"Hullo, girlie," called the red and green parrot, as it helped itself
up the side of its zinc cage with beak as well as claws.
Serena Lovegrove had opened the door suddenly. Then, seeing that Mr.
Iglesias alone occupied the room, neither her host nor hostess being
present, she paused in the doorway, a large floppy yellow silk work-bag
in her hands, undecided whether to retreat or to proceed. And it was
thus that the bird, discovering her advent, announced it, while the
pupils of his hard, round yellowish grey eyes dilated and
contracted--"snapped," as Serena would have said--maliciously.
Serena was a tall, elegant, faded woman, dressed in black, her little
upright head balanced upon a long thin stalk of neck. Though undeniably
faded, there was, as now seen in the quiet evening light, a suggestion
of youthfulness about her. He brown eyes, pretty though rather small,
snapped even as did those of the parrot. Excitement--to-night she was
very much excited--invariably produced in Serena an effect of clutching
at her long-departed girlhood, an effect sufficiently pathetic in the
case of a woman well on in the forties. And it was precisely this
ineffectual throw-back to a Serena of seventeen or eighteen which lent
a sharp edge of irony to the strident salutations of the parrot, as it
called out again:
"Hullo, girlie! Polly's own pet girlie," then with a prolonged and
ear-piercing whistle:--"Hi, four-wheeler! girlie's going out." And
hoarsely, with a growl in its throat: "Move on there, stoopid, can't
yer? Shut the door."
During the delivery of these final admonitions Mr. Iglesias had
recognised the shadowy figure standing on the threshold and advanced.
This decided Serena. Still twisting the ribbons of the yellow work-bag
round her thin fingers, she drifted into the room.
"I think I have had the pleasure of meeting you once or twice before,
Miss Lovegrove," Dominic said. His manner was specially gentle and
courtly, for he could not but feel the poor lady was at a disadvantage,
owing to the very articulate indiscretions of the parrot.
"Oh! yes," Serena answered. "Certainly we have met. But you are wrong
as to the number of times. It is more than once or twice. Five times, I
think; or it may have been six. No, it is five, because I remember you
were expected, in the evening, the day before I went home the winter
before last; and at the last moment you were unable to come. That would
have made six. Now it is only five."
"You have an excellent memory," Iglesias said. "It is kind of you to
remember so clearly."
"I wonder if it is--I mean, I wonder whether it is kind," Serena
rejoined.
She was quite innocent of any intention of sarcasm. But her mind, like
those of so many unoccupied, and consequently self-occupied persons,
was addicted to speculation of a minor and vacuous sort. She was also
liable--as such persons often are--to mistake cavilling for spirit and
wit--a most tedious error!
"Still you are right in saying I have a good memory," she added.
"People generally observe that. But then I was always taught it was
rude to forget. Forgetfulness is the result of inattention. At school I
never had any difficulty in learning by heart."
"You must have found that both a useful and pleasant talent."
"Perhaps," Serena replied negligently. She was determined not to commit
herself, having arrived at the conclusion that Mr. Iglesias' address
was too civil. "It was bad manners of him not to remember how often we
had met," she said to herself, "and now he is trying to pass it off.
But that won't do!" Serena had many and distinct views on the subject
of manner and manners. She was never certain that civility did not
argue a defect of sincerity. She agreed with herself to think that over
again later. Meanwhile she would carefully remark Mr. Iglesias. "If he
is insincere, as I fear he is, he is sure to betray it in other ways.
Then I shall be on my guard." Forewarned is, of course, forarmed, and
Serena felt very acute. Though against exactly what she was taking such
elaborate precautions, it would have been difficult for her, or for
anyone else, to have stated. However, just now it was incumbent upon
her to make conversation. As is the way with persons not very fertile
in ideas, she had recourse to the simple expedient of asking a leading
question.
"Are you fond of animals?" she inquired.
"I am afraid I have very little knowledge of animals," Iglesias replied.
Serena laughed dryly. This was so transparent a subterfuge.
"What a very odd answer!" she said. "Because everybody must really know
whether they like animals or not."
"I am afraid I stand by myself then, a solitary exception. I have had
little or nothing to do with animals, and have therefore had no
opportunity of discovering whether they attract me or not."
"How very odd!" Serena repeated.
She moved across to the centre-table where Mr. Lovegrove's books of
picture postcards, the miscellaneous consequences of many charity
bazaars, and kindred aesthetic treasures reposed, and deposited her
work-bag in their company. Her movement revived the attention of the
parrot, who had been nodding on its perch.
"Poor old girlie, take a brandy and soda? Kiss and be friends.
Good-night, all," it murmured hoarsely, half asleep.
"If your question bore reference to that particular animal, I stand in
no doubt as to my sentiments," Dominic remarked. "I am anything but
fond of it. I think it an odious bird."
"Ah! you see you do know," Serena exclaimed. "I was sure you did." She
felt justified in her suspicion of his sincerity. "But nobody would
agree with you, Mr. Iglesias, because of course it is really a very
clever parrot. They very seldom learn to say so many things."
"How fortunate!" Dominic permitted himself to ejaculate.
"I don't see why you should say it is fortunate."
"Do not its remarks strike you as somewhat impertinent and intrusive?"
"I wonder if an animal can be impertinent," Serena said reflectively.
But here to her vexation, for it appeared to her that she had just
started a really interesting subject of discussion, Mrs. Lovegrove
bustled into the room.
"Well, Mr. Iglesias," she began, "I am sure I am very delighted to see
you, and so will Georgie be. He was remarking only yesterday we don't
seem to see so much of you as we used to do. He's just a little behind
time, is Georgie, having been kept by the dear vicar at a meeting about
the Church Workers' Social Evenings Guild at the Mission Room in Little
Bethesda Street. You wouldn't know where that is, Mr. Iglesias--though
I can't help hoping you will some day--but Serena knows, don't you,
Serena? It's where Susan--her elder sister, Miss Lovegrove"--this aside
to Dominic--"gave an address once to the members of the Society for the
Conversion of the Jews."
"No doubt I remember; but Susan is always giving addresses somewhere,"
Serena said loftily.
"And very good and kind of her it is to give addresses," Mrs. Lovegrove
rejoined. "Even the dear vicar says what a remarkable gift she has as a
speaker, and there's no question as to the worth of his praise."
"I wonder if it is--I mean I wonder if it is good and kind of Susan to
give addresses," Serena remarked. "Because of course she enjoys giving
them. Susan likes to have a number of people listening to her."
"But if the object is a noble one?"--this from Mrs. Lovegrove, a little
nonplussed and put about.
"Still, if you enjoy doing anything, how can it be good and kind to do
it?" Serena said argumentatively. "Susan is very fond of publicity. I
think people very often deceive themselves about their own motives."
She looked meaningly at Dominic Iglesias as she spoke. And he looked
back at her gravely and kindly, though with a slightly amused smile.
His thoughts had travelled away--they had done so pretty frequently
during the last twenty-four hours--to the smirking self-conscious
little house on the verge of Barnes Common. Unpromising though it had
appeared outwardly, yet within it he believed he had found a friend--a
friend who was also an enigma. Perhaps, as he now reflected, all women
are enigmas. Certainly they are amazingly different. He thought of
Poppy. He looked at Serena. Yes, doubtless they all are enigmas;
only--might Heaven forgive him the discourtesy--all are not enigmas
equally well worth finding out.
George Lovegrove arrived. Supper, a somewhat heavy and hybrid meal,
followed--"all comfortable and friendly," as Mrs. Lovegrove described
it, "no ceremony and fal-lals, but everything put down on the table so
that you could see it and please yourself."
Serena, however, was difficult to please. She picked daintily at the
food on her plate. Her host observed her with solicitude.
"Do take a little more," he said, in an anxious aside, Mrs. Lovegrove
being safely engaged in conversation with Mr. Iglesias, "or I shall
begin to be nervous lest we aren't offering you quite what you like."
But Serena was obdurate.
"Pray don't mind, George," she said. "You know I never eat much. I am
quite different from Susan, for instance. She always has a large
appetite, and so have all her friends. Low Church people always have, I
think. But I never care to eat a great deal, especially in hot weather."
Serena was really very glad indeed to come to London just now. Still,
there were self-respecting decencies to be observed, specially in the
presence of another guest. Relationship does not necessarily imply
social equality; and, as Serena reminded herself, the family always had
felt that poor George had married beneath him. Therefore it was well to
keep the fact of her own superior refinement well in view. In the case
of good George Lovegrove this was, however, a work of supererogation.
For he had a, to himself, positively embarrassing respect for Serena's
gentility--embarrassing because at moments it came painfully near
endangering the completeness of his consideration for "the wife's
feelings." The two ladies frequently differed upon matters of taste and
etiquette, with the result that the good man's guileless breast was
torn by conflicting emotions. For had not Serena's father been a
General Officer of the Indian army? And had not Serena herself and her
elder sister Susan--a person of definite views and commanding
character--long been resident at Slowby in Midlandshire, an inland
watering-place of acknowledged fashion? It followed that her
pronouncements on social questions were necessarily final. Yet to
uphold her judgment, as against that of the wife, was to risk
mortifying the latter. And to mortify the wife would be to act as a
heartless scoundrel. Hence situations, for George Lovegrove, difficult
to the point of producing profuse perspiration.
That night Serena prepared for rest with remarkable deliberation. Clad
in a blue and white striped cotton dressing-gown, she sat long at her
toilet-table. And all the time she wondered--a far-reaching, mazelike,
elaborately intricate and wholly inconclusive wonder. Hers was a nature
which suffered perpetual solicitation from possible alternatives,
hearing warning voices from the vague, delusive regions of the might-be
or might-have-been. She had never grasped the rudimentary but very
important truth that only that which actually is in the least matters.
And so to arrive at what is, with all possible despatch--in so far as
such arriving is practicable--and then to go forward, comprises the
whole duty of the sane human being. Par from this, Serena's mind
forever fitted batlike in the half-darkness of innumerable small
prejudices and ignorances. She moved, as do so many women of her class,
in a twilight, embryonic world, untouched alike by the splendour and
terror of living.
Nevertheless, on this particular occasion, as she brushed her hair and
inserted the tortoise-shell curling-pins which should secure
to-morrow's decorative effects, she felt almost daring and dangerous.
She wondered whether she had really enjoyed the evening or not; whether
she had held her own and shown independence and spirit. She laboured
under the quaint early-Victorian notion that, in the presence of
members of the opposite sex, a woman is called upon always to play
something of a part. She should advance, so to speak, and then retreat;
provoke interest by a studied indifference; yield a little, only to
become more elegantly fugitive. It may be doubted whether these wiles
have even been a very successful adjunct to feminine charms. But in the
case of so negative and colourless a creature as Serena, they were
pathetically devoid of result. Play a part industriously as she might,
the majority of her audience was wholly unaware that she was, in point
of fact, playing anything at all! They might think her a little
capricious, a little foolish, but that there was intention or purpose
in her pallid flightiness passed the bounds of imagination. Never mind,
if the audience had no sense of the position, Serena had, and she
enjoyed it. Excitement possessed her, and her eyes snapped even yet as,
thinking it all over, she fastened the curlers in her hair.
She wondered whether George and Rhoda--how intensely she disliked the
name Rhoda!--had any special reason for asking her just now, and
talking so much about Mr. Iglesias, or whether it was a coincidence.
"Of course it is not of the slightest importance to me whether they
have or not," she reflected. "I think it would be rather an
impertinence if they had. Still, I think I had better find out; but
without letting Rhoda suspect, of course. If you give her any
encouragement Rhoda is inclined to go too far and say what is rather
indelicate. I always have thought Rhoda had a rather vulgar mind. I
wonder if poor George feels that? I believe he does, before me. Once or
twice to-night he was very nervous. How dreadfully coarse poor Rhoda's
skin is getting! I wonder if Rhoda has given Susan a hint, and if that
was what made Susan so gracious about my leaving home? But I don't
believe she did--I mean that Susan suspected that George and Rhoda had
any particular reason for inviting me. I wonder if I shall ever make
Susan see that I am not a cipher? Of course if George and Rhoda really
have any particular reason, and Susan comes to know it, that will show
her that other people do not consider me a cipher. I wonder what most
people would think of Mr. Iglesias? Of course he has only been a bank
clerk; but then so has George. Only then he is a foreigner, and that
makes a difference. I wonder whether, if anything came of it, Susan
would make his being a foreigner an objection?"
But this was growing altogether too definite and concrete. With a sort
of mental squeak Serena's thought flitted into twilight and embryonic
regions.
"I think if they have any particular reason, it is rather scheming of
George and Rhoda. I wonder if it is nice of them? If they have, I think
it is rather deceitful. I wonder if they have said anything to Mr.
Iglesias?"
Serena, with the aid of a curling-pin, was controlling the short fuzzy
little hairs just at the nape of her neck; and this last wonder proved
so absorbing a one that she remained, head bent and fingers aimlessly
fiddling with the bars of the curler, till it suddenly occurred to her
that she was getting quite stiff.
"If they have, I think it is very presuming of them," she continued
wrathfully, stretching her arms, for they ached--"very presuming. How
glad I am I was on my guard. I wonder if they saw I was on my guard? I
believe George did. I wonder if that helped to make him nervous?"
Serena fastened in the last of the curlers. There was no excuse for
sitting up any longer; yet she lingered.
"I must be more on my guard than ever," she said.
Meanwhile Dominic Iglesias, after sitting in the dining-room with his
old friend while the latter smoked a last pipe, made his way across the
Green in the deepening mystery of the summer night. The sky was
moonless; and at the zenith, untouched by the upward streaming light of
the great city, the stars showed fair and bright. A nostalgia of wide
untenanted spaces, of far horizons, of emotions at once intimate and
rooted in things eternal, was upon him. But of Serena Lovegrove, it
must be admitted, he thought not one little bit.