The Brother of Daphne Part 71

I kneeled down that I might the better appreciate their industry. The jig-saw was called 'A Young Diana' and was alleged to be a reproduction of the picture of that name which had appeared in the Academy the year before. I hardly remembered it. I gazed admiringly at the two clouds drifting alone at the top right-hand corner, the solitary hoof planted upon a slice of green sward, the ragged suggestion of forest land in the distance, and a ladder of enormous length, which appeared to possess something of that spirit of independence which distinguished Mahomet's coffin. In other words, it was self-supporting. After a careful scrutiny, I rose to my feet, took a pace or two backwards, and put my head on one side. Then:

"I like it," I said. "I like it. Some people might say it looked a little crude or unfinished; but, to my mind, that but preserves, as it were, the spirit of barbarism which the t.i.tle suggests."

"Suggestion as opposed to realization," said Berry, "is the rule by which we work. To the jaded appet--imagination the hoof suggests a horse. It is up to you to imagine the horse. We have, as it were, with an effort set in motion the long unused machinery of your brain.

It is for you, brother, to carry on the good work. Please pa.s.s out quietly. There will be collection plates at both doors."

"You're not to touch it yet," said Daphne. "I want to talk about abroad first. If we're really going, we must settle things."

"Of course we're going," said Berry. "I ordered a yachting cap yesterday."

"What's that for?" said Jill.

"Well, we're not going to fly across the Channel, are we? Besides that, supposing we go to Lucerne part of the time?"

"What about taking the car?" said Daphne.

"It's expensive," said Berry moodily, "but I don't see how else we can satisfactorily sustain the flow of bloated plutocracy which at present oozes from us."

We all agreed that the car must come. Then arose the burning question of where to go. In a rash moment Jill murmured something about Montenegro.

"Montenegro?" said Berry, with a carelessness that should have put her on her guard.

"Yes," said Jill. "I heard someone talking about it when I was dining with the Bedells. It sounded priceless. I had a sort of idea it was quite small, and had a prince, but it's really quite big, and it's got a king over it, and they all wear the old picturesque dress, and the scenery's gorgeous. And, if it was wet, we could go to the--the--"

"Kursaal," said Berry. "No, not Kursaal. It's like that, though."

"Casino?"

"That's it--Casino. And then we could go on to Nice and Cannes, and--"

"You're going too fast, aren't you? Servia comes before Cannes, doesn't it?"

"Well, Servia, too."

"All right," said Berry. "I was going to suggest that we joined the Danube at Limoges, went up as far as Milan, where the falls are, and then struck off to Toledo, taking Warsaw on the way, but--"

"That'd be rather a long way round, wouldn't it?" said Jill, all seriousness in her grey eyes.

"Ah, I mean the Spanish Toledo, not the one in the States."

"Oh, I see--"

She checked herself suddenly and looked round. "He's laughing at me,"

she said. "What have I said wrong?"

"If anyone asked me where we should be without our Jill," said Berry, "I couldn't tell them."

When we began to discuss the tour in good earnest, the argument proper began. I had suggested that we should make for Frankfort, to start with, and Daphne and Jonah rather favoured Germany. Berry, however, wanted to go to Austria. It was after a casual enough remark of Jonah's that the roads in Germany were very good that Berry really got going.

"The roads good?" he said. "That settles it--say no more. The survey, which is, after all, the object of our holiday (sic), will be able to be made with success. If we start at once, we shall be able to get the book published by Christmas: 'Road Surfaces in Germany,' by a Hog."

"The old German towns are fascinating," said Daphne.

"Nothing like them," said Berry. "I can smell some of them now. Can you not hear the cheerful din of the iron tires upon the cobbled streets? Can you not see the grateful smile spreading over the beer-sodden features of the cathedral verger, as he pockets the money we pay for the privilege of following an objectionable rabble round an edifice, which we shall remember more for the biting chill of its atmosphere than anything else? And then the musty quiet of the museums, and the miles we shall cover in the picture galleries, halting now and then to do a brief gloat in front of one of Van Stunk's masterpieces..."

"My heart leaps up when I behold a Van Stunk on the wall. Wordsworth knew his Englishman, didn't he?"

"Oh, well, if you're so dead against it--"

"Against it, dear. How can I be against it? Why, we may even be arrested as spies! There"--he looked round triumphantly--"who shall say that the age of romance is dead? Let us go forth and languish in a German gaol. Think of the notices we shall get in the papers! We'll give our photographs to The Daily Gla.s.s before we start. I expect we shall see one another in the chapel on Sundays, and I shall write to you in blood every day, darling, on a piece of my mattress. The letters will always be in the top left-hand corner of the steak pudding. Don't say I didn't tell you where to look."

"We shall be able to talk," said I--"by rapping on the wall, I mean."

"Certainly. Once for the letter A, twice for the chambermaid, three times for the boots. In the meantime, Jonah and you will each have removed a large stone from the floor of your cells by means of a nail which he found in his soup. Say you work sixteen hours out of the twenty-four you ought to have burrowed outside the gates in about five years."

Jill shuddered. "Austria would be rather nice, just now, wouldn't it?"

she ventured.

"We could go high up if it got hot, of course," said Daphne slowly, "and the air's nice--"

"I'll find out what we do about shipping the car on Friday," said Berry.

I must have been tired, for I never heard the tea-things taken away.

When I opened my eyes, Berry and Co. had gone. I looked at the jig-saw and began to wonder what had waked me.

"First of all," said a quiet voice, "I take five and three-quarters.

Do you think you can remember that?"

"I'll try. Long ones, of course."

"Yes, please. Not the ordinary white kid: I like the fawn suede ones."

"With pleasure."

"And now, please, can I be shown over the house?"

I turned and regarded her. Sitting easily in a chair to my right, and a little behind me, she was holding out to me a slip of paper. I took it mechanically but I did not look at it.

"Don't move for a minute or two," I said. "You look absolutely splendid like that."

She smiled. I rather think her frock was of linen--at any rate, it was blue. Her large straw hat was blue, too, and so were her smart French gloves and her dainty shoes; her ankles were very pretty, but her complexion was the thing: She had one of the clearest skins I have ever seen, and the delicate bloom of her cheeks was a wonder in itself.

I could not well see her eyes, for she was sitting with her head thrown back--her gloved right hand behind it holding down the brim of her hat--and as she was looking at me and not up into the sky, they were almost hidden by their lids. Her left arm lay carelessly along the arm of the chair, and, her sleeve being loose and open, I could see half a dozen inches of warm pink arm. I just looked at her.

"Done?" she said.

"Not quite." I have said before, and I say again, that girls of this type ought not to be allowed to raise their eyebrows and smile faintly at the same moment. It amounts to a technical a.s.sault. I fancy she saw me set my teeth, for the next moment she put up her left hand and bent the broad blue rim over her face.

"Early closing day," she said. I contemplated her ankles in silence.