Jim Spencer woke next morning with that thrill of quickened anticipation
which serves to remind us even before full consciousness has returned,
that something new and exciting has come into our lives. He needed but
little thought to remember what it was, and as he lay watching with idle
but wide-awake eyes his man putting his clothes out, he told over and
over again in his mind, like the beads of a rosary, the events of the
evening before, always finishing with the pendant, so to speak, the fact
that in a few hours he was going to see her again. Frankly and honestly
he reminded himself that all romance was over: to begin with, and also
to end with, she was another man's wife, and that was sufficient for
him, as no doubt it was sufficient for her. Three years ago he had left
England because he desired in every fibre of his being to marry her, and
since that was impossible, because he entirely refused to waste his
life in purposeless dangling after what he could not get. And in this
spirit, which is more instinct with manliness than any sacrifice of
years and youth to the mere watching of the unattainable shadow on the
blind, he had gone out to the Transvaal, farmed there with the same
fervour as that which he had thrown into his love-making, and
subsequently, by the discovery of the reef on his land, had become, if
not one of the richest men who had found colossal fortunes as
sheep-farmers, at any rate one of the second rank-millionaire, if not
multi-millionaire. But at that point a certain sobriety of nature had
reasserted itself; he had not mistaken that full meal of gold for the
_hors d'oeuvre_, nor sought to duplicate it and reduplicate it. He had
not lost sight of the fact that he had enough, but recognising it with
all the thankfulness that plenitude gives, and not with the false
appetite of the habitual glutton, he had, so to speak, said grace and
retired from the dinner-table.
So now, at the age of thirty, he was temporarily, at any rate, without
employment, even as he had been, temporarily also, without employment
when Marie decided to marry, not him, but Jack Alston. True, he had
plenty of artistic tastes; in music and pictures he could easily have
passed the remainder of his life, however long, just as, without ever
being bored, he could have shot all the autumn, hunted all the winter,
and dozed and dined all the spring and summer, according to the
traditional method of the English gentleman, whose obituary notice
eventually teems with encomium on his useful and simple life, which
means that he has been a J. P. But to pass one's life merely in hearing
music and looking at or buying pictures seemed to him as unworthy of a
person who called himself a man, as did the recognised round of shooting
and hunting appear to him unworthy of a rational being at all. But as to
what this temporary abandonment of employment should terminate in, he,
as he lay in bed this morning, had no present idea. Anyhow, he was to
see Marie again, and he deliberately quenched further reflection.
The morning had not been foresworn, but fulfilled with liberal
generosity the promise of the last few days, and when Mildred Brereton
reached the Row on a black mare, which had been behaving itself as might
a crab on hot plates, and would have tried any but the most masterly
seat and hands, the broad brown expanse of the Ladies' Mile was
plentifully dotted with riders. The little green seats, too, by the side
were in high request, and she walked, or rather danced, very slowly up
for a hundred yards or so, before letting her chafing mount have a
canter, noting with her quick eye a hundred things and people which
would have escaped one less trained and less naturally gifted to observe
combinations of interest. Jack Alston had joined her, and she kept up a
running comment.
"There's Pagani with that absurd Italian woman," she said. "Why must a
man of that kind do that when Guardina is sure to be here? There, I told
you so! what a row there will be! She has the temper of a fiend, like
me. Jack, if you ever flirt with another woman on the sly, and I see
you, there'll be the deuce to pay. Come and tell me frankly if you are
going to do that sort of thing. Dear Madame Guardina, how are you? Do
walk a little way with us. No, there's not a soul here this morning, is
there? I've seen no one, not even the most constant habitués like
Pagani. And you sang Lucia last night, I hear, too divinely, and I had
some stupid people to dinner and couldn't come. Yes, Lord Alston was
one of them; he was the cleverest there. Judge of the rest!"
The prima donna, a good-natured soul, who had the most perfect vocal
chords in the world, absolutely no artistic sense, a passion for Pagani,
and an adoration for the particular set to which Mrs. Brereton belonged,
was delighted to be seen talking to her, and, turning back, walked along
the rails in the opposite direction to that in which Pagani sat.
"Well, I must say you missed something," she said with engaging
frankness, "for I never was in better voice. And on Saturday I sing La
Tosca. With the open mouth, too, as I've no other engagement for a
fortnight."
"What are you going to do?"
"Go to my house on the river and throw sticks for my dogs. You've never
been there yet, Mrs. Brereton. Do come down sometimes. I shall drive
there on Saturday night after the opera."
Mrs. Brereton made a short calculation.
"I will; I should love to," she said. "I hear it is charming."
"A dozen basket chairs and two dozen dogs," said Madame Guardina.
"I adore dogs. Are you off? Good-bye. About the middle of next week?"
"Any day."
Mildred gave her a charming smile and turned to Jack.
"That's one good-natured thing this morning already," she said, "and
it's barely ten yet. Pagani was just moving when I saw Guardina; he'll
be gone before she gets to him."
"I wish you were half as good-natured to me," remarked Jack.
"Well, what can I do for you?"
"Tell me how to behave to a hopelessly unreasonable woman, who is one's
wife!"
Mildred puckered her lips as if to whistle.
"Explain in five minutes," she said. "I can't really hold this untamed
savage any longer. Come on, Jack; we'll canter--shall we call it? up to
the end."
Whether Mildred called it a canter or not, it is not doubtful what other
people would have called it. But even the heart of the restraining
policeman must have been touched by the splendid vision that flew by
him, Mildred sitting her horse as no other woman could, sitting a horse
also that few could have sat at all, and treating its agitated
toe-steps with less concern than a man in an arm-chair gives to a
persistent fly on a summer afternoon. The consciousness that hundreds of
people were looking at her added, if anything, to her unconcern;
certainly also the fact that many who saw her saw also, and remarked,
that Jack was with her gave an additional zest to her enjoyment. For her
creed was that secrecy in this world was impossible, and the only way to
prevent people talking in the way that mattered and was annoying was to
do things quite openly. It mattered not in the least if people said,
"Oh, we have always known that!" or if they always took it for granted;
what did matter was if they said, "We have lately thought there must be
something of the kind!" Trespassers can be prosecuted; length of
possession constitutes a title.
They drew up at the top of the mile, and Mildred adjusted her hat.
"There," she said, "the cobwebs have been dispersed for the day. Now
we'll go on talking. Explain, Jack. Why do you want treatment for
Marie?"
Jack lit a cigarette.
"She makes scenes," he said, "and they bore me. She made one last
night."
"What about?"
"I don't know that it's worth repeating, really," he said.
"Probably not, but you are going to tell me."
He looked at her a moment with his thin eyebrows drawn together in a
frown, hit his horse rather savagely for an imaginary stumble, and
reined it in again more sharply than was necessary.
"I don't the least like being dictated to, Mildred," he said. "Nobody
adopts that tone with me--with any success, that is to say."
She laughed.
"Oh, my excellent friend," she said, "you really speak as if I was
afraid of you. For goodness' sake, don't put on schoolmaster airs. You
know perfectly well that doesn't go down. Don't hit your horse now; you
are behaving like a sulky child that whips its doll. What was the scene
about?"
"Did you see the infernal manner in which she walked off with Jim
Spencer last night, driving him home in her brougham and saying she was
going to Blanche Devereux'? That was her way of getting quits with me."
"Quits with you? What for?"
"For a conversation I had with her after lunch yesterday. I told her
that if she was seen about with Jim Spencer people would talk, and if
they talked it was absurd for her to keep up the sort of attitude she
maintains towards society in general, saying that we are both fools and
knaves."
Mildred made a gesture of despair.
"The stupidity of men really exceeds all bounds," she said. "I beg your
pardon, that is by the way. You were saying that she walked off with Jim
last night. I suppose you commented on that too, did you?"
He flushed angrily.
"If she imagines she is going to make a fool of me before all the world,
the sooner she learns her mistake the better," said he.
"You said that to her?" asked Mildred in a tone in which "even despair
was mild."
"Of course I did, or rather, I asked her whether she really went to see
Blanche. She saw what I meant all right."
"You seem to imagine she is as great a fool as you," remarked Mildred.
He turned half round on his horse.
"I don't stand such language from any one," said he.
"Oh, for God's sake don't be absurd! You stand exactly what language I
choose to use to you. Is it really possible, Jack, that you don't see
what a dangerous and foolish game you are playing? _Mon Dieu! mon Dieu!_
you are married to that pearl of a woman, and you think you can treat
her like that. You aren't fit to tie her boot-laces, and----"
"I have no intention of trying."
"Don't be funny. I was saying you weren't fit to tie her boot-laces, but
I can't expect you to see that. And you have practically told her you
suspect her of an intrigue with Jim Spencer. Now, if she was the sort of
woman you seem to think she is, that would be the very way to drive her
into it. Personally, I wish she was, but she isn't, and we must make the
best of it. But what you have done is to show her, if further
demonstration were necessary, your own utter depravity. Of the sickening
folly of that, I needn't speak. Go on: what did she say then?"
"She said she didn't care in the slightest degree whether I believed she
went to Lady Devereux's or not. She also said that Jim was coming to
lunch. So of course I shall go home to lunch."
Mildred laughed outright.
"You have the most wonderful power of choosing the only impossible
thing to do or say," she remarked. "That is the one thing out of the
question. The impeccable attitude of guardian angel, my dear Jack, is
the one attitude that cannot be made to pose well. Nor have you the
figure for it."
They rode on a little while in silence.
"Have your own way, then," he said at length.
"Of course I shall. Poor old Jack, how you do manage to put your foot in
it! And I have to pull you out so often. Aren't you grateful to me?"
"Not particularly this moment."
"Well, you will be soon. You needn't tell me when you are. A good action
is its own reward, and I am bursting with an approving conscience this
morning. I've helped Guardina and Pagani, I've helped you."
"Yourself perhaps?"
"That also is my reward. I didn't think of myself--at least, not much."
She looked at him with a gay and kindled eye; the exercise had brought
the blood into her face, and it was impossible to credit her with the
six-and-thirty years which she had assured Marie were hers. And looking
at her, his smarting ill-humour evaporated.
"How is it one never gets tired of you?" he said.
She laughed.
"Because I do not let you get accustomed to me," she answered.
Certainly if Jack Alston had, as was generally supposed, the gift of
getting his way with other people, Mrs. Brereton had the gift of getting
her way with him. This, she knew well, but was far too wise to say, was
the true secret of his absolute dependence on her, for there is nothing
that a masterful and brutal mind really enjoys so much as finding some
one stronger than itself. At times she was inwardly afraid that she
would some day get the worst of it, but knowing that in managing men, as
in managing horses, the real secret of their mutiny is not so much fear
on their driver's part, as the knowledge of that fear in the driver, she
was always, as in this particular instance, more than usually brutal,
and was accustomed to make him, so to speak, more resonant under her
hand, when she was not quite certain in the depths of her own mind that
she was going to win. Then, when the stress was over, she gave him his
own head again, with such completeness as to convey to him the
impression that he had always been free: there was no reminder, not the
faintest strain on the curb to show him that the curb was still there.
She used it, in fact, rarely, but in earnest, and never fell into the
habit, so common in women of her stamp who are otherwise clever, of
nagging, or making a point of getting her way over any matter on which
she did not really desire it.
Nor was her genuine attachment to him less capable of comprehension than
his to her. In addition to the immense charm of his extraordinary good
looks and his devotion to her, there was added that sense, so dear to an
ambitious woman, that she was controlling a figure that bade fair to be
one of the most prominent of the day, and could make it dance to her
wire-pulling like a marionette on its string. Though Jack was not yet
forty, he already held a minor post in the Government, and when the
elections came on in the summer or autumn, it was expected in many
quarters that he would be made Chief Secretary at the War Office. For
the nation had of late begun to wonder whether that serene and unbiased
attitude which is the natural outcome of complete ignorance on the
affairs of the Department is really the ideal equipment for a statesman.
A little knowledge, it has long been agreed, is a dangerous thing, but
the nation, in view of recent events, had distinctly formed the
suspicion that no knowledge at all was almost as hazardous. Indeed, it
was supposed that this idea had gently begun to communicate itself to
the Government itself. Anyhow, it was rumoured that more than a mere
reshuffling of the old cards would take place, and Jack Alston's name
was freely mentioned as a probable occupant of the office in Pall Mall.
Until his succession to the title on his father's death six years ago,
he had been a soldier of the practical, hard-working order, not content
with figures and much polo, but busy with ideas on boots and rifles, and
the knowledge he had thus acquired he had since used on more than one
occasion with telling effect on discussions in the Upper House about
military matters, and the cold, aloof attitude with which anything so
out of taste as criticism founded on knowledge, or the discussion of
practical questions in a practical manner, is usually treated in that
august assembly had not produced the slightest effect on him. He asked
awkward questions, and pointed out the absurdity of the answers or the
silence they received with such imperturbable pertinacity that it was
beginning to be felt that there really might be something in this novel
idea of letting a man who knew a good deal about a subject be employed
in that capacity. At any rate, he could not then continue to criticise
the Department in question if he controlled it. Builders and Government
contractors Jack appeared to consider not as masters of the Government,
but as their servants, and where a firm vowed that a particular
programme could not be completed under six years, he would have no
hesitation in demanding to know how they had managed to take foreign
orders in the interval. These things shook the immemorial calm of Pall
Mall, and produced the sort of gentle perturbation which might be caused
by the introduction of a risky topic at a tea-party of elderly maiden
ladies. But Jack Alston was without tact in these matters, and continued
to be horribly risky.
So he who should perhaps control so huge an affair as the army, and she
who controlled him, rode back towards Hyde Park Corner, a
striking-looking pair, at which many gazed. Their friendship was now of
several years' standing, and people had begun to find that there was
nothing new to say about so well-established a fact. There had never
been any scandal, and London is a wonderfully tolerant town. It is, in
fact, almost incapable of being shocked except by that which is printed
in the daily papers. This constitutes the real power of the press. As
long as definite publicity in black type on white or pink paper is not
given, a fact, however well known, remains private; it is only truly
shocking when the compositor has set it up; then takes place a great and
essential change. And this morning half the world looked at them, and
remarked on the beauty of their horses and the fine horsemanship of
their riders, and shrugged their shoulders now and then, and smiled and
talked about something else.
"So you had better lunch with me, Jack," said Mrs. Brereton, going back
to her subject. "You have a Committee at three, I know."
"And what must I say to Marie?" asked he.
"Say? Say you lunched with me. It has also the minor advantage of being
perfectly true. Oh, so few people see the extraordinary advantage to be
gained by telling the truth. It is so easy, too: you can tell the truth
by a mere effort of memory, whereas any--any diplomatic evasion calls
the imaginative faculty into play."
"I don't think I've got the imaginative faculty," said Jack.
"No, you haven't much. That is why, when you evade, you are always so
unconvincing. Rich ornamental detail is necessary to the simplest
untruth, whereas if you are telling the truth the cruder you are the
better. Your very crudity, Jack, is the making of you as a politician."
"I know what I want politically, anyhow," he said. "I want proper rifles
and the knowledge among the men as to the right direction in which to
fire them off."
"Oh, don't make speeches. That is exactly your oratorical style--in
other words, no style at all. The British public likes that. It says
there is no nonsense about you. How odd it is that politically you
should be a man of such astounding simplicity, and socially--well, a
person who savours of duplicity!"
"I'm straightforward enough," said he.
"Oh--oh! Never mind that. But the British public is odder still. It
insists--at least, it wishes to believe--that its public men should be
people of blameless private life. Now, what can that matter? But I
don't think it has any doubt about you, Jack. It believes you to be a
model of domesticity. Also by my advice, you see, you breed pigs and
shorthorns. There is something magical about pigs and shorthorns. The
public consider them a sort of testimonial to a man's character; I
suppose it is the touch of Nature, or the touch of the farmyard."
"Making the whole world kind!"
"Chestnuts, surely. Well, _au revoir_; go home and dress, and try not to
look glum, and tell Marie you are lunching with me. Good-bye, I must
hurry: I have some things to do before lunch."