The Limit Part 15

"Why doesn't he marry her himself?" asked Romer.

"Harry?" She looked at him in surprise. "Why, Romer, what a harpist you are. If I've told you once, I've told you a hundred times, he never marries! Harry has a great many bad habits, goodness knows. But marrying isn't one of them."

"Do you think he's keen on some one else?" asked Romer after a rather long pause.

She seemed annoyed at the question, then smiled again.

"I don't know! The other day I called at the studio unexpectedly to ask for something I'd forgotten, and found Harry improvising at the piano--you know that way he has of improvising from memory--an inaccurate memory--of some well-known composer. I've never known him do it except when he wanted to--please some woman. Well, Lady Walmer was there, leaning over the piano and listening. Should you think from that he's keen, as you call it, on her?"

"Lady Walmer! At her age!"

"Why, Romer, she's no older than anybody else! It doesn't matter nowadays in the very slightest degree whether one is twenty-eight, or thirty-eight, or even forty-eight. To a modern man it's all exactly the same. Of course, if a flapper is what is required, well then, naturally, he must be shown to another department. But apart from that--why, Lady Walmer would be quite as dangerous a rival for me as a woman ten years or twenty years younger. And I'm not twenty-five yet."

"Rival to _you_? What do you mean?"

Romer stared at her, a spark of his fanatic admiration showing in his eyes.

She laughed and hurried on.

"Nothing. I never mean anything. I know what you think, Harry is not a marrying man, but he might become one. But a girl like Alec Walmer! With the figure of a suffragette and the mind of a canary who plays cricket, or a goose who goes in for golf----"

"Heaps of cash."

"Yes, I know. But Harry's an artist--he needs sympathy."

"He's got his head screwed on the right way."

"But his heart's in the right place."

"What is the right place?"

"Don't be irritating, Romer. We'll go to the Green Gate on Monday then.

And now I must go out and order a short tweed skirt, and a garden roller, and a few other things that we shall need in the country. Leave it all to me! No, I never forget anything; even your mother says I'm practical. And oh, do let's try and put her in a good temper before we go away. You'd better go and see her and say good-bye to-day, early in the afternoon, alone. And then I'll go in late and take away the impression of anything you've said wrong. Do you see, darling? Dear Romer!"

She went out of the room like a sunbeam in a hurry.

Romer followed her with a wondering expression. To him her movements, her hair, her eyes seemed to suggest some fascinating language he had not yet learnt. She seemed to him almost a magic creature.

As usual, he showed his sensations simply by obeying. He went to say good-bye to his mother.

CHAPTER XIII

VALENTIA'S VISIT

Romer's mother, looking intensely cross--it was her form of deep thought--was re-embroidering, with extra little st.i.tches, and unnecessary little French knots, and elaborate little b.u.t.tonholes that would never see a b.u.t.ton, a large and fine piece of embroidery on which she had been working for many months. She had that decadent love of minute finish in the unessential so often seen in persons of a nervous yet persistent temperament.

She was expecting her daughter-in-law. Romer had said, "Val will look in this afternoon."

Valentia arrived, delightfully dressed, and, to the casual observer, looking just as usual, but in her costume there was just that nuance of difference--what was it?--extra sobriety, a more subdued look--some trifle that she had worn last year to suggest to the seeing eye a hint of praiseworthy economy?--at any rate, a shade that other young married women would recognise at once as the right note when calling on one's mother-in-law.

Mrs. Wyburn greeted her with real pleasure, and with far more warmth than she ever showed to her son (her affection for him being authentic).

The sight of Valentia, however, always genuinely raised her spirits. She was fascinated by her, and had an obscure desire to gain Valentia's liking, and even admiration--by force, if necessary! At the same time she felt jealousy, disapproval, an odd pride in the girl's charming appearance, and a venomous desire to give her slight pain.

"Romer has been here, I see--I mean, I guess he has by the cigarette.

He's the only person who's allowed to smoke here. Yes, Mrs. Wyburn, we're off on Wednesday. Won't you miss us awfully? But I shall be very glad to go. I've really had enough of the season." Val spoke with a shade of weariness.

"No wonder! I suppose you've hardly had one quiet evening at home the last three weeks?"

"Very likely not one. Even when we're quite alone Harry comes round, and often his American friend too."

This was a challenge.

Valentia was sitting opposite the light, dressed in blue, in a black hat of moderate size, looking straight at the elder lady with a smile, and stirring her cup of tea.

Mrs. Wyburn admired her pluck and the fit of her dress.

"Yes, exactly--just what I should have thought. You know what a horror I have of displaying anything in the shape or form of _interference_, dear Valentia. But, since you've mentioned it yourself, may I just say, doesn't it seem almost a pity that you should never be alone with your husband?"

Valentia began to laugh.

"Oh, really, Mrs. Wyburn, why do you a.s.sume that? But of course we're longing for a quiet time. That is why we're going away so early. What _delicious_ China tea! Yours is the only house where one gets it quite like this."

She put down her cup, which was more than half full, with a slight sigh.

"Romer hates China tea too," said Mrs. Wyburn. "It would be really better for your nerves if you'd drink it, my dear."

"And when do you go to Bournemouth?"

"The first week in August. So I shall be able to come down one day--as Romer asked me--before I go, and just have a peep at what you're all doing at the Green Gate."

She smiled with grotesque playfulness.

"Oh, that will be nice," said Valentia. "It must be looking lovely now.

Did Romer say anything else of any importance?"

"He never says much, as you know, important or not! He's very like his poor father, who really used to sit opposite to me for hours at a time without opening his lips."

"A strong, silent man," murmured Val sympathetically. "I know so well what you mean."

"Indeed you don't," snapped Mrs. Wyburn. "He was the weakest creature--_morally_, I mean, poor dear--that ever breathed. He was a very tall, fine man, but yet any pretty woman could turn him round her little finger! It was his most marked characteristic."

"Fancy! Devoted to you, of course. Romer's often told me."