Egbert came into the large, dimly lit drawing-room with the air of a man
who is not certain whether he is entering a dovecote or a bomb factory,
and is prepared for either eventuality. The little domestic quarrel over
the luncheon-table had not been fought to a definite finish, and the
question was how far Lady Anne was in a mood to renew or forgo
hostilities. Her pose in the arm-chair by the tea-table was rather
elaborately rigid; in the gloom of a December afternoon Egbert's
pince-nez did not materially help him to discern the expression of her
face.
By way of breaking whatever ice might be floating on the surface he made
a remark about a dim religious light. He or Lady Anne were accustomed to
make that remark between 4.30 and 6 on winter and late autumn evenings;
it was a part of their married life. There was no recognised rejoinder
to it, and Lady Anne made none.
Don Tarquinio lay astretch on the Persian rug, basking in the firelight
with superb indifference to the possible ill-humour of Lady Anne. His
pedigree was as flawlessly Persian as the rug, and his ruff was coming
into the glory of its second winter. The page-boy, who had Renaissance
tendencies, had christened him Don Tarquinio. Left to themselves, Egbert
and Lady Anne would unfailingly have called him Fluff, but they were not
obstinate.
Egbert poured himself out some tea. As the silence gave no sign of
breaking on Lady Anne's initiative, he braced himself for another Yermak
effort.
"My remark at lunch had a purely academic application," he announced;
"you seem to put an unnecessarily personal significance into it."
Lady Anne maintained her defensive barrier of silence. The bullfinch
lazily filled in the interval with an air from _Iphigenie en Tauride_.
Egbert recognised it immediately, because it was the only air the
bullfinch whistled, and he had come to them with the reputation for
whistling it. Both Egbert and Lady Anne would have preferred something
from _The Yeomen of the Guard_, which was their favourite opera. In
matters artistic they had a similarity of taste. They leaned towards the
honest and explicit in art, a picture, for instance, that told its own
story, with generous assistance from its title. A riderless warhorse
with harness in obvious disarray, staggering into a courtyard full of
pale swooning women, and marginally noted "Bad News", suggested to their
minds a distinct interpretation of some military catastrophe. They could
see what it was meant to convey, and explain it to friends of duller
intelligence.
The silence continued. As a rule Lady Anne's displeasure became
articulate and markedly voluble after four minutes of introductory
muteness. Egbert seized the milk-jug and poured some of its contents
into Don Tarquinio's saucer; as the saucer was already full to the brim
an unsightly overflow was the result. Don Tarquinio looked on with a
surprised interest that evanesced into elaborate unconsciousness when he
was appealed to by Egbert to come and drink up some of the spilt matter.
Don Tarquinio was prepared to play many roles in life, but a vacuum
carpet-cleaner was not one of them.
"Don't you think we're being rather foolish?" said Egbert cheerfully.
If Lady Anne thought so she didn't say so.
"I dare say the fault has been partly on my side," continued Egbert, with
evaporating cheerfulness. "After all, I'm only human, you know. You
seem to forget that I'm only human."
He insisted on the point, as if there had been unfounded suggestions that
he was built on Satyr lines, with goat continuations where the human left
off.
The bullfinch recommenced its air from _Iphigenie en Tauride_. Egbert
began to feel depressed. Lady Anne was not drinking her tea. Perhaps
she was feeling unwell. But when Lady Anne felt unwell she was not wont
to be reticent on the subject. "No one knows what I suffer from
indigestion" was one of her favourite statements; but the lack of
knowledge can only have been caused by defective listening; the amount of
information available on the subject would have supplied material for a
monograph.
Evidently Lady Anne was not feeling unwell.
Egbert began to think he was being unreasonably dealt with; naturally he
began to make concessions.
"I dare say," he observed, taking as central a position on the hearth-rug
as Don Tarquinio could be persuaded to concede him, "I may have been to
blame. I am willing, if I can thereby restore things to a happier
standpoint, to undertake to lead a better life."
He wondered vaguely how it would be possible. Temptations came to him,
in middle age, tentatively and without insistence, like a neglected
butcher-boy who asks for a Christmas box in February for no more hopeful
reason that than he didn't get one in December. He had no more idea of
succumbing to them than he had of purchasing the fish-knives and fur boas
that ladies are impelled to sacrifice through the medium of advertisement
columns during twelve months of the year. Still, there was something
impressive in this unasked-for renunciation of possibly latent
enormities.
Lady Anne showed no sign of being impressed.
Egbert looked at her nervously through his glasses. To get the worst of
an argument with her was no new experience. To get the worst of a
monologue was a humiliating novelty.
"I shall go and dress for diner," he announced in a voice into which he
intended some shade of sternness to creep.
At the door a final access of weakness impelled him to make a further
appeal.
"Aren't we being very silly?"
"A fool" was Don Tarquinio's mental comment as the door closed on
Egbert's retreat. Then he lifted his velvet forepaws in the air and
leapt lightly on to a bookshelf immediately under the bullfinch's cage.
It was the first time he had seemed to notice the bird's existence, but
he was carrying out a long-formed theory of action with the precision of
mature deliberation. The bullfinch, who had fancied himself something of
a despot, depressed himself of a sudden into a third of his normal
displacement; then he fell to a helpless wing-beating and shrill
cheeping. He had cost twenty-seven shillings without the cage, but Lady
Anne made no sign of interfering. She had been dead for two hours.