He pulled himself together and took some papers from his bag without
speaking, and when he had selected two or three, he drew a chair up to
the other side of the table and began to dictate, stopping every now and
then to explain the purport of his arguments.
They worked so for perhaps an hour.
"One has to do these things," he said at last, as Katherine had not
uttered a word. "One wonders sometimes if there is any good in them."
"I suppose all effort has some merit," she responded, without looking
up. He began to long to make her raise her eyes again.
"You think so?--On what grounds?"
"It exercises a useful faculty."
"What faculty?"
"Will, of course; to use effort is an exercise of will, because if there
was no effort needed, no will would be required either."
He smiled whimsically; this was obvious.
"Then I must look upon the organisation of this very intricate charity,
of doubtful use to mankind, as profitable to me because of the effort
entailed."
"It is as good a way as any other of looking at it.--Did you say
quarterly or monthly returns upon the capital?"
"Oh--er--" glancing at his papers--"the confounded thing! Where is
it--Yes--quarterly."
The machine clicked uninterruptedly. Katherine never looked up.
He began to allow himself to take in details. Why had he not remarked
before that she had an extraordinarily well-shaped head?--And what
wonderful hands--in these days of athletic, weather-beaten paws! She
would be very stately, too, when she filled out a little. The whole
thing was agreeably symmetrical, throat and shoulders, and bust and
hips.
"Why, in the name of all the gods, have I never noticed this young woman
before! She thinks, too! That was a curious reflection about will--I'd
like to talk to her--The devil takes this d--d--charity!"
So his thoughts ran and his eyes eagerly devoured Katherine's face.
She was perfectly conscious of the fact; she knew with unerring instinct
that the spark which she had dispatched by that first steady gaze of her
eyes had struck tinder, the flame of interest was ignited, and the more
difficult she made things now, the more complete would be her triumph
presently. She resolutely kept her attention upon her work, never
raising her head.
"To be so meritoriously industrious, are you using effort?" he asked, in
a moment or two. "You look as though you had a most formidable will!"
"Very little effort; it is second nature to me now."
"Even if the subject is as uninteresting as this?"
"That is all the better; one can let one's mechanical brain tackle it,
and one's real thoughts can wander."
"Where to?"
She put in a fresh sheet of paper--and now glanced at him again for one
second.
"Into dreamland."
"Yes, that is a ridiculously pleasant place devoid of draughts and of
chilling surprises. It would be very impertinent, I suppose, if I asked
you where is your dreamland?"
"Perhaps not impertinent--out of place. You are dictating a letter to
the Lord Mayor of London at the moment."
"To be sure I am--you made me forget it--he is an infernal bore, the
Lord Mayor of London, compelling me to branch off from this very
interesting conversation to his confounded letter!--I beg your pardon!"
Katherine read aloud the last coherent sentence he had given her, and
she permitted one of her faint sphinxlike smiles to play about her
mouth, while her eyes sought the typing.
Gerard Strobridge moved a little nearer--he felt a sudden strong thrill.
"I shall not give you another word to type until you tell me about your
dreamland--Is it in sea or sky or air?"
"It is half-past three o'clock and you are only to stay until five--had
you not better attend to your work first, sir?"
She was waiting in an attitude of respectful attention, infinitely
provoking.
"Certainly not! I shall ask my aunt to lend you to me for another day if
we do not finish this afternoon--Indeed, on second thoughts, I do not
think I shall try to finish to-day--we can complete the matter at
Blissington--" And then he stopped abruptly--Läo Delemar would be there!
He had melted her into a mood from which everything could be hoped
during this week of uneventful family party--Beatrice would only stay
for Christmas Day, and was indeed no great obstacle in any case. But he
feared he would probably not be able to have interesting business
interviews during the holidays with his aunt's typist.
He laughed shortly to himself, and dictated a long sentence, concluding
the letter to the Lord Mayor. He had better control the interest he was
feeling, that was evident!
Katherine made no remark, while she wondered what had stopped his
questioning so suddenly. She smiled again a little. It had the desired
effect--Mr. Strobridge jumped up from his chair and went to the
fireplace.
"Well--what are you thinking about?" he demanded, from there.
"My work, of course! What else should I be thinking about?" Her eyes at
last met his in innocent surprise.
"I don't believe you are quite truthful--one does not smile in that
enigmatic fashion over work--dull, tedious work like this, statistics of
bodies who are to benefit by this absurd charity--Oh! no, fair scribe! I
feel there lies a world of malice in that smile."
"Even a scribe is permitted sometimes to make reflections."
"Not without confessing what they are."
"We are not in the days of the Spanish Inquisition--" taking up a paper.
"On the first list there is a letter for the Mayor of Manchester."
"Confound the Mayor of Manchester!"
"Poor gentleman!"
"I must know all about dreamland and cryptic reflections first."
He drew the armchair now over towards her and flung himself into it. He
was a graceful creature, not so tall or so ideally perfect of form as
Lord Algy, but a very presentable Englishman, with a wonderful
distinction of manner and voice.
Katherine Bush was experiencing intense pleasure--there was something
feline, if not altogether feminine, in her well-balanced brain. It was
peculiarly gratifying to find that her plans were being justified. How
glad she was that he had not remarked her in her raw days! How wise she
had been to have made ready--and then waited! The whole thing was the
more effective because of the complete absence of all dramatic emotion
in her. She was like a quiet, capable foreign minister playing his game
of statecraft with the representative of another country, his face
permitted to express--or conceal--only what he desired.
At this moment, she shrugged her shoulders very slightly, as though to
say, "I am only an employe. I cannot force you to work if you will not";
but she did not speak, so he was obliged to demand again.
"Won't you tell me what made you smile?--We can drift to dreamland
afterwards."
"No--I will not tell you what made me smile, because I do not know
exactly; the aspect of life generally, perhaps."
"And you sit and work in this gloomy back room all day--What do you know
about life?"
"I am observing--I know that one must pretend interest in what one is
bored by--and one must show attention to those one despises--and--keep
from laughing at things."
"What a dangerous young woman, watching and coming to cynical
conclusions--but you say truly; one must keep from laughing at things--a
very difficult matter generally." He lay back against the brown leather
cushion, and proved the truth of this by laughing softly, while he
looked at her quaintly.
Katherine Bush suddenly felt that a human being understood _with her_;
it was a delightful sensation.
"Practically the whole of life is a ridiculous sham and must arouse the
sardonic mirth of the gods--Here are you and I spending an afternoon
arranging a charity in which neither of us takes the least interest--I
am dictating fulsome letters to Lord Mayors to induce them to influence
others to open their purses--I don't care a jot whether they do or they
do not--You are mechanically transcribing my asinine words, and we could
be so much better employed exchanging views--on each other's taste,
say--or each other's dreamlands."
Katherine Bush looked down and allowed her hands to fall idly in her
lap--he should do most of the speaking.
"The only good that I have been getting out of it as far as I can see,"
he went on, "is the contemplation of your really beautiful hands at
work--Where did you get such perfect things in these days?"
She lifted one and regarded it critically.
"Yes, I have often wondered myself. My father was an auctioneer, you
know, and my mother's father was a butcher."
Gerard Strobridge was extremely entertained. She was certainly a very
wonderful product of such parentage.
"May I look at them closely?" he asked.
She showed not the least embarrassment; if he had been asking to see a
piece of enamel, or a china vase she could not have been more detached
about it. She held them out quite naturally, and he rose and took them
in his own. Their touch was cool and firm, and every inch of his being
tingled with pleasure. He examined them minutely finger by finger,
stroking the rosy filbert nails in admiration, while an insane desire to
clasp and kiss their owner grew in him.
Katherine Bush was perfectly aware of this, and when she thought he had
felt emotion enough for the occasion, she drew them back as naturally as
she had given them.
"I am always asking myself questions about such things," she remarked,
in a tone of speculative matter-of-factness. "I am so often seeing
contradictions since I have been here--My former conclusions are a
little upset."
"What were they?" He had returned to his chair. He was no novice to be
carried away by his sensations, and he knew very well that to indulge
them further at present would be very unwise, and perhaps check a most
promising amusement.
"I believed that birth and breeding gave fine ears and fine ankles and
fine hands--as well as moral qualities."
"And you have been disappointed?"
"Yes, very--have not you?"
"No, because I have had no illusions--one never can tell where a side
cross comes in, or what will be the effect of overbreeding--that runs to
enormities sometimes."
"I suppose so--"
"And have the moral qualities surprised you also?"
"Oh, yes--more than the physical; I have seen and heard what I would
have thought were common things even at Bindon's Green."
He laughed again--If the crew who had attended the tableaux rehearsals
could have heard her!
"You are perfectly right--looked at in the abstract, I suppose we are
rather a shoddy company nowadays."
"There are individuals who come up to the measure, of course, but not
all of them, as I had imagined. You must have opened the doors to quite
ordinary people to have made such a mixture."
"We have grown indifferent; we no longer care about a standard, I fear."
"That is why you let all these Radicals be in power, perhaps--You have
become effete like the nobles before the revolution in France, who could
only die like gentlemen, but not live like men."
Gerard Strobridge was startled. This from the granddaughter of a butcher
of Bindon's Green!
"She picks it all up from Seraphim, of course," he reflected presently.
"And yet--look at her strange face!--it is a woman of parts from
wherever it has come!"
"That is an apt phrase--where did you find it--'die like gentleman, but
not live like men'?"
"I don't know, it just came from thinking and reading about them--so
much was fine, and so much--foolish."
"Yes--and you think we are growing also to that stage in England?
Perhaps you are right; we want some great national danger to pull us
together."
"You will rust out otherwise, and it will be such a pity."
"You think we are good enough to keep?"
"In your highest development--like Her Ladyship--you are, I should
think, the best things for a country in the world."
She knew he was drawing her out and was very pleased to be so drawn.
"Tell me about us--what have we that is good?"
"You have a sense of values--you know what is worth having--You have had
hundreds of years to acquire the quality of looking ahead. No person of
the classes from which the Radical statesmen are drawn has naturally the
quality of looking ahead; he has to be told about it, and then get it if
he can--it is not in his blood because his forebears only had to snatch
what they could for themselves and their families day by day, and were
not required to observe any broad horizon."
"How very true--you are a student of heredity then, Miss Bush?"
"Yes--it explains everything. I examine it in myself; I am always
combating ordinary and cramping instincts which I find I have got."
"How interesting!"
"No common Radical could be a successful foreign minister, for
instance--unless perhaps he were a Jew like Disraeli--but they have
sense enough to know that themselves, and always choose a gentleman,
don't they?"
"You wonderful girl--do you ever air these views to my aunt? They would
please her."
"Of course not--Her Ladyship is my employer and she knows my place. I
speak to her when I am spoken to."
"You think we on our side are too casual, then?--That we are letting our
birthright slip from us--I believe you are right."
"Yes--you are too sure of yourselves. You think it does not matter
really--and so you let the others creep in with lies and promises--you
let them alter all the standards of public honour without a protest,
and so you will gradually sink to the new level, too--I feel very sorry
for England sometimes."
"So do I--" his face altered. He looked sad, and in earnest and older.
For the moment he forgot that he was wasting valuable time in the most
agreeable task of exploiting the ideas of a new species of female; her
words had touched a matter very near his weary heart.
"What can we do?" he cried, in a tone of deep interest. "That is the
question--what can we do?"
"You should all wake up to begin with, like people do when they find
that their houses have caught fire--at least, those whom the smoke has
not suffocated first. You ought to make a concentrated, determined
effort to save what you can to build a new shelter with."
"Admitted--but how?"
"Have common sense taught from the beginning in the schools, the reasons
of things explained to the children. If you knew the frightful ignorance
upon all the subjects that matter which prevails among my class, for
instance! They have false perspectives about everything--not because
they are bad; in the mass they are much better than you--but because
they are so frightfully ignorant of the meaning of even the little they
have learnt. Everything has a false value for them. There is hardly a
subject that they can see straightly about; they are muffled and
blighted with shams and hypocrisies."
"You should address meetings among them."
"They would not listen to me for a moment; the truths I would tell them
would wound their vanity; it would only be in the schools among the
children that anything effectual could be done."
"You think so?"
"Oh, yes, I know--My own sisters and brothers are examples. I could
never teach them anything, and there are millions in England just like
them. Good as gold--and stupid as owls."
"It does not sound hopeful, then."
"No, the rust has gone too far; there should have been no education at
all, or a better one--but the present system looks as if it would swamp
England if the children are not taught things soon."
"You are a Tory, it would seem."
"No, I don't think I am. I think everyone has an equal right, but only
according to his capacity; and I certainly don't think the scum of the
earth of idiots and wastrels have equal rights with hardworking,
sensible artisans."
"Indeed, no?--Go on!"
"I think aristocrats are things apart from the opportunities they have
had, and should know it, and keep up the prestige and make their order a
great goal to strive for. You see, if they were stamped out, it would be
like cutting down all the old trees in Kensington Gardens; they could
not be produced again for hundreds of years, and all the beauty and
dignity of the gardens would be gone. But aristocrats ought to act as
such, and never slip into the gutter."
"There you are certainly right. I am more than with you--But what can
one do?"
"You should have the courage of your opinions, as Her Ladyship has--you
only laugh when she is saying splendid things sometimes. So few of you
seem to have any backbone that I have seen."
"You shame me!"
Her face became filled with a humorous expression--they had been serious
long enough, she thought. His caught the light of her eyes; he was
intensely fascinated.
"You did not, of course, come from--Bindon's Green--is it?--You came
down from Parnassus to teach us poor devils of aristocrats to stick to
our guns--I will be your first disciple, priestess of wisdom!"
"It is five minutes to four, sir--it will be quite impossible to finish
that pile of papers to-day--And I _did_ come from Bindon's Green--and I
am going back there by the six o'clock train from Victoria, to a supper
party at my home--That is why my hair is crimped and I have on this new
blouse."
He got up and stood quite near her.
"And what will you do at the party? I can't see you there."
"I shall look disagreeable, as I generally do. We shall have supper of
cold pressed beef and cold meat-pie, and cheese-cakes and figs and
custard, and some light dinner ale or stout, and cups of tea--and then
when we have finished that, there are a whole lot of new nigger song
records for the gramophone, and my brother Bert will recite imitations
of Harry Lauder, and my future sister-in-law, Miss Mabel Cawber, will
sing 'The Chocolate Soldier' out of tune--We shall make a great deal of
noise, and then we shall push the furniture back and dance the turkey
trot and the bunny hug, and some of the elder ones, like my sister
Matilda, will make up a whist-drive, and at about one o'clock I can get
to bed."
"It sounds perfectly ideal; but you return from this to-morrow?"
"Yes--by an early train. I am not a favourite at home. Now will you
please begin again to dictate."
He walked up and down the room for a minute; he was not a boy
accustomed only to acting from inclination; he knew very well that it
would be much wiser now to resume attention to business. So he took up
his memoranda and started once more, and for over half an hour nothing
but dictation passed between them; the pile of papers grew considerably
less.
"If you care to give me directions for the rest quickly, I will take
them down in shorthand, and then I could finish all this to-morrow, some
time. Her Ladyship, I am sure, would be better pleased if her whole
scheme is complete."
He agreed--he truly admired her perfect composure and common sense; she
was so capable and practical, a person to be relied upon. He would do as
she suggested, though he had not heard about dreamland yet.
He set his mind to the affair on hand, and before the clock struck five
all was done and ready for this admirable young woman to type when she
had leisure. And now he took her hand again.
"A thousand thanks, Egeria," he said. "You ought to discover a likely
lad and turn him into the Prime Minister. You would make an ideal Prime
Minister's wife--but--er--don't look for him at Bindon's Green!"
"No, I won't--good-night, Mr. Strobridge. Thank you for your wishes--but
I have other views. I shall not turn my 'lad' into anything; he shall
turn me--"
"Into what?"
"That is still in the lap of the gods," and she made him the slightest
curtsey, and went with a bundle of receipts to the cupboard in the wall,
while her grey-green eyes laughed at him over her shoulder.
As Gerard Strobridge walked up the shallow marble steps to his aunt's
sitting-room, he felt like a man in a dream.