Andrew Brereton, Mildred's husband, was a man about whom little was
known and hardly more conjectured, since he was most emphatically of
that type of man who arouses in none the remotest feeling of curiosity.
There seemed to be no doubt that he was of humble origin, but his
origin, whether humble or haughty, he had completely built over with the
tall edifice of his subsequent achievements, which had resulted in the
amassing of a fortune large enough to satisfy the requirements even of
his wife. It is generally supposed that brains of some kind are
necessary in order to make a very large quantity of money, and these
must be postulated for him; but having made a fortune, brains--or
so a study of this particular millionaire would lead one to
suppose--thenceforth become a superfluity. Certainly it appeared that
Mr. Brereton, on his retirement from business, either locked his up, or,
perhaps, as a concluding bargain, disposed of them, no doubt at a
suitable valuation, to his house, which dealt largely and wisely in
sound mining concerns in South Africa. Physically he was thin and meagre
in build, and habitually wore a harassed and troubled look, especially
in his own house, where he sat at the head of the table, and, for all
the attention that was usually paid him, might as well have been sitting
on the area-steps. But inasmuch as he really had an immense fortune, and
his wife had the spending of it, the privilege of being present when she
entertained her friends in his house was accorded him without question,
and the further advantage of his sitting on the area-steps instead of at
his table was never seriously weighed by any one.
To-night there was only a very small party, all the members of which,
with the exception of Jim Spencer, had probably met five or six times a
week since they came up to London, and during the winter had been
together more often than not in each other's houses. There was,
therefore, no sorting and resorting of groups required; conversation
could either be general, or in a single moment split up like broken
quicksilver and roll away into appropriate corners. For the moment it
was general, or rather everybody was listening to Arthur Naseby, a stout
young man, fresh-faced, but prematurely bald, who, standing on the
hearth-rug, harangued the room in a loud and strident barytone.
"_The_ most awful party I ever was at," he was saying. "Mrs. Boneman was
there, the wife of our eminent artist, wearing a sort of bird's-nest on
her head with three Union Jacks and some Easter eggs stuck into it. She
was dressed in a sort of Brussels carpet trimmed with what looked like
horsehair. I'm sure it was not horsehair really, but probably some rare
and precious material, but it looked like it; and she wore what I
understood to be the famous Yeere diamonds. They were about as large as
pen-wipers, and were plastered round her neck and pinned on to the
shoulders; others were scattered about her back. I imagine she stood in
the middle of the room, and her maid threw them at her, and they stuck
in the horsehair."
Mrs. Brereton shrieked with laughter.
"You are too heavenly!" she cried. "Go on, Arthur. Who else was there?"
"All the people whom one always sees coming out of the door of the Cecil
at Brighton, and all those who ask one to supper at the Carlton, in
order to inquire apparently who is sitting at the other tables. It is a
sort of passion with a certain kind of person to know who is supping at
the other tables at the Carlton, and his, or usually her, limitation
that he never does. It appears to them of far greater importance than
who is supping at their own. Well, they were all there, Princess
Demirep, and the Linoleums and Lincrustas. Hosts of them! I assume it
was most brilliant."
"Whom did you go with?" asked Lady Davies, who always wore an air of
intent study when Arthur Naseby was talking, because she was trying to
remember all he said in order to repeat it as original.
"I went with Blanche Devereux. I was dining with her, and she insisted
on my coming. We are both going again on the 16th."
"So am I. Dear Blanche! what did she make of it all?"
"She said she had never felt so humbled in her life. You see, this was a
particular party of _intimes_; the 16th is an omnibus. The brilliance of
the gathering overwhelmed her, just as it did me. We really knew nobody
there, and sat in a corner alone in London, till Mrs. Maxwell herself
left her commanding situation at the head of the stairs where she
received her guests and came and talked to us. I know she thought she
was being kind. So she was, but not in the way she meant."
"She is too wonderful," said Mildred, "Was she dressed in red satin?"
"I should have said bound, not dressed. Very tightly and neatly bound
with silk-markers and gilt edges. She thanked Blanche for coming, and
just stopped herself saying she felt much honoured; also she had hoped
to see her husband as well. Now, I have heard many tactful things in my
life, but I think never anything quite so tactful as that. A strange
fatality pursues poor Mrs. Maxwell; she says unerringly and loudly the
only thing which it is absolutely impossible to say. Blanche is not a
prude, I think we are all agreed, and therefore not easily shocked. Poor
Mrs. Maxwell might have said almost anything, however improper, without
offending her. Again, Blanche is a woman of the world; she can usually
make some sort of reply to the most awful put-your-foot-in-it. But she
was completely outclassed by that one simple sentence. Mrs. Maxwell was
first, and nobody else anywhere."
Lady Davies was so far carried away by this brilliance as to laugh, and
thus completely forgot all she had learned by heart from Arthur's
previous conversation.
"Then poor Mrs. Maxwell turned to me," he went on, "and remarked that I
looked far from well. When any one says that to me, I am always ill for
the next three days; in fact, I hardly thought I could get here
to-night. Of course, that spoiled the rest of my pleasure, and I hardly
knew what happened, except that Dick turned up later in the evening,
and--and pursued his impetuous path. I fancy that poor Mrs. Maxwell
imagined that he was Blanche's husband. But I don't wonder at that."
Marie's nerves were a little on edge to-night, and both what Mr. Naseby
said and the roaring volubility with which he said it jarred on them. At
this particular moment certainly she was possessed with a longing of an
almost passionate kind to cover him up like a canary with a piece of
green baize. But, as there was no baize to hand, she got up from where
she was sitting in the canary's immediate vicinity, and sought a safe
distance in the window-seat. Jim Spencer, who had been sitting at the
other side of the room, got up also, and, crossing the hearth-rug where
Mr. Naseby stood, followed her into her retreat. The latter, seeing a
secession from his audience, cast one pained and pitying glance at them,
and then covered their retreat by the continuation of his monologue.
"So you, like me, find it a little trying, Jim," said Marie, when they
were seated together; "but you will have to get used to it."
"Is there much of that sort of man?" asked Jim. "I don't remember
anything quite like it when I was in London last."
"No, he is a recent invention. He invented himself, in fact. Mildred
thinks she invented him, but she only detected him. The truth is, I
think, that on the whole people have grown rather stupider in the last
year or two, or perhaps it is only lazier, and Arthur Naseby saves them
the trouble of having to talk themselves. In fact, he makes it
impossible."
"Is he always like that?"
"As far as I know, always."
"How odd that he doesn't find it fatiguing! Or perhaps it is even odder
that other people don't find it fatiguing. Tell me something about
him."
"I know nothing whatever about him more than what you can see and hear,"
said Marie. "Indeed, I don't believe there is any more. He is very rich,
and declines to marry."
"Then the man is a husk, a husk with a tongue," said Jim.
"Probably about that; at least, I never heard that any one had reason to
believe there was anything more than the husk. Jim, I wonder how many of
us have real people inside. I expect there are lots of husks and nothing
more."
"Do you think so? I rather believe that most of us have got something
real, though perhaps nothing very wholesome or very pleasant. That being
so, one tries to conceal it, though sometimes it pops out like a lizard
from a crevice. I think I would give anything to get inside anybody
else, just for a minute, to see what he was really like."
"You would be rash to do it. It is quite certain that if you could get
inside anybody, as you say, you would never speak to him again. Good
gracious! could you imagine writing down all that had been in your mind
during a normal half-hour?"
"It depends who was to read it."
"You mean you would let a friend read it?"
Jim laughed.
"Well, if I am as bad as you think, it would clearly be a dangerously
stupid thing to show it to an enemy."
"Ah! you would sooner lose a friend than give a handle to an enemy,"
said Marie. "I entirely disagree with that. I would choose to make or
keep one friend, even at the risk of arming a whole regiment of enemies
against myself. Enemies matter so little."
"Certainly friends matter more," said Jim, "and perhaps acquaintances
less than either. The worst of having been away from London so long is
that one finds so many of the latter and so few of either of the
others!"
"What are your general impressions at present?" asked Marie.
The stream of talk from Mr. Naseby was apparently beginning to run dry;
the pressure was diminishing, and Jim spoke lower.
"I hardly know what to think at present," he said. "London seems to me
to have changed extraordinarily during the last few years. As far as I
can make out, it does not matter now how dull and stupid a man is, how
vulgar or vicious a woman is, as long as he or she is rich enough."
Marie raised her eyebrows.
"Why, of course," she said calmly. "What else did you imagine?"
"That is not all. Apparently, also, you can go to a man's house or a
woman's house, eat her food and drink her wines. Then you hurry on to
the next and tell them that it was _the_ most awful party you ever were
at. But still, apparently, you can go there again on the 16th."
Mildred Brereton had joined them, and lit a cigarette from a
fire-breathing Japanese dragon. She blew out a great cloud of laughter
and smoke together, with her mouth very wide.
"Dear Jim, you are too delicious!" she shrieked. "Really, I shall get
you to come and talk to me instead of Mr. Naseby, for you amuse me much
more. Arthur, you are dropped; Jim is funnier. Of course we are all
going on the 16th, because Pagani and Guardina are both going to sing,
and they sing too divinely for words. Also, considering what we all know
about them, and considering that they know we all know it, it is
exceedingly amusing to see them look at each other with frigid
politeness. Why, only the other day Mrs. Maxwell introduced them to each
other, saying she must make two great artists acquainted. Too screaming!
But you are too delightful and old-fashioned. Your idea about the
obligations entailed by hospitality is a savage notion, dear Jim, like
cannibalism, and vanishes before the march of civilization. I believe
there is an excessively native tribe in Java or Japan, or somewhere,
which still practises it. If you eat their salt, they stick to you
through thick and thin."
Arthur Naseby had joined them.
"How too dreadful!" he exclaimed. "Fancy having a lot of assorted
savages, thick and thin, sticking to one! It sounds as if one was a kind
of superior fly-paper."
"Arthur, you mustn't begin talking again, or we shall never get any
Bridge," said Mrs. Brereton. "Won't you play, Marie?"
"No, I really haven't got time," she said. "I told you I have to go on
at half-past ten. Please what time is it, Jim?"
"Close on eleven."
"Then I must really be moving, Mildred. But Jack will play; he isn't
coming on with me."
"Where are you going, Lady Alston?" asked Arthur.
"To see Blanche Devereux."
Arthur Naseby's face fell.
"I never knew she was giving a party," he said.
Marie laughed, rising.
"She isn't; don't be frightened; it is still possible that she has not
dropped you, like Mildred. I'm only going to see her about the soldiers'
bazaar. In fact, it is because she isn't giving a party that I am
going."
Jim Spencer got up too.
"Will you give me a lift?" he asked. "I am going to Eaton Place also."
"Certainly. Good-night, Mildred. Yes, I know my carriage is here. They
told me half an hour ago. Jack is stopping to play, I suppose. Please
tell him I have taken the carriage."
The two went out, and Mrs. Brereton and Naseby stood still looking at
them. When they had disappeared they looked at each other.
"Dear Marie!" said that lady effusively, "how delighted she evidently is
to see Jim Spencer again! Oh, dear, yes, they were very great friends
in the old days, very great friends indeed. Come, Arthur, they are
waiting for us."
"You always have such delightful people at your house," said Arthur,
"and you always have something interesting to say about them. And that
stiff young man is very rich, is he not?"
"Beyond the dreams," said Mrs. Brereton. "I wonder whom he will find to
make his money fly for him?"
"One can never tell. He looks to me as if he might spend it on Corots or
charity or something of that imperishable kind. Doesn't it strike you as
odd that whereas the perishable nature of money is always dinned into
one, yet one can apparently purchase imperishable treasure by being
charitable with it? No, I can't imagine any one making his money fly.
Some one might make it march away, very solemnly and in good order, but
not fly. He is a little stiff, is he not?"
"Perhaps a little reserved. But when reserve breaks down, it is so
_very_ unreserved. I like seeing a reserved person having a real
holiday."
"How many days would you say it was to the holidays?" asked Arthur, in a
low voice, as they reached the card-table where Jack and another were
waiting.
"I can't tell. I shouldn't wonder--no, I can't tell."
Marie and Jim Spencer meantime were driving down from Grosvenor Square
towards the Park. The night was warm, and hosts of stars burned very
large and luminous in a sky that was beyond the usual London measure of
clearness. After the heat of the rooms, in particular after a certain
feverishness of atmosphere, not physical so much as moral, a sense of
extreme hurry and pressure, the night air and the cool steadiness of the
stars were refreshing, not only physically but morally. Perhaps from
their years of early companionship and intimacy, perhaps from a certain
more deeply seated sympathy of mind, each was very conscious of the
thoughts of the other, and the swift silent motion through the glare of
the streets seemed to isolate them from the world. It was with something
of this in her mind that Lady Alston spoke to the other.
"Yes, put down my window, Jim," she said, "and your own, too, if you are
not afraid of catching cold. We are both outdoor people, I think."
"We used to be," said he.
"Do you mean you have changed? Or do you find I have?"
"I find you have. But I am quite willing to believe that it may be some
change in myself that makes me think so."
Marie unwound the light shawl which she had thrown over her head, and
undid the fastening of her gold-thread cloak, so as to let the air play
on her uncovered neck. In another woman, he felt, this might have
indicated some suspicion of coquetry, but he did her the justice to feel
that no such imputation was possible.
"No, if you feel that you are probably right," she said, "for you do not
seem to me to have changed at all. We both agree, in fact, about you.
There remains then me. How have I changed?"
He looked at her in the dusk of the carriage for a moment without
replying.
"You seemed so much in harmony with those people," he said. "I felt that
you felt yourself to be one of them. But I, obviously, I am afraid, felt
that I was not. That is how I think you have changed; in the old days
you would have appeared to yourself as alien to them as I do."
She gave him one glance.
"Ah, the old days!" she said with some impatience. "It is absurd and
ridiculous to want to remain as one was. Indeed, not to change shows
that one has a nature incapable of development. It implies a sort of
moral torpor, an atrophy of one's nature not to get older as one gets
older. And one of the biggest, and perhaps best effects of age is to
give one tolerance, to make one realize that it takes all sorts to make
a world."
He laughed.
"Why this sudden vehemence?" he asked.
"Oh, for a variety of reasons! One is because you judge me correctly,
another because you judge me incorrectly. You are perfectly right to say
that I have changed, but perfectly wrong to imply, even tacitly, that
one is the worse for changing. And you do me the grossest injustice when
you suppose that I am in harmony with those people. I am not any more
than I ever was. But it is absurd to coil one's self up like a hedgehog,
and run your spines into everything you come across. As a matter of fact
I often do, but it is a mistake."
They drove on some way in silence. At last she spoke again.
"Many of the people with whom I appear to you to be in harmony I
consider wicked," she said; "and many of them, I am sure, are vulgar in
the largest sense of that wonderful term. England is a plutocracy, let
me tell you, Jim. It worships wealth. It will certainly worship you. How
will you like it? It will really be very interesting to see how you
behave. It is an awful position for you: if you refuse to smile on your
worshippers, they will write you down a miser; if you do smile on them,
you will make yourself as vulgar as they."
He laughed.
"You frighten me," he said. "Is there no place in London for a quiet
millionaire?"
She leaned forward with a sudden eagerness.
"Ah, Jim, make one, make one!" she said. "That is the root of the
matter. Try if you can spend your money without encouraging either vice
or vulgarity. It is worth an effort."
She leaned back again, laughing lightly, and drew her cloak round her
again.
"Dear me, I have been vehement," she said; "but don't be afraid; I will
treat you to no more outbursts. Only this afternoon my husband told me
how absurd they were."
"Well, reserve them for me," he said; "I rather like them. You are an
inspiring person, Marie. You know I always found you inspiring."
"Many thanks. But no inspiration will make any one do anything. One's
motive has to come from within, not without, if it is worth anything."
"I am not so sure of that."
They stopped at Lady Devereux's house in Eaton Place, and until the bell
was answered sat silent. Then, as the footman opened the carriage-door,
"I am delighted you have come back, Jim," she said--"I really am
delighted. Come and see me often. Come to lunch to-morrow, for instance.
Yes! That is right. Thirty-one, you know, and lunch at one-thirty."