A REFUSAL
"So you have refused young Helmsdale."
Three months had passed since the Ludsey election. The air was warm
and golden and already the world whispered of summer, yet not too loud
lest it should seem to boast and so be balked of its desire.
Parliament had met, London was full, and in the country the foxes and
the pheasants had leisure to attend to their own affairs. And with the
rest Cynthia had come to town. She rode on this morning out of the
park, where the buds were running along the branches of the trees like
delicate green flames, about eleven o'clock, and turning out of South
Audley Street into Curzon Street, she saw Mr. Benoliel waiting upon
the pavement in front of her new house. As she stopped her horse
before the door he reprimanded her:
"Cynthia, you have refused him."
Cynthia blushed. Then she exclaimed:
"But how in the world could you know! It isn't half an hour since I
refused him." Then she bent down over her saddle and gazed at him in
the fulness of admiration. "But you know everything. It wouldn't be of
much use trying to keep things from you, would it?"
Mr. Benoliel smiled grimly.
"Yes, that's the way, Cynthia, and no doubt a neater style of doing it
will come in time."
Cynthia sat upright, swift as a spring, and remained so, with her nose
in the air, haughty for five complete seconds. Then curiosity restored
her to her sex and she swooped again over her saddle.
"How did you know?"
"He borrowed a horse from me this morning," said Mr. Benoliel--"a good
horse. He was very particular that it should be a valuable horse. So I
gathered that he wanted to make on this morning of all mornings a
specially favorable impression."
Cynthia's lips twitched.
"You lent him a very good horse," she said. "But the horse didn't tell
you."
"That's where you are wrong, Cynthia. The horse did," said Mr.
Benoliel. "Ten minutes ago, as I was turning out of Grosvenor Square,
I met my very valuable horse being led by a ragged beggarman whom I
had never seen in my life before. I asked him what the dickens he was
doing with it and he explained that as he was standing by the rails in
Hyde Park a young man rode up to him in a violent rage, dismounted,
tossed him the reins and a shilling and told him to lead the rotten
beast back to Grosvenor Square. Just fancy that! My horse! I might
have lost him altogether."
Cynthia tried her best to look indignant at so treacherous a return to
Mr. Benoliel's generosity, but she could not and she rippled suddenly
into laughter.
"He was horribly angry," she said.
Mr. Benoliel turned his wrath again upon Cynthia.
"And no wonder!" he said. "Helmsdale's not used to being refused. He
is young. He is good-looking. He has a social position----"
"And he has a profile," added Cynthia. "Please don't forget that. But
you can't if you know him, or even if you don't, can you? Have you
ever fixed your eyes steadily upon him, Mr. Benoliel? Do the next time
you see him, and within twenty seconds he will show you his profile.
He will turn his head quite slowly and show it you, just like a man at
the music-halls disclosing the newest sensation. I couldn't marry a
profile, even though it was mounted on your horse." Then she bent down
to him again coaxing him: "You didn't really want me to marry him, did
you? You see, I don't love him."
Mr. Benoliel seemed to think this answer insufficient.
"Love would come," he answered.
"That's what he said," exclaimed Cynthia.
"And you?" asked Benoliel.
Cynthia bent her eyes steadily upon him.
"I answered, 'Lovers would come.'"
Mr. Benoliel looked up at her with a wry face.
"You know too much, my dear," he said, and Cynthia threw back her
head, with her face suddenly clouded and sullen.
"Oh, yes," she cried bitterly. "I have eaten of the tree--and
lately--very lately."
And at the sight of her distress all Mr. Benoliel's indignation
vanished.
"I know," he said gently. "That's why I wanted you to marry, Cynthia."
"Is that the remedy?" she asked. And she shook her head slowly. "I am
frightened of it."
She called to her groom, dismounted from her horse and taking Mr.
Benoliel by the arm cried:
"Come in. You haven't seen my house since I bought it. You shall tell
me what you think of it, now that it's finished."
She ran up the steps and turned to him at the top with a look of
compunction in her face:
"I talk to you of my troubles," she said. "I have no right to--no,
neither to you nor to any one. I am ashamed of myself. I have food to
eat, clothes to wear, money to spend, and friends. Yes, I am very
fortunate," and her mind winged back to a dark night on the estancia
when she had crouched in a big chair, listening to horrors set ready
for her. "I ought to be grateful," she cried with a shudder at her
memories. "Come in!"
She led him through the rooms and claimed his enthusiasm for this or
that rare piece of satin-wood or mahogany. It had been a great joy to
her in the early days of the year to ransack the dealers' shops and
grow learned of Hepplewhite and Chippendale. She told Mr. Benoliel
stories of her researches, seeking to recapture some savor of that
past pleasure. But her sprightliness became an effort and in her own
sitting-room she turned abruptly to him:
"But I have a distaste for it all now," she said and sat down in a
chair. "I have no longer any pride in the house at all."
Mr. Benoliel stood over her and nodded his head in sympathy. She was
distressed. She had a look of discomfort.
"Yes, I understand that, Cynthia," he said.
She took off her hard hat. It pressed upon her temples and made her
head throb.
"How much do you know?" she asked.
"That Mrs. Royle is leaving you."
"Yes," said Cynthia moodily. "We have agreed to separate. Do you know
anything more?"
"Yes. The missing panel of tapestry hangs again in Ludsey Town Hall."
"Yes. It was lying in a lumber-room under the roof of my house in
Warwickshire. How long it had been lying there, or how it came there,
I can't discover. Diana ran across it by accident. It was tied up in a
bale like an old carpet. She didn't think it of any value--until she
went one morning to the Town Hall with an American millionaire who was
anxious to see the tapestry and buy it if he could."
"Yes. I took Cronin there myself. He was staying with me and I drove
him into Ludsey and met Mrs. Royle in the street. That was the day
before the election. We all three went into the Town Hall together. I
remember Mrs. Royle saying that she had never been in the building
before. I pointed out the tapestry and explained that a wide strip of
it was missing. I think I suggested that it would one day be turned
out of some old cupboard."
Cynthia nodded.
"That no doubt helped her to the truth. Anyway, she tried to persuade
me to sell it. She merely told me that it was valuable and that I
could get two thousand pounds for it. I didn't connect it with the
Ludsey tapestry. I thought that it might be worth while to bring it up
to this house; and I refused to sell. Diana urged me again, however,
and but that I don't like selling things, I would have let her sell
it, just because she was getting tiresome about it. Then Hartmann, the
Bond Street dealer, called on me a month ago and told me what the
strip was."
"Why did he call?" asked Benoliel.
"He was in the deal with another man. Both apparently were selling to
Mr. Cronin, and they quarrelled over the division of the profits. So
Hartmann came to me in revenge. He told me that Diana was to get eight
thousand pounds if she could persuade me to sell and that they meant
to sell the tapestry afterward to Mr. Cronin for twenty-five thousand
pounds. It's not a pretty story, is it?"
"No," said Benoliel. "So you gave it back to Ludsey?"
"Yes."
"Does Mrs. Royle know that you are aware of her share in the
transaction?"
"Yes. We haven't ever talked of it, but she knows and proposed of her
own accord that we should separate. We couldn't go on living together,
could we? It would be too uncomfortable. I couldn't trust her."
"When does she go?"
"In a week or two, now," said Cynthia. "She has taken a little house
on the north side of the park. Of course, for my father's sake"--thus
she always spoke of Mr. Daventry--"I am looking after her;" and she
suddenly struck her hands together. "Oh, but it's all rather sordid,
isn't it?"
"Yes," said Mr. Benoliel. He was troubled and perplexed. "And what are
you going to do?" he asked.
Cynthia shrugged her shoulders.
"I must engage a companion."
"That doesn't sound very satisfactory."
"What else can I do?"
"Marry!" said Mr. Benoliel.
Cynthia rose petulantly to her feet.
"No," she cried. "That I won't do." She turned away and looked out
into the street, a storm of rebellion at her heart. Why should every
one want to marry her off? Even her friend, her adviser, who should
have stood by her, had turned, it seemed, against her. She came back
to Mr. Benoliel, but he stood with so distressful a countenance that
her indignation died away, and with a pretty compunction she made her
apology:
"I know that you are thinking of me. I am sorry if I seemed to forget
it. Forgive me! But you can't really want me to marry just so that I
may not be alone."
"My dear," said Mr. Benoliel gently, "It's a very good reason."
Cynthia shook her head.
"For a girl?--I am little more. No. I may come to that belief in the
end when I am older. But not yet. I must have a better reason now.
There are too many years ahead of me."
Mr. Benoliel smiled, with a little wistfulness in the smile.
"Dreams, Cynthia, dreams," he said.
"I am losing them," she returned, and with a smile too, the smile of
humor, not of amusement. "I am making haste to lose them against my
will. But this one I'll keep for still a little while. I'll still
dream that while I am young I must have a better reason for marriage
than the fear of being alone."
"Very well, Cynthia," said Mr. Benoliel disconsolately. "I'll hope you
are right."
He left the house and Cynthia sat down for a long time in her room.
She had run to the extreme of melancholy with the determination of
youth to make the very worst or best of life's daily provision. She
had never felt so keenly the vanity of her illusions. She had seldom
felt so lonely, she was sure. Even Harry Rames nowadays left her
severely to herself. Why didn't he come to see her? She asked the
question with indignation. She had never seen him since the
supper-party at his hotel in Ludsey on the night before the poll. She
had never heard his voice since he had spoken to her over the
telephone just after his election. Very likely he had grown tired of
her appeals to him to be different from what he was. No doubt she was
a bore. Sadly Cynthia admitted it. Yes, she was a bore, and Diana
Royle was treacherous, and Harry Rames never came to see her, and,
take it all in all, it was a gray and dismal world.