A Crooked Mile Part 6

Surely, she thought, Mr. Strong was not going to tell her that "Stanhope Tasker was an excellent fellow in his way, but----," as he had said of Mr. Brimby, Mr. Wilkinson and Mr. Prang!----

"Oh, nothing much. Only that I saw him to-day," Strong replied offhandedly.

"He's often about. He isn't a very busy man, I should say," Amory remarked.

"Saw him in Charing Cross Road as I was coming out of the office," Mr.

Strong continued. "I don't think he saw me though."

"After his abominable manners to you that day I should think he'd be ashamed to look you in the face."

For a moment Mr. Strong looked puzzled; then he remembered, and laughed again.

"Oh, I didn't mind that in the least! Rather refreshing in fact. Far more likely he didn't notice me because he had his wife with him. I think you said he was married?"

Amory was just about to say that Mr. Strong gave Stan far more magnanimity than he deserved when a thought arrested her. Dorothy in Charing Cross Road! As far as she was aware Dorothy had not been out of Hampstead for weeks, and even then kept to the less frequented parts of the Heath. It wasn't likely....

Her eyes became thoughtful.

"Oh? That's funny," she said.

"What, that he shouldn't see me? Oh no. They seemed far more interested in electric-light fittings."

Amory's eyes grew more thoughtful still--"Oh!" she said; and added, "Did you think her pretty?"

"Hm--in a way. Very well dressed certainly; they both were. But I don't think these black Spanish types amuse me much," Mr. Strong replied.

Dorothy a black Spanish type!

"Oh, do tell me what she had on!" said Amory brightly.

She rather thought she knew most of Dorothy's dresses by this time.

A black Spanish type!

The task of description was too much for Mr. Strong, but he did his best with it. Amory was keenly interested. But she pocketed her interest for the present, and said quite banteringly and with an almost arch look, "Oh, I should have thought Mrs. Tasker exactly your type!"

Again the quick motion of Mr. Strong's blue eyes suggested an audible click--"Oh? Why?" he asked.

"Oh, there's no 'why' about it, of course. It's the impression of you I had, that's all. You see, you don't particularly admire Miss Belchamber----"

"Oh, come! I think Miss Belchamber's an exceedingly nice girl, only----"

"Well, Laura Beamish, then. But I forgot; you don't go to Walter's Lectures. But I wonder whether you'd admire Laura?"

"If she's black and Spanish you think I should?" He paused. "Is she?"

"No. Brown and stringy rather, and with eyes that open and shut very quickly.... But I'm very absurd. There's no Law about these things really. Only, you see, I've no idea of the kind of woman you _do_ admire?"

She said it smilingly, but that did not mean that she was not perfectly candid and natural about it too. Why not be natural about these things?

Amory knew people who were natural enough about their preferred foods and clothing and houses; was a woman less than an entree, or a bungalow, or a summer overcoat? Besides, it was so very much more intrinsically interesting. Walter Wyron had made a whole Lecture on it--Lecture No.

II, "_Types and Tact_," and Walter had barely touched the fringe of the subject. Amory wanted to go a little deeper than that. But she also wanted to get away from those vulgarized words and ready-made conclusions, and to have each case considered on its merits. Surely it ought to be possible to say that the presence of a person affected you pleasantly, or unpleasantly, without sn.i.g.g.e.ring inferences of a _liaison_ in the one case or of a rupture in the other!

Therefore it was once more just a little irritating that Mr. Strong, instead of telling her what type he did admire, should merely laugh and say, "Well--not Mrs. Tasker." If Amory had a criticism at all to make of Mr. Strong it was this habit of his of negatives, that sometimes almost justified the nickname Mr. Brimby had given him, of "Stone Wall Strong."

So she dropped one hand from her chin, allowing it to hang loose over her knee while the other forearm still kept its swan's-neck curve, and said abruptly, "Well--about the Indian Number. Let's get on."

"Ah, yes," said Mr. Strong. "Let's get on."

"What had we decided?"

"Only Prang's article so far."

"But you say you have your doubts about it?"

Mr. Strong hesitated. "Only about its selling-power," he said with a little shrug. "We must sell the paper, you see. It's not paying its way yet."

"Well, I'm sure that's not Mr. Prang's fault," Amory retorted. "He's practically made the export circulation."

"You mean the Bombay circulation? Yes, I suppose he has. I don't deny it."

"You can't deny it. Since Prang began to write for us we've done awfully well in Bombay."

To that too, Mr. Strong a.s.sented. Then Amory, after a moment's pause, spoke quietly. She did not like to think of her editor as jealous of his own contributors.

"I know you don't like Mr. Prang," she said, looking fixedly at the asbestos log.

"I!" began Stone Wall Strong. "Why, you know I think he's a first rate fellow, if only----"

This time, however, Amory really did intend to get it out of him. For once she would have one of those hung-up sentences completed.

"If only what?" she said, looking up at him.

"Oh, I don't know--as you said a moment ago, there's no 'why' about these things----"

"But I did give you my impression. You don't give me yours."

"You did, I admit. Yes, I admit you did.... What is it you want to know, then?"

"Only why you seem so doubtful about Mr. Prang."

"Ah!" said Mr. Strong....

Those who knew Edgar Strong the best said that he was a man who, other things being equal, would rather go straight than not. Even when the other things were not quite equal, he still had a mild preference for straightness. But if other people positively insisted that he should deviate from straightness, very well; that was their look-out. He had been a good many things in his time--solicitor's clerk, free-lance journalist, book-pedlar, election-agent's minion, Vanner, poetic vagabond, and always an unerring "spotter" of the literary son of the farming squire the moment he appeared in sight; and the "Novum" was the softest job he had found yet. If the price of his keeping it was that he should look its owner's wife long and earnestly in the eyes, as if in his own there lay immeasurable things, not for him to give but for her to take if she list, so be it; he would sleep none the less well in his rent-free bedroom behind the "Novum's" offices afterwards. His experience of far less comfortable sleeping-quarters had persuaded him that in this imperfect world a man is ent.i.tled to exactly what he can get.

His eyes, nevertheless, did not seek Amory's. Instead, roving round the room to see if nothing less would serve (leaving him still with the fathomless look in reserve for emergencies), they fell on the Benares tray and the casts. And as they remained there he suddenly frowned.

Amory's own eyes followed his; and suddenly she felt again that little creeping thrill. A faint colour and warmth, new and pleasurable, came into her cheeks.

Then with a little rush, her discovery came upon her....