It was Arthur Rattray who generally did the art criticism
for the _Decade_, and when a temporary indisposition
interfered between Mr. Rattray and this duty early in
May, he had acquired so much respect for Elfrida's opinion
in artistic matters, and so much good-will toward her
personally, that he wrote and asked her to undertake it
for him with considerable pleasure. This respect and
regard had dawned upon him gradually, from various sources,
in spite of the fact that the Latin Quarter article had
not been a particular success. That, to do Miss Bell
justice, as Mr. Rattray said in mentioning the matter to
the editor-in-chief, was not so much the fault of the
article as the fault of their public. Miss Bell wrote
the graphic naked truth about the Latin Quarter. Even
after Rattray had sent her copy back to be amended for
the third time, she did not seem able to realize that
their public wouldn't stand _unions libres_ when not
served up with a moral purpose--that no artistic apology
for them would do. In the end, therefore, Rattray was
obliged to mutilate the article himself, and to neutralize
it here and there. He was justified in taking the trouble,
for it was matter they wanted, on account of some expensive
drawings of the locality that had been in hand a long
time. Even then the editor-in-chief had grumbled at its
"tone," though the wrath of the editor-in-chief was
nothing to Miss Bell's. Mr. Rattray could not remember
ever having had before a conversation with a contributor
which approached in liveliness or interest the one he
sustained with Miss Bell the day after her copy appeared.
If he imparted some ideas of expediency, he received some
of obligation to artistic truth, which he henceforth
associated with Elfrida's expressive eyes and what he
called her foreign accent. On the whole, therefore, the
conversation was agreeable, and it left him with the
impression that Miss Bell, under proper guidance, could
very possibly do some fresh unconventional work for the
_Age_. Freshness and unconventionality for the _Age_ was
what Mr. Rattray sought as they seek the jewel in the
serpent's head in the far East. He talked to the
editor-in-chief about it, mentioning the increasing lot
of things concerning women that had to be touched, which
only a woman could treat "from the inside," and the
editor-in-chief agreed sulkily, because experience told
him it was best to agree with Mr. Rattray, that Miss Bell
should be taken on the staff on trial, at two pounds a
week. "But the paper doesn't want a female Zola," he
growled; "you can tell her that." Rattray did not tell
her precisely that, but he explained the situation so
that she quite understood it, the next afternoon when he
called to talk the matter over with her. He could not
ask her to come to the office to discuss it, he said,
they were so full up, they had really no place to receive
a lady. And he apologized for his hat, which was not a
silk one, in the uncertain way of a man who has heard of
the proprieties in these things. She made him tea with
her samovar, and she talked to him about Parisian journalism
and the Parisian stage in a way that made her a further
discovery to him; and his mind, hitherto wholly devoted
to the service of the _Illustrated Age_, received an
impetus in a new direction. When he had gone Elfrida
laughed a little, silently, thinking first of this, for
it was quite plain to her. Then, contrasting what the
_Age_ wanted her to write with her ideal of journalistic
literature, she stated to Buddha that it was "worse than
_panade_." "But it means two pounds a week, Buddha," she
said; "fifty francs! Do you understand that? It means
that we shall be able to stay here, in the world--that
I shall not be obliged to take you to Sparta. You don't
know, Buddha, how you would _loathe_ Sparta! But understand,
it is at _that_ price that we are going to despise
ourselves for a while--not for the two pounds!"
And next day she was sent to report a distribution of
diplomas to graduating nurses by the Princess of Wales.
Buddha was not an adequate confidant. Elfrida found him
capable of absorbing her emotions indefinitely, but his
still smile was not always responsive enough, so she made
a little feast, and asked Golightly Ticke to tea, the
Sunday after the Saturday that made her a salaried member
of the London press. Golightly's felicitations were
sincere and spasmodically sympathetic, but he found it
impossible to conceal the fact that of late the world
had not smiled equally upon him. In spite of the dramatic
fervor with which the part of James Jones, a solicitor's
clerk, had been rendered every evening, the piece at the
Princess's had to come to an unprofitable close, the
theatre had been leased to an American company, Phyllis
had gone to the provinces, and Mr. Ticke's abilities were
at the service of chance. By the time he had reached
his second cigarette he was so sunk in cynicism that
Elfrida applied herself delicately to discover these
facts. Golightly made an elaborate effort to put her off.
He threw his head back in his chair and watched the faint
rings of his cigarette curling into indistinguishability
against the ceiling, and said he was only the dust that
blew about the narrow streets of the world, and why should
she care to know which way the wind took him! Lighting
his third, he said, as bitterly as that engrossment would
permit him, that the sooner--puff--it was over--puff--the
sooner--puff--to sleep; and when the lighting was quite
satisfactorily accomplished he laughed harshly. "I shall
think," said Elfrida earnestly, "if you do not tell me
how things are with you, since they are bad, that you
are not a true Bohemian--that you have scruples."
"You know better--at least I hope you do--than to charge
me with that," Golightly returned, with an inflection
full of reproachful meaning. "I--I drank myself to sleep
last night, Miss Bell. When the candle flickered out I
thought that it was all over--curious sensation. This
morning," he added, looking through his half-closed
eyelashes with sardonic stage effect, "I wished it had
been."
"Tell me," Elfrida insisted gently; and looking attentively
at his long, thin fingers Mr. Ticke then told her. He
told her tersely, it did not take long; and in the end
he doubled up his hand and pulled a crumpled cuff down
over it. "To me," he said, "a thing like that represents
the worst of it. When I look at that I feel capable of
crime. I don't know whether you'll understand, but the
consideration of what my finer self suffers through
sordidness of this sort sometimes makes me think that to
rob a bank would be an act of virtue."
"I understand," said Elfrida.
"Washerwomen as a class are callous. I suppose the alkalies
they use finally penetrate to their souls. I said to
mine last Thursday, 'But I must be clean, Mrs. Binkley!'
and the creature replied, 'I don't see at all, Mr. Ticks'
--she has an odious habit of calling me Mr. Ticks--'why
you shouldn't go dirty occasional.' She seemed to think
she had made a joke!"
"They live to be paid," Elfrida said, with hard philosophy,
and then she questioned him delicately about his play.
Could she induce him to show it to her, some day? Her
opinion was worth nothing really--oh no, absolutely
nothing--but it would be a pleasure if Golightly were
_sure_ he didn't mind.
Golightly found a difficulty in selecting phrases repressive
enough to be artistic, in which to tell her that he would
be delighted.
When Mr. Ticke came in that evening he found upon his
dressing-table a thick square envelope addressed to him
in Elfrida's suggestive hand. With his fingers and thumb
he immediately detected a round hardness in one corner,
and he took some pains to open the letter so that nothing
should fall out. He postponed the pleasure of reading it
until he had carefully extracted the two ten-shilling
pieces, divested them of their bits of tissue-paper, and
put them in his waistcoat pocket. Then he held the letter
nearer to the candle and read: "I have thought about this
for a whole hour. You must believe, please, that it is
no vulgar impulse. I acknowledge it to be a very serious
liberty, and in taking it I rely upon not having
misinterpreted the scope of the freedom which exists
between us. In Bohemia--our country--one may share one's
luck with a friend, _n'est ce pas?_ I will not ask to be
forgiven."
"Nice girl," said Mr. Golightly Ticke, taking off his
boots. He went to bed rather resentfully conscious of
the difference there was in the benefactions of Miss
Phyllis Fane.
Shortly after this Mr. Ticke's own luck mended, and on
two different occasions Elfrida found a bunch of daffodils
outside her door in the morning, that made a mute and
graceful acknowledgment of the financial bond Mr. Ticke
did not dream of offering to materialize in any other
way. He felt his gratitude finely; it suggested to him
a number of little directions in which he could make
himself useful to Miss Bell, putting aside entirely the
question of repayment. One of these resolved itself into
an invitation from the Arcadia Club, of which Mr. Ticke
was a member in impressive arrears, to their monthly
_soiree_ in the Landscapists' rooms in Bond Street. The
Arcadia Club had the most liberal scope of any in London,
he told Elfrida, and included the most interesting people.
Painters belonged to it, and sculptors, actors, novelists,
musicians, journalists, perhaps above all, journalists.
A great many ladies were members, Elfrida would see, and
they were always glad to welcome a new personality. The
club recognized how the world had run to types, and how
scarce and valuable personalities were in consequence.
It was not a particularly conventional club, but he would
arrange that, if Elfrida would accept his escort. Mrs.
Tommy Morrow should meet her in the dressing-room, as a
concession to the prejudices of society.
"Mrs. Tommy is a brilliant woman in her way," Mr. Ticke
added; "she edits the _Boudoir_--I might say she created
the _Boudoir_. They call her the Queen of Arcadia. She
has a great deal of manner."
"What does Mr. Tommy Morrow do?" Elfrida asked. But
Golightly could not inform her as to Mr. Tommy Morrow's
occupation.
The rooms were half full when they arrived, and as the
man in livery announced them, "Mrs. Morrow, Miss Bell,
and Mr. Golightly Ticke," it seemed to Elfrida that
everybody turned simultaneously to look. There was nobody
to receive them; the man in livery published them, as it
were, to the company, which she felt to be a more effective
mode of entering society, when it was the society of the
arts. She could not possibly help being aware that a
great many people were looking in her direction over Mrs.
Tommy Morrow's shoulder. Presently it became obvious that
Mrs. Tommy Morrow was also aware of it. The shoulder was
a very feminine shoulder, with long lines curving forward
into the sulphur-colored gown that met them not too
prematurely. Mrs. Tommy Morrow insisted upon her shoulder,
and upon her neck, which was short behind but long in
front in effect, and curved up to a chin which was somewhat
too persistently thrust forward. Mrs. Tommy had a pretty
face with an imperious expression. "Just the face," as
Golightly murmured to Elfrida, "to run the _Boudoir_."
She seemed to know everybody, bowed right and left with
varying degrees of cordiality, and said sharply, "No shop
to-night!" to a thin young woman in a high black silk,
who came up to her exclaiming, "Oh, Mrs. Morrow, that
function at Sandringham has been postponed." Presently
Mrs. Morrow's royal progress was interrupted by a gentleman
who wished to present Signer Georgiadi, "the star of the
evening," Golightly said hurriedly to Elfrida. Mrs. Morrow
was very gracious, but the little fat Italian with the
long hair and the drooping eyelids was atrociously
embarrassed to respond to her compliments in English. He
struggled so violently that Mrs. Morrow began to smile
with a compassionate patronage which turned him a
distressing terra-cotta. Elfrida looked on for a few
minutes, and then, as one of the group, she said quietly
in French, "And Italian opera in England, how do you find
it, Signor?"
The Italian thanked her with every feature of his expressive
countenance, and burst with polite enthusiasm into his
opinion of the Albert Hall concerts. When he discovered
Elfrida to be an American, and therefore not specially
susceptible to praise of English classical interpretations,
he allowed himself to become critical, and their talk
increased in liveliness and amiability.
Mrs. Morrow listened with an appreciative air for a few
minutes, playing with her fan; then she turned to Mr.
Ticke.
"Golightly," she said acidly, "I am dying of thirst You
shall take me to the refreshment table."
So the star of the evening was abandoned to Elfrida, and
finding in her a refuge from the dreadful English tongue,
he clung to her. She was so occupied with him in this
character that almost all the other distinguished people
who attended the _soiree_ of the Arcadia Club escaped
her. Golightly asked her reproachfully afterward how he
could possibly have pointed them out to her, absorbed as
she was--and some of them would have been so pleased to
be introduced to her! She met a few notwithstanding;
they were chiefly rather elderly unmarried ladies, who
immediately mentioned to her the paper they were connected
with, and one or two of them, learning that she was a
newcomer, kindly gave her their cards, and asked her to
come and see them any second Tuesday. They had indefinite
and primitive ideas of doing their hair, and they were
certainly _mal tournee_; but Elfrida saw that she made
an impression on them--that they would remember her and
talk of her; and seeing that, other things became less
noteworthy. She felt that these ladies were more or less
emancipated, on easy terms with the facts of life, free
from the prejudices that tied the souls of people she
saw shopping at the Stores, for instance. That, and a
familiarity with the exigencies of copy at short notice,
was discernible in the way they talked and looked about
them, and the readiness with which they produced a pencil
to write the second Tuesday on their cards. Almost every
lady suggested that she might have decorated the staff
of her journal an appreciable number of years, if that
supposition had not been forbidden by the fact that the
feminine element in journalism is of comparatively recent
introduction. Elfrida wondered what they occupied themselves
with before. It did not detract from her sense of the
success of the evening--Golightly Ticke went about telling
everybody that she was the new American writer on the
_Age_--to feel herself altogether the youngest person
present, and manifestly the most effectively dressed, in
her cloudy black net and daffodils. Her spirits rose with
a keen instinct that assured her she would win, if it
were only a matter of a race with _them_. She had never
had the feeling, in any security, before; it lifted her
and carried her on in a wave of exhilaration. Golightly
Ticke, taking her in turn to the buffet for lemonade and
a sandwich, told her that he knew she would enjoy it--she
must be enjoying it, she looked in such capital form. It
was the first time she had been near the buffet; so she
had not had the opportunity of observing how important
a feature the lemonade and sandwiches formed in the
entertainment of the evening--how persistently the
representatives of the arts, with varying numbers of
buttons off their gloves, returned to this light
refreshment.
Elfrida thanked Mrs. Tommy Morrow very sweetly for her
chaperonage in the cloak-room when the hour of departure
came. "Well," said Mrs. Morrow, "you can say you have
seen a characteristic London literary gathering."
"Yes, thanks!" said Elfrida; and then, looking about her
for a commonplace, "How much taller the women seem to be
than the men," she remarked.
"Yes," returned Mrs. Tommy Morrow, "Du Maurier drew
attention to that in _Punch_, some time ago."