“There, there,” he soothed me. “All I want you to do, Ralph, is to leer
in the offing while I ring up a lady. I do so hate to do that kind of
thing alone.”
I pointed out that she couldn’t be much of a lady if he could ring her
up at that unearthly hour; he warned me to leave his friends alone; I
said I wouldn’t touch them at the end of a barge-pole, and then I
composed myself to sleep. The taxi hurled itself across Hyde Park
Corner, and dreamily I heard Tarlyon’s voice:
“I am not only going to telephone a lady, but I am going to insult a
lady intolerably. And in case my invention should run low, I want you,
Ralph, to stand by and suggest some more intolerable insults....”
And dreamily I heard Tarlyon’s voice:
“She keeps her telephone beside her bed, and so she must answer; and lo!
I will insult her intolerably.”
The taxi stopped, and very soon the receiver was to his ear, while I
leered at him from the depths of an arm-chair.
“Have some brandy,” said Tarlyon, but I sneered at him.
But what he said down the telephone, I cannot repeat. These things
should only be spoken of privately, as between man and man. All I can do
is to give a brief outline of his speech and a summary of the
conclusions at which he arrived. He spoke at length of her character, of
which he seemed to take an unfavourable view; he took grave exception to
the manner of her life; and he begged her to hold him excused, in
future, from any closer relationship than that of a distant
acquaintance. She must have said he was drunk, for he denied any undue
excess, while reserving to himself the right to think she was probably a
secret drinker.
He began, I thought, rather subtly: on a matter which has been discussed
between ladies and gentlemen ever since Solomon took a fancy to the
Queen of Sheba and put off all dinner engagements for a week. In the
gentlest way Tarlyon begged to be excused from dining with her on the
following night. No, it was not that he had discovered a previous
engagement; no, he couldn’t say that. The truth was, he said, that he
had found something better to do; he hadn’t, he added, had to look very
hard. He then proceeded to give his reasons for never wishing to see her
again, and these he deduced (_a_) from flaws in her character, (_b_)
from fissures in her temperament, and (_c_) from structural errors in
her personal appearance. He pointed out that he was putting himself to
this trouble only for her good, and in memory of his long friendship
with her late husband, whom he had known ever since they were at Oxford
and Cambridge together. I can only put down the fact that she did not
ring off before she did to some fatal fascination in his voice, which
was throughout smooth and reasonable in tone.
“That woman,” he explained, “is a very clever woman. She has the kind of
brains that don’t generally go with beauty; and if I had any political
ambitions, or any indoor ambitions of any kind, I would marry her like a
shot. She has been thinking this last year that I might marry her, but
I’ve just managed to keep the conversation off that. For, though one
doesn’t deserve an angel, one needn’t marry a devil. Meanwhile,
however, I’ve grown fond of her, and I’ve taken no trouble to hide from
her that I admire her enormously; and so she has kept me dangling for a
year, doing neither one thing or the other--indeed, why should she?--on
the off-chance that I might marry her; for though Viscounts are not what
they were, Ralph, a wealthy Viscount was to her mind just preferable to
a wealthy Canadian of a certain age. And so she has kept poor old Cyrus
Fall, who adores her, as I’ve known for the last ten months or so,
hanging on as her second string, palming off that ghastly lie on him
about a husband she never cared a damn about--she’s just kept him
hanging on, while she waited to see whether I’d toe the line or not; and
if not.... But I’m rather sorry about it all, Ralph, for she is a clever
and amusing woman, and I shall miss begging her to put off Mr. Fall to
dine with me.”
“Poor old Cyrus Fall!” I murmured. “But then--why poor? He adores the
woman--no matter how cunning she is, he adores her. And so on....”
“Exactly,” said Tarlyon. “There are men, Ralph, who would warn Mr. Fall
against that woman, whereas we are throwing her into his arms. For we,
Ralph, know that no matter how thoroughly he finds her out, as he
surely will, he will not cease to adore her; for it is not virtue that
men and women love in each other----”
“Quite,” said I, “Good-night.”
V
A week later, there was announced in the _Morning Post_, which somehow
always seems to know about these things, the engagement of Mr. Cyrus
Fall to Mrs. Leycester-Craven, widow of Major Leycester-Craven of the
----. The same morning Mr. Fall rang up Lord Tarlyon.
“Pleased if you’d take luncheon with me to-day,” said Mr. Fall.
“Sorry,” said Tarlyon. “Already luncheoning.”
“Cocktail?”
“Well, why not?”
“Ritz, one o’clock?”
“Right,” said Tarlyon.
* * * * *
Tarlyon grasped the outstretched hand, and wrung it.
“Congratulations,” he murmured.
“Thank _you_,” said Mr. Fall.
Tarlyon raised his eyebrows.
“But is the man mad?” he asked. “What on earth for?”
“For your advice to the lady, Lord Tarlyon,” said Mr. Fall gently.
Tarlyon jumped in his chair, and he stared at Cyrus Fall.
“You don’t mean to tell me that she told you!” he gasped.
“Oh, no!” Mr. Fall assured him. “Oh, no! She has never mentioned your
name, and I haven’t the faintest idea of what you said to her. But I
knew that you would say something, Lord Tarlyon--as a man of honour.
That is why I told you of my dilemma that night--after which, as a man
of honour, you could do but one thing, since my intentions were serious
and yours were not. A cocktail?”
“I’ll have some brandy,” whispered Tarlyon.