On the steps of the Randolph Hotel, Mrs. Guthrie turned to Kenyon and
asked him, with one of her most motherly smiles, to have some supper
with them. Telegraphing quickly to Peter and Graham that they were not
to accept the invitation, Kenyon said: "Nothing would give me greater
pleasure--absolutely nothing. Unfortunately Peter and I have already
accepted an invitation from two of our Dons and we cannot possibly get
out of this dull but profitable hour."
"How very disappointing!" said Mrs. Guthrie.
"How silly!" said Belle.
Betty merely said, "Oh!" but the rest of her sentence was condensed into
one quick look at Peter.
Peter, utterly without guile, turned round to Nicholas Kenyon in blank
amazement. "It's the first I've heard of it," he said. "What on earth do
you mean? Two of the Dons? Who are they?"
But Kenyon was an artist and a strategist, and therefore a liar. "My
dear old boy! What would you do without me? I'm your diary, your
secretary, your guide, philosopher and friend. If you've forgotten the
engagement I certainly haven't." And he shot at Peter a swift and
subtle wink, in which he included Graham.
Scenting adventure and gathering that the two Dons were in all
probability coming from the chorus of "The Pirates of Penzance," Graham
joined in quickly. "I suppose I can't come and listen humbly to the
learned conversation of these two professors?"
"But why not?" said Kenyon. "No doubt you can tell them more about Wall
Street in five minutes than they would ever learn in their lives.
Therefore, dear Mrs. Guthrie, I'm afraid we must all say 'good-night.'
We'll rejoin you in the morning for breakfast as arranged, and wind up
what's been the pleasantest week of my life, by driving out to Woodstock
for lunch."
It was all done in the most masterly manner, and when the three men left
the hotel arm in arm they were not guided by Kenyon toward St. Giles,
but to the theatre, where the curtain was just about to fall with the
last act.
"What's all this?" asked Peter, impatiently. "Mother had set her heart
upon having us to supper."
"Mother has had us all day," replied Kenyon. "Bear in mind the fact that
there are other women in the world to whom we owe a little gallantry.
You and Graham are going to eat Welsh Rabbit at the somewhat humble
rooms of my little friends, Lottie Lawrence and Billy Seymour."
"I'll see you damned first!" said Peter. "I've no use for these people.
Come on, Graham, let's go back."
Kenyon's face was wreathed in smiles. "It can't be done, dear lad," he
said. "Your mother would be the last person on earth to permit you to be
discourteous to our two distinguished Dons, and by this time in all
human probability Betty will be preparing for bed."
Peter had been building all his hopes on another hour with Betty. She
was leaving Oxford with his people the next afternoon and he wanted
above all things, however incoherently, to let her know something of the
state of his feelings. He had never been so angry with Kenyon before.
"Curse you!" he said. "You've spoiled everything. If you must play about
with these chorus girls why can't you do it alone? Why drag me in?"
Kenyon's eyes narrowed. "Only the angels die young, Peter, my friend,"
he said. "As I've been obliged to tell you before, you stand a pretty
good chance of an early demise. Have you ever heard the word 'priggish'?
For a whole week I've played the game by you and devoted myself, lock,
stock and barrel, to your family. Mere sportsmanship demands that you
make some slight return to me by joining my little party to-night. Don't
you agree with me, Graham?"
Graham's vanity was vastly appealed to by the fact that this perfect man
of the world had taken him into his intimacy. Hitherto he hadn't met
English chorus girls. He rather liked the idea. "Why," he said, "I can't
see why we shouldn't go. I'm with you, anyway. Come on, Peter. Be a
sport."
But Peter held his ground. He had all the more reason for so doing
because he had met Betty. "All right!" he said. "You two can do what you
jolly well like. Cut me out of it. I shall turn in. If that's being
priggish--fine. Good-night!"
He wheeled round and marched off, and as he passed beneath the windows
of the Randolph Hotel he drew up short for a moment and with a touch of
knightliness which was quite unself-conscious he bared his head beneath
the window of the room in which he believed that Betty was to sleep, but
which, as a matter of fact, harboured a short, fat, wheezy Anglo-Indian
with a head as bald as a billiard ball.
Kenyon disguised his annoyance under an air of characteristic
imperturbability. "Well, that's our Peter to the life," he said, taking
Graham's eager arm. "He's a sort of Don Quixote--a very pure and perfect
person. One of these days he's likely to come an unholy cropper, and
that's to my way of thinking what he most needs. I don't agree with a
man's being a total abstainer in anything. It narrows him and makes him
provincial. Then, too, a man who fancies himself as better than his
fellows is apt to wear a halo under his hat, and that disgusting trick
ruins friendship and leads to a hasty and ill-considered marriage with
the first good actress who catches him on the hop and makes use of his
lamentable ignorance. Come along, brother, we'll see life together."
"Fine!" said Graham. "Me for life all the time."
So these two,--the one curiously old and the other dangerously
young,--made their way to the stage door of the Theatre Royal and
waited among the little crowd of undergraduates for the moment when the
ladies of the chorus should have retouched their make-up and be ready
for further theatricalisms.
Lottie Lawrence and Billy Seymour were the first out. The latter's
greeting was exuberant. "What-ho, Nick! Where's the blooming giant you
said you were going to bring?"
"Otherwise engaged, dear Billy; but permit me to introduce to you a
financial magnate from the golden city of New York."
Billy was young and slim and so tight-skirted that her walk was almost
like that of a Chinese Princess. Even under the modest light of the
stage door-keeper's box her lips gleamed crimsonly and her long
eyelashes stuck out separately in black surprise. Her small round face
was plastered thickly with powder. She was very alluring to the very
young. Her friend had come from an exactly similar mould and might have
been a twin but for her manner, which was that of the violet--the modest
violet--on a river's brim.
Kenyon hailed a cab, gave the man the address in Wellington Square and
sat himself between the two girls, with an arm round each.
Billy Seymour had taken in Graham with one expert glance of minute
examination. "Graham Guthrie, eh?" she said. "It smacks of Caledonia,
bag-pipes and the braes and banks o' bonnie Doon. I take it your
ancestors went over on the S. S. Mayflower, of the White Star Line--that
gigantic vessel which followed the beckoning finger of Columbus--and
started the race which invented sky-scrapers and the cuspidors."
Graham let out a howl of laughter and told himself that he was in for a
good evening, especially as the ladies' knees were very friendly.
Lottie Lawrence placed her head on Kenyon's shoulder, sighed a little
and said: "Oh, I'm so tired and so hungry; and I've a thirst I wouldn't
sell for a tenner."
Kenyon tightened his hold. "All those things shall be remedied, little
one," he said. "Have no fear."
The first things which met their eyes when they entered the sitting-room
of the sordid little house in which a series of theatricals had lodged
from time immemorial, were a half-dozen bottles of champagne--sent in by
Nick's order. The two girls showed their appreciation for his
tactfulness in different ways. Billy fell upon one of the bottles as
though it were her long-lost sister, pressed it to her bosom and placed
a passionate kiss upon its label; while Lottie, with an eloquent
gesture, immediately handed Graham a rather battered corkscrew. "Help me
to the bubbly, boy," she said. "My throat is like a limekiln."
* * * * *
All the clocks of the City of Spires were striking three as Kenyon and
Graham supported each other out into the quiet and deserted street.
There was much powder on Graham's coat and a patch of crimson on
Kenyon's left cheek.
"Life with a big L, Graham, my boy," said Kenyon a little thickly.
"A hell of a big L," said Graham, with a very much too loud laugh at his
feeble joke. "You certainly do know your way about."
"And most of the short cuts," said Kenyon dryly. "Presently I shall
scale the wall of St. John's, climb through the window of one of our
fellows who's about to take holy orders, and wind up the night in the
hospitable arms of Morpheus." This eventually Graham watched him do,
with infinite delight, and was still wearing a smile of
self-congratulation as he passed the door of his mother's bedroom in the
hotel and entered his own.
His father heard the heavy footsteps as they went along the passage, but
imagined that they were those of the night watchman on his rounds.
Fate is the master of irony.