who has not seen it. Lorimer did not try, and after suggesting _Les
peines du Coeur_, _Angoisses de l'ame_, _Le Mal de dents_, _Les
Desespoirs de l'Amour_, and a few other eye-tickling titles, he left the
puzzled composer and made his way upstairs. It was close upon midnight,
the hour at which supper was to be served.
XI
GENERAL SABAROFF
Philip was here, there, and everywhere, playing the host to the
admiration of all. Everyone voted him charming. The most exacting
society critics admired the ease with which he did the honours of his
house, and declared that Philip Grantham was a gentleman. The English
man of the world has no higher dignity to confer.
No one thought of going away, although the crowd began to be stifling,
but an English crowd is ready to endure anything in order to contemplate
at close quarters the celebrity of the moment. The lion that they were
expecting to roar for them this evening was General Sabaroff, the _piece
de resistance_ of the evening.
Philip began to fear that the General had been detained by some
unforeseen business, and would not put in an appearance after all. He
had not sent out invitations "to meet General Sabaroff," but he had
told a great many of his guests beforehand that he expected him; one
person had told another; and it came to much the same thing.
He caught sight of de Lussac, who threw him an appealing little glance
which plainly said, "Come to my rescue." He found the young diplomat in
the toils of Mrs. Van der Leyd Smythe. He joined them and led off de
Lussac, after having passed the lady on to an old banker who happened to
be standing near, alone and negotiable.
"My dear fellow," said de Lussac, "I owe you a debt of gratitude for
having extracted me from the clutches of that American mamma. I have had
to listen to the history of the noble house of Gampton. Upon my word, a
lot of those worthy Americans are prouder of their aristocratic
alliances than of the brave pioneers who founded the United States. They
would sell all the shirt sleeves that felled the forests of America for
the coat-of-arms of some ancestor ennobled, a few centuries ago, for
something which to-day would perhaps be rewarded with a few years' penal
servitude."
"Snobbishness," said Philip, "is a disease that one meets with in all
Anglo-Saxons, but with terrible complications in certain Americans....
I almost expected the Minister for War. His lordship promised me he
would come."
"If I were you," replied de Lussac, "I would not count upon him. I know
he is very busy to-day. Special order to send to Woolwich Arsenal; a
message of congratulation to telegraph to the Sirdar on his victory at
Atbara; orders to send to various regiments to hold themselves in
readiness to set out for India--it appears there is rather disquieting
news in the North-West; a consultation with the Commander-in-Chief; a
Cabinet Council. Besides which, I fancy, he has promised to speak
to-night at a meeting of the Peace Association at the Queen's Hall: the
ubiquity of some of you Englishmen is simply prodigious."
"A fine programme," said Philip, "a well-filled day indeed--I should
have been pleased to receive his congratulations. Oh, he must be vexed
to have been, so to speak, the cause of the refusal I have met with in
my own country. Why did they refuse my shell? I should have been prouder
of my invention if I had been able to ensure the advantages of it to my
motherland."
"My dear fellow, the English do not invent; they buy the inventions of
outsiders when they are successful. They looked upon the inventor of
the Suez Canal as a dangerous lunatic; to turn him from his project they
went so far as to rake up an old theory of Herodotus, that the Red Sea
and the Mediterranean were on different levels. At the present day, they
hold four millions-worth of stock in the concern, and would only like to
have the lot. The fact is, if ever England should meet with a great
reverse, if ever she comes to grief, she will have only her vanity and
self-confidence to thank."
"Our security is so great."
"I know that," said de Lussac, laughing--"your volunteers can insure
their lives without paying any extra premium. By-the-bye, General
Sabaroff is in London. He says he has come over to consult a certain
oculist. You may be sure, dear boy, that the eye he is concerned about
is the one he means to keep on you."
"I know he is in town--I expect him to-night."
"I heard that just now in the other room--you lose no time."
De Lussac drew Philip towards the landing, which was clear of people for
the moment.
"With the General, I don't see that you need make a secret of your
shell. Russia is our ally; it is to our advantage that she should
possess the best possible weapons; and I don't believe the French
Government would have any objection to Russia's profiting by your
invention."
"Really?" said Philip anxiously--"nor do I. I had already thought of it
in that light myself, I confess."
"Well, you are a gallant man, I must say, to leave me in the lurch like
that," cried Mrs. Van der Leyd Smythe, who now came up. "You went off
just as I was going to introduce you to three prominent American women
who are dying to make your acquaintance."
"Well then, by all means, let us go and save their lives," said de
Lussac.
"One of them," said his companion, as she led him towards the small
drawing-room, "is a well-known literary woman, another is a celebrated
public speaker, and the other" ...
"Oh, please," exclaimed de Lussac, "can't you introduce me to some
pretty woman who has never done anything at all?"
A servant, who had just come upstairs, announced in a loud voice, "His
Excellency General Sabaroff."
The name passed from mouth to mouth, and there was a general lull in the
conversation; the crowd surged towards the door, and with frantic
cranings of the neck endeavoured to get a glimpse of the new arrival.
Dora had recognised him at once. He had not changed. Sabaroff, on his
side, as soon as he caught sight of Dora at the top of the staircase,
had exclaimed inwardly, "It is she after all; I was told right--it is my
lovely English girl of Monte Carlo."
Not a look nor a movement of Sabaroff or of Dora had escaped Philip: "It
is the same man," he said to himself--"they recognise each other."
He moved towards the General.
"Your Excellency is very good to have come," he said.
And, leading him to where Dora was standing, he went through with an
introduction.
Sabaroff bowed, kissed Dora's hand respectfully, and addressed a few
commonplace words to her to excuse himself for coming so late.
General Ivan Sabaroff, Minister of War to his Majesty the Czar and
Autocrat of all the Russias, was forty-five years of age, but, thanks to
the military bearing which always rejuvenates a man's appearance by a
few years, he looked scarcely forty. The ladies declared at once that he
was a superb man, and indeed the General had a striking-looking
appearance.
In the streets of any town, people would have turned round to look at
him, the women saying, "What a fine man!" the men, "That is somebody!"
Six feet three in his stockings, broad of shoulder, admirably
proportioned, with an iron will written on his face, a herculean
strength and remarkable suppleness of body, the head dignified and
proudly set on a large neck, the face stern with keen scrutinising eyes,
straight prominent nose, a sensual mouth, with full red lips and a thick
black moustache twisted into two sharp points, the General looked like a
man who might be as redoubtable in a boudoir as on a battlefield. As a
matter of fact he had won many hearts in the former and many victories
in the latter. Not being married, he had risked his reputation in the
service of women, and his life in the service of his sovereign, with
more impunity and less hesitation than might otherwise have been the
case.
"I am delighted to make your acquaintance, delighted," he said to Dora.
And in a lower tone he added, "To renew your acquaintance."
Dora, fearing that the General might give a disagreeable turn to the
conversation, hastened to make the first remark that passed through her
mind. Nothing betrayed the uneasiness she felt at seeing this man again.
"Has your Excellency been long in London?" she asked of Sabaroff, in her
calmest tones.
"A few days only. I have come to consult an oculist who has been
specially recommended to me; and, besides, I have wanted for some time
past to visit England and see some of my old friends here."
Sabaroff was a man of the world. He knew that it would be bad form to
monopolise his hostess, so he exchanged a few words more with her on
trivial topics, and then, accompanied by Philip, entered the
drawing-room. He recognised an acquaintance here and there, to whom he
bowed. Philip introduced a few people to him, and he was soon the centre
of an interested group.
"I hope," said Lord Bentham, "that your Excellency's impressions of the
English are favourable. We do our best to make ourselves agreeable to
distinguished strangers who visit us."
"And we love to know what they think of us," added Lady Margaret Solby,
who had drawn near the General and now placed herself in front of him,
that he might have an opportunity of noting at his ease all the good
points of a handsome Englishwoman.
"I have never," said Sabaroff to Lord Bentham, "met such kind and
hospitable people as your compatriots; abroad they are sometimes haughty
and, I may add" ...
"Extremely disagreeable," said his lordship, finishing the sentence.
"No, I do not say that. In any case, that could only be on the surface,
for at home they are a revelation, really the most charming hosts in the
world. To study a man, you must study him when he is at home. On foreign
soil he is playing a part that he only knows imperfectly. He is
hampered, and is scarcely a free agent. He is often misunderstood. He is
not in his proper setting, much less in his element. I am convinced that
when the Creator made man, He must have said to him, 'Thou shalt stay at
home.'"
"A commandment which we English have sadly neglected, then," remarked
Philip.
"And our English women, General?" questioned Lady Margaret, simpering
and attracting his attention by expert fan wavings to a figure which she
knew was above criticism, a figure such as English women can claim
almost a monopoly in.
"Oh, they are beautiful, they are glorious!" said Sabaroff, with the air
of a connoisseur; "they are dreams, angels of beauty. What flowing
lines, what graceful proportions, what lovely complexions, what fine
delicately carved features! They are vignettes! When an Englishwoman is
beautiful, madame, she is beyond competition."
"And when she is ugly?" said Lady Margaret.
"Oh, Heaven help her!" said Lorimer, who had just been introduced to
Sabaroff, and who, surrounded as he was by pretty women, did not fear to
risk a joke at the expense of the absent, who are always out of it.
"I am very proud, General, to hear your Excellency express yourself so
warmly on the subject of English women's beauty," exclaimed Lady
Margaret.
"And all those attributes of the beautiful woman," murmured Sabaroff in
her ear, "I find united near me."
And with a rapid and comprehensive glance he made an inventory of her
charms.
Sabaroff had as keen a scent for game as the huntsman's dog, and he
could recognise a coquette a mile off. He knew just how much he could
say to certain women without running the risk of offending them. Lady
Margaret flirted her fan as every woman should do in such a
circumstance, made a profound curtsey to the General, and from behind
her fan shot at him, out of the corners of her eyes, the invitation of
the flirt, which seems to promise so much, but which means so little. I
think it was Georges Sand who wittily said, "The flirt is a woman who
signs a bill with the firm intention of not honouring her signature."
In the centre of a neighbouring group, Sir Benjamin Pond was holding
forth on commerce, politics, the theatre, and fine arts--all subjects
were within the domain of this pompous personage with the white
waistcoat.
"Yes, the Ministry ought to be impeached for having allowed such an
acquisition to go out of the country. We are the richest and most
enterprising people in the world, but the most stupid, the most
obstinate, and the slowest to adopt new ideas"--he looked round him at
the rooms. "What a house he has, this lucky dog! Six months ago he was
living in a little shanty in St. John's Wood. What luxury! Shells pay
better than painting. Why, there is Mr. Lorimer; my congratulations;
your play is a masterpiece, you have taken London by storm! Oh, but for
taking the world by storm, give me the invention of our friend Grantham.
That's a _bon mot_, and not a bad one either."
"What a donkey!" thought Lorimer.
"His shell fell on us like a bomb, eh? Ah, ha, ha!" and as he laughed
his loud guffaw, his white waistcoat kept time.
Lorimer slipped away and returned to Dora's side. Pond rejoined him
almost immediately.
"Mrs. Grantham, Lady Pond has the greatest desire to see the famous
picture."
"What famous picture?" asked Dora.
"Why, the one that all London is talking of--the one I so much wanted to
buy six months ago."
"You remember," said Lorimer, "thirty-six by fifty" ...
"Oh, of course. You can see it in the adjoining room, at the end of the
small drawing-room."
"Thanks!"
And he set off in the direction indicated.
"Always that picture," said Dora to Lorimer; "my head is dazed; why do
we not go to supper and put an end to this? Holloa! What is that frantic
applause for?... Listen, they are going on with it, they are encoring
something. What can it be all about?"
Lorimer pressed through the crowd a little, and then came back to Dora.
"You may count upon something spicy," said he; "it is Mimi Latouche,
once the darling of Paris, now all the rage in London. Did you ask her
here to-night?"
"I asked her--that is to say, the impresario who has charge of my
programme sent her."
"Don't apologise; Mimi is all the go; it is who shall have her; and I
suppose you ought to consider yourself lucky to be able to serve her up
to your guests. You used to live in an artistic circle, that you could
charm with a Beethoven quartette. Now you move in a set where classical
music would clear your drawing-room as rapidly as a raid of police would
a gambling den."
Mimi Latouche had just finished her second song. There was a fresh sound
of applause, and cries of "Bravo" were heard as she left the small
drawing-room accompanied by de Lussac, and followed by half a dozen
young men. She passed in front of Dora, and brought up near the door by
de Lussac.
"_Hein!_ Georges, don't you think I knock 'em with my songs?"
"They are enchanted with you, you electrify them. Your songs are awfully
jolly, as they say here--light, crisp, and so daring; but these people
have not understood, and if they had, it would not matter; they will
applaud, when it is done in a foreign language, a thing that they would
not tolerate a moment in their own."
"Your English people, my boy, are hypocrites. When I am in the bill at
_Les ambassadeurs_, the place is always full of English--my songs are
_canaille_, aren't they? really _canaille_. The English like that kind
of thing. They give me ovations at the Pavilion every night, and I get
bouquets by the bushel. Why, old chappie, since I took up the _canaille_
line I have been making my four hundred pounds a week. I have an offer
of ten thousand pounds, to appear in New York for six weeks. Would you
believe it? I say, Georges, look what I found in my box at the Pav.
to-night"; and she showed de Lussac a lovely bouquet of white orchids.
"Superb!" exclaimed the young man.
"Yes, old boy, but look what there is inside it."
So saying, she drew out a handsome bracelet of rubies and diamonds.
"Exquisite!" said de Lussac; "is it the price of laxity hidden in the
emblem of chastity? It is a diplomatist who sent you that. Flowers have
often served as Cupid's letter-box."
"Hush! it is from Sabaroff. The bracelet is worth four hundred pounds,
at least."
"Sabaroff? Why, he is here."
"I know that very well," said Mimi; "look at him over there talking to
the lady in pearl grey."
"I see him; he is gazing her out of countenance," said de Lussac.
"Out of countenance? Out of corset, you mean. Sabaroff has a way of
staring at a woman; it makes her quite nervous to be near him if she has
on evening dress."
"My dear Mimi, I did not know you were so easily shocked."
"Oh! when I say a woman I don't mean myself--that sort of thing doesn't
affect me, you may imagine. I am quite at his disposition--and yours
too, yours especially--you are perfectly mashing to-night. After all
these Englishmen, dear boy, it is a treat to look at a Frenchman; to be
looked at by one--dessert after dinner."
Dora had heard it all. Her indignation was at boiling point.
"I am going to turn that creature out," she said to Lorimer.
"Oh, don't, I beg of you, Dora," replied Lorimer. "It might make a
scandal--that woman would not hesitate to insult you."
But Dora was determined to get rid of Mimi, and, addressing her, said,
"I will not trouble you to sing any more, mademoiselle; I will send you
your cheque to-morrow." So saying, she turned her back on Mimi.
"Much obliged," said the latter. And, turning to de Lussac, she added,
"Well, I never! She wants to dismiss me. Did you ever hear such cheek?
Much obliged, but I'm starving hungry. I'm off to the buffet--your arm,
Georges."
She went down with de Lussac.
Lorimer began to be seriously concerned about Dora. She was pale as
death, and seemed every now and then on the point of fainting. She had
been going through tortures, but the thing which had dealt her a
terrible blow was a scrap of conversation, which she had just heard as
she passed through the drawing-room.
"It happens every day, and in the best society," said a man whom she did
not recognise. "One constantly sees a man making use of his wife's
attractions to further his own ends. It is called diplomacy."
"In such cases the wife is often an innocent agent."
"That is true, but the husband is none the less reprehensible for that,"
added a third voice.
Of whom had they been speaking? There was a singing in her ears. Great
Heaven! was it of her? She closed her eyes and thought she was going to
lose consciousness.
Lorimer took it upon him to go to Philip and tell him that Dora was
tired and unwell, and that it would perhaps be unwise to expose her to
any more fatigue that evening.
"Thanks, dear old fellow," said Philip, "it will be all over in an hour
or less; we are going to supper in a moment."
Lorimer had found Philip engaged in describing his shell to Sabaroff.
Philip went at once to Dora; her pallor frightened him. Taking her hands
in his own, he said--
"Well, darling, how do you feel? You look tired; keep up your courage,
we are going to supper now. In an hour's time you will be free to
rest--you must not get up to-morrow; the next day you will feel nothing
more of it. Everything has gone beautifully, everybody is delighted with
the evening they have passed. The General is interested in my shell--I
am convinced that Russia will offer me a fortune for it; but why do you
look at me in that way?"
"I am tired to death; I don't feel well; I cannot go on any longer."
"Have courage, dear; it is nearly over. The hour has come when you can
do great things for me; a wife can be of such help to her husband--with
a little diplomacy."
Dora shuddered--it was the phrase which she had just heard. The room
seemed to swim round as she heard Philip repeat the words.
"What do you want me to do?"
"Why, nothing very difficult for you,--help me with a few smiles; invite
the General to come and see us sometimes. Why do you look at me in that
strange fashion?"
"You want me to ask that man to come and see me as a friend, after what
I have told you?"
"Why not?" said Philip. "Come, be a good girl; when I have sold my
invention, I will never think of anything but you and my painting. I
shall install myself in the most sumptuous studio that ever inspired an
artist. Forgive me my thirst for a little more wealth. I shall soon have
quenched it for ever. You will help me, won't you?"
"Once more, what is it you would have me to do?"
"We are going to supper--you will take General Sabaroff's arm."
"No, no, not that," said Dora, with an imploring look at Philip.
"Yes, yes, you cannot refuse. You are the hostess and he the principal
guest. I expect you to go down with him."
Sabaroff had drawn near to them; Dora could refuse no longer. She bent
her head and said to Philip--
"Very well."
"Will your Excellency offer your arm to my wife?"
Dora mastered her emotion, her weakness, and her indignation. Many eyes
were upon her; not a moment's hesitation was possible. She lifted her
head proudly, took the proffered arm, and went down to supper.
XII
THE HUSBAND, THE WIFE, AND THE OTHER
After going through the unaccustomed and fatiguing function, which we
have tried to describe in the two preceding chapters, Dora took a day or
two's rest in the house. During this time of repose, which her husband
had specially enjoined her to indulge in, she resolved to limit her
social relations, and consecrate most of her time to her child, who was
beginning to cause her some anxiety. Eva was not strong, and it became
more and more evident from her frequent complaints that a delicacy of
the throat was constitutional in the child. She, who up to this time
passed her days playing in the open air, had now to be content with a
sedate walk in the Park, which she could only take hatted, gloved, and
accompanied by a servant. Good-bye to the romps and scampers on the lawn
and the merry hours of delicious freedom she used to enjoy so much with
her little friends. Children are only happy and gay where there is no
atmosphere of restraint.
Dora continued to take an interest in household matters, kept her house
with scrupulous care and with economy, so as to avoid or, at any rate,
retard the financial wreck which she believed to be ahead. She put into
requisition all her house-wifely arts, learnt in the happy school of
their early married life, and all the ingenious tastefulness of the
artistic woman she was, in order that Philip should not discover that
she had conceived a complete distaste for the existence which she was
forced to lead, nor accuse her of trying to keep aloof from the life of
fashionable society.
The unhappy woman was wearied and worn by her secret struggles, and
almost crazy at the thought that her husband's heart had ceased to beat
for her. The more she thought of that which was going on, the wider the
chasm which separated her from Philip appeared to grow.
She had reached a point at which the question arose in her mind, whether
Philip, in his craving for the success of his new plans, did not seek
to push her into the arms of General Sabaroff.
That revolting thought filled her with such horror that she dared not
entertain it long. "No," she said to herself, "a man does not change so
suddenly as that; he does not take six years to reveal himself, and
then, at a day's notice, become transformed from an affectionate
husband, an honourable, upright, and devoted man, into a nameless
scoundrel." When she argued with herself, she arrived at the conclusion
that she must be mad to have allowed such an idea to enter her brain,
and yet, drive it away as she would, the horrible thought assailed her
more and more persistently.
Dora was above all things a woman of sound intelligence. After mature
reflection she traced for herself a line of conduct that seemed to her
the only wise one. First, she took a firm resolution never to address
any more reproaches to Philip. Things had gone too far for
recriminations to have any effect upon him. She was clear-sighted enough
to know that a husband's vagrant affection is not won back by reprimands
and reproaches, but only by sweetness, persuasion, and diplomacy. Her
greatest fear was that her temper might sour, and against this
possibility she set herself to watch most rigorously. She did her best
to be attractive, and cultivated a gaiety that should help her to break
down the cold barrier that seemed to have fixed itself between her and
this man who had so detached himself from her. She took more care than
ever of her appearance, and called all her taste into play to help her
set off her beauty to best advantage.