Mammon and Co Part 13

"Lord Evelyn? Oh, Toby! Yes, he's an excellent fellow."

"By lovely, I do not refer to his personal appearance," said Mrs.

Murchison, "for that is homely. But by lovely I refer to his happy and amiable disposition."

"You have hit him off completely," said Tom. "Happy and amiable is just what Toby is."

Mrs. Murchison's mind went off for a moment on a maternal excursion at the sight of Lily and Toby, who were talking eagerly together, but came quickly back again.

"And the vivacity at present depicted in his face is considerable," went on Mrs. Murchison in a burst of a.n.a.lytic intuition. "I just adore vivacity. Vivacity without screaming, Lord Abbotsworthy, is what I just adore. Mr. Murchison is very vivacious; but to hear him when he is being vivacious, why,--you'd think he had the chicken-pox--I should say whooping-cough."

"That must be very alarming until you are used to it," said Tom.

"It is that. And the choking fit which sometimes ensues on his hilarity--why, I have seen times and again his life hung by a hair, like the sword of Demosthenes at Belshazzar's feast."

Mrs. Murchison delivered herself of this surprising allusion with the most touching confidence. She liked a well-turned sentence, and repeated it softly to herself.

"Such anxieties are inseparable from the union of the married life,"

said Tom in a voice that trembled slightly.

Kit from the other side of the table had just burst out into a loud meaningless laugh, and he suspected that she had overheard.

"That's what I say," answered Mrs. Murchison; "and that's what the Prayer-Book says. The joys and the sorrows; the opportunities and the importunities."

This was slightly cryptic, but it was probable that importunity was to be taken as the opposite of opportunity. Tom chanced it, though he did not seem to remember anything in the Prayer-book which suggested the widest parallel to Mrs. Murchison's quotation. She went ahead in such a surprising manner in conversation that it was really difficult to keep up. She positively scoured the plains of thought.

"You find the opportunities, I am sure, much more numerous than the importunities," he said, faint, yet pursuing. "Yes, champagne."

"And that's just beautifully put, Lord Abbotsworthy," said Mrs.

Murchison.

The tide of conversation changed, and set to opposite sides. Toby and Lily alone refused to obey the action of the tide, as if they were a rebel moon, which demanded a system of its own, refusing allegiance elsewhere, and continued to talk, regardless of the isolated unit they left on each side of them. Mrs. Murchison, who liked the agreeable hovering of the mind over first one subject and then another, which reminded her, she said, of the way in which the puma birds in the Southern States sucked honey from various flowers without alighting, was instantly involved in a sort of double-barrelled conversation with Lord Comber about the check system of baggage, and the relative position of women in England and the United States of America.

As dinner went on conversation became louder and more desultory. No one listened particularly to what anyone else was saying; the tendency for everyone to talk at once (this may have been the tendency of the upper cla.s.ses which Mrs. Murchison had inquired about) became more marked, and the inimitable atmosphere of laughter was abroad. At Kit's house everyone always left the dining-room together as soon as cigarettes were handed round, for her excellent social sense told her that when people were getting on well (and at her house they always did), it was absurd for a party to go through the refrigerating process of isolation of the s.e.xes, and waste time in thawing again. Besides, she considered it obsolete for men to sit over wine; n.o.body ever drank now, it was only in England that so absurd a form was kept up.

Some of the party were going on to a vague elsewhere, and Mrs.

Murchison's eye caught Lily's soon after ten. She was most anxious on this first occasion not to outstay her welcome.

"It's been just too charming, Lady Conybeare," she said; "but Lily and I must go. We've got to go here and there, on and on till morning."

Kit rose. Her plan was prospering, for Lily and Toby were still talking together, and she felt particularly pleased with herself and everybody else.

"Too unkind of you to go," she said; "and if you don't come to see us again very soon, now that you know the way, I shan't forgive you. Send me a line any day and come to lunch. I am almost always in for lunch.

And has Toby been making himself pleasant, Miss Murchison? He can when he likes. I saw him shaking with laughter at something you were telling him at dinner, and I longed to shout across the table and ask what it was. Good-night! Too tiresome that you have to go! Conybeare and I are going to be very domestic this evening, and not set one foot out, but sit and play cat's-cradle together when the others have gone. Mind, I only let you go under the distinct understanding that you will come back very soon, unless we've bored you both beyond forgiveness."

Jack went down with them to the front-door, and Kit as far as the head of the stairs, where she kissed her hand and looked regretfully after them, with her head a little on one side. As she expected, Mrs.

Murchison gave one backward glance as she went out, and Kit kissed her hand again, smiling. Then, as soon as the front-door closed, she hurried back in a brisk business-like manner to join the others.

CHAPTER IX

THE PLOT MISCARRIES

Some ten or twelve people only remained in the drawing-room when Kit returned, for several had taken their departure before the Murchisons, and Toby seemed to be a target at which was being fired some straight, hard chaff. As usual, he was looking serene and pleasant, but it seemed to Kit that his smile at this moment was more the result of habit than of any entertainment that the chaff afforded him.

"Toby has made an impression," explained Alice, "and he's too modest to acknowledge it."

"Dear Toby, you made an excellent impression," said Kit, taking his arm, as he stood rather hot and stiff under the chandelier. "I'm very much pleased with you, and I'll remember you in my will."

"If he'll promise to remember you in his!" said Jack, who had returned from speeding the parting guest. "That should be worth something."

"Answer them back, Toby," said Kit. "Hit out."

"A lovely man," said Tom, "but homely. A happy and amiable disposition."

"More than can be said for you, old chap," remarked Toby. "Tom, how gray you are getting!"

"Yes, I've no chance. But you are in luck, Toby. The girl is charming, and her mother is unique."

"I haven't the slightest idea what you are talking about," said Toby, amid loud laughter and a shrill cat-call from Alice. "Well, I'm going, Kit. Good-night; and try to teach Tom manners."

And Toby, still smiling genially, went towards the door. But Kit retained his arm.

"Don't go, Toby," she said. "Stop and play a bit. You like baccarat. And don't mind what Tom says. You're a credit to the family."

"Toby will bring the family more credit," said Tom, in a low, audible voice to his sister.

"Tom, be quiet," said Alice. "When you try to chaff people, it is like an elephant dancing on eggsh.e.l.l china."

"Toby, Alice is calling you eggsh.e.l.l china. Lovely but homely."

"Awfully sorry, Kit," said Toby, "but I must go. I promised to go on to the Keynes'."

Now, it was to the Keynes' that the Murchisons had gone, and Kit knew it. She saw also that Toby had had enough of the subject, and, without any more efforts to detain him, especially since he was rather tiresome at baccarat, and always won. "Well, if you must go, you must," she said.

"Let's see you again soon, old boy."

Toby smiled and nodded and left the room.

"Dear Toby!" said Kit, "it was hard luck on him. How could you say such things, Tom? It's serious. The poor boy is head over ears."

"There is a phenomenon in hypnotism called suggestion, Kit," he said, as she took a seat beside him. "If a thing is suggested to the subject, the suggestion is followed. Did you suggest it?"

"Oh, in a sort of way. But Toby isn't hypnotized; he's fascinated. I am delighted he takes it seriously. She is a sweet girl, and I would sooner have Toby for my husband than anyone. I shall get him to marry me when Jack dies, like the woman in the parable. Oh, they have just put out a little green table. How queer of them! And cards! Well, I suppose, as it is there---- You play baccarat, I think, Mr. Alington?"

Mr. Alington paused, as usual, before replying, and looked benevolently at Kit and Lady Haslemere in turn.

"I shall be delighted to play," he said. "I find it very soothing after a tiring day; one does not have to think at all. I used to play a good deal in Australia, and, dear me, yes! I had the pleasure of playing the other night at your house, Lady Haslemere. Odd games we used to have in Australia. One had to keep both eyes open to see that n.o.body cheated.