PROUD in the make-believe that he was a fashionable groom, the loafer
holding Morland's horse touched his ragged hat smartly at his temporary
master's approach.
“Give him something, Jimmie; I have n't any change,” cried Morland. He
mounted and rode away, debonair, with a wave of farewell. Jimmie drew
from his pocket the first coin to hand, a florin, and gave it to the
loafer, who came down forthwith from his dreams of high estate to
commonplace earth, and after the manner of his class adjured the Deity
to love the munificent gentleman. The two shillings would bring gladness
into the hearts of his sick wife and starving children. Subject to the
attestation of the Deity, he put forward as a truth the statement that
they had not eaten food for a week. He himself was a hard-working man,
but the profession of holding horses in the quiet roads of St. John's
Wood was not lucrative.
“You're telling me lies, I'm afraid,” said Jimmie, “but you look
miserable enough to say anything. Here!” He gave him two more shillings.
The loafer thanked him and made a bee-line for the nearest public-house,
while Jimmie, forgetting for the moment the pitiable aspect that poor
humanity sometimes wears in the persons of the lowly, watched Morland's
well-set-up figure disappear at the turn of the road. There was no sign
of black care sitting behind that rider. It perched instead on Jimmie's
shoulders, and there stayed for the rest of the day. In spite of his
staunch trust in Morland's honour and uprightness, he found it hard to
condone the fault. The parallel which Morland had not too ingenuously
drawn with the far-away passionate episode in his own life had not
seemed just. He had winced, wondered at the failure in tact, rebelled
against the desecration of a memory so exquisitely sad. The moment after
he had forgiven the blundering friend and opened his heart again to
pity. He was no strict moralist, turning his head sanctimoniously aside
at the sight of unwedded lovers. His heart was too big and generous.
But between the romance of illicit love and the commonplace of vulgar
seduction stretched an immeasurable distance. The words of the pathetic
note, however, lingering in his mind, brought with them a redeeming
fragrance. They conjured up the picture of sweet womanhood. They hinted
no reproach; merely a trust which was expected to be fulfilled. To her
Morland was the honourable gentleman all knew; he had promised nothing
that he had not performed, that he would not perform. All day long, as
he sat before his easel, mechanically copying folds of drapery from the
lay figure on the platform, Jimmie strove to exonerate his friend from
the baser fault, and to raise the poor love affair to a plane touched by
diviner rays. But the black care still sat upon his shoulders.
The next morning he rose earlier than usual, and sought Morland at his
house in Sussex Gardens. He found him eating an untroubled breakfast.
Silver dishes, tray, and service were before him. A great flower-stand
filled with Maréchal Niel roses stood in the centre of the table. Fine
pictures hung round the walls. Rare china, old oak chairs, and sideboard
bright with silver bowls--all the harmonious and soothing luxury of a
rich man's dining-room, gave the impression of ease, of a life apart
from petty cares, petty vices, petty ambitions. A thick carpet sheltered
the ears from the creaking footsteps of indiscretion. Awnings before the
open windows screened the too impertinent light of the morning sun. And
the face and bearing of the owner of the room were in harmony with its
atmosphere. Jimmie reproached himself for the doubts that had caused
his visit. Morland laughed at them. Had he not twice or thrice declared
himself not a beast? Surely Jimmie must trust his oldest friend to have
conducted himself honourably. There was never question of marriage.
There had been no seduction. Could n't he understand? They had parted
amicably some three months ago, each a little disillusioned. Morland was
generous enough to strip a man's vanity from himself and stand confessed
as one of whom a superior woman had grown tired. The new development of
the affair revealed yesterday had, he repeated, come upon him like
an unexpected lash. The irony of it, too, in the first flush of his
engagement! Naturally he was remorseful; naturally he would do all that
a man of honour could under the circumstances.
“More is not expected and not wanted. On my word of honour,” said
Morland.
He had been upset, he continued smilingly. The consequences might be
serious--to himself, not so much to Jenny. There were complications
in the matter that might be tightened--not by Jenny--into a devil of
a tangle. Had he not pleaded special urgency when he had first asked
Jimmie to take in the letters under a false name? It might be a devil
of a tangle, he repeated.
“But till that happens--and please God it may never happen--we may
dismiss the whole thing from our minds,” said Morland, reassuringly.
“Jenny will want for nothing, and want nothing. Do you think if there
were any melodramatic villainy on my conscience I would go and engage
myself to marry Norma Hardacre?”
This was the final argument that sent the black care, desperately
clinging with the points of its claws, into infinite space. Jimmie
smiled again. Morland waved away the uncongenial topic and called for a
small bottle of champagne on ice. A glass apiece, he said, to toast the
engagement. Rightly, champagne was the wine of the morning.
“It is the morning sunshine itself distilled,” said Jimmie, lifting up
his glass.
He went home on the top of an omnibus greatly cheered, convinced that,
whatever had happened, Morland had done no grievous wrong. When Aline
went to the studio to summon him to lunch, she found him busy upon the
sketch portrait of Norma, and humming a tune--a habit of his when work
was proceeding happily under his fingers. She looked over his shoulder
critically.
“That's very good,” she condescended to remark. “Now that Miss Hardacre
is engaged to Mr. King, why don't you ask her to come and sit?”
“Do you think it's a good likeness?” he asked, leaning back and
regarding the picture.
“It is the best likeness you have ever got in a portrait,” replied
Aline, truthfully.
“Then, wisest of infants, what reason could I have for asking Miss
Hardacre to sit? Besides, I don't want her to know anything about it.”
Aline glowed with inspiration. Why should things the most distantly
connected with somebody else's marriage so exhilarate the female heart?
“Is it going to be a wedding present, Jimmie?”
“It is a study in indiscretion, my child,” he replied enigmatically.
“You are perfectly horrid.”
“I suppose I am,” he admitted, looking at the portrait with some
wistfulness. “Ugly as sin, and with as much manners as a kangaroo
=--does your feminine wisdom think a woman could ever fall in love with
me?”
She touched caressingly the top of his head where the hair was thinning,
and her feminine wisdom made this astounding answer:
“Why, you are too old, Jimmie dear.”
Too old! He turned and regarded her for a moment in rueful wonder.
Absurd though it was, the statement gave him a shock. He was barely
forty, and here was this full-grown, demure, smiling young woman telling
him he was too old for any of her sex to trouble their heads about him.
His forlorn aspect brought a rush of colour to the girl's cheeks. She
put her arms round his neck.
“Oh, Jimmie, I have hurt you. I'm sorry. I'm a silly little goose. It's
a wonder that every woman on earth is n't in love with you.”
“That is the tone of exaggerated affection, but not of conviction,” he
said. “I am the masculine of what in a woman is termed _passée_. I might
gain the esteem of a person of the opposite sex elderly like myself, but
my gallant exterior can no longer inspire a romantic passion. My day is
over. No, you have not hurt me. The sword of truth pierces, but it does
not hurt.”
Then he broke into his good, sunny laughter, and rose and put his arm
with rough tenderness round her shoulder, as he had done ever since she
could walk.
“You are the youngest thing I have come across for a long time.”
Aline, as she nestled up against him on their way out of the studio, was
thus impressed with a salutary consciousness of her extreme youth.
But this in itself magnified Jimmie's age. She loved him with a pure
passionate tenderness; no one, she thought, could know him without
loving him; but her ideal of the hero of romance for whom fair ladies
pined away in despairing secret was far different. She was too young
as yet, too little versed in the signs by which the human heart can
be read, to suspect what his playful question implied of sadness,
hopelessness, renunciation.
On Sunday they lunched with Connie Deering. Morland and Norma and old
Colonel Pawley, an ancient acquaintance of every one, were the only
other guests. It was almost a family party, cried Connie, gaily; and it
had been an inspiration, seeing that the invitations had been sent out
before the engagement had taken place. Jimmie and Aline, being the first
arrivals, had their hostess to themselves for a few moments.
“They both think it bad form to show a sign of it, but they are awfully
gone upon each other,” Connie said. “So you must n't judge Norma by what
she says. All girls like to appear cynical nowadays. It's the fashion.
But they fall in love in the same silly way, just as they used to.”
“I am glad to hear they are fond of one another,” said Jimmie. “The
deeper their love the happier I shall be.”
The little lady looked at him for a second out of the corner of her eye.
“What an odd thing to say!”
“It ought to be a commonplace thing to feel.”
“In the happiness of others there is always something that is pleasing.
By giving him the lie like that you will make poor Rochefoucauld turn in
his grave.”
“He ought to be kept revolving like Ixion,” said Jimmie. “His maxims are
the Beatitudes of Hell.”
He laughed off the too trenchant edge of his epigram, qualifying it in
his kind way. After all, you must n't take your cynic too literally. No
doubt a kindly heart beats in the ducal bosom.
“I should like to know your real opinion of the devil,” laughed Mrs.
Deering.
The opportunity for so doing was lost for the moment. The lovers
entered, having driven together from the Park. At the sight of Norma,
Aline twitched Jimmie's arm with a little gasp of admiration and
Jimmie's breath came faster. He had not seen her hitherto quite so
coldly, radiantly beautiful. Perhaps it was the great white hat she
wore, a mystery of millinery, chiffon and roses and feathers melting
one with the other into an effect of broad simplicity, that formed an
unsanctified but alluring halo to a queenly head. Perhaps it was the
elaborately simple cream dress, open-worked at neck and arms, that
moulded her ripe figure into especial stateliness. Perhaps, thought
poor Jimmie, it was the proud loveliness into which love was wont to
transfigure princesses.
She received Connie's kiss and outpouring of welcome with her usual
mocking smile. “If you offer me congratulations, I shall go away,
Connie. I have been smirking for the last hour and a half. We were so
exhausted by playing the sentimental idiots that we did n't exchange a
word on our way here; though I believe Morland likes it. We saw those
dreadful Fry-Robertsons bearing down upon us. He actually dragged me up
to meet them, as who should say 'Let us go up and get congratulated.'”
“I don't see why I should hide my luck under a bushel,” laughed Morland.
“Thank you for the compliment,” said Norma. “But if you won at Monte
Carlo you would n't pin the banknotes all over your coat and strut about
the street. By the way, Connie, we're late. Need we apologise?”
“You're not the last. Colonel Pawley is coming.”
“Oh dear! that old man radiates boredom. How can you stand him, Connie?”
“He's the sweetest thing on earth,” said her hostess.
Norma laughed a little contemptuously and came forward to greet Aline
and Jimmie. As she did so, her face softened. Jimmie, drawing her aside,
offered his best wishes.
“The happiness of a man whom I have loved like a brother all my life
can't be indifferent to me. On that account you must forgive my speaking
warmly. May you be very happy.”
“I shall be happy in having such a champion of my husband for a
brother-in-law,” said Norma, lightly.
“A loyal friend of your own, if you will,” said Jimmie.
There was a short pause. Norma ran the tip of her gloved finger down the
leaf of a plant on a stand. They were by the window. A vibration in his
voice vaguely troubled her.
“What do you really mean by 'loyal'?” she said at last, without looking
at him.
“The word has but one meaning. If I tried to explain further, I should
only appear to be floundering in fatuity.”
“I believe you are the kind that would stick to a woman through thick
and thin, through good repute and ill repute. That's what you mean. Only
you don't like to hint that I might at any time become disreputable. I
may. All things are possible in this world.”
“Not that,” said Jimmie. “Perhaps I was unconsciously pleading for
myself. Say you are a queen in your palace. While humbly soliciting
a position in your household, I somewhat grandiloquently submit my
qualifications.”
“What's all this about?” asked Morland, coming up, having overheard the
last sentence.
“I am pleading for a modest position in Her Majesty's Household,” said
Jimmie.
“We'll fit him up with cap and bells,” laughed Morland, “and make him
chief jester, and give him a bladder to whack us over the head with.
He's fond of doing that when we misbehave ourselves. Then he can get us
out of our scrapes, like the fellow in Dumas--what's his name--Chicot,
was n't it?”
Pleased with his jest, he turned to acquaint Connie with Jimmie's new
dignity. Both the jest and the laugh that greeted it jarred upon Norma.
Jimmie said to her good-humouredly:
“I might be Chicot, the loyal friend, without the cap and bells. I am a
dull dog.”
She looked out of the window and laughed somewhat bitterly.
“I think you are a great deal too good to have anything to do with any
of us.”
“It pleases you to talk arrant nonsense,” said he.
Luncheon was announced. At table Jimmie and Norma were neighbours. Aline
sat between Morland, who was next to Norma, and old Colonel Pawley. As
the latter at first talked to Mrs. Deering, Aline and Morland carried
on a frigid conversation. They had never been friends. To Morland,
naturally, she was merely a little girl of no account, who had often
been annoyingly in the way when he wanted to converse with Jimmie; and
Aline, with a little girl's keen intuition, had divined more of his real
character than she was aware of, and disliked and distrusted him. Like
a well-brought-up young lady she answered “yes” and “no” politely to
his remarks, but started no fresh topic. At last, to her relief, Colonel
Pawley rescued her from embarrassed silence. To him she had extended
her favour. He was a short fat man, with soft hands and a curious soft
purring voice, and the air rather of a comfortable old lady than of
a warrior who had retired on well-merited laurels. He occupied his
plentiful leisure by painting on silk, which he made into fans for
innumerable lady acquaintances. In his coat-tail pocket invariably
reposed a dainty volume bound in crushed morocco--a copy of little
poems of his own composition--and this, when he was in company with a
sympathetic feminine soul, he would abstract with apoplectic wheezing
and bashfully present. He also played little tunes on the harp. Aline,
with the irreverence of youth, treated him as a kind of human toy.
His first word roused the girl's spontaneous gaiety. She bubbled over
with banter. The mild old warrior chuckled with her, threw himself
unreservedly into the childish play. Connie whispered to Jimmie:
“I should like to tie a bit of blue ribbon round his neck and turn him
loose in a meadow. I am sure he would frisk.”
Morland exchanged casual remarks with Norma. She answered absently. The
change in Aline from the unsmiling primness wherewith Morland's society
had cloaked her to sunny merriment with Colonel Pawley was too marked to
escape her attention. In spite of the ludicrousness of the comparison,
she could not help perceiving that the old man who radiated boredom
had a quality of charm unpossessed by Morland, and she felt absurdly
disappointed with her lover. During the last few days she had made
up her mind to like him. Sober forecast of a lifetime spent in the
inevitable intimacy of marriage had forced her to several conclusions.
One, that it was essential to daily comfort that a woman should find the
personality of a husband pleasing rather than antipathetic. With more
ingenuousness than the world would have put to her credit, she had
set herself deliberately to attain this essential ideal. The natural
consequence was a sharply critical attitude and a quickly developing
sensitiveness, whereby, as in a balance of great nicety, the minor
evidences of his character were continually being estimated. Thus,
Morland's jest before luncheon had jarred upon her. His careless air
of patronage had betrayed a lack of appreciation of something--the word
“spiritual” was not in her vocabulary, or she might have used it--of
something, at all events, in his friend which differentiated him from
the casual artist and which she herself had, not without discomfort,
divined at their first meeting. The remark had appeared to her in bad
taste. Still ruffled, she became all the more critical, and noted with
displeasure his failure to have won a child's esteem. And yet she felt
a touch of resentment against Jimmie for being the innocent cause of her
discomposure. It gave rise to a little feline impulse to scratch him and
see whether he were not mortal like every one else.
“Do you ever exhibit at the Royal Academy?” she asked suddenly.
“They won't have me,” said he.
“But you send in, don't you?”
“With heart-breaking regularity. They did have me once.” He sighed. “But
that was many years ago, when the Academy was young and foolish.”
“I have heard they are exceedingly conservative,” said Norma, with the
claws still unsheathed. “Perhaps you work on too original lines.”
But she could draw from him no expression of vanity. He smiled. “I
suppose they don't think my pictures good enough,” he said simply.
“Jimmie's work is far too good for that wretched Academy,” said Connie
Deering. “The pictures there always give you a headache. Jimmie's never
do.”
“I should like to kill the Academy,” Aline broke in sharply, on the
brink of tears. A little tragedy of murdered hopes lurked in her tone.
Then, seeing that she had caused a startled silence, she reddened and
looked at her plate. Jimmie laughed outright.
“Is n't she bloodthirsty? All the seventy of them weltering in their
gore! Only the other day she said she would like to slaughter the whole
Chinese Empire, because they ate puppies and birds'-nests!”
Connie chimed a frivolous remark in tune with Jimmie. Morland, as
befitted a coming statesman, took up the parable of the march westwards
of the yellow races. Colonel Pawley, who had been through the Taeping
rebellion, was appealed to as an authority on the development of the
Chinaman. He almost blushed, wriggled uncomfortably, and as soon as he
could brought the conversation to the milder topic of Chinese teacups.
Successful, he sighed with relief and told Aline the story of the willow
pattern. The Royal Academy was forgotten. But Norma felt guilty and
ashamed.
Nor was she set more at ease with herself by a careless remark of
Morland's as Connie's front door closed behind them an hour or so later.
“I am afraid you rather rubbed it into poor old Jimmie about the
Academy. The little girl looked as if she would like to fly at you. She
is a spoiled little cat.”
“I have noticed she does n't seem to like you,” answered Norma, sourly.
The drive as far as Grosvenor Place, where Norma proposed to pay a
solitary call, was not as pleasant as he had anticipated. He parted from
her somewhat resentful of an irritable mood, and walked back towards
Sussex Gardens through the Park, reviling the capriciousness of woman.