MISS WALMER
"And so you see, don't you, Lady Walmer, that I really simply couldn't
do it--I mean I must do it. They're expecting me there for the whole
summer. How could I throw them over at the last minute?"
Harry spoke in his most convincing voice. He was calling on Lady Walmer,
and they were both sitting in her little yellow boudoir. She had just
come in from a bazaar, and was wearing a rather angry-looking hat, very
much turned up on one side, with enormous purple feathers. She was
looking very far from pleased. Her handsome chin appeared squarer than
usual. There was a look in her eyes that more than one man besides Harry
would have been by no means anxious to meet.
She drew off her gloves, stroked one over the other thoughtfully, and
said--
"Why did you promise to come on the yacht? The whole summer's spoilt for
Alec."
"I hoped I could--I thought I could manage it. Surely you
understand----"
"But it's got to come to that sooner or later, Harry. You can't make an
omelette without breaking eggs. If you want to be a respectable, dull
married man, you'll have to dissolve your romance, you know. I should
have thought you were the last person to be weak about anybody else's
feelings!--No, it's your own, my dear boy."
Harry's colour rose a little.
"My dear Lady Walmer! I'm going to tell--my cousin Valentia--all about
it--I mean about my hopes. I'm certain that she will be charming about
it--only too glad, for my sake."
"Oh! And yet I thought she was human! Or--is there some one else?"
"Certainly there's some one else--there's Romer. She's very devoted to
him."
"Harry, my boy, we should get on so very much better if you wouldn't
tell so many unnecessary fibs," remarked the lady.
She stood up and drew the hatpins out of her hat.
He said, "I'm quite frank with you. I don't think I've been anything
else. And, after all, I only ask to do it in my own way--at my own time.
To choose my moment. Really, one can't behave like an _impossible_
bounder."
"Oh, can't one? Well, perhaps not."
She took the hat off and put it on a table, giving the impression
suddenly, without it, of being smooth, a little bald, and very
good-tempered.
"Then you'll forgive me, Lady Walmer--you'll understand? I should think
that in about three or four weeks I shall be able to join you somewhere.
But, about fixing the date--that's impossible. Can't I see Alec to-day?"
She smiled graciously.
"Certainly you may; I want you to. You must cheer her up and say nice
things to her. Poor child, I wish she weren't so ridiculously pleased
with you. You don't care two straws for her."
"I give you my word of honour that I will make her happy."
"I suppose you'll make her as happy as any one would. It's always
something to get one's wish, even if the wish is a failure."
"Now, why do you say that? It won't be a failure."
"All right. I'll send her to you. Now be a good boy, Harry. I'm
jealous--for Alec--of the Green Gate." She smiled in her attractive way.
"Will there be an absolute rupture between you and your ... cousins, do
you think?"
"Oh, good heavens, Lady Walmer, no!" said Harry rather irritably. "We
shall all be perfect friends, of course ... what impossible things you
expect."
"I expect only what is certain."
She went away.
Vanity was as elemental in Harry as in any other good-looking young man.
With him, though, it was not a mere useless pursuit--an
art-for-art's-sake joy--but invariably calculated and used as a means to
an end.
He looked in the glass earnestly, then started as Alec came in.
He was always surprised and even a little _gêné_ each time he saw her,
by her immense apparent height. It seemed so much greater than it was
because of the somewhat monotonous lines of her figure and her rather
bird-like face.
Harry watched her, listened to her as she chattered away her hurried,
inexpressive unmeaning slang, and looked at him with her bright, small,
beadlike eyes.
He did not appreciate her. He did not know that behind the jerky manner
and inexpressive face there was a Soul.
She had not been trained to talk sentiment, and she could not express
her ideas; so, though she adored Harry, she only said to her mother in
confidence, when in a serious mood, that he was all right; and when in a
more playful frame of mind to her girl-friends, that he was a little
_bit_ of all right.
"Alec," he said, making her sit down in the lowest chair (he could not
bear her towering over him), "isn't it a bore that I can't come on the
yacht?"
"Pretty useless," she answered.
He took her hand.
"You won't forget me while I'm away, will you, Alec?"
"What do _you_ think?" she answered in a trembling voice, and then gave
a loud laugh.
"I don't think--I don't know."
"Oh, shut up!"
"Will you be just as nice when I see you again?" continued Harry, in a
carefully-modulated voice.
"Why do you ask me all this rot?" she said, with another uneasy laugh.
"Of course I shall."
"Good."
Harry couldn't think of anything else to say. Then he remembered....
"When I join you again I'm going to bring you a ring. What's your
favourite stone?"
"Rubies and diamonds," she answered without a moment's hesitation. "I
say, how sporting of you! That'll be ripping!"
He tried to feel touched by her artless joy. He knew he was not an
ideally ardent suitor.
"Well, we'll have a good time later on, eh?" he said in her own tone.
"Don't be a silly ass!" replied the girl, her eyes full of tears and
tenderness, and her heart of the most sincere joy and affection.
Harry laughed.
"Tell me, Alec, is your mother a soothing companion? Is she a nice woman
to live with?"
"Oh! _she's_ all right. A bit off colour sometimes. At least--well, she
_is_ all right, if you understand--and yet she's _not_--if you know what
I mean."
"Ah! that is a dark saying. You are pleased to be
mysterious--sphinx-like."
"You _are_ a rotter, Harry!"
"How subtle you are, Alec. How elusive is the lightning-play of your
wit!"
"_How_ much?"
"The random poppy of paradox grows too often in the golden cornfield of
your conversation," Harry went on, taking her hand.
"Oh, rats!" exclaimed the artless girl. "Can't make out what you're
driving at half the time, when you go on like that. Don't believe you
know yourself."
"Don't I? Really now, you know, we're almost--well--privately engaged.
May I kiss you, Alec?"
She blushed crimson, turned her face away, and said, "Please yourself."
Unable to help laughing, he kissed the top of her head, told her to
write to him, and left the house, feeling like an entirely new and
recently-discovered kind of bounder.
He hated the double game. It didn't amuse him a bit. But now he felt he
was free for a month's holiday, during which he had, however, the
unpleasant holiday task of breaking the news to Valentia.
He was driving home, but changed his mind and called out to the cabman
to drive to Valentia's house.
He found her trying on furs--furs in mid-summer!
She greeted the arrival of his exquisite discrimination and taste with
clapped hands, soft, beaming eyes, and her smile--Valentia's smile. Miss
Walmer couldn't smile at all--she didn't know how. She could only
laugh.