Mrs. Emsworth's little flat in Twenty-sixth Street certainly reflected
great credit on its furnisher, who was her impresario. She had
explained her requirements to him briefly but completely before she
signed her contract.
'I want a room to eat my chop in,' she said; 'I want a room to digest
my chop in; I want a room to sleep in; and I want somebody to cook my
chop, and somebody to make my bed. All that I leave to you; you know my
taste. If the room doesn't suit me, I shall fly into a violent rage,
and probably refuse to act at all. You will take all the trouble of
furnishing and engaging servants off my hands, won't you? How dear of
you! Now, please go away; I'm busy. _Au revoir_, till New York.'
Now, Bilton, as has been mentioned, was an excellent man of business,
and, knowing perfectly well that Mrs. Emsworth was not only capable of
carrying her threat into action, but was extremely likely to do so--a
course which would have seriously embarrassed his plans--he really had
taken considerable pains with her flat. Consequently, on her arrival,
after she had thrown a sham Empire clock out of the window, which in
its fall narrowly missed braining a passing millionaire, she expressed
herself much pleased with what he had done, and gave a standing order
to a very expensive florist to supply her with large quantities of
fresh flowers every day, and send the account to Bilton.
The room in which she digested her chop especially pleased her.
Carpet, curtains, and upholstery were rose-coloured, the walls were
green satin, with half a dozen excellent prints on them, and by the
window was an immense Louis XV. couch covered in brocade, with a mass
of pillows on it. Here, the morning after her opening night in New
York, she was lying and basking like a cat in the heat, smoking tiny
rose-scented Russian cigarettes, and expecting with some anticipation
of amusement the arrival of Bertie Keynes. Round her lay piles of press
notices, which stripped the American variety of the English language
bare of epithets. She was deeply absorbed in these, and immense smiles
of amusement from time to time crossed her face. On the floor lay
her huge mastiff, which, with the true time-serving spirit, rightly
calculated to be thoroughly popular, she had rechristened Teddy
Roosevelt. Her great coils of auburn hair were loosely done up, and
her face, a full, sensuous oval, was of that brilliant warm-blooded
colouring which testified to the authenticity of the smouldering gold
of her hair. Lying there in the hot room, brilliant with colour and
fragrant with the scent of innumerable flowers (the account for which
was sent in to Mr. Bilton), she seemed the embodiment of vitality and
serene Paganism. Not even her friends--and they were many--ever accused
her of morality, but, on the other hand, all children adored her.
That is an item not to be disregarded when the moralist adds up the
balance-sheet.
In spite of his excuse of the night before, Bertie Keynes had taken
Bilton's advice, and before long he was announced.
'Bertie, Bertie!' she cried as he came in, 'I wake up to find myself
famous. I am magnetic, it appears, beyond all powers of comprehension.
I am vimmy--am I really vimmy, do you think, and what does it mean? I
am a soulful incarnation of adorable----Oh no; it's Teddy Roosevelt
who is the adorable incarnation. Yes, that dear angel lying there is
Teddy Roosevelt and an adorable incarnation, which would never have
happened if we hadn't come to America, would it, darling? Not you,
Bertie. I christened him on the way over, and you shall be godfather,
because he wants a new collar. Let me see, where was I? Bertie, I was a
success last night. Enormous. I knew I should be. Now sit down, and try
to get a word in edge-ways, if you can.'
'I congratulate you, Dorothy,' he said--'I congratulate you most
heartily.'
'Thanks. I say, Teddy Roosevelt, the kind young gentleman
congratulates us. Now, what are you doing on these opulent shores?
Looking out for opulence, I guess. Going to be married, are we? Well,
Teddy is too, if we can find a suitable young lady; and so am I. Oh,
such fun! and we'll tear up all our past histories, and put them in the
fire.'
She sat half up on her couch, and looked at him.
'It's two years since we met last, Bertie,' she said; 'and you--why,
you've become a man. You always were a pretty boy, and you don't make
a bad-looking man. And I'm vimmy. I used not to be vimmy, did I? But
we are all changing as time goes on. Really, I'm very glad to see you
again.'
Bertie felt unaccountably relieved at her manner. His relief was of
short duration. Dorothy Emsworth arranged her pillows more comfortably,
and lit another cigarette.
'I wanted to see you before you left New York,' she said, 'because I am
coming down to stay with Mrs. Palmer next Saturday, and we had better
know how we stand. So, what are you over here for? Did you come here to
get married? And if so, why not?'
She lay back as she spoke, stretching her arms out with a gesture that
somehow reminded him of a cat stretching its forelegs and unsheathing
the claws of its silent, padded feet. His feeling of relief was ebbing
a little.
'Why not, indeed?' he said.
'Dear Bertie, echo-conversation is so tedious,' she said.
'You always used to be rather given to it. So you have come out to
get married. That is settled, then. Do ask me to the wedding. The
"Voice that Breathed"; wedding march from "Lohengrin"; ring dropping
and running down the aisle like a hoop; orange-flowers; tears; sudden
unexplained hysterics of the notorious Mrs. Emsworth; deportment of
the bride; wedding-cake; puff-puff. And the curtain drops with extreme
rapidity. O lor', Teddy R.! what devils we all are, to be sure!'
Bertie's feeling of relief had quite gone, but his nervousness had gone
also. He felt he knew the facts now.
'I see,' he said: 'you propose to make trouble. I'm glad you told me.'
'I told you?' she asked, laughing lazily. 'Little vimmy me? I say, I'm
brainy too.'
'What do you propose to do?' he asked.
'Well, wait first of all till you are engaged. I say, Bertie, I like
teasing you. When you wrinkle your forehead as you are doing now, you
look adorable. I don't mean a word I say, you know, any more than you
meant a word of that very, very funny letter you once wrote me, which
is now,' she said with histrionic utterance, 'one of my most cherished
possessions.'
'You told me you had burned it,' said he.
'I know; I meant to burn it, but I couldn't. When I told you I had
burnt it, I really meant to have burnt it, and so I didn't tell you
a lie, because for all practical purposes it was burned. But then I
found I couldn't; it was too funny for words. Really, there are so few
humorous things in the world that it would be murder to destroy it. Of
course, you didn't mean it. But I can't burn it. It is here somewhere.'
Bertie did not smile. He sat up straight in his chair, and put the tips
of his fingers together.
'And don't look like Gallio,' remarked Mrs. Emsworth.
'Look here, Dorothy,' he said, 'you can make things rather unpleasant
for me, if you choose. Now, why do you choose? You know perfectly well
that at one time the world said things about you and me; you also
know perfectly well that--well, that there was no truth in them. You
encouraged me to fall madly in love with you because--I don't know
why. I thought you liked me, anyhow. Then there appeared somebody else.
I wrote you a letter expressing my illimitable adoration. That was
all--all. You have got that letter. Is not what I have said true?'
'Yes--slightly edited. You see, I am a _very_ improper person.'
'What do you mean?'
'Well, if you choose to write a very fervent letter to a very improper
person, people will say--it is no use denying it--they will say What a
fine day it is, but hot.'
Bertie got up.
'That is all I have to say,' he said.
'People are so ill-natured,' said Mrs. Emsworth.
The catlike laziness had left her, though her attitude was the same;
instead of looking sensuously lazy, she looked very alert.
'Good-bye, then,' said Bertie; 'we meet next week at Long Island.'
'Yes; it will be very pleasant,' said she.
He left the room without more words, and for five minutes she remained
where she was. But slowly, as she lay there, the enjoyment and the
purring content faded completely out of her face. Then it grew hard
and sad; eventually, with a long-drawn sigh, half sob, she got up and
called to her dog. He rose limb by massive limb, and laid his head on
her lap.
'Teddy R.,' she said, 'we are devils. But there are two worse devils
than you and I. One has just gone away; one is just coming. Worse-devil
one is worse because he thinks--he thinks that of me. Worse-devil two
is worse because he--he did that to me. So--so you and I will think
nothing more about it at all, but keep our spirits up.'
She fondled the great dog's head a moment, then got up suddenly,
and drew the blind down to shut out the glare of the sun, which was
beginning to lay a hot yellow patch on the floor.
'He thought that,' she said to herself--'he really thought that.'
She walked up and down the room for a moment or two, then went to a
table on which stood her despatch-box, opened it, and looked through
a pile of letters that lay inside. One of these she took out and read
through. At moments it seemed to amuse her, at moments her smile was
struck from her face. When she had finished reading it, she paused
a few seconds with it in her hands, as if weighing it. Then, with
a sudden gesture of impatience, she tore it in half, and threw the
pieces into the grate. Then, with the quick relief of a decision
made and acted upon, she whistled to her dog, and went into her
bedroom to make her toilet. Resplendency was part of her programme,
and with the consciousness of a busy hour before her, she told her
butler--Bilton's liberal interpretation of her requirements had
included a manservant--that if Mr. Harold Bilton called, he was to be
asked to wait.
The 'room to sleep in' was, if anything, more satisfactory than the
'room to digest her chop in.' Like all proper bedrooms, there was a
bed in it, a large table, winking with silver, in the window, and very
little else. By the bedside there was a bearskin; in front of the
dressing-table in the window there was a rug; otherwise the room was
carpetless and parquetted, and devoid of furniture and dust. Dark-green
curtains hung by the window, dark-green blinds could be drawn across
the window. The bathroom beyond held the hopeless but necessary
accessories of dressing. Her maid was waiting for her--Parkinson by
name--and it was not Dorothy who came to be dressed, but Puck.
'Parkinson,' she said, 'once upon a time there was a very fascinating
woman called X.'
'Lor'm!' said Parkinson.
'Quite so. And there was a very fascinating young man called Y. He
wanted to marry her, and wrote to say so. But meantime another man
called Z also wanted to--to marry her. So she said "Yes," because he
gave her a great deal of money. But she kept Y's proposal--I don't know
why, except because it was so funny. And so now I suppose she is Mrs.
Z. That's all.'
'Lor'm!' said Parkinson. 'Will you wear your shiffong and lace dress?'
'Yes, shiffong. Parkinson, supposing I suddenly burst into tears, what
would you think?'
'I should think you wasn't quite well'm.'
'Quite right; also there isn't time.'
Mrs. Emsworth had not been gone more than ten minutes or so before
Bilton was shown up. He appeared to be in a particularly well-satisfied
humour this morning, and as he moved about the room, noting with his
quick eye the stamp of femininity which Mrs. Emsworth had already
impressed into the garnishing of the place, he whistled softly to
himself. In his hand he carried a small jewel-case with her initials in
gold upon the top. As always, in the relaxed mood the true man came to
the surface; for a man is most truly himself, not at great moments of
emergency or when a sudden call is made on him, but when his ambitions
for the time being are gratified, when he is pleased with himself and
his circumstances--above all, when he is alone. Thus, though just now
the hard eagerness of his face was a little softened, yet its alertness
hardly dozed; and though he had made, he felt sure, a great success
in bringing Dorothy Emsworth to America, he hardly allowed himself
even this momentary pause of achievement, but had called this morning
to talk over with her the details of a protracted tour through the
principal cities of the States. True son of his country, he realized
that to pause spelled to be left behind.
As his manner was, Bilton did not sit down, but kept walking about,
as if not to be caught idle either in mind or body. As in many of his
countrymen, the habit of perpetually being ready and eager to snap up
an opportunity had become a second nature to him, so that it was far
more an effort to him to rest than to work. Working was as natural to
him as breathing; to cease to work required the same sort of effort
as to hold the breath. To him in his profession as impresario any
movement, any glimpse at a room or a picture, could perhaps suggest
what in the fertile alchemy of his mind might be transformed into a
'tip,' and he looked with special attention at two Watteau prints
which hung on the walls; for in the second piece which Mrs. Emsworth
was to produce under his direction a certain scene was laid in the
gardens at Versailles, and the note of artificial naturalness had to
be struck in the scenery as Watteau and no one else had struck it. Big
trees cut formally and square in their lower branches, but with the
topmost boughs left unpollarded; fountain in the centre, quite so, and
a glimpse, just a glimpse, of the terrace of the palace with the two
bronze fountains beneath the trees.
He stood a moment before the fireplace with eyes half closed, conjuring
up the scene, and in particular seeing it with his mind's eye as a
setting to that incomparable woman in whom, professionally, at this
juncture, he was so deeply interested, to whom he was so managerially
devoted, but of whom in other respects he was so profoundly weary. For
a year he had been wildly in love with her, for another year he had
slowly cooled towards her, and now it required all his steadiness of
head and incessantly watchful will not to betray his tedium. Also in
years he was now, though still only half way through the thirties, old
enough in mind to wish to settle down. His capabilities for passionate
attachments were a little cooling, and, with a cynical amusement at
himself, he was beginning to realize that married domesticity, even
as morals taught, was, though for other reasons, the placid river-bed
into which the babbling mountain-streams of youth must eventually empty
themselves. Rather bathos, perhaps, but he realized fully that everyone
gets in life what they themselves bring to it. The only limitations
imposed on a man are those which his own nature makes.
But these unedifying moralities did not occupy him long. They were the
background to his thoughts, just as the terrace of Versailles was the
background for the picture he was forming. In the foreground of the
picture stood Mrs. Emsworth; on the terrace stood another figure, Sybil
Massington.
He had let his cigar go out as he revolved these things in front of
the two Watteau pictures, and then rose to drop it in the fireplace.
A letter in an envelope torn once in half lay there, and he stooped
and picked it up, laid the two pieces side by side on the table, and
read it through. Then he put the pieces in his pocket, and, with
that praiseworthy attention to detail which throughout his life had
contributed so largely to his success, he took from the table a sheet
of paper, folded it inside an envelope, tore it in half, and replaced
the pieces in the grate where he had found the others. The whole thing
was quickly and naturally done; it was merely one among a thousand
million other cases in which his mind was ready to take advantage
of any possible opportunity that Fate might cast in his way. The
torn letter might conceivably at some future date be useful to him.
Therefore he kept it. It is no use to guard against certainties--such
was his gospel--for certainties in this life are so few as to be
practically negligible. But he who guarded against contingencies and
provided for possibilities was the winner in the long-run.
This done, he dismissed the matter from his mind, and, in order not to
let the moments pass without seed, sketched out in some detail the plan
of the stage as suggested by the two Watteau prints. He was deep in
this when Mrs. Emsworth entered. The 'shiffong' suited her admirably.
'You have been waiting,' she said; 'I am sorry for keeping you. Oh,
Harold, they love me over here; they just love me!'
His part was at his finger-tips.
'That doesn't seem to me in the least remarkable,' he said. 'You are a
success; no one can be more. I want to be allowed to commemorate it.'
And he handed her the jewel-case.
He was no niggard when business was involved; his business now was
to keep her in a good temper, and the opal and diamond brooch he had
chosen at Tiffany's was really admirable. Even Mrs. Palmer might have
found it brought consolation to a wounded spirit.
'That is dear of you, Harold,' she said; 'I adore opals. Is it really
for me? Thank you ever so much. It goes on now. Is it rather big for
the morning? I think it is. A reason the more for wearing it.'
She pinned it into her dress, and sat down.
'Well?' she said.
'I came really to congratulate you,' said he; 'but as I am here, I
suppose we may as well talk over some business that must be talked
over. About your tour: are you willing to stop over here till April at
least?'
'Yes; I don't see why not. I want to appear in London early in May.'
'Very well. I will draft an agreement, and send it you. Now, you may
consider that with your extraordinary success of last night the theatre
will be full for some weeks ahead. I propose your giving an evening
performance on Saturdays as well as the matinee.'
'Terms?'
'Royalty. Twenty per cent, on total takings. It is worth your while.'
'Is it not more worth my while to be seen from Saturday till Monday at
Mrs. Palmer's?'
'It would be if the theatre was not full. But you could fill it--for
the present, anyhow--if you had a matinee every day. Besides, you can
get down to Long Island with the utmost ease on Sunday morning.'
'I go to Mass on Sunday morning; you forget that!'
He smiled.
'I suggest, then, that you should omit that ceremony, if you want to go
to Mrs. Palmer's. However, there is no hurry. Weigh the three things in
your mind--eighty or ninety pounds by acting on Saturday evening, or
Mass on Sunday morning, or Mrs. Palmer's on Sunday morning. There is
another thing: I want to talk over the scenes in "Paris" with you. I am
going to Mrs. Palmer's the Sunday after next. I will bring the models
down with me, if you will promise to give me an hour. 'They will not be
ready till then.'
'Yes. I am going there next Sunday and the Sunday after. They have a
theatre there; she wants me to do something in the evening.'
Bilton thought a moment.
'What do I get?' he asked.
'The pleasure of seeing me act, silly.'
He shook his head.
'I'm afraid I must forget that pleasure,' he said. 'Your contract binds
you to give no theatrical representations of any sort except under my
direction.'
The _gamin_ element rose to the surface in her.
'What a beast you are!' she said. 'It is for a charity!'
'And a cheque,' he observed.
'The cheque is purely informal. Besides, we shall be there together.'
He took a cigar out of his case, bit the end off with his long teeth,
that gleamed extremely white between the very remarkable red of his
lips.
'Look here, Dolly,' he said; 'there are two sides to the relations in
which we are placed. One is purely businesslike; the other is purely
sentimental. It is a pity to let them overlap. It spoils my devotion
to you to feel that it is in a way mixed up with business, and it
offends my instincts as a business man to let sentiment have a word
to say in our bargains. Briefly, then, I forbid your acting for Mrs.
Palmer unless you make it worth my while. After all, I didn't bring you
out here for sentimental reasons; I brought you out because, from a
financial point of view, I thought it would be good for both of us.'
'What do you want?' she asked.
'Half your cheque.'
'For something you haven't arranged, and which won't cost you a penny?'
'Yes. I am talking business. You can close with that offer any time
to-day; to-morrow it will be two-thirds. I'm quite square with you.'
'Americans are Jews,' observed Mrs. Emsworth.
'Possibly; it would be an advantage if everyone was; it would simplify
bargaining immensely. The Gentile mind is often highly unreasonable,
and, instead of allowing both sides to make profits, it simply refuses
to part with its goods. And a fine opportunity goes to--well, to
damnation. You won't score if you don't act for her, nor will I. If you
do, we both shall. Don't be a Gentile, Dolly.'
She did not answer for a moment. Her eyes saw the torn fragments of the
letter in the grate, and she remembered that she had definitely and for
ever torn up what Bertie had written to her. Then she got up, crossed
the room to where he was standing by the fireplace, and put her hands
on his shoulders.
'Are you tired of me?' she asked.
His brown eyes grew black at the fragrance and seductiveness of her
close presence; for the blood is stirred long after the imagination has
ceased to be fired.
'You witch! you witch!' he said.
But in the background on the terrace there still stood the other figure.