The Education of Eric Lane Part 2

Barbara turned away and nodded to herself.

"It's like that, is it?" she murmured. "Are you declaring war? If so, you're clever enough to fight with your own weapons instead of picking up the rusty swords of men I've already beaten. You knew little Val Arden, of course? And my cousin Jim Loring? _They_ taught you to call me a 'sensationalist.' Labels are an indolent man's device for guessing what's inside a bottle without tasting."

"They sometimes prevent accidental poisoning."

"If the right labels are on the right bottles. That's what I have to find out. And it's worth an occasional risk. . . . Sensationalist! I collect new emotions, but you must be _bourgeois_ yourself if you want to _epater le bourgeois_. Now, _you_ can't have had many emotions, or you wouldn't have written that play. And yet--what were you doing before?" she demanded abruptly.

"I followed the despised calling of a journalist."

"Ah!"

She nodded and began eating her quail without explaining herself further. Eric was nettled by her tone, for she was taking pains to let him see that she had not liked his play, perhaps even that she despised him for writing it. He half turned to Lady Poynter, but she was deep in conversation with her nephew. For a time he, too, concentrated his attention on the quail; but every one else was talking, and, though Barbara's challenge was too pert to be taken seriously, he felt that half-praise from her was more valuable than the adulation of women like Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley who were content to worship success for its own sake.

"What was the precise meaning of the 'Ah!'?" he enquired lazily.

"'Meaning'; not 'precise meaning.' You surely don't want me to see that you're rather losing your temper and trying to cover it up by being dignified. You've been so careful with your effects, too! . . . I said 'Ah,' because you'd given me the clue I was looking for. You were a very clever journalist, I should think."

"Isn't that rash on half an hour's acquaintance?"

"You're forgetting your play--for the first time since it was produced!

I felt that, however bad it was as a play, it was first-rate journalism.

I've told you that I kept thinking how clever of you it was to write it.

You mustn't think I didn't enjoy myself. The construction's quite tolerable, and the dialogue's admirable--not a word too much, not a syllable put in for 'cleverness,' no epigrams for epigrams' sake. And you've got a good sense of the theatre."

"I was a dramatic critic for some years. Hence my good press."

"Ah! Well, I felt that night that, if you weren't too old and set, you might live to write a really good play." He bowed slightly. "Have you a cigarette? I hate people smoking in the middle of meals; but Margaret's begun, and I must have something to drown it. Now _that_, I suppose, would be called an ironical bow, wouldn't it? I mean, in your stage directions? You must guard against that kind of thing, you know."

"I will endeavour to do so, Lady Barbara."

"'Try,' not 'endeavour.' And you mustn't talk like your own characters; you've no idea how debilitating that is. It's bad enough when you try to drag us into the world of your plays, but it's intolerable if you try to drag your plays into our world. Did you ever read a story about a boy who lost all sense of reality by going to the theatre too much? He became dramatic. He slapped his forehead and groaned---- Well, we _don't_ slap our foreheads or groan, however great the provocation. And in moments of stress he would shake hands with people and turn away to hide his emotion. And it wasn't only in gestures, he became dramatic in conduct. When compromising letters came into his hands, he used to burn them unread and without any one looking on, which is manifestly absurd.

I forget what happened to him in the end, but I expect he was charged with something he hadn't done to save the husband of the woman he wanted to marry--and whom he'd have made perfectly miserable, if she hadn't taken him in hand very firmly at the outset. And he'd have insisted on having all their quarrels in her bedroom."

Barbara seemed to have talked away her listlessness. The champagne had brought colour into her cheeks and eyes. Eric looked at her with new interest, waiting for the next abrupt change.

"I'm not finding you as thoroughly dull as you warned me to expect," he observed, borrowing her candour of speech.

"I should think not! I'm never dull when it's worth while taking any trouble. I didn't think you _were_ worth while, till you began talking.

Then I saw that in spite of the play----"

"I didn't think I should be spared that," he murmured.

"And the poses----"

"Poses?"

"Oh, my dear child, you've postured and advertised yourself till every one's sick of you! A good press--I should think you had! You're never out of it! An announcement that you've left London--and the intolerable effrontery of telling us all about it! The only way you could escape from your mob of adorers."

"I don't think I used the word 'adorers'; and I've _got_ to find time somehow to rehea.r.s.e my new play."

His voice had grown a little stiff. Barbara smiled to herself and discovered suddenly that the desire to hurt him was dead.

"When's the new play coming out?" she asked.

"In the middle of next month."

"You can't make it later?"

"Are you afraid you won't be able to attend the first night?" he laughed.

"G.o.d forbid! But I shan't have time to complete your education in a month. Now, I'm talking seriously. Put that play off! You're only a child, you've made a mint of money out of this present abomination. If you'll wait till I've educated you----"

Her pupils had dilated until the irises were swamped in black. The early warm flush had shrunk and intensified into two vivid splashes of colour over her cheek-bones. Neurotic, Eric decided; but arresting and magnetic.

"And what do you propose to teach me?" he enquired.

As he spoke, he was conscious of a lull in the conversation. Without looking round, he knew that every one was watching them and that both their voices had risen a tone.

"Life!" she cried. "You've never _met_ men and women. I told George Oakleigh so that night. That's why the public loves your play."

Eric turned to Lady Poynter.

"I have a new play coming out next month," he explained, "and Lady Barbara wants me to hang it up till she's taught me--did you say 'life'?"

"Yes! Margaret, darling, any young man may write _one_ successful bad play----"

There was a gasp of orotund protest from Lady Poynter.

"My _dear_ Babs!"

"Of course it's a bad play! What I don't know about bad plays isn't worth knowing, I've seen so many of them! Have you _ever_ met a woman, Mr. Lane? Have you ever even _fancied_ that you were in love?"

Eric took a cigarette and lighted one for Barbara.

"I thought I knew a lot about life when I was twenty-two," he said, studiedly reflective. "I'd just come down from Oxford."

Her attention seemed to have wandered to her cigarette, for she drew hard at it and then asked for another match.

"Which was your college?" she enquired with neurotic suddenness of transition.

"Trinity."

"Did you know my brother? He must have been up about your time. He was at the House."

"I knew him by sight. Tall, fair-haired man; he was on the Bullingdon. I never met him, though. I didn't know many men at the House."

Barbara thought for a moment.

"I don't believe I know any one who was at Trinity in your time. Did you ever meet a man called Waring?"