A DINNER PARTY.
Mrs. Langton did not forget Mark; and before many days had gone by
since his call, he received an invitation to dine at Kensington Park
Gardens on a certain Saturday, to which he counted the days like a
schoolboy. The hour came at last, and he found himself in the pretty
drawing-room once more. There were people there already; a stout judge
and his pretty daughter, a meek but eminent conveyancer with a
gorgeous wife, and a distinguished professor with a bland subtle
smile, a gentle voice and a dangerous eye. Other guests came in
afterwards, but Mark hardly saw them. He talked a little to Mrs.
Langton, and Mrs. Langton talked considerably to him during the first
few minutes after his entrance, but his thoughts kept wandering, like
his eyes, to Mabel as she moved from group to group in her character
of supplementary hostess, for Mrs. Langton's health did not allow her
to exert herself on these occasions.
Mabel was looking very lovely that evening, in some soft light dress
of pale rose, with a trail of pure white buds and flowers at her
shoulder. Mark watched her as she went about, now listening with
pretty submission to the gorgeous woman in the ruby velvet and the
diamond star, who was laying down some 'little new law' of her own,
now demurely acknowledging the old judge's semi-paternal compliments,
audaciously rallying the learned professor, or laughing brightly at
something a spoony-looking, fair-haired youth was saying to her.
Somehow she seemed to Mark to be further removed than ever from him;
he was nothing to her amongst all these people; she had not even
noticed him yet. He began to be jealous of the judge, and the
professor too, and absolutely to hate the spoony youth.
But she came to him at last. Perhaps she had seen him from the first,
and felt his dark eyes following her with that pathetic look they had
whenever things were not going perfectly well with him. She came now,
and was pleased to be gracious to him for a few minutes, till dinner
was announced.
Mark heard it with a pang. Now they would be separated, of course; he
would be given to the ruby woman, or that tall, keen-faced girl with
the _pince-nez_; he would be lucky if he got two minutes' conversation
with Mabel in the drawing-room later on. But he waited for
instructions resignedly.
'Didn't papa tell you?' she said; 'you are to take me in--if you
will?' If he would! He felt a thrill as her light fingers rested on
his arm; he could scarcely believe his own good fortune, even when he
found himself seated next to her as the general rustle subsided, and
might accept the delightful certainty that she would be there by his
side for the next two hours at least.
He forgot to consult his _menu_; he had no very distinct idea of what
he ate or drank, or what was going on around him, at least as long as
Mabel talked to him. They were just outside the radius of the big
centre lamp, and that and the talk around them produced a sort of
semi-privacy.
The spoony young man was at Mabel's right hand, to be sure, but he
had been sent in with the keen-faced young lady who came from Girton,
where it was well known that the marks she had gained in one of the
great Triposes under the old order, would--but for her sex--have
placed her very high indeed in the class list. Somebody had told the
young man of this, and, as he was from Cambridge too, but had never
been placed anywhere except in one or two walking races at Fenner's,
it had damped him too much for conversation just yet.
'Have you been down to Chigbourne lately?' Mabel asked Mark suddenly,
and her smile and manner showed him that she remembered their first
meeting. He took this opportunity of disclaiming all share in the
treatment of the unfortunate gander, and was assured that it was quite
unnecessary to do so.
'I wish your uncle, Mr. Humpage, thought with you,' he said ruefully,
'but he has quite made up his mind that I am a villain of the deepest
dye;' and then, encouraged to confide in her, he told the story of the
old gentleman's furious entry and accusation.
Mabel looked rather grave. 'How could he get such an idea into his
head?' she said.
'I'm afraid _my_ uncle had something to do with that,' said Mark, and
explained Mr. Lightowler's conduct.
'It's very silly of both of them,' she said; 'and then to drag _you_
into the quarrel, too! You know, old Mr. Humpage is not really my
uncle--only one of those relations that sound like a prize puzzle when
you try to make them out. Dolly always calls him Uncle Anthony--he's
her godfather. But I wish you hadn't offended him, Mr. Ashburn, I do
really. I've heard he can be a very bitter enemy. He has been a very
good friend to papa; I believe he gave him almost the very first brief
he ever had; and he's kind to all of us. But it's dangerous to offend
him. Perhaps you will meet him here some day,' she added, 'and then we
may be able to make him see how mistaken he has been.'
'How kind of you to care about it!' said he, and his eyes spoke his
gratitude for the frank interest she had taken in his fortunes.
'Of course I care,' said Mabel, looking down as she spoke. 'I can't
bear to see anyone I like and respect--as I do poor Uncle
Anthony--persist in misjudging _anybody_ like that.'
Mark had hoped more from the beginning of this speech than the
conclusion quite bore out, but it was delightful to hear her talking
something more than society nothings to him. However, that was ended
for the present by the sudden irruption of the spoony young man into
the conversation; he had come out very shattered from a desperate
intellectual conflict with the young lady from Girton, to whom he had
ventured on a remark which, as he made it, had seemed to him likely to
turn out brilliant. 'You know,' he had announced solemnly, 'opinions
may differ, but in these things I must say I don't think the
exception's _always_ the rule--eh? don't you find that?' And his
neighbour replied that she thought he had hit upon a profound
philosophical truth, and then spoilt it by laughing. After which the
young man, thinking internally 'it _sounded_ all right, wonder if it
was such bosh as she seems to think,' had fled to Mabel for sanctuary
and plunged into an account of his University disasters.
'I should have floored my "General" all right, you know,' he said,
'only I went in for too much poetry.'
'Poetry?' echoed Mabel, with a slight involuntary accent of surprise.
'Rhymes, you know, not regular poetry!'
'But, Mr. Pidgely, I don't quite see; why can't you floor generals
with rhymes which are not regular poetry? Are they so particular in
the army?'
'It isn't an army exam.; it's at Cambridge; and the rhymes are all the
chief tips done into poetry--like "Paley" rhymes, y' know. Paley
rhymes give you, for instance, all the miracles or all the parables
right off in about four lines of gibberish, and you learn the
gibberish and then you're all right. I got through my Little-go that
way, but I couldn't the General. Fact is, my coach gave me too _many_
rhymes!'
'And couldn't you recollect the--the tips without rhymes?'
'Couldn't remember _with_ 'em,' he said. 'I could have corked down the
verses all right enough, but the beggars won't take them. I forgot
what they were all about, so I had to show up blank papers. And I'd
stayed up all one Long too!'
'Working?' asked Mabel, with some sympathy.
'Well--and cricketing,' he said ingenuously. 'I call it a swindle.'
'He talks quite a dialect of his own,' thought Mabel surprised.
'Vincent didn't. I wonder if Mr. Ashburn can.'
Mr. Ashburn, after a short period of enforced silence spent in
uncharitable feelings respecting fair-haired Mr. Pidgely, had been
suddenly attacked by the lady on his left, a plump lady with queer
comic inflections in her voice, the least touch of brogue, and a
reputation for daring originality.
'I suppose now,' she began, 'ye've read the new book they're talking
so much about--this "Illusion"? And h'wat's your private opinion? I
wonder if I'll find a man with the courage to agree with me, for _I_
said when I'd come to the last page, "Well, they may say what they
like, but I never read such weary rubbish in all me life," and I never
did!'
Mark laughed--he could not help it--but it was a laugh of real
enjoyment, without the slightest trace of pique or wounded vanity in
it. 'I'll make a confession,' he said. 'I do think myself that the
book has been luckier than it deserves--only, as the--the man who
wrote it is a--a very old friend of mine--you see, I mustn't join in
abusing it.'
Mabel heard this and liked Mark the better for it. 'I suppose he
couldn't do anything else very well without making a scene,' she
thought, 'but he did it very nicely. I hope that woman will find out
who he is though; it will be a lesson to her!' Here Mabel was not
quite fair, perhaps, for the lady had a right to her opinion, and
anything is better than humbug. But she was very needlessly pitying
Mark for having to listen to such unpalatable candour, little dreaming
how welcome it was to him, or how grateful he felt to his critic. When
Mark was free again, after an animated discussion with his candid
neighbour, in which each had amused the other and both were on the way
to becoming intimate, he found the spoony youth finishing the
description of a new figure he had seen in a _cotillon_. 'You all sit
down on chairs, don't you know,' he was saying, 'and then the rest
come through doors;' and Mabel said, with a spice of malice (for she
was being excessively bored), that that must be very pretty and
original.
Mr. Langton was chatting ponderously at his end of the table, and Mrs.
Langton was being interested at hers by an account the judge's lady
was giving of a _protégé_ of hers, an imbecile, who made his living by
calling neighbours who had to be up early.
'Perhaps it's prejudice,' said Mrs. Langton, 'but I do _not_ think I
should like to be called by an _idiot_; he might turn into a maniac
some day. They do quite suddenly at times, don't they?' she added,
appealing to the professor, 'and that wouldn't be _nice_, you know, if
he did. What _would_ you do?' she inquired generally.
'Shouldn't get up,' said a rising young barrister.
'_I_ should--under the bed, and scream,' said the lively young lady he
had taken down. And so for some minutes that end of the table applied
itself zealously to solving the difficult problem of the proper course
to take on being called early by a raving maniac.
Meanwhile Mabel had succeeded in dropping poor Mr. Pidgely and
resuming conversation with Mark; this time on ordinary topics--pictures,
books, theatres, and people (especially people); he talked well, and
the sympathy between them increased.
Then as the dessert was being taken round, Dolly and Colin came in.
'_I've_ had ices, Mabel,' said the latter confidentially in her ear
as he passed her chair on his way to his mother; but Dolly stole
quietly in and sat down by her father's side without a word.
'Do you notice any difference in my sister Dolly?' Mabel asked Mark,
with a little anxious line on her forehead.
'She is not looking at all well,' said Mark, following the direction
of her glance. There certainly was a change in Dolly; she had lost all
her usual animation, and sat there silent and constrained, leaving the
delicacies with which her father had loaded her plate untouched, and
starting nervously whenever he spoke to her. When good-natured Mr.
Pidgely displayed his one accomplishment of fashioning a galloping pig
out of orange-peel for her amusement, she seemed almost touched by his
offering, instead of slightly offended, as the natural Dolly would
have been.
'I don't think she is ill,' said Mabel, 'though I was uneasy about
that at first. Fräulein and I fancy she must be worrying herself about
something, but we can't get her to say what it is, and I don't like to
tease her; very likely she is afraid of being laughed at if she tells
anybody. But I do so wish I could find out; children can make
themselves so terribly wretched over mere trifles sometimes.'
But the hour of 'bereavement,' as Mr. Du Maurier calls it, had come;
gloves were being drawn on, the signal was given. Mr. Pidgely, after
first carefully barricading the path on his side of the table with his
chair, opened the door, and the men, left to themselves, dropped their
hypocritical mask of resigned regret as the handle turned on Mrs.
Langton's train, and settled down with something very like relief.
Mark, of course, could not share this, though it is to be feared that
even he found some consolation in his cigarette; the sound of Mabel's
voice had not ceased to ring in his ears when her father took him by
the arm and led him up to be introduced to the professor, who was
standing before a picture. The man of science seemed at first a
little astonished at having an ordinary young man presented to him in
this way, but when his host explained that Mark was the author of the
book of which the professor had been speaking so highly, his manner
changed, and he overwhelmed him with his courtly compliments, while
the other guests gathered gradually nearer, envying the fortunate
object of so marked a distinction.
But the object himself was horribly uncomfortable; for it appeared
that the professor in reading 'Illusion' had been greatly struck by a
brilliant simile drawn from some recent scientific discoveries with
which he had had some connection, and had even discovered in some
passages what he pronounced to be the germ of a striking theory that
had already suggested itself to his own brain, and he was consequently
very anxious to find out exactly what was in Mark's mind when he
wrote. Before Mark knew where he was, he found himself let in for a
scientific discussion with one of the leading authorities on the
subject, while nearly everyone was listening with interest for his
explanation. His forehead grew damp and cold with the horror of the
situation--he almost lost his head, for he knew very little about
science. Thanks, however, to his recent industry, he kept some
recollection of the passages in question, and without any clear idea
of what he was going to say, plunged desperately into a long and
complicated explanation. He talked the wildest nonsense, but with such
confidence that everyone in the room but the professor was impressed.
Mark had the mortification of seeing, as the great man heard him out
with a quiet dry smile, and a look in his grey eyes which he did not
at all like, that he was found out. But the professor only said at the
end, 'Well, that's very interesting, Mr. Ashburn, very interesting
indeed--you have given me a really considerable insight into
your--ah--mental process.' And for the rest of the evening he talked
to his host. As he drove home with his wife that night, however, his
disappointment found vent: 'Never been so taken in in my life,' he
remarked; 'I did think from his book that that young Ernstone and I
would have something in common; but I tried him but got nothing out
of him but rubbish; probably got the whole thing up out of some
British Association speech and forgotten it! I hate your shallow
fellows, and 'pon my word I felt strongly inclined to show him up,
only I didn't care to annoy Langton!'
'I'm glad you didn't, dear,' said his wife; 'I don't think
dinner-parties are good places to show people up in, and really Mr.
Ernstone, or Ashburn, whatever his name is, struck me as being so very
charming--perhaps you expected too much from him.'
'H'm, I shall know better another time,' he said.
But the incident, even as it was, left Mark with an uncomfortable
feeling that his evening had somehow been spoilt, particularly as he
did not succeed in getting any further conversation with Mabel in the
drawing-room afterwards to make him forget the unpleasantness. Vincent
Holroyd's work was still proving itself in some measure an avenger of
his wrongs.