I
“I believe you take as long to dress as I do,” she said pettishly; “I
call it neither more nor less than poaching when a man looks so well
turned out. And a Poet, too! Well—you can sit down; I have twenty
minutes free.”
She was dressed for a bridge party. Dressed—oh, the tilt of the hat
over her delicate little nose; the shadow it cast over the liquid eyes,
ambushing them, as it were, for the flash and spring upon the victim!
But I was no victim—not I! I knew my young friend too well. She endured
me more or less gladly. I sat at her feet and learned the ways of the
sex, and turned them into verse, or didn’t, according to the mood of the
minute. I had versified her more than once. She was a rondeau, a
triolet, a trill—nothing more.
“Why mayn’t a poet look respectable as well as another?” I asked,
dropping into a chair.
“Because it isn’t in the picture. You were much more effective, you
folks, when you went about with long hair, and scowled, with a finger on
your brows. But never mind—you’ve given us up and we’ve given you up,
so it doesn’t matter what women think of you any more.”
“You never said a truer word!” I replied, lighting my cigarette at hers.
“The connection between women and poetry is clean-cut for the time. As
for the future—God knows! You’re not poetic any more. And it’s deuced
hard, for we made you.”
“Nonsense. God made us, they say—or Adam—I never quite made out
which.”
“It’s a divided responsibility, anyhow. For the Serpent dressed you. He
knew his business there—he knew that beauty unadorned may do well
enough in a walled garden and with only one to see and no one else to
look at. But in the great world, and with competition—no! And you—you
little fools, you’re undoing all his charitable work and undressing
yourselves again. When I was at the dance the other night I thirsted for
the Serpent to take the floor and hiss you a lecture on your
stupidities.”
She pouted: “Stupidities? I’m sure the frocks were perfectly lovely.”
“As far as they went, but they didn’t go nearly far enough for the
Serpent. And believe me, he knows all the tricks of the trade. He wants
mystery—he wants the tremble in the lips when a man feels—‘I can’t
see—I can only guess, and I guess the Immaculate, the Exquisite—the
silent silver lights and darks undreamed of.’ And you—you go and strip
your backs to the waist and your legs to the knees. No, believe me, the
Dark Continent isn’t large enough; and when there is nothing left to
explore, naturally the explorer ceases to exist.”
“I think you’re very impertinent. Look at Inez. Wasn’t she perfectly
lovely? She can wear less than any of us, and wear it well.”
“I couldn’t keep my eyes off her, if you mean that. But not along the
Serpent line of thought. It was mathematical. I was calculating the
chances for and against, all the time—whether that indiscreet rose-leaf
in front would hold on. Whether the leaf at the back would give. At last
I got to counting. She’s laughing—will it last till I get to
five-and-twenty? thirty? And I held on to the switches to switch off the
light if it gave. The suspense was terrific. Did she hold together after
midnight? I left then.”
“I won’t tell you. You don’t deserve to hear,” she said with dignity.
A brief silence.
“What do you mean by saying you poets made us?” she began again, pushing
the ash-tray toward me.
“Well, you know, as a matter of fact people long ago didn’t believe you
had any souls.”
“Rot!”
“I shouldn’t think of contradicting you, my dear Joan, but it’s a fact.”
“Oh, the Turks, and heathen like that.”
“Well, no—the Church. The Fathers of the Church, met in solemn council,
remarked you had no souls. It was a long time ago, however.”
“They didn’t!”
“They did. They treated you as pretty dangerous little animals, with
snake’s blood in you. Listen to this: ‘Chrysostom’—a very distinguished
saint—‘only interpreted the general sentiment of the Fathers when he
pronounced woman to be a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a
desirable calamity, a domestic peril, a deadly fascination, a painted
ill.’ You see you had found the way to the rouge-box even then.”
“I shouldn’t wonder if they were right,” she said, incredibly. “I’ve
often doubted whether I’ve a soul myself. And I’m sure Inez hasn’t.”