Affinities and Other Stories Part 32

"Then--the real Prime Minister"--I could hardly speak. I was horribly disappointed. I had hitched my wagon to a star and it had turned out to be a dirt-grubbing little meteorite.

"His grandchildren at Gresham Place took measles and they telegraphed him not to come."

There was silence for a moment. We were both thinking. Then:

"I am sure you managed it all very nicely," I conceded, "and I am very grateful now that you saved my necklace and--and all that. But if you think you captured _him_ without alarming me you are mistaken. I shall never, never be the same person again. And as for the reward, I don't want it. I shall give it to Daphne for The Cause."

He looked around at me quickly. "To take my place," I amended. "I don't really care anything about voting, and, anyhow, I should never do it properly. They will welcome the money in my place, although doesn't it really belong to you?"

"I have already three rewards," he said, looking straight ahead. "The revolver which you emptied for fear our friend might shoot me, the limp little ball that is your handkerchief in my breast pocket, and this hour that belongs to me--the dawn, the empty world, and you sharing it all with me. Do you know," he went on, "that Daphne has seventeen pictures of you, and that I used to say I was going to marry you? There was one in very short skirts and long, white----"

"Mercy!" I broke in. "What is that over there?"

The mist had parted like a curtain, and on a lower road we saw, moving slowly, a strange procession. We stopped the machine and watched. Daphne was leading. She had the tail of her pink velvet gown thrown up over her shoulders and _she was in her stocking feet_. She carried her slippers dejectedly in her hand and she was ploughing along without ever troubling to seek a path. Behind her trailed the others. Most of them limped: all were mud-stained and dishevelled. An early sun-ray touched Violet and showed her wrapped, toga-fashion, in the hall banner. The red letters of "Votes for Women" ran around her diagonally like the stripes of a barber-pole. Poppy was trailing listlessly at the end of the procession, her gown abandoned to its fate and sweeping two yards behind her; a ribbon fillet with a blue satin rose that had nestled above her ear had become dislodged and the rose now hung dispiritedly at the back of her neck. Her short hair was all out of curl and lay matted in very straight little strands over her head.

And bringing up the tail of the procession--kicking viciously at Poppy's blue satin train in front of him--came Bagsby, a sheepish Bagsby loaded down with the hamper, a pail, a broom and a double-burner lamp with green shades. Even as he watched he took a hasty look ahead at the plodding back of his mistress, raised the lamp aloft and flung it against a stone. The crash was colossal, but not one head was turned to see the cause. They struggled along, sunk in deep bitterness and gloom.

And so they pa.s.sed across our perspective, unseeing, unheeding, and the mists of the valley claimed them again.

The man beside me turned to me, his hands on the wheel. "Are you sorry you are not with them?" he asked gently. But I cowered back in my wraps and shook my head. "Take me home," I implored, "and please don't look at me again. If they all look like that I must be unspeakable!"

"We will get there ahead and wait for them together," he said. "And to-night I shall bring Thad and Blanche over to meet you. You--you won't mind seeing me again so soon?"

"Oh, no," I said hastily. "It--it is hours until evening."

"It will seem like eternities," he reflected.

"Yes, it will," I said.

(For it would to me, and if a man likes you and you like him, why not let him know it? And if he liked me the way I looked then, what would he think when he saw me clothed properly and in my right mind?)

He leaned over and kissed my hands as they lay in my lap. "Bless you!"

he said. "I suppose you couldn't possibly wear that gown? Will you have to throw it away?"

"No," I announced, "I am going to lay it away. I--I may use it some time."

"How?" He was as curious as a child. "Are you going to make a banner of it, with gold fringe all round and 'Votes for Women' embroidered on it?"

"_No!_" I said decisively.

SAUCE FOR THE GANDER

It was on a Thursday evening that Basil Ward came to Poppy's house at Lancaster Gate. We had been very glum at dinner, with Poppy staring through me with her fork half raised, and dabs of powder around her eyes so I wouldn't know she had been crying. Vivian's place was laid, but of course he was not there. And after dinner we went up to the drawing room, and Poppy worked at the kitchen clock.

We heard Basil coming up the stairs, and Poppy went quite pale. The alarm on the clock went off just then, too, and for a minute we both thought we'd been blown up.

Basil stood in the doorway--he's very good-looking, Basil, especially when he is excited. And he was excited now. Poppy rose and stared at him. It was very dramatic.

"Well?" she said.

"I'm deucedly sorry, Poppy," said Basil. "He absolutely refuses. He says he'll stay. Says he likes it. It's extremely quiet. He wants his pens and some paper sent over--has an idea for the new book."

Poppy's color came back in two spots in her cheeks.

"So he likes it!" she observed. "Very well. Then that's settled." She turned to me. "You've heard Basil, Madge, and you've heard me. That's all there is to it."

Poppy is very excitable, and as long as she had the clock in her hand Basil stayed near the door. Now, however, she put it down, and Basil came in.

"You and Vivian are a pair of young geese," he said to Poppy. "It's a horrible place."

"Vivian likes it."

"You are going to let him stay?"

"I didn't make the law. You men make these laws. Now try living up to them. When women have the vote----"

But Basil headed her off. He dropped his voice.

"That isn't the worst, Mrs. Viv," he said slowly. "He's--gone on a hunger strike!"

I'd been in England for six months visiting Daphne Delaney, who is my cousin. But visiting Daphne had been hard work. She is so earnest. One started out to go shopping with her, and ended up on a counter in Harrod's demanding of a mob of women hunting bargains in one-and-six kids (gloves) why they were sheep.

"Sheep!" she would say, eyeing them scornfully. "Silly sheep who do nothing but bleat--with but one occupation, or reason for living, to cover your backs!"

Then two or three stately gentlemen in frock-coats would pull her down, and I would try to pretend I was not with her.

Now I believe in Suffrage. I own a house back home in America. Father gave it to me so I could dress myself out of the rent. (But between plumbers and taxes and a baby with a hammer, which ruined the paint, I never get much. Mother has to help.) The first thing I knew, the men voted to pave the street in front of the old thing, and I had to give up a rose-coloured charmeuse and pa.s.s over a check. But that isn't all. The minute the street was paved, some more men came along and raised my taxes because the street was improved! So I paid two hundred dollars to have my taxes raised! Just wait!

That made me strong for Suffrage. And of course there are a lot of other things. But I'm not militant. You know as well as I do that it's coming.

The American men are just doing what father does at Christmas time. For about a month beforehand he talks about hard times, and not seeing his way clear and all that. And on Christmas morning he comes down stairs awfully glum, with one hand behind him. He looks perfectly miserable, but he's really having the time of his life. We always play up. We kiss him and tell him never to mind; maybe he can do it next year. And we're always awfully surprised when he brings his hand around with checks for everybody, bigger than they'd expected.

(That's the way with Suffrage in America. The men are holding off, and having a good time doing it. But they'll hand it over pretty soon, with bells on. The American man always gives his womenkind what they want, if they want it hard enough. Only he's holding off a little, so they'll appreciate it when they get it.)

It was after the affair of the Prime Minister that I left Daphne. We kidnapped him, you remember, only it turned out to be someone else, and Violet Harcourt-Standish got in awfully wrong and had to go to the Riviera. I really did not wish to kidnap him, but the thing came up at tea at Daphne's one day, and one hates to stay out of things.

Poppy was going on a motor trip just then, and when she asked me to go along, I agreed. I was spending a Sunday with her.

"I'm not running away, Madge," she explained. "But I'm stony broke, and that's the truth. I'll have to get back to work."

"You can't work in the motor."

Poppy paints, and makes a lot of money--mural decorations, you know, panels for public buildings, and all that sort of thing.