December Love Part 25

"Oh, they all know her. She carries things through. That really is the art of life, to be able to carry things through. Her bronzes are quite remarkable. By the way, she has an excellent brain. She cares for the arts. She is by no means a fribble. I have been surprised by her knowledge more than once."

"She seems very fond of Lady Sellingworth. She wants to get her over to Paris."

"Adela Sellingworth won't go."

"Why not?"

"She seems to hate Paris now. It is years since she had stayed there."

After a pause Craven said:

"Lady Sellingworth is something of a mystery, I think. I wonder--I wonder if she feels lonely in that big house of hers."

"Far more people feel lonely than seem lonely," said Braybrooke.

"I expect they do. But I think that somehow Lady Sellingworth seems lonely. And yet she is full of mockery."

"Mockery?"

"Yes. I feel it."

"But didn't you find her very kind?"

"Oh, yes. I meant of self-mockery."

Braybrooke looked rather dubious.

"I think," continued Craven, perhaps a little obstinately, "that she looks upon herself with irony, while Miss Van Tuyn looks upon others with irony. Perhaps, though, that is rather a question of the different outlooks of youth and age."

"H'm?"

Braybrooke pulled at his grey-and-brown beard.

"I scarcely see--I scarcely see, I confess, why age should be more disposed to self-mockery than youth. Age, if properly met and suitably faced--that is, with dignity and self-respect, such as Adela Sellingworth undoubtedly shows--has no reason for self-mockery; whereas youth, although charming and delightful might well laugh occasionally at its own foolishness."

"Ah, but it never does!"

"I think for once I shall have a c.o.c.ktail," said Braybrooke, signing to an attendant in livery, who at that moment came from some hidden region and looked around warily.

"You will join me, Craven? Let it be dry Martinis. Eh? Yes! Two dry Martinis."

As the attendant went away Braybrooke added:

"My dear boy, if you will excuse me for saying so, are you not getting the Foreign Office habit of being older than your years? I hope you will not begin wearing horn spectacles while your sight is still unimpaired."

Craven laughed and felt suddenly younger.

The two dry Martinis were brought, and the talk grew a little more lively. Braybrooke, who seldom took a c.o.c.ktail, was good enough to allow it to go to his head, and became, for him, almost unb.u.t.toned. Craven, entertained by his elderly friend's unwonted exuberance, talked more freely and a little more intimately to him than usual, and presently alluded to the events of the previous night, and described his expedition to Soho.

"D'you know the _Ristorante Bella Napoli_?" he asked Braybrooke.

"Vesuvius all over the walls, and hair-dressers playing Neapolitan tunes?"

Braybrooke did not, but seemed interested, for he c.o.c.ked his head to one side, and looked almost volcanic for a moment over the tiny gla.s.s in his hand. Craven described the restaurant, the company, the general atmosphere, the Chianti and Toscanas, and, proceeding with artful ingenuity, at last came to his climax--Lady Sellingworth and Miss Van Tuyn in their corner with their feet on the sanded floor and a smoking dish of Risotto alla Milanese before them.

"Adela Sellingworth in Soho! Adela Sellingworth in the midst of such a society!" exclaimed the world's governess with unfeigned astonishment.

"What could have induced her--but to be sure, Beryl Van Tuyn is famous for her escapades, and for bringing the most unlikely people into them.

I remember once in Paris she actually induced Madame Marretti to go to--ha--ah!"

He pulled himself up short.

"These Martinis are surely very strong!" he murmured into his beard reproachfully.

"I don't think so."

"My doctor tells me that all c.o.c.ktails are rank poison. They set up fermentation."

"In the mind?" asked Craven.

"No--no--in the--they cause indigestion, in fact. How poor Adela Sellingworth must have hated it!"

"I don't think she did. She seemed quite at home. Besides, she has been to many of the Paris cafes. She told me so."

"It must have been a long time ago. And in Paris it is all so different.

And you sat with them?"

Craven recounted the tale of the previous evening. When he came to the Cafe Royal suggestion the world's governess looked really outraged.

"Adela Sellingworth at the Cafe Royal!" he said. "How could Beryl Van Tuyn? And with a Bolshevik, a Turkish refugee--from Smyrna too!"

"There were the Georgians for chaperons."

"Georgians!" said Braybrooke, with almost sharp vivacity. "I really hate that word. We are all subjects of King George. No one has a right to claim a monopoly of the present reign. I--waiter, bring me two more dry Martinis, please."

"Yes, sir."

"What was I saying? Oh, yes--about that preposterous claim of certain groups and coteries! If anybody is a Georgian we are all Georgians together. I am a Georgian, if it comes to that."

"Why not? But Lady Sellingworth is definitely not one."

"How so? I must deny that, really. I know these young poets and painters like to imagine that everyone who has had the great honour of living under Queen Victoria--"

"Forgive me! It isn't that at all."

"Well, then--oh, our dry Martinis! How much is it, waiter?"

"Two shillings, sir."

"Two--thank you. Well, then, Craven, I affirm that Lady Sellingworth is as much a Georgian as any young person who writes bad poetry in Cheyne Walk or paints impossible pictures in Glebe Place."