The Immortal Moment Part 2

"Do you mind my drinking k.u.mmel?"

"No."

"Do you mind my showing seven inches of stocking?"

"No."

"What do you mind, then?"

"I mind your making yourself so very conspicuous."

"I don't make myself conspicuous. I was born so."

"You make me conspicuous. Goodness knows what all these people take us for!"

"Holy Innocent! As long as you sit tight and do your hair like that, n.o.body could take you for anything but a dear little bunny with its ears laid back. But if you get palpitations in your little nose, and turn up your little white tail at people, and scuttle away when they look at you, you can't blame them if they wonder what's the matter with you."

"With _me_?"

"Yes; it's you who give the show away." Kitty smiled into her liqueur gla.s.s. "It doesn't seem to strike you that your behaviour compromises me."

Miss Keating's mouth twitched. Her narrow, rather prominent front teeth lifted an instant, and then closed sharply on her lower lip. Her throat trembled as if she were swallowing some bitter thing that had been on the tip of her tongue.

"If you think that," she said, and her voice crowed no longer, "wouldn't it be better for us not to be together?"

Kitty shook her meditative head. "Poor Bunny," said she, "why can't you be honest? Why don't you say plump out that you're sick and tired of me? _I_ should be. I couldn't stand another woman lugging me about as I lug you."

"It isn't _that_. Only--everywhere we go--there's always some horrible man."

"Everywhere you go, dear lamb, there always will be."

"Yes; but one doesn't have anything to do with them."

"I don't have anything to do with them."

"You talk to them."

"Of course I do," said Kitty. "Why not?"

"You don't know them."

"H'm! If you never talk to people you don't know, pray how do you get to know them?"

Kitty sat up and began playing with the matches till she held a bunch of them blazing in her hand. She was blowing out the flame as the Hankins came up the steps of the veranda. They had a smile for the old lady in her corner, and for Miss Keating a look of wonder and curiosity and pity; but they turned from Mrs. Tailleur with guarded eyes.

"What do you bet," said Kitty, "that I don't make that long man there come and talk to me?"

"If you do----"

"I'll do it before you count ten. One, two, three, four. I shall ask him for a light----"

"Sh-sh! He's coming."

Kitty slid her feet to the floor and covered them with her skirt. Then she looked down, fascinated, apparently, by the shining tips of her shoes. You could have drawn a straight line from her feet to the feet of the man coming up the lawn.

"Five, six, seven." Kitty lit her last match. "T-t-t! The jamfounded thing's gone out."

The long man's sister came up the steps of the veranda. The long man followed her slowly, with deliberate pauses in his stride.

"Eight, nine," said Kitty, under her breath. She waited.

The man's eyes had been upon her; but in the approach he lowered them, and as he pa.s.sed her he turned away his head.

"It's no use," said Miss Keating; "you can't have it both ways."

Kitty was silent. Suddenly she laughed.

"Bunny," said she, "would you like to marry the long man?"

Miss Keating's mouth closed tightly, with an effort, covering her teeth.

Kitty leaned forward. "Perhaps you can if you want to. Long men sometimes go crazy about little women. And you'd have such dear little long babies--little babies with long faces. Why not? You're just the right size for him. He could make a memorandum of you and put you in his pocket; or you could hang on his arm like a dear little umbrella. It would be all right. You may take it from me that man is entirely moral.

He wouldn't think of going out without his umbrella. And he'd be so nice when the little umbrellas came. Dear Bunny, face ma.s.sage would do wonders for you. Why ever not? He's heaps nicer than that man at the Hydro, and you'd have married him, you know you would, if I hadn't told you he was a commercial traveller. Never mind, ducky; I dare say he wasn't."

Kitty curled herself up tight on the long chair and smiled dreamily at Miss Keating.

"Do you remember the way you used to talk at Matlock, just after I found you there? You _were_ such a rum little thing. You said it would be very much better if we hadn't any bodies, so that people could fall in love in a prettier way, and only be married spiritually. You said G.o.d ought to have arranged things on that footing. You looked so miserable when you said it. By the way, I wouldn't go about saying that sort of thing to people. That's how I spotted you. I know men think it's one of the symptoms."

"Symptoms of what?"

"Of that state of mind. When a woman comes to me and talks about being spiritual, I always know she isn't--at the moment. You asked me, Bunny--the second time I met you--if I believed in spiritual love, and all that. I didn't, and I don't. When you're gone on a man all you want is to get him, and keep him to yourself. I dare say it feels jolly spiritual--especially, when you're not sure of the man--but it isn't. If you're gone on him enough to give him up when you've got him, there might be some spirituality in _that_. I shall believe in it when I see it done."

"Seriously," she continued, "if you'd been married, Bunny, you wouldn't have had half such a beastly time. You're one of those leaning, clinging little women who require a strong, safe man to support them. You ought to be married."

Miss Keating smiled a little sad, spiritual smile, and said that was the last thing she wanted.

"Well," said Kitty, "I didn't say it was the first."

Kitty's smile was neither sad nor spiritual. She uncurled herself, got up, and stood over her companion, stroking her sleek, thin hair.

Miss Keating purred under the caress. She held up her hand to Kitty who took it and gave it a squeeze before she let it go.

"Poor Bunny. Nice Bunny," she said (as if Miss Keating were an animal).

She stretched out her arms, turned, and disappeared through the lounge into the billiard-room.