MEN ARE DECEIVERS EVER
I could not but feel how nice they looked. Not for the first time,
by any means, it was a comfort to think that they were my sisters. It
is all very well to inveigh against the tremendous time a woman takes
in dressing--and I am quite willing to admit that, over and over
again, the girls have as nearly as possible driven me mad!--but if she
wants to look her best, she has to. It is just those little delicate
touches which require care and thought, and cannot be hurried over,
which complete the picture. After one is completely dressed, one can
often advantageously spend another quarter-of-an-hour or twenty
minutes in artistic tittivation; and sometimes the result is worth it.
When I began to take in the details of Audrey and Doris, I realised
that it had been worth it in their case. They were just exquisite; a
delight to the eye, a refreshment to the senses; perfect pictures, of
a kind I never could be. I was laughingly conscious of the absurdity
of my posing as a rival to them. My impulse was to hurry to them,
presenting the two nosegays, explaining that I had been merely acting
as custodian until they came. I fully expected that there would be an
instant end to those two men’s preposterous behaviour, so far as I was
concerned, taking it for granted that they would promptly rush back to
their allegiance, leaving me with the recollection of the lop-sided
joke we three had had together.
However, to my amazement, and almost to my horror, nothing of the kind
took place. Instead, Mr Purchase and Mr Carter continued their
nonsensical, half-quarrelsome argument, totally ignoring Audrey and
Doris, who remained a few paces inside the door, a growing suggestion
of astonishment upon their faces. Presently Audrey spoke.
“I hope that we have not kept you waiting. How are you, Mr Carter?”
Mr Carter turned, nodded, and addressed her from where he stood. Cold
shivers went up and down my back. He had never treated me quite so
free-and-easily as that.
“Oh, thank you, Miss Audrey. I’m going strong, thank you. I hope you
are, too.”
Without another word, he resumed his squabble with his friend.
The two girls looked at each other. Then Doris spoke.
“Good afternoon, Mr Purchase. I hope that you have been pleasantly
engaged, and have not missed me.”
Mr Purchase’s answer must have been distinctly unexpected. He just
nodded, as Basil Carter had done, and observed, in the most offhanded
manner:
“Not at all, Miss Doris--not in the very least. We couldn’t have been
better employed, thank you very much.”
He returned to Mr Carter, placing the forefinger of his right hand on
the palm of his left.
“The point is this, I have now ceded to you my share of the box,
leaving you perfect freedom to carry out your original plan, as of
course you will do.”
“Nothing of the kind. That’s not the point, here is the point in a
nutshell.”
At it they went, in the old delightful way. The two girls had seated
themselves on a settee which was between the windows. They looked
sweet, but a remark which Doris made to me suggested that that was not
exactly how they were feeling.
“What are you doing with those flowers, Norah? You look silly with a
bunch in each hand. Somehow flowers and you never do go well together,
they look incongruous.”
The assault was so gratuitous that it ruffled my plumes. I was just on
the point of handing them the flowers, with a word of explanation to
smooth things out; because those two boys had been abominably rude,
and they were not accustomed to rudeness from men. All experiences of
that kind had come my way. The fact of the sensation being an entirely
novel one scarcely made it more agreeable, especially since they had
every reason to suppose that the pair were head over ears in love with
them. My inclination was towards sympathy--true sisterly
sympathy--because I had been treated badly myself, and I knew what it
felt like. But when Doris spoke to me like that, sympathetic feelings
retreated into the background. I sank down on the ottoman; put first
one nosegay to my nose, and then the other; and smiled a little.
“Mr Carter and Mr Purchase have brought me these lovely roses. So
sweet of them, really!”
I was conscious that the girls cast a curious, and even startled
glance in my direction. Doris’ voice was a little sharp.
“Do you mean to say that those roses were given you by Mr Purchase?”
“And Mr Carter. They would insist upon my not refusing. Wasn’t it nice
of them?”
As I glanced towards Doris, with my very sweetest smile, she looked
what I call scratchy. Audrey addressed Basil Carter.
“So, Mr Carter, you have been giving Norah roses?”
“Yes, yes; poor ones, unworthy the recipient. Had I known the honour
which was in store for them I would have procured better.”
“That is very kind of you. They look very like the roses you have
sometimes given me.”
“They are the same--yes--exactly.”
The implication his words suggested,--that while the roses were not
good enough for me they were for Audrey,--possibly escaped his
attention. I doubt if it did hers. She looked up at him with notes of
interrogation in her eyes, as if she were asking what he meant. He
added, as if by an afterthought:
“By the way, Miss Audrey, there’s a matter on which I should like to
ask your advice. I have a box for the Gaiety to-night.”
“You told me that you meant to get one.”
Her words seemed to take him slightly aback.
“Yes; I have some recollection of the kind. I believe I did.”
“Did you have much difficulty?”
“No, no; none to speak of.”
Doris questioned Mr Purchase.
“And haven’t you a share in Mr Carter’s box, or has he it all to
himself?”
“He has it all to himself. I had half, but I have relinquished it.”
Doris raised her eyebrows.
“You have relinquished it?”
“You see, he proposes to ask Miss Audrey to join him, and you.”
“And me? Mr Carter proposes to ask me?”
Doris’ eyebrows went a little higher. Mr Purchase hurried on, as if he
deemed hurry advisable.
“So I hope to be able to get another box for myself, as I am extremely
anxious to ask Miss Norah to share it with me.”
“You are anxious--to ask Norah to share it with you?”
Doris’ face was a study. I could have laughed out loud, although, even
while I sat, I was shivering in my shoes. His audacity was beyond
anything--at least I thought so, until Mr Carter tried his hand.
“Excuse me, Miss Audrey, but that is not a correct statement of the
case. It is you, Miss Doris, that Jack proposes to ask, in the hope,
Miss Audrey, that you will join them. I, on the other hand, have
already asked Miss Norah to favour my box with the honour of her
presence.”
Mr Purchase burst out almost before Mr Carter had finished.
“Basil, how can you say such things? Really, you are beyond anything.
You are perfectly well aware that the original invitation to Miss
Norah came from me. Now, is that not the fact? Yes or no? Answer me.”
“Don’t be silly, Jack; I invited Miss Norah.”
“After I had done so.”
“Pooh! a question of a moment’s superior glibness.”
Audrey stood up.
“Is this a little comedy which has been arranged between you two.”
“That, Miss Audrey, is precisely the question I have put to Jack. I
certainly have had no hand in it.”
“But it seems to me you have. You will excuse my putting it to you
bluntly, Mr Carter; but did I not understand you to say that if you
succeeded in getting a box for the Gaiety you would offer me a seat in
it?”
Basil Carter seeming momentarily tongue-tied, his friend answered for
him.
“Of course he did, Miss Audrey; he told me so himself. He was full of
his anticipations of enjoyment in your society.”
Doris put her question to Mr Purchase.
“And were you not good enough to hint at my finding room in it with
you? I rather fancied that you made some proposition of the kind, or,
was it only fancy?”
It was Mr Carter’s turn to reply.
“Not at all! not in the least! I assure you, Miss Doris, that there is
not a grain of fancy about it. Jack informed me, with his own lips,
that he had made an arrangement of the kind with you, and expressed
his gratification at having done so; and it was with a view of
carrying out that arrangement that the box was procured. About that
there cannot be the faintest shadow of a doubt.”
There was an instant’s pause. Neither of the men was looking exactly
comfortable. I was wondering what excuse I could find to get outside
the room, feeling incapable of marching out without one. Doris was
lying back in a corner of the settee, picking at the folds in her
dress, and smiling apparently at her own thoughts. While Audrey was
standing close to Mr Carter, regarding him with something like a look
of puzzlement in her beautiful eyes.
“Then are we to understand that the arrangement still holds good?”
Mr Carter shifted from one foot to the other.
“The arrangement, Miss Audrey?”
“As to the box. Am I to be your guest in it, as you promised?”
There was a tone in Audrey’s voice which I had never heard in it
before--almost of appeal. I knew that she was observing his face with
growing surprise, wondering at his obvious constraint. He was
generally the readiest of men; and, with all his passionate devotion
to her, never at a loss to express, in the most graceful terms, his
eagerness to meet her smallest wishes. This blundering creature was
entirely new to her. Something very near to pity came into her face as
she continued to regard him.
“What is the matter with you, Mr Carter? You scarcely seem to be
yourself this afternoon.”
Again a second’s pause. Then he lifted his head and looked at her.
“I am not myself, Miss Audrey, not in the sense that you have known
me.”
He turned and looked towards me. As he did so, he came and stood close
to where I was sitting.
“I must beg you to allow me to withdraw from the arrangement which
existed between us, so far as it referred to me. I believe that Miss
Norah but seldom attends a theatrical performance. She has never
attended one with me. If she will grant me the felicity of
accompanying her to one to-night, she will confer on me an obligation
of which I shall ever continue conscious.”
There was silence after that. I was tingling from head to foot. I
almost felt that I should like to box his ears. I have little doubt
that Audrey would not have been indisposed to box both his and mine. A
look which was akin to terror came into her eyes; she went white, as
if something had frightened her. Doris laughed, not nicely, or
naturally either.
“So, Mr Purchase, since Mr Carter throws us over, and what he says is
quite correct, poor Norah seldom does attend a theatre--so few people
care to attend one with her--Audrey and I will have to depend on you;
you will have to find seats for both of us.”
The moment she had spoken I knew that Mr Purchase was going to make
himself as objectionable as his friend had done, and I believe that
Doris half suspected it too. There is a sting in that tongue of hers
which is always ready to strike at someone the instant she even
imagines that something unpleasant is going to happen to her. He drew
himself up with that superior air which I have noticed that some men
do cultivate when they know that they are about to behave badly.
“I trust, Miss Doris, that an erroneous interpretation will not be
placed upon my words; but you must permit me to point out that I have
already asked Miss Norah to share my box.”
Doris looked up at him with a sweetly acid smile which I should have
thought would almost have made him tremble. No man in this world had
ever thrown her over before, of that I am convinced. In matters of
that sort, hitherto, all the bad conduct had come from her.
“Yet it would be quite easy to place an erroneous interpretation upon
your words and your behaviour too, would it not, Mr Purchase, since
you have already offered a seat in your box to me?”
“Not in set terms, Miss Doris.”
“No? I don’t quite know what you mean by set terms. On certain points
you appear to have ideas of your own. One is thankful to be able to
think that they are your own. Are we to take it that Norah proposes to
divide herself into halves, and to share both your boxes?”
“Certainly not, Miss Doris. At present Mr Purchase hasn’t even got a
box to share.”
This, of course, was Mr Carter.
“But I soon shall have. Miss Norah, I need hardly say, will occupy my
box only.”
“Don’t talk nonsense, Jack. Before you invite a lady to share your
box, I should make sure of having a box to which to invite her. I
doubt if you’ll get one. My impression is that the house is sold right
out.”
“I think not. I fancy that I know where to get a box if I want one
badly. Is it impossible to induce you to see what a peculiar position
you are taking up, Basil? Is it necessary to once more point out to
you that the original invitation to Miss Norah came from me, and that
in that matter you are really merely an interloper?”
“What rubbish that is, Jack.”
Audrey interposed, deftly:
“There does seem to be a good deal of rubbish about, doesn’t there?
Supposing we take its existence for granted. My dear Norah, you must
let me congratulate you on the flattering eagerness with which these
gentlemen desire your presence in their two boxes. It is rather an
unusual experience for you, is it not? And all the pleasanter on that
account. What pretty roses these are; they are just like some which Mr
Carter has occasionally given me.”
Seating herself by my side Audrey took the pink roses from between my
fingers. Mr Purchase struck what I can only describe as an attitude.
“The position which Carter has taken up justifies me in giving you my
personal assurance that those roses were intended for you, Miss
Audrey.”
Mr Carter gave him back as good as he sent; I do not care if that is a
vulgar way of putting it, it is a correct one.
“And were not those red roses bought by you for Miss Doris, Purchase?
You know they were.”
Audrey went sweetly on.
“You are lucky, Norah. You not only get our roses, but our seats in
boxes too. What a popular child you are.”
Doris’ voice came from the couch.
“What I want to know is--since it appears that you do not propose to
divide yourself into two equal halves--which of these extraordinary
persons do you propose to favour with your company? They themselves
don’t seem to know, perhaps you do.”
I was red as a boiled beetroot, and smarting all over, and I expect my
answers showed it.
“I have not said that I would favour anybody yet. I don’t want other
people’s flowers, or other people’s seats in boxes either.”
“Miss Norah, I entreat you----”
“Miss Norah, I beseech you----”
Just as those two men came rushing at me, and began to overwhelm me
with another flood of words, the door was opened again, and in came
Walter Hammond.