In this newest phase of that day's protean gamut, in this temper of
reckless yet cool determination to avenge her pride and coerce life into
rendering up all that it had of late withheld, she put every curbing
consideration behind, and resolutely set herself for that night at least
to live only for the moment and wring from each its ultimate drop of
pleasure, to be amused and to be amusing, to make fete and to be feted.
Daubeney, wanting whom all her efforts must have been wasted, for
whether she love him or not a woman needs a man in love with her at hand
to be at her best--Dobbin was fairly dazzled, not so much by charms of
person never more witching as by gay spirits the gayer for this sudden
indulgence after long inhibition, by delicate audacity, wit swift,
mutable and pungent, and passages of sheer bravura in Lucinda's
exposition of the arts of coquetry.
The way she flirted with him was something shameful. For the matter of
that, never a masculine moth blundered into the Druce box during the
entr'actes but flopped dazedly away, wondering what the deuce was the
matter with old Bellamy, had he gone absolutely balmy. But Dobbin in his
capacity of cavalier servente suffered more than anybody, for she took
an impish delight in luring him beyond his depth and then leaving him to
flounder out as best he might.
"See here!" he reminded her indignantly as the curtain rose on the last
act of _Louise_--"you promised to play fair." Lucinda arched mocking
brows above round eyes. "Don't call this sort of thing keeping your
word, do you?"
"Aren't you having a good time, Dobbin dear?" In the half-light of the
box Lucinda leaned slightly toward him, and her delicious voice dripped
sympathy. "I'm so sorry, I've been trying so hard not to bore you."
"I didn't say I was bored. I ain't--I'm being plagued by a heartless
young she-devil that ought to be spanked and sent to bed. Damn it,
Cinda! you not only ought to, you do know better. You know _I_ take it
seriously. But you--you're merely playing."
"But with fire--eh, Dobbin?"
"You know that, too."
"And you're warning me lest I get singed?" Lucinda contrived to look a
little awed. "How thoughtful!"
"Don't make me out a greater dunce than I am."
"Meaning you don't think I'm in any danger of getting scorched, carrying
on with you?"
"Worse luck!"
"Dobbin: have you been deceiving me, aren't you the least bit
inflammable, after all?"
"You know jolly well I took fire years ago and have never since managed
to get the conflagration under control. Isn't ladylike to put the
bellows to flames you don't mean to quench."
"How appallingly technical! But you do sputter so entertainingly,
Dobbin--burning under forced draught, I presume you'd say, with your
passion for riding a metaphor till it flounders--I'm not sure I'd care
to see you quenched; I hate to think of you being put out with me."
"You play with words precisely as you play with me."
"You think so? Well, perhaps, but--Dobbin--don't be too sure. Think how
sad it would be if you were to find out, too late, you'd been mistaken,
you'd meant more to me than words could tell, more than you knew."
Over this equivoque Dobbin shook a baffled head; and Lucinda laughed,
glanced carelessly toward the stage to make sure that the act still was
young, and offered to rise.
"Let's not stay any longer, Dobbin, or we'll be caught in the carriage
jam. Let's trot along and have a good time."
"What's the next jump?"
"To the Palais Royal." Dobbin uttered an involuntary sound of dissent.
"Why not? Julie Allingham wants us to join her party--says everybody
goes there nowadays, and it's desperately rowdy and loads of fun--said
to ask for her box and make ourselves at home if we got there before she
did."
Mrs. Allingham was not one of Daubeney's favorites. A persevering body,
with a genius for trading in last season's husband for the latest model,
gifted likewise with incurable impudence and poverty of tact, both of
which she was clever enough to veneer with vivacity and exploit as
whimsical idiosyncrasies, she failed to measure up to his notion of the
type of woman with whom Lucinda ought to be seen. He had been civil, no
more, when she had danced into the box during the first entr'acte to
make a public fuss over her darling Cindy, and then--engaged in
small-talk by Julie's satellites, two sleek but otherwise featureless
bloods--had failed to hear her invitation; and Julie had carefully
forgotten to remind him of it on taking her leave.
So Daubeney wasn't pleased as he helped Lucinda with her wraps; and she
read disgruntlement in his silence and constraint.
"You don't want to go, Dobbin? With me? Why?"
"With you, anywhere. But...." He mustered an unconvincing grin. "Oh,
it's all right, of course. But Julie Allingham--you know--really!"
Lucinda's mouth tightened, for an instant her eyes held a sullen light.
"How tiresome! You sound just like Bel. How often have I heard him use
almost the same words: 'Julie Allingham--you know--really!'"
"Sorry," Dobbin said stiffly.
"What's the matter with Julie Allingham?" Lucinda demanded in a pet.
"She's amusing, I like her."
"Then there's nothing more to be said."
"Oh, you're all alike, you, Bel, and all the rest of you!"
"Think so?"
"What if Julie has made history of a few husbands? At least, she's been
honest about her changes of heart; when she tired of one, she got rid of
him legally before taking on another. I call that more decent treatment
than most men give their wives."
"Never having had a wife, can't argue."
"Oh, you sound more like Bel every minute! Do come along."
All at once her succes had evaporated into thin air, the flavour of it,
that had been so sweet, had gone flat, like champagne too long uncorked.
And all (she thought) because Dobbin with his stupid prejudices had
reminded her of Bel!
It began to seem as if there might have been more truth than she had
guessed in her assertion that men were all alike in their attitude
toward women, toward their wives and toward--the others.
But if that were so (surely she wasn't the first to glimpse an immortal
truth) why did women ever marry?
And why, in the name of reason! having once worried through the ordeal
of having a husband, did any woman ever repeat an experiment which
experience should have taught her was predestined to prove a failure?
She emerged from a brown study to find herself in the car, with Dobbin
at her side watching her thoughtfully.
"Cross with me, Cinda?"
With an effort Lucinda shrugged out of her ill-humour.
"No, of course not. With myself, rather, for being a silly. Dobbin:
you're a dear."
"I know," he agreed with comic complacence; "but it doesn't get me
anywhere."
"You're not very flattering. I don't tell every man he's a dear."
"I'm wondering what the term means to you."
"It means a great deal."
"But what are the privileges and appurtenances of a dear's estate in
your esteem? Does it carry the right to take liberties?"
"It might be worth your while to try and find out."
"Well.... It's been a question in my mind ever since last night, and
something you said just now.... Is the inference justified, you and
Druce aren't getting along too well?"
"Oh, do stop reminding me of Bel! I do so want to forget him for
tonight."
"Then it's worse than I thought."
"It's worse than anybody thinks that doesn't know, Dobbin."
"So he hasn't changed...."
"How do you mean?"
"Why, I used to know Bellamy pretty well, pal around with him and that
sort of thing...."
"No," said Lucinda slowly, eyes straight ahead--"if you mean what I
mean, Bel hasn't changed."
"Then...." Daubeney found a hand which Lucinda resigned to his without a
struggle. "As a man who truly loves you, dear, and always has, I think
the right is mine to ask yet another question: What are you going to
do?"