Chapter 4

“Reason? Bosh! The least thing does it.”

I flicked the ash from my cigar.

“It may,” I remarked, “affect you in this extraordinary way, but surely it is not so with most people?”

“Perhaps not,” George conceded. “Most people are cold-blooded asses.”

“Very likely the explanation lies in that fact,” said I.

“I didn’t mean you, old chap,” said George, with a penitence which showed that he had meant me.

“Oh, all right, all right,” said I.

“But when a man’s really far gone there’s nothing else in the world but it.”

“That seems to me not to be a healthy condition,” said I.

“Healthy? Oh, you old idiot, Sam! Who’s talking of health? Now, only last night I met her at a dance. I had five dances with her--talked to her half the evening, in fact. Well, you’d think that would last some time, wouldn’t you?”

“I should certainly have supposed so,” I assented.

“So it would with most chaps, I dare say, but with me--confound it, I feel as if I hadn’t seen her for six months!”

“But, my dear George, that’s surely rather absurd? As you tell me, you spent a long while with the young person--”

“The--young person!”

“You’ve not told me her name, you see.”

“No, and I shan’t. I wonder if she’ll be at the Musgraves’ tonight!”

“You’re sure,” said I soothingly, “to meet her somewhere in the course of the next few weeks.”

George looked at me. Then he observed with a bitter laugh:

“It’s pretty evident you’ve never had it. You’re as bad as those chaps who write books.”

“Well, but surely they often describe with sufficient warmth and--er--color--”

“Oh, I dare say; but it’s all wrong. At least, it’s not what I feel. Then look at the girls in books! All beasts!”

George spoke with much vehemence; so that I was led to say:

“The lady you are preoccupied with is, I suppose, handsome?”

George turned swiftly round on me.

“Look here, can you hold your tongue, Sam?”

I nodded.

“Then I’m hanged if I won’t point her out to you?”

“That’s uncommon good of you, George,” said I.

“Then you’ll see,” continued George. “But it’s not only her looks, you know, she’s the most--”

He stopped. Looking round to see why, I observed that his face was red; he clutched his walking stick tightly in his left hand; his right hand was trembling, as if it wanted to jump up to his hat. “Here she comes! Look, look!” he whispered.

Directing my eyes towards the lines of carriages which rolled past us, I observed a girl in a victoria; by her side sat a portly lady of middle age. The girl was decidedly like the lady; a description of the lady would not, I imagine, be interesting. The girl blushed slightly and bowed. George and I lifted our hats. The victoria and its occupants were gone. George leant back with a sigh. After a moment, he said:

“Well, that was her.”

There was expectancy in his tone.

“She has an extremely prepossessing appearance,” I observed.

“There isn’t,” said George, “a girl in London to touch her. Sam, old boy, I believe--I believe she likes me a bit.”

“I’m sure she must, George,” said I; and indeed, I thought so.

“The Governor’s infernally unreasonable,” said George, fretfully.

“Oh, you’ve mentioned it to him?”

“I sounded him. Oh, you may be sure he didn’t see what I was up to. I put it quite generally. He talked rot about getting on in the world. Who wants to get on?”

“Who, indeed?” said I. “It is only changing what you are for something no better.”

“And about waiting till I know my own mind. Isn’t it enough to look at her?”

“Ample, in my opinion,” said I.

George rose to his feet.

“They’ve gone to a party, they won’t come round again,” said he. “We may as well go, mayn’t we?”

I was very comfortable, so I said timidly:

“We might see somebody else we know.”

“Oh, somebody else be hanged! Who wants to see em?”

“I’m sure I don’t.” said I hastily, as I rose from my armchair, which was at once snapped up.

We were about to return to the club, when I observed Lady Mickleham’s barouche standing under the trees. I invited George to come and be introduced.

He displayed great indifference.

“She gives a good many parties,” said I; “and perhaps--”

“By Jove! Yes, I may as well,” said George. “Glad you had the sense to think of that, old man.”

So I took him up to Dolly and presented him. Dolly was very gracious; George is an evidently presentable boy. We fell into conversation.

“My cousin, Lady Mickleham,” said I, “has been telling me--”

“Oh, shut up, Sam!” said George, not, however, appearing very angry.

“About a subject on which you can assist him more than I can, inasmuch as you are married. He is in love.”

Dolly glanced at George.

“Oh, what fun!” said she.

“Fun!” cried George.

“I mean, how awfully interesting,” said Dolly, suddenly transforming her expression.

“And he wanted to be introduced to you because you might ask her and him to--”

George became red, and began to stammer an apology.

“Oh, I don’t believe him,” said Dolly kindly; “he always makes people uncomfortable if he can. What were you telling him, Mr. George?”

“It’s no use telling him anything. He can’t understand,” said George.

“Is she very--?” asked Dolly, fixing doubtfully grave eyes on my young cousin.

“Sam’s seen her,” said he, in an excess of shyness.

Dolly turned to me for an opinion, and I gave one:

“She is just,” said I, “as charming as he thinks her.”

Dolly leant over to my cousin, and whispered, “Tell me her name.” And he whispered something back to Dolly.

“It’s awfully kind of you, Lady Mickleham,” he said.

“I am a kind old thing,” said Dolly, all over dimples. “I can easily get to know them.”

“Oh, you really are awfully kind, Lady Mickleham.”

Dolly smiled upon him, waved her hand to me, and drove off, crying--

“Do try to make Mr. Carter understand!”

We were left along. George wore a meditative smile. Presently he roused himself to say:

“She’s really a very kind woman. She’s so sympathetic. She’s not like you. I expect she felt it once herself, you know.”

“One can never tell,” said I carelessly. “Perhaps she did--once.”

George fell to brooding again. I thought I would try an experiment.

“Not altogether bad-looking, either, is she?” I asked, lighting a cigarette.

George started.

“What? Oh, well, I don’t know. I suppose some people might think so.”

He paused, and added, with a bashful, knowing smile--

“You can hardly expect me to go into raptures about her, can you, old man?”

I turned my head away, but he caught me.

“Oh, you needn’t smile in that infernally patronizing way,” he cried angrily.

“Upon my word, George,” said I, “I don’t know that I need.”

THE VERY LATEST THING

“It’s the very latest thing,” said Lady Mickleham, standing by the table in the smoking room, and holding an album in her hand.

“I wish it had been a little later still,” said I, for I felt embarrassed.

“You promise, on your honor, to be absolutely sincere, you know, and then you write what you think of me. See what a lot of opinions I’ve got already,” and she held up the thick album.

“It would be extremely interesting to read them,” I observed.

“Oh! but they’re quite confidential,” said Dolly. “That’s part of the fun.”

“I don’t appreciate that part,” said I.

“Perhaps you will when you’ve written yours,” suggested Lady Mickleham.

“Meanwhile, mayn’t I see the Dowager’s?”

“Well, I’ll show you a little bit of the Dowager’s. Look here: Our dear Dorothea is still perhaps just a thought wanting in seriousness, but the sense of her position is having a sobering effect.’”

“I hope not,” I exclaimed apprehensively. “Whose is this?”

“Archie’s.”

“May I see a bit--?”

“Not a bit,” said Dolly. “Archie’s is--is rather foolish, Mr. Carter.”

“So I suppose,” said I.

“Dear boy!” said Dolly reflectively.

“I hate sentiment,” said I. “Here’s a long one. Who wrote--?”

“Oh, you mustn’t look at that--not at that, above all!”

“Why above all?” I asked with some severity.

Dolly smiled; then she observed in a soothing tone.

“Perhaps it won’t be ‘above all’ when you’ve written yours, Mr. Carter.”

“By the way,” I said carelessly, “I suppose Archie sees all of them?”

“He has never asked to see them,” answered Lady Mickleham.

The reply seemed satisfactory; of course, Archie had only to ask. I took a clean quill and prepared to write.

“You promise to be sincere, you know,” Dolly reminded me.

I laid down my pen.

“Impossible!” said I firmly.

“O, but why, Mr. Carter?”

“There would be an end of our friendship.”

“Do you think as badly of me as all that?” asked Dolly with a rueful air.

I leant back in my chair, and looked at Dolly. She looked at me. She smiled. I may have smiled.

“Yes,” said I.

“Then you needn’t write it quite all down,” said Dolly.

“I am obliged,” said I, taking up my pen.

“You mustn’t say what isn’t true, but you needn’t say everything that is--that might be--true,” explained Dolly.

This, again, seemed satisfactory. I began to write, Dolly sitting opposite me with her elbows on the table, and watching me.

After ten minutes’ steady work, which included several pauses for reflection, I threw down the pen, leant back in my chair, and lit a cigarette.

“Now read it,” said Dolly, her chin in her hands and her eyes fixed on me.

“It is, on the whole,” I observed, “complimentary.”

“No, really,” said Dolly. “Yet you promised to be sincere.”

“You would not have had me disagreeable?” I asked.

“That’s a different thing,” said Dolly. “Read it, please.”

“Lady Mickleham,” I read, “is usually accounted a person of considerable attractions. She is widely popular, and more than one woman has been known to like her.”

“I don’t quite understand that,” interrupted Dolly.

“It is surely simple,” said I; and I read on without delay. “She is kind even to her husband, and takes the utmost pains to conceal from her mother-in-law anything calculated to distress that lady.”

“I suppose you mean that to be nice?” said Dolly.

“Of course,” I answered; and I proceeded: “She never gives pain to any one, except with the object of giving pleasure to somebody else, and her kindness is no less widely diffused than it is hearty and sincere.”

“That really is nice,” said Dolly, smiling.

“Thank you,” said I, smiling also. “She is very charitable; she takes a pleasure in encouraging the shy and bashful--”

“How do you know that?” asked Dolly.

“While,” I pursued, “suffering without impatience a considerable amount of self-assurance.”

“You can’t know whether I’m patient or not,” remarked Dolly. “I’m polite.”

“She thinks,” I read on, “no evil of the most attractive of women, and has a smile for the most unattractive of men.”

“You put that very nicely,” said Dolly, nodding.

“The former may constantly be seen in her house--and the latter at least as often as many people would think desirable.” (Here for some reason Dolly laughed.) “Her intellectual powers are not despicable.”

“Thank you, Mr. Carter.”

“She can say what she means on the occasions on which she wishes to do so, and she is, at other times, equally capable of meaning much more than she would be likely to say.”

“How do you mean that, Mr. Carter, please?”

“It explains itself,” said I, and I proceeded: “The fact of her receiving a remark with disapprobation does not necessarily mean that it causes her displeasure, nor must it be assumed that she did not expect a visitor merely on the ground that she greets him with surprise.”

Here I observed Lady Mickleham looking at me rather suspiciously.

“I don’t think that’s quite nice of you, Mr. Carter,” she said pathetically.

“Lady Mickleham is, in short,” I went on, coming to my peroration, “equally deserving of esteem and affection--”

“Esteem and affection! That sounds just right,” said Dolly approvingly.

“And those who have been admitted to the enjoyment of her friendship are unanimous in discouraging all others from seeking a similar privilege.”

“I beg your pardon?” cried Lady Mickleham.

“Are unanimous,” I repeated, slowly and distinctly, “in discouraging all others from seeking a similar privilege.”

Dolly looked at me, with her brow slightly puckered. I leant back, puffing at my cigarette. Presently--for there was quite a long pause--Dolly’s lips curved.

“My mental powers are not despicable,” she observed.

“I have said so,” said I.

“I think I see,” she remarked.

“Is there anything wrong?” I asked anxiously.

“N-no,” said Dolly, “not exactly wrong. In fact, I rather think I like that last bit best. Still, don’t you think--?”

She rose, came round the table, took up the pen, and put it back in my hand. “What’s this for?” I asked.

“To correct the mistake,” said Dolly.

“Do you really think so?” said I.

“I’m afraid so,” said Dolly.

I took the pen and made a certain alteration. Dolly took up the album.

“‘Are unanimous,’” she read, “in encouraging all others to seek a similar privilege.’ Yes, you meant that, you know, Mr. Carter.”

“I suppose I must have,” said I rather sulkily.

“The other was nonsense,” urged Dolly.

“Oh, utter nonsense,” said I.

“And you had to write the truth!”

“Yes, I had to write some of it.”

“And nonsense can’t be the truth, can it, Mr. Carter?”

“Of course it can’t, Lady Mickleham.”

“Where are you going, Mr. Carter?” she asked; for I rose from my chair.

“To have a quiet smoke,” said I.

“Alone?” asked Dolly.

“Yes, alone,” said I.

I walked towards the door. Dolly stood by the table fingering the album. I had almost reached the door; then I happened to look round.

“Mr. Carter!” said Dolly, as though a new idea had struck her.

“What is it, Lady Mickleham?”

“Well, you know, Mr. Carter, I--I shall try to forget that mistake of yours.”

“You’re very kind, Lady Mickleham.”

“But,” said Dolly with a troubled smile, “I--I’m quite afraid I shan’t succeed, Mr. Carter.”

After all, the smoking room is meant for smoking.

AN UNCOUNTED HOUR

We were standing, Lady Mickleham and I, at a door which led from the morning room to the terrace at The Towers. I was on a visit to the historic pile (by Vanbrugh--out of the money accumulated by the third Earl--Paymaster to the Forces--temp. Queen Anne). The morning room is a large room. Archie was somewhere in it. Lady Mickleham held a jar containing pate de foie gras; from time to time she dug a piece out with a fork and flung the morsel to a big retriever which was sitting on the terrace. The morning was fine, but cloudy. Lady Mickleham wore blue. The dog swallowed the pate with greediness.

“It’s so bad for him,” sighed she; “but the dear likes it so much.”

“How human the creatures are,” said I.

“Do you know,” pursued Lady Mickleham, “that the Dowager says I’m extravagant. She thinks dogs ought not to be fed on pate de foie gras.”

“Your extravagance,” I observed, “is probably due to your having been brought up on a moderate income. I have felt the effect myself.”

“Of course,” said Dolly, “we are hit by the agricultural depression.”

“The Carters also,” I murmured, “are landed gentry.”

“After all, I don’t see much point in economy, do you, Mr. Carter?”

“Economy,” I remarked, putting my hands in my pockets, “is going without something you do want in case you should, some day, want something which you probably won’t want.”

“Isn’t that clever?” asked Dolly in an apprehensive tone.

“Oh, dear, no,” I answered reassuringly. “Anybody can do that--if they care to try, you know.”

Dolly tossed a piece of pate to the retriever.

“I have made a discovery lately,” I observed.

“What are you two talking about?” called Archie.

“You’re not meant to hear,” said Dolly, without turning round.

“Yet, if it’s a discovery, he ought to hear it.”

“He’s made a good many lately,” said Dolly.

She dug out the last bit of pate, flung it to the dog, and handed the empty pot to me.

“Don’t be so allegorical,” I implored. “Besides, it’s really not just to Archie. No doubt the dog is a nice one, but--”

“How foolish you are this morning! What’s the discovery?”

“An entirely surprising one.”

“Oh, but let me hear! It’s nothing about Archie, is it?”

“No, I’ve told you all Archie’s sins.”

“Nor Mrs. Hilary? I wish it was Mrs. Hilary!”

“Shall we walk on the terrace?” I suggested.

“Oh, yes, let’s,” said Dolly, stepping out, and putting on a broad-brimmed, low-crowned hat, which she caught up from a chair hard by. “It isn’t Mrs. Hilary?” she added, sitting down on a garden seat.

“No,” said I, leaning on a sundial which stood by the seat.

“Well, what is it?”

“It is simple,” said I, “and serious. It is not, therefore, like you, Lady Mickleham.”

“It’s like Mrs. Hilary,” said Dolly.

“No; because it isn’t pleasant. By the way, you are jealous of Mrs. Hilary?”

Dolly said nothing at all. She took off her hat, roughened her hair a little, and assumed an effective pose. Still, it is a fact (for what it is worth) that she doesn’t care much about Mrs. Hilary.

“The discovery,” I continued, “is that I’m growing middle-aged.”

“You are middle-aged,” said Dolly, spearing her hat with its long pin.

I was, very naturally, nettled at this.

“So will you be soon,” I retorted.

“Not soon,” said Dolly.

“Some day,” I insisted.

After a pause of about half a minute, Dolly said, “I suppose so.”

“You will become,” I pursued, idly drawing patterns with my finger on the sundial, “wrinkled, rough, fat--and, perhaps, good.”

“You’re very disagreeable today,” said Dolly.

She rose and stood by me.

“What do the mottoes mean?” she asked.

There were two; I will not say they contradicted one another, but they looked at life from different points of view.

“Pereunt et imputantur,” I read.

“Well, what’s that, Mr. Carter?”

“A trite, but offensive, assertion,” said I, lighting a cigarette.

“But what does it mean?” she asked, a pucker on her forehead.

“What does it matter?” said I. “Let’s try the other.”

“The other is longer.”

“And better. Horas non numero nisi serenas.”

“And what’s that?”

I translated literally. Dolly clapped her hands, and her face gleamed with smiles.

“I like that one,” she cried.

“Stop!” said I imperatively. “You’ll set it moving!”

“It’s very sensible,” said she.

“More freely rendered, it means, I live only when you--”

“By Jove!” remarked Archie, coming up behind us, pipe in mouth, “there was a lot of rain last night. I’ve just measured it in the gauge.”

“Some people measure everything,” said I, with a displeased air. “It is a detestable habit.”

“Archie, what does Pereunt et imputantur mean?”

“Eh? Oh, I see. Well, I say, Carter!--Oh, well, you know, I suppose it means you’ve got to pay for your fun, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, is that all? I was afraid it was something horrid. Why did you frighten me, Mr. Carter?”

“I think it is rather horrid,” said I.

“Why, it isn’t even true,” said Dolly scornfully.

Now when I heard this ancient and respectable legend thus cavalierly challenged, I fell to studying it again, and presently I exclaimed:

“Yes, you’re right! If it said that, it wouldn’t be true; but Archie translated it wrong.”

“Well, you have a shot,” suggested Archie.

“The oysters are eaten and put down in the bill,” said I. “And you will observe, Archie, that it does not say in whose bill.”

“Ah!” said Dolly.

“Well, somebody’s got to pay,” persisted Archie.

“Oh, yes, somebody,” laughed Dolly.

“Well, I don’t know,” said Archie. “I suppose the chap that has the fun--”

“It’s not always a chap,” observed Dolly.

“Well, then the individual,” amended Archie. “I suppose he’d have to pay.”

“It doesn’t say so,” I remarked mildly. “And according to my small experience--”

“I’m quite sure your meaning is right, Mr. Carter,” said Dolly in an authoritative tone.

“As for the other motto, Archie,” said I, “it merely means that a woman considers all hours wasted which she does not spend in the society of her husband.”

“Oh, come, you don’t gammon me,” said Archie. “It means that the sun don’t shine unless it’s fine, you know.”

Archie delivered this remarkable discovery in a tone of great self satisfaction.

“Oh, you dear old thing!” said Dolly.

“Well, it does you know,” said he.

There was a pause. Archie kissed his wife (I am not complaining; he has, of course, a perfect right to kiss his wife) and strolled away toward the hothouses.

I lit another cigarette. Then Dolly, pointing to the stem of the dial, cried:

“Why, here’s another inscription--oh, and in English?”

She was right. There was another--carelessly scratched on the old battered column--nearly effaced, for the characters had been but lightly marked--and yet not, as I conceived from the tenor of the words, very old.

“What is it?” asked Dolly, peering over my shoulder, as I bent down to read the letters, and shading her eyes with her hand. (Why didn’t she put on her hat? We touch the Incomprehensible.)

“It is,” said I, “a singularly poor, shallow, feeble, and undesirable little verse.”

“Read it out,” said Dolly.

So I read it. The silly fellow had written:

Life is Love, the poets tell us, In the little books they sell us; But pray, ma’am--what’s of Life the Use, If Life be Love? For Love’s the Deuce.

Dolly began to laugh gently, digging the pin again into her hat.

“I wonder,” she said, “whether they used to come and sit by this old dial just as we did this morning!”

“I shouldn’t be at all surprised,” said I. “And another point occurs to me, Lady Mickleham.”

“Oh, does it? What’s that, Mr. Carter?”

“Do you think that anybody measured the rain gauge!”

Dolly looked at me very gravely.

“I’m so sorry when you do that,” said she pathetically.

I smiled.

“I really am,” said dolly. “But you don’t mean it, do you?”

“Certainly not,” said I.

Dolly smiled.

“No more than he did!” said I, pointing to the sun dial.

And then we both smiled.

“Will this hour count, Mr. Carter?” asked Dolly, as she turned away.

“That would be rather strict,” said I.

A REMINISCENCE

“I know exactly what your mother wants, Phyllis,” observed Mrs. Hilary.

“It’s just to teach them the ordinary things,” said little Miss Phyllis.

“What are the ordinary things?” I ventured to ask.

“What all girls are taught, of course, Mr. Carter,” said Mrs. Hilary. “I’ll write about it at once.” And she looked at me as if she thought that I might be about to go.

“It is a comprehensive curriculum,” I remarked, crossing my legs, “if one may judge from the results. How old are your younger sisters, Miss Phyllis?”

“Fourteen and sixteen,” she answered.

“It is a pity,” said I, “that this didn’t happen a little while back. I knew a governess who would have suited the place to a t.’”

Mrs. Hilary smiled scornfully.

“We used to meet--” I continued.

“Who used to meet?” asked Miss Phyllis.

“The governess and myself, to be sure,” said I, “under the old apple tree in the garden at the back of the house.”

“What house, Mr. Carter?”

“My father’s house, of course, Miss Phyllis. And--”

“Oh, but that must be ages ago!” cried she.

Mrs. Hilary rose, cast one glance at me, and turned to the writing table. Her pen began to scratch almost immediately.

“And under the apple tree,” I pursued, “we had many pleasant conversations.”

“What about?” asked Miss Phyllis.

“One thing and another,” I returned. “The schoolroom windows looked out that way--a circumstance which made matters more comfortable for everybody.”

“I should have thought--” began Miss Phyllis, smiling slightly, but keeping an apprehensive eye on Mrs. Hilary’s back.

“Not at all,” I interrupted. “My sisters saw us, you see. Well, of course they entertained an increased respect for me, which was all right, and a decreased respect for the governess, which was also all right. We met in the hour allotted to French lessons--by an undesigned but appropriate coincidence.”

“I shall say about thirty-five, Phyllis,” called Mrs. Hilary from the writing table.

“Yes, Cousin Mary,” called Miss Phyllis. “Did you meet often, Mr. Carter?”

“Every evening in the French hour,” said I.

“She’ll have got over any nonsense by then,” called Mrs. Hilary. “They are often full of it.”

“She had remarkably pretty hair,” I continued; “very soft it was. Dear me! I was just twenty.”