Sister Teresa Part 22

"Never were women more charming than they are now," Owen said, in order not to appear too much immersed in his own thoughts, and he picked a woman out, pretending to be interested in her. "That one leaning a little to the left, her white dog sitting beside her."

"Like a rose in Maytime."

"Rather an orchid in a crystal gla.s.s."

Harding accepted the correction.

"Do you know who she is, Harding?"

The question was a thoughtless one, for no one knows the whole of the peerage, not even Harding, and it was painful for him to admit that he did not know the lady, who happened to be an earl's daughter-- somebody he really should have known. Not having been born a peer himself, he had, as a friend once said, resolved to make amends for the mistake in his birth by never knowing anybody who hadn't a t.i.tle. But this criticism was not a just one; Harding was not a sn.o.b. It has already been explained that love of order and tradition were part of his nature; the reader remembers, no doubt, Harding's idiosyncrasies, and how little interested he was in writers, and painters, avoiding always the society of such people. But his face brightened presently, for a very distinguished woman bowed to him, and he was glad to tell Owen he was going to stay with her in the autumn. The d.u.c.h.ess had just returned from Palestine, and it was beginning to be whispered she had gone there with a young man. The talk turned again on the morality of London, and exciting stories were told of a fracas which had occurred between two well-known men.

So their desks had been broken open, and packets of love letters abstracted. New scandals were about to break to blossom, other scandals had been nipped in the bud.

Harding said nothing wittier had been said for many generations than the _mot_ credited to a young girl, who had described a ball given that season by the women of forty as "The Hags' Hop." Somebody else had called it "The Roaring Forties." Which was the better description of the two? "The Roaring Forties" seemed a little pretentious, and preference was given to the more natural epigram, "The Hags' Hop."

"We were all virtuous in the fifties, now licence has reached its prime, and we shall fall back soon into decadence."

Harding, who was something of an historian, was able to ill.u.s.trate this prophecy by reference to antiquity. When the life of the senses and understanding reached its height, as it did in the last stages of the Roman Empire, a reaction came. St. Francis of a.s.sisi was succeeded by Alexander VI.; Luther soon followed after. "And in twenty years hence we shall all become moral again. Good heavens! the first sign of it has appeared--Evelyn."

Piccadilly flowed past, the stream of the season, men typical of England in their age as in their youth, typical of their castles, their swards, and lofty woods, of their sports and traditions, hunting, shooting, racing, polo playing; the women, too, typical of English houses and English parks, but not so typical; only recognisable by a certain reflected light; an Englishman makes woman according to his own image and likeness, taking clay often from America. The narrow pavements of Bond Street were thronged, women getting out of their carriages, intent on their shopping, bowing to the men as they ran into the shops, making amends for the sombre black of the men's coats by a delirium of feathers, skirts, and pink ankles. And nodding to their friends, bowing to the ladies in the carriages, Harding and Owen edged their way through the crowd.

"The street at this hour is like a ballroom, isn't it?" Owen said. "I want to get some cigars." And they turned into a celebrated store, where half a dozen a.s.sistants were busily engaged in tying up parcels of five hundred or a thousand cigars, or displaying neatly-made paper boxes containing a hundred cigarettes.

"When will men give up smoking pipes, I should like to know?"

"I thought you were a pipe smoker?"

"So I was, but I can t bear the smell any longer."

"Yet you smoke cigars?"

"Cigars are different."

"How was it the change came?"

"I don't know." Owen ordered a thousand cigars to be sent to Berkeley Square.

It was late for tea, and still too early for dinner.

"I am sorry to ask you to dine at such an early hour, but I daresay we shan't have dinner till half-past seven."

But Harding remembered his tailor: some trousers. And he led Owen towards Hanover Square, wondering if Owen would approve of his choice?

"It was like you to choose that grey."

Now what was there to find fault with in the grey he had chosen? They turned over the tailor's pattern sheet. Daring, in the art of dressing, is the prescriptive right of the professional just as it is in writing. Owen was a professional dresser, whereas he, Harding, was but an amateur; and that was why he had chosen a timid, insignificant grey. At once Owen discovered a much more effective cloth; and he chose a coat for Harding, who wanted one--the same rough material which Harding had often admired on Owen's shoulders.

But would such a dashing coat suit him as well as it did its originator, and dare he wear the fancy waistcoats Owen was pressing upon him?

"They suit you, Asher, but you still go in at the waist, and brown trousers look well on legs as straight as billiard cues."

"Is there nothing we can do for you, Sir Owen?"

Owen spoke about sending back a coat which he was not altogether satisfied with.

"Every suit of clothes I have, Harding, costs me fifty pounds."

Harding raised his thick eyebrows, and Owen explained that only one suit in six was worth wearing.

"There is more truth in what you say than appears. I once wore a suit of clothes for six years! And they were as good as new when--"

But Owen refused to be interested in Harding's old clothes. "If I'm not married to-morrow I shall never marry. You don't believe me, Harding? Now, of what are you thinking? Of that suit of clothes which you have had for six years or of my marriage--which?"

At the moment that Owen interrupted him Harding was thinking that perhaps a woman who had attempted suicide to escape from another man would not drift as easily into marriage as Owen thought; but, of course, he did not dare to confess such an opinion.

"You don't mind dining at half-past seven?"

"Not in the least, my good friend, not in the least." Going towards Berkeley Square they continued to speak about Evelyn.... She would have to refuse Owen to-night or accept him: so he would know his fate to-night.

"Just fancy," he said, "to-morrow I am either going to be married or--" And he stared into the depths of a picture about which he thought he would like to have Harding's opinion, but it did not matter what anybody thought of pictures until he knew what Evelyn was going to do. None had any interest for him; but they could not talk of Evelyn during dinner, the room being full of servants, and he was forced to listen to Harding, who was rather tiresome on the subject of how a collection of pictures had better be formed, and the proposal to go to France to seek for an Ingres did not appeal to him.

"I hope you don't mind my smoking a pipe," Harding said as they rose from table.

"No," he said, "smoke what you like, I don't care; smoke in my study, only raise the window. But you'll excuse me, Harding. My appointment is for eight."

As he was about to leave the room a footman came in, saying that Miss Innes' maid would like to see him, and, guessing that something had happened, Owen said:

"It is to tell me I'm not to go to see her; something disagreeable always--" And he left the room abruptly.

"I have shown the maid into the morning-room, Sir Owen."

"Now, what is the matter, Merat?"

"Perhaps you had better read the letter first, Sir Owen, and then we can talk."

"I can't read without my gla.s.ses; do you read it, Merat." Without waiting for her to answer he returned to the dining-room. "I have forgotten my gla.s.ses, Harding, that is all; you will wait for me."

His hand trembled as he tried to fix the gla.s.ses on his nose.

"MY DEAR OWEN,--I am afraid you will be disappointed, and I am disappointed too, for I should like to see you; but I think it would be better, and Monsignor, who was here to-day, thinks it would be better, that we should not see each other... for the present. I have recovered a good deal, but am still far from well; my nerves are shattered. You know I have been through a great deal; and though I am sure you would have refrained from all allusions to unpleasant topics, still your presence would remind me too much of what I don't want to think about. It is impossible for me to explain better. This letter will seem unkind to you, who do not like unkind letters; but you will try to understand, and to see things from my point of view, and not to rave when I tell you that I am going to a convent--not to be a nun; that, of course, is out of the question; but for rest, and only among those good women can I find the necessary rest.

"My first thought was to go to Dulwich to my father, but--well, here is a piece of news that will interest you--he has been appointed _capelmeister_ to the Papal choir, the ambition of his life is fulfilled, and he started at once for Rome. It is possible that three or four months hence, when he is settled, he will write to ask me to go out to join him there, and Monsignor would like me to do this, for, of course, my duty is by my father, who is no longer as young as he used to be. I don't like to leave him, but the matter has been carefully considered; he has been here with Monsignor, and the conclusion arrived at is, that it is better for me to go to the convent for a long rest. Afterwards ... one never knows; there is no use making plans. "EVELYN."

"No use making plans; I should think not, indeed," Owen cried. "Never will she come out of that convent, Merat, never! They have got her, they have got her! You remember the first day we met, you and I, in the Rue Balzac, and you have been with her ever since; you were with us in Brussels when she sang 'Elizabeth,' and in Germany--do you remember the night she sang 'Isolde'? So it has come to this, so it has come to this; and in spite of all we could do. Do you remember Italy, Merat? Good G.o.d! Good G.o.d!" And he fell into a chair and did not speak again for some time. "It would have been better if Ulick Dean had persuaded her to go away with him. It was I who told him to go to see her and kept him in my house because I knew that this d.a.m.ned priest would get her in the end."

"But, Sir Owen, for mademoiselle to be a nun is out of the question... if you knew what convents were."

"Oh, Merat, don't talk to me, don't talk to me; they have got her!"

Then a sudden idea seized him.