The Sparrow and the Cassowary were much delighted with their own dinner
and their own ball.
Freddy Newlyn was a kindly little man, with an absurd fussy manner full
of importance, as so many kindly little men have. Is it by some gentle
providential dispensation that the physically insignificant are so often
upheld by harmless vanity?
The Cassowary, on the other hand, bony and distressingly red in the
wrong places, suffered from a realisation of her own defects that she
endeavoured to conceal by an assumption of the wildest high spirits.
This jocularity, of course, became at times rather painful, but as she
was possessed of much money and a kind heart, it was forgiven her.
The dinner was very large, and the guests sat at small tables all over
the place--a delightful invention of the Cassowary's, who screamed with
piercing glee at the excitement displayed as lots were drawn for the
different tables.
"Seven, Sir John? Then you'll find your partner and go to the
library--only three tables there! Dicky, what is your number? Four? Oh,
you lucky little brute The conservatory. Who's your girl? Oh, yes,
Piggy! Aren't I a lamb?"
The numbers of the various tables were being drawn, as she spoke, from a
vase on the drawing-room table.
"And you, M. Joyselle? Thirteen. Oh, what awful luck!"
Everyone screamed with laughter, for the Norman was looking with
unfeigned concern at his bit of paper.
"_Je n'aime pas le treize_, madame," he protested, disregarding the
prevailing mirth.
"But--what can I do? It's a nice table in the billiard-room. Who's your
partner?"
"Lady Sophy Browne--which is she?"
"Oh, Sophy Browne. Go on drawing, you men, I must speak to Fred. I say,
Fred----"
The good-natured Cassowary tramped across to the door where the Sparrow
was standing, and bending down, said something to him.
"Is he really? I say, that's too bad. But you can't change the tables,
can you, dear?"
"I don't know. These kind of people are so superstitious, you see; it's
enough to make him glum all the evening, and Sophy was so keen--she says
he looks like a bust by Rodin, and she wants to do him in pen and ink."
The Sparrow rubbed his pointed nose thoughtfully.
"Change the two of 'em to another table, can't you?"
"I've got 'em all sorted, though. Unless--I might change Billy and the
Farquhar girl to their table, and put them in the boudoir balcony! Billy
wouldn't mind and the Farquhar girl doesn't matter; she didn't get me
those tickets, anyhow."
The Sparrow gave a little hop of satisfaction.
"Right. That'll do famously."
So the Cassowary went back to the table and laid her hand on Joyselle's
sleeve. "I have put you at another table, M. Joyselle. You go to the
boudoir balcony--Sophy will take you there--so it's all right. I must go
and find Billy Vere now. Oh----" turning, she found herself face to face
with Brigit Mead, who had just arrived.
"I say, Brigit, would you mind sitting at the table with M. Joyselle?
Eugene Struther is your man, and M. Joyselle objects to his table
because it is number thirteen."
Brigit, shaking hands with her enthusiastic hostess, caught Joyselle's
eye. He had heard.
"Mind? Not a bit," she answered carelessly, "if he doesn't."
Mrs. Newlyn turned, to find the top of Joyselle's head presented to her
in a bow of mockly-resigned acquiescence. "Then, _that's_ all right.
What's the matter, Oliver?"
Lord Oliver Maytopp, a cherished clown in that section of society in
which the Newlyns had their being, was making believe to cry, his large
mouth opened grotesquely, his fists digging into his eyes.
"I d--don't want to sit at the table next Meg's," he sobbed, "when I
tell funny stories she always--makes faces at me. I want to go home to
Nursey."
Brigit moved away, her upper lip raised disdainfully. How odious they
all were!
And how detestable the whole house with its health of art-treasures,
selected by an artist friend of Newlyn's.
"_Nouveau-riche?_" asked Joyselle, joining her.
"No. That is, they are well-born, but they are _nouveau_ as regards
money. Her father made a lucky speculation in electric-lighting, I think
it was, after she was married. They haven't got used to their money yet.
So," she added, as they stepped out on to one of the many balconies with
which the house was ornamented, "you don't object to sitting at my
table?"
"_Brigitte!_"
His was of the type of face that is ennobled by any strong passion, and
he looked very splendid as he towered above her, white and shaken.
"You will not leave me?" she asked, again possessed by the fear that had
tormented her from the moment when he had dropped his violin the evening
of the golden frock.
"Brigitte," he returned, leaning on the rail and presenting a
non-committal back to anyone who might chance to join them, "let us not
talk of that yet. I love you, and you are mine, and I am yours, whatever
happens."
An agony of terror took her strength as he spoke. Uncertainty was always
hard for her to bear, but in this vital matter she felt that she could
not endure it.
"If you are going to be cruel and leave me," she said, her face taking
on an expression of relentless cruelty, "you must do so at once."
He turned.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean--I cannot bear suspense. If, for any reason, you are going
to--to go--please go now."
He was honestly puzzled, for she looked at him as if he had been an
enemy.
"My dear--my beloved--what do you mean?" His voice was grieved and
gentle. "Surely you can see that----" he broke off into French, "that the
situation is not simple? That we love we cannot help--nor would we, by
God!--but in an honest man and an honest woman----"
"Come along, you two," cried Mrs. Newlyn, "dinner is announced. M.
Joyselle, go and find Lady Sophy, and you, Brigit, come and be found by
your man--I forget who he is----"
"Eugene Struther," she answered quietly, "I am glad, too."
Struther was one of the best of the young men to be met at the Newlyns,
and he and she always got on fairly well. Their table was squeezed
rather tightly into a little balcony looking over the diminutive garden
that, although she never went into it, or knew one of its flowers from
another, was one of the several joys of the Cassowary's heart. So few
people have gardens in London.
Lady Sophy Browne, an ethereal-looking woman, with a consciously wan
smile and a grey chiffon frock, that looked as if it would have had to
be unpinned and unwound, rather than taken off, when bed-time came, put
her elbows on the table and clasped her hands under her chin.
"Do you know Rodin's Portrait d'un Inconnu?" she asked Joyselle.
"No, madame."
"But you know Rodin?"
"I have met him."
Ecstatic was her smile.
"I knew it. And unconsciously you were his model for the Inconnu. But it
is you, M. Joyselle! Do not deny it, for I know."
Joyselle took an olive.
"I do not deny it, Lady Sophy. But I know nothing of it. If you are
right I am--much flattered."
Brigit was amused, for she saw that the Spectre, as her friends called
the grey-draped peeress, had anticipated excitement and curiosity on
Joyselle's part.
There was music somewhere in the distance, and the air was sweet with
the smell of roses from the room behind them as well as from the garden
below.
Struther talked little, Brigit, with her usual indifference to others,
almost not at all, and as Joyselle's self-command rose only to the
height of an occasional reply to the Spectre's monologue, which was not
of an arresting nature, the party on the balcony was very quiet.
Brigit suffered tortures as she sat watching Joyselle. It was, then, as
she had feared. He was going to be strong and make everyone miserable.
If she had been asked to propose any kind of a plan for the future, her
answer would have been, when denuded of side issues and fantasy, simply
that she could see nothing better than simple drifting. As yet she could
not anticipate, and it roused in her a kind of jealousy that Joyselle
had so soon begun to think of Théo. His love for her should have dimmed
all consideration for his son--it should have been _she_ who suggested
some means of hurting the boy as little as possible.
But she could see that Joyselle was going to be what she called in the
frankness she allowed herself, tiresome about that wretched boy of his.
She also knew that Joyselle would be anything but pleased by her
resolution to leave home and live by herself. His respect for certain
laws were an integral part of his nature, and she knew that he would not
approve of her deserting what he was certain to call the maternal roof.
This curious element of Philistinism in his otherwise Bohemian nature
was very perplexing, and she told herself, as she looked at him while he
gravely listened to the ghostly Lady Sophy, that her troubles were in
reality only just beginning.
"M. Joyselle," she asked him during a pause that only a burning desire
for champagne induced Lady Sophy to allow to pass unchallenged, "will
_petite mère_ mind my coming to sleep to-night? I want very much to see
her about something, and so I told mother I'd get you and Théo to take
me home."
He bowed with an assumption of fatherly gratification. "But of course,
my dear." Then, for his powers of dissimulation were not of durable
quality, he turned quickly to Lady Sophy.
So that was all right.
When dinner was over and the women were herded together in the
drawing-room, Brigit sat down and took up a book. In an hour Théo would
be coming, and would want his answer. What was it to be?