A Safety Match Part 17

"_Not_ altogether a successful party," mused Daphne, as a taxi-cab conveyed her to Hurlingham. "What a hateful girl! And yet, at the back of all that affectation I believe there is something. I couldn't help liking her. She certainly is very lovely, and she must have been a darling before men got hold of her and spoiled her.... I wonder if that letter was from Jim Carthew. It sounded like his blunt blundering way of doing things. Well, he is well rid of her, anyhow.

Hurrah! here is Hurlingham, and there are the Peabodys! How lovely to see the trees and gra.s.s again! And the _dear_ ponies!"

The country-bred girl drew a long luxurious breath, and in the fulness of her heart grossly overpaid her charioteer on alighting. Then, forgetting Miss Tallentyre and her exotic atmosphere utterly and absolutely, she plunged with all the energy of her sunny soul into the sane delights and wholesome joys afforded by green trees, summer skies, and prancing polo-ponies.

III.

Daphne concluded her day, after a joyous drive home in the cool of the evening on the box-seat of a coach, by entertaining Jim Carthew to dinner. Afterwards he was to take her to _The Yeoman of the Guard_, which was running through a revival at the Savoy Theatre. Daphne was by no means a _blasee_ Londoner as yet, for much of her short married life had been spent at Belton; and the theatre was still an abiding joy to her. On the way she rattled off a list of the pieces she had seen.

"And you have never been to a Gilbert and Sullivan opera?" asked Carthew incredulously.

"No--never."

"All I can say is--cheers!"

"Why?"

"Supposing you were a benevolent person about to introduce a small boy to his first plum-pudding, you would feel as I do," replied her companion. "But wait. Here is the theatre: we are in the fourth row of stalls."

Daphne sat raptly through the first act. Once or twice her laughter rang out suddenly and spontaneously like a child's, and indulgent persons turned and smiled sympathetically upon her; but for the most part she was still and silent, revelling in Sullivan's ever-limpid music and following the scenes that pa.s.sed before her with breathless attention.

When the curtain fell slowly upon the finale of the first act--the suddenly deserted stage, the bewildered Fairfax holding his fainting bride in his arms, and the black motionless figure of the executioner towering over all--Daphne drew a long and tremulous breath, and turned to her companion.

"I understand now what you meant," she said softly. "How splendid to be able to bring some one here for the first time!"

"What surprises me," said Carthew, "is that Sir John hasn't brought you here already. I know he simply loves it."

"I am usually taken to places like the Gaiety," confessed Lady Carr.

"Probably Jack considers them more suited to my intellect. Hallo, here are the orchestra-men crawling out of their holes again! Good!"

Presently the curtain went up on the last act, and Jack Point introduced a selection of the Merry Jests of Hugh Ambrose, to the audible joy of the fourth row of stalls. The a.s.sistant Tormentor and his beloved were likewise warmly received; but presently Daphne's smiles faded. Poor Jack Point's tribulations were too much for her: during the final recurrence of _I Have a Song to Sing, O!_ tears came, and as the curtain fell she dabbed her eyes hurriedly with an inadequate handkerchief.

"Awfully sorry!" she murmured apologetically. "Luckily you are not the sort to laugh at me."

Carthew silently placed her wrap round her shoulders.

"Mr Carthew," said Daphne suddenly, "will you take me somewhere gay for supper? It wouldn't be awfully improper, would it? I can't go home feeling as sad as this."

"Come along!" said Carthew.

He escorted her to an establishment where the electric lights blazed bravely, a band blared forth a cacophonous cake-walk ent.i.tled (apparently) "By Request," and the brightest and best of the _jeunesse doree_ of London mingled in sweet companionship with the haughty but hungry divinities of the musical comedy stage.

Carthew secured a table in a secluded corner, as far as possible from the band.

"Sorry to have given you the hump," he said, with his boyish smile.

"Next week I will take you to _The Mikado_. No tears there! You will laugh till you cry. Rather a bull that--what?"

He persevered manfully in this strain in his endeavour to drive away impressionable Daphne's distress on Jack Point's behalf, and ultimately succeeded.

"I hope he was _dead_, not simply in a faint," was her final reference to the subject. Then she continued: "I shall take them _all_ to see that lovely piece--separately. I am not sure about Nicky, though. She is just at the scoffing age just now, and I don't think I could bear it, if she----"

"Not long ago," said Carthew, "I took a girl--that sort of girl--to see _The Yeomen_."

Daphne regarded him covertly. She knew the girl.

"Well?" she said.

"I took her on purpose," continued Carthew--"to see how she----"

Daphne, deeply interested, nodded comprehendingly.

"I know," she said. "How did she take it?"

"She never stirred," said Carthew, "all through the last act. When the curtain fell, she sat on for a few moments without saying a word, and she never spoke all the time I was taking her home. When I said good-night to her, she--she said something to me. It was not much, but it showed me that she _was_ the right sort after all, in spite of what people said----"

He checked himself suddenly, as if conscious that his reminiscences were becoming somewhat intimate. But Daphne nodded a serious head.

"I'm glad," she said simply. "One likes to be right about one's friends."

Carthew shot a grateful glance at her; and presently they drifted into less personal topics, mutually conscious that here, if need be, was a friend--an understanding friend.

The evening had yet one more incident in store for Daphne.

Twelve-thirty, the _Ultima Thule_ of statutory indulgence--the hour at which London, thirty minutes more fortunate than Cinderella, must perforce fly home from scenes of revelry and get ready to shake the mats--was fast approaching; and the management of the restaurant began, by a respectful but pertinacious process of light-extinguishing, to apprise patrons of the fact.

As Daphne and Carthew pa.s.sed through the rapidly emptying vestibule to their cab, five flushed young gentlemen, of the _genus_ undergraduate-on-the-spree, suddenly converged upon the scene from the direction of the bar, locked together in a promiscuous and not altogether unprofitable embrace. They were urged from the rear by polite but inflexible menials in bra.s.s b.u.t.tons.

"What ho, Daph!"

The cry emanated from the gentleman who was acting for the moment as keystone of the arch. Daphne, stepping into the cab, looked back.

"Mr Carthew," she exclaimed, "it's Ally--my brother! He must have come up from Cambridge for the day. Do go and bring him here."

She took her seat in the hansom, and Carthew went back. Presently he returned.

"I would not advise an interview," he said drily. "Your brother--well, you know the effect of London air upon an undergraduate fresh from the country! Let him come round and see you in the morning."

He gave the cabman his orders, and their equipage drove off, just as Sebastian Aloysius Vereker, the nucleus of a gyrating ma.s.s of humanity (composed of himself and party, together with two stalwart myrmidons of the Hilarity Restaurant and a stray cab-tout), toppled heavily out of the portals of that celebrated house of refreshment into the arms of an indulgent policeman.

More life--real life! reflected Daphne, as she laid her head on her pillow, tired out and utterly contented. To-day had yielded its full share. That peculiar but interesting interview with Miss Tallentyre, that glorious carnival under the blue sky at Hurlingham, and that laughter-and-tear-compelling spectacle at the Savoy--all had contributed to the total. Finally, that _tete-a-tete_ supper with Jim Carthew--indubitably a dear--ending with the episode of Ally. A little disturbing, that last! Well, perhaps Ally was only trying to see life too, in his own way. Life! Daphne tingled as she felt her own leap in her veins. And to-morrow would bring more!

Then the sandman paid his visit, and she slept like the tired child that she was, having completed to her entire satisfaction another day of what, when you come to think of it, was nothing more or less than an utterly idle, selfish, unprofitable existence.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.