“Let’s—sit—down,” she said jerkily.
They sat down together, and she slid an arm through his.
“Listen,” she whispered. “I can’t talk loud, because I shall cry if I
do. Listen to me. I’ll tell you the name of one woman who’s put her arms
round your neck. She’s done it for nearly a year—not very glaringly
until to-night. Her name’s Eve. . . . Eve Malory Carew.” His fists
clenched, Jeremy sat like a rock. The girl continued tremulously. “I’ve
given you opening after opening. I’ve put the very words into your
mouth. I’ve given myself away. I’ve asked and pleaded and begged. I’ve
done what I’ve never done in all my life, what I never dreamed I should
do—sunk pride, vanity, self-respect . . . to—make—you—speak. . . .
I’m not good at ‘the arts,’ but I’ve used them all to-night. I gave you
my profile, stared, tried to get my soul into my voice. I didn’t cry to
make you take me in your arms—that was a piece of sheer luck. But I did
everything else. . . . Well, there you are. I’ve failed. And now I want
to know one thing. There’s only one answer you can give me, but from the
way you give it I shall be able to tell if you’re speaking the truth. Do
you love me, Jeremy?”
The man laughed.
“You know I’ve been mad about you for just one year.”
Eve sighed very happily.
“And I’m quite silly about you,” she said. “I started dreaming about you
months ago. But I think up to now I’ve behaved all right, haven’t I?”
“Perfectly,” said Broke.
Eve squeezed his arm.
“I’m glad of that. And now suppose you kissed me. Or d’you think I ought
to kiss you?”
Suddenly she was in his arms, blushing and breathless.
“You witch,” breathed the man. “You exquisite, glorious witch. I’ve
steeled myself and fought a thousand times. And to-night I swore I’d see
you—and kiss the rod. ‘Rod’? Sword. It’s been like a sword in my side
to wait upon you. To-night was laden with memories, but I swore to come
through. I swore I’d recall them . . . and bow . . . and come away—walk
through the wet streets triumphant, because I’d flirted with fire and
not been burned. And now—I’ve failed.” He lifted up his eyes with the
look of one who is looking into heaven. “I shan’t walk home, Eve. By
rights I should slink, because I’ve broken my oath.
But—I—shan’t—slink. I think I shall dance, Eve . . . dance, leap, run
. . . give silver to the beggars I meet . . . shout . . . because you
love me . . . because of the stars in your eyes and the flower they call
your mouth.” Eve flung back her beautiful head and closed her eyes. The
smile on her parted lips was not of this world. “You ask if I love you.
I love the lisp of your footfalls and the print of your tiny feet. I
love the rustle of your gown and the silence your laughter breaks. All
that you do I love—because you do it . . . you . . . Eve . . . my
princess. . . .”
He kissed her lips.
“I’m very happy,” said Eve. “I hope you are.”
Broke picked her up in his arms.
“You wicked child,” he said.
“Witch, princess, child,” said Eve, with an arm round his neck. “Which
will you marry?”
“The child,” said Jeremy Broke.
“That’s right,” said Eve. “The others have served their turn. The stick
to persuade you to jump: the sceptre to dazzle your vision.” She fell to
stroking his hair. “I’m really more of an artist than I thought. Looking
back, I wonder I had the courage to be so indecent. Of course, I was
desperate. Still . . .”
“It is the prerogative of royalty.”
Eve made a maddening mouth.
“Diplomat!” she said. Then—“As a matter of fact, stacks of us do it all
the time, darling. But I never thought I should.”
* * * * *
The two were married one brilliant June morning, full of the airs and
graces of a belated spring. Broke received twelve presents, Miss Carew
six hundred and four: such is the power of money. The former had already
resigned his ghost of a job and was earning much less than a living by
plying his pen. From this Eve sought to dissuade him, but the man was
resolute. Marriage had brought him a livery more gorgeous than any he
could win, but he would stand upon his own shoe-leather.
Jeremy Broke was thirty and of a cheerful countenance. His grey eyes
were set well apart, and his forehead was broad. His nostrils were
sensitive, his mouth firm and shapely, his thick brown hair
well-ordered, his head carried high. He was tall, and his shoulders were
square. He had good hands, and cared for them as a man should. His
manners were above reproach: his style, that of a gentleman. So were his
instincts. . . .
He brought his wife no debts. He sold his great-grandfather’s
chronometer to pay such expenses of the wedding as are usually met by
the groom; and, once married, that the money they spent was not his he
made most evident. Friends, acquaintances, strangers, servants—none
must credit him with Eve’s wealth. He did not insist upon the truth—go
about shouting ‘It’s hers’: but the things that were Cæsar’s unto Cæsar
he scrupulously rendered. Most of all was he careful in private to
assume no whit of that authority which riches give. He never stooped:
but he never sat in her seat. It was impossible not to revere feeling so
fine. His wife found it worshipful—with tears in her eyes.
Eve Malory Broke was a very striking example of the Creator’s art. Her
features were beautiful, and she was perfectly made. The curves of her
neck and shoulders, her slender white wrists, her slim silk stockings
and the shining arches of her feet—these and other points lifted her
straight into the champion class. She was lithe of body and light as air
in the dance. The grace of her form and movement were such as Praxiteles
rejoiced to turn to stone. You would have said that only an
etching-needle could catch her very delicate dignity—but for one thing.
That was her colouring. Her great brown eyes and the red-gold splendour
of her amazing hair, the warm rose of her cheeks and the cream of her
exquisite skin—never was leaping vitality more brilliantly declared.
Old Masters would have gone mad about her. Adam would have eaten out of
her hand. In a word, she became her name.
A warm, impulsive nature, rich in high qualities and puny faults, made
her a wife to be very proud of, to love to distraction and occasionally
to oppose. . . .
After doing their best to spoil one another for nearly ten months, Eve
and Jeremy had their first pitched battle in Rome one tearful April
morning. . . .
“In other words,” said the former silkily, “I can’t carry my liquor.”
“I never said or suggested such a thing. For all I know, you could drink
me under the table.”
“Then what’s the point of your protest?”
Short-skirted, perched upright on a table, her knees crossed, one
admirable leg slowly swinging, her beautiful fingers drumming
deliberately upon the table’s edge, Eve was superb. If her wonderful
hair had been about her shoulders, she might have sat to a Greuze and
furnished gaping posterity with a new ideal.
Jeremy swallowed.
“I think it’s a pity,” he said, “deliberately to put off what so very
few women have.”
“What’s that?”
“Your ladyship.”
Eve raised her brown eyes to heaven.
“Because I drink two cocktails instead of one——”
“It’s tough,” said Jeremy. “It’s a tough thing to do. A woman’s supposed
to drink, not because she likes it, but because it’s the fashion or
because she needs bucking up. Very well. It’s the fashion to drink a
cocktail before your dinner. To that fashion women subscribe—many,
perhaps, cheerfully, but that’s their business. If they make a meal of
it—ask for a second helping—the assumption or fiction that they’re
following a fashion is gone and they’re merely advertising an appetite
which isn’t particularly becoming to a man, but actually degrades a
woman whoever she is.”
“I’m much obliged,” said Eve. “‘Tough’ and ‘degraded.’ I am a topper,
aren’t I? I suppose you realize that this is 1930.”
“If you mean I’m old-fashioned, I admit it. I don’t like to see a girl
drink. But that’s beside the point. I mayn’t like the fashion, but I
don’t shout about it. You can’t curse anyone for toeing the line. But I
think it’s a thousand pities to overstep it.”
Eve smote upon the table with the flat of her pretty hand.
“You don’t seem able to see,” she cried, “that you’re blowing a whole
gale about nothing at all—_nothing_. Because there’s a cocktail going
spare and I’m fool enough to give it a home, d’you seriously suggest
that I shall be branded as a sot? One swallow doesn’t make a drunkard.”
“That’s better,” said Jeremy, smiling. “That’s the way to talk. And of
course I don’t, sweetheart. I’m not such a fool. But . . . You are so
attractive, Eve, so—so dazzling, you set such a very high standard of
sweetness that when you do something that brings us down to earth we’ve
got such a long way to fall. A taste for liquor seems so much worse in
you——”
“But I haven’t a taste for liquor. I hate it. I don’t care whether I
drink a cocktail or not. Yes, I do. I’d much rather drink water.”
“I know you would,” cried Broke; “but no one else does. And when, to put
it plainly, you have a couple, then——”
“Everyone knows I don’t drink.”
“But you _do_ . . . you _are_ . . . you’re inviting attention to the
fact. Thoughtlessly, idly, of course. You don’t care a damn about
liquor: but by having a second cocktail you’re declaring your liking for
drink.”
“I don’t agree,” said Eve, “but supposing I am. Why shouldn’t I like my
liquor?”
“I’ve tried to point out,” said Jeremy wearily, “that a taste for liquor
doesn’t become you. But I think in your heart you know that. What you
won’t see is that to drink two cocktails is tough.”
“I confess I can’t,” said Eve. “What’s more, I propose to drink two more
to-night.”
“Look here,” said Broke, deliberately ignoring the glove. “It used to be
the fashion to wear short skirts, usedn’t it? Very well. You subscribed
to the fashion and wore them, too. But you didn’t exaggerate that
fashion—turn out in a dress that stopped half-way to your knees, did
you?”
“What d’you think?” said his wife.
“Some girls did.”
“Some.”
“Exactly,” cried Broke. “And because they went beyond the dictates of
Fashion, they were properly judged to be tough.”
“That didn’t make them tough. They were tough already, or they wouldn’t
have done it.”
Jeremy spread out his hands.
“Out of your own mouth . . .” he said. “Only tough people do tough
things; or, in other words, tough things are only done by tough people.”
There was a moment’s silence.