DYNAMITE--SLAVE-DEALING--MASSACRES--ARMENIA!
Phyllis, of course, knew when to go to Ella with the certainty of
finding her at home. At the luncheon hour Mrs. Linton was always visible
to the three friends whom she had within the confines of Mayfair. She
considered herself blessed among women in the numerical strength of her
friendships; and so perhaps she was; she had three.
She was in one of her drawing rooms--the one that was decorated with
water colors set in fluted panels of yellow silk--not the one with the
pink blinds so beloved by those of her visitors who had reached an age
to regard a pink light as a woman’s best friend. She was wearing a new
gown which Phyllis, in spite of her enthusiasm on behalf of a brave man
maligned, found admirable both as regards fabric, fit, and fashion.
Then followed a word or two of commendation of the artists who had been
concerned in its production. They had not been absurd about the sleeves,
and they had not vetoed the sweep of lace--it was about half a yard
wide--which the person who occupied so insignificant a position as is
usually allocated to the mere wearer of the gown had suggested for
the bodice. The gown was an unequivocal success, and had Ella seen the
disgraceful article which had appeared in the _Spiritual Aneroid_ on the
subject of Mr. Courtland’s explorations?
Ella smiled a slow smile, as the question joined the congratulation
without the lapse of a breath.
“The _Spiritual Aneroid_? Who is the _Spiritual Aneroid_? What is
the _Spiritual Aneroid_?” she asked. “Oh, a newspaper. What could a
newspaper with such a funny name have to say about Mr. Courtland?”
“I have brought it with me,” said Phyllis. “It is quite disgraceful. I’m
sure you’ll agree with me.”
“I’m certain of it.”
Ella accepted the proffered paper and glanced down the article pointed
out to her by Phyllis. Phyllis’ eyes were gleaming as she placed her
finger on the words, “Dynamite _versus_ Evangelization,” but Ella’s eyes
did not gleam while she was reading all the words printed beneath the
heading. She folded the paper and glanced carelessly at the name at the
top of the outside page and said, “Well?”
“Was there ever anything so disgraceful?” cried the girl. “Was there
every anything so false?”
“Is it false?” asked Ella.
“How can you doubt it? Do you fancy that Mr. Courtland would be a
slave-dealer?”
“I wonder how he’d look in the broad flat hat which appears in all the
pictures of the slave-dealers? Rather well, I fancy,” said Mrs. Linton.
“Oh, how can you talk of his looking well or ill when you read such an
attack upon him?” said Phyllis, jumping up with a charmingly rosy face.
“Surely it is something to you when so distinguished a man--your friend
as well--is attacked!”
“If we were traveling with him across the desert in a caravan, should we
mind much if the whole caravan were attacked by Bedouins or missionaries
or people of that stamp, my dear? Of course we shouldn’t. We should
feel that he would be equal to the defense of all of us, and himself as
well.”
“Oh, of course; but this is quite another thing, isn’t it?”
“Where is the difference? If anybody minds the nonsense printed in that
thing, Herbert Courtland will certainly be able to defend himself when
called on to do so.”
Phyllis seated herself once again.
“But a question is to be asked in Parliament about him?” she suggested.
“And can you, the daughter of a member of that Parliament, honestly
tell me that you fancy that any human being minds how many questions are
asked about him in the Questionable House?”
“But the least breath of
suspicion--dynamite--slave-dealing--massacres--Armenia. Oh, the article
is certain to be copied into dozens of other papers--the public do so
like to get hold of some scandal against a man who has done something
great.”
“They do indeed. Would you suggest organizing a committee of ladies for
the protection of Mr. Courtland?”
“Don’t talk nonsense, Ella. I though that you were his friend, and that
you would be as indignant as I was at that disgraceful attack upon his
reputation.”
“I don’t think that it will place his reputation in jeopardy, unless
with the readers of that paper, and they are not worth taking into
account, are they?”
“Papa says the thing has a large circulation among a certain class. I
want him to ridicule the question which is threatened in that article;
he knows how to do that kind of thing very well.”
“Is it come to that, my Phyllis? Were you really so greatly interested
in the one conversation you had with him as to constitute yourself his
champion?”
Above all things Phyllis was truthful. She had never had an experience
of love--that passion which can change the most truthful of womankind
into the least scrupulous. There was no pause between Ella’s question
and Phyllis’ answer.
“Certainly the one conversation that I had with him interested me--I
told you so returning in the carriage. Has he never succeeded in
interesting you, Ella? He told me that you were his friend--I believe he
said his dearest friend.”
“And I believe that he told you the truth,” said Ella. “But, being
his best friend and a woman, I refrain from constituting myself his
champion. You see we live in Philistia, my Phyllis, and the champions
that Philistia sends forth usually come to grief; there was the case of
one Goliath of Gath, for example. I have no desire to have stones slung
at me by the chosen people.”
“I’m not quite sure that I understand you,” said Phyllis, with a very
pretty pucker on her forehead. “You don’t mean to say that a woman
should not do her best for a man whom she knows to be maligned? You
don’t suggest that she should stand silently to one side while people
are saying what’s false about him?”
“I say that it’s unwise in Philistia; though I admit that it is of the
greatest advantage to the man, for people at once cease maligning him
and take to maligning her.”
“If she is any sort of a woman she will not mind that, however unjust
it may be. In this case, however, I don’t think there is much risk: even
the most unscrupulous person could hardly say that--that----”
“That we were becoming Herbert Courtland’s champions, because we were in
love with him?”
“Well, I don’t know. Wasn’t that what you meant to suggest people would
say of a woman who became a man’s champion?”
“Something in that way. How straightforwardly you speak out what’s on
your mind!”
“Oh, I’m a girl of to-day. I have got over all those absurd affectations
of childishness which used to be thought feminine long ago. The gambols
of the kitten were once thought the most attractive thing on earth, and
they are very interesting: but for the full-grown cat to pretend that it
is perfectly happy with a ball of worsted, when all the time it has its
heart set on a real mouse, is nonsense.”
“That is an allegory, a subtle parable, Phyllis. But I fancy I can
interpret it. You are quite right. Men know that we, the full-grown
cats, take no interest in the ravelings of wool as mediums of
diversion--that we have our hearts set on mice. Oh, yes! it is much
better to be straightforward in our speech--it is even sometimes
better to be quite straight in our ways as well. It usually prevents
misunderstanding. There is scarcely a subject that women may not talk
about to men in the most direct way, nowadays. But about the question of
championship----”
Here the door of the room was thrown open and Mr. Herbert Courtland was
announced.
“I quite forgot to mention that Mr. Courtland was lunching with us
to-day, Phyllis,” said Ella, while shaking hands with her visitor. “Now
you will have a chance of getting the slave-dealer’s account of the
whole business. Are you a slave-dealer, Bertie? If so, why don’t you
wear the usual broad-leaved hat of your order?”
“It is I who am the enslaved one,” said Mr. Courtland, laying his hand
to the left of the buttons of his white waistcoat and bowing the bow of
the early years of the century, with a glance at each lady.
“What a pretty reminiscence of the age of artificiality!” said Ella;
“and what an apt commentary upon the subject we were talking about,
Phyllis! We were discussing the merits of directness in speech and
straightness in every way. We were ridiculing the timid maid--all
sandals and simper--of forty years ago. Why should men and women have
ever taken the trouble to be affected? Let us go in to lunch and eat
with the appetites of men and women of the nineties, not with the
nibblings of society of the fifties. Come along, Phyllis. Mr. Courtland
will tell us all about his dreadful goings on, his slave-dealings, his
dynamitings. Have you seen that article in the--what’s the name of the
paper, Phyllis?”
“The _Spiritual Aneroid_,” said Phyllis.
“I haven’t been so fortunate,” said he.
“Then we shall take the paper into the dining room with us, and place it
before you. If you were guilty of the doings that the article details,
you would do well to--to--well, to adopt the picturesque costume
incidental to ruffianism--the linen jacket of the slave-trader, the
mangy fur collar of the dynamity man of war. Have you ever trafficked in
human beings, Mr. Courtland?”
“Well, yes,” said he. “I have done a little in that way, I admit.”
“And dynamite--have you ever massacred people with dynamite?” Ella
continued.
“Well, when my dynamite exploded, the people who were in the immediate
neighborhood were never just the same afterward,” said he.
“Finally, did you allow yourself to be worshiped as God?” she asked.
“Yes, I got them to do that,” he replied. “I have experienced all human
sensations, including those of a god in working order.”
“Then I hope you will make a good lunch. We begin with white-bait.”
“I am quite satisfied to begin with white-bait,” said he.