CHAPTER XI

PINK PAPERS AND ST. ANTHONY

It is both easy and comforting to divide men simply into opposites. Honest, dishonest; truthful, lying; clean, dirty;--what a lot of worry it undoubtedly prevents. You trust one person all the way, another nowhere; you tell your secrets to the first and to the second nothing; it is so simple that few people can resist it, when they come to life. And it is good enough for working purposes.

But in reality it is not so. A man all white or all black is but rarely met: the last is soon removed, the first impossible for common use. Man was devised from a more subtle palette; and if in all the millions of faces no two are alike, that is yet truer, said about the heart. The man you trust so freely has his see-saw moments, like anybody else, and if as a rule he lands the right end down, it may have been your very confidence that lent him weight. It is the same with all. They must be entered for convenience beneath the colour which they most display, but every one of them is a true moral rainbow and much more. Take it all in all, we humans are the most mixed thing that any one has ever yet invented: the reason why some scorn all other hobbies or amusements, so long as there is Man.

Geoffrey Alison was an especially odd mixture--all of course kept rigidly inside. To the mere eye he was, like most, quite simple, almost to the point of dulness. Oh yes; I see, yes; the artistic type; a gentleman though; trustworthy but slack; quite modest although jolly clever; pretty much of a white man... But inwardly he was a thing to watch because his types conflicted, and that ends with fireworks.

He joined the artist's soul--a real love for the beautiful and noble--to what perhaps may be most easily described as a pink-paper mind. He could sit and gaze happily for hours at a Corregio, forgetting the plush benches and the noisy tourists, utterly absorbed; he found a joy that was almost physical in a sudden landscape or the moon which breaks loose from its clouds and gleams on a rough sea; he would watch with a smile of pleasure the way of a woman with her child or a child with its toy; he shrank with loathing from all that was ugly, sordid--the sight of needless misery or the sound of a woman's oath; and yet--and yet he could not rid himself of the idea that there was something palpitating, wicked, spicy, about a shop-girl who held up her skirt to cross a muddy road. There was a thrill for him each time that he passed a stage-door. Garters--champagne (always known as fizz)--corsets--chorus girls--these all held for him a brimming measure of romance. He was convinced that there was something specially cryptic and alluring about bar-maids, though he would never enter bars as he did not like other people's glasses. Paris to him stood for a riot of continued orgies shaming a white dawn. He was of those who for peculiar reasons can thoroughly enjoy a really English ballet. The thought of studios and models had half consciously affected the choice of his career; and if he now knew that to be illusion, so far as his experiences went, he still liked--well, one half of him--to read the old exciting fairy-tales. Perhaps they happened somewhere, still.

At times, when he was on a holiday or anywhere except at his own news-shop, he would buy, half-ashamed and furtive, those strange, elemental papers whose main task it is to tickle the broad tastes of City youths or Army officers. And he thoroughly enjoyed them--until afterwards.

Army men, in fact, who had glared at him all through a long dinner-party, often revised their estimate when coffee had come in and their wives departed; if, be it understood, the conversation drifted into a right channel. On the way home, should their wives say; "I liked that Mr. Alison, so clever!" they would reply: "M'yes? Rather an affected ass, my dear: I can't stand those artistic johnnies. Still, he came out a bit over the wine and showed he _had_ got something in him. Not a bad fellow I dare say; bit of a sportsman possibly--in spite of his long hair. But I'm not sure we want to have him calling?" Which only shows how useful it may be for any man to have two sides. You never can please all the world with one!

Of course the one in question was entirely abstract. Geoffrey Alison would never have even dreamt of doing all the things he liked to read on paper. It would perhaps have been more healthy if he had; but no, he realised, himself, that it was only an idea.

It was an idea, too, that he shared with no one. His friends--artists and authors--somehow were not amused by anything of that sort, although the papers he enjoyed were read by millions. It was curious! He kept it to himself, and that was bad as well. To Hubert he had raised the curtain for one moment, with those sketches of his own, but the audience had not seemed keen for more. And as for Helena--well, inwardly Geoffrey Alison was an odd mixture; but he remained a gentleman outside.

All the same, to-night was trying him a little hard.

Helena's friendliness had thrilled him from the day they met. He had never met a woman--anyhow not young and pretty--who had taken to him like that from the first. He never had regarded himself as a lady's man; he was too small and timid; yet she had seemed to find nothing wrong with him. She had adopted him as her guide and philosopher in art; gone about with him more, almost, than with that absurdly busy fellow Brett; until the cattish vicar's wife----!

And now----!

Of course he knew that she was just a girl, and jolly innocent and all that sort of thing (Brett liked to keep her back), but even so, any one surely would admit that it was a little bit exciting and peculiar. The way she asked him in; and then he could not make out why she changed her mind about the dining-room and came into the drawing-room where she sat down upon the sofa and looked simply ripping. It was all very odd!

Of course she was innocent and jolly, but he believed that she was fond of him and some day he would love--when they were all alone like this--if only half in fun--to give her just one kiss. She surely couldn't mind? It would be splendid and exciting. (It may be added that Geoffrey Alison thought more of its excitement than its splendour.)

The very idea made being with her like this so difficult and trying. He could not think of anything to say. It all sounded wrong.

Even Helena noticed, at last.

"How dull you are to-night!" she said peevishly, for they were old friends and she never troubled to sort out her words. "I believe you _did_ want to work or else had something else to do."

"Of course not," he protested, feeling horribly wronged in the circumstances. "This is awfully jolly." Why couldn't he be natural?

Helena was not so confident about the jollity. "Hugh _must_ be here soon," she remarked rather wearily.

"Why do you call him Hugh?" he asked, jumping at a topic. "Surely that's not really short for Hubert? It ought to be Bert!"

"Oh, how dare you?" she asked gaily; she felt that they had got back on to the old easy paths. "Bert indeed--for him! I wonder how you----" and she clapped her hands excitedly. "Yes," she said, her boredom all forgotten, "that's it! I always thought that Mr. Alison was far too stiff; I've got a name for you."

"For _me_?" That silly blood was jumping in his brain.

"Yes," she cried. "Ally! I shall call you Ally, just like Ally Sloper! That's better than Bert."

Ally. It was not romantic, no; but still----

Gad, what a ripping little girl she was!

He wished to goodness he hadn't ever thought about that kiss. He could have been ever so much more amusing, make her like him more, if only he hadn't got that possibility before him. And yet ... perhaps it was worth while.

But Helena had no such abstract thrill to keep her eyes open and it was well after eleven. She wished now that Mr. Alison had not come in. When Hubert got back, they'd sit and have drinks. She wished that he would go. And how she longed to yawn! If only he would even be amusing....

"Have you seen my snap-shot album?" she asked. In their two years of friendship, it had never come to this before.

"No," he said. "May I?" feeling very young. He knew that he was being entertained.

She leant down wearily to get it from the bookshelfs lower row. Her smooth white neck stretched in a rounded slope before him. By Gad! His hands moved restlessly towards her. This was his great chance. She might not even ever know!

And then--she was so innocent. Suppose she boxed his ears or anything like that? Supposing she told Brett?...

"No, don't worry with it," he said, finding it quite hard to speak. "I think I'd better go. It's too late for snap-shots! He must have missed his train."

"He'll be here any moment now," she felt compelled to say.

"I know," he answered meaningly, as though that explained his going. She did not notice of course, was just puzzled for a moment, but it gave him another thrill. As he passed through the hall, with her beside him, he saw the minute hand was nearer to midnight than to any other hour; a very dissipated time....

And outside, in the little garden, he drew a long breath, as though to set free the vanquished evil thoughts. He felt he had been very good to-night in face of opportunities for other things.

St. Anthony himself could not have felt much more complacent.