A Safety Match Part 16

"I should think so!" said Carthew, reluctantly recalling his gaze from a distant corner of the refreshment-room. "I beg your pardon! You were saying?"

"Perhaps there is some one else whom you have promised to dance with, though," continued the country mouse demurely.

Carthew, whose eye had slid stealthily round once more in the direction of a supper-party in the corner, recovered himself resolutely, and made the only reply that gallantry permitted.

"That's all right, then," said Daphne. "Tell me who those people are, having supper over there. That man with the fierce black eyes--who is he? He looks wicked."

"As a matter of fact," said Carthew, resigning himself to his fate, "he is about the most commonplace bore in the room. If he takes a girl in to dinner he talks to her about the weather with the soup, the table decorations with the fish, and suffragettes with the _entree_.

About pudding-time he takes the bit between his teeth and launches out into a description of the last play he saw--usually _Charley's Aunt_ or _East Lynne_. If he goes to a wedding he refers to the church as a 'sacred edifice,' and the bride and bridegroom as 'the happy couple.' When he unexpectedly encounters a friend at a sea-side watering-place, he observes that 'the world is a very small place.' At his own funeral (to which I shall send a wreath) he will sit up and thank the mourners for 'this personal tribute of affection and esteem.'"

Daphne sat regarding this exhibition of the art of conversation with some interest. She observed that Carthew's wits were wandering, and that with inherent politeness he was exercising a purely mechanical faculty to entertain her pending their return. Jim Carthew was a true Briton in that he hated revealing his deeper thoughts to the eyes of the world. But unlike the ordinary Briton who, when his feelings do get the better of him, finds himself reduced to silent and portentous gloom, he instinctively clothed his naked shrinking soul in a garment of irresponsible frivolity. The possession of this faculty is a doubtful blessing, for it deprives many a deserving sufferer of the sympathy which is his right, and which would be his could he but take the world into his confidence. But the world can never rid itself of the notion that only still waters run deep. Consequently Jim Carthew pa.s.sed in the eyes of most of his friends as a kindly, light-hearted, rather soulless trifler. But Daphne was not altogether deceived. She took an instinctive interest in this young man. She interrupted his feverish monologue, and inquired--

"Tell me, who is that girl? The tall one, with fair hair and splendid black eyes."

"What is she dressed in?" asked Carthew, surveying the throng with studied diligence.

"Flame-coloured chiffon," said Daphne.

"That is a Miss Tallentyre," replied Carthew carelessly. "Do you think she is pretty?" he added, after a slightly strained pause.

"I think she is perfectly magnificent. Do you know her?"

"Er--yes."

"Will you introduce me?" asked Daphne. "I should like to know her.

See, she has just sent away her partner. Take me over and leave me with her, and then you will be free to run off and find the charmer I can see you are so anxious about."

The hapless Carthew having a.s.serted, this time with considerably more sincerity, that he had now no further thoughts of dancing, the introduction was effected. The sequel lay this morning upon Daphne's breakfast-tray, amid a heap of invitations--Daphne was in great request at present--in the form of a note, written upon thick blue paper, in a large and rather ostentatious feminine hand. It ran--

"DEAR LADY CARR,--Don't consider me a forward young person if I ask you to be an angel and come and lunch with me to-day.

I know all sorts of ceremonies ought to be observed before such a climax is reached; but will you take them for granted and _come_? We had such a tiny talk last night, and I do so want to know you better. I have been dying to make your acquaintance ever since I first saw you.--Sincerely yours, "NINA TALLENTYRE."

Daphne was not the sort of girl to take it amiss that she, a married woman of twenty-three, with a husband and baby of her own, should informally be bidden to a feast by a young person previously unknown to her, who possessed neither. In any case the last sentence would have been too much for her vanity. She scribbled a note of acceptance to Miss Tallentyre's invitation, and set about her morning toilet.

Once downstairs, she paid her regulation punctilious visit to the library, where her husband was usually to be found until twelve o'clock. She inquired in her breezy fashion after the health of the Mother of Parliaments, and expressed a hope that her spouse had come home at a reasonable hour and enjoyed a proper night's rest. She next proceeded to the orders of the day.

"Are you dining out to-night, dear?" she inquired.

"Yes, for my sins! A City dinner at six-thirty."

"You'll be bad the morn!" quoted Lady Carr.

"True for you, Daphne. Are you going anywhere?"

"No."

"Well, you had better have Carthew to dine with you, and then he can take you to the theatre afterwards. Sorry I can't manage it my--for our two selves," he added, guiltily conscious of Mrs Carfrae's recent homily.

But Daphne was quite satisfied with the arrangement, which she designated top-hole.

"Now I am off shopping," she announced. "After that I am lunching with a girl I met last night; then Hurlingham, with the Peabodys. If you are going gorging at six-thirty, I probably shan't see you again to-day; so I'll say good-night now. Pleasant dreams! I am off to play with Baby before I go out. So long!"

She presented her husband with his diurnal kiss, and departed in search of Master Brian Vereker Carr, whose domain was situated in the upper regions of the house. Here for a time the beautiful and stately consort of Sir John Carr merged into the Daphne of old--Daphne, the little mother of all the world, the inventor of new and delightful games and repairer of all damages incurred therein. Her son's rubicund and puckered countenance lightened at her approach. He permitted his latest tooth to be exhibited without remonstrance; he nodded affably, even encouragingly, over his mother's impersonation of a dying pig; and paid her the supreme compliment of howling l.u.s.tily on her departure.

Master Carr never interviewed his parents simultaneously. His father's visits--not quite so constrained as one might imagine, once the supercilious nurse had been removed out of earshot--usually took place in the evening, just before dinner; but father and mother never came together. Had they done so, it is possible that this narrative might have followed a different course. A common interest, especially when it possesses its father's mouth and its mother's eyes, with a repertory of solemn but attractive tricks with its arms and legs thrown in, is apt to be a very uniting thing.

II.

Daphne duly lunched with Miss Tallentyre.

"May I call you Daphne?" the siren asked, in a voice which intimated that a request from some people is as good as a command from most. "I have taken a fancy to you; and when I do that to anybody--which isn't often--I say so. My dear, you are perfectly _lovely_! I wish I had your complexion. You don't put anything on it, do you?"

"Soap," said Daphne briefly. She was not of the sort which takes fancies readily.

Miss Tallentyre smiled lazily.

"I see you haven't got the hang of me yet," she drawled. "You are a little offended with me. Most people are at first, but they soon find that it's not really rudeness--only _me_!--and they come round. I don't go in for rouge either. Like you, I don't need it. But I have to touch up my eyebrows. They are quite tragically sandy, and my face looks perfectly insipid if I leave them as they are." She laughed again. "Have I shocked you? You see, I believe in being frank about things--don't you? Be natural--be yourself--say what you think! That is the only true motto in life, isn't it?"

Daphne agreed cautiously. She had not yet plumbed this rather peculiar young woman. It had never occurred to her, in the whole course of her frank ingenuous existence, to ask herself whether she was herself or not. Such things were too high for her. She began to feel that she had been somewhat remiss in the matter. Miss Tallentyre appeared to have made a speciality of it.

But as shrewd Daphne was soon to discern for herself, this was only pretty Nina's way. A more confirmed _poseuse_ never angled for the indiscriminate admiration of mankind. Nina Tallentyre was no fool.

Having observed that in order to become conspicuous in this world it is an advantage to possess marked individuality, and having none of her own beyond that conferred by her face and figure, she decided to manufacture an individuality for her herself. She accordingly selected what she considered the most suitable of the _roles_ at her disposal, rehea.r.s.ed it to her satisfaction, a.s.sumed it permanently, and played it, it must be confessed, uncommonly well. Her pose was that of the blunt and candid child of nature, and her performances ranged from unblushing flattery towards those with whom she desired to stand well to undisguised rudeness towards those whom she disliked and did not think it necessary to conciliate.

Her method prospered. Whatever wise men may think or say of us, fools usually take us at our own valuation. Consequently Miss Tallentyre never lacked a majority of admirers. She set a very high price upon her friendship, too, conferring it only as an exceptional favour; and the public, which always buys on the rise, had long since rushed in and bulled Miss Tallentyre's stock--her beauty, her wit, her transparent honesty--sky high.

The luncheon was a _tete-a-tete_ function, the parent-birds, as Miss Tallentyre termed them, being absent upon a country visit. Afterwards Russian cigarettes and liqueur brandy were served with the coffee.

Daphne declined these manly luxuries, but her hostess took both.

"Not that I like them," she explained with a plaintive little sigh, "but it looks _chic_; and one must be _chic_ or die. Besides, I am doing it to annoy one of my admirers--one of those simple-minded, early Victorian, John Bullish creatures who dislike seeing a girl smoke, or drink cognac, or go to the theatre without a chaperone. Here is his latest effusion; it will make you shriek."

She picked up a letter from a little table by her side and began to read aloud.

"'_Nina, dear child, I know you don't care for me any more,_'--

As a matter of fact I never cared for him at any time--

'_but I can't help still taking an interest in you, and all that. I must say this. On Tuesday night I saw you sitting at supper with two men at the Vallambrosa, without anybody else to keep you in countenance, sipping liqueur brandy and smoking. Well, don't--there's a dear! You simply don't know what cruel things people say about a girl who does that sort of thing in public. Of course I know that you are absolutely----_'"

But Lady Carr was on her feet, slightly flushed.

"I think I must be going now," she said. "I had no idea it was so late. I have to meet some people at Hurlingham."

"Sorry you have to rush off," said Miss Tallentyre regretfully; "we were so cosy. Isn't this letter perfectly sweet?"

Daphne, who was glowing hotly, suddenly spoke her mind.

"If an honest man," she said, "wrote me a letter like that, I don't think I should read it aloud to total strangers, even if I was mortally offended by it. It doesn't seem to me cricket. Good-bye, and thank you so much for asking me to lunch."