1
She turned to greet them as they entered the box. "Come and sit beside
me, Gilbert!" she said. "Mr. Quinn ... oh, you don't know Jimphy, do
you?" She introduced Henry to her husband who mumbled "How do!" in a
sulky voice, and stood against the wall of the box twisting his
moustache. The shyness which had enveloped Henry in the vestibule of the
theatre still clung about him, and he felt awkward and tongue-tied. Lord
Jasper Jayne did not help Henry to get rid of his shyness. There was a
"Who-the-devil-are-you?" look about him that made easy conversation
impossible and any conversation difficult. Lady Cecily was chatting to
Gilbert as if she had been saving up all her conversation for a month
past exclusively for his ears; and Henry could hear a recurrent
phrase.... "But, Gilbert, it's ages since you've been to see me, and you
know I like you to come!..." that jangled his temper and made him feel
savage towards his friend....
He made an effort to be chatty with Lord Jasper. "How do you like the
play?" he said, as pleasantly as he could, for it was not easy to be
chatty with Lord Jasper, whose coarse, flat features roused a sensation
of repulsion in Henry.
"I don't like it," he replied. "Rotten twaddle!"
"Oh!" Henry exclaimed.
There did not appear to be anything more to say, nor did Lord Jasper
seem anxious to continue the conversation; but just when it appeared
that the effort to be pleasantly chatty was likely to be abortive, Lord
Jasper suddenly walked towards the door of the box. "Come and have a
drink!" he said.
Henry did not wish to go and have a drink, and he paused irresolutely
until Lady Cecily suddenly leant forward and said with a laugh, "Yes, do
go with Jimphy, Mr. Quinn. Gilbert and I have such a lot to say to each
other, and Jimphy's not in a good temper. Are you, Jimphy, dear? You
see," she went on, "he wanted to go to the Empire, but I made him bring
me here!... Do cheer up, Jimphy, dear! Smile for the company!..."
Lord Jasper opened the door of the box and went out, and Henry, raging
inwardly, followed him. Before he had quite shut the door again, Lady
Cecily had turned to Gilbert. Her hand was on his sleeve, and she was
saying, "But Gilbert, darling!..." He shut the door quickly and almost
ran after Lord Jasper. She was in love with Gilbert, and Gilbert was in
love with her. A woman would not put her hand so affectionately on a
man's arm and call him "Gilbert, darling!" if she were not in love with
him. She had wished to be alone with Gilbert ... had practically turned
him out of the box so that she might be alone with Gilbert ... had not
waited for him to close the door before she began to fondle him ... and
Gilbert had spoken so bitterly of her!...
He followed on the heels of Lord Jasper, passing through a throng of men
in the passages and on the stairs, until he reached the bar. "Whisky and
soda?" said Lord Jasper, and Henry nodded his head.
"I hate theatres," Lord Jasper said.
"Oh!" Henry replied.
That seemed to be the only adequate retort to make to anything that
Jimphy said.
"Yes, I can't stand 'em. Cecily let me in to-night ... on a chap's
birthday, too. She might have chosen the Empire!"
"You like music-halls then?"
"They're all right. Better than theatres anyhow. I like to see girls
dancing and ... and ... all that kind of thing!"
A bell rang, warning them that the second act was about to begin.
"I suppose we ought to go back," said Henry, putting his glass down. He
had barely touched the whisky and soda.
"No hurry," Lord Jasper replied. "No hurry. And you haven't drunk your
whisky? Cecily's quite happy with that chap, Farlow.... I don't like him
myself ... oh, I say, he's a pal of yours, isn't he? Well, it doesn't
matter now. I don't like him, and he doesn't like me. I know he doesn't.
I can always tell a chap doesn't like me because I generally don't like
him. Have another, will you?"
Henry shook his head.
"I think we ought to be getting back," he said, "I hate disturbing
people after the curtain's gone up!"
"You don't want to see that rotten play, do you? Look here ... I've
forgotten your name! Sorry!..."
"Quinn. Henry Quinn!"
"Oh, Quinn! You're not English, are you?"
"I'm Irish."
"Are you? That's damn funny! Well, anyhow, what I was going to say was
this. You don't want to see this rotten play, do you?"
"I do rather!..."
"No, you don't, Quinn. No, you don't. And I don't want to see it,
either. Very well, then, what's to prevent you and me going to the
Empire together, eh? We can come back for Cecily!..."
Henry stared at Lord Jasper. "But we can't do that," he protested.
"Oh, yes we can. Cecily won't mind. She'll be glad. We'll go and tell
her ... and look here, Quinn, I'll introduce you to a girl I know ...
very nice girl ... perfect lady ... lives with her mother as a matter of
fact ... Eh?"
"I'd much rather see the play!"
"Oh, all right," Lord Jasper said sulkily. "All right!"
Henry moved towards the door of the bar, but Lord Jasper made no attempt
to follow him. "Aren't you coming?" he said, pausing at the door.
"No," Lord Jasper replied. "I don't want to see the damn play. I shall
have another drink, and then I shall go to the Empire by myself. You
better go back to Cecily and ... and that chap Farlow. She won't notice
I'm not there!"
"You'd better come and tell her yourself, hadn't you?" Henry said.
Lord Jasper deliberated with himself for a few moments.
"All right," he said. "I will. I'll come presently. You tell her, will
you, that I'll come presently. P'raps you'll change your mind, Quinn,
and come with me to the Empire after you've had another dose of this
damn play. A chap doesn't want to see a play on a chap's birthday!..."
It occurred to Henry that Lord Jasper Jayne was slightly drunk. He had
swallowed the second whisky and soda rather more expeditiously than he
had swallowed the first, and no doubt he had dined well. There was a
bleary look in his eyes that signified a heated brain....
"My God," Henry said to himself, "that beautiful woman married to this
... this swine!"
"I'm thirty-one to-day, ole f'la," Lord Jasper continued, coming over to
Henry and taking hold of his arm. "Thirty-one. I'm getting on in years,
ole f'la, that's what I'm doing ... sere and yellow, so to speak ... and
a chap my age doesn't want to be bothered with a damn play. He wants
something ... something substansl!..." He fumbled over the word
"substantial" and then fell on it. "Something substansl," he repeated.
"Now, if you come with me!..."
"I say, you mustn't talk so loudly," Henry warned him. "The curtain's
gone up, and you'll disturb people...."
"All right, ole f'la, all right. I won't say another word!"
They stumbled along the passages to the door of the box, and entered as
quietly as they could.
"We thought you'd got lost," said Lady Cecily, smiling at Henry.
"No ... no," he replied, "we didn't get lost!"
2
Gilbert was sitting in the seat where Jimphy had sat earlier in the
evening. "Gilbert is going to stay here," said Lady Cecily. "Won't you
stay, too, Mr. Quinn!"
"Won't I be crowding you?..." he said.
"Oh, no," she replied. "Jimphy doesn't want to see the play anyhow, and
he'll be quite happy if he has some one to talk to in the bar between
the acts!..."
He felt the blood rushing violently to his head, and in his anger he
almost got up and walked out of the box. That she should use him to keep
her sottish husband entertained while she made love to Gilbert, filled
him with a sensation that came near to hatred of her. Gilbert had not
spoken since they returned to the box, but it was clear from his manner
that there had been love-making.... He crushed down his anger, and stood
behind Lady Cecily while the play went on. Her bare shoulders had a
soft, warm look, in the subdued light ... he was conscious of
beautifully shaped ears nestling in golden hair ... and the anger in him
began to die. Once she moved slightly in her seat, and looked round as
if she wanted to speak. He leant over her.
"Do you want anything?" he asked.
"My wrap," she said.
He picked up the flimsy wrap and put it about her shoulders, and she
turned to him and smiled and said, "Thank you!" and instantly all the
anger in him perished. He had admired her before, admired her ardently,
but now he knew that he loved her, must love her always....
There was a sound of heavy breathing, and he turned to look at Jimphy.
"Wake him up," said Lady Cecily in a whisper. "Poor dear, he always goes
to sleep when he's annoyed!"
He tiptoed across the box and shook the sleeper's arm.
"Eh? What is it?" Lord Jasper said, as he opened his eyes and gaped
about him, and then, as he became conscious of his surroundings, he
said, "Is it over yet?"
"No. The second act isn't finished yet!"
"Oh, Lord!" he groaned.
"It'll be over in a few minutes!"
"Thank God! I can't stick plays ... not this sort anyhow. I don't mind a
musical comedy now and again, although I think you can have too much of
that...."
Lady Cecily turned and waved her hand at her husband. "Ssh, Jimphy!" she
whispered. "You're making a frightful row!"
The second act ended soon afterwards, and Lord Jasper scrambled to his
feet ... he had been sitting on the ground at the back of the box,
yawning and yawning ... and made for the door. "Come and have a drink,
Quinn!" he said.
"No, thanks," Henry replied.
"Come on. Be a sport!"
"Do go with him, Mr. Quinn, please," Lady Cecily said. "He's sure to get
lost or troublesome or something. Aren't you, Jimphy dear?"
"Aren't I what!"
"Aren't you sure to get lost or troublesome or something!"
Lord Jasper did not reply to his wife. "Come along, Quinn!" he said.
"Cecily thinks she's being comic!..."
Henry hesitated for a moment or two. He did not wish to go to the bar,
and he was sick of the sight of Lord Jasper. He wished very much to stay
with Lady Cecily, and he felt hurt because she had urged him to
accompany her husband. He would have to do as she had asked him, of
course.... While he hesitated, Gilbert got up quickly from his seat and
went to the door of the box. "I'll come with you, Jimphy!" he said, and
then, almost pushing Lord Jasper in front of him, he went out, closing
the door of the box behind him. Henry stared at the door for a second or
two, nonplussed by the swiftness of Gilbert's action, and then he turned
to Lady Cecily. A look of vexation on her face instantly disappeared and
she smiled at Henry.
"Come and sit here," she said, "and tell me all about yourself. I
haven't really got to know you, have I? Gilbert says you're Irish!"
"Yes," he answered, sitting down.
"How jolly!" she said.
"Do you think so?"
"Oh, yes. It's supposed to be awfully jolly to be Irish. All the Irish
people in books seem to be very amused about something. I suppose it's
the climate. They say there's a great deal of rain in Ireland...."
"Yes," he answered vaguely, "there is some sometimes!"
She questioned him about Gilbert and Ninian Graham and Roger Carey.
"It must be awfully jolly," she said, "to be living together like that,
you four men!"
He noticed that Lady Cecily always spoke of things being "awfully jolly"
and wondered why her vocabulary should be so limited in its expressions
of pleasure.
"We get on very well together," he replied, "and it's very lively at
times. Gilbert's very lively...."
"Is he?" she said. "He always seems so ... so ... well, not lively. I
don't mean that he's solemn or pompous, but he's so ... so anxious to
have his own way, if you understand me. Now, I'm not like that!" She
broke off and laughed. "Oh, I don't quite mean that. I am selfish. I
know I am. I love having my own way, but if I can't have a thing just as
I want it ... well, I'm content to have it in the way that I can. Now,
do you understand?"
Henry nodded his head.
"Gilbert isn't like me," she continued. "He says to himself, 'I must
have this thing exactly in this way. If I can't have it exactly in this
way, then I won't have it at all!' and it's so silly of him to behave
like that!"
Henry looked up at her in a puzzled fashion. "What is it he wants?... I
beg your pardon, I'm being impertinent!"
"Oh, no!" she replied, smiling graciously at him. "He wants ... oh, he
wants everything like that. Haven't you noticed?"
"No," Henry answered, "I haven't."
"Well, you will some day. My motto is, Take what you can get in the way
you can get it. It's so much easier to live if you act on that
principle!"
"Gilbert's an artist, Lady Cecily, and he can't act on that principle.
No artist can. He takes what he wants in the way that he wants it or
else he will not take it at all!"
"Exactly. That's what I've been saying. And it's so silly. But never
mind. He's young yet, and he'll learn!"
She turned to gaze at the audience, and Henry, not knowing what else to
do and having no more to say, looked too. He could think of plenty of
fine things to say to her, but he could not get them on to his tongue.
He wanted to tell her that he had scarcely heard a word of what was said
in the first act of the play because he had filled his mind with
thoughts of her, and had spent most of the time in gazing up at her as
she sat leaning on the ledge of her box; but when he tried to speak, his
mouth seemed to be parched and his tongue would not move.
3
"Do you like this play?" she asked.
"No," he replied.
"Why? I thought everybody admired Wilde's wit. It's clever, isn't it?"
"I don't like it!"
"But it's supposed to be awfully clever!" she insisted.
"It's a common melodrama with bits of wit and epigram stuck on to it!"
Henry answered.
"Oh, really!"
"The wit isn't natural ... it doesn't grow naturally out of the life of
the play, I mean. It's stuck on like ... like plaster images on the
front of a house. The witty speeches aren't spontaneous ... they don't
come inevitably!... I'm afraid I'm not making myself very clear, but
anyhow, I don't like the play. I don't like anything Wilde wrote, except
'The Ballad of Reading Gaol,' and even that's not true. That's really
why I dislike his work. It isn't true, any of it. It's all lies...."
"How awfully interesting!"
"Do you know 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol'? he asked.
"No.... Oh, yes! I have read it. Of course, I have. Somebody lent it to
me or I bought it or something.... Anyhow, I have read it, but I can't
remember...."
"Do you remember the lines?...
_For all men kill the thing they love,
But all men do not die."_
"I seem to remember something ..." she said vaguely.
"Well, that's a lie. All men don't kill the thing they love. Wilde
couldn't help lying even when he was most sincere!"
"That's awfully interesting," Lady Cecily said. "Do you know I've never
thought of that before. Won't you come and see me one afternoon, Mr.
Quinn?"
"I should like to," he said, and as he spoke, the door of the box opened
and Gilbert entered, followed by Lord Jasper.
Lady Cecily turned eagerly to Gilbert. "Oh, Gilbert," she said, "Mr.
Quinn promised to come and see me one afternoon. You'll bring him, won't
you? Come on Wednesday, both of you!"
"I should like to," Henry murmured again.
"I don't think I can come on Wednesday," Gilbert said.
"Oh, yes, you can," Lady Cecily exclaimed, "and if you can't, you can
come some other day. You'll come, Mr. Quinn, won't you?"
"Yes, Lady Cecily!..."
"And.... Jimphy, dear, do be nice and ask them to come to supper with us
after the play. We're going to the Savoy afterwards. I thought it would
please Jimphy to go there because he'd be sure not to like the play...."
"Yes, you come along, you chaps!" Jimphy said, willingly.
"I can't. I'm sorry," Gilbert replied. "I've got to go down to Fleet
Street and write a notice of this play!"
"Can't you put it off for once, Gilbert!" Lady Cecily said.
Gilbert laughed. "I should like to see Dilton's face if I were to do
that...."
"Dilton! Dilton!! Who is Dilton?" she demanded.
"My editor. Very devoted to the human note, Dilton is. No, Cecily, I'm
sorry, but I must go down to Fleet Street. Henry can go with you."
She paused for a moment, and then said, "How long will it take you to
write the notice of the play?" she asked, adding before he could answer,
"Can't you do it now?"
"Yes, Gilbert," Henry said, "you can do it now. You know the play, and
you've seen the acting in two acts...."
Gilbert looked at him very directly, and when he spoke, his voice was
very firm. "No," he said, "I must go down to Fleet Street!"
Lady Cecily was cross and hurt, and she turned away pettishly.
"Oh, very well!" she said shortly.
There was a slight air of restraint among them ... even Lord Jasper
seemed to feel it. It was he who spoke next.
"You can come and join us at the Savoy after you've done your ...
whatyoumaycallit, can't you?" he said.
Gilbert paused for a moment. He looked as if he were undecided as to
what he should say. Then he said, "Yes, I can do that ... if I get away
from the office in time!"
Henry was about to say, "Why, of course, you can get away in plenty of
time!" but he checked himself and did not say it.
"Oh, that will do excellently," said Lady Cecily, all smiles again.
Then the lights of the theatre were lowered and the third act began.
4
When the play was over, they drove to Fleet Street in Lord Jasper's
motor-car. Lady Cecily had suggested that they should take Gilbert to
his newspaper office in order to save time, and he had consented readily
enough.
"We might wait for you!..." she added, but Gilbert would not agree to
this proposal. "It isn't fair to keep Jimphy from his birthday treat any
longer," he said, "and I may be some time before I'm ready!"
She was sitting next to Gilbert, and Henry and Jimphy were together with
their backs to the chauffeur. She did not appear to be tired nor had the
sparkle of her beautiful eyes diminished. She lay against the padded
back of the car and chattered in an inconsequent fashion that was oddly
amusing. She did not listen to replies that were made to her questions,
nor did she appear to notice that sometimes replies were not made. It
seemed to Henry that she would have chattered exactly as she was now
chattering if she had been alone. Neither Gilbert nor Jimphy answered
her, but Henry felt that something ought to be said when she made a
direct remark.
"Isn't Fleet Street funny at this time of night?" she said. "So quiet. I
do hope the supper will be fit to eat. Oh, Gilbert, I wish you'd say
something in your notice of Wilde's play about his insincerity. I felt
all the time I was listening to the play that ... that it wasn't true!'"
Gilbert sat up straight in his seat and looked at her.
"Oh!" he exclaimed.
"Yes," she went on. "The wit seemed to be stuck on to the play ... it
wasn't part of it!..."
Gilbert leant back in his seat again. "You've been talking to Henry
about Wilde, haven't you?"
She laughed lightly and turned towards Henry. "Oh, of course. Mr. Quinn,
I always repeat what other people say. I forget that they've said it to
me and think that I've thought of it myself!"
Henry professed to be pleased that she had accepted his ideas so
completely.
"But, of course," she continued, "what you said was quite true. I've
always felt that there was something wrong with Wilde's plays...."
"I can't think what you all want to talk about a play for. I never see
anything in 'em to talk about!" Jimphy murmured sleepily.
"Go to sleep, Jimphy, dear. Well wake you when we get to the Savoy...."
"Always ragging a chap!" Jimphy muttered, and then closed his eyes.
The car turned down one of the narrow streets that lead from Fleet
Street to the Thames Embankment, and then turned again and stopped.
"Oh, is this your office, Gilbert?" Lady Cecily said. "Such an ugly,
dark looking place! But I suppose it's interesting inside? Newspaper
offices are supposed to be awfully interesting inside, aren't they?"
"Are they?" Gilbert replied, as he got out of the car. "I've never
noticed it. Noisy holes where no one has time to think. Good-bye."
"Not 'good-bye,' Gilbert! We shall see you soon at the Savoy, shan't
we?"
"Oh, yes. Yes. I'd almost forgotten that!"
The car drove off, threading the narrow steep street slowly. They could
hear the deep rurr-rurr of the printing machines coming from the
basements of the buildings, and now and then great patches of pallid
blue light shot out of open windows. Motor-vans and horse-waggons were
drawn up against the pavements in front of the office-doors, waiting for
the newly-printed papers. Bundles of _Daily Reflexions_ were already
printed and were being thrown on to the cars and waggons for
distribution.
"Are they printed already?" Lady Cecily said.
"Most of them were printed at nine o'clock," Henry replied. "The
ha'penny illustrated papers go all over the country before the ordinary
papers are printed at all!"
"How awfully clever of them!" she said.
The car turned into Fleet Street and quickly drove up to the Savoy.
"Thank God!" said Jimphy. "I shall get some fun out of my birthday now!"
"Jimphy loves his food," Lady Cecily exclaimed. "Don't you, Jimphy?
Don't you love your little tum-tum?..."
They entered the hotel and found the table which had been reserved for
them. There was a queer, hectic gaiety about the place, as if every one
present were making a desperate effort to eat, drink _and_ be merry.
People greeted Lady Cecily as she passed them and muttered, "'loa,
Jimphy!" Henry had never been to a fashionable restaurant before, and
the barbaric beauty of the scene fascinated him. The women were
riotously dressed, and the colours of their garments mingled and merged
like the colours of a sunset. There was a constant flow of people
through the room, and the chatter of animated voices and bursts of
laughter and the jingling, sentimental music played by the orchestra
made Jimphy forget how bored he had been at the theatre. The slightly
fuddled air which he had had in the bar of St. James's had left him and
he began to talk.
"Ripping woman, that!" he said to Henry, indicating a slight, dark girl
who had entered the restaurant in company with a tall, flaxen-haired
man. "Pretty little flapper, I call her! I like thin women, myself.
Well, slender's a better word, isn't it? What you say, Cecily?"
Lady Cecily had tapped her husband's arm. "Ernest Lensley's just come
in," she said. "He's with Boltt. Go and bring them both here. They can't
find seats, poor dears!"
Ernest Lensley and Boltt were fashionable novelists. Lensley was an
impudent-looking man with very blue eyes who had written a number of
popular stories about society women who "chattered" very much in the way
that Lady Cecily chattered. The heroine of his best-known book was
modelled, so people said, on the wife of a Cabinet Minister, and
thousands of suburban Englishwomen professed to have an intimate
knowledge of the statesman's family life solely because they had read
Lensley's novel. It was a flippant, vulgar book, the outcome of a
flippant, vulgar mind. Boltt had a wider public than Lensley. Boltt, a
tall, thin, stooping man, with peering eyes, had discovered "the human
note" of which Gilbert's editor prated continually. He was a precise,
priggish man, extraordinarily vain though no vainer than Lensley, who,
however, had an easy manner that Boltt would never acquire. He spoke in
the way in which one might expect a "reduced gentlewoman, poor dear!" to
speak, and there was something about him that made a man long to kick
him up a room and down a room and across a room and back again. His
heroes were all big, burly, red-haired giants, who wore beards and old
clothes and said "By God, yes!" when they admired the scenery, and led
a vagabond life in a perfectly gentlemanly manner until they met the
heroine.... His heroines constantly fell into situations which were
extremely compromising in the eyes of a censorious world, but they were
never completely compromised. The whole world knew, before the
conclusion of the story, that the heroine had been falsely suspected. If
she had spent the night in the hero's bedroom, she had done so with the
best intentions, under the strictest chaperonage ... usually that of her
dear, devoted old nurse, God bless her!... whose presence in the bedroom
had been hidden, until the middle of the penultimate chapter, from the
heroine's friends and relatives. The hero, of course, poor, manly,
broken giant, had been ill, suffering from a fever, and in his delirium
had called for her, discontent until she had put her cool firm hand upon
his hot brow, and the doctor had said that if she would stay with him,
she would save his life. So she had flung her reputation to the winds
and had hurried to his bedroom.... It was pretentious, flatulent stuff,
through which a thin stream of tepid lust trickled so gently that it
seemed like a stream of pretty sentiment, and it was written with such
cleverness that young ladies in Bath and Cheltenham and Atlantic City,
U.S.A., were tricked into believing that this was Life ... Real Life....
Lensley and Boltt followed Jimphy eagerly to Lady Cecily's table.
Lensley was glad to sit with her: Boltt was glad to be certain of his
supper. Lensley enjoyed listening to Cecily's babble because he could
always be certain of getting something out of her speech that would just
fit into his next novel: Boltt liked his contiguity to members of the
governing class. They completely ignored Henry after they had been
introduced to him.
"Mr. Quinn is writing a novel, too!" said Lady Cecily.
"Oh, yes!" said Lensley.
"Indeed!" Boltt burbled.
Thereafter they addressed themselves exclusively to Lady Cecily and her
husband. Lensley told Lady Cecily that she was to be the heroine of his
next book. "I'm studying you now, dear Lady Cecily!" he said. "Jotting
you down in my little book ... all your little plaguey ways and
speeches!..."
"How awfully exciting!" she replied, and her eyes seemed to become
brighter, and she leant towards the novelist as if she meant to reveal
herself more clearly to him.
"You'll be angry with me when you see the book," he said. "Dreadfully
angry. You know poor Mrs. Maldon was very hurt about '_Jennifer_'!" Mrs.
Maldon was the wife of the Cabinet Minister.
"I shan't mind what you say about me," Lady Cecily said, "so long as you
make me the heroine of the book. What are you going to call it?..."
"The Delectable Lady!"
"How awfully nice!..."
5
Henry began to feel bored. He wished that Gilbert would come. Gilbert
would soon rout this paltry little tuppenny-ha'penny Society novelist
with his pretty-pretty chatter and his pretty-pretty blue eyes and his
air of being a knowing dog. Lady Cecily seemed to have forgotten Henry
altogether.... He turned to Lord Jasper who was trying hard not to yawn
in Mr. Boltt's face. Mr. Boltt had been a surveyor at one period of his
life, and his favourite theme of conversation was Renascence
architecture. He was now telling Jimphy of the glories of French
Cathedrals, and Jimphy, who cared even less for French Cathedrals than
he cared for English ones, was wondering just how he could change the
conversation to a discussion of the latest ballet at the Empire and
particularly of a girl he knew who was a perfect lady and, as a matter
of fact, lived with her mother. The supper party seemed likely to end
dismally, and Henry, when he was not wishing that Gilbert would come,
was wishing that he himself had not come. He could not understand why it
was that he had so much difficulty in talking easily with strangers.
Lensley was prattling as if he were determined to discharge an entire
novelful of "chatter" at Lady Cecily, and Boltt's little clipped,
pedantic voice recited a long rigmarole about a glorious view in France
which he had lately seen while motoring in that country. Boltt admired
Nature in the way in which any man of careful upbringing would admire a
really nice woman....
Henry had lately reviewed a book by Boltt for a daily paper, and he had
expressed scorn for it and its stuffed dummies, masquerading as men and
women ... and Boltt, who took himself very seriously indeed, had written
a letter of complaint to the editor of the paper. Henry wondered what
Boltt would say if he knew that the review had been written by him, and
an imp in him made him interrupt the long recital of the glories of
France.
"The _Morning Report_ had a good go at your last novel, Boltt!" he said.
The novelist looked reproachfully at Henry, as if he were rebuking him
for indelicacy.
"I never see the _Morning Report_," he replied loftily.
"Oh, then, I suppose you didn't see the review. I thought you probably
got clippings from a Press-cuttings agency!..."
"Yes, oh, yes, I do. I seem to remember that the _Morning Report_ was
unkind. Not quite fair, I should say!"
Lord Jasper began to take an intelligent interest in the conversation.
"Have you published another book, Boltt?" he asked innocently.
"Yes ... a ... Lord Jasper ... I have!" Mr. Boltt said, and there was
some sniffiness in his tones. He was accustomed to lengthy reviews on
the day of publication, and it annoyed him to think that there was some
one in the world, some one, too, with whom he was acquainted, who did
not know that the publication of one of his books was an event.
"I can't think how you writing chaps keep it up," said Jimphy. "I
couldn't write a book to save my life!..."
"No?" said Mr. Boltt, smiling in the way of one who says to himself,
"God help you, my poor fellow, God help you!"
"I suppose it's all a question of knack," Jimphy continued. "You get
into the way of it and you can't stop. Sometimes a tune gets into my
head and I have to keep on humming it or whistling it. I'm not what
you'd call a sentimental fellow at all, but that song ... you know,
about the honeysuckle and the bee ... I _could not_ get that song out of
my head. I thought I should go cracked over it. Always humming it or
whistling it ... and I suppose if you get an idea for a yarn into your
head, Boltt, well, it's something like that!"
Lady Cecily had exhausted the "chatter" of Mr. Lensley.
"What's that!" she exclaimed.
"Lord Jasper is describing the processes of literature to me, Lady
Cecily," said Mr. Boltt sarcastically. "I have been greatly interested."
The man's conceit irritated Henry and he longed to disconcert him.
"Yes," he said. "It all began by my saying something about a review of
Boltt's last novel in the _Morning Report!_ ..."
Mr. Boltt made motions with his hands. "Really," he said, "Lady Cecily
isn't in the least interested in my effusions."
"Oh, but I am, Mr. Boltt," Lady Cecily interrupted. "What did the paper
say? I'm sure it was very flattering!..."
"The reviewer said that the book would probably please the vicar's only
daughter, but that it wouldn't impose upon her when she grew up...."
"Oh!" said Lady Cecily.
"Some rival, I'm afraid!" Mr. Boltt murmured. "Some one who dislikes
me...."
"The chief complaint was that your people aren't real...." Henry
continued, though Mr. Boltt frowned heavily.
"Yes. I don't think we need discuss the matter further, Mr...."
"Quinn!!" said Henry.
He felt happier now that he had pricked the egregious fellow's vanity.
"Silly of 'em to say that," said Lord Jasper. "Boltt sells a tremendous
number of books, don't you, Boltt? More than Lensley does. And that
shows, doesn't it? If a chap can sell as many books as Boltt sells ...
well, he must be some good. I've never read any of 'em, of course, but
then I'm not a chap that reads much. All the same, a chap I know says
Boltt's all right, and he's a chap that knows what he's talking about. I
mean to say, he's written books himself!"
Lady Cecily was no longer interested in the history of Mr. Boltt's
novel. The meal was almost at an end, and Gilbert had not arrived. She
glanced towards the door, looking straight over Mr. Lensley's head, and
Henry could see that she was fidgeting.
"Gilbert's a long time," he said to her.
She did not answer, and before he could repeat his remark to her, Lord
Jasper exclaimed, "I say, you know, we ought to be getting home, Cecily.
It's getting jolly late!..."
"Let's wait a little longer," she said, "Gilbert hasn't come yet!"
"But I mean to say, this place'll be closing soon...." Mr. Boltt made a
satirical remark on the ridiculously early hours at which restaurants
are compelled by law to close in England. In France, he said ... but
Lord Jasper did not wait to hear what is done in France.
"He won't come now," he said. "He wouldn't have time to eat any supper
if he were to come ... and it's getting jolly late, and I'm jolly
tired!"
He got up from the table as he spoke. "Very well," said Lady Cecily,
rising too.
The others followed her example, and Boltt and Lensley prepared to
escort Lady Cecily to the door, but she gave her hand to them and said
"Good-night!"
"It's so nice to have seen you both," she said. "No, don't trouble. Mr.
Quinn will come with me!"
Lord Jasper had gone on in front to find his car, and Lady Cecily and
Henry walked down the room together until they came to the courtyard
where the car was waiting for them.
"Tell Gilbert I'm angry with him," she said. "He must come and see me
soon and tell me how sorry he is. You'll come, too, perhaps, Mr. Quinn!"
He found his tongue suddenly. "I will, Lady Cecily," he said. "I'll come
even if he doesn't. I've enjoyed to-night tremendously...."
"Have you, Mr. Quinn?"
"Yes...."
"I say, come along," Lord Jasper shouted to them.
"Poor Jimphy's getting fractious. You can tell me how much you've
enjoyed to-night when we meet again!"
He took her to the car, and watched her as she gathered her skirts about
her and climbed inside.
"Can't we drop you at your house!" said Lord Jasper. "It won't be any
trouble to do so!"
"No, thanks," Henry replied. "I'd rather walk home. It's such a
beautiful night!"
Lord Jasper followed Lady Cecily into the car. "You're a romantic chap,
Quinn!" he said, and then, as an afterthought, he added quickly, "I say,
we must arrange to go to the Empire together some evening. You're the
sort of chap I like...."
Lady Cecily waved her hand to him. As the car moved off he saw her
beautiful face leaning against the side of the car, and he longed to
take her in his arms and kiss her. Then the car turned, and drove
quickly off. He stood for a moment or two looking after it, and
continued to stand still even when it had swung out of the courtyard
into the Strand. Then he walked slowly away from the restaurant. He had
not gone very far when his arm was touched, and, turning round, he saw
Gilbert.
6
"Hilloa," he said, "you're late!"
"No, I'm not," Gilbert replied.
"Yes, you are. The Jaynes have gone!"
"I saw them going. I've been here for over half-an-hour, waiting for
you!"
"Over half-an-hour! What's up, Gilbert?"
Gilbert put his arm in Henry's and made him move out of the Savoy
courtyard. "Come down to the Embankment," he said. "It's quieter there.
I want to talk to you!"
"But hadn't we better go home? We can talk on the way. It's late...."
"No. I want to go to the Embankment. Damn it all, Quinny, it's a
sentimental place for a heart-to-heart talk, isn't it?"
"You aren't drunk, Gilbert, I suppose?"
"Never so sober in my life, Quinny. Besides, I don't get drunk. People
who talk about beer and whisky as much as I do, never get drunk. Come
along, there's a good chap!"
"Very well ... only I'm not going to stay long. I'm no good for work the
day after I've had a long night...."
"I won't keep you long. How did the supper-party go off?"
"Damnably. Two tame novelists turned up ... Boltt and Lensley!"
"Those asses!"
"Yes. Lensley 'chattered' to Lady Cecily, and Boltt bored and bored and
bored.... I took him down a bit. I rubbed in the _Morning Report_
review. The little toad could hardly sit still! Of course, he affected
the superior person attitude!"
"God be merciful to him, poor little rat! He wants to be a wicked,
hell-for-leather fellow, but he hasn't got the stomach for it! What did
Cecily say when I didn't turn up?"
"She looked rather cross. She told me as we came away to tell you she
was angry with you. You're to go and apologise to her as soon as
possible!"
"Did she?"
"Yes. I say, Gilbert, why didn't you turn up?"
They had reached the Embankment, and they crossed to the riverside and
leant against the parapet.
"Because I was afraid to," said Gilbert.
"Afraid to!"
"Yes. Can't you see I'm in love with her?"
"Well, I guessed as much...."
"I love her so much that she can do what she likes with me, and all she
likes to do is to destroy me!"
"Destroy you!"
"Yes. If you love Cecily, she demands the whole of your life. Every bit
of it. She consumes you.... Oh, I know this sounds like a penny
dreadful, Quinny, but it's true. I've asked her to run away with me, but
she won't come. She says she hates scandal and she likes her social
position. My God, I feel sick when I see Jimphy with her ... like a
damned big lobster putting his ... his claws about her. He isn't a bad
fellow in his silly way, but I can't stand him as Cecily's husband!"
"I know what you mean," said Henry.
"I thought that if Cecily and I were to go away together, we could get
our lives into some sort of perspective, and then I could go on with my
work and have her as well, but she won't go away with me. She wants me
to hang around, being her lover ... and I can't do that, Quinny. It's
mean and furtive, and I hate that. You're always listening for some one
coming ... a servant or the husband or some one ... and I can't stand
that. If I love a woman, I love her, and I don't want to spend part of
my life in pretending that I don't. I loathe myself when I have to
change the talk suddenly or move away when a door opens.... Do you
understand, Quinny?"
Henry nodded his head, but did not speak.
"Once when I'd been begging Cecily to go away with me, Jimphy walked
into the room ... and I had to pretend to be talking about some
nasturtiums that Cecily had grown. I felt like a cad. That's what's
rotten about loving another man's wife. It's the treachery of the thing,
the pretending.... I've often wondered why it is that love of that sort
seems so romantic and splendid in books and so damnably mean when it
comes into the Divorce Court ... but when I met Cecily I knew why ...
it's because of the treachery and the deceit. I used to think that it
was beautiful in books because artists were able to see the hidden
beauty, and ugly in the Divorce Court because ordinary people only saw
the surface things ... but I'm not sure now."
He stopped speaking, but Henry did not speak instead. He did not know
what to say; he felt indeed that there was nothing to be said, that he
must simply listen. He watched the electric signs on the other side of
the river as they spelt out the virtues of Someone's Teas and Another's
Whisky, and wondered how long it would be before Gilbert said something
else. He was beginning to be bored by the business, and he felt sleepy.
He was jealous too, when he thought that Gilbert had kissed Cecily and
had been held in her beautiful arms....
"Cecily doesn't mind about the shabbiness of it," he heard Gilbert
saying. "We've talked about that, and she says it doesn't matter a bit.
All that matters to her is that she shan't be found out ... too publicly
anyhow! She called me a prig when I said that I was afraid of tainting
my work...."
"Tainting your work?"
"Yes. Perhaps it is priggish of me, but I feel that if I'm mean in one
thing I may be mean in another. I'm terribly afraid of doing bad work,
Quinny, and I got an idea into my head that if I let taint into my life
in one place, I couldn't confine it and it would spread to other places.
Do you see? If I let myself get into a rotten position with Cecily, I
might write down...."
"I don't see that," said Henry. "Because you love a married woman, it
doesn't follow that you'll pot-boil."
"No, perhaps not. But I was afraid of it. I suppose it was priggish of
me. That wasn't the only thing, however. I knew that if I did what
Cecily wanted me to do, I'd spend most of my time with her or thinking
about her. I can't work if I'm doing that, for I think of her and long
for her.... Oh, let's go home. It isn't fair to keep you here listening
to my twaddle!"
But they did not move. They gazed down on the swiftly-flowing river, and
presently they heard Big Ben striking one deep note.
"One o'clock!" said Gilbert.
"What are you going to do about it, Gilbert?" Henry asked at last.
"I'm going away from London. I've chucked my job on the _Daily
Echo_...."
"Good Lord, man, what for?"
"Well, I'm fed-up with the English theatre to begin with, and I'm fed-up
with journalism too ... and it's the only way I can get free of Cecily.
I must finish the new comedy and I can't finish it if I stay in town
and see Cecily. She won't let me finish it. She'll make me go here and
go there with her. Shell keep me making love to her when I ought to be
working. God damn women, Quinny!"
"You're excited, Gilbert!"
"Yes, I know I am. When I'm with Cecily, I'm like a jelly-fish. She
sucks the brains out of me. She doesn't care whether I finish my comedy
or not. She doesn't care what happens to my work so long as I hang
around and love her and kiss her whenever she wants me to. My brains go
to bits when I'm with her. I'm all emotion and sensation ... just like
those asses Lensley and Boltt. Quinny, fancy spending your life turning
out the sort of stuff those two men write. They've written about a dozen
books each, and I suppose they're good for twenty or thirty more. I'd
rather be a scavenger!"
They walked along the Embankment towards Waterloo Bridge.
"I'm going to Anglesey," Gilbert said. "I shall go and stay there until
the end of the summer!"
"I shall miss you, Gilbert. So will Ninian and Roger!"
"I shall miss you three, but it can't be helped. I'm the sort of man who
succumbs to women ... I can't help it. If they're beautiful and soft and
full of love ... like Cecily ... they down me. Their femininity topples
me over, and there's no work to be got out of me while I'm like that.
But my work's of more consequence to me than loving and kissing, Quinny,
and if I can't do it while I'm Cecily's lover, then I'll go away from
her and do it!"
"What makes you think you could do it if she were to go away with you?"
"I don't know. Hope, I suppose."
They walked up Villiers Street into the Strand, and made their way
towards Bloomsbury.
"I suppose," said Gilbert, "you wouldn't like to come to Anglesey too?"
Henry hesitated for a few moments. He had a vision of Lady Cecily's
beautiful face leaning against the padded side of the car, and he
remembered that she had smiled and waved her hand to him....
"No," he replied, "I don't think so ... not at present at any rate!" and
then, added in explanation, "If I go, too, the house will be broken up.
That would be a pity!"
"I forgot that," Gilbert answered. "Yes, of course!"