Gossamer Part 24

That evening I wrote my invitation to the Aschers. They immediately accepted it, expressing the greatest pleasure at the prospect of seeing Gorman's play again.

I arranged to have dinner at the Berkeley and ordered it with some care, avoiding as far as I could the more sumptuous kinds of restaurant food, and drawing on my recollection of the things Ascher used to eat when Gorman ordered his dinner for him on the Cunard steamer. With the help of the head waiter I chose a couple of wines and hoped that Ascher would drink them. As it turned out he preferred Perrier water. But that was not my fault. No restaurant in London could have supplied the delicate Italian white wines which Ascher drinks in his own house.

We dawdled over dinner and I lengthened the business out as well as I could by smoking three cigarettes afterwards, very slowly. I did not want to reach the Parthenon in time for the musical display of new frocks. I could not suppose that Ascher was interested in seeing a number of young women parading along a platform through the middle of the theatre even though they wore the latest creations of Paris fancy in silks and lingerie. I knew that Mrs. Ascher would feel it her duty to make some sort of protest against the music of the orchestra.

Gorman had told me the hour at which his play might be expected to begin and my object was to hit off the time exactly. Unfortunately I miscalculated and got to the theatre too soon. The last of the young women was waving a well-formed leg at the audience as we entered the box I had engaged. I realised that we should have to sit through a whole tune from the orchestra before the curtain went up again for Gorman's play. I expected trouble and was pleasantly surprised when none came.

Mrs. Ascher had a cold. I daresay that made her slightly deaf and mitigated the torture of the music.

She sat forward in the box and looked round at the audience with some show of interest. The audience looked at her with very great interest.

Her clothes that night were more startling than any I have ever seen her wear. A young man in the stalls stared at her for some time, and then, just when I thought he had fully taken her in, bowed to her. She turned to Ascher.

"Who is that?" she said. "The man in the fifth row, three seats from the end, yes, there. He has a lady with him."

I saw the man distinctly, a well-set-up young fellow with a carefully waxed, fair moustache. The way his hair was brushed and something about the cut of his clothes made me sure that he was not an Englishman. The lady with him was, quite obviously, not a lady in the old-fashioned sense of the word. She seemed to me the kind of woman who would have no scruples about forming a temporary friendship with a man provided he would give her dinner, wine, and some sort of entertainment.

Ascher fumbled for his pince-nez, which he carries attached to a black silk ribbon. He fixed them on his nose and took a good look at the young man.

"Ah," he said, "my nephew, Albrecht von Richter. You remember him. He dined with us two or three times when we were in Berlin in 1912. I did not know he was in London."

I somehow got the impression that Ascher was not particularly pleased to see his nephew Albrecht. Ascher was not looking very well. I had not seen him for some time, and I noticed even at dinner that his face was pale and drawn. In the theatre he seemed worse and I thought that the sudden appearance of his nephew had annoyed him. The young man whispered something to his companion and left his seat. The orchestra was still thrashing its way through its tune and there seemed no immediate prospect of the curtain going up.

A few minutes later there was a tap at the door of our box and Von Richter came in. Mrs. Ascher held out her hand to him. He bent over it and kissed it with very pretty courtesy. He shook hands with Ascher who introduced him to me.

"Captain von Richter--Sir James Digby."

Von Richter bowed profoundly. I nodded.

"Have you been long in London?" said Ascher. "You did not let me know that you were here."

"I arrived here this afternoon," said Von Richter, "only this afternoon, at five o'clock."

He spoke English remarkably well, with no more than a trace of foreign accent.

"I've been in Ireland," he said, "for six weeks."

"Indeed!" said Ascher. "In Ireland?"

He was looking at his nephew without any expression of surprise, apparently without any suggestion of inquiry; but I could not help noticing that his fingers were fidgeting with the ribbon of his pince-nez. Ascher, as a rule, does not fidget. He has his nerves well under control.

Mrs. Ascher was frankly excited when she heard that Von Richter had been in Ireland.

"Tell me," she said, "all about Ireland. About the people, what they are saying and thinking."

"We are all," I said, "tremendously interested in Irish politics at present."

"Alas!" said Von Richter, "and I can tell you nothing. My business was dull. I saw very little. I was in Dublin and Belfast, not in the picturesque and beautiful parts of that charming country. I was buying horses. Oh, there is no secret about it. I was buying horses for my Government."

It is certainly possible to buy horses in Dublin and Belfast; but I was slightly surprised to hear that Von Richter had not been further afield.

Any one who understood horse-buying in Ireland would have gone west to County Galway or south to County Cork.

The band showed signs of getting to the end of its tune. Von Richter laid his hand on the door of the box.

"Shall I see you to-morrow?" said Ascher.

"Unfortunately," said Von Richter, "I leave London early to-morrow morning. Back to Berlin and the drill yard." He kissed Mrs. Ascher's hand again. "We poor soldiers have to work hard."

"Perhaps," I said, "you can join us at the Carlton after the play. Mr.

and Mrs. Ascher have promised to have supper there with me. If you are not engaged------?"

I glanced at the lady in the stalls. I was not going to ask her to supper.

"I shall be delighted," said Von Richter. "I have no engagement of any importance."

The lady in the stalls was evidently the sort of lady who could be dismissed without trouble.

"Good," I said, "we leave directly this play is over; but you may want to see the rest of the performance. The dancing is good I am told. Join us at the Carlton as soon as you're tired of this entertainment."

Von Richter slipped away. The curtain went up almost immediately.

Gorman came in to receive our congratulations as soon as his play was over. I asked him to join our supper party but he had an engagement of his own, a supper at the Savoy. I do not blame him. The lady who acted the principle part in his play had been very charming. She deserved any supper that Gorman could give her.

We reached the Carlton very early, long before the rush of supper parties began. Von Richter joined us as we sat down at the table. He was an intelligent, agreeable young man with plenty of tact. He listened and was apparently interested while Mrs. Ascher poured out her hopes and fears for Ireland's future. When she came, as she did in the end, to her own plan of buying guns for the Nationalist Volunteers Von Richter became almost enthusiastic.

"You Americans," he said. "You are always on-the side of the oppressed.

Alone among the nations of the earth you have a pat for the head of the bottom dog."

Von Richter's English is not only correct, it is highly idiomatic.

Mrs. Ascher bridled with pleasure. It pleased her to think that she was patting the bottom dog's head. I did not remind her that in the group which she had just modelled the Spirit of Irish Poetry, for whose benefit she intended to buy guns, had got its foot firmly planted on the pig. That animal--and I still believed it to represent Belfast--was the one which a tender-hearted American ought to have patted.

"Perhaps I may be able to a.s.sist you," said Von Richter, "I know something of rifles. That is my trade, you know. If I can be of any help--there is a firm in Hamburg----"

He was glancing at Ascher as he spoke. He wondered, I suppose, how far Ascher was committed to the scheme of arming Gorman's const.i.tuents. But Ascher did not appear to be listening to him. He had allowed me to pour out some champagne for him and sat fingering the stem of his gla.s.s without drinking.

No one was eating or drinking much. I proposed that we should leave the supper room and have our coffee in the hall outside. I felt slightly uncomfortable at the turn the conversation was taking. Mrs. Ascher was very much in earnest about Ireland. Von Richter, I suppose, really knew where to buy guns. I entirely agreed with Gorman that the distribution of firearms in Ireland was a most undesirable thing.

"I always think," I said, "that one of the things to do in London is to watch the people going in and out of the supper room here. There is nothing quite like it anywhere in the world. It is the best example there is of the pride of life, 'superbia vitae.' I forget the Greek words at the moment; but a bishop whom I happen to know once told me that they mean the exultation of living. You know the sort of thing--gems and glitter, colour, scent, beauty, stateliness, strength.

'The pride of heraldry, the pomp of power.'"

I made way for Mrs. Ascher and followed her as she moved among the tables towards the staircase at the end of the room. Von Richter hooked his arm in Ascher's and spoke a few sentences to him rapidly in German.

He spoke without making any attempt to lower his voice. He evidently did not think it likely that any one within earshot, except Ascher, would understand German. We reached the hall and secured comfortable seats, from which we could watch the long procession of men and women which was already beginning to stream towards the supper room. I ordered coffee, brandy and tobacco, cigars for Von Richter and myself, a box of cigarettes for Mrs. Ascher. Ascher refused to smoke and did not touch his brandy.

Our little party divided itself into halves. I do not know how it happened but Von Richter managed to get himself placed beside Mrs.

Ascher in such a way that his back was partly turned to me. General conversation became impossible. Von Richter and Mrs. Ascher talked to each other eagerly and somehow seemed to get further away from Ascher and me. They were still discussing the landing of guns in Ireland, in Connaught, I think. After a while I could no longer hear what they said.

Ascher began to talk to me.

A party, two young women and one older one with three men behind them, pa.s.sed us and ascended the staircase to the supper room.

"There is something very fine," said Ascher, "about the insolence of well-bred Englishwomen. You see how they walk and how they look, straight in front of them. It is not an easy thing to walk well across a long brightly lighted s.p.a.ce with many eyes watching." I am not sure that I like Ascher's word "insolence." I recognise the quality which he intended to describe, which is, I think, the peculiar possession of English women of a certain cla.s.s; but I should not call it insolence.