It was a bright spring day; one of those days on which the freshness and
renewal of life which only spring knows, and for the sake of which even
the cold monotony of winter is endurable, seem to be in the very air,
and to radiate with the light itself. Even in London, where nature’s
broadest effects, only, can be felt, there was a sense of exuberance
which was almost excitement. The sun shone with a brightness which
seemed to shed oblivion over past darkness. The air was quickening and
stirring with vague and limitless possibilities.
It is rather a notable arrangement which makes the quickening of life in
one of the least natural systems in the world, London society,
simultaneous with nature’s great awakening. It presents a suggestion of
combined travesty, patronage, and unconscious testimony to that affinity
between man and nature which nothing can wholly destroy, which, if
worked out with a certain amount of latitude to a fantastic imagination,
will have a rather bewildering effect upon the focus of things in
general. But it is nevertheless a fact that on this particular day in
May very many of the impulses stirring in nature had their strangely
distorted counterparts in the impulses of society. Society, like nature,
had discarded its winter garments, its winter habits; society, like
nature, was restless with fresh beginnings, fresh hopes, fresh
tendencies. The resemblance lay on the surface; the contrast was farther
to seek.
It was about three o’clock in the afternoon, and a certain section of
society--a gathering, at least, very fairly representative of a certain
section--was surging in a good-tempered, aimless, demoralised way in a
very fashionable church in Kensington. Some of the demoralisation was
due to the occasion--a smart wedding--but the gaiety and the general air
of readiness to be pleased which prevailed were as certainly the
outcome of the wider spirit of the hour as were the smart spring gowns
and the quantities of spring flowers carried or worn by the women. The
bridal party had left the church and a general exodus was in progress;
progress rendered rather slow by reason of the difficulties attendant on
the bringing together of carriages and owners, and involving a
considerable crush inside the church door. In the middle of this crush,
allowing himself to be pushed and drifted along towards the door, was a
man who was apparently too fully occupied in casting keen, comprehensive
and reconnoitring looks about him, and in returning the gestures of
greeting and welcome which returned his glances on all sides, to take
much heed as to the manner or direction of the movement imposed upon him
by the moving crowd. It was Marston Loring, and as he finally emerged
into the air he was lightly clapped on the shoulder by Lord Garstin,
who, a few yards in front of him during their compressed passage out of
the building, had waited for him on the pavement.
“Glad to see you back, Loring!” he said. “Heard last night of your
arrival. How are you?”
“Not sorry to be back,” returned Loring nonchalantly, as he shook hands.
“I’ve come to the conclusion, though, in the course of the last
half-hour, that six months is a mere nothing!”
“Are you walking round to the house?” asked Lord Garstin. “So am I. Let
me have your news as we go.”
Marston Loring had spent the winter at the Cape. His departure had been
alluded to among his smart acquaintances as “a sudden affair” more or
less indefinitely connected in their minds with that “business” of which
Loring was understood to be a devotee. To Loring himself it had been by
no means a sudden thing. That is to say, the necessity for it had been
gradually growing up about him in his professional life much against his
will, though it had reached a crisis somewhat unexpectedly. He had been
absent six months, and this was, practically, his social reappearance;
but looking at him as he turned into the street with Lord Garstin, it
would have been difficult to believe that he had been away at all; far
less that he had passed through any striking experiences of men and
life. His keen, cynical, unpleasant face was entirely unaltered; his
manner was perfectly calm and unmoved. If he had his observations to
make on his return, if the result of those observations was rather
exciting than indifferent to him, interest and emotion were still
entirely outside his pose.
The talk between the two men, however, as they passed along the streets
was such talk as passes when one of the two is occupied in picking up
dropped threads, and the other is well calculated, and well satisfied,
to help him in the process. In his heart of hearts--if such a spot could
have been reached in him--Lord Garstin would probably have confessed to
little personal liking for Loring; his cordiality was the result of
considerably involved workings of social politics. Just at this moment
in particular, with the prestige fresh upon him of sundry smart magazine
articles on Cape affairs which he had sent home from time to time, and
which had been a good deal talked about, Marston Loring was distinctly
a man to be noticed and encouraged.
Details connected with the wedding at which they had just assisted were
naturally the first topics that presented themselves. It was Hilda
Newton’s wedding; she had been married with much circumstance from Mrs.
Halse’s house; and, before Loring left England, it had been said that
she was to be married at Christmas at her own home in Yorkshire. About a
month before the day fixed for the wedding, however, the aunt with whom
she lived had died; the wedding had perforce been postponed, and when it
became possible to consider another date, Mrs. Halse--in the absence of
any near relation to the bride-elect--had taken the matter in hand.
“A very nice affair she’s made of it!” commented the elder man, as he
finished his explanation, interspersed with discursive items of news of
all sorts appertaining to society and its doings. “A little loud, of
course; that goes without saying; and, really, nowadays it’s rather the
thing! A pretty girl in her way, Mrs. Compton. And talking of pretty
girls, Maud Pomeroy looked well. They’ve been at Cannes since the end of
January; only just back, like yourself.”
“So I heard,” answered Loring indifferently. “By-the-bye, I didn’t see
the Romaynes. Aren’t they in town? I’ve not had time to look any one up
yet, of course, but I thought I should see Julian to-day.”
Lord Garstin paused a moment before he answered.
“They were there,” he said. “I saw them come in. You’ll see them at the
house, no doubt. The little woman’s been invisible for two or three
days; ill--rather bad, somebody said.”
“Ill!” echoed Loring; and there was a genuine surprise in his tone which
no information yet bestowed upon him had evoked. “Really!” He paused a
moment, and then said, with his own peculiar smile: “And how is Julian?
Does the hard-working line hold out?”
Lord Garstin smiled, more pleasantly than Loring had done, and shrugged
his shoulders.
“Pretty well, I suppose,” he said. “I met his chief the other night,
and he was not enthusiastic. He’s a nice boy, though. You’re a great
chum of his, aren’t you, Loring?” Loring nodded. “Then let me give you a
hint to have an eye to his proceedings at the club. Cards are all very
well, you know, but a boy like that should be moderate. You might be
able to talk to him about it. I gave his mother a hint a few weeks ago.
She’s a nice little woman. See what you can do, will you? I’ve got an
idea that the foolish fellow doesn’t play only at the club.”
They were close to Mrs. Halse’s house as Lord Garstin finished, and his
last words were spoken quickly and significantly. Loring answered only
by a slight movement of his eyebrows, and then they were in the hall,
being swept on by a seething crowd to pay their respects to the hostess
and the bride.
“Loring, old man! How are you?”
Loring and Lord Garstin had been thrown together again after offering
their congratulations, and they were standing side by side. Julian
Romayne was close beside them, having come up from behind through the
crowd unperceived, his hand eagerly, even demonstratively,
outstretched.
Thinking things over in private later on, Marston Loring thought with a
cynical smile that if he had not previously realised his six months’
absence, he might have done so when young Romayne’s voice fell on his
ear. The change in it, though subtle, was so marked--to the man who had
not heard it in course of transition--that it seemed to place years
rather than months between their last meeting and the present, and it
amply prepared Loring for what he saw when he turned round.
All alteration in manner and appearance consists rather in the
accentuation or modification of original characteristics than in the
developement of fresh ones; consequently it is very seldom noticed by a
casual observer when intercourse is unbroken. To Lord Garstin and to
dozens of his other acquaintances, Julian Romayne was still a “nice
boy,” just as his good-looking features were still the young features of
a year ago. To Loring the difference in face was as perceptible as was
the difference in the young man’s whole personality, and the key-note
of the difference lay in the absence of genuineness in both; in the
deliberate assumption in the present of what had been natural and
uncalculated in the past. Julian’s face had grown thinner and harder,
and the boyish smile which was in consequence no longer perfectly
harmonious was a trifle over-accentuated; while the bright, ingenuous
glance of his eyes had grown extraordinarily like his mother. His manner
was the gay, young manner which had gained him so many friends, with
just that touch of exaggeration added to it which artificiality gives.
His cordiality as he wrung Loring’s hand was rather--like the
demonstrative welcome in his voice--admirably adjusted to meet the
requirements of the moment than an expression of the man himself. He was
very carefully dressed, with a particularly dainty flower in his
buttonhole.
“Back again at last, old fellow!” he said buoyantly. “By Jove, what an
age it is since you went! And have you had a good time? When did you
reach home? Tell us all about it! You’ve no idea how glad I am to have
him back, Lord Garstin!” he added, greeting the elder man with a boyish,
half-laughing apology for his exuberance which was very effective. His
manner to Lord Garstin was as charming as ever; rather more so, indeed,
as its frank deference had acquired a polish derived from sundry little
artistic touches such as only calculation and intention can bestow.
“You seem to have managed very well without me!” returned Loring, with
good-humoured satire. “The world seems to have used you pretty fairly,
I’m glad to see! I’ve only been back about forty-eight hours or I should
have looked you up, of course. I hope Mrs. Romayne is here?”
“I hope she is better?” said Lord Garstin, with genuine concern. “We
have all been desolated over her illness!”
Julian, who had nodded lightly to Loring, turned to Lord Garstin with a
bright, affectionate laugh--also very like his mother’s--and to Loring’s
quick and alert perception an added touch of artificiality became
apparent in his manner as he said:
“It has been desolating, hasn’t it? It’s very good of you to say so,
though! Thanks, I am delighted to say she is all right again. We had a
terrific encounter as to whether she should or should not come to the
affair, and she carried the day.”
“Being perfectly restored to health she didn’t see the force of allowing
herself to be shut up and coddled by a silly boy.”
The light, high-pitched voice, somewhat thin, as was the characteristic
laugh with which the words were spoken, came from directly behind
Julian, and as Loring, who had seen her coming, stepped forward to meet
her, Mrs. Romayne, with a passing shake of her son’s arm, stretched out
her hand with graceful cordiality.
“Welcome back, Mr. Loring,” she said. “I thought your first visit would
have been to this good-for-nothing boy, but I am very glad to meet you
here all the same. Lord Garstin,” she continued, as she turned to shake
hands, “I believe you were enquiring after my health? I can’t allow good
breath to be wasted in that way! I assure you it has been much ado about
nothing, and I am perfectly, ridiculously well!”
She laughed as she finished, but a certain strained insistence had grown
in her tone as she spoke, as though her desire to impress the fact she
stated was strong enough to undermine her control of her voice.
But Loring, looking at her, was too fully occupied in criticising her
appearance to notice the tone of her voice. There must have been some
society fraud at the bottom of her reported illness, he decided, and
that was why she was so anxious to pass it over; for certainly he had
never seen her look better. She was admirably dressed, and she was very
slightly and skilfully “made up”; a condition new to him in her, and one
of which Marston Loring emphatically approved in women past their first
youth. He told himself, moreover, that either his impression of her had
been fainter than the reality, or else she had actually gained in what
he could only define to himself--and define roughly and inadequately as
he was well aware--as “grip.” There was the faintest flavour of nerve
and concentration behind her admirable society manner, which gave it a
wonderful piquancy in the eyes of her observer; a flavour which was
evidently quite unconscious and involuntary, and had its origin in
ingrain character. Loring admired power--of a certain class--in women.
In his interest in her expression, and his mental comments on
it--determined, as they could not fail to be, by his own character--he
was deceived by her cleverly arranged colouring into ignoring the almost
painful thinness of her face; nor did he understand how hollow and
sunken those glittering eyes would have been less cleverly treated.
She replied gaily to Lord Garstin’s gallant reception of her assurance,
and then turned again to Loring with an easy interested question on his
voyage.
“You are not the only returned traveller to-day!” she said, as he
answered her. “By-the-bye, Julian, I was on the way to send you into the
other room. There is some one there you will like to see!”
She smiled significantly up at him, patting his arm as she spoke, and
Julian answered with boyish eagerness.
“In the other room?” he said. “Well, perhaps I ought just to say how do
you do, you know, oughtn’t I? Loring, old fellow, we shall meet again,
of course? What are you going to do afterwards? We might go down to the
club together? And he must come and dine with us, mustn’t he, mother?
Suppose you arrange it!” And with a comprehensive gesture and another,
“I’ll just say how do you do, I think!” he disappeared in the crowd.
Mrs. Romayne turned with a shrug of her shoulders and a pretty
expressive grimace to the two men.
“Poor boy!” she laughed. “What a thing it is to be young! And what a
tantalising spectacle a wedding must be under the circumstances! A
pretty wedding, wasn’t it?”
“An ugly wedding would be rather a refreshing change, don’t you think?”
suggested Loring. “One has seen a good many pretty ones, if you come to
think of it!”
“You’re not in the least changed by six months in Africa,” returned Mrs.
Romayne, shaking her head at him prettily. “Now, tell me, really, have
you had a good time out there?”
The question was friendly and interested after a society fashion, but
the interest was entirely on the surface, and the little talk that
followed about Loring’s experiences was joined in as a matter of course
by Lord Garstin. It lasted until Mrs. Romayne said lightly:
“And now, I suppose, I ought to follow Julian’s example and ‘just say
how do you do, don’t you know!’ I have only seen Mrs. Pomeroy in the
distance as yet.”
She nodded, and moved away, stopping constantly on her way through the
rooms to exchange scraps of conversation until she came to where Mrs.
Pomeroy, amiable, inert, and smiling as though she had been sitting
there for the last three months, was holding a small court. She welcomed
Mrs. Romayne as she had welcomed all comers.
“So glad to see you,” she said placidly. “Such a long time! And how are
you?”
“So immensely pleased to have you back again,” said Mrs. Romayne
enthusiastically; there was a ring of genuineness in her voice which the
fashionable exaggeration of her speech hardly warranted. “And you
really only arrived yesterday? Miss Newton--Mrs. Compton, I mean--was
in a dreadful state of mind the other day lest her bridesmaid should
fail her. And how is Maud? How sweet she looked! Quite the prettiest of
the six. Where is she?”
“She was here just now,” returned Maud’s mother, as though that were
quite a satisfactory answer to the question, and then as an afterthought
she added vaguely: “I think she went to have an ice; your son took her.”
“Ah!” said Mrs. Romayne, smiling. “Then there is one perfectly happy
person in the house!”
Mrs. Pomeroy only smiled with vague blandness; evidently the relations
between the Romaynes and the Pomeroys had developed extensively before
the departure of the latter for Cannes; and as evidently they were quite
undisturbing to Miss Pomeroy’s mother.
“The bridesmaids’ dresses were very nice, I think,” she said, with
amiable irrelevancy. “I was afraid they sounded trying. But it has been
very pleasant altogether, hasn’t it? I wish we were going to stay in
town. We had a shocking crossing.”
A keen attention had sprung into Mrs. Romayne’s eyes, and for an instant
it seemed as though all the society gaiety died from her face, leaving
exposed the hard, almost fiercely determined, foundation on which it was
imposed. Then the foundation disappeared again.
“To stay in town!” she echoed lightly. “Why, are you not going to stay
in town, dear Mrs. Pomeroy?”
“Unfortunately not,” was the answer. “My sister who lives in
Devonshire--I think you have heard me speak of her?--is ill, and has
begged me to go and see her. So we are going for a week or ten days, I
am sorry to say.”
“I am sorry to hear,” said Mrs. Romayne, with pretty concern. “Just at
the beginning of the season, too. It’s rather hard on poor Maud, isn’t
it?”
“Yes, it is hard on poor Maud, isn’t it?” was the undisturbed response.
There was a moment’s pause, and then under her paint a burning colour
crept up to the very roots of Mrs. Romayne’s hair, and her eyes shone.
“My dear Mrs. Pomeroy,” she began gaily, but speaking rather quickly,
too, and in a higher pitch than was usual with her, “don’t you remember,
months ago, promising to lend me Maud for a little while? This is the
very opportunity. Of course,” she lowered her voice a little, “I
wouldn’t propose it if you did not know quite as well as I do how the
land lies. But, as I think we two old mothers are of one mind on that
point, I shan’t scruple. Let Maud come to me, if she will, while you are
in Devonshire. Oh, of course it needn’t mean anything--it’s an old
promise, you know, and she and I are great friends on our own account.
Talk of the angels!” she went on gaily, nodding towards a slim, white
figure coming towards them with Julian in its immediate wake.
Maud Pomeroy was looking as pretty and as proper as she had looked every
day since she had emerged from the school-room, but there was a little
flush on her face which was not habitual to her. She returned Mrs.
Romayne’s greeting with the grateful cordiality so pretty from a girl
to an older woman, evinced as was her wont more by manner than by
speech; and indeed Mrs. Romayne gave her little time for speech.
“Your mother has been telling me of this dreadful Devonshire business!”
she said. “And I’ve had what I flatter myself is a happy thought! I want
you to come to me, Maud, dear, while your mother is away. You know you
promised ages ago to let yourself be lent to me for a little while, and
this is the very opportunity, isn’t it?”
It would not have been “the thing” under the circumstances that any one
of the trio should glance at Julian; consequently no one noticed the
curious flash of expression that passed across his face as his mother
spoke. Maud Pomeroy hesitated and looked dutifully at her mother.
“It’s very kind of Mrs. Romayne, Maud, dear, isn’t it?” said Mrs.
Pomeroy with noncommittal amiability.
“It is sweet of her,” responded Maud prettily.
“Well, then, do let us consider it settled. I shall enjoy it of all
things. When do you go, dear Mrs. Pomeroy? To-morrow week? Oh, it will
be too tantalising to whisk Maud away when she had just begun to enjoy
herself; wouldn’t it, Maud?”
Miss Pomeroy hesitated again, and the colour on her cheeks deepened by
just a shade. She did not glance at her mother this time.
“Thank you very much,” she said at last. “But shan’t I be a nuisance to
you?”
There was just the touch of charmingly conventional demur in her tone
which made her submission seem, as all her actions seemed, the result of
a gentle, easily influenced temperament. Mrs. Romayne assured her
merrily that she would indeed be a terrible nuisance, but that she
herself would do her best to bear it, and then rose, her eyes very
bright.
“I must run away now,” she said. “I’m so delighted that we’ve settled
it. Let me know when to expect you, then, dear. Good-bye, Mrs. Pomeroy;
I’ll take every care of your child and return her when you want
her--only don’t let it be too soon! I needn’t take you away, sir,” she
continued, turning to Julian. He had been standing by ever since that
flash had passed over his face with an expression of eager interest in
the discussion. “I dare say you’re not in any hurry. No, you need not
even come downstairs with me. I see Mr. Loring. He’ll take care of me,
I’m sure.”
Mr. Loring, who was within hearing, as the tone of the words
implied--indeed, they were more than half addressed to him--came up
promptly.
“For how long may I have that privilege?” he said.
She explained to him lightly as he shook hands with Mrs. Pomeroy and her
daughter, and then with another farewell and a pretty, affectionate “_Au
revoir!_” to Julian, she turned away with him.
He put her into her carriage and she held out her hand with a gesture of
thanks and farewell.
“Thanks,” she said; her tone and manner alike were very friendly and
familiar in the exaggerated style which had certainly grown on her; and
they seemed to imply something beyond the superficial interest to which
she had kept, perforce, in her society intercourse with him. “It is so
pleasant to see you again! When will you come to see me quietly? Before
you are hard at work, you know! To-morrow, now? To-morrow happens to be
a free day with me. Come to tea. Good bye!”