My dear,” said the elder man, “as I’ve told you a thousand times,
what you need is a love-affair with a red-haired woman.”
“Bother women,” said the younger man, “and hang love-affairs.
Women are a pack of samenesses, and love-affairs are damnable
iterations.”
They were seated at a round table, gay with glass and silver, fruit
and wine, in a pretty, rather high-ceiled little grey-and-gold
breakfast-room. The French window stood wide open to the soft June day.
From the window you could step out upon a small balcony; the balcony
overhung a terrace; and a broad flight of steps from the terrace led
down into a garden. You could not perceive the boundaries of the garden;
in all directions it offered an indefinite perspective, a landscape of
green lawns and shadowy alleys, bright parterres of flowers, fountains,
and tall bending trees.
I have spoken of the elder man and the younger, though really there
could have been but a trifling disparity in their ages: the elder
was perhaps thirty, the younger seven- or eight-and-twenty. In other
respects, however, they were as unlike as unlike may be. Thirty was
plump and rosy and full-blown, with a laughing good-humoured face, and
merry big blue eyes; eight-and-twenty, thin, tall, and listless-looking,
his face pale and aquiline, his eyes dark, morose. They had finished
their coffee, and now the plump man was nibbling sweetmeats, which
he selected with much careful discrimination from an assortment in a
porcelain dish. The thin man was drinking something green, possibly
chartreuse.
“Women are a pack of samenesses,” he grumbled, “and love-affairs
are damnable iterations.”
“Oh,” cried out his comrade, in a tone of plaintive protest, “I
said red-haired. You can’t pretend that red-haired women are the
same.”
“The same, with the addition of a little henna,” the pale young man
argued wearily.
“It may surprise you to learn that I was thinking of red-haired women
who are born red-haired,” his friend remarked, from an altitude.
“In that case,” said he, “I admit there is a difference—they
have white eyelashes.” And he emptied his glass of green stuff. “Is
all this apropos of boots?” he questioned.
The other regarded him solemnly. “It’s apropos of your immortal
soul,” he answered, nodding his head. “It’s medicine for a mind
diseased. The only thing that will wake you up, and put a little life
and human nature in you, is a love-affair with a red-haired woman. Red
in the hair means fire in the heart. It means all sorts of things. If
you really wish to please me, Uncle, you’ll go and fall in love with a
red-haired woman.”
The younger man, whom the elder addressed as Uncle, shrugged his
shoulders, and gave a little sniff. Then he lighted a cigarette.
The elder man left the table, and went to the open window. “Heavens,
what weather!” he exclaimed fervently. “The day is made of perfumed
velvet. The air is a love-philtre. The whole world sings romance. And
yet you—insensible monster!—you can sit there torpidly—-” But
abruptly he fell silent.
His attention had been caught by something below, in the garden. He
watched it for an instant from his place by the window; then he stepped
forth upon the balcony, still watching. Suddenly, facing halfway round,
“By my bauble, Nunky,” he called to his companion, and his voice was
tense with surprised exultancy, “she’s got red hair!”
The younger man looked up with vague eyes. “Who? What?” he asked
languidly.
“Come here, come here,” his friend urged, beckoning him.
“There,” he indicated, when the pale man had joined him, “below
there—to the right—picking roses. She’s got red hair. She’s sent
by Providence.”
A woman in a white frock was picking roses, in one of the alleys of the
garden; rather a tall woman. Her back was turned towards her observers;
but she wore only a light scarf of lace over her head, and her
hair—dim gold in its shadows—where the sun touched it, showed a soul
of red.
The younger man frowned, and asked sharply, “Who the devil is she?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure,” replied the other. “One of the
Queen’s women, probably. But whoever she is, she’s got red hair.”
The younger man frowned more fiercely still. “What is she doing in the
King’s private garden? This is a pretty state of things.” He stamped
his foot angrily. “Go down and turn her out. And I wish measures to be
taken, that such trespassing may not occur again.”
But the elder man laughed. “Hoity-toity! Calm yourself, Uncle. What
would you have? The King is at a safe distance, hiding in one of his
northern hunting-boxes, sulking, and nursing his spleen, as is his wont.
When the King’s away, the palace mice will play—at lèse majesté,
the thrilling game. If you wish to stop them, persuade the King to come
home and show his face. Otherwise, we’ll gather our rosebuds while we
may; and I’m not the man to cross a red-haired woman.”
“You’re the Constable of Bellefontaine,” retorted his friend,
“and it’s your business to see that the King’s orders are
respected.”
“The King’s orders are so seldom respectable; and then, I’ve a
grand talent for neglecting my business. I’m trying to elevate
the Constableship of Bellefontaine into a sinecure,” the plump man
explained genially. “But I’m pained to see that your sense of humour
is not escaping the general decay of your faculties. What you need is a
love-affair with a red-haired woman; and yonder’s a red-haired woman,
dropped from the skies for your salvation. Go—engage her in talk—and
fall in love with her. There’s a dear,” he pleaded.
“Dropped from the skies,” the pale man repeated, with mild scorn.
“As if I didn’t know my Hilary! Of course, you’ve had her up your
sleeve the whole time.”
“Upon my soul and honour, you are utterly mistaken. Upon my soul
and honour, I’ve never set eyes on her before,” Hilary asseverated
warmly.
“Ah, well, if that’s the case,” suggested the pale man, turning
back into the room, “let us make an earnest endeavour to talk of
something else.” II
The next afternoon they were walking in the park, at some distance from
the palace, when they came to a bridge over a bit of artificial water;
and there was the woman of yesterday, leaning on the parapet, throwing
bread-crumbs to the carp. She looked up as they passed, and bowed, with
a little smile, in acknowledgment of their raised hats.
When they were out of earshot, “H’m,” muttered Hilary, “viewed
at close quarters, she’s a trifle disenchanting.”
“Oh?” questioned his friend. “I thought her very good-looking.”
“She has too short a nose,” Hilary complained.
“What’s the good of criticising particular features? The general
effect of her face was highly pleasing. She looked intelligent,
interesting; she looked as if she would have something to say,” the
younger man insisted.
“It’s very possible she has a tongue in her head,” admitted
Hilary; “but we were judging her by the rules of beauty. For my fancy,
she’s too tall.”
“She’s tall, but she’s well-proportioned. Indeed, her figure
struck me as exceptionally fine. There was something sumptuous and noble
about it,” declared the other.
“There are scores of women with fine figures in this world,” said
Hilary. “But I’m sorely disappointed in her hair. Her hair is
nothing like so red as I’d imagined.”
“You’re daft on the subject of red hair. Her hair’s not
carrot-colour, if you come to that. But there’s plenty of red in it,
burning through it. The red is managed with discretion—suggestively.
And did you notice her eyes? She has remarkably nice eyes—eyes with
an expression. I thought her eyes and mouth were charming when she
smiled,” the pale man affirmed.
“When she smiled? I didn’t see her smile,” reflected Hilary.
“Of course she smiled—when we bowed,” his friend reminded him.
“Oh, Ferdinand Augustus,” Hilary remonstrated, “will you never
learn to treat words with some consideration? You call that smiling!
Two men take off their hats, and a woman gives them just a look of bare
acknowledgment; and Ferdinand Augustus calls it smiling!”
“Would you have wished for a broad grin?” asked Ferdinand Augustus.
“Her face lighted up most graciously. I thought her eyes were
charming. Oh, she’s certainly a good-looking woman, a distinctly
handsome woman.”
“Handsome is that handsome does,” said Hilary.
“I miss the relevancy of that,” said Ferdinand Augustus.
“She’s a trespasser.’.was you yourself flew in a passion about it
yesterday. Yesterday she was plucking the King’s roses; to-day she’s
feeding the King’s carp.”
“‘When the King’s away, the palace mice will play.’ I venture to
recall your own words to you,” Ferdinand remarked.
“That’s all very well. Besides, I spoke in jest. But there are
limits. And it’s I who am responsible. I’m the Constable of
Bellefontaine. Her trespassing appears to be habitual, We’ve caught
her at it ourselves, two days in succession. I shall give instructions
to the keepers to warn her not to touch a flower, nor feed a bird,
beast, or fish, in the whole of this demesne. Really, I admire the cool
way in which she went on tossing bread-crumbs to the King’s carp under
my very beard!” exclaimed Hilary, working himself into a fine state of
indignation.
“Very likely she didn’t know who you were,” his friend reasoned.
“And anyhow, your zeal is mighty sudden. You appear to have been
letting things go at loose ends for I don’t know how long; and all at
once you take fire like tinder because a poor woman amuses herself by
throwing bread to the carp. It’s simply spite: you’re disappointed
in the colour of her hair. I shall esteem it a favour if you’ll leave
the keeper’s instructions as they are. She’s a damned good-looking
woman; and I’ll beg you not to interfere with her diversions.”
“I can deny you nothing, Uncle,” said Hilary, by this time restored
to his accustomed easy temper; “and therefore she may make hay of
the whole blessed establishment, if she pleases. But as for her good
looks—that, you’ll admit, is entirely a question of taste.”
“Ah, well, then the conclusion is that your taste needs
cultivation,” laughed Ferdinand. “By-the-bye, I shall be glad if you
will find out who she is.”
“Thank you very much,” cried Hilary. “I have a reputation to
safeguard. Do you think I’m going to compromise myself, and set all
my underlings a-sniggling, by making inquiries about the identity of a
woman?”
“But,” persisted Ferdinand, “if I ask you to do so, as
your———-”
“What?” was Hilary’s brusque interruption.
“As your guest,” said Ferdinand.
“Mille regrets, impossible, as the French have it,” Hilary returned.
“But as your host, I give you carte-blanche to make your own inquiries
for yourself—if you think she’s worth the trouble. Being a stranger
here, you have, as it were, no character to lose.”
“After all, it doesn’t matter,” said Ferdinand Augustus, with
resignation. III
But the next afternoon, at about the same hour, Ferdinand Augustus found
himself alone, strolling in the direction of the little stone bridge
over the artificial lakelet; and there again was the woman, leaning
upon the parapet, dropping bread-crumbs to the carp. Ferdinand Augustus
raised his hat; the woman bowed and smiled.
“It’s a fine day,” said Ferdinand Augustus.
“It’s a fine day—but a weary one,” the woman responded, with an
odd little movement of the head.
Ferdinand Augustus was perhaps too shy to pursue the conversation;
perhaps he wanted but little here below, nor wanted that little long. At
any rate, he passed on. There could be no question about her smile this
time, he reflected; it had been bright, spontaneous, friendly. But what
did she mean, he wondered, by adding to his general panegyric of the
day as fine, that special qualification of it as a weary one? It was
astonishing that any man should dispute her claim to beauty. She had
really a splendid figure; and her face was more than pretty, it was
distinguished. Her eyes and her mouth, her clear-grey sparkling
eyes, her softly curved red mouth, suggested many agreeable
possibilities—possibilities of wit, and of something else. It was not
till four hours later that he noticed the sound of her voice. At dinner,
in the midst of a discussion with Hilary about a subject in no obvious
way connected with her (about the Orient Express, indeed—its safety,
speed, and comfort), it suddenly came back to him, and he checked a
remark upon the advantages of the corridor carriage, to exclaim in
his soul, “She’s got a delicious voice. If she sang, it would be a
mezzo.”
The consequence was that the following day he again bent his footsteps
in the direction of the bridge.
“It’s a lovely afternoon,” he said, lifting his hat.
“But a weary one,” said she, smiling, with a little pensive movement
of the head.
“Not a weary one for the carp,” he hinted, glancing down at the
water, which boiled and bubbled with a greedy multitude.
“Oh, they have no human feelings,” said she.
“Don’t you call hunger a human feeling?” he inquired.
“They have no human feelings; but I never said we hadn’t plenty of
carp feelings,” she answered him.
He laughed. “At all events, I’m pleased to find that we’re of the
same way of thinking.”
“Are we?” asked she, raising surprised eyebrows.
“You take a healthy pessimistic view of things,” he submitted.
“I? Oh, dear, no. I have never taken a pessimistic view of anything in
my life.”
“Except of this poor summer’s afternoon, which has the fatal gift of
beauty. You said it was a weary one.”
“People have sympathies,” she explained; “and besides, that is a
watchword.” And she scattered a handful of crumbs, thereby exciting a
new commotion among the carp.
Her explanation no doubt struck Ferdinand Augustus as obscure; but,
perhaps he felt that he scarcely knew her well enough to press for
enlightment. “Let us hope that the fine weather will last,” he said,
with a polite salutation, and resumed his walk.
But, on the morrow, “You make a daily practice of casting your bread
upon the waters,” was his greeting to her. “Do you expect to find it
at the season’s end?”
“I find it at once,” was her response, “in entertainment.”
“It entertains you to see those shameless little gluttons making an
exhibition of themselves!” he cried out.
“You must not speak disrespectfully of them,” she reproved him.
“Some of them are very old. Carp often live to be two hundred, and
they grow grey, for all the world like men.”
“They’re like men in twenty particulars,” asserted he, “though
you, yesterday, denied it. See how the big ones elbow the little ones
aside; see how fierce they all are in the scramble for your bounty. You
wake their most evil passions. But the spectacle is instructive. It’s
a miniature presentment of civilisation. Oh, carp are simply brimfull of
human nature. You mentioned yesterday that they have no human feelings.
You put your finger on the chief point of resemblance. It’s the
absence of human feeling that makes them so hideously human.”
She looked at him with eyes that were interested, amused, yet not
altogether without a shade of raillery in their depths. “That is what
you call a healthy pessimistic view of things?” she questioned.
“It is an inevitable view if one honestly uses one’s sight, or reads
one’s newspaper.”
“Oh, then I would rather not honestly use my sight,” said she;
“and as for the newspaper, I only read the fashions. Your healthy
pessimistic view of things can hardly add much to the joy of life.”
“The joy of life!”. he expostulated. “There’s no joy in life.
Life is one fabric of hardship, peril, and insipidity.”
“Oh, how can you say that,” cried she, “in the face of such beauty
as we have about us here? With the pure sky and the sunshine, and the
wonderful peace of the day; and then these lawns and glades and the
great green trees; and the sweet air, and the singing birds! No joy in
life!”
“This isn’t life,” he answered. “People who shut themselves up
in an artificial park are fugitives from life. Life begins at the park
gates, with the natural countryside, and the squalid peasantry, and the
sordid farmers, and the Jew money-lenders, and the uncertain crops.”
“Oh, it’s all life,” insisted she, “the park and the
countryside, and the virgin forest and the deep sea, with all things
in them. It’s all life. I’m alive, and I daresay you are. You
would exclude from life all that is nice in life, and then say of the
remainder, that only is life. You’re not logical.”
“Heaven forbid,” he murmured devoutly. “I’m sure you’re not,
either. Only stupid people are logical.” She laughed lightly. “My
poor carp little dream to what far paradoxes they have led,” she
mused, looking into the water, which was now quite tranquil. “They
have sailed away to their mysterious affairs among the lily-roots. I
should like to be a carp for a few minutes, to see what it is like in
those cool, dark places under the water. I am sure there are all
sorts of strange things and treasures. Do you believe there are really
water-maidens, like Undine?”
“Not nowadays,” he informed her, with the confident fluency of one
who knew. “There used to be; but, like so many other charming things,
they disappeared with the invention of printing, the discovery
of America, and the rise of the Lutheran heresy. Their prophetic
souls——”
“Oh, but they had no souls, you remember,” she corrected him.
“I beg your pardon; that was the belief that prevailed among their
mortal contemporaries, but it has since been ascertained that they had
souls, and very good ones. Their prophetic souls warned them what a
dreary, dried-up planet the earth was destined to become, with the
steam-engine, the electric telegraph, compulsory education (falsely so
called), constitutional government, and the supremacy of commerce. So
the elder ones died, dissolved in tears; and the younger ones migrated
by evaporation to Neptune.”
“Dear me, dear me,” she marvelled. “How extraordinary that we
should just have happened to light upon a topic about which you appear
to have such a quantity of special knowledge! And now,” she added,
bending her head by way of valediction, “I must be returning to my
duties.”