Marjorie spent the forenoon and the earlier part of the afternoon
repeating and reviewing this conversation. Her mind was full of the long
disregarded problem of her husband's state of mind. She thought with a
sympathetic astonishment of his swearing, of his startling blow upon the
table. She hadn't so far known he could swear. But this was the real
thing, the relief of vehement and destructive words. His voice, saying
"damnation and damnation," echoed and re-echoed in her ears. Somehow she
understood that as she had never understood any sober statement of his
case. Such women as Marjorie, I think, have an altogether keener
understanding of people who have lost control of themselves than they
have of reasoned cases. Perhaps that is because they themselves always
reserve something when they state a reasoned case.
She went on to the apprehension of a change in him that hitherto she had
not permitted herself to see--a change in his attitude to her. There had
been a time when she had seemed able without an effort to nestle inside
his heart. Now she felt distinctly for the first time that that hadn't
happened. She had instead a sense of her embrace sliding over a rather
deliberately contracted exterior.... Of course he had been in a
hurry....
She tried to follow him on his journey to Croydon. Now he'd have just
passed out of London Bridge. What was he thinking and feeling about her
in the train? Now he would be going into the place, wherever it was,
where he gave his lecture. Did he think of Behrens and curse her under
his breath as he entered that tiresome room?...
It seemed part of the prevailing inconvenience of life that Daffy should
see fit to pay an afternoon call.
Marjorie heard the sobs and uproar of an arrested motor, and glanced
discreetly from the window to discover the dark green car with its
green-clad chauffeur which now adorned her sister's life, and which
might under different circumstances, have adorned her own. Wilkins--his
name was Wilkins, his hair was sandy and his expression discreet, and he
afforded material for much quiet humorous observation--descended smartly
and opened the door. Daffy appeared in black velvet, with a huge black
fur muff, and an air of being unaware that there were such things as
windows in the world.
It was just four, and the cook-general, who ought to have been now in
her housemaid's phase, was still upstairs divesting herself of her more
culinary characteristics. Marjorie opened the door.
"Hullo, old Daffy!" she said.
"Hullo, old Madge!" and there was an exchange of sisterly kisses and a
mutual inspection.
"Nothing wrong?" asked Daffy, surveying her.
"_Wrong?_"
"You look pale and--tired about the eyes," said Daffy, leading the way
into the drawing-room. "Thought you might be a bit off it, that's all.
No offence, Madge."
"I'm all right," said Marjorie, getting her back to the light. "Want a
holiday, perhaps. How's every one?"
"All right. _We're_ off to Lake Garda next week. This new play has taken
it out of Will tremendously. He wants a rest and fresh surroundings.
It's to be the biggest piece of work he's done--so far, and it's
straining him. And people worry him here; receptions, first nights,
dinners, speeches. He's so neat, you know, in his speeches.... But it
wastes him. He wants to get away. How's Rag?"
"Busy."
"Lecturing?"
"And his Research of course."
"Oh! of course. How's the Babe?"
"Just in. Come up and see the little beast, Daffy! It is getting so
pretty, and it talks----"
Margharita dominated intercourse for a time. She was one of those
tactful infants who exactly resemble their fathers and exactly resemble
their mothers, and have a charm and individuality quite distinctly their
own, and she was now beginning to converse with startling enterprise and
intelligence.
"Big, big, bog," she said at the sight of Daffy.
"Remembers you," said Marjorie.
"Bog! Go ta-ta!" said Margharita.
"There!" said Marjorie, and May, the nurse in the background, smiled
unlimited appreciation.
"Bably," said Margharita.
"That's herself!" said Marjorie, falling on her knees. "She talks like
this all day. Oh de sweetums, den!" _Was_ it?
Daffy made amiable gestures and canary-like noises with her lips, and
Margharita responded jovially.
"You darling!" cried Marjorie, "you delight of life," kneeling by the
cot and giving the crowing, healthy little mite a passionate hug.
"It's really the nicest of babies," Daffy conceded, and reflected....
"I don't know what I should do with a kiddy," said Daffy, as the infant
worship came to an end; "I'm really glad we haven't one--yet. He'd love
it, I know. But it would be a burthen in some ways. They _are_ a tie. As
he says, the next few years means so much for him. Of course, here his
reputation is immense, and he's known in Germany, and there are
translations into Russian; but he's still got to conquer America, and he
isn't really well known yet in France. They read him, of course, and buy
him in America, but they're--_restive_. Oh! I do so wish they'd give him
the Nobel prize, Madge, and have done with it! It would settle
everything. Still, as he says, we mustn't think of that--yet, anyhow. He
isn't venerable enough. It's doubtful, he thinks, that they would give
the Nobel prize to any humorist now that Mark Twain is dead. Mark Twain
was different, you see, because of the German Emperor and all that white
hair and everything."
At this point Margharita discovered that the conversation had drifted
away from herself, and it was only when they got downstairs again that
Daffy could resume the thread of Magnet's career, which had evidently
become the predominant interest in her life. She brought out all the
worst elements of Marjorie's nature and their sisterly relationship.
There were moments when it became nakedly apparent that she was
magnifying Magnet to belittle Trafford. Marjorie did her best to
counter-brag. She played her chief card in the F. R. S.
"They always ask Will to the Royal Society Dinner," threw out Daffy;
"but of course he can't always go. He's asked to so many things."
Five years earlier Marjorie would have kicked her shins for that.
Instead she asked pointedly, offensively, if Magnet was any balder.
"He's not really bald," said Daffy unruffled, and went on to discuss the
advisability of a second motor car--purely for town use. "I tell him I
don't want it," said Daffy, "but he's frightfully keen upon getting
one."