Love's Usuries Part 9

"But," argued she, "Clair is the white light of truth itself. One might go about studying nuances, contrasting tones, and yet value that truth eternally. I expected Mr Lorraine would appreciate her for this reason.

He is a colour theorist, and with his knowledge of values he can gauge the true beauty of white light."

"Well, and the result?" I questioned, with interest; for I myself had seen him spy out Clair from among crowds of women, watched his eyes lean on her, on the picturesque brim of her hat and the curling feathers which insinuated themselves against the contour of her transparent ear, but had afterwards escaped to avoid partic.i.p.ation in Sarah's plot.

"They seemed designed for each other," my sister pursued, "and I introduced them, quite informally, of course. All the girls had appropriate cavaliers, and I started some music to give a spurt to the conversation."

"Music is certainly an excellent dam for discoursive shallows," I muttered in soliloquy.

"Whether the introduction pleased her or not," she continued, heedless of my remark, "I could scarcely observe. She is an equable enigma."

"A puzzle that is a wonder rather than a challenge," I agreed. "And Lorraine?"

"He, with his whole soul--and not a driblet of it as usual--beaming in his eyes faced her on the ottoman. The light from the hanging lamp treated him kindly. It threw some ripples on the silvery edge of his hair, and shrouded the cynical depths of his eyes in pensive shadow."

"If you were a younger woman, Sarah, I should say you were in love with him yourself."

"You may say what you please. He had dropped his eye-gla.s.s--his solace in boredom, as you know--and was listening, interestedly listening, while she talked."

"Perhaps you exaggerated his interest?"

"No; there is a way of listening with the eyes as well as with the ears.

I could see his fixed on the lisp dimple as it dipped. Then the music began; I turned over the leaves, and struggled to applaud, flatter, question, but my brain was with them."

"Much better have left them alone," I grunted.

"After all, they are your best friends--he is your prince of poets, and she is your ideal heroine."

"One does not express friendship by laying traps--but go on," I urged, curious in spite of myself.

"Tea was distributed, and, either from laziness or diplomacy, Philip never vacated his perch. He sat intently watching her while she dipped inquiring fingers into each tier of the m.u.f.finiere, and piled a huge meal on the j.a.panese plate at her elbow. She seemed bent on advertising a Ca.s.sowary digestion."

"An implied ant.i.thesis to poetic ideals," I volunteered, to enhance my sister's discomfiture.

"Perhaps so," owned Sarah, vexedly. "Girls are very contrary. But," she continued, "he perseveringly looked on with his quaint air of critical inquiry while she spread her handkerchief upon her lap, distending every corner in ostentatious preparation for her feast."

"Talking to him meanwhile?"

"Yes, _par parenthese_--between the nibbles at a chocolate bouchee, an anchovy m.u.f.fin, two biscuits, and a tartine."

"My good Sarah, it is scarcely hospitable to register the appet.i.tes of your guests."

"I was really burning to hear them talk, but Percy Vansittart b.u.t.tonholed me to say the m.u.f.finiere had run short of supplies. We rang for a fresh consignment, then more music was proposed. I induced Vaudin to sing those exquisite verses of Philip's--about the poet's tears, you know, which froze to pearls on the neck of the woman he loved."

"Just the thing to annoy Lorraine!"

"He ought to have been highly flattered. At the end of the song," Sarah pursued, "people began to go, and I thought I would take a seat in their direction without disturbing the conversation."

"In fact you played the eavesdropper?"

"I merely wanted to catch some stray sentence as guide to the situation.

Had I felt _de trop_ I should have moved. I approached cautiously and affected to be busy with plates and dishes on a neighbouring table.

Philip's att.i.tude was full of interest--he was intent on some argument apparently.

"'I believe a pin is the orthodox weapon,' I heard him saying with questioning eagerness; to which Clair replied, 'Take my advice next time and try a darning-needle.'

"A darning-needle! My curiosity was aroused, and, as the subject seemed to admit of invasion I adroitly wedged in.

"'A darning-needle? for what?'

"'Oh,' she exclaimed with _empress.e.m.e.nt_, 'we were talking of periwinkles--discussing the efficacy of pins _versus_ darning-needles--what do you say?'"

II.

After the routing of my sister Sarah, I should have given up interest in her proceedings had not a letter from Clair reached me. It referred to a commission for book ill.u.s.trations that I had secured for her. From this she volunteered her own patch of information--a crudely-contrastive one, but not without its value in the harmonious scheme.

"To-day," she wrote, "I was introduced to your _rara avis_, Philip Lorraine. Lady Sargent cannot praise him enough. Continued praise of one individual to another is boring, don't you think so? It is a moral throwing of the gauntlet. Besides, I always suspect the dear creature of designs. Something about her mode of introduction is Autolycus like; one feels like a pedlar's pack with all its little trinkets and tawdrinesses spread out for the buyer. Ah, you don't know your sister. To me she is a dear transparent soul with her whole purport printed on the surface like a sandwich board. She thinks the woman world is ranged in three tiers--the top story for eighteen-year-olds. Everything there must be out on approval. It's no good ticketing yourself 'Not for sale,' nor even pricing yourself at a prohibitive figure--no good whatever. She brings round her customers, provides them with her own lorgnon in the form of opinion, and pads them with conversational treatises on the subject in hand, like a Cook's guide to a party of tourists.

"'She has more refinement than that,' I can hear you say.

"Refinement, yes. Flowers do not grow with their roots uppermost, but we know they have roots all the same. Her social smile is a very guileless plant, but I detect how far its ramifications extend.

"Her second shelf is scarcely better, it is for the mothers, mild brooding creatures whose brains perform kaleidoscopic revolutions with the same _materia_--dinner _menus_, infant food, servants' industries, and wardrobe renovations. 'The idea,' she would say, 'of a woman earning her share of the family income, contributing three hundred or so to the housekeeping instead of saving! It is unconventional, and, consequently, bad form.'

"And the last shelf is for the matrons, dowagers, chaperones--middlewomen of the matrimonial market like her dear misguided self--social seals of respectability stamped with the impress of a Buckingham Palace curtsy; G.o.dmothers for the distribution of hall-marked silver and hall-marked morality, dragons----. But I forget your friend, the poet. Of course he thought I was 'trotted out;' of course I hated him for thinking it. I pretended never to have heard of him or read his works. Literature was practically barred, for I confessed I loathed poets. He agreed, quoted Coventry Patmore, who says a poet is one degree removed from a saint--or Balaam's a.s.s. Well, men saints are chilly, and donkeys are troublesome, and kick. I told him so.

Yet I abhor compromises! I can't say what I do care for; certainly not being thrown at men's heads like stale eggs at election time!

"And what do you think we talked of?

"Not the modern girl, you may be sure. Mr Lorraine is romantic, and thinks that intelligent women are bound to be ill-shod, splay-waisted, and brusque. I had half a mind to undeceive him, but he might have imagined I was accentuating my points. We talked of all sorts of things--neutral things. I believe we should have liked each other had I been some nice young married woman with a red star for 'Sold' dabbed on my frame. We always admire pictures that are so ticketed, don't we?--from sheer perversity, I suppose.

"I ate a huge tea. Byron hated women with healthy appet.i.tes; I daresay Mr Lorraine does the same. He watched the m.u.f.fins and the cakes disappear with an almost zoological interest. I was on the verge of inquiring if he ever visited the lions at feeding time--but a song interposed.

"During this I intuitively felt his eye exploring, 'totting me up,' so to speak.

"Vaudin, the tenor, was singing exquisitely. The words were from Mr Lorraine's last book--they were beautiful, and I knew every line, but affected ignorance.

"'What is that tune?' I questioned with vulgar simplicity.

"'The one the old cow died of,' he answered.

"'But the words aren't bad?'

"'Think so?' he drawled, putting up his eyegla.s.s and surveying the singer, as though the voice came from a marionette.

"I proceeded with some chocolate cakes, too nervous for the moment to meet his eye. He did not observe it, however, but resumed his interest in the departure of the edibles. It seemed absorbing! I wonder if he will write a poem on _gourmandes!_ What fun to ill.u.s.trate it and surprise him! He does not know that I ill.u.s.trate--what a horrible discovery! To find in this piece of plastic putty a nineteenth century working woman!

"If he had not been a poet and a _parti_ he might have been very charming! As Lady Sargent's dear friend, of course he shares her opinions about the shelves, and my mind was bent on dispelling that old-worldism, on stamping, 'Not for sale' into my speech somehow. But there was little opportunity, I saw he had mentally p.r.o.nounced me such a silly little girl.