KATE DUVEEN GOES ABROAD
Although Hugh Massinger had reached the cynical age of thirty-seven, he
had been so well treated by the Press and the public, that he had no
cause to develop a sneer. His essential self-satisfaction saved him from
being bored, for to be very pleased with oneself is to be pleased with
life in general. His appetites were still ready to be piqued, and he had
the same exotic delight in colour that he had had when he was an
undergraduate of twenty, and this reaction to colour is one of the
subtlest tests of a man’s vitality. When the sex stimulus weakens, when
a man becomes even a little disillusioned and a little bored, he no
longer thrills to colours. It is a sign that the youth in him is growing
grey.
Hugh Massinger’s senses were abnormally excitable. He was city bred, and
a sitter in chairs, and a lounger upon lounges, and his ideas upon
flowers, woods, fields and the country in general were utterly false,
hectic and artificial. He was the sort of sentimentalist who was always
talking of the “beautiful intrigues of the plants,” of “the red lust of
June,” and the “swelling bosom of August.” His art was a sexual art. His
thoughts lay about on cushions, and he never played any kind of game.
About this time Eve discovered that his sentimentality was growing more
demonstrative. It was like a yellow dog that fawned round and round her
chair, but seemed a little afraid of coming too near. He took a great
deal of trouble in trying to make her talk about herself, and in
thrusting a syrupy sympathy upon her.
“You are looking tired to-day,” he would say, “I shan’t let you work.”
She would protest that she was not tired.
“Really, I am nothing of the kind.”
“And I have quick eyes. It is that horrible reading-room full of
fustiness and indigence. I am ashamed to to send you there.”
She would laugh and study to be more conventional.
“Mr. Massinger, I am a very healthy young woman, and the work interests
me.”
“My work?”
“Yes.”
“That is really sweet of you. I like to think your woman’s hands have
dabbled in it. Tell me, haven’t you any ambitions of your own—any
romantic schemes?”
“Oh, I paint a little in my spare time!”
“The mysteries of colour. You are a vestal, and your colour dreams must
be very pure. Supposing we talk this afternoon, and let work alone? And
Adolf shall make us coffee.”
Adolf made excellent coffee, and in the oak court-cupboard Massinger
kept liqueur glasses and bottles of choice liqueur. It was a harmless
sort of æsthetic wickedness, a little accentuated by occasional doses of
opium or cannabis indica. Eve would take the coffee, but she could never
be persuaded to touch the Benedictine. It reminded her of Massinger’s
moonish and intriguing eyes.
At that time she thought of him as a sentimental ass, a man with a fine
brain and no common sense. She posed more and more as a very
conventional young woman, pretending to be a little shocked by his views
of life, and meeting his suggestive friendliness with British
obtuseness. She gave him back Ruskin, the Bensons and Carlyle when he
talked of Wilde. And yet this pose of hers piqued Massinger all the more
sharply, though she did not suspect it. He talked to himself of
“educating her,” of “reforming her taste,” and of “teaching her to be a
little more sympathetic towards the sweet white frailties of life.”
Early in December Kate’s last evening came, and Eve spent it with her in
the Bloomsbury rooms. There were the last odds and ends of packing to be
done, the innumerable little feminine necessaries to be stowed away in
the corners of the “steamer” trunks. Eve helped, and her more feminine
mind offered a dozen suggestions to her more practical friend. Kate
Duveen was not a _papier poudre_ woman. She did not travel with a bagful
of sacred little silver topped boxes and bottles, and her stockings were
never anything else but black.
“Have you got any hazeline and methylated spirit?”
“No.”
“You must get some on the way to the station. Or I’ll get them in the
morning. And have you plenty of thick veiling?”
“My complexion is the last thing I ever think of.”
“You have not forgotten the dictionaries, though.”
“No, nor my notebooks and stylo.”
They had supper together, and then sat over the fire with their feet on
the steel fender. Kate Duveen had become silent. She was thinking of
James Canterton, and the way he had walked into her room that evening.
“Eve!”
“Yes!”
“I am going to break a promise in order to keep a promise. I think I am
justified.”
“What is it?”
“He came here to see me one evening about two months ago.”
“Whom do you mean?”
“James Canterton.”
“And you didn’t tell me!”
“He asked me to promise not to tell, and I liked him for it. I was
rather astonished, and I snapped at him. He took it like a big dog. But
he asked me to promise something else.”
“What was it?”
“That if ever things were to go badly with you, I would let him know.”
She glanced momentarily at Eve and found that she was staring at the
fire, her lips parted slightly, as though she were about to smile, and
her eyes were full of a light that was not the mere reflection of the
fire. Her whole face had softened, and become mysteriously radiant.
“That was like him.”
“Then I may keep my promise?”
“Yes.”
“I think I can trust you both.”
Eve said nothing.
She saw Kate off in her cab next morning before going to her work at the
Museum. They held hands, but did not kiss.
“I’m so glad that you’ve had this good luck. You deserve it.”
“Nonsense. Write; and remember that promise.”
“I hope there will be no need for you to keep it. Good-bye, dear! You’ve
been so very good to me.”
She was very sad when Kate had gone, and in the great reading-room such
a rush of loneliness came over her that she had but little heart for
work. She fell to thinking of Canterton, and of the work they had done
together, and the thought of Hugh Massinger and that flat of his in
Purbeck Street made her feel that life had cheapened and deteriorated.
There was something unwholesome about the man and his art. It humiliated
her to think that sincerity had thrust this meaner career upon her.
Punctually at two o’clock she rang the bell of the flat in Purbeck
Street. Adolf admitted her. She disliked Adolf’s smile. It was a recent
development, and it struck her as being latently offensive.
Hugh Massinger was curled up on the lounge, reading one of Shaw’s plays.
He loathed Shaw, but read him as a dog worries something that it
particularly detests. He sat up, his moonish eyes smiling, and Eve
realised for the first time that his eyes and Adolf’s were somewhat
alike.
She sat down at the table, and began to arrange her notebooks.
“You look _triste_ to-day.”
“Do I?”
“I am growing very understanding towards your moods.”
She caught the challenge on the shield of a casual composure.
“I lost a friend this morning.”
“Not by death?”
“Oh, no! She has gone abroad. One does not like losing the only friend
one has in London.”
He leaned forward with a gesture of protest.
“Now you have hurt me.”
“Hurt you, Mr. Massinger!”
“I thought that I was becoming something of a friend.”
She made herself look at him with frank, calm eyes.
“It had not occurred to me. I really am very much obliged to you. Shall
I begin to read out my notes?”
He did not answer for a moment, but remained looking at her with
sentimental solemnity.
“My dear lady, you will not put me off like that. I am much too
sympathetic to be repulsed so easily. I don’t like to see you sad. Adolf
shall make coffee, and we will give up work this afternoon and chatter.
You shall discover a friend——”
She said, very quietly:
“I would rather work, Mr. Massinger. Work is very soothing.”
* * * * *