December Love Part 15

And thereupon she told the "old guard" of the stranger's evident interest in Lady Sellingworth.

Although she completely concealed it, Lady Sellingworth felt decided interest in the brown man. The truth was that his long and ardent--yet somehow not impudently ardent--look at her had stirred the dust and ashes in her heart. It was as if a little of the dust rose and floated away, as if some of the ashes crumbled into a faint grey powder which was almost nothingness.

At that moment she was in the dangerous mood when a woman of her type will give herself to almost any distraction which promises a possible adventure, or which holds any food for her almost starving vanity. Her love--or was it really l.u.s.t--for Rupert Louth still ravaged her. The thought of "the Crouch's" triumph still persecuted her mind. Terrible pictures of a happiness she had no share in still made every night hideous to her. She longed for Rupert Louth, but she longed also to be reinstated in her self-esteem. That glance of a stranger had helped her.

She asked herself whether a man of that type, young, amazingly handsome, would ever send such a glance to Mother Hubbard. Suddenly she felt safer, as if she could hold up her head once more. Really she had always held it up, but to herself, since Louth's blunt confession, she had been a woman bowed down, old, done with, a thing fit for the sc.r.a.p heap.

Now a slight, almost trembling sensation of returning self-esteem stole through her. She could not have been mistaken about the brown man's interest in her, for the d.u.c.h.ess of Wellingborough had specially noticed it. She wondered who he was, whether he really had brought introductions, where he was staying, whether he would presently appear in her set. His brown eyes were gentle and yet enterprising. He looked like a sportsman, she thought, and yet as if he were more intellectual, more subtle than Louth. There seemed to be a slight thread of sympathy between her and him! She had felt it immediately when they had met in Bond Street. She wondered whether he had felt it too.

In all probability if Lady Sellingworth had been in a thoroughly normal condition at this time she would not have thought twice about such a trifling episode as a stranger's glance at her in the street. But she was not in a normal condition. She was the prey of acute depression and morbidity. Life was becoming hideous to her. She exaggerated her loneliness in the midst of society. She had mentally constructed for herself a new life with Louth as her husband. Imaginatively she had lived that life until it had become strangely familiar to her, as an imagined life can become to a highly strung woman. The abrupt and brutal withdrawal of all possibility of it as a reality had made the solitude of her widowhood seem suddenly terrible, unnatural, a sort of nightmare.

She had moments of desperation in which she said to herself, "This cannot go on. I can't live alone any more or I shall go mad." In such moments she sometimes thought of rewarding Sir Seymour Portman's long fidelity. But something in her, something imperious, shrank at the thought. She did not want to marry an elderly man.

And yet it seemed that no young man would ever want to marry her.

She shuddered before the mysteries of the flesh. Often she was shaken by a storm of self-pity. Darkness yawned before her. And she still longed, as she thought no other woman could ever have longed, for happiness, companionship, a virile affection.

For some days she did not see the stranger again, although she was several times in Bond Street. She began to think, to fear, he had left London; yes--to fear! It had come to that! Realizing it, she felt humiliation. But his eyes had seemed to tell her that she possessed for him great attraction! She longed to see those eyes again, to decipher their message more carefully. The exact meaning of it might have escaped her in that brief instant of encounter. She wondered whether the young man had known who she was, or whether he had merely been suddenly struck by her appearance, and had thought, "I wish I knew that woman." She wondered what exactly was his social status. No doubt if he had been English she could have "placed" him at once, or if he had been French.

But he was neither the one nor the other. And she had had little time to make up her mind about him, although, of course, his good looks had leaped to the eye.

She had begun to think that Destiny had decided against another encounter between her and this man when one day Seymour Portman asked her to lunch with him at the Carlton. She accepted and went into the restaurant at the appointed time. It was crowded with people, many of whom she knew, but one table near that allotted to the general's party had two empty chairs before it. On it was a card with the word "Reserved." Soon after the general's guests had begun to lunch, when Lady Sellingworth was in the full flow of conversation with her host, by whose side she was sitting, and with a hunting peer whom she had known all her life, and who sat on her other side, two people made their way to the table near by and sat down in the empty chairs. One was an old woman in a coal-black wig, with a white face and faded eyes, rather vague and dull in appearance, but well dressed and quietly self-a.s.sured, the other was the man Lady Sellingworth had met in Bond Street. He took the chair which was nearly opposite to her; but whether deliberately or by accident she had no time to notice. He did not look at her for several minutes after sitting down. He was apparently busy ordering lunch, consulting with a waiter, and speaking to his old companion, whose coal-black wig made a rather strange contrast with her lined white cheeks and curiously indefinite eyes. But presently, with a sort of strong deliberation, his gaze was turned on Lady Sellingworth, and she knew at once that he had seen her when he came in. She met his gaze for an instant, and this time seemed to be definitely aware of some mysterious thread of sympathy between her and him. Sir Seymour spoke to her in his quiet, rather deep voice, and she turned towards him, and as she did so she felt she knew, as she had never known before, that she could never marry him, that something in her that was of her essence was irrevocably dedicated to youth and the beauty of youth, which is like no other beauty. The wildness of her which did not die, which probably would never die, was capable of trampling over Sir Seymour's fidelity to get to unstable, selfish and careless youth, was capable of casting away his fidelity for the infidelity of youth. As she met her host's grave eyes, she sentenced him in her heart to eternal watching at her gate.

She could not, she never would be able to, let him into the secret room where she was really at home.

During lunch she now and then glanced towards the old woman and the stranger. They evidently knew no one, for no one took any notice of them, and they did not seem to be on the look out for acquaintances.

Many people pa.s.sed by them, entering and leaving the restaurant, but there were no glances of recognition, no greetings. Only some of the women looked at the young man as if struck, or almost startled, by his good looks. Certainly he was amazingly handsome. His brown skin suggested the sun; his figure athletic exercises; the expression of his face audacity and complete self-possession. Yet there was in his large eyes a look of almost appealing gentleness, as if he were seeking something, some sympathy, some affection, perhaps, which he needed and had never yet found. Several times when she glanced towards him with careful casualness, Lady Sellingworth found his eyes fixed upon her with this no doubt unconsciously appealing expression in them. She knew that this man recognized her as the woman he had met in Bond Street. She felt positive that for some reason he was intent upon her, that he was deeply interested in her. For what reason? Her woman's vanity, leaping eagerly up like a flame that had been damped down for a time but that now was being coaxed into bright burning, told her that there could be only one reason. Why is a handsome young man interested in a woman whom he does not know and has only met casually in the street? The mysterious attraction of s.e.x supplied, Lady Sellingworth thought, the only possible answer. She had not been able to attract Rupert Louth, but she attracted this man, strongly, romantically, perhaps. The knowledge--for it seemed like knowledge, though it was really only surmise--warmed her whole nature. She felt again the delicious conquering sensation which she had lost. She emerged out of humiliation. Her vivacity grew as the lunch progressed. Suddenly she felt good-looking, fascinating, even brilliant.

The horrible dreariness of life had departed from her, driven away by the look in a stranger's eyes.

Towards the end of lunch the woman on Sir Seymour's other side said to him:

"Do you know who that man is--the young man opposite to that funny South American-looking old woman with the black wig?"

Sir Seymour looked for a moment at the brown man with his cool, direct, summing-up, soldier's eyes.

"No," he answered. "I've never set eyes on him before."

"I think he is the best-looking man I have ever seen," said the woman.

"No doubt--very good-looking, very good-looking!" said her host; "but on the wrong side of the line, I should say."

"The wrong side of the line? What do you mean?"

"The shady side," said Sir Seymour.

And then he turned to speak to Lady Sellingworth.

She had overheard the conversation, and felt suddenly angry with him.

But she concealed her vexation and merely said to herself that men are as jealous of each other as women are jealous, that a man cannot bear to hear another man praised by a woman. Possibly--she was not sure of this--possibly Sir Seymour had noticed that she was interested in the stranger. He was very sharp in all matters connected with her. His affection increased his natural acuteness. She resolved to be very careful, even very deceptive. And she said:

"Isn't it odd how good looks, good manners and perfect clothes, even combined with charm, cannot conceal the fact that a man is an outsider?"

"Ah, you agree with me!" Sir Seymour said, looking suddenly pleased.

"That's good! Men and women are seldom at one on such matters."

Lady Sellingworth shot a glance at the man discussed and felt absurdly like a traitor.

Soon afterwards Sir Seymour's lunch party broke up.

In leaving the restaurant Lady Sellingworth pa.s.sed so close to the young man that her gown almost brushed against him. He looked up at her, and this time the meaning of his glance was unmistakable. It said: "I want to know you. How can I get to know you?"

She went home feeling almost excited. On the hall table of her house she found a note from Rupert Louth asking her whether she would help "little Bertha" by speaking up for her to a certain great dressmaker, who had apparently been informed of the Louths' shaky finances. Louth's obstinate reliance on her as a devoted friend of him and his disdainfully vulgar young wife began to irritate Lady Sellingworth almost beyond endurance. She took the letter up with her into the drawing-room, and sat down by the writing-table holding it in her hand.

It had come at a dangerous moment.

Louth's blindness now exasperated her, although she had desperately done her best to close his eyes to the real nature of her feeling for him and to the unexpressed intentions she had formed concerning him and had been forced to abandon. It was maddening to be tacitly rejected as a possible wife and to be enthusiastically claimed as a self-sacrificing friend.

Surely no woman born of woman could be expected to stand it. At that moment Lady Sellingworth began almost to hate Rupert Louth.

What a contrast there was between his gross misunderstanding of her and the brown man's understanding! Already she began to tell herself that this man who did not know her nevertheless in some subtle, almost occult, way had a clear understanding of her present need. He wanted sympathy--his eyes said that--but he had sympathy to give. She began to hate the controlling absurdities of civilization. All her wildness seemed to rise up and rush to the surface. How inhuman, how against nature it was, that two human beings who wished to know each other should be held back from such knowledge by mere convention, by the unwritten law of the solemn and formal introduction! A great happiness might lie in their intercourse, but conventionality solemnly and selfishly forbade it, unless they could find a common acquaintance to mumble a few unmeaning words over them. Mumbo-Jumbo! What a fantastic world of stupidly obedient puppets this world of London was! She said to herself that she hated it. Then she thought of her first widowhood and of her curious year in Paris.

There she might more easily have made the acquaintance of the unknown man in some Bohemian cafe, where people talked to each other casually, giving way to their natural impulses, drifting in and out as the whim took them, careless of the _convenances_ or actively despising them. In London, at any rate if one is English and cursed by being well known, one lives in a strait waist-coat. Lady Sellingworth felt the impossibility of speaking to a stranger without an introduction in spite of her secret wildness.

And if he spoke to her?

She remembered Sir Seymour's instant judgment on him. It had made her feel very angry at the time when it was delivered, but then she had not held any mental debate about it. She had simply been secretly up in arms against an attack on the man she was interested in. Now she thought about it more seriously.

Although she had never been able to love Sir Seymour, she esteemed him very highly and valued his friendship very much. She also respected his intellect and his character. He was not a petty man, but an honest, brave and far-seeing man of the world. Such a man's opinion was certainly worth something. One could not put it aside as if it were the opinion of a fool. And after a brief glance at the stranger Sir Seymour had unhesitatingly p.r.o.nounced him to be an outsider.

Was he an outsider?

As a rule Lady Sellingworth was swift in deciding what was the social status of a man. She could "place" a man as quickly as any woman. But, honestly, she could not make up her mind about the stranger. Although he was so exceptionally good-looking, perhaps, he was not exactly distinguished looking. But she had known dukes and Cabinet Ministers who resembled farmers and butlers, young men of high rank who had the appearance of grooms or bookies. It was difficult to be sure about anyone without personal knowledge of him.

When she had first seen the young man in Bond Street it had certainly not occurred to her that there was anything common or shady in his appearance. And the d.u.c.h.ess of Wellingborough had not hinted that she held such an opinion about him. And surely women are quicker about such matters than men.

Lady Sellingworth decided that Seymour Portman was prejudiced. Old courtiers are apt to be prejudiced. Always mixing with the most distinguished men of their time, they acquire, perhaps too easily, a habit of looking down upon ordinary but quite respectable people.

Here Lady Sellingworth suddenly smiled. The adjective "respectable"

certainly did not fit the Bond Street young man. He looked slightly exotic! That, no doubt, had set Sir Seymour against him. He was not of the usual type of club man. He "intrigued" her terribly. As the d.u.c.h.ess of Wellingborough would have phrased it, she was "crazy" to know him.

She even said to herself that she did not care whether he was on the shady side of the line or not. Abruptly a strong democratic feeling took possession of her. In the affections, in the pa.s.sions, differences of rank did not count.

Rupert Louth had married a Crouch!

Lady Sellingworth looked at his note which was still in her hand, and memories of the disdainful young beauty "queening it"--that really was the only appropriate expression--"queening it" with vulgar gentility among the simple mannered, well-bred people to whom Louth belonged rose up in her mind. How terrible were those definite airs of being a lady!

How truly unspeakable were those august condescensions of the undeniable Crouch!

When Lady Sellingworth mused on them her sense of the equality before G.o.d of all human creatures decidedly weakened.

She wrote a brief letter to Louth declining to "speak up" to the great dressmaker. "Little Bertha" must manage without her aid. She made this quite clear, but she wrote very charmingly, and sent her love at the end to little Bertha. That done, almost violently she dismissed Louth and his wife from her mind and became democratic again!

Putting Louth and little Bertha aside, when it came to the affections and the pa.s.sions what could one be but just a human being? Rank did not count when the heart was awake. She felt intensely human just then. And she continued to feel so. Life was quickened for her by the presence in London of a stranger whom n.o.body knew. This might be a humiliating fact.

But how many facts connected with human beings if sternly considered are humiliating!

And n.o.body knew of her fact.