The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne Part 32

We sat down to table in the middle of the great room--a quiet corner on the balcony away from the band is not to Carlotta's taste--like any conventional party of four, and at first talked of indifferent matters.

Conciergerie dinner-parties in the Terror always began with a discussion of the latest cure for megrims, or the most fashionable cut of a panier.

Presently Pasquale who had been talking travel with Judith appealed to me.

"What year was it, Ordeyne, that I came home from Abyssinia?"

"I forget," said I. "I only remember you presenting me with that hideous thing hanging in my pa.s.sage, which you called a dulcimer."

_"Gage d'amour?"_ smiled Judith.

Pasquale laughed and twirled his swaggering moustache.

"I did get it from a damsel, and that is why I called it a dulcimer, but she didn't sing of Mount Abora. I wish I could remember the year."

"I think it was in 1894," said Judith quietly.

Pasquale, who had been completely unaware of Judith's existence until half an hour before, could not repress a stare of polite surprise.

"I believe you are right. In fact, you are. But how can you tell?"

"Through the kindness of Sir Marcus," replied Judith graciously, "you are a very old acquaintance. I could write you off-hand a nice little obituary notice with all the adventures--well, I will not say complete--but with all the dates accurate, I a.s.sure you. I have a head for that sort of thing."

"Yes," I cried, desiring to turn the conversation. "Don't tell Mrs.

Mainwaring anything you wish forgotten. Facts are her pa.s.sion. She writes wonderful articles full of figures that make your head spin, and publishes them in the popular magazines over the signature of Willoughby the statistician. Allow me to present to you a statistical ghost."

But Pasquale's subtle Italian brain was paying but half attention to me.

I could read his inferences from Judith's observations, and I could tell what she wanted him to infer. I seem to have worn my sensory system outside instead of inside my skin this evening.

"Ordeyne," said he, "you are a pig, and the great-grandfather of pigs--"

"Foul" cried Carlotta, seizing on an intelligible point of the conversation.

"Why didn't you present me to Mrs. Mainwaring in 1894? I declare I have thought myself allied to that man for twenty years in bonds of the most intimate friendship, and he has never so much as mentioned you to me."

"Seer Marcous says that Pasquale is a bad lot," remarked Carlotta, with an air of sapience, after a sip of orangeade, a revolting beverage which she loves to drink at her meals.

Pasquale threw back his handsome head and laughed again like the chartered libertine he is, and Judith smiled.

"'Out of the mouths of babes, etc.,'" said I, apologetically.

"In all seriousness," said Pasquale to Judith, "I had no idea that any one was such a close friend of Ordeyne's."

Judith turned to me, with a graceful gesture of her shoulders.

"I think we have been close friends, Marcus?"

"Oh, ye-es," broke in Carlotta. "Mrs. Mainwaring has the picture of Seer Marcous in her bedroom, and there is the picture of Mrs. Mainwaring in our drawing-room. You have not seen it? But yes. You have not recognised it, Pasquale? Mrs. Mainwaring is so pretty tonight. Much prettier than the photograph. Yes, you are so pretty. I would like to put you on the mantel-piece as an ornament instead of the picture."

"May I be allowed to endorse Carlotta's sentiment of appreciation?" I said, with a view to covering her indiscretion, for I saw a flash of conjecture in Pasquale's eyes and a sudden spot of real red in Judith's cheeks. She had evidently desired to suggest an old claim on my regard, but to have it based on such intimate details as the enshrining of my photograph was not to her fancy.

"I am vastly beholden to you both," said Judith, who has a graceful way of receiving compliments. "But," turning to Pasquale, "we have travelled far from Abyssinia."

"To Sir Marcus's mantel-piece. Suppose we stay there."

"There is you and me and Mrs. Mainwaring," said the literal Carlotta, "and I am the big one in the middle. It was made big--big," she added, extending her arms in her exaggerating way. "I was wearing this dress."

"Mr. Pasquale and I will have to enlarge our frames, Marcus," said Judith, "or we shall be jealous. We shall have to make common cause together."

"We will declare an inoffensive alliance," laughed Pasquale.

"Offensive if you like," said Judith.

It may have been some effect of the glitter of lights, but I vow I saw a swift interchange of glances. Pasquale immediately turned to Carlotta with a jesting remark, and Judith engaged me in conversation on our old days in Rome. Suddenly she swerved from the topic, and leaning forward, indicated our companions with an imperceptible motion of her head.

"Don't you think," she said in a low voice, "they are a well-matched pair? Both young and picturesque; it would solve many things."

I glanced round. Carlotta, elbow on the table and chin in hand, was looking deep into Pasquale's eyes, just as she has looked into mine. Her lips had the half-sensuous, half-childish pout provocative of kisses.

"Do, and I will love you," I heard her say.

Oh, those dove-notes, those melting eyes, those lips! Oh, the horrible fool pa.s.sion that burns out my soul and brain and reduces me to rave like a lovelorn early Victorian tailor! Which was worse I know not--the spasm of jealousy or the spasm of self-contempt that followed it. At that moment the music ceased suddenly on a loud crashing chord.

The moment seemed to be magnetic to all but Carlotta, who was enjoying herself prodigiously. Our three personalities appeared to vibrate rudely one against the other. I was conscious that Judith read me, that Pasquale read Judith, that again something telegraphic pa.s.sed between them. The waiter offered me partridge. Pasquale quickly turned from Carlotta to his left-hand neighbour.

"I think we ought to drink Faust's health, don't you?"

I started. Had I not myself traced the a.n.a.logy?

"Faust?" queried Judith at a loss.

"Our friend Faust opposite me," said Pasquale, raising his champagne gla.s.s. "Hasn't he been transformed from the lean and elderly bookworm into the gay, young gallant about the town? Once one could scarcely drag him from his cell to the quietest of dinners, and now--has he told you of his dissipations this past month, Mrs. Mainwaring?"

Judith smiled. "Have you been Mephistopheles?"

"What is Mephistopheles?" asked Carlotta.

"The devil," said Pasquale, "who made Sir Marcus young again."

"Oh, that's me," cried Carlotta, clapping her hands. "He does not read in big books any longer. Oh, I was so frightened when I first came." (I must say she hid her terrors pretty effectually.) "He was so wise, and always reading and writing, and I thought he was fifty. And now he is not wise at all, and he said two, three days ago I had made him twenty-five."

"If you go on at the rate you have begun, my dear," Judith remarked in her most charming manner, "in another year you will have brought him down to long clothes and a feeding-bottle."

Carlotta thought this very funny and laughed joyously. I laughed too, out of courtesy, at Judith's bitter sarcasm, and turned the conversation, but Pasquale was not to be baulked of his toast.

"Here's to our dear friend Faust; may he grow younger and younger every day."

We clinked gla.s.ses. Judith sighed when the performance was concluded.

"That is one of the many advantages of being a man. If you do sell your soul to the devil you can see that you get proper payment. A woman is paid in promissory notes, which are dishonoured when they fall due."