matters of vital urgency, not to conduct a salon. Our reports on
the various insurgent activities throughout our countries are to
be test cases for the world. We’re not only to report conditions
but to suggest solutions. Think, man, think! This room may be the
laboratory where we will discover the formula to heal a world
that’s near to dying. Can you turn that into an epigram or a jest?”
“No,” said De Nemours softly, and he looked suddenly very tired and
very old, “that is no epigram, Monsieur O’Hara--that is no jest.
Ah, my country, my country.” His voice was hardly above a whisper,
but in the cold and bitter eyes there was something that wailed
aloud.
“Yes, my country,” O’Hara retorted fiercely, “but more than that.
There are five members of this Committee--not four.”
“Not four?” Celati’s level voice was suddenly sharp.
“Not four. There will be represented at this table Great Britain,
France, Italy, the United States--and Humanity. The greatest of
these, gentlemen, will have no voice.”
“_Au bonheur!_” commented De Nemours affably. “It, unlike Mrs.
Lindsay, might not sing us madrigals.”
O’Hara brought his clenched fist down on the table with a gesture
at once despairing and menacing. “Now by the Lord,” he said, his
voice oddly shaken, “if this woman----”
The door into the hall opened very quietly, closed more quietly
still, and Delilah Lindsay stood facing them, her hand still on the
knob.
“I knocked twice,” she said softly. “The woodwork must be very
thick.”
O’Hara rose slowly to his feet. Celati and De Nemours had already
found theirs.
“Good evening,” he said, “it’s not quite the hour, I believe.” He
was fighting an absurd and overwhelming impulse--an impulse to
reply with perfect candour, “The woodwork is not thick at all. Were
you listening at that door?”
For a moment, hardly longer, Delilah stood quite still. It was
long enough to stamp on every mind present an indelible picture
of the primrose-yellow head shining out against the dark panels;
therefore, long enough for all practical purposes. She released the
door-knob, smiling very faintly.
“It is unfortunate for a man to be late,” she replied, “but
unpardonable for a woman. We have so much time of our own to waste
that we must be very careful not to waste that of others. _Bon
soir_, De Nemours.”
She crossed the room with her light, unhurried tread, and stopped,
serenely gracious, before O’Hara.
“You are the British representative, are you not? It is very stupid
of me, but I don’t believe that I have heard your name.”
“You have heard it a good hundred times,” thought the British
representative grimly.
“Madame, permit that I present to you Mr. O’Hara.”
“Mr. O’Hara?” Her smile was suddenly as winningly mischievous as a
child’s. “That’s a grand name entirely for an Englishman.”
O’Hara’s eyes were ice gray. “I’m no Englishman, Mrs. Lindsay. But
some of us in Ireland hold still that we are part of Great Britain
though the Colonials may have seen fit to forget it.”
The velvety eyes lifted to his were warm with sympathy and concern.
“That’s splendid of you; we hear so much bitterness amongst the
Irish here, and somehow it seems--ugly. After all, as you say, no
matter what she may do--or has done--England is England! But I am
distressed to hear that there has been disloyalty elsewhere. You
think Canada--Australia?”
“I think neither. It was of other children of England that I was
thinking, Mrs. Lindsay--ungrateful and rebellious children.”
“Oh, how stupid. Egypt, of course, and India. But, after all, they
are only adopted children, aren’t they? Perhaps if we give them
time they’ll grow to be as loyal and steadfast and dependable as
you yourselves. _Pazienza_----”
“I was not----”
She raised a protesting hand, gay and imperious. “No, no, don’t
even bother to deny it. You must be discreet, I know--indeed,
indeed I honour you for it.” She turned to De Nemours, the
sparkling face suddenly grave. “But we must not be forgetting; we
are here to discuss more vital matters than England’s colonial
policy, vital as that may well be. Will you forgive us--and present
my colleague from Italy?”
“Mrs. Lindsay, Signor Celati.” Both De Nemours and Celati were
struggling with countenances not habitually slaves to mirth, but
the look of stony and incredulous amazement on O’Hara’s expressive
visage was enough to undermine the Sphinx.
By what miracle of dexterity had she turned the tables on him,
leaving him gracefully rebuked for triviality--he, the prophet and
crusader? And by what magic had she transformed his very palpable
hit at the recalcitrant Americans into a boomerang? He drew a long
breath. This woman--this woman was so unscrupulously clever that
she could afford to seem stupid. That rendered her pretty nearly
invulnerable. The stormy eyes grew still--narrowed intently--smiled.
“Mrs. Lindsay is entirely right,” he agreed. “Let us get to
business; Heaven knows that we have enough of it to get through!
Mrs. Lindsay, we have gone over a certain amount of ground in your
unavoidable absence. I regret----”
“I, too, regret it,” she said quietly. “But it is, as you say,
unavoidable. I was greatly honoured by the Government’s choice, but
it was impossible for me to drop the Oregon investigations at that
stage. If I could have the minutes of the previous meetings----”
“We have no minutes. It has been decided to dispense with the
services of a stenographer, as the matters handled are of really
incalculable delicacy. Each of us, however, keeps an abstract of
the proceedings, which we check up together, in order to prevent
any possible misunderstandings. These are at your disposal,
naturally.”
“I see. Then if it will not be too much trouble, I’ll run through
yours. It will only be necessary to see one lot, if they have been
checked, of course. Shall we begin where you left off, then? And
shall I take this chair? I’m quite ready. I left my hat and cloak
and such feminine trappings downstairs. What is under discussion?”
“I’ll have the report for you at the next meeting,” said O’Hara.
“We were thrashing out the situation in Rome. You think that the
Pope will influence the Blacks to vote against the commonist
element, Celati? That’s unusual, isn’t it? A distinct return to
temporal power?”
“Unusual, yes. A return to temporal power? Possibly. But the
Vatican contends that it is a spiritual and social matter rather
than a political matter. It seems----”
For a moment--for more than a moment O’Hara lost track of the
even, unemotional voice. He was watching, with a blazing and
concentrated curiosity, the face of the American representative.
Mrs. Lindsay was listening to the Italian with rapt interest, but
O’Hara could have sworn that it was the same interest, fascinated
and indulgent, which an intelligent small child bestows on a
grown-up telling fairy tales--an interest which whispers “It’s so
pretty--let’s pretend it’s true!” She looked almost like a small
child as she sat facing him across the darkly shining table; almost
like a small boy. Her thick, soft hair was cut short and framed
her face like a little mediæval page’s--straight across the low
white forehead, curling strongly under about her ears. The blue
jacket with its white Eton collar and narrow cuffs was boyish,
too. And the chin--O’Hara pulled himself up, frowning. He was mad!
His cousin Norah was boyish, if you like, with her honest freckled
face and puppy eyes, and red hands--but this small smooth creature
could clip her shining hair to its roots--it would only betray the
eternal feminine more damningly. No stiff collar would ever do
anything but accentuate the velvety darkness of her eyes, the pure
beauty of the wistful mouth. Possibly that was why she wore it! He
caught back a grim smile as the velvet eyes met his.
“It’s desperately awkward, of course,” said the voice that De
Nemours had accurately described as exquisite. “What solution would
you suggest, Mr. O’Hara?”
“I am not yet prepared to offer a solution,” Mr. O’Hara informed
her a trifle stiffly. What in the name of Gods and Devils had
Celati been talking about, anyway?
“But after all,” urged Mrs. Lindsay, “it comes down to a question
of two alternatives, doesn’t it? Which seems to you the lesser
evil?”
“I prefer to wait until we hear a little more about it.” His back
was against the wall, but he thoroughly intended to die fighting.
“More about it? What more is there to hear?” Her amazement was
so wide-eyed that it seemed almost impossible that it was not
genuine. But if you had put thumb-screws to him, O’Hara would have
maintained that in some inexplicable manner the small, demure,
deferential fiend across the table was fully aware of the fact
that he had not been listening--and fully prepared to make his
unsuspicious colleagues aware of it, too.
“Part of it did not seem quite clear to me,” he said curtly.
“Not clear?” repeated Celati, his imperturbable calm severely
ruffled, “what do you say, not clear? You find my English at fault,
possibly--certainly not my explanation. No child could do that.”
“Surely not,” agreed Mrs. Lindsay, and her voice was as soothing
as a cool hand, “I confess that it struck me as--well--limpid. But
perhaps Mr. O’Hara will tell us just what part of it he did not
follow?”
“Put it,” said O’Hara, with something perilously like hatred
blazing in his eyes, “that I did not follow. We are simply wasting
time. Will someone repeat the alternatives?”
Mrs. Lindsay’s gravely solicitous eyes met the look unflinchingly.
“Surely. All this is simply wasting time, as you say. It comes
down to a question as to whether it is preferable for the Italian
Government to countenance or discountenance the Papal entry into
politics. In the present case it is naturally an asset, but it is
possible that it might entail serious consequences. I put it baldly
and clumsily, but I am trying to be quite clear.”
“You are succeeding admirably,” O’Hara assured her. He was
dangerously angry, with the violent and sickening anger of a man
who had been made a fool of--and who has richly deserved it. “As
you say, it is--limpid. But why not a third alternative? Why should
the Italian Government do anything at all? Why not simply lie quiet
and play safe? It would not be for the first time.”
“Mr. O’Hara!” Celati was on his feet, white to the lips.
Mrs. Lindsay stretched out her hands with a prettily eloquent
gesture of despair. “Oh, really!” she said quietly. “Is this kind
of thing necessary? We are all working together for the same
purpose--a purpose that has surely too much dignity to be degraded
to such pettiness. Mr. O’Hara, I beg of you----”
“It is not necessary to beg of me.” He leaned across the table,
something boyish and winning in his face, his hand outstretched. “I
say, Celati, I’m no end of a bounder; do let me off this once--I’m
bone tired--haven’t slept for nights, trying to think of ways
through this beastly mess. I don’t know what I’m saying, and that’s
Heaven’s truth. Is it all right?”
“Quite. We are, I think, all tired.”
“Men,” Mrs. Lindsay murmured gently--“men are really wonderful.
What two women would have done that?”
O’Hara considered her for a moment in silence.
“Is that a tribute you are paying us?” he inquired quite as gently.
“Why, what else?” Again the soft amazement.
“I was seeking information. It struck me as ambiguous.”
Mrs. Lindsay smiled, that enigmatic smile, wistful and ironic. “It
is undue humility on your part, believe me. But shan’t we get back
to the matter in hand? Monsieur De Nemours, what is your opinion?”
“I think there is much in Mr. O’Hara’s suggestion that the
Government should not be over-precipitate,” replied De Nemours
pleasantly. He was horribly bored; politics, unless they concerned
France, bored him almost beyond endurance, but his ennui was
somewhat alleviated by the fact that a very pretty woman was asking
him a question. “If silence were maintained for a few weeks, it
might well be----”
O’Hara was listening--fiercely. He was sure that he could smell
violets somewhere; why didn’t the woman take her hands off the
table? They lay there, white and fragile and helpless, like broken
flowers. Why didn’t she wear a wedding ring? Why--he jerked his
tired mind back savagely to De Nemours’ easy, fluent voice,
his tired eyes to the worn but amiable mask that the Frenchman
substituted for a face. Why didn’t he stop talking?
“We, in France, have been learning tolerance to God as well as to
man,” he was saying. “Possibly before the war we have been drastic,
but the truly remarkable revival----”
France again! France and Italy and Oregon--on and on and on--the
clock on the mantel clicked away the minutes ruthlessly, the
precious minutes that belonged to a dying world. It was striking
eleven when Mrs. Lindsay rose.
“Then that’s cleared up, I think,” she said. “We begin the regular
routine to-morrow morning, don’t we? Half-past nine? And here?”
“The house has been placed at my disposal,” replied O’Hara
formally. “I have placed it at the Committee’s. It has proved a
convenient arrangement.”
“Are the night sessions usual?” she asked.
“Usual? I don’t know.” He looked at her wearily; how could any one
emerge from that harrowing bickering and manœuvering so fresh and
untouched and shining? “We have them when it seems necessary--how
often should you say, De Nemours?”
“Never mind.” The cool fingers were touching his; she was going. “I
will keep my evenings free, too--I was simply wondering what to do
about some invitations. But nothing else counts, of course, does
it? Do get a good rest; you look so tired. Good-night.” She smiled,
nodded the golden head graciously, and was gone.
O’Hara stood gazing blankly at the closed door for a moment--then
he swung across the room, flung the windows up with a carefully
controlled violence, and stood leaning heavily against its frame,
his shoulders sagging suddenly, his tired young face turned to the
stars.
“You find it too warm?” De Nemours inquired courteously.
“No--I don’t know. Those beastly violets----”
“Violets?” De Nemours waited with raised brows.
“The first time the poison gas came over at Ypres, the chap
standing next to me said, ‘Funny--there’s a jolly smell of violets
about.’ Violets--God!” His voice twisted--broke. But after a minute
he continued casually: “Rotten trick to have your senses go back on
you like that, what? They’re the little beggars Nature has given
us for guards and watchmen and here one of them turns traitor and
instead of shrieking ‘Careful--careful--the ugliest poison ever
found is touching you!’ it whispers ‘See, it smells of violets--oh,
England--oh, Spring.’ Damned traitors, the lot of them--for ever
telling us that poison is sweet!”
“Why, so it is,” murmured De Nemours. “Many and many a time. But
where were the violets to-night, _mon ami_?”
O’Hara jerked about incredulously, “What! you didn’t smell them?
Why, every time she moved the air was thick with them!”
“Ah, Youth!” Irony and regret tempered the low laughter. “One must
be young indeed to smell violets when a woman moves!”
Celati stirred slightly. “A most remarkable woman, this Mrs.
Lindsay.”
“Remarkable, indeed. There is something about her fine and
direct----”
O’Hara stared at him aghast. “Direct? Man, but you’re mad! The
woman’s tortuous as a winding lane--and it’s a dark place it leads
to, I’m thinking.”
De Nemours yielded once more to indulgent mirth, “_Pauvre ami_,
those nerves of yours play tricks with you! Mrs. Lindsay is a woman
with an exceptional mind of which she makes exceptional use. She is
a beautiful woman, but alas, she does not remind you of it. She is
entirely devoted to her work, she shows tact and courage, a rare
discretion, a fine simplicity----”
“Oh, God!” There was something very like despair in O’Hara’s mirth.
“Simplicity, by the Almighty! Because she wears blue serge instead
of white lace? Why, I tell you that she trails yards of chiffon
behind her when she goes, that her eyes are for ever smiling at you
over a scented fan, that there’s always a rose in her hair and a
kiss on her lips. She’s just as simple as Eve--and she still has
fast hold of the apple!”
Celati eyed him a trifle sternly. “You object to women in politics,
Mr. O’Hara?”
“Object? My soul, no! My mother and sister are in it up to their
eyebrows, and making a rattling good job of it, too. But when they
play the game, they play it. They leave more trappings than their
hats and cloaks downstairs; they let you forget that they are
women, and remember that they are human beings.”
“I find masculine women--distasteful.”
“I never said that they were masculine,” O’Hara retorted sharply,
“I said that they were first and foremost human beings. Any other
attitude is fatal. I tell you that this woman cares nothing in the
world for our game; she is playing her own. And she is playing with
loaded dice.”
“And what game is she playing, pray?”
“The oldest game in the world,” said O’Hara. “Antony’s dark-eyed
Egypt played it, and that slim witch, Mary Stuart, and the
milliner’s exquisite minx, Du Barry. Only they played behind silken
curtains, with little jewelled hands and heads and words. They
fight with other weapons nowadays, but the stakes haven’t changed
since Antony lost a world and won a kiss.”
“And the stakes?”
“Why, you are the Stake,” said O’Hara. “And I--and Celati there;
they are playing for Power--and Man is Power--and Man, poor fool,
is their toy. Little Sisters of Circe--they have come out from
behind their pale silken curtains and stripped the jewels from the
small hands and perfumed heads and covered their shining shoulders
with harsh stuffs and schooled their light tongues to strange
words--and we are blind and mad, and call them comrade!”
“_Tiens, tiens!_” murmured De Nemours, “you interest me, O’Hara. I
confess that I had failed to find this sinister glamour; but you
open pleasant vistas in a parched land!”
O’Hara gave him a wrenched smile. “That was not my endeavour,” he
said briefly.
Celati rose, a little stiffly. He was a heavy man, and oddly
deliberate for a Latin.
“It is late,” he said. “Are you coming, De Nemours? Till to-morrow
morning, Mr. O’Hara; _a rivederla_.”
“Good-night,” returned O’Hara. “At nine-thirty, then. Good-night.”
He stood staring down absently at the polished surface of the table
for a moment or so after the door had closed, and then crossed to
the open window. The stars were shining brightly--but they were
very far away and cold, the stars. There was something nearer and
sweeter in the quiet room behind him, nearer and sweeter even than
on that spring day at Ypres. He turned from the window with a
gesture at once violent and weary. Those accursed violets! He could
smell them still.
II
“You are taking Lilah Lindsay in to dinner,” said Mrs. Dane. “I am
kind to you, you see! She’s the most exquisite person.”
“Exquisite,” O’Hara agreed politely, but there was something in
his voice that caused Mrs. Dane to raise her beautifully pencilled
eyebrows. There was no doubt about it, her distinguished guest
was in no transport of enthusiasm as to her adored Lilah. Rumour,
for once, was correct! She glanced toward the door, bit her lip,
and then, with a swift movement of decision, she turned to the
high-backed sofa, her draperies fluttering about her as she seated
herself.
“I am so very glad that you came early,” she informed him
graciously, and O’Hara thought again of her astonishing resemblance
to a humming-bird--small and restless and vivid, eternally
vibrating over some new flower. “I so rarely get a chance to talk
to you--you are most impressively busy, aren’t you? Do you see a
great deal of Lilah?”
“Mrs. Lindsay has attended all our conferences for the past few
weeks.”
“Oh, of course, but you can hardly get to know her there, can you?”
“Possibly not. However, I have had to content myself with that.
She is a very busy woman, of course, and my own time is not at my
disposal.”
“I suppose not,” murmured Mrs. Dane mendaciously. She supposed
nothing of the sort. “But you are to be pitied, truly. She is a
most enchanting person; all the tragedy and cruelty of her life
have left her as gay and sweet and friendly as a child. It’s
incredible.”
“She has had tragedy and cruelty in her life?”
“Oh, it’s been a nightmare--nothing less. She hadn’t been out of
her French convent six months when she married that beast, Heaven
knows why--she had every other man in Washington at her feet, but
he apparently swept her off them! Of course, he had a brilliant
future before him----”
“Of course,” murmured O’Hara.
“What do you mean? Did you know Curran Lindsay?”
“Never heard of him,” O’Hara assured her. “But do go on: what
happened to the beast’s future?”
She shrugged her white shoulders distastefully. “Oh, he died in a
sanitarium in California several years ago, eaten up with drugs and
baffled ambition.”
“And languishing away without his favourite pastime of beating the
lovely Mrs. Lindsay black and blue, I suppose?”
Mrs. Dane controlled a tremor of annoyance. She disliked flippancy
and she disliked grimness; combined she found them irritating to a
really incredible degree. “Curran never subjected Lilah to physical
maltreatment,” she said coldly, “he subjected her to something a
thousand times more intolerable--his adoration.”
“So the beast adored her?”
“He was mad about her. You find that unlikely?”
“On the contrary,” replied O’Hara amiably, “I find it inevitable.
But what happened to his brilliant career?”
“Oh, he was crazily, insanely jealous--and some devil chose to
send him an anonymous letter in the middle of a crucial party
contest when his presence was absolutely vital, saying that Lilah
was carrying on an affair with an artist in California, where he’d
left her for the winter. He went raving mad--threw up the whole
thing--told his backers that they could go to Hell, he was going to
California--and he went, too.”
“Ah, Antony, Antony!” O’Hara said softly.
Mrs. Dane stared at him, wide-eyed. “Why, what do you mean? Have
you heard the story before?”
“It sounds, somehow, vaguely familiar,” he told her. “There was a
woman in Egypt--no--that was an older story than this. Well, what
did the beast find?”
“He found Lilah,” replied Mrs. Dane sharply. “The artist had
promptly blown his brains out when she had sent him about his
business, as she naturally did. But Curran’s contest was lost,
and so was Curran. He might as well have been Benedict Arnold,
from his party’s point of view. He went absolutely to pieces; took
to drinking more and more--then drugs--oh, the whole thing was a
nightmare!”
“And the artist blew his brains out, you say?”
“Yes, it was too tragic. Lilah was almost in despair, poor child.
He left some dreadful note saying that exiles from Paradise had no
other home than Hell--and that one of them was taking the shortest
cut to get there. The newspapers got hold of it and gave it the
most ghastly publicity,--you see, everyone had prophesied such
wonderful things about his future!”
“Still, he had dwelt in Paradise,” murmured O’Hara.
“Dwelt? Nonsense--he said that he was an exile!” Mrs. Dane’s voice
was distinctly sharp, but O’Hara smiled down at her imperturbably.
“Oh, come. It’s a little difficult to be exiled from a spot where
you’ve never set foot, isn’t it? No, I rather fancy that Mrs.
Lindsay found consolation in the dark hours by remembering that
she had not always been unkind to the poor exile--that in Paradise
for a time there had been moonlight and starlight and sunlight--and
that other light that never was, on sea or land. It must have
helped her to remember that.”
Mrs. Dane dropped her flaming eyes to the fan that shook a little
in her jewelled hands. Perhaps it was best to hold the thunder and
lightning that she ached to release; after all, it was clearly
impossible that he should actually mean the sinister things that he
was implying about her incomparable Lilah! It would be an insult to
that radiantly serene creature to admit that insult could so much
as touch her. She raised defiant eyes to his mocking ones.