autumn?”
Claudia sat up abruptly in her chair.
“What book? Has Colin Paton written a book on Sociology?”
“One of the finest, if not the finest, that has yet been written. Such a lot of twaddle and froth is usually poured forth on that subject, but this book is the real thing, and exceedingly well written too. I’ve secured it for America, where we’ve got a good many books on that subject. But I reckon this will put all the others out of court. Where has he got all his knowledge, Mrs. Currey?”
Claudia was some little time before she replied to his question. Colin had not told her! He had been writing this book for a long time, and he had never confided in her! She had thought they were such intimate friends, she had always taken it for granted that he told her—well, most things that were not other people’s secrets, and she was left to learn of his book from a new friend. Why, surely she might have expected that he would have told her long ago of his intention to write it. She had always thought their friendship meant that.
She was very hurt and also a little astounded. It was as though a favourite and well-known view had suddenly taken on an entirely new aspect. Another landmark that she thought was firmly planted in almost eternal solidity seemed to have shifted. She wondered wildly if the whole world were not built on a quicksand, if there were any stability or permanence in any of the human emotions or relations. Their vaunted friendship, what was it worth, if it did not mean that she had his confidence and he had hers?
Littleton wondered at the blank look on her face as she replied rather mechanically:
“Oh, I think he has been studying such questions for years, ever since he was up at Oxford. He’s not a man to talk much or make any show.... Yes, I can quite imagine the book is good.”
She could not turn and accuse herself of living in a fool’s paradise, for she was too unhappy to dwell in such a favoured, sunny clime; but did she know the world she lived in, the people by whom she was surrounded? Why, her younger sister Pat had been accusing her only the other day of bad judgment where men were concerned. Pat had laughed at her on this very subject, and said she did not really know Colin Paton. Was it true? Can one see a man constantly for years and not really know the inner man? But she had always credited herself with unusual powers of divination. She despised other people for taking the world and its creatures at face-value.
“The amount of reading he must have done for this book is enormous,” went on Littleton. “Because, unlike most wildly enthusiastic reformers, who fling adjectives about and scream at the top of their voices, he has marshalled an amazing array of facts and figures. That, and his own discrimination and judgment, make the book so fine. And there are one or two passages, where he lets himself go, that are absolutely stirring. As you know”—with a laugh—“I’m in the trade, and I don’t often enthuse over a book, but I was greatly struck with this.”
“I am glad,” said Claudia dully, “very glad.”
This book had been in his mind for years, perhaps ever since he left Oxford, and he had never talked of it to her. She would never forgive him! He had not thought her worthy of his confidence. He was not her friend. Then a vision of him at Fay’s flat that awful night, quietly directing everyone and watching over her, came across her mental vision, but this only confused her the more. Did he, like most men, look upon her as a graceful, pretty plaything—just a woman? Was his idea of a woman just like her husband’s, only different in kind? Apparently she was of no real use to anyone, except—yes, except to the little music-hall artiste whom the family had rejected.
Then she looked at the man in the chair beside hers, and as her preoccupation had made him drop his guard, she read clearly the very personal admiration in his eyes. For a moment they remained looking at one another, love in the man’s eyes, a hopeless bewilderment and weariness in Claudia’s.
“Your life does not satisfy you,” said the man abruptly. “I have known that for some time.”
“Is anyone satisfied with his life?”
She was a little startled, but a beautiful, much-sought-after woman is seldom nonplussed by such a situation. She had seen that look in too many men’s eyes. It was only startling with Littleton because she had not noticed that he was falling in love with her. Was that because she had been thinking of Frank to the exclusion of other men? For though love itself may not be blind, it makes a woman insensible to the feelings of other men and her very preoccupation often piques them into desiring her.
Littleton got up and leaned against the mantelpiece, looking down upon her. His straight, spare figure, in his unmistakable American clothing, bespoke energy and endurance. The shape of his head, on the forehead of which the fair hair was thinning a little, told of great mental activity and powers of organization. Some woman might be proud of such a man. In some ways he was not unlike Colin Paton, save that he had the American restlessness and nerviness, and that he lacked the fine polish and self-possession which a man may possibly acquire, but is usually associated with families that can count back many centuries, and that have always tried to uphold the best traditions of English manhood. Paton’s ancestors had mainly been divided into two classes, fighters and scholars. Admiral Worral Paton had fought many a fight with Francis Drake on the high seas, and another Paton in the reign of Elizabeth had been accounted a great and learned savant at court. Before that time, in the reign of Henry the Seventh, there had been a namesake of Colin’s who had fought bravely for the crown, and helped to subdue Lord Lovel’s rising in Yorkshire. Claudia knew of these and of several more worthy and later ancestors, for she had once visited his Elizabethan country home, where his mother still lived, and he had, with laughing comments, conducted her through the gallery of family portraits, which showed, he said, that there had never been any fatal beauty in the family. But she had been struck even then, as a girl—she had only been seventeen at the time—with the indefinable air of breeding and intellectual distinction which they all bore. There was an unmistakable stamp on the faces of all the Patons, which said as plainly as words, “Death before dishonour.” Colin had told her the story of one youth, a gay Royalist with laughing eyes, who had fallen from honour by parting, under pressure from the woman he loved, with one of the King’s secrets. “But, like Judas,” said Colin, “he went out and hanged, or rather shot, himself almost directly afterwards. You, who feel so intensely the joy of life—look at his laughing eyes!—will believe that he expiated his sin.”
At Gilbert’s home, too, there was a small picture-gallery—not very large, for the Curreys had never had any artistic leanings, and had only had their portraits painted to feed their own vanity and pomp—but the Curreys were a different race. Worthy—yes, probably—but heavy and coarse-featured, with none of the fineness and delicacy that distinguished the Patons, and some of them obviously too full-blooded, with the limited vision which embraces only the material things of life.
The man who stood looking down upon her now was of different type from either. He belonged to the virile new world; he had its good qualities and its defects. Like Colin, he was a good companion to be with, but he was so virile and so mettlesome that he occasionally left her rather exhausted.
“Well?” he queried smilingly, not attempting to answer her question.
“I was thinking.”
“I know you were. One can always see the thoughts flitting through your eyes. I have often longed to know what you were thinking about. I believe your thoughts are worth hearing. Won’t you tell me this time?”
She found herself liking his voice, which had a slight American inflection without being nasal.
“I was thinking how different the American man is from the average Englishman, both in mind, temperament and physique.”
“We’re certainly beaten under the last head,” he replied, with a frank laugh. “I am always admiring your Englishmen from the point of view of good looks, though you know our men can be pretty fit, as we’ve shown in your sports’ contests. But we’re not such good lookers, sure. As for temperament”—he looked at her with a little challenge in his grey-blue eyes—“that isn’t racial, you know; it’s individual. I guess one of my countrymen may possess it as well as an Englishman. And what do you mean by a temperament, anyway?”
Claudia shook her head. She refused to be drawn. “Impossible to define. Those who have it do not need a definition, and those who have it not—will never find one. Didn’t someone once say: ‘Art is life seen through a temperament’?”
“But I’m not an artist,” he replied quickly, “only a merchant, who purveys works of art through the medium of a printing-press. Do you think that only professed artists may possess a temperament?”
“Of course not. That would be too ridiculous. I daresay some of the greatest artists are inarticulate.”
“I am glad to hear you say that, because I should have hated to have you put me right out of court. Because,” he spoke slowly, “lately I have begun to realize that a certain resurrection is going on within me; that what I tried deliberately to kill is still alive, painfully alive.”
She was aware that he was on the verge of a confidence, and she only looked her interest. She liked him, and she felt she wanted to know more about him; for never had they discussed their private lives with one another. He was introducing a new element into their friendship.
“I married before I was twenty-two, and last fall I became a widower. I married early after deliberation and sober reflection. Isn’t it curious that one can so often reflect more soberly when one is twenty than when one is approaching forty, as I am now? I married, my friends said, most suitably. I was not what you would call in love with her. I had known her for years, and I was fond of her in a quiet, unemotional way, which you people of temperament despise. I married young to have my mind and energies free for my work of restoring an old firm to its original activity and greatness. I realized that if youth wants to toe the straight line, it must keep clear of emotional complications. I saw other men taken off their work, their senses flaying them into madness and folly, by the women they met. I determined that I would marry and keep clear of attractive women. I would settle down early into a family man, and if there were joys that I knew not—well, the man who has been born blind doesn’t know the glory of the sunshine. My wife was placid and quite content with the small amount of leisure and attention I could give her. All my best energies I gave to my work. Every American is born ambitious; it’s in the very air he breathes, and with his first little squalling breath he draws it in. I had rather a tough fight, but I won out all right.... Now I am nearly forty I begin to wonder if I have done the best with my life; I begin to see that perhaps those other fellows who never got on are not to be pitied after all. I begin to feel a hiatus in my life; I begin to see what life might be.”
As he looked at the beautiful vivid woman among the cushions of the armchair, he recalled the quiet, orderly life he had led with the one who had borne his name, the lack of anything approaching exaltation or beauty in their relationship, the prosaic monotony of their days, and he wondered if he had not been the greatest of God’s fools. What would life be with such a woman as the one Who now sat plaiting her fingers in her lap, her very finger-tips pulsating with life? The magnetism of her womanhood reached him as he stood, and made his breath come more quickly. They had so much in common already, was it too wild and venturesome to hope that they might have more?
“In short,” she said slowly, “you have sacrificed the best years of your life to what you men call ‘the game.’ But you have succeeded. Many men sacrifice everything and—fail. You may feel at odd moments that you have missed something, but I expect you are really quite satisfied. You know the proverb about the cake?”
“Yes, but did I choose the best kind of cake?”
She broke the spell by laughing. It sounded so odd. It reminded her of the days when, as a child, she used to hover over the plate of cakes anxiously seeking to make a good choice.