FOOL'S CAP
Osborn visited a smart flower shop when he went out to lunch and
ordered carnations, a generous sheaf of them, to be sent to Miss
Roselle Dates at the Piccadilly Theatre at half-past seven. He rang up
and booked a stall for himself and, later, sent the wire to his wife.
"She's cut me loose," he said to himself, "and that's that."
He lunched as he liked now, with a memory that could afford to be
humorous of the five-shilling weekly limit to which he had cut himself
down in the bad old days only just over a year ago. But they were dear
old days, too, when this extraordinary complication between his wife
and him wasn't even thought of....
His luck was wonderful. He sold another car that afternoon. Two
three-hundred-pound cars in two days, meaning forty pounds in his
pocket! People liked him; he was big, good-looking and plausible, and
he had a way with him which absolutely prevented any possible
purchaser from ever giving another thought to any two-seater but the
Runaway. When he turned out of the establishment that winter
afternoon, on his way to an hotel to dress for his early and lonely
dinner somewhere or other, he was pleased. Brisk business did a little
towards lightening his trouble, just as less innocuous excitements
might do.
"Stick to business and stick to fun," he told himself grimly, as he
strode along, "and you'll worry through."
He thought of his children more than of anyone else throughout the
courses of his dinner in a light, bright, well-served restaurant.
George was a fine little boy, and should be done well, thoroughly
well, with no expense spared; he must get to know the little chap,
take him about a bit and make him interested in things worth knowing.
Minna was going to be pretty, a facsimile of her mother; and the baby
was a splendid little female animal. There was no doubt that he
possessed three beautiful kids of whom any man might be proud.
Surely, if only for their sakes, some day she'd soften and return to
him? Some evening he'd come home and find her as she used to be during
the first year, sweet and eager, and shining; loving and
passionate....
Osborn smoked several cigarettes over his coffee thinking of these
things; he was in no hurry to see the show at the Piccadilly, and
there would be plenty of time for Roselle afterwards. But he was
rather lonely here by himself, and looked around somewhat wistfully at
gay couples, laughing parties, all about him. There was not a woman
there who could equal Marie, he said to himself; if she were only here
with him, with her fresh, soft face, and her springing hair, and her
round and slender figure, she'd put all this paint and powder right
out of court.
But she was sitting afar off in a quiet flat, softly lighted,
ineffably cosy, in the place called home, where husbands were not
wanted.
He confessed to himself: "It used to be pretty beastly for her; a
little delicate thing--three babies and no nurse; no help with
anything. I suppose I could have done a lot, but how's one to think of
these things? I suppose I've failed as a husband, but what am I to do
about it now? It's all over and can't be helped."
He went to his stall at the Piccadilly, and, looking about him at
other men's clothes, decided that he must have new ones. The price of
an evening suit need not trouble him now. He settled down and began to
enjoy the play.
Roselle was on the stage, in the beauty chorus, looking magnificent,
and her eyes were sweeping the stalls. They paused here and there in
their saucy habit, lingering upon more than one man with one of her
tiny inscrutable smiles winging a message, but their search continued
until at last she had found Osborn Kerr sitting on the lefthand side
in the third row. He had scribbled on the card which accompanied his
flowers, "Look for me to-night," and when her look met his, he had a
sudden thrill of pleasure. Watching her eyes sweeping here and there,
it had been exciting to wait for the moment when they should fall on
him. After he had signalled back a discreet smile in answer, he put up
his glasses and looked at her eagerly.
Her beauty returned to his senses like a familiar thing; he had
admired the way her hair grew from her temples, and to-night it was
dressed to show the unusual charm; her ankles had always been
wonderfully slim, and to-night they looked finer than ever atop of
twinkly little Court shoes in a vivid green hue; her eyes had that
deep, still look which expressed her inanity, while having the result
of concealing it.
During the first interval he scribbled a note to her, and sent it
round with an imperative request for an answer. The note asked:
"My dear Roselle, come out to supper? And shall I wait for you at the
stage door?--O.K."
And her reply, in her big, silly back-hand writing, said laconically:
"Right. I'll be out at eleven.--R.D."
Eleven found him waiting by the stage-door entrance, and she did not
keep him long. Soon she came, big and brilliant, out from the gloomy
gully, in the inevitable fur-coat which he remembered so well, but
which had begun now to look battered, and the velvet hat shoved on
cheekily, like a man's wideawake. Her eyes and her teeth acclaimed him
in a kindred smile, for which he felt the warmer.
"Hallo, dear old thing!" she greeted him. "I thought you were lost."
He held her hand, smiling. "This is fine!" he said. "Where shall we
go?"
"Romano's."
"Romano's let it be. I've a cab here, waiting." He handed her in,
jumped in after her, and slammed the door, with a feeling that for an
hour at least he had left his troubles outside.
"How are you?" he asked. "What have you been doing since I saw you
last? And didn't you ever expect to see me again?"
Her eyes, in the dimness, looked very deep.
"I knew I should," she answered murmurously.
The inimitable atmosphere of Romano's loosened his tongue. After she
had ordered supper, with every whit of the appetite and extravagance
which he remembered as her chief characteristic, next to her beauty,
and after each had been stimulated by a cocktail, he was conscious
that he wanted to confide in her, not so much because she was Roselle,
but because she was a woman, would look soft and listen prettily. He
wanted stroking gently, patting on the back, and reassuring about
himself.
The slight moodiness of his expression set her suggesting confidences.
"You've got a pretty bad hump," she said caressingly. "What is it? Has
the car slumped? Won't they have it? Or is it indigestion? You're not
what you were when--"
She gave a quick sigh and smile, very inviting.
"When we were touring about Canada and the States together," he
finished. "Well, you see; when a man has come back to all he left
behind him--"
"Did you leave much behind you?"
"Why do you ask?"
"You never told _me_ anything," she pouted. "But I'm not
_asking_. I've no curiosity. The knots men tie themselves into--"
"You can laugh."
"You make me. Aren't men silly? Tell me about--to whom you came back."
"What does it matter?"
"It doesn't. _I_ don't care." She drummed her fingers on the
table. "All men are like cats, home by day, and tiles by night. But if
you'd told me you were likely to get scolded for saying how d'you do
to me, I'd have been more careful of you."
Her smile derided him. "Has someone scolded you?" she asked.
Consommé was set before them and she began to drink it with appetite,
not repeating her question till it was finished.
"Well?" she said then, tilting her head inquiringly to one side.
"The fact is," he answered abruptly, "I--I've had a bad let-down."
"Financial?"
"No."
"Oh! Really!" she said pettishly.
"It doesn't matter," he remarked, rousing himself, "the thing is to
make the best of life, and by Jove! I'm going to!"
"So you come and look for me?"
"Precisely," said Osborn. "You've been awf'ly decent to me, Roselle.
Knowing you has meant a lot to me. I don't believe you'd let a fellow
down very badly, would you?" He began to feel tender towards her, and
the stupidity and avarice, which he had awhile ago begun faintly to
see in her, now receded under the spell of the lights and the hour.
"If no one else has cut in since I last saw you," he said, leaning
towards her, "you might be kind to me again. Will you? I'm lonely. I'm
simply too dreadfully lonely for anything. What are you doing this
week-end?"
"Nothing," she said after a careful pause.
"Come out into the country on Saturday."
"I've a matinée."
"Of course. Sunday then? I'd bring the car round for you early, and
we'd have a jolly day, get down to the sea somewhere. You'd like
Brighton?"
"That's a nice run," she agreed. "Yes!"
"We could get back for dinner. Where shall we dine--Pagani's?"
She suggested, also, a supper club to which she belonged. "You'll have
to belong, too," she said with enthusiasm. "It's the brightest thing
in town. Will you, if I get someone to propose you?"
"Rather!"
He had felt dreadfully at a loose end before that evening, but now,
this old intimacy again established, he was, in a restless sort of
way, happier. As they drove home, she slid her hand into his pocket
like a cunning child and said: "Osborn, I want a fiver awf'ly badly;
lend me one." And it was pleasure to him to pull out a handful of
money and let her pick out the gold.
"I'll pay you back quite soon," she said, lying; and he replied: "You
know you won't, you naughty girl; and you know I don't want you to,
either."
She kissed him good night with the facility of her type, in the
taxicab as they crossed a dark corner.
"Less lonely now?" she queried.
"I don't care who denies it," said Osborn, "a man's got to have a
woman in his life; he's just got to. If one drives him...."
"Poor boy!" she said in her murmurous way.
He left her at her door and kept the cab to drive him to the nearest
Tube station. A strange excitement filled him as he looked ahead to
the direction in which he was drifting. What did it matter, anyway? He
was almost in the position of a man without ties.
"'Make your own life,'" his wife had said, "'I have all I want in
mine.'"
"Well, I'll make it," said Osborn as he journeyed homewards.
The flat was alight, expecting his coming, though everyone was in bed.
The fire had been made up, and his whisky decanter and soda siphon
stood by a plate of sandwiches on the dining-room table. Marie was
looking after him infernally, defiantly well, he thought, as he
splashed whisky irritably into a tumbler. It was almost as though she
were making all she did utter for her: "See how perfectly I fulfil my
duties! See how comfortable you are! You've nothing whatever to
grumble about. Make your own life and I'll make mine."
He drank his whisky, thinking of Roselle. "Here's to Sunday!" was his
silent toast. Yet it was not she who tugged tormentingly at his heart.
But he was like a child who has been put into the corner, revengefully
tearing the wallpaper.
He wanted someone to be sorry; very, very sorry.
There was dead silence in the flat. What a lonely place!
How queer life was!
He went sullenly to his room, where his son was sleeping peacefully.