Transcriber's Notes:
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by
=equal signs=.
Small uppercase have been replaced with regular uppercase.
Blank pages have been eliminated.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the
original.
THE THREE LOVERS
FRANK SWINNERTON
BY FRANK SWINNERTON
THE THREE LOVERS
COQUETTE
SEPTEMBER
SHOPS AND HOUSES
NOCTURNE
THE CHASTE WIFE
ON THE STAIRCASE
THE HAPPY FAMILY
THE CASEMENT
THE YOUNG IDEA
THE MERRY HEART
GEORGE GISSING
_A Critical Study_
R. L. STEVENSON
_A Critical Study_
THE THREE LOVERS
BY
FRANK SWINNERTON
AUTHOR OF "COQUETTE," "SEPTEMBER," "SHOPS AND HOUSES,"
"NOCTURNE," ETC.
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1922,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
[Illustration]
THE THREE LOVERS. II
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
PART ONE
CHAPTER PAGE
ONE: THE STUDIO 9
TWO: NEW FRIENDS 22
THREE: PATRICIA 44
FOUR: THE REACTION 64
FIVE: EDGAR MOVES 77
SIX: EVENING WITH HARRY 90
SEVEN: SECOND EVENING 107
EIGHT: A DAY IN PATRICIA'S LIFE 124
NINE: MISCHIEF 148
PART TWO
TEN: EDGAR HEARS A WISEACRE 163
ELEVEN: CHANGE 178
TWELVE: ENCOUNTER 191
THIRTEEN: THE SIBYL 210
FOURTEEN: ANOTHER DAY 222
FIFTEEN: CONTRAST 238
SIXTEEN: PLAYING WITH FIRE 256
SEVENTEEN: THE VISITOR 272
EIGHTEEN: BLANCHE 286
NINETEEN: NIGHT CALL 296
TWENTY: BABIES 314
PART ONE
THE THREE LOVERS
CHAPTER ONE: THE STUDIO
i
It was a suddenly cold evening towards the end of September. The
streets were very dark, because the sky was filled with heavy clouds;
and from time to time, carried by an assertive wind, there were little
gusts of fine rain. Everybody who walked along the London pavements
shivered slightly, for the summer had disappeared in a few hours and
had been buried in this abrupt darkness; and the wind seemed to come
flying from all corners of the earth with a venom that was entirely
unexpected. The street-lamps were sharp brightnesses in the black
night, wickedly revealing the naked rain-swept paving-stones. It
was an evening to make one think with joy of succulent crumpets and
rampant fires and warm slippers and noggins of whisky; but it was
not an evening for cats or timid people. The cats were racing about
the houses, drunken with primeval savagery; the timid people were
shuddering and looking in distress over feebly hoisted shoulders,
dreadfully prepared for disaster of any kind, afraid of sounds and
shadows and their own forgotten sins. Sensitive folk cast thoughts at
the sea, and pitied those sailors whose work kept them stationary upon
the decks of reeling vessels already weather-beset. The more energetic
breathed deep if they were out-of-doors, or more comfortably stretched
towards their fires if they were within. Poor people huddled into old
overcoats or sat on their nipped fingers in close unheated rooms. The
parsimonious who by settled ritual forswore fires until the first of
October watched the calendars and found an odd delight in obedience to
rule. The wind shook the window-panes; soot fell down all the chimneys;
trees continuously rustled as if they were trying to keep warm by
constant friction and movement.
In the main streets the chain of assembled traffic went restlessly on,
with crowded omnibuses and tramcars, with hurrying cabs, and belated
carts and drays, as though the day would never cease. The footways
were thick with those who walked, bent this way and that to meet
and baffle the sweeping breezes. The noises mingled together in one
absorbing sound, heard at a distance of many miles, a far undersong
to the vehement voice of the country. Apart from the main streets,
so crowded and busy, London was peculiarly quiet. If a door banged
it was like a gun; and such a rumble provoked only a sudden start,
and no constriction of the cardiac muscles, for Londoners were no
longer accustomed to the sound of guns breaking night silences with
their drum-like rollings. Passengers in every direction instinctively
hurried, making for shelter from the rainy draughts and the promise of
storm. It was a subtly dismal evening, chilled and, obscure. It was the
real beginning, however premature, of a long hard winter. Those who
had joys were sobered: those who had griefs were suddenly over-powered
by them, depressed and made miserable by the consciousness of unending
sorrow. Nobody could remain unaffected by so startling a change in the
atmosphere. All craved light and warmth and society. In a few hours the
aspect of life had altered and winter forebodings were upon the land.
ii
Out in South Hampstead the big old houses stood black in the common
murk. Few of the windows were lighted. The only illumination came from
the street lamps, which seemed crushed by the overmastering clouds,
and from occasional passing cabs, whirring swiftly out of the main
roads and losing themselves once again within an instant's space. The
wide roads were clear, the noises subdued: one would have thought it
midnight and the shuttered city at rest. But within these comfortable
houses the scene was changed. Fires brightly burned and gas or electric
light gave an enviable brightness even to rooms the furniture of
which was stale with irremediable ugliness. Warmth and comfort was
in every house. It was a whole district of warmth and comfort. And
in one house especially there was a gently pervasive heat, a subdued
brightness, a curiously wanton elegance, in strong contrast with the
outside chill. It was a long two-storeyed house lying back from the
broad road. One reached it by means of a wide gravel sweep, and the
solid old door supported a heavy knocker of iron. The house stood
quite alone, as silent as its fellows; but its furnishing, although
sparse in the modern manner, was dazzling. It was like the house of a
suddenly transported Pasha, and colours dashed themselves upon the eye
with a lustre that commanded surrender. To meet such colours without
a trembling of the eyelids would have been impossible to normal men.
They were rich to a point of extravagance. They all sang together like
the morning stars, clashing and commingling like the notes of barbaric
music. They made a very beautiful scene, intoxicating and superb. And
cunningly, as though some arch genie had brought the furnishings
hither, they merged into voluptuous comfort. One sat in chairs that
rose caressingly about one like the waters of a river. The lights were
so shaded that nothing harsh or strident offended the eye. The taste
of the whole, although extraordinarily courageous, was unquestionable.
The owner of this house, whatever one might think of his paintings, was
obviously a connoisseur. He knew. He was upon the point of entertaining
friends in his studio. His hospitality richly ignored and dominated the
weather. He defied the outer world, as though he had been a magician.
It was his nature to ignore every discomfort as he ignored his
correspondence; and this house, the home of a sybarite, was the symbol
of his arrogant disregard.
Monty Rosenberg was a sublimely and ruthlessly selfish man, who gave
joy to others by accident, pursuing all the while his own luxurious
aims. From the day of his birth until this lamentable evening in
September he had never wished to benefit anybody but himself. He lived
to and for himself, and this beautiful home had been made for his own
delight; and yet the inscrutable ways of life had performed a seeming
miracle, and Monty was to-night a mere voiceless child obeying the
decrees of circumstance. He was preparing to entertain his guests in
a mood of solemn and magistral calm. He thought nothing at all of
their pleasure or their envy. He was as much above snobbery as he
was below compassion. But he had created an atmosphere of gorgeous
appropriateness to the marvels of the human heart, and the gloomy night
furnished a contrast as violent as the most emotional person in the
world could have desired. He had prepared a stir of colour which must
affect all those who were to be present upon this occasion.
iii
Monty was walking about his studio in a state as nearly approaching
self-satisfaction as his sleek pride would permit. He relished the
studio's warmth, its beauty. He sufficiently perceived his own beauty,
for although he was fat for his thirty-seven years, and although in a
short time he would be subsiding into a grossly apparent middle-age,
Monty carried his heaviness with an air of distinction. His manner
was such that the least sycophantic accorded him the usual tokens of
respect. He was well-built; his clothes were well-cut; his rather
sensual face retained in its aquiline nose a delicacy and in its soft
eyes a suggestion of smouldering fire which saved it from anything
like dulness. He was still graceful in all his movements. His long
black hair was beautifully worn; the single ring upon his little
finger was small and in keeping with his fastidious hands. A slight
vanity gave him unfailing carriage and address. Oxford, money, talent,
all combined to make him agreeable. He had no friends. There was no
essential kindness in his nature. He was an artist and a connoisseur,
a viveur and a solitary, a quick and shrewd calculator who would have
been a good business man if circumstances had not legitimised his air
of general unconcern with petty economies. He was still a stranger,
a polished and foreign stranger, to all his acquaintance; and no man
knew his secrets. That he had secrets was evident. There was talk, of
course, about Monty as there is about every man of personality in the
world of chatter. He was too discreet in his relations with all--though
never so furtive as to hint at mysterious understandings--to avoid
altogether the belief that he managed his "affairs" (which were
supposed to be many) with skill and gentlemanly coolness, and his
manner towards women was a little assured. At least one of his
prospective guests had seen him angry, when a kind of thick toughness
of savagery had flung breeding to the ends of the earth. He was not a
gentleman through and through; but he was a tolerable enough imitation
of one--an imitation that was not all counterfeit. The tough will which
lay behind his usually suave manner was what made his imperiousness
weigh in the minds of social inferiors. These inferiors could not avoid
reading and fearing danger to themselves behind that steady assumption
of their obedience. Others also were aware of a menace, and they gave
place rather uncomfortably to Monty. Some of them, bidden to his
parties, came with reluctance; and revenged themselves for their fears
by sarcasms uttered at a safe distance.
So upon this September evening, fastidiously aware of every detail in
the studio, of every detail in the proceedings (so far as these could
be planned in advance), Monty stood looking at his finger-nails or
smoking an aromatic cigarette or reading carelessly from book or paper,
waiting for his guests to arrive. He was ready well in advance of the
appointed hour; but he was not restless or impatient, but gave the
impression of being imperturbably in harmony with the quiet tickings
of his handsome clock. Outside in South Hampstead the whirling wind
sank, and the rain which had come earlier in gusts began to fall in a
spiteful steady downpour. The clouds hung lower and more threateningly
over London. Everything became sodden with shivering wet, and gulleys
and drains were full of singing water. The rain hissed; running
footsteps were sometimes heard; the lamps were streaming with rillets
formed by helter-skelter raindrops.
iv
As the hour of eight o'clock approached, Monty drew from his pocket a
hunter watch and snapped open the case, observing the motion of the
seconds hand with a kind of absorbed interest. In reality his brain was
slowly working and he was hardly aware of the movement under his eyes.
He was recalling the preparations which he had made and calculating
the numbers of his guests. Twenty people were coming--people of all
sorts; but mostly people belonging to that type to which an American
writer has given the name of troubadours. That is to say, few among
them were what would be called men of action; for men of action, who
had nothing to say for themselves or whose view of life was philistine,
had no interest for Monty. Men of action were men who could dance and
kill and plan utilitarian works, but who could not think of anything
that required an original and creative gift. Their interests were at
best mechanical; and at the worst they had no vital interests at all
apart from the consumption of time. To Monty, whose consumption of
time was lordly and individualistic, who could do nothing without a
clear aim, such men were outside the pale. He was no sentimentalist.
His mind shrank from nothing. Applied to men and women it was almost
purely corrosive and therefore destructive; and his self-sufficiency
was so great that no affection ever made him yield his judgment to
a warmer feeling. He never acted upon impulse, never caught beauty
or inspiration flying; but always deliberately and mathematically
laid foundations and with skill built up his structure with an eye
to the final effect. He never loved anything or anybody enough to
lose his head. He could always, at any moment, draw up and dismiss an
inconvenience or a line of conduct, so that nothing and nobody ever
had a claim upon him that he could not repudiate. He was a wise man in
a world of impulsive fools running after their own tails and dashing
emotionally into hysteria.
Eight o'clock chimed by the gentle bell of the clock which stood upon
a table in the far corner of the studio. The strokes pinged and hung
like scent upon the air. Monty sat unmoved, fingering his watch, slowly
passing his thumb backwards and forwards across the golden case.
He was lost in a reverie. His eyes were narrowed as though he were
scrutinising a memory and paring it down to its essential traits. With
such an expression his face lost vitality and became heavy--not ugly or
sinister, but unpleasing. The coldness of his nature was revealed, with
its adjunct of unplanned but deliberate cruelty. The secret of Monty's
self-command and his power to deal with every event was no longer a
secret, but a calculable fact. It lay plain to see in that disregard of
others which marks the _esprit fort_, the strong man of our weak ideal.
He was a secret man, captain of his own nature, and capable through
insensibility to their conflicting aims of dominating the actions of
others.
Eight o'clock, and silence in this gorgeous house upon the miserable
September night. Monty sat in luxurious quiet, waiting for his first
guests. The moments dropped quietly away as the softly-ticking clock
marked their passage. At last a short peal sounded at the door-bell.
Monty rose, his steps noiseless upon the heavy rugs, and moved to greet
the early arrivals. He advanced into the wide and tapestried hall.
v
And then for half-an-hour came successive rings at the bell, and
loud-speaking people arrived in a general flurry of raindrops and
shiverings. Some of them had walked through the rain, others had
come in taxicabs, one or two in their own cars. The hall, with
additional mats and two or three long jars to hold umbrellas, was
quickly sprinkled from the overcoats and furs of the visitors; two
rooms adjoining were made into cloak-rooms; and then the studio was
invaded. Here all the visitors, talking, laughing, cigarette-smoking,
sat upon chairs or divans or cushions, and scattered the ash from
their cigarettes in every direction, as motley and restless as the
furnishings, and still by great fortune harmonious. There were women in
short frocks, with bobbed hair, and women with long gowns and long hair
decorated with combs, one or two in evening-dress, one in plain black;
and men in all varieties of costume from dinner-jackets to tweeds.
Above their heads, towards the studio's glass roof, rain-bespattered,
rose tobacco-smoke; from their lips came an endless spume of words,
often enough in loud voices which from the hall itself made the
guests sound like a distant multitude. The studio was dwarfed by the
presence of so many people and so much noise. To Edgar Mayne, who
alone of all those invited stood slightly aloof, as one to whom the
others were strangers, it seemed that never had he heard people with
such loud voices, except at performances given by the Stage Society.
He was one of the sober ones--a man of nearly forty, undistinguished
in appearance and dressed in an ordinary lounge suit. His association
with Monty was that of business only, and he was here experimentally,
quite lost in the crowd, and so unsympathetic with it as at times to
be almost hostile. So he stood away from the fire, back from the rest,
and surveyed them with an unreadable air of interest. He received
stares of appraisal from all; no greeting, but also no coolness, had
been vouchsafed; and he knew that he could without fear of a snub
have entered any one of the several deafening conversations which were
in progress in his neighbourhood. He preferred to look on, for this
society was to such a worker as himself something so novel as to be
nearly incredible. He was half-dazed by the noise and the colour and
the rising smoke. The general relation of the men and women baffled
him. The women had not ceased to be women, but their professionalism
and slanginess made them exceptional in his eyes. That he liked them,
Edgar could not have said; but he was not yet summing-up. They were
merely different from the suburban young women whom he met at tennis
or in the drawing-room. For one thing, Edgar had never yet been at a
mixed party where conversation was regarded as a sufficient form of
entertainment. He had never met women who talked as freely as these did.
So his eyes wandered from face to face--from a man with long hair who
spoke in a rather strained high voice to a sturdy young woman in a
cretonne frock which appeared barely to reach her knees, who lolled
back against the leg of a table and held a cigarette so dangling from
her lips that its smoke straggled up into her eyes. He could hear
nothing but odd words from all the conversations; but the tones, the
gestures, and the glances of the talkers were all new and puzzling
to such a stranger. His eyes were never at rest. Purple, gold,
crimson, scarlet, green, terracotta, black; faces that were long and
thin, surmounted by straight fringes of hair, or round and plump and
white, with full lips and heavy eyes; a fluttering hand, a startling
costume--all caught his gaze and helped to bewilder him. The types
were strange, the voices and the assumptions; and Edgar was from
Respectability and Commerce, and too old to be merely excited. He was
critical, as well. He was especially critical of the girls, although
upon the whole he preferred the girls to the men.
One young man with high spirits and a quick laugh several times drew
his attention. He studied him--a tall, fair type, very handsome, and
with large white teeth which showed when he laughed. The young man
was big and well-made. He carried himself with an ease that suggested
athletics, and he had evidently a great deal of self-assurance. He was
talking to a short, and rather plump, girl whose black hair, bobbed,
and milk-white complexion made her one of the most attractive of them
all. That he was amusing her there could be no doubt. Her eyes were
raised delightedly, so that it was the young man who sometimes looked
away and returned and occasionally flickered a little glance at others
in the room. Edgar's consciousness registered a definite impression. He
liked the fair, and rather sparkling, young man with the white teeth;
but he at once made purely masculine reservations. They might only be
jealousies, for we are all alert to see the limitations of others; but
they were valid for Edgar. As he was engaged in judgment he discovered
for the first time that the young man, through all his sportive talk,
was demonstrating a similarly observant interest in himself, and
no doubt docketing complementary reservations. A half-smile crept
to Edgar's face. The left hand, resting in his trousers pocket,
involuntarily clenched. His chin hardened. With his lids lowered he
looked straight back at the boy, and the smile vanished.
vi
The studio by now was well-filled; and from Monty's engagement in
the general hubbub Edgar supposed that the total number of expected
guests had arrived and had taken their places in the crowd. But he
was wrong, for in spite of the fact that he could no longer hear the
bell he could see the door opening again to admit further newcomers.
His attention was being given to those nearest, and for an instant
he did not do more than glance towards the door. Most of those about
him were self-absorbed, or intent upon what they were talking about,
which amounted to the same thing. The smoke and the chatter, in fact,
allowed Edgar no free activity of the mind. He was as one drowning.
It was only a sense that his young friend of the flashing teeth had
ceased talking that gave Edgar an opportunity for this instant's new
interest. He looked up and towards the door. There stood within the
studio an old man--a tall old man with a long white moustache and a
rather bald head, erect but markedly obsequious to Monty, dressed in
such a way that all must recognise him as a painter. A slight pucker
showed in Edgar's forehead. The face was familiar, the bearing.... He
knew the man. He was conscious of displeasure at seeing him. But he
could not immediately remember what had given rise to this distaste.
Then, he looked beyond the old man, and his attentiveness quickened.
In the doorway stood a young girl. She was very slight, very fair, and
her dress was both beautiful and striking. Her hair was worn so that
a rolled curl was above each ear, and it was brushed high from her
neck. Clear blue eyes, a delicate nose, an impetuous mouth, a peculiar
stillness in her attitude; and Edgar could no longer record detail in
his general admiration. He was filled with interest. Not even the green
dress which she wore and which startled the eye could rob Edgar of the
sudden impression that she was somebody alone--alone in the world,
alone in herself, alone here this evening. She was the first person who
had struck him in all this party as belonging to life as he imagined
it to be. There was a fresh vitality about the girl that he found in
none of the others. In none?
Edgar looked from the girl to Monty, who had taken her hand and was
smiling. Monty, with his rather heavy, rather oriental face and
figure, smooth and impossible to be hurt, a man of determination and
of personality. Edgar knew very quickly what Monty's nature was. He
was not unpractised in the art of understanding his fellows. The
experience by which this skill had been gained had been a part of the
training which had led to his business success. The contrast, then,
to Edgar, between Monty and the girl who had come as his guest was as
unmistakable as was the difference in their complexions. There was
no likeness here. Edgar would have made no further comment; but some
instinct made him look from Monty's possessive figure to another,
which stood nearer. It was that of the young man whom he had noticed
before. The teeth were to be seen at this moment, for the young man
was standing, as fair and as full of vitality as the girl herself,
with his lips parted and his eyes intent. There was no mistaking the
significance of his attitude and his tense regard. Edgar looked again
from the girl to Monty, as they stood together by the door; and he saw
the sparkle of the girl's eyes and the quick flight of her smile. Again
he looked from Monty to the young man, and so back to the girl. And as
he returned to his observation of the young man Edgar saw him take a
quick breath, and saw his lips meet.
It was in this single instant that the young man, urged no doubt by an
impulse as incalculable as Edgar's, drew his eyes from the girl. He
turned sharply and looked at Edgar. Their glances crossed. Both smiled.
CHAPTER TWO: NEW FRIENDS
i
Harry Greenlees, the young man with the flashing teeth, had been
given his Rugby blue ten or eleven years before, and had helped
Oxford to beat Cambridge in a memorable year. Since leaving the
University he had played for two seasons with the Harlequins; but
his footballing days were over now as he could no longer endure the
strain of ninety-minutes' incessant conflict. During the rather aimless
experiments which followed in the art of earning a living without
exertion, Harry had revived an undergraduate habit of writing sporting
descriptive articles, and to fellow-journalists his competence for
this work was known. It was not, however, celebrated among his friends
or the general public, and as he had fallen in quite by accident
with a semi-literary and artistic set, the members of which took him
for granted as a cheerful companion with enough money to live on,
Harry enjoyed a most agreeable sort of life. His work was slangy and
vigorous, and if it did not produce an income upon which a man of his
type could exist, it made sufficient the small private means which were
already at Harry's command. He was able to support himself in comfort
and to go about the world very much at his ease.
Abroad, Harry walked, with a knapsack on his shoulders, and saw the
countries of Europe from the road. It was for papers chiefly concerned
with out-of-door life and sport that he worked, and accordingly he
found material ready for his eye and his fountain-pen wherever
he turned for diversion. His was a life of varied pleasure, and
for as long as he remained fit he would find it inexhaustible in
possibilities. He was a lively companion and a good sort. He was
full of zest, making friends lightly and as lightly letting them go.
Everybody felt his honesty and his energy, and he had neither the
mannerisms of the unduly famous nor the menacing air of those who are
intellectually better than their company. He was happy, impulsive,
handsome, agreeable, and charming. It needed an Edgar Mayne to detect
his faults, and Harry was too unsuspecting and satisfied to suppose
that others were more subtle than himself.
He had been talking to Rhoda Flower, the dark girl with the milk-white
face, when he first observed Edgar. And Edgar had been so little
remarkable in appearance that this was the first fact about him which
Harry had noticed. Harry, however, had found himself looking back at
Edgar, unable to account for the interest he felt in the unknown.
Rhoda, whom he had asked, knew no more about the man than he did, and
had been indifferent; but Harry was definitely curious. If Edgar had
been nearer he would have found himself directly addressed; but as it
was the exchanged glance already mentioned was the only communication
to pass between the two men. The glance had originated in a most
singular impression which formed in Harry's mind.
When Monty had moved forward to great old Dalrymple, who was some sort
of artist, Harry had felt his usual dislike of the man, based upon
the feeling that Dalrymple carried with him an air of stale drink and
unsuccess. But he had looked past the old man to the unknown girl
who seemed to be his companion; and instantly there shot through him
that strong sexual interest which Harry was in the habit of calling
"love." He was a strong young man, very sufficiently sensual, and his
notions of love were made accordingly. It was a quick impulse, and
his first thought after receiving it and deciding that he must know
the stranger was the realisation that what he had desired Monty also
would desire. And then, ignoring all the others present, he had sharply
sensed danger. The glance at Edgar had been quite three-quarters of a
challenge. The flashing teeth had been bared, and the blue eyes had
been hard. But there was something about Edgar which disarmed him.
Hence the smile.
This was not the first time Harry had been in love. He was attractive,
and he was quickly attracted. He had self-assurance, and he knew how
to give pleasure. To Rhoda Flower he was certainly the most attractive
person in the world. It was to her that he continued quietly to talk
while the stranger was being brought forward to the group round the
fireplace. He was teasing Rhoda, and gave no further sign of interest
in the other girl; but he knew when she was near. He turned his head
and looked at her. He looked from near at hand at the soft, beautifully
moulded cheeks and the impetuous mouth and the clear blue eyes; and
a very faint additional colour came into his face. Not knowing that
Edgar was watching him, he was perfectly aware of the girl's grace and
beauty. The curve of her neck and breast and shoulder seemed always to
have been known and entrancing to him. With Harry it was love at first
sight.
"... Greenlees--Miss Quin," said Monty, leading the stranger from one
to the other of his older friends, and making her acquainted with them
all.
The smoke-filled atmosphere seemed to come down like a cloud against
which she stood fresh and lovely. All the vehemences of colour
about him were softened. For that instant Harry saw nothing but the
stranger, felt nothing but her hand. He found Miss Quin adorable. She
was a reality, a sweet and wayward reality, like a flash of scarlet;
and his one desire was to feel her soft hair against his cheek, her
cool shoulder, her surrendered lips. The imagination of these contacts
was intense. Into Harry's expression of light spirits crept something
ever so slightly heavier. He was serious. To him the senses were a
cause of seriousness, a cause of the complete oblivion of all that was
comic or whimsical.
From behind him came the voice of the young artist, Amy Roberts.
"Hullo, Patricia," she said in greeting.
Patricia! Patricia Quin. So that was the stranger's name. Harry's faint
flush subsided. He cooled. The vision had passed. The quick physical
imagining was for the present gone, no longer an eager craving. He must
talk to her, see her, be with her; but in a few minutes, quite easily
and simply. What lay in the future was something which stretched much
farther than his immediate vision. To Harry it beckoned as irresistible
adventure.
ii
The party swayed and engulfed Patricia. She was among all the others,
and talking or listening, extraordinarily delighted with all this
sound and colour. To her, whose first party of the kind it was, such
a brimming claim to the senses had no shortcomings. It was all new
and glorious and intoxicating. She felt herself a queen. Wherever she
looked she found the strong colour and sensation for which she had
pined. It was the first party, and a landmark. Compared with her days
and the unattractive dinginess of her own rooms, Monty's home was all
that was rich and desirable. At two-and-twenty, when one is starving
for colour, a glut of it is like a feast. She was so happy, like a
child at its first theatre, that she sat there spell-bound. It could
not have occurred to her to think these people sophisticated; they
were all so kind, she thought to herself, so kind and generous and
interesting. Her heart went out to them all. It was as though she cast
her own warm affectionateness upon the party. Her radiance increased
with each instant. The corners of her mouth went up; her sweet,
child-like laugh melted into the general laughter. All this light and
colour and sound was superb. It was vivacity and richness, music and
poetry, an unequalled stimulant to gaiety and the senses. It was life
as she had dreamt of it. There was a spice of daring in such contact
with the unknown and the exciting, and daring was her ideal. It was
lovely.... She was in a beautiful dream of delight.
Even Patricia at last began to look, beaming in her happiness, from
one face to the other. They were all faces that interested her. They
all had a cast--not of dignity or wisdom, but of something which she
thought of as enlightenment. There was a quality about them to which
she was unaccustomed, and she exalted it. She was prepared to find all
knowledge and emotion in the faces, and she found it. The tones of the
voices charmed her; the little jokes which she did not understand, and
the fragments of criticism which belonged to another world of interests
and consciousness, were all a part of the magic and delight of the
evening. She set herself to look round the studio, sitting close to
Amy Roberts, as a child might have done, while Amy, to whom all this
sort of thing was becoming almost as commonplace as she pretended to
Patricia that it already was, preserved an air of most distinguished
semi-boredom. Amy, herself an artist, told her the names of those
present, and sometimes, if she knew it, something about the people.
Patricia from time to time glanced aside at Amy's fair bobbed hair and
her white face and light lashes and eyebrows and dissatisfied mouth;
and thought how nice Amy was, and how clever, and how she wished Amy
had a sense of humour of the same kind as her own.
"That's Rhoda Flower--that dark girl. She's a dress-designer. Not much
good, as you can see from her dress. And those two over on the right,
who're so fond of each other and think each other perfect...."
"I know. They're engaged," guessed Patricia, laughing.
"More than that. They're _married_. And happy. The only married people
I know who _are_ happy. And how it is that Olivia has brought herself
to leave the babies this evening I can't understand. They must have got
a nurse. So I suppose Peter's been making some money, for a change.
Olivia and Peter Stephens, they are. They've been married three years,
and they've got two babies. They're still devoted to each other."
"Odd!" joked Patricia, with archly raised brows. She had no notion of
the truth of her comment in the present company, or of the underlying
cynicism which an unfriendly hearer might read into it. Amy looked
side-ways at her friend. She was puzzled, as the sophisticated always
are puzzled by a remark made with nonsensical humour and without
consciousness of its implications.
"It is," she agreed drily. "Then there's somebody who _isn't_ devoted
to her husband--Blanche Tallentyre. And with good reason. That white
woman with the salmon lips."
"Is she unhappy?" Patricia's face clouded. She imagined a tragedy,
and she still passionately desired happy endings to all stories. She
scanned Mrs. Tallentyre's face, and saw the hard lines at the lips, and
the thin cheeks, and how tight her skin was across the cheek bones;
and her heart felt soft towards one to whom love had been cruel. Now
that she knew this of Blanche Tallentyre she could notice the hunger in
Blanche's face, and the thinness of her bare arms, and the cup at the
base of her throat. She could imagine sleepless, tearless sorrow. So
there was one at least here who, in spite of all the thrill of it, was
unhappy.
"Not _too_ unhappy," said Amy. "Hush. I'll tell you later. Not now."
They paused, Patricia looking childishly wise in an effort to disguise
her faint distaste for this hint at an only dimly-realised form of
ugliness; and both stared valiantly round at the others, so mysterious
to Patricia, and so fascinating in their mysteriousness.
"Jack Penton's here," proceeded Amy. "Somewhere. Of course, not when
he's.... Oh, there you are, Jack. You know Patricia, don't you? Who's
that man at the back? Behind Charlotte Hastings. That quiet man."
Patricia looked quickly at Jack Penton, whom she had met before. He
was a dark, clean-shaven, commonplace-looking young man with a rasping
voice; but he was a good dancer, and she thought him, if not clever,
at least intelligent and worthy of some other girl's love. There was
cameraderie, but no love, in Amy's manner to the boy; and something
very similar, upon the surface, in his manner to Amy; but to Patricia
it was agreeable to see their faces near together. But then Patricia
was a sentimentalist, and saw and imagined all sorts of things that
never existed.
Jack wrinkled his brow in the effort to recall a name half-forgotten.
"Er--I _think_ his name's Rayne, or Mayne," he huskily reported.
"That's it: Edgar Mayne. He's something in the city. Rather an _old_
bird, don't you think? He's a friend of Monty's. Somebody told me he
was clever, but you never know with that sort of chap."
"He looks very nice," whispered Patricia. "But rather stern. I don't
think he likes this kind of thing. He looks disapproving. Oh, I wish he
liked it."
Again came that incredulous stare from Amy which convicted Patricia of
a naïveté. Patricia stiffened a little, and became more guarded. Some
vanity in her cried out against criticism. It was the one thing she
could not bear.
"Just there, on the right, is Felix Brow," proceeded Amy.
"_Not_ ..." Patricia began in amazement.
Suddenly, as they sat thus absorbed, there came an interruption.
"Can't I help?" breathed an eager voice. "I can tell you all sorts of
things you don't know--about everybody. Who they married, and why they
separated, and who they're living with. I'm really an expert guide."
They all looked up, and saw Harry Greenlees, whose face was so lowered
to Patricia's that it was almost level with her own. It was so close,
too, that she could see the warm colour under his skin, and the crisp
hairs of his moustache, and the curl of his lips as they parted in
a smile of entreaty. Seen near at hand, Harry's face had all the
additional attractiveness which health gives to good featured. His
vigour was manifest. There was a pleading in his eyes that was almost
irresistible. It was the pleading of an ideally masterful lover who
would not understand a refusal and so would not accept it. Patricia
looked, and held back her own head until the curve of her cheek was
lengthened and made even more beautiful than before. She was smiling,
and when she smiled one beheld such a picture of happiness that one
became quite naturally intrigued and marvelling. To Harry the picture
was an intoxication.
"You may tell me everything," said Patricia, with assurance equal to
his own. "But first of all tell me who _you_ are."
He took a seat upon the floor by her side, clasping his knees, and
fixing his attention upon the two plump little hands which were clasped
in Patricia's lap.
"I am the most marvellous and unfortunate of men," he said.
"Unfortunate, at least, until this very minute. My name is Harry
Greenlees...."
iii
To Patricia it was all as delicious as a fairy tale. She was not unused
to admiration, for her beauty was of the kind to draw men; but the
admiration of the men she had known had been too easily won to possess
any lasting value. She had become regal and fastidious, accepting
homage even while she despised those by whom it was offered. And who
were these men, after all? They were men she had met at local dances,
or in the office in which she had not very competently or devotedly
worked. A few she had met at the homes of acquaintances, a few at
the seaside hotels at which she and her uncle had stayed from summer
holiday to summer holiday. They had been clerks or young school-masters
or inferior stragglers in one or other of the professions. All, apart
from the admiration they offered and the fact that they were more
or less organically sound males, had failed to interest a lively
intelligence and an impatient spirit. But now that her uncle, like her
father and mother, was dead; and now that, having lost her situation
and determined upon a Career for Herself, Patricia was in new lodgings
and facing life upon a new footing, the case was altered. Old
Dalrymple, whom she had met several times, and who had pleased her
with his rather stale compliments and the still-unpricked bubble of
his exaggerated tales of acquaintance with the great, had brought her
to Monty's. He had been proud to do it. Partly he had an old man's
rather morbid sentimental feeling towards her, which played with the
pretence that it was paternal; and partly he had the knowledge that
Patricia was a creditable companion. So he had brought her here on this
occasion, and Patricia, revelling in the newness of her delight, had
forgotten him. She was already in a hitherto-untasted heaven. And this
ardent young man at her feet, who shone with admiration so confident
and encroaching as almost to excite her, was a new type to Patricia.
She had always been so much quicker-witted than her followers that
she had discouraged them in turn. She was still engaged in battling
with Harry's wit, and thinking it exceedingly nimble and daring and
charming. She was more and more charmed each minute, partly with Harry,
partly with herself for so charming him.
He told her about all the different men and women who were before her,
what they did in order to live, and why they were present; and as she
skipped quickly with her eyes and brain from one to the other he made
up a great deal of nonsense about their private lives which diverted
Patricia extraordinarily, while Amy listened with disapproval to the
whole catalogue.
"Stuff!" she at last interrupted. "There's not a word of truth in it,
Patricia."
"I know!" bubbled Patricia. "Don't you see, that's what's so nice!" Her
whole face was alight as she spoke. Amy's objection seemed to Patricia
to show her so very pedestrian in standard and judgment.
"Patricia understands me," said Harry, unchecked in his use of her
Christian name. "She's the first person to understand me. Do you know,
I've been looking all over the world for you--for thirty weary years."
He beamed whimsically, handsomer in Patricia's eyes each instant.
"I wonder how many times you've said that," snapped Amy, who was
impervious.
"A million times, and never meant it until now." Harry's smile showed
his big white teeth, and long lashes shaded his eyes; and his big frame
was so firm and manifest that Patricia, in laughing as she did with an
exultancy that almost held tears, was full also of happiness in the
enjoyment of his manly graces.
"I understand everything," she announced, confidingly; and mystically
believed it.
"Yes, but he doesn't think so," warned Amy, in grave alarm. "Or he
wouldn't be telling lies at such a rate. It isn't _true_ that Dolly
Fletcher's the daughter of a Russian prince and a charwoman."
"Oh, but wouldn't it be nice if she was!" cried Patricia.
"Exactly," agreed Harry, and proceeded to embroider his legend. "You
see the short nose of the Russian of high caste, and hear the accent
of the London back street. Notice the powder, the scent, the gold
chain; the fur edging to her frock. You can imagine snow on her shoes
and a pail in her hand. You can imagine waves of dirty water slopping
just under the edge of the bed, and silk underclothing, and cosmetics,
and a bath on the first Sunday of the Month--as a rarefied sensual
indulgence."
"She does look dirty," admitted Amy, scrutinizing Dolly. "It's her
skin. But she's a very decent sort."
This was said defiantly, while Patricia wondered. How strange! It was
the first flaw that she had found in her handsome new friend, and it
was unwelcome. She wished he had not spoken in that way. It troubled
her.
"Tell us what you know about Mr. Mayne," said Patricia, to change
this topic and to conceal her distress. It continued for a moment or
two, nevertheless, as an undercurrent to her thoughts, and was still
unpleasant. Personal uncleanliness was abhorrent to her; but the joking
suggestion of it was equally abhorrent. It was an ugliness.
"Mayne? Who's he? Oh, is _that_ Mayne? Really!" Harry seemed for a
moment to be lost in thought. "How astonishing. Edgar Mayne. I didn't
know who it was. Well, Mayne's a peculiar fellow, as I don't mind
telling you."
"Is he married?" demanded Amy impatiently. "If you don't know anything
about him, say so. Don't make it up. If you play any tricks on us about
the man I shall go across and ask him myself."
"No, this is true," said Harry, reflectively. As he spoke he looked
again at Edgar, who was talking to Rhoda Flower and listening calmly to
her chatter. "He's a man who started as a bootblack or something...."
"Lie number one," commented Amy. "Take care!"
"Well, an office boy. And he got to be a ledger clerk. And he became
an accountant. And then manager. And then partner. No, Amy, he's not
married, as far as I know. And instead of marrying he's stuck to work
and he's just bought a newspaper of some sort. So I suppose he's
presently going into Parliament, and intends to be in the Cabinet in
five years. He'll attack the Government in his paper until he's offered
a job; and then they'll give him an Under-Secretaryship. Then he'll
push out the old chap above him, and become a Minister. And there you
are."
"Very nice. He's rich, then?" Amy was as sharp and persistent as the
claws of a playing kitten.
"I s'pose so. I don't know. He's the industrious apprentice."
Unperceived by his hearers, Harry was sneering a little, as one always
does at industriousness, with the suggestion that it is a common vice,
whereas it is a chimera.
"What's the paper he's bought?" asked Jack Penton. "If it's a daily
he'll burn his fingers. I thought he was in the City."
"I don't know what the paper is." Harry's motion towards Jack, however
graceful and even consciously charming, showed that he was busy with
his more honest thoughts. They became vocal, and his voice, hitherto so
ingratiatingly warm, had lost all quality. It was merely cautious and
speculative. "I wonder if he'd give me the job of Sports Editor on it,"
Harry said.
"Take it," jeered Amy. "Take it. That's the sort of thing you do, isn't
it?"
Harry smiled again, altogether recovered, and once again the teasing
comrade he had been. It was a most welcome return.
"I will," he assured them. "You may regard it as taken. I'll just tell
Mayne about it before he goes."
Patricia listened still, the colour deeper in her cheeks as the result
of so much excitement and new knowledge. She was quite fascinated by
Harry, as she was fascinated by this whole unfamiliar scene. She could
hardly keep still, so delighted was she to be in this realm of men and
women who "did" things, whose names and qualities and actions were
known and public. Such gossip as she had heard was quite new to her.
Such assurance as Harry had shown in sketching the possible future
of Mr. Mayne argued an inside knowledge of the world of politics and
affairs and finance and wide-reaching action involving the fortunes of
other people which no man whom she had hitherto known had possessed or
pretended to possess. A gentle glance of encouragement, almost shy,
but wholly attractive, passed between Patricia and Harry. Upon his side
it was prolonged. He gave a little laugh.
"Oh, it's a great life!" he ejaculated, as though he had known her
thoughts.
How Patricia agreed with him!
"It's a _great_ life!" she emphatically repeated, kindled to enthusiasm
at having her vaguer thoughts crystallised. And she felt how she and
Harry appreciated it in common as a great life, and was again pleased
and excited, so that she wanted to clap her hands with joy. The little
group of four, of which Patricia and Harry were the centre, was
observed by all; and if Patricia was in any degree aware of this the
knowledge can only have added to her conviction of the general splendid
entertainingness of life. She was quite carried out of herself and into
the spirit of the hour.
iv
By this time the first half of the evening was coming to an end. Monty,
who had talked to all his guests, had observed that it was ten o'clock;
and it was now that a screen at one end of the studio was removed,
allowing the buffet for the first time to reveal its attractions.
The visitors spread--all except our party of four;--and the most
remarkable collection of drinks and foodstuffs was being relished by
all. For some moments Patricia and her friends knew nothing of what
was going forward; but at last Harry and Jack rose abruptly from their
places to secure refreshment for their charmers. No sooner had they
joined the group at the buffet than Monty and Edgar approached the
two girls, the former bearing a tray upon which were glasses large
and small, and the latter a couple of piled plates. It was Monty's
habit to make his guests serve themselves, and he had only relaxed
his rule because he was interested in Patricia and her youthful
delight. Upon his heels as he thus approached hung Dalrymple, who
saw an opportunity of reclaiming his charge. Patricia had forgotten
Dalrymple--characteristically,--although but for him she would never
have known the joys of the evening at all.