Part 7

She gave Nicholas Pavlovitch only the bald outline of the beastly happening. Blackmailer, money. He blushed furiously. Often she had seen him blush, but never as now. He was like a child who had just been smacked and knows he has not deserved it. He couldn’t, he said, bear the indecency, the shame, of it ... that, through loving him, she should have to endure this awful thing. There was only one thing to do. She must “cut him out,” that’s all! And how funnily tragic that slang sounded in his twisted Russian pronunciation.

She laughed at that. Not much, but just enough. “We do not,” she said, “take our tragedies so tragically. But scratch a Russian and you find a baby....” She kissed him.

“It is easier than that,” she explained. “You must move, dear. For weeks you have been complaining of the lighting in this studio--and now you have every excuse for taking steps about leaving it. Long steps are preferable, Nicholas. From Hampstead to Chelsea, in fact....”

Shove-off took steps at once, and these lead him to a little studio in a little street off the King’s Road, Chelsea. It was a little street like another, with a pillar-box at one end and the noise of busses at the other. Near the pillar-box was a lamp-post. And one autumn evening, as Mrs. Avalon walked from her lover’s studio into Cheyne Walk, she saw a man leaning against the lamp-post, and under a soft dilapidated hat she saw the shape of a lean face and a broken nose. He was motionless, indifferent, and he was not looking at her but at the wind that blew the leaves about the little street. Her heart jumped, and then was as still as a cut flower.

“So!” she whispered bitterly. “Blackmailers are like history, then!”

The vile person made the courteous gesture.

“Mr. Beerbohm has it,” the vile person said gravely, “that it is not history that repeats itself but historians who repeat one another. A charming writer, don’t you think?”

“Oh, dear!” said Mrs. Avalon very miserably, “I thought you were vile! But I am disappointed in you. I actually thought you would leave me alone. You are even viler than I thought, you who call yourself the cavalier of the streets!”

“Perhaps,” murmured the shabby young man. “Perhaps. It seems always to have been my fate to find out the indecencies of decent people, and so, of course, decent people do not take a very liberal view of me. You find me this evening, Mrs. Avalon, in a conversational vein.”

There was a ghastly sort of subtlety in his neglect to mention why he was there, a thin, rakish hawk by the lamp-post. Impotent, she loathed him. And she passed him resolutely, with a very proud face, one step, two, three.... And then his voice fell harshly on her back:

“You are the kind of woman men dream about in lonely moments. My life is made of lonely moments, and I think this is the loneliest of all. Go away quickly, Fay Avalon!”

Bewilderment wheeled her round.

“_What_ did you say?” she cried.

But he stood as when she had first seen him, the silhouette of a hawk with a broken nose, and he stared not at her but at the wind that blew the leaves about the little street.

“It is not worth repeating,” he said sharply into the middle air. “But to what I said, I added, ‘Go very quickly,’ and I meant it--for your sake. This is a lonely place, Mrs. Avalon, and the cavalier of the streets is as nearly an outlaw as any one outside a cinema. It is a long time since I kissed a lady, and the only thing that restrains me from doing it now is the fact that I have never in my life kissed any one who did not wish to be kissed by me. So you had better go quickly, Fay Avalon.”

She went, as swiftly as a shadow.

IV

Mrs. Avalon, after her first horrid experience, had had the forethought to keep in her jewel-safe a roll of Bank of England notes. That evening, having sent her maid from the room, she counted out five notes from the roll. She smiled wryly.... “And so,” she thought, “this is hell. And Fay Avalon is well in it, she is in a very ghastly hell.” Very slowly, very absently, she recounted the five ten-pound notes. They were clean and crisp and delicious, marvellously above the funny stuff that passes for money in France and America. They were symbols of a spacious England, of splendid adventures and gallant merchantmen, they were symbols of all the luxuries of _race_ and manners, dead now except in the hearts of a few shy people. A Bank of England note is the cleanest expression money has ever acquired, it is more than money, it decorates money. Only one of the five notes that passed through Mrs. Avalon’s fingers bore even a sign that other human hands had ever touched it, and that was but a little splash as of red ink on its back.

She put them in an envelope, wrote “To C. O. S.” across it, and privily instructed the butler that he give it into the hands of the person who had already called once before and who _might_ call again towards noon the following morning.

“The gentleman called, madam,” said Smith the next morning, when she came in from a walk for luncheon.

“The gentleman, Smith?”

“He had that manner, madam.”

“There will be ten for luncheon, not eight, Smith.”

“Major Cypress and Mr. Trevor rang up to inquire if you expected them to luncheon, madam. They seemed, I think, disappointed that you did not.”

“They rang up together?”

“Such was my impression, madam. They said that there must be some mistake about your not expecting them to luncheon as they had not been asked to luncheon anywhere else. On asking my opinion as to whether, if they called at about half-past one, you would or would not ask them to stay, I ventured to say, madam, that it was very probable. I gather that that will make twelve for luncheon, madam.”

Mrs. Avalon smiled. “Very good, Smith.”

“The gentleman who called left this letter, madam.”

“Put it down over there. That will do, Smith, thank you.”

When she was alone she gingerly touched the letter. It was not addressed. The expression on her face was as though she was breathing the air of a pest-house.

“I see,” said the note, “that you think me even viler than I am. That is what I intended. By giving me money when I did not ask for it, you have made the profession of blackmailer an impossible one for a man of sensibility. Good-bye.”

V

She did not tell Nicholas Pavlovitch of this second encounter. It would, she thought, be only disturbing him for nothing, for she was quite convinced that she had now seen the last of the cavalier of the streets. She couldn’t help having a little private conceit about it. After all, not every woman would have managed that foul man so--certainly not those notoriously managing women who know how to deal with men. “Oh, dear!” she thought, “I am clever, I really am!” Even this man, so brutally undesirous to please, had been charmed back into the loathsome shades whence he had so horridly come--so impressed had he been by her original way of being blackmailed that he had been appalled into respectful invisibility. She had, after all, allowed herself to be blackmailed charmingly, she had been as charming as any woman being blackmailed could possibly be.

It was because of such thoughts that, eleven evenings later, she was so particularly angry: for the lamp-light near the pillar-box fell on the figure of the cavalier of the streets, the careless, rakish figure at his disgusting post. By the beating of her heart, she knew him yards and yards away. Still she stood for one long moment, to quiet her heart, and then, intolerantly, she swept on. She was humiliated in a most private conceit. She was angrier than she had ever been in her life.

Swiftly she pressed on, to pass him with inexpressible contempt; but the pavement was narrow, and wide the sweep of the bad man’s hat.

“Forgive me,” said he. “I had not intended to worry you again, but----”

“You do not _worry_ me,” said a lady to an insect.

“In that case,” said the cavalier of the streets, “I may spare you my apologies, which, I assure you, are quite dangerously insincere. I had intended not to sin against you again. But, this very afternoon, something has happened, something really rather awkward. I do not often lose money at poker, Mrs. Avalon--in fact, I make a point of not losing money at poker, in so far, of course, as a man of honour may make a point about a hazard. But, whether it was the memory of your beauty, for I may not ever forget it, that came between me and my skill, or whether--Oh, what does it matter why it was, since the fact remains that I have lost money, and must pay what I owe or forfeit my honour....”

“Your _honour_!” she gasped. “Oh, _commedia, commedia_!”

“I could wish I was as privileged as you to take a comical view of it. It is only a small debt, however. A matter of twenty pounds. I have still ten left of the fifty you so kindly lent to me the other day--I wonder, Mrs. Avalon, I wonder if you could by any chance help me with the rest? I should be so grateful.”

So she had been right about him, after all! He would not have come again, in the ordinary way. She looked into his eyes, and they were as the eyes of other men. The cavalier of the streets was without his sneer.

“Yes,” she said gravely. “A debt of honour--surely you must pay a debt of honour, O cavalier of the streets! It is very commendable in you to want to.”

“It is merely good sense, madam. Like all matters of honour. If one does not pay, one does not get paid.”

Her fingers were playing within her bag. They ceased.

“I’m so afraid,” she murmured, “that I have only a few shillings....”

“Pity!” whispered the shabby young man; and he smiled curiously, as might a man whose horse has been beaten by a short head.

“I will go home,” said Fay Avalon, “and get you the money.”

“You will do nothing of the sort, Mrs. Avalon. Ridiculous to put you to that trouble for a mere ten pounds. Besides, it might cause comment if I showed myself at your door again.”

“My butler thought you charming,” she told him gravely.

“Therein he discerned your influence over me, Mrs. Avalon. No, I have a better idea! Go back to Prince Shuvarov and ask him to----”

“But he is so poor!”

“Heavens, those insufferable drawings of his must sometimes fetch some money! Try, please. It is only fair, after all, that he should contribute a little towards my support----”

“Your debt of honour, surely!”

“I am rebuked. A man’s honour would be very adequately preserved by you, Mrs. Avalon. But please do as I suggest. I will abide by the weight of Shuvarov’s pocket.”

With a quick gesture, she left him. She found Shuvarov preparing to shave, for when he was dining out he always shaved twice, like all proper men. She did not give him time to voice his surprise at her re-entrance.

“That wretch is here again,” she explained swiftly. “I know you are poor, dear, but have you just a few pounds you could lend me? Ten, for instance?”

Shuvarov began furiously, his cheeks mantling. “That man....” He waved his shaving-brush.

“Never mind that now, dear. Have you or haven’t you the money? Please, Nicholas?” She was always gentle with him. He was such a child.

Nicholas Pavlovitch shrugged his shoulders, and banged down the shaving-brush.

“You are encouraging him,” he said fatalistically. “Lucky I sold a drawing for just that amount to-day. Lucky for that man, I mean.” He fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, and gave her a banknote.

“Bless you, Nicholas!” she cried softly, and was going, when the light fell on the banknote in her hand so that there was visible on it a little splash as of red ink....

Slowly, she looked up at Prince Nicholas Pavlovitch Shuvarov. Her lips did not move, but he understood, and his thin, handsome face went as white as a soiled handkerchief.

The cavalier of the streets saw her face as she approached. She flung the note at him, so that it fell from his jacket to his feet. She passed him. But fingers swiftly clutched her arm, so that it hurt.

“That,” he said harshly, “will teach a lovely lady to love scum. I intended that it should. He and I arranged the _coup_, ages ago. But when I saw you the first time, in Hampstead, I sickened. That is why I was so beastly, that you should hate me as much as I hated myself. _Le coup est nul_, I told Shuvarov after that. Since then your face has haunted me. So I did this--to cure you of your silly infatuation for a man who would eat into your life like a foul little worm into a lovely fruit. God, how you could ever have liked that lousy, half-baked, professional Russian! I saw him to-day, and saw that he still had the note with the red mark on it--this!” And he ground his heel on the note on the pavement. Tighter he held her arm, and he scowled into her face. She thought of the wet-white she would have to use on her arm to hide the bruises of his fingers.

“You’re hurting me!” she cried.

“I know. I have sinned against you,” he said, “but you have done worse. You have sinned against yourself. Now go, and sin no more. And you’d better go damn quick else you’ll be very late for dinner and the old K.C. will get cross.”

“_You_ to talk of sin!” she cried, and laughed.

“Naturally, Fay Avalon. For only Satan can rebuke sin with authority.”

“Oh, pouf!” she laughed. “You are sentimental then!”

“Hell!” snapped the cavalier of the streets. “I am in love!” And as he swept off his dilapidated hat she could not help a thought that a plume would wave more becomingly from that particular hat than from any other hat she knew or would ever know. Romance....

“Oh, dear!” sighed Mrs. Avalon. “Good-bye.” But the cavalier was already only a distant shadow in the street.

VIII: MAJOR CYPRESS GOES OFF THE DEEP END

I

This story has no point. No story that has anything to do with Hugo Cypress could have a point, for Hugo is an utterly pointless man. Dear Hugo....

I have known him since he was so high, and as I was also so high, I know him well. I could tell you of many little happenings, just to show you the sort of man he was, but one in particular, a martial one, vividly occurs to me. It was in the third year of the war, and I had been shoved into the War Office, because of a personal application of that great scientific truth to the effect that two things cannot be in the same place at once, particularly if one of them happens to be a German shell; and, one day, Hugo called. His arm was in a sling and a light was in his eye. Dear Hugo....

“Show me,” said Hugo, “a man who will give me a job of work.”

I showed him old Tornado Toby--officially known as Major-General Sir Tobias Blast, K.C.M.G., D.S.O., M.V.O., O.U. D.S., etc. I stood in a far corner, and was very silent.

“What d’you want?” said Sir Toby.

“Job of work, sir.”

“Where?”

“Commission going to Iraq, sir.”

“Why?”

“Don’t know, sir. But it’s going.”

“Idiot. Why d’you want the job?”

“Chap must have a job of work, sir.”

Tornado Toby looked him over contemptuously, and his eye roved from the crown on Hugo’s shoulder-strap to the bits of ribbon on Hugo’s sleeve and the light in Hugo’s eye.

“What’s the matter with you as you are?”

“Fired out, sir. Sick.”

Sir Toby’s eye at last came to rest on Hugo’s disabled arm. He drew a blank form towards him. I played about with a cigarette-case.

“You can smoke,” he snarled. “What are they?”

“Virginian, sir.”

“Pah! You can’t smoke.”

He looked at Hugo.

“Sit down, Major.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Sir Toby poised pencil over paper.

“Education?”

“None, sir.”

“Where were you educated?”

“Nowhere, sir.”

“Idiot. Where were you at school?”

“Eton, sir.”

“Shake,” said Sir Toby.

They shook.

“What qualifications for this job in Iraq? Think before you answer.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Hugo thought.

“Can’t think of any, sir,” he said at last.

“Languages? French?”

“Very guarded, sir.”

“Can you live on your pay?”

“Live on anything, sir.”

“Hum! Any private means?”

“Very private, sir. Never seen them.”

“How d’you live in London, then?”

“Pretty well, sir.”

Hugo got that job, and in 1919 he came back to England, very bronzed and lean and gay. But the gaiety did not last very long.

Now Hugo, in the days of his first youth, had been consumed by an ambition to be regarded as the kind of man to whom no chaste woman should be allowed to speak. But nothing ever came of that, he never even succeeded in persuading a chaste woman to cut him; wherefore in the course of time he came to think of himself as a poor harmless idiot who was liked by every one and loved by none. “Dear Hugo,” people said. That was all right in its way, said Hugo, but he was not so young as he had been and it got, he said, on his nerves a bit....

Soon after he had returned from the Near East, and when the gaiety had worn off, he discovered a pressing desire to Settle Down. And he cast a keen eye round and about the fair land of Britain, and behold! he saw Miss Shirley St. George--and, still worse, got it into his head that she had seen him. Immediately, he fell in love with Miss Shirley St. George. He had, of course, no money: she had no money. He proposed to her: she refused him. He begged: she laughed. “Dear Hugo,” she said.

II

Now Miss Shirley St. George was little sister to George Tarlyon, whom I think I’ve told you about.

One morning Hugo arose from his bed in the chambers, which he could not afford, and directed the valet, whom he could not afford, to send this telephone message: “Major Cypress desires to see Lord Tarlyon at his club at once.”

“Lord Tarlyon,” came the answer, “will see Major Cypress at Lord Tarlyon’s club at Lord Tarlyon’s convenience, and desires Major Cypress to stand at attention when speaking to him.”

There are many clubs in Saint James’s Street, but there is one in particular, towards the northern part, much referred to by biographers of persons of _ton_ of more elegant times. Thither, that morning at a reasonable hour, went Major Cypress, very thoughtfully. Tarlyon was there. Tarlyon was always there, at a reasonable hour.

“Bronx or Martini, Hugo?”

“Sherry, thanks.”

“Nice morning, Hugo. Up late last night?”

“No,” said Major Cypress. “No. I was not up late last night, George. And if you really want to know, I think it is a very classy morning.”

“Well,” said Tarlyon, “you can’t say fairer than that, old man.”

Silence....

“Sir,” said Major Cypress, “have I your permission to pay my addresses to your little sister with a view to a matrimonial entanglement?”

“Ho!” said Tarlyon.

“What the devil do you mean by saying ‘Ho!’ when I ask you if I can pay my----”

“You can pay her what you like,” said Tarlyon sulkily.

“I thank you,” said Hugo.

“But,” said Tarlyon, “can you pay her anything at all? Major Cypress, are you in a position to support a wife?”

“Well, I never!” gasped Hugo. “I’m on half-pay, man!”

“Ho!” said Tarlyon. “I withdraw my consent. I hate to be unkind to majors, but I’m afraid I must. How are you going to live, man?”

“Can’t worry about cheques in Paradise, George.”

“Good for you, old Hugo! Very pretty. Bronx or Martini?”

“Sherry, thanks. George, you don’t know what love is....”

“Keep nothing from me, Hugo. What is love? Ah, what is love? I insist on being told....”

“Love,” said Hugo, “is proposing to Shirley five times in five months and being rejected five times in five months.... O God!”

“What did the girl say?”

“Say! She laughed at me, George. Five times running! ‘Dear Hugo....’ That’s what she said!”

“Poor old Hugo!”

“She said, George, that she could never, never marry me....”

“Well, damn it, man, you didn’t take that lying down, did you! And you a Major!”

“I took it lightly, George. I smiled. I distinctly remember smiling. O God!”

“I _am_ so sorry, Hugo! I really am, you know. Honestly, old man, I’d sooner have you for a brother-in-law than any man alive--except, perhaps, a Rockefeller.”

“Money, George, isn’t everything.”

“You’re right there, old man. Your money is completely nothing, anyhow. What’s your next step? Orchids?”

“I am no good at those Dago tricks, George.”

“Shirley’s very partial to carnations, old man.”

“No, George. Not even carnations. She’d laugh at me. She’d say ‘dear Hugo’....”

“Well, old man, you might go further and hear worse. It’s purple carnations she’s especially fond of it, by the way.”

“George, I’m going to try just once again--without carnations. Just once more, old man. And I thought I’d get your backing.”

“Full and square, Hugo, it’s with you. The cheek of that girl! Shall I ring her up and....”

“For God’s sake, don’t! But you’re a good fellow, George.... I say, if she refuses me again I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“Have a drink, old man. Bronx, sherry, or Martini?”

“No more, thanks.”

“Well, best of luck, old man!”

“Thank you, George. Good-bye.”

“See you this evening?”

“Look here, old man, I don’t want to be dramatic and all that, but you may never see me again.” And Hugo was stone-cold serious. He was probably the most serious man in England at that moment. “Good-bye, old man. Thanks so much.”

“Just a moment.” And George Tarlyon went to the writing-table, rapidly wrote a short note, and put the envelope into Hugo’s hand.

“Give that to Shirley,” said he. But Hugo looked suspicious.

“It’s about the theatre to-night,” explained Tarlyon. “I’m taking her to _Loyalties_, to improve her mind.”

“Ah,” said Hugo. “_Loyalties!_ Ah! Jew play. Very improving.” Hugo thought weightily.

“Look here,” said Hugo, “you know about these things--you were born to be a co-respondent, George. Got any tips to give a chap?”

“There’s only one, old Hugo--take ’em young and treat ’em rough. Hairy, primitive man business, you know. ‘Come here, woman, and I’ll learn you’ stuff. But it works better with some than with others, and it’s rather risky. You might try giving her a thick ear, though--only in fun, of course. Cat playing with mouse _motif_. Tender brutality’s your line, Hugo. Many a good woman’s been won by a little tender brutality tastefully applied. Just put it to her gently that you’ll give her a thick ear unless she accepts you. You can always lead the conversation to ears, somehow.... Well, good-bye. Luck, Hugo. Hey, don’t forget your hat!”

III

Miss Shirley St. George lived with her aunt in Audley Square, Tarlyon saying that he was no fit person for a young girl to live with, and the aunt agreeing. They adored each other, George and Shirley.

Towards Audley Square walked Major Cypress, very thoughtfully. Piccadilly had to be crossed, from the new Wolsely building to Mr. Solomon’s, the florist. Piccadilly was crossed, miraculously, for the traffic was thick, though genial. A newsboy yelled, “Execution of Erskine Childers” into his ear.

“Boy,” said Major Cypress, “you must not do that. You must not gloat on death like that, and before perfect strangers, too. And, besides, though you may not have shared Mr. Childers’s political opinions, you must admit that he did not die meanly. Here’s a shilling for you, and don’t let me hear you talking so much about executions in future.”

Major Cypress then walked away a pace or two, and stood before the flower-laden windows of Mr. Solomon. The boy watched him.

“Balmy,” said the boy.

“Mysterious disappearance of Child!” yelled the boy.

“Damn it,” thought Major Cypress. “I am in love. Oh, damn it!”

And he stared into the flower-laden windows of Mr. Solomon. Orchids there were therein, yellow and mauve and speckled. Roses, little, tight autumn roses. Pink and white anemones, hyacinths and jonquils, white Dutch lilacs and fat chrysanthemums in white and bronze. And there were carnations--right in the middle of that pageant was a splash of purple carnations.

“Carnations,” thought Major Cypress. “And, in particular, purple carnations. But that is not a proper way for an Englishman to win a wife. A little tender brutality is the way. But how to be tenderly brutal? Hell, I wish I was a Frenchman! A gardenia, on the other hand, may not come amiss. I will wear a gardenia. It will give me an air of high-minded depravity, which, they say, is attractive to young women.”