She had only to be firm when they met--firm and friendly (ah! how easy
to contemplate; how hard to execute!), and all would settle itself. It
was not like.... Oh, how silly life was! thought Patricia. Her eyelids
fluttered. How alone she felt! Sometimes it seemed to her that with all
these friends she had no friend. What was the cause? Was it in herself?
Impossible! She said that last word aloud.
"Pardon?" asked Jacky, only half hearing Patricia's exclamation.
Patricia laughed at his surprised face.
"Only talking to myself," she assured him. "What's the time?"
"Have a Kümmel," urged Jacky. "Cures anything." His own face was
irradiated with a cheerful and meaningless smile. Patricia's heart
sank. He was one of her friends. She was torn between shame for him,
shame of herself for thinking shame of him, and a sense of superiority
to her contemporaries.
v
They reached Monty's by half-past nine; and Patricia was struck by the
difference between her sensations now and upon her first visit. Then,
it had been fairyland. But she saw the studio with changed eyes. It
was not so large or so beautiful; the people were not so handsome or
remarkable. She looked round upon them with interest, but it was not as
an astonishing body. It was with curiosity as to the composition of the
gathering. Fully half of them were now known to her as acquaintances.
The noise they made was familiar; she had no longer the feeling of
fresh enthusiasm. She was restless and dissatisfied.
Only Monty still attracted her. She thought him easily more
distinguished than any of his guests. Where they all appeared to say
the same thing over and over again, he, by his silence, his inscrutable
air of seeing everything and knowing everything, soothed and charmed
her. When Monty danced with her she was happy. He was unlike the rest.
Patricia could dance a whole evening with Jacky, and be unaware that
there was any current between them of more than common enjoyment of
moderate proficiency in dancing. But she could not dance once with
Monty without feeling his magnetism. There was something amazing in
his dexterity, in his immovable calm. To be with him was to be as one
hypnotised. Monty's low, soft tones, with that singular rise at the
end of each sentence; his certainty of resource; his extreme delicacy
of movement and his fastidious politeness--these were the instruments
of his hypnotic power. But the feeling she had that he was so wise in
the affairs of life, so bored by them, so expert in handling them, went
with a corresponding feeling that he was greatly attracted to herself.
Monty's almost exaggerated respect, and the incessant flattery of his
conciliatory manner, all moved Patricia to happiness. And her happiness
was the whole time salted by the feeling that she did not trust him,
that she must never be off her guard with him. It made Monty the more
flattering, the more attractive. He moved her. He made her forget Harry.
There was something in Monty's manner which caused Patricia to feel
that he knew all about Harry and herself--all about everything Harry
had ever done; and that she would never know how much he knew of
herself. She felt that nothing would ever surprise him, or move him;
and yet at the same time she knew that he was a refined voluptuary, and
that the soothing calm of Monty affected her own senses as even Harry's
beauty and vitality and eager affection for herself had not done. She
danced three or four times with Monty; and each time she danced with
him it was as though she received from his touch a subtle current that
made her, if not wiser, at least more experienced in the art of living
dangerously and with relish.
To Jacky, afterwards, she said:
"Monty's an epicure. An epicure in sensation."
"Er ... yes," said Jacky, agreeably. Patricia thought her cliche
enlightening. Jacky's vacant face was not. She had the feeling that she
towered above Jacky.
"Nobody could say that of you," she remarked. But her tone was less
offensive than her words. "You're just a nice little boy. You don't
know _anything_."
Jacky shot her a look of infantile cunning.
"Ha, ha!" he laughed, with a small feeble simulation of heartiness.
It roused Patricia's affection for him. She felt he really _was_ a
nice little boy, clean and unpretentious, not at all baffling or
sophisticated or exciting. They danced together again; and Patricia
felt how pleasant and uneventful it was to dance with Jacky.
vi
Patricia did not dance again that evening with Monty; but he spoke to
her before she left. He had been bidding good-bye to some guests as
Patricia was leaving; and Jacky was farther away, struggling with his
overcoat. Monty, in the tapestried hall, subdued to dimness by the
method by which it was lighted, looked like a Pasha. He was swarthy
and impassive and alluring. Patricia had that quick feeling--of loose
robes and a turban; and sherbet and willing slaves who came obediently
in response to a clapping of hands. She imagined heavy incense, and the
plashing of fountains and all the delights of those stories she had
read of the East, and Monty was the Pasha of these stories.... He came
to Patricia as she emerged cloaked and hooded and ready for the road.
"I'm sorry you're going," he said in his low voice. "We must dance
again soon."
There was flattery in his manner; he made Patricia feel that he thought
her beautiful and marvellous and charming and full of grace and
tenderness. She stood beside him, as tall as Monty, but very slender
and youthful, a complete contrast in her fairness.
"Yes, we must dance again soon," agreed Patricia.
"But how soon?" asked Monty. "Next week? To-morrow?--Monday?"
He was not at all urgent: his tone was gentle, almost caressing.
"Tuesday," suggested Patricia.
He bowed his head. Jacky had approached; and they both ignored him. He
was the unnecessary third to their conversation. And Patricia had the
feeling of danger. She was charmed and flattered. She suddenly felt
that Monty was not the Pasha of her moment's invention, but that he was
as sleek and perhaps as treacherous as a collie; and a recklessness
seized her at the knowledge that behind his charm there might lie
something that threatened all peace. If Harry had not been dismissed
the charm might have been neutralised. Harry was gone. She had nothing
but her own pleasure to think of, nothing but sensation and the
confusion of the future.
Their farewells were said. With Jacky, Patricia was upon the way
from the house. She still carried with her the sensation of having
been enveloped by something as light as a mist. She was pleased and
excited.
PART TWO
CHAPTER TEN: EDGAR HEARS A WISEACRE
i
The Windmill Club lies in one of the streets on the north side of
Piccadilly. It is a tedious grey building, quite unimpressive in its
exterior, and to those who pass along the street it appears to be
no more than a couple of large houses to which entry is obtained by
a single central doorway. Once the door has been passed, however,
the club has every air of sober comfort. To come into its basking
warmth from a cold London breeze, to pass up the steps beyond the
glass-enclosed office of the guardian porter, and to walk into an
enormous dining room marred only by outrageous portraits of the undying
great, is to encounter a different world from the world of every day.
It is not a political club, but will be found mentioned in Whitaker's
Almanac with the description "Social and the Arts." The members are of
all ages, and they include lawyers, writers, artists, and business men.
They do not play high, and they do not drink heavily; yet the club's
cellar is famous, and there are both card and billiard rooms of some
dimensions. It was to this club that Edgar Mayne belonged, although
he seldom visited it. He had found the Windmill after depressing
experience of most of the other West End clubs, and he had now been a
member of it since just before the beginning of the War. Its comfort,
to Edgar, lay in its silence, its freedom from aggressively-opinionated
politicians of the envious rank, and its well-controlled hospitality.
The Windmill possessed an efficient committee. More need not be said
in order to distinguish it precisely from its fellows; although as
comfort is a common feature of clubs the distinction lay rather in the
fact that the Windmill was solvent and self-supporting.
One night about a week later than the events last described Edgar,
who had been on the Continent during the whole of the preceding six
weeks, was dining at his club in company with a man called Gaythorpe.
His companion was one of those hard-working city men who look as
though they live wholly out-of-doors. Gaythorpe, in fact, was a keen
golfer; but he was not among those golfers who weary with anecdote or
the description of links. He was a tall thin fellow of sixty, with
a face that was ruddy yet lean, with eyes almost black and melting
enough to have been those of a Jew, and a small mouth which never
gave any indication of his thoughts. Naturally grave, Gaythorpe had a
pervasive sense of humour which was a substitute for imagination, as
it sometimes is in those of low vitality and broad experience. He was
white-haired and spectacled, long-sighted and unemotional; and he had
been knighted before the War on account of expert financial services
to a dead government. His directorial connection with a large bank
had been founded upon his skill in finance, and he was one of those
older business men who had the greatest belief in Edgar's sagacity,
both private and commercial. Sagacity, Gaythorpe was in the habit of
saying, was one of the rarest qualities to be possessed by a man. He
rated it above brilliance and above patience. Edgar's sagacity was
with Gaythorpe unquestionable. It was the corner-stone of Gaythorpe's
pleasure in their association.
The two men were at a small table with a shaded light which stood
right in a corner of the big dark room. Both were in evening dress,
and their faces were obscured by the dim light, except that the gold
rims of Gaythorpe's spectacles occasionally gleamed. They were alone,
for no other diners sat near, and they had eaten a small but highly
agreeable meal. A bottle of still Moselle stood between them, nearly
empty; and the extraordinary faint fragrance of its contents hung in
the air. Edgar, whose information at the moment was coloured by the
dominant wishes and prejudices of those Frenchmen and Germans with whom
he had talked while abroad, was moderately expressing his view of the
attitude of foreign traders in general. He was not cheerful, because
he had found in all the centres which he had visited a uniformity of
depression which he could not gainsay. But neither was he hopeless. He
sat very quietly, still the undistinguished man of Patricia's first
glimpse, but obviously more in keeping with his surroundings here
than he had been at either of Monty's parties. When one looked at him
a second time one perceived that the outward sign of Edgar's quality
lay in one peculiarity of carriage. He did not, as Monty always did,
convey a sense of threat, of sleeping cruelty; there was not in Edgar,
as there was in Harry, a buoyant masterfulness. Very quiet, very brown
in hair and eyes and skin, he commanded from those who waited here,
as from those who dealt otherwise with him, a willing respect in
which there was no fear of menace. The quality which marked him was
a sureness that belongs exclusively to dignity, which comes from a
tranquil heart. He could be ignored at a distance, but never ignored in
the personal relation, because it is there that character tells most
surely. Gaythorpe had spoken little during the meal. He had listened
soberly throughout, never at any point relaxing his own judgment of the
facts and of the speaker.
ii
"All you say confirms my own view," Gaythorpe was commenting
thoughtfully. "It confirms the reports we've been getting. It's no good
being bold, you think?"
Edgar smiled, shaking his head.
"I wonder what you mean by 'bold,'" he said. Gaythorpe, watching him,
caught the lightness behind his friend's gravity, but he did not smile.
He waited. He was not the only one of those older men who had this
strange warming of the heart towards Edgar. Although trustworthiness
may generally command respect, it is only truly valued in terms of
affection by those to whom it is not a reproach.
"Exactly 'bold,'" he remarked at last. "Just 'bold.'"
"It's always worth while to be generous," answered Edgar.
"Personally, perhaps." Gaythorpe hesitated. "But in business--my dear
boy!"
"Well, you've had conferences and committees sitting for years, and
discussing things all over the world. They cut a figure in the press.
Does any one believe in them as productive of solutions? They're like
letters, or any other form of imitation dignity. It's quite easy to hit
on a formula; but the formula isn't a reality. Once get a group of men
together with conflicting interests----"
"A common interest," supplemented Gaythorpe. "It's come to that when
the world's in danger of bankruptcy."
"Conflicting self-interest. Any number of people can agree on a
principle; but bring them into relation with others dominated by a
rival self-interest, and you're helpless."
"Pool your self-interest. Face it," Gaythorpe suggested. "Use it as the
basis of agreement."
Edgar smiled slightly, his hands clasped upon the table.
"You'll never do that in international finance," he said. "At any rate,
as long as nationalism's a gospel."
"Oh, I agree. But that's precisely what we've got to kill." Gaythorpe
was so eager that he raised a finger. Edgar leaned forward, his face no
longer at all grave. He looked at the old man with compassion.
"Travel, my friend. You'll become a defeatist," he said. "Nationalism's
such an easy thing to teach. Besides, selfishness is the gospel of
the day. You really _must_ take human beings into account. How are
you going to move them? Not by altruism. There _are_ good men, who
think in good-will; but they can't imagine other men in bulk. They
talk about Germans, or wages, or exports; but they don't feel reality
when they do that. I mean, not the reality of wine upset or a train
to catch or a toothache. It's all like casting a column of figures.
They don't feel themselves personally affected. Any more than they
do when they talk of stabilising the world. No. The only thing is
to work for some defined clash, to formulate an altruistic policy
and give it a selfish aim. Then embark on a campaign of propaganda,
showing that it pays to be good and do right--that it's going to
reduce income tax or the cost of petrol. Enlarge your group. Make it
first English--Anglo-Saxon--European--then World-wide. But you've got
to make it a party policy, an issue. Have a scrap--a scrap of ideas
and convictions. Divide England into two fierce political camps, and
restore political life in England. Then carry your policy into action.
You could sweep the world in a generation."
Gaythorpe good-humouredly shook his head.
"It's an altruistic resolution in itself," he objected. "You'd be
bankrupt long before you succeeded. You'd have burnt your house to
roast your pig. But I'm glad to find you such an idealist. If you carry
such principles into your private life it must be exciting. All the
same, rather Quixotic."
Edgar laughed slightly.
"Oh," he said. "As to private life, I'm a sentimentalist like yourself."
"I wonder." Gaythorpe pondered.
"On the surface. It's self interest at bottom, I expect. If I try to do
good it's to gratify myself. I want other people to do what I think is
good for them."
Gaythorpe was pleased at the turn which Edgar's remarks had taken,
because Edgar too seldom spoke about himself, and this was a subject
which interested Gaythorpe, who was really human, more than most
others. Further, this was a side of Edgar which he did not know, and it
had its attractiveness upon that score also.
"If you try to help them," Gaythorpe suggested, "it must be from
disinterested good-will."
"Not always," replied Edgar, very promptly. "It's a complex question.
But why do I--why does anybody else do the same?--help willingly
those I like--those who are young and attractive, or those who move
my affection? Why don't I help those I dislike? Why do I feel, at any
rate, extremely unwilling to help those I dislike?"
"Because it would be morbid self-mortification to help anybody you
dislike."
"No, no. I'm thinking of a state of mind. If I can help somebody I
like, it's a perfectly instinctive thing. But just remember how many
objections and difficulties rush to your mind when you're asked to help
somebody who is disagreeable to you."
Gaythorpe answered shrewdly enough:
"You're thinking of somebody in particular?"
Edgar started.
"In both instances," he agreed. "No, in one only."
Gaythorpe gave a snort of pretended annoyance. His keen old face was
benevolent.
"That's the worst of these damned generalisations," he cried. "One
sees them exploded each instant. You see fifty people abroad, and you
put their views into a general statement of the actual position of
millions. You come back. You find, perhaps, a letter--two letters----"
"One letter," corrected Edgar.
"Exactly. And they say women have the monopoly of that form of
inflation!"
"I'm not going into details," calmly warned Edgar. "My generalisations
were quite--quite general. The fact that I had a letter is an accident.
It doesn't affect the generalisation."
Gaythorpe was a cunning man. He was sixty, and he knew something of the
world. He said, in a tone which was altogether respectful:
"As you know, I'm not ... not exactly given to sentimental questioning;
but was your letter from a woman?"
"From a man," explained Edgar, with a touch of malice. "About his own
financial affairs. It had no relation whatever to a woman."
"Hm," grunted Gaythorpe. "I think you said he was the unattractive
person?"
"The attractive person was hypothetical," said Edgar.
"Oh, yes," agreed Gaythorpe. "Quite so. Quite so. Well, after all,
you've been away over a month; and much may happen in that time.
I didn't, of course, suppose that you had any specially young and
attractive beneficiary in mind. It would not have occurred to me."
He was silent for an instant after this somewhat dry protest.
"Nevertheless, I ... I must own to considerable interest in your
correspondent, since he ... ah ... affects you----"
"No." Edgar smilingly shook his head. "You're a very inquisitive old
man; and you have a great gift for wheedling information. But you won't
get any more. Come and smoke now."
He rose from the table.
"I was _so_ interested," grumbled Gaythorpe; and stood up to his
lean height of six feet. He followed Edgar across the room, and
there waited. His thin face was unreadable; but he was consumed with
curiosity.
iii
When the two men were in the smoking room, and deep down in comfortable
armchairs, with large and delicious cigars, they spoke no more of
business or the world at large. Gaythorpe had been married for a
quarter of a century, and he had three boys in whose progress he took
deep interest. It was of the boys that he spoke--Cyril, who had left
Oxford and was devoting himself to archæology; Roland, who was still at
the University; and Alistair, who was at Marlborough. Of Mrs. Gaythorpe
he for some time said nothing. But at last he mentioned her.
"D'you know we've been married twenty-five years?" he demanded. "I was
thirty-five, and now I'm sixty. You're thirty-seven, and unmarried. You
ought to marry soon--before you're forty, because otherwise you won't
enjoy your children as I've done. It's a point to bear in mind."
Edgar slightly frowned.
"I shan't marry now," he said. Gaythorpe laughed, a sudden chuckling
old man's full laugh.
"By Jove, that's a dangerous thing to say!" he protested. "It's the
most dangerous and suspicious remark in the world. I don't think you'll
escape marriage. Some young fly-away will make up her mind to settle
down; and you'll be pleasantly surprised to find yourself happily
married."
"A fly-away?" Edgar raised his brows. "That sounds alarming. I suppose
on the principle of the reformed rake. However, I've got an open mind.
I admit that I want children; but as far as I can see the people I know
don't have them."
"What a sterile crew you must know."
"No. Just platonic."
Gaythorpe smiled at the sarcasm.
"What is the general length of the childless marriage?" he asked. "The
average."
"I haven't noticed. I don't know. A couple of years? Five years? At
any rate, I see no point in the ceremony. But the thing arises from
excessive individualism among women; and I don't see any way out of it.
The only justification of the man who insists on children is his wife's
love; and if the wives are fuller of self-love I can't see why they
should be forced to undergo the pains of childbirth."
"My dear Edgar," said Gaythorpe. "Don't be sentimental. The people who
most acutely feel the pains of childbirth are sentimental men. That
a woman should suffer great physical pain for twenty-four hours, and
a good deal of nervous distress for some time before her delivery,
perhaps two or three times in the course of her life, is no reason why
(if she's reasonably robust) she shouldn't have children. If there's an
exaggerated fear of physical pain, or a great deal of egotism, in the
woman you want to marry, call the whole thing off at once."
Edgar was faintly irritated.
"You can't dictate nowadays," he said. "That's past. Women have got to
be treated--the women that one could marry, I mean--as equals. They've
got to have an opportunity of living to the full extent of their
powers."
"Well," said Gaythorpe, very deliberately. "I'm going to say something
you'll dislike. I'm going to say that no woman who has any inclination
to love you will thank you for treating her as an equal. She'll think
it a weakness in you. She won't understand it. Women are so constituted
that they associate consideration with indifference."
"You were talking a little while ago about generalisations," murmured
Edgar.
"Perhaps I was. But what I say is true."
"You leave out of account," said Edgar, "in your old-fashioned
conceptions,--the fact than an individual woman is always--in spite of
her sex--exactly what an individual man is. She's always first of all a
human being."
"Sometimes," responded Gaythorpe, with an excessively benevolent air;
"sometimes, do you know, I'm very strongly disposed to question whether
a woman can properly be regarded as a human being at all."
iv
"And now," continued Gaythorpe, towards the end of their conversation,
"to revert to your unattractive correspondent."
Edgar gave a short laugh. He turned upon his friend in rebuke.
"He's never been far away from your thoughts. I've felt him there the
whole evening. You have two or three facts--that he's antipathetic to
me, that he's in a financial difficulty, and that he's written me a
letter. That ought to be enough for you."
"Financial difficulty. H'm ... yes...." Gaythorpe reflected. "He wants
a loan, presumably. A substantial loan?"
"No, he doesn't want a loan."
"Advice." Gaythorpe was inquisitively silent. "I'm interested in him,
you know."
"You're worse. You're inquisitive." Both smiled with a kind of
determination. Gaythorpe grunted, conning afresh the points of his
information.
"As you know," he presently resumed, "my interest is largely in you.
It's by way of being paternal. Before this evening I should have said
that you were a bit on the hard side. But there's nothing a sentimental
idealist might not do; and I see now that you're a sentimental
idealist. I'm filled with fear. I see you Quixotically ruining your
family for the sake of self-mortification. You want to help this
man because you dislike him. I tell you what's the matter with you,
Edgar. Your particular kind of egotism leads you to make a fetish of
magnanimity."
"Oh!" laughed Edgar.
"It isn't cowardice. It's indifference. The only thing that will save
you is to fall deeply in love with Miss Fly-away. She will tempt you to
imprudence, perhaps; but she will vitalise you, and harden you."
"If you remember, she was to marry me only when she was reformed,"
parried Edgar. "You seem to have forgotten that."