'It seems a crime to take you back into the house. What have you to do
with whether or no we are asked to the next garden-party in Downing
Street? You are Ariel and can put a girdle round the earth.... I am
almost afraid of you. Can't we run away and become strolling players?
You may think I am to be envied but my life has been a very unhappy
one.... I want to help you....'
It was obvious to Clara that he did not know what he was saying, and
indeed he was light-hearted and moonstruck, lifted outside his ordinary
range of experience. He babbled on,--
'If I could feel that I had done the smallest thing to help you, I
should be prouder of it than of any other thing in my career.'
'But I don't want help....'
'Ah! You think so now. But wait three years.... You think an actor
can know nothing of life, but who knows more? Has he not in himself to
reproduce every fine shade of emotion, the effect of every variety of
experience.... The people who know nothing of life are your cloistered
artists like Mann, or your Verschoyle drowned in money.... You have
not known me yet.'
Really he was getting rather ridiculous with his boyish romanticism.
He had been married twice and his two families numbered seven. But
Clara, too, was under the spell of the moon, and his gauche response to
her mood had touched her.
'Life is a miserable business for a woman,' said Sir Henry. 'I live in
dread lest you should be dragged down into the common experience.'
(Did he or did he not know about Charles?)
Clara laughed. This was taking her too seriously.
'Ah, you can laugh now while you are young, but youth attracts, it is
drawn into the whirlpool and is lost.... Is there more in you than
youth?'
'Much, much more,' said Clara exultantly. 'There has never been
anybody like me before.'
'By Heaven!' swore Sir Henry. 'That is true.... You have bewitched
me--and we had better be going back to the house.... Will you let me
carry you down?'
Without waiting for her permission, he lifted her, and she suffered him
to carry her down the last stony path, because her flimsy shoes were
already wet through. He did not guess that she had good reason, and
his heart thumped in his large bosom.
It had been a night of nights for him. Years of uneasy distraction had
melted away. Not even at the height of his success had he felt so
confident, so entirely superior to the rest of mankind as both to
command and to deserve their homage. In no play had he ever devised a
more romantic finale than this in which he carried his conquered
sprite--for so he thought her--back to earth. As he put her down, he
threw out his chest and turned to the stars as it was his habit to turn
to his audiences, and bowed thrice, to the right, to the left, to the
centre, with his hand upon his heart.
Verschoyle was very angry with her when she returned.
'You know how these people think of such things,' he said.
'What they think and what I do are very different,' retorted Clara, her
eyes shining, her cheeks glowing from the night air. 'It makes him
happy, and, if you are happy with me, he doesn't see why he shouldn't
be. _Pourquoi pas moi aussi_? Men are all alike.'
'It is not the same.... What a child you are! Some day you will love
and then you will see very differently.... The old fool thinks you
are----'
'No. He said I was Ariel. So I am. So I am.... I wonder I never
thought of it before. I shall never be a woman as women have been----'
'There have been good women.'
'Tra la la! The good women have done far more harm in the world than
all the bad women put together. Lady B is a good woman.'
'A painted tigress. _She_ won't forgive you in a hurry. She
thinks--that, too.'
'People can't think beyond what they are. You can't expect me to be
what other people think.'
'I want you to be yourself.'
'So I am.... You shall take me away in a day or two. I want to see
the Bracebridges just for fun, _and_ the Cabinet Ministers, and then I
want to drown their memories one by one in the lakes as we pass them.
We are going to see them all, aren't we?'
'I want to get away. I can't bear being with you in this atmosphere of
money.'
'Now, now. You promised me you would never behave like a lover.'
'I thought I was behaving like an angry brother.'
She was pleased with him for that. She knew that part of his trouble
was due to his being an only son.
The Bracebridges were disappointing: a very dull man, a hard and
raffish woman, but apparently to Lady Butcher they were the wonder of
all wonders. She and Lady Bracebridge were to each other 'dear Ethel'
and 'dearest Madge.' Together they made a single dominant and very
formidable personality, which must be obeyed. They flung themselves
upon the house-party, sifted the affairs of every member of it, and in
three days had arranged for two engagements and one divorce. They
commanded Verschoyle--by suggestion--to marry a Mrs Slesinger, who was
plain but almost as rich as himself, and in his distress he very nearly
succumbed; but Clara swooped in to save him, and found that her
position was made almost impossible by whispered tittle-tattle, cold
looks, and downright rudeness. She was distinctly left out of picnic
and boating parties, and almost in contempt she was partnered with Sir
Henry who, after Lady Bracebridge's arrival, was no longer master in
his own house.... When the Cabinet Ministers arrived the situation
became impossible for they produced chaos. The household was
dislocated, and in the confusion Clara packed, had her trunks carried
to the garage, and slipped away with Verschoyle.