1
Their days were spent in work. Ninian and Roger left the house soon
after nine o'clock, Ninian to go to the office of his engineering firm
in Victoria Street, Roger to go to his chambers in the Temple, leaving
Henry and Gilbert to work at home. In the evening, provided that there
was not a "first-night" to call Gilbert to the theatre, they talked of
themselves and of their future. Their egotism was undisguised. They had
set their minds on a high destiny and were certain that they would
achieve it, so they did not waste any energy, as Gilbert once said, in
pretending that they were not remarkably able. In a short time, they
gathered a group of friends about them who were, they thought, likely to
work well and ably, and it became the custom for their friends to visit
them on Thursday evening. Gilbert began the custom of asking some one to
dine with them on Thursday, and the guest was expected to account for
himself to the group that assembled after dinner. The Improved Tories,
according to Gilbert, wanted heart-to-heart talks from people of
experience. If a guest treated them to flummery, they let him know that
they despised his flummery and insisted on asking him questions of a
peculiarly intimate character. There were less than a dozen people in
the group, apart from Roger and Ninian and Gilbert and Henry, but each
of them had distinguished himself in some fashion at his college. Hilary
Cornwall had taken so many prizes and scholarships that he had lost
count of them, and when he entered the Colonial Office, it became a
commonplace to say of him that he was destined to become Permanent
Under-Secretary at a remarkably youthful age. Gerald Luke had produced
two little books of poetry of such quality that people believed that he
was in the line of great tradition. Ernest Carr had edited Granta so
ably that he was invited to join the staff of the _Times_. Then there
were Ashley Earls, who had had a play produced by the Stage Society, and
Peter Crooks, the chemist, and Edward Allen, who was private secretary
to a Cabinet Minister, and Goeffrey Grant, another journalist, and
Clifford Dartrey, who spent his time in research work and had already
produced a book on Casual Labour in the Building Trades in return for
the Shaw Prize at the London School of Economics.
They called themselves the Improved Tories, although most of them would
have voted at an election for any one but a Conservative candidate.
Ashley Earls and Gerald Luke were Socialists and had only consented to
join the group because they were told that the purpose of it was less
political than sociological.
"You see," Gilbert said to them, "it isn't good for England to have a
Tory Party so dense as this one is, and you'll really be doing useful
work if you help to improve their quality. What is the good of an
Opposition which can do nothing but oppose? Look at that fellow, Sir
Frederick Banbury! What in the name of God is the good of a man like
that? He doesn't make anything ... he just gets in the way. Of course,
that's useful ... but he doesn't know when to get out of the way ...
which is much more useful. And there ought to be people who aren't
content either to get in the way or just get out of it ... there ought
to be people who can shove things along. But there aren't ... except
Balfour, and he's getting old and anyhow he hasn't got much health. You
see what I mean, don't you? There ought to be a strong Opposition,
otherwise the Liberals will develop fatty degeneration of the political
sense.... The trouble with a lot of these fellows is that they believe
that twaddle that Lord Randolph Churchill talked about the duty of an
Opposition being to oppose. Of course it isn't. The duty of the
Opposition is to criticise and to improve, if they can...."
And so Ashley Earls and Gerald Luke joined the group of Improved Tories,
not as members, but as critics. It was they who induced the others to
join the Fabian Society. "You can become subscribers ... that won't
commit you to anything ... and then you'll be able to attend all the
meetings and get all the publications. It'll be good for you!..."
The supply of political guests was not of the quality they desired. The
eminent politicians were either too busy or too scornful to accept their
invitations. F. E. Robinson was impertinent to them until he heard that
Mr. Balfour was interested in their proceedings ... had even asked to be
introduced to Roger Carey ... and then he offered to address them on
Young Toryism, but they told him that they did not now wish to hear him.
They had taken Robinson's measure very quickly. "Police-court lawyer!"
they said, and ceased to trouble about him. Mr. Balfour never attended
the group, but they consoled themselves to some extent by reading his
book on Decadence and arguing about it among themselves. If, however,
they were not able to secure many of the Eminent Ones, they were able to
secure plenty of the Semi-Eminent, far more than they wanted, and for
half a year, they listened to politicians of all sorts, Old Tories and
Young Tories, Liberal Imperialists and Radicals, Fabian Socialists and
Social Democrats, heckling them and being heckled by them. At the end of
that six months, Gilbert revolted against politicians.
"These aren't the people who really matter," he said. "They don't start
things. We want to get hold of the people with new ideas ... the men who
begin movements and the men who aren't always wondering what their
constituents will say if they hear about it!"
Then followed a term with men who might have been called cranks. Bernard
Shaw declined to dine with them ... he preferred to eat at home....
"Voluptuous vegetarian!" said Gilbert ... but he talked to them for an
hour on "Equality" and tried to persuade them to advocate equal incomes
for all, asserting that this was desirable from every point of view,
biological, social and economic. Following Bernard Shaw, came Edward
Carpenter, very gentle and very gracious, denouncing modern civilisation
in words which were spoken quietly, but which, in print, read like a
thunderstorm. Alfred Russell Wallace, whom they invited to talk on
Evolution, came and talked instead on the nationalisation of land. He
sat, huddled in a chair, very old and very bright, with eyes that
sparkled behind his glasses ... and suddenly, in the middle of his
discourse on land, he informed them that he had positive proof of the
existence of angels. "My God, he'll want to make civil servants of 'em!"
Gilbert whispered to Henry.... Sir Horace Plunkett dined with them one
night, eating so little that he scarcely seemed to eat at all, and he
preached the whole gospel of co-operation. It was through him that they
got hold of an agricultural genius called T. Wibberley, an
English-Irishman, who reorganised the entire farming system on a basis
of continuous cropping inside an hour and ten minutes. Wibberley knew
Henry's father, and for the first time in his life Henry learned that
Mr. Quinn's agricultural experiments were of value.... Then came H. G.
Wells, smiling and very deprecating and almost inarticulate, to tell
them of the enormous importance of the novelist. They got him into a
corner of the room, when he had finished reading his paper, and
persuaded him to make caricatures of them ... and while he was making
the caricatures, he talked to them far more brilliantly than he had read
to them. G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc came to lecture and stayed
to drink. Chesterton's lecture would have been funny, they agreed, if
they had been able to hear it, but he laughed so heartily at his jokes,
as he, so to speak, saw them approaching, that he forgot to make them.
His method of speech was a mixture of giggle and whisper.
"Chuckle-and-squeak!" Gilbert called it. Belloc whispered dark things
about Influential Families and Hebrews and seemed to think that a man
who changed his name only did so with the very worst intentions. He and
Chesterton said harsh things about the Party System, and they babbled
beatifically about the Catholic Church.... "Two big men like that
gabbling like a couple of priest-smitten flappers!" said Gilbert in
disgust as he listened to them. "Them and their Cathlik Church!" he
added, imitating Belloc's way of pronouncing the word "Catholic."
Mouldy, grovelling, fat Papists! he called them, and vowed that he would
resign from the Improved Tories if any more of that sort were asked to
address them. That was because some one had suggested that Cecil
Chesterton should also be invited to dine with them. "He's simply
Belloc's echo," Gilbert protested. "I should feel as if I were listening
to his master's voice. Besides, he's fatter than Belloc and he's a
damned jiggery-pokery Papist too! Why don't these chaps go and cover
themselves with blue woad and play mumbo-jumbo tricks before the village
idol! That 'ud be about as intelligent as their Popery!" They intended
to ask Lord Hugh Cecil to talk to them about Conservatism, but when they
read his book on the subject they decided that such a Conservative was
utterly damnable ... and so they asked his brother, Lord Robert,
instead, and found that his point of view, although much more human and
less logical than that of Lord Hugh, was antipathetic to theirs.
"Let's get Garvin!" Gilbert suggested, when they discussed the question
of a more improved Tory than Lord Robert. "The Cecils are no good ...
they're too superstitious!" which was his way of saying that they were
too religious. "They're worse than priests: they're ... they're laymen!
I propose that we ask Garvin to come and talk to us. He seems to be
shoving the Tories all over the place!" So they invited the editor of
the _Observer_ to dine and talk with them, and he came, a quick, eager,
intense man, with large, starting eyes, who spoke so quickly that his
words became entangled and were wrecked on his teeth. They liked him,
but they were dubious of his right to represent the Tory spirit. It
seemed to them that this eager, thrusting-forward man, who banged the
table in his earnestness, might carry a political party off its feet in
his passion, but they were afraid that the feet would trail, that the
party would be reluctant to be lifted. "He's Irish," said Roger in
judgment.
"It isn't any good," Gilbert remarked, when Garvin had gone home,
"trying to persuade the English to spread their wings. They haven't got
any. Garvin 'ud do better if he'd hold a carrot in front of them ...
they'd follow that. Quinny," he added, "you ought to ask Garvin for a
job on the _Observer_. They say he can't resist an Irishman!"
"I will," Henry replied.
"Oh, and there's a chance of doing book reviews on the _Morning
Report_!" Geoffrey Grant said. "I told Leonard, the literary editor,
about you, and he said he'd look at you if you went round one day!"
"I'll go and look at him," Henry answered.
2
While they were spending their evenings in this fashion, Henry, working
steadily in the mornings, completely revised his novel. Gilbert, working
less steadily than Henry, finished a new comedy and sent it to Sir
Goeffrey Mundane, the manager of the Pall Mall Theatre, who utterly
astounded Gilbert by accepting it.
"Quinny!" he shouted, running up to Henry's room with the letter which
had been delivered by the mid-day post, "Mundane's accepted 'The Magic
Casement'!"
"What's that?" said Henry, turning round from his desk.
"He's accepted it, Quinny! I always said he was a damned good actor, and
so he is. My Lord, this is ripping! He says _it's a splendid comedy_ ...
so it is ... _as good as Oscar Wilde at his best_ ... oh, better, damn
it, better ... and will I _please come and see him on Friday morning at
eleven o'clock_ ... I'll be there before he's out of bed!... I say,
Quinny, we ought to do something, ought'nt we? Is it the correct thing
to get drunk on these occasions?"
His joy was so extravagant that Henry felt many years older than
Gilbert, and he patted him paternally on the shoulder and told him to
develop the stoic virtues.
"I'm most frightfully pleased, Gilbert!" he said, when he had done with
the paternal manner. "When's he going to put the play on?"
"He doesn't say. The thing he's doing now is no damn good, and he'll
probably take it off soon. Perhaps he'll produce 'The Magic Casement'
after that. Quinny, it is a good play, isn't it? Sometimes I get a most
shocking hump about things, and I think I'm no good at all...."
"Of course, it's a good play, Gilbert!..."
"Yes, but is it good enough?"
"I don't know. I don't suppose anything ever is. I thought 'Drusilla'
was a great book until my father read it, and then I thought it was
rubbish...."
"It wasn't rubbish, Quinny, and the revised version is really good."
"I think that, too, but sometimes I'm not sure!"
"Isn't it damnable, Quinny, this job of writing? You never get any
satisfaction out of it. I'd like to make cheeses ... I'm sure people who
make cheeses feel that they've just made the very best cheese that can
be made ... but I'm always seeing something in my work that might have
been done better."
Henry nodded his head. "I suppose," he said, "it'll always be like that
I think," he went on, "Maiden is going to take my novel. I saw Redder
yesterday!..." Redder was his agent ... "and he says Maiden's the
likeliest person. I shan't get much. Forty or fifty pounds on account of
royalties, but it's a start!"
"The great thing," said Gilbert, "is to get into print. I wonder how
much I'll make out of my play!"
"More than I shall make out of my novel," Henry answered. His talks with
Mr. Redder had modified Henry's ideas of the profits made by novelists.
Gilbert started up from the low chair into which he had thrown himself.
"I'm going to start on another play this minute!" he said. "My head's
simply humming with ideas!" He stopped half way to the door, and turned
towards Henry again. "You were working when I came in," he said. "What
are you doing?"
"I've started another novel," Henry answered.
"Oh! Done much of it?"
"No, only the title. I'm calling it 'Broken Spears.'"
"Damn good title, too," said Gilbert.
3
The book was published long before Gilbert's play was produced; for Sir
Geoffrey Mundane had taken fright at Gilbert's play. He was afraid that
it was too clever, too original, too much above their heads, and so
forth. "I'd like to produce it," he said. "I'd regard it as an honour to
be allowed to produce it, but the Pall Mall is a very expensive theatre
to maintain and I don't mind telling you, Mr. Farlow, that I lost money
on that last piece, too much money, and I must retrieve some of it. Your
play is excellent ... excellent ... in fact, it's a piece of literature
... almost Greek in its form ... Greek ... yes, I think, Greek ...
remarkable plays those were, weren't they? ... Have you seen this
portrait of me in to-day's _Daily Reflexion_ ... quite jolly, I think
... but it won't be popular, Mr. Farlow, and I must put on something
that is likely to be popular!"
Gilbert found Sir Geoffrey's sudden changes of conversation curiously
interesting, but the hint of disaster to "The Magic Casement" disturbed
him too much to let his interest absorb him.
"Then you've decided not to do the play?" he said, with a throb of
disappointment in his voice.
Sir Geoffrey rose at him, fixing his eye-glass, and patted him on the
shoulder. "No, _no_," he said. "I didn't mean _that_. I'll produce the
play gladly ... some day ... but not just at present. If you care to
leave it with me...."
Gilbert wondered what he ought to say next. Sir Geoffrey might retain
the play for a year or two, and then decide that he could not produce
it.
"Perhaps," he said, "you'd undertake to do it within a certain time...."
He wanted to add that Sir Geoffrey should undertake to pay a fine if he
failed to produce the play within the "certain time," but his courage
was not strong enough. He was afraid that Sir Geoffrey might be offended
by the suggestion and return the play at once. He wished that he had
gone to Mr. Redder, as Henry had done, and asked him to place the play
for him. "Redder'd stand no humbug," he said to himself.
Sir Geoffrey murmured something about the undesirability of committing
oneself, and added that Gilbert should be content to wait for a year
without any legal undertaking. "Of course," he said magnanimously, "if
you can place the play elsewhere, don't let me stand in your way!" but
Gilbert, alarmed, hurriedly said that he would be glad to leave the play
with him for the time he mentioned. "I'd like you to take the part of
Rupert Westlake," he said. "I don't think any one could play it so well
as you could!" and Sir Geoffrey, still responsive to flattery, smiled
and said he would be delighted to create the part.
The play which he produced instead of "The Magic Casement" ran for six
weeks, bringing neither profit nor honour to Sir Geoffrey, who began to
lose his head, with the result that he produced another play which was a
greater failure than its predecessor. Then came a revival of an old
play which had a moderate amount of success, and "I'll do your play
next," he said to Gilbert. "I shall certainly do your play next!"
It was because of these delays in the production of "The Magic Casement"
that Henry's novel, "Brasilia," was published much earlier than the play
was performed. He had rewritten it so extensively that it was almost a
new novel, very different from the manuscript which his father had read,
and it received a fair number of reviews. The critics whose judgment he
valued, praised it liberally, but the critics whose judgment he
despised, either damned it or ignored it. Gilbert said it was splendid.
"There's still some Slop in it," he said, "but it's miles better than
the first version." Roger liked it. He said, "I like it, Quinny!" and
that was all, but Henry knew that his speech was considerable praise.
Ninian's praise was extravagant, and he was almost like a child in his
pleasure at receiving an inscribed copy from Henry. He spent the better
part of an afternoon in going to bookshops and asking the grossly
ignorant assistants why they had not got "Drusilla" prominently placed
in the window. The assistants were not humiliated by his charge of gross
ignorance, nor were they impressed by his statement that the _Times_
Literary Supplement had described the book as "remarkable." So many
remarkable books are published in the course of a season that the
assistants do not attempt to remember them; and so many friends of
remarkable young authors wish to know why the works of these remarkable
young men are not stacked in the window that the assistants have learned
to look listlessly at the people who make the demands. Ninian bought
three copies of the novel, and sent one to his mother and one to the
Headmaster of Rumpell's and one to his uncle, the Dean of Exebury. "That
ought to help the sales, Quinny!" he said. "I bought 'em in three
different shops, and I stuffed the chaps that I'd been to other places
to get it, but found they were sold out!"
"That'll make two copies Mrs. Graham'll have," Henry replied. "I've sent
one to her to-day...."
"Well, she can give the other one to Mary," said Ninian.
The book was not a success. Including the number sold to the libraries,
only three hundred and seventy-five copies were sold, but the financial
failure of the book did not greatly depress Henry, for he had the praise
of his friends to console him. His father's letter had heartened him
almost as much as the review in the _Times_. "_It's great stuff_," he
wrote, "_and I'm proud of you. I didn't think you could improve it so
much as you have done. Hurry up and do another one!_"
His second book, "Broken Spears," was in proof before Sir Geoffrey
Mundane decided to produce "The Magic Casement," and for a while he was
at a loose end. He could not think of a subject for another story,
although he had invented a good title: Turbulence. He sat at his desk,
forcing himself to write chapters that ended ingloriously. He wrote
pages and pages, and in the evening threw them into the wastepaper
basket. "My God," he said to himself one morning, when he had been
sitting at his desk for over an hour without writing a word, "I believe
I've lost the power to write!"
He got up, terrified, and went to Gilbert's room.
"Hilloa, bloke!" said Gilbert, looking round at him as he entered.
"Are you busy, Gilbert?" he asked.
"I'm kidding myself that I am, but between ourselves, Quinny, I'm
reading Gerald Luke's last book. That chap's a poet. He's as good as
Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Listen to this!..."
But Henry did not wish to listen to Gerald Luke's poems.
"Gilbert," he said, "I believe I'm done!"
"Done?" Gilbert exclaimed, putting down the book of poems.
"Yes. I don't believe I shall ever do another book...."
"Silly ass!"
"I can't think of anything. My mind's like pap. I keep on writing and
writing, but I only get a pile of words. That was bad enough, but to-day
I can't write at all. I simply can't write...."
"Haven't you got a theme?"
"Vaguely, yes, but the thing won't come to life. The people lie about
like logs, and ... damn them, they won't move!"
"Look here," said Gilbert, "I'm tired of work. Let's chuck it for a
while. You're obviously off colour, and a holiday'll do you good. Let's
go out somewhere for the day anyhow. I've a first night this evening.
We'll wind up with that!"
"What's the play?" Henry asked.
"A revival. They're bringing Wilde's 'The Ideal Husband' on at the St.
James's again," Gilbert answered. "Alexander's very good in it...."
"That's the fashionable theatre, isn't it?"
Henry's knowledge of London was still very limited, and he seldom
visited the theatre, chiefly because Gilbert, who had to visit them all,
spoke of the English drama with contempt.
"Yes," Gilbert replied. "All the Jews and dukes go there. Suppose we go
for a row on the Serpentine, Quinny? You can pull the oars for an hour.
It'll do you no end of good, and I'll lie in the bottom of the boat and
watch you. That'll do me no end of good. Come on, let's get out of
this!"
4
They came away from the boathouse, and as they walked towards Hyde Park
Corner, a motor-car drove slowly past them.
"Who's that?" said Henry, as Gilbert raised his hat to the lady who was
seated in the car.
"Lady Cecily Jayne," Gilbert answered.
"Oh!... She's very beautiful."
"Think so?"
"Yes."
"I'll introduce you to her to-night. She's certain to be at the theatre.
We ought to make certain of getting a ticket for you, Quinny. Let's go
down to the theatre and book a seat."
They came out of the Park and walked down Piccadilly to St. James's
Street and presently turned the corner of the street in which the
theatre is situated. Henry was able to secure a stall, but it was not
next to Gilbert's. It was in the last row.
"Never mind," said Gilbert, "we can meet between the acts. My seat's at
the end of a row, and you can easily get out of yours. If Cecily's in a
box, she'll probably ask us to stay in it. She likes to have people
about her!"
Henry wanted to talk about Lady Cecily to Gilbert, but the tone of his
voice as he said, "She likes to have people about her!" prevented him
from doing so. It was odd, he reflected, that Gilbert had never confided
in him about her, odder still that there had been no talk of her in the
Bloomsbury house since the night on which Henry and Ninian had discussed
Gilbert's outburst of anger when her name was mentioned. Gilbert, could
be very secretive, Henry thought....
"She's very beautiful," he said aloud.
Gilbert nodded his head.
"Very beautiful!" Henry repeated.
"You're an impressionable young fellow, Quinny!" said Gilbert. "I won't
call you 'sloppy' again because I'm tired of telling you that, but
really that's what you are. You've only got to see a beautiful woman for
a couple of seconds and you start buzzing round her like a bumble bee.
Of course, I'm sloppy myself. We're all sloppy. Damn it, here we are,
two healthy young fellows who ought to be working hard, and we're
wasting a fine morning in gabbling about women...."
"Not women, Gilbert! Lady Cecily!..."
"Lady Cecily! Lady Cecily!..." He stopped suddenly and turned to Henry.
"I suppose you know about her and me?" he said.
"Very little," Henry answered.
"Let's have some tea. Well go in here!" The abrupt change disconcerted
Henry for a moment or two, but he followed Gilbert into the tea-shop.
"I can see you're ready to fall in love with her," Gilbert said, as they
drank their tea.
"Don't be an old ass!" Henry replied, feeling confused.
"She'll ask you to come and see her, and you'll waste a lot of time next
week trying to meet her...."
Henry laughed nervously. "You're rather ridiculous, Gilbert," he said.
"I've never seen Lady Cecily before. I'm just interested in her because
she's so beautiful. That's natural enough, isn't it?"
"Oh, yes, it's natural enough, and Lady Cecily will like your interest
in her beauty!"
The bitterness of his tone was remarkable. Henry felt, as he listened to
him, that there were open wounds....
"Don't call her Cecily until you've known her two days," Gilbert went
on. "She's very particular about that sort of thing. And don't fall too
much in love. It'll take you longer to get over it than it took me!"
"I hate to hear you talking like that, Gilbert. Anybody'd think you were
a dried-up old rip. You're frightfully cynical...."
"That's because I'm so young, Quinny. I'm younger than you are, you know
... six months ... but I'll grow up. I _will_ grow up, Quinny, I swear I
will, and get full of the milk of lovingkindness. Pass the meringues.
They play the devil with my inside, but I like them and I don't care ...
only Lord help the actors to-night!"
"I suppose Lady Cecily got tired of you, Gilbert," Henry said
deliberately. He felt angry with him and tried to hurt him. The beauty
of Lady Cecily had filled him with longing to meet and know her, and he
had a strange sense of jealousy when he thought of Gilbert's friendship
with her.
"No," Gilbert answered, "I don't think she got tired of me. I think she
still cares for me as much as ever she did!..."
"Damned conceit!" Henry exclaimed, laughing to cover the jealousy that
was in him.
"Oh, no, Quinny, not really. You'll understand that soon, I expect!" He
pushed his tea-cup away from him, and sat back in his chair. "I suppose
it is caddish to talk of her like this," he went on. "One ought to bear
one's wounds in silence and feel no resentment at all ... but somehow
she draws out the caddish part of me. There are women like that, Quinny.
There's a nasty, low, mean streak in every man, I don't care who he is,
and some women seem to find it very easily. Here, let's get out of this.
You pay. I've had a sugary bun and a couple of meringues...."
5
Later in the evening they went to the theatre together. As they walked
up the steps into the entrance hall, Henry saw Lady Cecily standing in a
small group of men and women who were talking and laughing very
heartily.
"There she is!" he whispered to Gilbert.
"Who is?"
"Lady Cecily!"
"Oh, so she is. Let's find our seats!"
"Perhaps you could catch her eye, Gilbert...."
"Catch my grandmother!" said Gilbert. "Come on!"
But if Gilbert were not willing to catch Lady Cecily's eye, Lady Cecily
was very willing to catch his. She saw him walking towards the stalls,
and she left her group of friends and went over to him and touched his
arm. "Hilloa, Gilbert!" she said, holding her hand out to him. "I
thought I should see you here to-night!"
She spoke in louder tones than most women speak, and her voice sounded
as if it were full of laughter. There was something in her attitude
which stirred Henry, something which vaguely reminded him of a proud
animal, stretching its limbs after sleep. Her thick, golden hair,
cunningly bound about her head, glistened in the softened light, and he
could almost see golden, downy gleams on her cheeks. She held her skirts
about her, as she stood in front of Gilbert, and Henry could see her
curving breasts rising and falling very gently beneath her silken dress.
The odour of some disturbing perfume floated from her.... He moved a
step nearer to her, wondering why Gilbert did not smile at her nor show
any signs of pleasure at meeting her. It seemed to him to be impossible
for any one but the most curmudgeonly of men to behave so ungraciously
to so beautiful a woman, or to resist her radiant smiles. She turned to
him as he moved towards her, and he saw that her eyes were grey. He
heard Gilbert mumbling the introduction.
"So glad!" she said, shaking hands with him. He had expected her to bow
to him, and had not been prepared for the offer of her hand. He inwardly
cursed his clumsiness as he changed his gesture. "I saw you in the Park
with Gilbert this afternoon, didn't I?" she added.
"Yes," he answered, and could say no more. Shyness had fallen on him,
and he stood before her, grinning fatuously, and twisting a button on
his waistcoat, but unable to speak. "Yes," he said, after a while, "I
was with Gilbert in the Park this afternoon!"
"Speak up, you fool!" he was saying to himself. "Here's the loveliest
woman you've ever met waiting for you to speak to her, and all you can
do is to repeat her phrases as if you were a newly-breeched brat aping
its parent. Speak up, you fool!..."
He felt his face turning red and hot. Almost before he knew what he was
saying his tongue began to wag, and he heard himself saying, in a stiff,
stilted voice, "It was very nice in the Park this afternoon!..." _Oh,
banal fool_, he thought, _she will despise you now, as if you were a
great, gawky lout_....
She turned away from him, and spoke to Gilbert. "I've been at Dulbury,"
she said, "for six weeks. That's where I got all this brown!..." She
laughed and pointed to her cheeks. "I'm so glad to get back. The country
bores me stiff. Nothing to see but the scenery. Oh dear!" She almost
yawned at her remembrance of the country. "And things are always biting
me or stinging me. I'm miserable all the time I'm there!"
"Then why do you go?" said Gilbert.
"Jimphy wanted to go. Jimphy thinks it's his duty to show himself to the
tenants now and again. It's the only return he can make, poor dear, for
all that rent they pay!"
Gilbert said "Hm!" and then turned to go to the stalls. "It's Jimphy's
birthday to-day," she said, and he turned to her again. "That's why
we're here to-night. Together, I mean. He's treating me to a box. Come
round and talk to us, Gilbert, after the first act ... and you, too,
Mr.... Mr!..."
She fumbled over his name. Gilbert, as is the custom in England when
introducing people, had spoken the name so indistinctly that she had not
heard it.
"Quinn!" he said.
"Of course," she replied. "Mr. Quinn. I'm awfully stupid about names.
You'll come, too?"
"I should like to!"
"Do. Gilbert, don't forget. Jimphy's very morose this evening. He's
thirty-one to-day, and he thinks that old age is creeping over him!"
"All right," said Gilbert gloomily, and then he and Henry went to their
seats.
"Who is Jimphy?" said Henry, as they walked down the stairs into the
auditorium.
"Her husband. Didn't you notice something hanging around in the
vestibule while we were talking to her?"
"No. There were so many people about!"
"Well, if you had noticed something hanging around, that would have been
Jimphy. His real name is Jasper, but Cecily never calls any one by his
real name ... except me. She can't think of a name for me!"
They entered the auditorium and stood for a moment looking about the
theatre. People were passing quickly into their seats now, and the
theatre was full of an eager air, of massed pleasure, and a loud buzz of
conversation spread over the stalls from the pit where rows of young
women whispered to each other excitedly as this well-known person and
that well-known person entered.
"That's 'er, that's 'er!" one girl said in a frenzied whisper to her
companion.
"Viola Tree?" the other girl, gazing vacantly into the stalls, replied.
"No, silly! Ellen Terry! Clap, can't you?"
And they clapped their hands as the actress went to her seat.
There was more clapping when Sir Charles Wyndham came in and took his
seat.
"Is it Viola Tree?" the girl repeated.
"No, silly. It's Wyndham. Bray-vo! Seventy, if 'e's a day, an' don't
look it. My word, I am enjoyin' myself, I can tell you! Everybody's 'ere
to-night. Of course, it's St. James's, of course!..."
Popular criminal lawyers came in and sat next to racing marquises; and
lords and ladies mingled with actresses who very ostentatiously
accompanied their mothers. A few men of letters and a crowd of dramatic
critics, depressed, unenthusiastic men, leavened the mass of the
semi-great. The rest were the children of Israel.
"Jews to the right of us, Jews to the left of us!..." Gilbert said.
"Anti-Semite!" Henry replied.
"Only in practice, Quinny, not in theory. I'll see you at the interval!"
"If you nip out of your seat as the curtain goes down," said Henry, "we
can both get up to her box before the rush!..."
"There won't be any rush."
"Well, anyhow, we can get up to the box pretty quickly!"
Gilbert walked away without replying, and Henry sat back in his seat and
watched the boxes so that he might see Lady Cecily the moment she
entered. His stall was in the last row, against the first row of the
pit, and the girls who had applauded Miss Terry and Sir Charles Wyndham
were still identifying the fashionable people.
"I tell you it _is_ 'im," said the more assertive of the two.
"I sawr 'is picture in the _Daily Reflexion_ the time that feller ...
wot's 'is name ... the one that 'anged all 'is wives in the coal-cellar
... you know!..."
"I know," the other girl replied. "'Orrible case, I call it!"
"Well, 'e defended 'im. I sawr 'is picture in the _Daily Reflexion_
myself. Very 'andsome man, eh? They do say!..."
Lady Cecily came into her box, followed by her husband, and Henry looked
steadily up at her in the hope that she would see him, but she did not
glance in his direction. He could see that she had found Gilbert in the
audience, but Gilbert was not looking at her. An odd sensation of
jealousy ran through him. He suddenly resented her familiarity with
Gilbert. He remembered that she had called him by his Christian name,
that she distinguished between him and other men by calling him by his
proper name, and not by some fanciful perversion of it. If only she
would call _him_ by his Christian name!...
She was leaning on the edge of the box, and looking about the
auditorium.
"That's Lydy Cecily Jyne!" he heard the assertive girl behind him
saying.
"'Oo?'"
"Lydy Cecily Jyne. _You_ know!"
Her husband leant back in his seat, stifling a yawn as he did so, and
Henry saw that he was a faded, insignificant-looking man whose head
sloped so sharply that it seemed to be galloping away from his forehead;
but he did not pay much attention to him. His eyes were fixed on Lady
Cecily.
"A bit 'ot, she is," the girl behind him was saying. "Well, I mean to
say!..."
But what she meant to say, Henry neither knew nor cared. The lights in
the theatre were lowered, leaving only the bright, warm glow of the
footlights on the heavy curtain. He could see Lady Cecily's face still
golden and glowing even in the darkness.
"My dear," said the girl behind him, "the things I've 'eard ... well,
they'd fill a book!"
Then the curtain went up and the play began.
He saw her leaning forward eagerly to watch the stage, and presently he
heard her laughing at some piece of wit in the play: a clear, joyful
laugh; and as she laughed, she turned for a few moments and gazed into
the darkened theatre. Her beautiful eyes seemed to him to be shining
stars, and he imagined that she was looking straight at him. He smiled
at her, and then jeered at himself. "Of course, she can't see me," he
said.
He tried to interest himself in the traffic of the stage, but his
thoughts continually wandered to the woman in the box above him.
"She's the loveliest woman I've ever seen," he said to himself.