Part 7

“Dear little Vi,” I approved. “Her conversation never did lack the relish of revelation. You must not suppose, Arthur, that I have not had the normal past that my years would guarantee. You appear to think so.”

Bassishaw didn’t seem to see it at all. He fumbled with his fork.

“I expect you’ve had your fancies, of course,” he replied. “But I don’t mean just fancies--that’s only flirting.”

The man who cannot flirt never sees that the power to do so is a gift of the gods. Arthur held by negative constancy.

“Flirtation,” I replied, “is not the simple affair you think, Arthur. It is not necessarily a matter of twilights and conservatories, and does not even always demand privacy. For a flirtation with zest there is nothing like having an audience. Is that not so, Millicent?”

“Spare me the revelation of my ignorance,” Millicent returned, moving her chair an inch or two from the now importunate fire, and looking over her shoulder. “It is possible.”

“The only requisites are a woman, a secret, and as many spectators as have not the use of their eyes,” I continued; “those granted, you may riot in innuendo, and your reputation go scatheless. It is the very button on the cap.”

Bassishaw could think of nothing more original to say than that it was playing with edged tools. Carrie was directing the removal of plates; I devoted my attention to Millicent.

“I had one very serious fancy, though, Millicent,” I remarked. “Shall I tell you?”

“I trust it is not unfit for the children,” she replied, looking this time beneath the flowers at Bassishaw. “The knowledge of good and evil from your point of view might not be of advantage to them.”

Caroline looked round curiously.

“Oh, Rollo, what was that?” she said. “You never told me.”

“No?” I inquired incredulously. “And you my sister, too! Ah, well, it was this. Summer mornings, at seven, I used to go across the fields with a bathing-towel; on my return I was generally met by--I never mentioned her name.”

“It would be indiscreet,” said Millicent.

“Discretion,” I answered, “is the better part of flirtation. They were lovely mornings, and there was a stile--a rather high stile--a distinct opportunity.”

I looked carefully away from Millicent, and turned to Bassishaw.

“Yes?” he said appreciatively. “And what happened?”

“I fancy,” I continued, “that she always met me on my side of the stile, so that we always had to get over it.”

Bassishaw seemed to approve the strategy.

“Nice girl?” he asked.

“She combined,” I replied, “the harmlessness of the dove with the wisdom of the serpent, for she used to feel tired when we got there, and rest. There was just room for two.”

Caroline was interested.

“And when was this, Rollo?” she asked.

“My dear Carrie,” I returned, “you had just begun German; you were at school. Well, this woman of mine would pull a flower to pieces, or light a cigarette for me, or some such foolishness. She knew the exact distance at which her hair would touch my face if it were a little tumbled. And so on.”

Millicent made the criticism that the least she could have done under the circumstances was to have sprained her ankle.

“And who was it?” Carrie asked eagerly.

The woman who presumed to condemn my carrying-on with Dolly Hemingway and Violet Mellish sat smiling in frank innocence. She, whose ignorance of such matters was to be scrupulously respected, sat with unconsciousness on her brow, and gave graceful attention to my story. She, who had called me a belated bachelor, who had spoken of my failing years and my perspective of hesitating singleness, and, above all, whose memory needed no hint as to what I was going to say, dissembled without a quiver.

“Who was it?” Caroline repeated.

“The name is the least essential part of the affair,” I replied. “We are concerned with the stile.”

“Yes, the stile,” Millicent said. “What happened?”

“Were she to ask me herself, I should only whisper,” I returned.

She leaned back and laughed outright. “You are too considerate on her account to make the story very interesting,” she remarked. “I swear I could finish it better myself. One day you tried to kiss her.”

Millicent had chosen the hazardous line of safety. She had told the truth.

I stole a glance at her under cover of the flowers.

“I tried not to,” I replied.

“And she was angry.”

“She did her best to be angry.”

“She was.”

“Till the next morning,” I answered.

“And then you begged her pardon?”

“I did nothing of the kind. I was not so young as all that.”

“But, at least, you were sorry?” Millicent suggested.

“Not from that day to this,” I replied. “It was too perfect.”

Millicent moved her chair a little further, and, as she did so--it might have been done purposely--you never can tell with Millicent--her foot touched mine gently; and as it remained there a moment, I felt more like Bassishaw than I would have cared to admit. She has since told me, I don’t mind saying, that I have good eyes; be that as it may, the mischief in her own was for a second tempered to an expression that--was nobody’s business but mine. I felt tempted to forswear my theory, and to regret the presence of an audience.

She rose gaily.

“This is all very well,” she said, “but it is a bad thing to have the fire at your back. Be good enough to put the screen up, Arthur.”

Arthur did so.

“But the story,” Caroline persisted impatiently--she wanted to get to the reconciliation with tears. “How does the story go on?”

“It went on,” I replied, “in much the same way. It is not quite finished yet.”

She looked a virtuous reproof.

“I am surprised, Rollo,” she said, “that you should have behaved in so indiscreet a fashion. I think that on that occasion it was just as well there _was_ nobody there. _I_ should be exceedingly sorry to witness any such proceeding. It would make me extremely uncomfortable.”

I laughed, and stroked my little sister’s hair.

“What liqueur will you take, Millicent?” I asked.

XIV

THE THINGS THAT ARE CÆSAR’S

Almost the whole of my female acquaintance seemed to be gathered in my rooms, and seemed, moreover, to be doing its collective best to persuade me of the superfluity of my presence. The occasion was the eve of Caroline’s wedding, and the natural interest I myself took in the event paled before the engrossing fascination it appeared to have for these ladies. The company consisted largely of Mrs. Loring Chatterton; but she was ably supported by the remainder of her particular set and half a dozen supernumerary bridesmaids, not one of whom--with the exception, perhaps, of a quiet little creature who sat apart and said nothing--but would willingly have turned me out of house and home had she dared, as a person who could perfectly well be dispensed with. From the whispered conversations and secret conferences around me I was rigidly excluded, which I regretted the more as I felt I should have taken a peculiar pleasure in them.

“My good man,” said Mrs. Loring, striding over my feet with an armful of bridesmaids’ frippery, “what a lot of room you take up! You are sure you have no engagement this evening?”

“Nothing of importance, Mrs. Loring,” I replied, looking up from an entry-book of bridal gifts I was curiously scanning, with mental notes of my own. “You may consider me entirely at your disposal. My duty is here to-night of all nights; and when you and Mrs. Carmichael can spare Caroline, I also have certain advice to give her not inappropriate to the occasion.”

“Don’t you think you’d better go and give Arthur the benefit of your wisdom?” she rejoined.

“Alas,” I replied, “it is too late--he cannot draw back now. He must take the inevitable consequences of engagement. He has made his bed----”

“I see no reason for your being indelicate, Mr. Butterfield,” answered Mrs. Chatterton; and she rustled away, dignity in flounces.

Never had my flat known such wealth of plate and tissue-paper. Had Jupiter, in wooing Danaë, adopted a silver currency, he could scarce have crowded more lavishly the Grecian tower. Ladies slipped in and out of the miscellaneous collection with feminine calculations and judgments, which I noted in secret joy, estimating, apparently, the whole affair in its comparison with previous functions. And above all, and more insistent from their very quietness, were heard the mysterious confabulations.

I crossed over to Mrs. Carmichael and Caroline. “Well, little sister,” I said, glancing at Mrs. Carmichael, “and what unspeakable things has Mrs. Kit been telling you now?”

“Oh, Rollo,” she replied, placing her hand pleadingly on my sleeve, “she hasn’t. Please don’t tease me to-night, dear. I am not a bit happy. I almost wish I was not going to be married.”

“Then she has?” I returned. “Mrs. Kit, how could you? But there--you’re all alike. They’re not in the least interested in you, Carrie, my dear. It’s just a wedding. A woman and a bridecake----”

“What do you know about it?” Mrs. Carmichael said disdainfully.

“Madame,” I replied, “the exultation of your sex in all that pertains to a wedding is barely fit for the contemplation of a bachelor. Cannot you disguise your interest in some seemly manner?”

“If you’ll arrange these cards,” she retorted, “instead of concerning yourself with things of no moment to you, you’ll be of much more service. _Will_ you be so good as to label these presents--and with as little talk as is convenient to you?”

This to me, mind, in my own house! I looked to Caroline to espouse my cause and to resent the outrage on my feelings; but she merely looked plaintively. With a sigh, which Mrs. Kit, calling after me, qualified as “avoirdupois,” I tried Mrs. Vicars, who was fluttering round the other end of the glittering table, arranging the nuptial tribute in symphonic harmonies of the Kensington amateur order. Mrs. Vicars is æsthetic at a street’s length, and, as Millicent Dixon had once spitefully said, wears her art upon her sleeves for Jays to laugh at. She was placing her own offering, something in plush and oil colour, modestly, shrinkingly, all but out of sight.

I was saying something about the spiritual reality of which all this external show was but the outward symbol, when she cut me off.

“Oh, Mr. Butterfield,” she said, “why _did_ Cissie Bingham give Caroline a _green_ fan?”

“Possibly, Mrs. Vicars,” I replied, “for the same order of reason that causes a miller to wear a white hat.”

“But a green one--how horrid! Look at her complexion!” And she bent the trifle coquettishly round her chin, with a well-studied sparkle over the top of it--a lesson in feminine Arts and Crafts.

“A fan, Mrs. Vicars,” I replied, “may be used either for flirtation or concealment--before marriage. Afterwards, only for the latter. In either case the appropriateness----”

“I think you are very horrid, Mr. Butterfield,” she answered, preening the openwork effervescence of her corsage and turning her shoulders to me in pique. “I believe Mrs. Bassishaw wants you.”

I tried my luck with Mrs. Bassishaw, Arthur’s mother. Mrs. Bassishaw is a comely widow, as young as is compatible with having a son on the eve of marriage, and still possessing what her friends call “excellent chances.” She made a place for me by her side.

“You and I will be less in the way in this corner, Mr. Butterfield,” she said, “and we can watch the young people. Doesn’t this make you feel terribly old? I declare I feel myself ageing already.”

She passed her hand over her glossy hair.

“I also feel it keenly, Mrs. Bassishaw,” I replied.

“And only think, Mr. Butterfield,” she continued, “should--should you become an uncle, I shall be a grandmother! Oh, I do hope they’ll be comfortable--and happy!”

“I have not a doubt, Mrs. Bassishaw,” I answered, “that they will be exceedingly comfortable--and becomingly happy.”

“Only that?” she inquired.

“Is not that a good deal?” I replied.

“They are, I believe, made for each other; but I do not expect anything epic from either of them, nor will they, so far as I can see, mark the beginning of an æon in the annals of matrimony.”

“You are very hard on them, Mr. Butterfield--poor things!” she answered--apparently because I had not granted them the beginning of an æon. Thus does one suffer for principle! I rose to interview an automatic reporter from a fashion paper, whom Mrs. Loring handed over to me with a request to be good enough to take the thing seriously. I told him that the presents were numerous and costly, including--here followed a list; and crossed over to a knot of frolicking bridesmaids that was gabbling millinery in one corner.

These young ladies had apparently a good deal to say; and prominent among the chatter could be heard Miss Nellie Bassishaw’s voice declaring that something or other of hers was of a poorer quality of silk than some one else’s; which was always the way, she remarked, with a grown-up toss of the head, when one bought six gowns at the same shop. Miss Flo Bassishaw and another maid were talking simultaneously, the one saying that the organist was sure to play the march too soulfully for it to be of much use as walking music, and the other that old----(a respected friend of mine) could afford to give cheap salad bowls now that he had married all his daughters. And above all, and to an extent that was an enlightenment even to me, the pairing arrangements for the breakfast were discussed with a freedom and pointedness that took entire precedence of any other significance the occasion might have. In this theme again Miss Nellie revelled.

“I don’t care,” she said, “I shall ask Carrie. He’s not a bit too old; and I _have_ met him before--you haven’t. I’m not going to be bored to death by Jack Somers, and have to do all the talking myself; and that’s my decision,” she said irrevocably.

“We shall have _our_ hair up to-morrow, too,” returned Flo, with the spiteful familiarity of a younger sister, “and I shall hear every word you say, because I shall be on the other side.”

“I don’t know why they ask such a crowd,” another half-blown bud of sixteen joined in. “I expect Rollo Butterfield went to school with most of them--they’re old enough.”

And fat enough--and dull enough--and bald enough--the poise of her chin seemed to say. I admired her confidence.

“And what about----?” a nod of Miss Nellie’s head gave the direction to my eyes. I looked, and saw apparently unheeded by the noisy group, the pretty, timid creature I had remarked once or twice before, an imported cousin of somebody’s, condemned to wear pink because it suited the rest. She was out in the cold; but something in the abstracted quietness of her pose told me it was perhaps as much from choice as from the passing-over of her companions.

“Oh,” Miss Flo replied, “she can go somewhere near Rollo Butterfield--she’ll be less awkward near him than with anybody else. And then Jack Somers.”

Seeing myself so allotted, I thought it well to make the acquaintance beforehand of the maid for whose conversational flow I was to be responsible. I skirted the group, and sat down by her.

“I see you’re taking a short rest from your duties, Aggie,” I remarked. “Are you having a good time?”

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Butterfield,” she answered shyly. “I think it’s all lovely.”

“The dresses and things?” I asked.

“No,” she replied, turning grey eyes upon me. “Mr. Bassishaw and the wedding--and Caroline. The presents don’t matter much, do they, Mr. Butterfield?”

I looked around in some doubt.

“I don’t know, Aggie,” I returned. “Every one appears to think a good deal of--that sort of thing--except you--and me. I think we shall be friends, Aggie.”

“Thank you, Mr. Butterfield.” The grey eyes looked into some middle distance that I could not follow. “Caroline does look nice,” she added, making an admission that for some reason did not seem easy to her. “But, of course, she’s your sister, and brothers do not think of that. Young brothers, I mean.”

“Your brothers are young, then, Aggie?”

“Yes; and they say no one will ever want to marry _me_; but that is when I won’t be tied to a table for them to fight about--an imprisoned princess, you know. It doesn’t matter--now,” she added, half to herself, and apparently forgetful of my presence.

“And you don’t like--all this?” I inquired, designating the surrounding bustle with my hand.

“No,” she replied in the same half-musing tone. “_We_ shouldn’t have wanted bridesmaids and things, you know.--Of course”--she momentarily remembered my position--“it’s all lovely; but we should just have gone away somewhere and not have had anybody but perhaps a maid. We shouldn’t have wanted anyone else, you know; and we should have lived there ever so long. That would have been nice.”

She was scarcely talking to me; but I replied:

“It is the ideal wedding, Aggie, although it is only for the few--there are relations and people. I trust you will make a success of it. I hope you will allow _me_ to make you a present, though?”

She raised her head again with the same remote look. I noticed a fine gold chain round her neck, the end of which disappeared in her bosom.

“It won’t ever be quite the same,” she replied. “Perhaps some day I shall have forgotten----”

I looked at the chain and spoke quietly.

“Is that----?”

“Yes,” she replied, her hand going softly to her breast. “I cut it out of a group, but he didn’t give it to me. You don’t mind if I don’t show it to you, do you, Mr. Butterfield? You don’t know what it is to lose anybody--like that.”

“You forget I am losing a sister, Aggie,” I answered. She thought a moment, and then made a sudden resolve. She spoke softly and almost mechanically.

“I think I will tell you, Mr. Butterfield. I wouldn’t tell”--she looked round--“any one else, but--I trust you, Mr. Butterfield. I haven’t given Caroline my present yet--I haven’t made up my mind. I’ve got two, a handkerchief case, and--this. I could give her the handkerchief case--anybody can give handkerchief cases--or the other. Anybody wouldn’t give the other. I can’t keep it, Mr. Butterfield. Look.”

She glanced round, and drew the small locket from her neck and opened it. It was Bassishaw’s portrait, a poor, ragged production, cut out, as she had said, from some larger picture. I half glanced at it, understanding without looking.

“It is worth more than a handkerchief case,” she continued, speaking very low, “and I know Caroline would value it more, if I told her. If anybody did that to me I should--I should love them. Wouldn’t you, Mr. Butterfield?”

I made no reply. Poor Aggie! She was only sixteen, and would get over it; but it was real to her, and she was very brave. She went on:

“And that’s why I don’t like all these things, Mr. Butterfield. What would you do?”

Mrs. Carmichael was signalling for me across the room. I rose and took Aggie’s hand.

“My dear,” I replied, “you have a truer instinct in these things than I. Whatever you do will be right, I know; and a fat, blundering man would spoil it. We sit together at breakfast to-morrow. I’m very glad.”

And, in response to Mrs. Carmichael’s imperious summons, I left her and plunged again into the general bewilderment.

Shortly afterwards I heard Mrs. Vicars’s voice.

“Oh, look, Caroline, what a _sweet_ handkerchief case Agnes there has given you!”

XV

SETTLING DAY

Caroline was married, and with a decent tear had left for a month’s sweet lunacy under blue skies and on Mediterranean terraces. I had bestowed an appropriate valediction at Victoria Station to the accompanying exhalation of steam, the slamming of doors, and the waving of a green flag, and had returned to my flat.

It had not appeared quite the same to me. I had peeped into the little room that had been so long her own, and a sense of emptiness and unfamiliarity had struck me, leaving little desire to make friends with it. My own rooms were structurally unchanged; but a corded and labelled trunk, left to be called for after the bridal trip, seemed to occupy the whole place to my utter exclusion, and unsettled me greatly. I perceived that virtue had gone out from these lifeless shells of apartments; and my feline attachment to the building itself was not sufficiently strong to reconcile me to an immediate resumption of the old order of things. On the whole, I did not waste much sentiment over the matter, but spoke a word in Mrs. Loring’s ear, received an invitation from some friends of hers in the country, left my chairs in canvas and my blinds in full mourning, and made haste to lawns and trim, clipped hedges till I should summon resolution to face the fresh conditions.

This gave Mrs. Loring, a certain opportunity which, as I had foreseen, she was little likely to waive, and which also suited my mood admirably.

Overhead the rooks were holding their sage, sustained conference, and I, I believe, nodding gravely and judicially, when an undefined sense of intruding mortals caused me to blink through my lashes. Mrs. Loring and Millicent were slowly crossing the lawn in my direction, their white gowns dipping from orange to grey and grey to orange as they traversed the belts of light. Mrs. Loring was talking; this, be it said, was Mrs. Loring’s supreme opportunity.

I had no wish to listen; it was forced on my passive ears.

“I suppose,” she was saying, “now that Caroline’s gone, he must. I know that Cicely Vicars told me you can do what you like with a man who feels a little bit sorry for himself, Millicent. _She did._”

This seemed somehow to concern me. I had doubtless felt somewhat low, but had no idea I had showed it so plainly as that. Anyway, Cicely Vicars doubtless knew. Millicent replied:

“I don’t think it’s fair, Mollie, to talk like that. Rollo Butterfield isn’t a fool; and I daresay Charlie Vicars isn’t such a fool as he was--then.”

Thank you, dear lady.

“He isn’t a fool,” Mrs. Loring replied; “but I do call it criminal--simply criminal--that a man who is getting older and--fatter--every week should keep putting off and putting off for no reason at all except that he’s ashamed to give in after so long. It’s rank breach of promise. _I_ know Rollo Butterfield.”

These were hard words to hear of one’s self. Apparently Mrs. Loring’s one desire was that that presence of mine--fat, hang her impudence!--should hold decently together through a marriage service, and run to seedy corpulence immediately afterwards for all she cared. But Millicent vindicated me nobly.

“If Rollo Butterfield, Mollie, was prepared to marry me to keep me in countenance with all the people we know, I’d never let him propose to me--which he hasn’t done, by the way. But you don’t understand him a little bit. He’s not much fatter, my dear, saving your presence, than Loring; and, any way, he’ll be a young man when Loring’s--you understand me. And you can’t say very much more to me on the subject, Mollie.”

“You’ll have to propose to him yourself, then, Millie,” said Mrs. Loring, with a worldly shrug.

“I should not be afraid to do that,” Millicent retorted defiantly.

“I should like to be there when it happened.” Mrs. Loring’s tone expressed the most offhand incredulity in the affair being ever definitely settled. There was a silence as they approached and discovered my presence.

Now, I had never been in the least resentful of Mrs. Loring Chatterton’s self-arrogated responsibility for my welfare and Millicent’s--it had always been too open and frank to be regarded as interference. But in that moment she had given me a hint that I felt half inclined to act upon. Suppose she really were there when it happened?

I rose to meet them.

“Welcome, dear ladies,” I said. “You almost caught me napping. I believe I have been dreaming, and seemed to hear voices.”

I looked at Millicent, and thought she understood; but it did not occur to Mrs. Loring that I might have overheard.

“You dream a good deal nowadays, Mr. Butterfield, don’t you?” she said, somewhat acidulously.

“I fear, Mrs. Loring,” I replied, “that I have lately done it to an extent that is almost criminal.”