Lalage's Lovers Part 10

But Lalage would not hear of this. She wanted, so she said, to talk confidentially to me. Miss Battersby was an obstacle in her way, and so she ordered me to introduce Miss Battersby as my subst.i.tute at the bridge table.

If Miss Battersby had acted reasonably and gone to bed either before or immediately after dinner this would have been unnecessary. But she did not. She became immoderately cheerful and was most anxious to enjoy herself. I set her down at the card table and then, as quickly as possible, fled. Miss Battersby's bridge is of the most rudimentary and irritating kind and she has a conscientious objection to paying for the small stakes which usually gave a brightness to our game. It was necessary for me to get out of earshot of the Doddses and the engineer before they discovered these two facts about Miss Battersby. I thought it probable that I should have to go to a new hotel next day in order to escape the reproaches of my friends. But I did not want to move that night, so I went into the hotel garden, hustling Hilda before me. There was no need to hustle Lalage. She understood the need for haste even better than I did. I knew Miss Battersby's capacity for bridge, having occasionally played with her in my uncle's house. Lalage understood how acutely the pain brought on by Miss Battersby's bridge would be aggravated by the deprecating sweetness of Miss Battersby's manner. In the hotel garden there were a number of chairs made, I expect, by a man whose regular business in life was the manufacture of the old-fashioned straw beehives. When forced by the introduction of the new wooden hives to turn his hand to making chairs, he failed to shake himself free of the tradition of his proper art. His chairs were as like beehives as it is possible for chairs to be and anybody who sits back in one of them is surrounded on all sides by walls and overshadowed by a hood of woven wicker-work. When Lalage sat down I could see no more of her than the glowing end of her cigarette and the toes of her shoes. Hilda was to the same extent invisible. I was annoyed by this at first, for Lalage is very pretty to look at and the night was not so dark when we sat down but that I could, had she been in any ordinary chair, have traced the outline of her figure. Later on, when our conversation reached its most interesting point, I was thankful to recollect that I also was in obscurity. I am not, owing to my training as a diplomatist, an easy man to startle, but Lalage gave me a severe shock. I prefer to keep my face in the shadow when I am moved to unexpected emotion.

"To-morrow," I said pleasantly, by way of opening the conversation, "we shall have another long day's sight-seeing, mitigated with ices."

"I'm sorry to say," said Lalage, "that we go home to-morrow. The steamer sails at 11 a.m."

"Surely there can be no real need for such hurry. Now that we have Miss Battersby among us the Archdeacon and Hilda's mother will be quite satisfied."

"It's not that in the least," said Lalage. "Is it, Hilda?"

Hilda said something about return tickets, but Lalage snubbed her. I gathered that there was reason for precipitancy more serious than the by-laws of the steamboat company.

"I am confident," I said, "that Selby-Harrison is capable of carrying on the work of exterminating bishops."

"It's not that either," said Lalage. "The fact is that we have come to Lisbon on business, not for pleasure. You've probably guessed that already."

"I feared it. Of the two reasons you gave me this morning for coming here----"

"I haven't told you any reason yet," said Lalage.

"Excuse me, but when we first met this morning you said distinctly that you had come to see me. I hardly flattered myself that could really be true."

"It was," said Lalage. "Quite true."

"It's very kind of you to say so and of course I quite believe you, but then you afterward gave me to understand that your real object was to work up the emotion caused by the appearance of a dead king with a view to utilizing it to add intensity to a prize poem. That, of course, is business of a very serious kind. That's why I meant to say a minute ago that of the two reasons you gave me for coming here the second was the more urgent."

"Don't ramble in that way," said Lalage. "It wastes time. Hilda, explain the scheme which we have in mind at present."

Hilda threw away the greater part of a cigarette and sat up in her beehive. I do not think that Hilda enjoys smoking cigarettes. She probably does it to impress the public with the genuine devotion to principle of the A.T.R.S.

"The society," said Hilda "has met with difficulties. Its objects----"

"He knows the objects," said Lalage. "Don't you?"

"To expose in the public press----" I began.

"That's just where we're stuck," said Lalage.

"Do you mean to tell me that the Irish newspapers have been so incredibly stupid as not to publish the articles sent by you, Hilda, and Selby-Harrison?"

"Not a single one of them," said Lalage.

"And the bishops," I said, "still wear their purple stocks, their ap.r.o.ns, and their gaiters; and still talk tommyrot through the length and breadth of the land."

"But we're not the least inclined to give in," said Lalage.

"Don't," I said. "Keep on pelting the editors with articles. Some day one of them will be away from home and an inexperienced subordinate----"

"That would be no use," said Hilda.

"What we have determined to do," said Lalage, "is to start a paper of our own."

"It ought," I said, "to be a huge success."

"I'm glad you agree with us there," said Lalage. "We've gone into the matter minutely. Selby-Harrison worked it out and we don't see how we could possibly make less than 12 per cent. Not that we want to make money out of it. Our efforts are purely--what's that word, Hilda? You found it in a book, but I always forget it."

"Altruistic," said Hilda.

"You understand that, I suppose?" said Lalage to me.

"Yes," I said, "I do. But I wasn't thinking of the financial side of the enterprise when I spoke of its being an immense success. What I had in mind----"

"Finance," said Lalage severely, "cannot possibly be ignored."

"All we want," said Hilda, "is some one to guarantee the working expenses for the first three months."

"And I said," added Lalage, "that you'd do it if we came out here and asked you."

I recollected hearing of an Englishman who started a daily paper which afterward failed and it was said that he lost 300,000 by the venture. I hesitated.

"What we ask," said Lalage, "is not money, but a guarantee, and we are willing to pay 8 per cent, to whoever does it. The difference between a guarantee and actual money is that in the one case you will probably never have to pay at all, while in the other you will have to fork out at once."

"Am I," I asked, "to get 8 per cent, on what I don't give, but merely promise?"

"That's what it comes to," said Lalage. "I call it a good offer."

"It's one of the most generous I ever heard," I said. "May I ask if Selby-Harrison----?"

"It was his suggestion," said Hilda. "Neither Lalage nor I are any good at sums, specially decimals."

"And," said Lalage, "you'll get a copy of each number post free just the same as if you were a regular subscriber!"

"We've got one advertiser already," said Hilda.

"And," said Lalage, "advertisments pay the whole cost of newspapers nowadays. Any one who knows anything about the business side of the press knows that. Selby-Harrison met a man the other day who reports football matches and he said so."

"Is it cocoa," I asked, "or soap, or hair restorer?"

"No. It's a man who wants to buy second-hand feather beds. I can't imagine what he means to do with them when he gets them, but that's his business. We needn't worry ourselves so long as he pays us."

"Lalage," I said, "and Hilda, I am so thoroughly convinced of your energy and enterprise, I feel so sure of Selby-Harrison's financial ability and I am so deeply in sympathy with the objects of your, may I say our, society, that if I possessed 300,000 you should have it to-morrow; but, owing to, recent legislation affecting Irish land, the ever-increasing burden of income tax and the death duties----"

"Don't start rambling again," said Lalage. "It isn't in the least funny, and we're both beginning to get sleepy. n.o.body wants 300,000."

"It takes that," I said, "to run a newspaper."

"What we want," said Lalage, "is thirty pounds, guaranteed--ten pounds a month for three months. All you have to do is to sign a paper----"