THE ANGLES
"You're very quiet, Val," remarked Daphne, as they flew along in the
motor on their way to call on the Prebendary's wife at The Angles.
Both sisters wore little cottage bonnets, blue motor-veils, and large
loose white coats with high collars.
"How can I talk when we're exceeding the speed limit?" said Valentia.
"You usually do. Is anything the matter?"
"No, nothing at all.... Harry's been horrid lately."
"I suppose he _is_ occasionally."
"No, he's not. He's got the artistic temperament, and of course he can't
always be the same, poor dear."
"What a pity one can't be an artist without having the artistic
temperament! It always seems to mean being late for meals, and losing
your temper, or being amusing when every one wants to go to bed."
"As a matter of fact," said Valentia, "I never knew any one with less of
it than Harry. There isn't a more hard-headed business man in the world
in his way, though he _has_ read poetry and plays the piano sometimes,
and paints. He is an artist too ... but--well, not in any of the
recognised arts.... I hear Miss Luscombe and Rathbone--I mean Mr. and
Mrs. Rathbone--have gone to Oberammergau for their honeymoon."
"Oh! Is that the latest thing to do?"
"Of course not, Daphne, but she thinks it is. Miss Luscombe has spent
her life in trying to catch the last omnibus and always just missing it,
and she's not going to leave off now just because she happens to be
married. Here we are!"
The Prebendary's wife received them very graciously. Her waist looked
longer than ever, and her skirt seemed more than usually abnormal in
width. She did all that she could to entertain them. She showed them her
son Garstin's map of Buckinghamshire, and then said--
"I'll send for Mr. Stoendyck. He's upstairs inventing. You can't _think_
how clever he is and how hard he works. It's really wonderful! We often
leave him alone for hours to think things out, and sometimes he plays
sonatas; he says it refreshes him. He really is an extraordinary man."
Mr. Stoendyck came in, looking very martial and scientific and pleased
with himself, as though he had just invented gunpowder. Mrs. Campbell
began as usual to talk baby language, and play a kind of Dumb Crambo at
him. He never seemed able to guess the word.
"I hope we haven't interrupted you in your studies," said Val politely.
"She say she ope she not interrupt. Work, you know. Oeuvre--Arbeit."
"I was just amusing myself with the very witty paper from Germany,
_Kladderadatsch_. It is very funny," he said.
"It sounds funny," said Val sympathetically.
"What I find in England is that you're all wonderfully serious,
wonderfully courteous, wonderfully kind"--he bowed to his hostess; "but,
you'll excuse my saying so, I don't find enough wit or lightness for my
temperament. For humour I have to go to Belgium or Germany."
He spoke with intense solemnity.
Mrs. Campbell now began to translate him even to himself.
"You say you like fun, wit--just fun to make laugh?" She made strange
signs with her fingers.
He did not appear to understand the code. He stared at her with a frown,
and rasped on seriously--
"I find a few comical jokes occasionally a great relief after my heavy
work. It is very deep work."
"I suppose it would be indiscreet to ask what the invention is?" said
Valentia, smiling.
"Not at all. There is nothing indiscreet whatever in your curiosity,
Mrs. Wyburn."
He took a scone covered with butter and swallowed it in an
extraordinarily short time, and in an ingenious manner.
"No, there's no indiscretion in the matter at all. Do not trouble
yourself on that score. It is merely the natural interest that a
cultivated and intellectual English lady would naturally take when she
hears of an extraordinary invention from another country." He bowed, and
having thus explained her to herself, he then ate another scone.
"She say she want to know, you know," nodded Mrs. Campbell, putting up a
playful and threatening finger with dignified coquetry and a stony
smile. (She was subject to fits of this kind of marble archness
unexpectedly.)
"Yes. So I understood."
The Belgian was looking at Daphne with distinct admiration. Of course
Miss Campbell came and sat down beside him. Women always follow their
instinct to come and sit on the other side of any man whom they regard
as their property. They seem to think that merely by sitting on the
other side they protect him from freebooters. As a matter of fact, it
would be more sensible, if to distract his attention were the object, to
sit opposite with some one else.
Mr. Stoendyck turned his back on her completely, and said to Daphne--
"Very charming, those motor-veils, and the whole costume. At the same
time, while being thoroughly practical and sensible, it is, if I may say
so, extremely becoming."
He bowed with a condescending air, and went on--
"The English young girl--at least, such specimens as I have seen in the
neighbourhood, especially in the country--seems to me a wonderfully
beautiful object. In Belgium we are getting on, but we have not reached,
as yet, the point of freedom combined with modesty that you constantly
see over here. Particularly, as I say, in rural districts."
He then made what can only be described, vulgarly, as a distinct 'eye.'
Both the Campbells looked uneasy.
"The Prebendary will be in soon," said Mrs. Campbell. "He promised
faithfully to come back to tea to-day. He also is a very busy man. He
come in soon," she spoke reassuringly.
Daphne was suddenly taken with a _fou rire_ and began to laugh
helplessly. Val, seeing her condition, and knowing that when she once
started there was no hope but in immediate flight, took leave.
They were cordially asked to come again by Mrs. Campbell. But Mr.
Stoendyck invited them to lunch, and wanted to fix a day and hour. Mrs.
Campbell, however, declined his invitation for them. Mrs. Wyburn, she
said, must have a great many engagements.
They left Stoendyck standing in the hall, looking sentimental.
"All foreigners not of the Latin race go on like that," said Val, as
they drove back. "They may be scientific, or soldiers, philosophers, or
musicians, but if they're Germans or Belgians or Austrians, or anything
of that sort, they always get bowled over by a young girl, a blue
ribbon, plumpness, or fair hair."
"But I'm very thin and dark," said Daphne angrily.
"I don't care if you are. You're a pretty girl, you're unmarried, you've
got blue chiffon round your head--and there it is.... I don't mean
Prussian officers, of course."
"_They_ would appreciate _you_, I suppose you mean!"
"One can't say. They'd probably take on anything."
Valentia took out the little looking-glass from her motor-bag, looked at
it, put it back, and added--
"Anything possible, I mean."
"Go on, Val."
"Go on how?"
"Telling me things. You're so interesting, you know such a lot. Now,
about the Latin races--wouldn't they like--er--me?"
"Of course they would. But they'd like you better if you were married to
Cyril or any one. Frenchmen and Italians always want their love-making
or flirtations to have something in it of the nature of a _score_. They
love scoring off a third person, whoever it may be,--whether it's their
friend's wife, or their wife's friend, or anything."
"They're not sincere, then?"
"Don't be silly. If they weren't sincere, why are there nothing but
unwritten-law crimes all over France and Italy? And why do Parisians
think and talk of ... nothing else! They're _sincere_ all right: it's
their hobby. Italians, of course, are more jealous and faithful, and
Parisians are frightfully vain--there's a good deal of a sort of
snobbism about it. They love to show off. That's why they're so keen on
dress."
"Do you think," said Daphne, with sudden anxiety, "that if you don't
dress to perfection you can't keep a man's love? I _do_ hope not! I mean
because when I'm married to Cyril I shan't be able to afford to wear
anything at all, except a clean blouse which I shall have to iron out
myself, like in _Hearth and Home_."
Valentia shook her head.
"Dressing to perfection doesn't make men love you, silly. It only makes
women hate you. And I never have yet seen the advantage of that."
"Oh, then, do Parisians want other women to hate you?" asked Daphne. Her
sister hesitated.
"Sometimes. Very often they don't. They want you to be admired by other
people, whoever they are, men or women. But in Paris dress counts in a
different sort of way--it means more--it stands for more. Oh, don't
bother!"
"Well, give me a straightforward Englishman!" exclaimed Daphne.
"Yes, indeed!" replied Val. "That Belgian Herr, anyhow, doesn't count. I
can't think why Mrs. Preb. and Miss Campbell are so much in love with
him."
"Isn't it funny? Why do you think it is, Val?"
"Perhaps it's because he's a man. You see, they're accustomed to
curates."