The Parts Men Play Part 13

'But may I come and see you again?'

She withdrew her hand and pressed it against her brow.

'Yes. I--I don't know. Good-night. Please don't say any more.' The words ended in a choking, tearless sob. She stepped into the car, and with no further sign to him threw in the clutch and started away.

Huddled in the corner, his pale face glistening in the lamplight of the street, the Honourable Richard Durwent lay in a drunken sleep.

CHAPTER VIII.

INTERMEZZO.

It was several months later--May 1914, to be precise--when Austin Selwyn made the determination, common to most men, to remain in for an evening and catch up in his correspondence.

After the manner of his species, he produced a small army of letters from various pockets, and spreading them in a heap on his desk, proceeded to answer the more urgent, and postpone the less important to a further occasion when conscience would again overcome indolence. For an hour he wrote trivial politenesses to hostesses who had extended hospitality or were going to do so; there was a reply to a literary agent, one to a moving-picture concern, an answer to a critic, and a note of thanks to an admirer.

Having disposed of these sundry matters, he sat back in his chair and read a long letter that had been enclosed in an envelope bearing the postage-stamp of the United States of America. At its finish he settled himself comfortably, lit a cigar, and, squaring his shoulders, wrote a reply to the Reverend Edgerton Forbes, Rector of St. Giles'

Episcopal Church, Fifth Avenue, New York:

'LONDON, _May 12, 1914_.

'MY DEAR EDGE,--I've been supplying your friend the Devil with all sorts of cobblestones recently, but, my dear old boy, if I had written you every time I intended to, you would have had no time to prepare those knock-out sermons of yours.

'In your letter you hint at possible heart entanglements for me. Has it not been said that to a writer all women are "copy"? Even when he falls in love, your author is so busy studying the symptoms that he usually fails to inform the lady until she has eloped with some other clown.

'In fairness, however, I must admit that you were partly correct in your surmise. I almost fell in love last November with a girl who invariably angered me when I was with her, but clung to my mind next day like an unfinished plot. I saw her quite frequently up to February, when I went to the Continent, but have not called on her since my return.

'I met her first at her mother's town house, where there were several people who admitted their greatness with an aplomb one was forced to admire. This girl sort of sat there and said nothing, but her silence had a good deal more in it than some of the talk. We had our first chat that night by the fire, next morning went riding in Rotten Row, and had dinner together the same night. Fast travelling, you say? On paper, yes; but actually I don't know the girl any better now than the night I met her. She's a strange creature--self-willed, fiery, sweet, and sometimes as clever as your Ancient Adversary. But friendship with her makes me think of the days when I was a kid. My great hobby was building sky-sc.r.a.pers with blocks, and very laboriously I would erect the structure up to the point when "feeding-time" or "washing-time" or "being shown to the minister" used always to intervene. When I returned, the blocks had always fallen down. Well, friendship with Elise (pretty name, isn't it?) is not unlike my experience with the blocks. You can leave her, firmly convinced that at last you are on a basis of real understanding; and two or three days later, when you meet her again, you find all the blocks lying around in disorder. Instead of a friend, one is an esteemed acquaintance. The only way to win her, I suppose, would be to call at dawn and stay until midnight. It would be a bit trying, but I get awfully "fed up" (as they say over here) with being constantly recalled to the barrier.

'Of course, you old humbug, I can see you pursing your lips and saying, "Does Austin really love her? If he did, he would be unable to see her faults." It's an exploded theory that love is blind. Good heavens! if a man in love can see in a girl beauty which doesn't exist, is there any reason to suppose he will be unable to see the faults that _do_?

'But, candidly, I don't think I am in love with this young lady. I might be if I were given half a chance; but, then, emotional icebergs were always my specialty. I meet a dozen girls who treat me with a tender cordiality that is touching; then there comes into my course one who expresses a sort of friendly indifference, and there I stay scorching my wings or freezing my toes--whichever figure of speech you prefer.

'She makes me think of a painting sometimes, one that changes in appearance with the varying lights and shadows of the sky. But, Edge, given the exact light that her beauty needs, she is a masterpiece. In some strange way her personality has given me a new pleasure in Corot and Diaz. It is difficult to explain, but it is so. I feel my powers of description are inadequate really to picture Elise to you. She is truly feminine, and yet when she is with other women her unique gift of personality makes them _merely_ feminine. "Lordy, Lordy," as a n.i.g.g.e.r of mine used to say, "dis am becomin' abtuse."

'As a matter of fact, the girl is a result of conflicting elements of heredity. I haven't met her father, but I gather that he is a good old Tory of blameless respectability, and has a deep-seated disbelief in evolution. On the other hand, the girl's mother is rather a buxom and florid descendant of a vigorous North of England family, the former members of which, with the exception of her father, were highly esteemed smugglers. The lady's grandfather, Elise tells me, was known as "Gentleman Joe," and was as adventurous a cut-throat as a small boy's imagination could desire.

'Well, Mr. Parson, you can imagine what happened when these conflicting elements of heredity were brought together. In the language of science, there was one negative result and two positive. The first mentioned is a son Malcolm, whom I have not met. He has a commission in the cavalry, is a devil at billiards, can't read a map, and rides like a Centaur.

'Of the positive results it seems to me I may have already mentioned one--Elise. The other is Richard, the tragedy of the family. Poor d.i.c.k was practically kicked out of Eton for drunkenness when he was about sixteen. For the past year or so he has been at Cambridge, but he got in with a bad set there, and after several warnings has been "sent down"--or, in ordinary language, expelled. It appears that the old combination of "booze" and women got the better of him, though there's something oddly fine about the fellow too. He was. .h.i.tting an awful pace at Cambridge, and when he tried to pa.s.s off a fourth-rate chorus-girl as the d.u.c.h.ess of Turveydrop, the axe descended. As the masquerading d.u.c.h.ess was rather noisy and very "elevated," you can see that there must have been complications.

'Of course, his governor was furious, and, settling a very small allowance on the poor beggar, turned him out of the family home, and forbade him to ever darken, &c., &c. (see, split infinitive and all, any "best seller" of a few years back).

'Does this seem at all incongruous to you? These so-called aristocrats bring a son into existence, and, providing he's a decent-living, rule-abiding chap, he is sheltered from the world and kept for the enriching of their own hot-house of respectability. But--if one of them upsets the ash-can and otherwise messes up the family escutcheon, the father says, "You have disgraced our traditions. Get thee hence into the cold, outside world. After this you belong to it."

'd.a.m.ned generous of paterfamilias, isn't it? Only, as one of the cold, outside world, I can't help wondering why, if Milord is going to keep his good apples for himself, we should have to accept the rotten ones.

'Concerning Cambridge--I spent a weekend there recently with Doug Watson of Boston, who is taking Engineering. Cambridge is quite a little community, as separate from the rest of England as the Channel Islands. On the Sat.u.r.day evening I was there Watson took a punt, and with considerable dexterity piloted me along the Cam, with its green velvet banks and overhanging trees. The river is an exquisite thing, and there was a sensuous drowsiness in the beauty of the hour before dark.

'The lawns from the backs of the colleges slope down to the river, and as we pa.s.sed along we noticed group after group of students drinking coffee made in percolators in their possession. There was something almost pastoral in the sight of those young Britishers in such complete repose. Perhaps I should have enjoyed it all without question if it had not been that, a week before, I had visited a poor little Nonconformist preacher who labours on an empty stomach to a little congregation in a chain-making district. Edge, the sights I saw there were not good for any man to see and remain quiet. Women work at the fires when pregnant, and fuddle themselves with beer at night; the men are a shiftless lot, who spend their lives hand-in-hand with poverty and think only of beer, "baccy," and loafing. You know I'm no prohibitionist, but I hate to see beer the goal of men's ambitions. In one school there was a cla.s.s with forty "backward" children. That's the kinder word, Edge, but the real one is "imbecile." Think of it--forty human destinies that must be lived out to a finish! They tell me that conditions are improving there. I hope so, in Heaven's name.

'It was that visit I had in mind when punting along the Cam. A man is a fool to pit his little mind against so vast and wonderful an edifice as a great university like Cambridge, but one thought which occurred more than once to me was whether or not a man can be considered educated if he be ignorant of human misery existing beyond the college gates. In the Scottish universities the Professor of Latin is called Professor of Humanity. I wonder, Edge, if the time is not ripe for a chair of Humanity in a wider sense in all universities.

'On Sunday we went to one of the churches, and, with eleven others, managed to present a formidable congregation of thirteen. The preacher's prayer, which he read, was a superb piece of work. He started off with the King and the Royal Family, pa.s.sed on to t.i.tled and landed gentry, after them the higher orders of the clergy, leaders of the navy, the army, and all those in more or less authority, then the lower orders of the clergy, and after several categories I have forgotten, he reached the commoners, and (in an appropriate tone of voice) hoped we should live in peace, one with another.

'Think of it, Edge, in this enlightened age! I wanted to go up to him after the service and ask him why he had left out the minor poets, but Doug stopped me--which is perhaps just as well. He might have added a prayer for Americans after the commoners.

'Sometimes I think that the English Church is losing its grip. I don't mean that sn.o.bbery of the kind I have described is common, but in the development of Church character it seems to me that the truth of Christ's birth into a humble walk of life is drifting steadily farther from the clerical consciousness. The timid sn.o.bbery which permeates so much of English life, and reaches its wretched climax in the terms "working cla.s.s" and "lower cla.s.ses," finds condonement in the ranks of the clergy. Even in its humorous aspect, when Mrs. Retired Naval Officer starts to sw.a.n.k it over Mrs. Retired Army Officer (senior service, deah boy, y'know), and so on down the line, the local rector too often takes an active part in seeing that the various grades are punctiliously preserved. Of course, there are glorious exceptions to all this, and they are the men who count.

'I suppose at home we are just as bad, and that even so democratic a preacher as yourself doesn't take supper on Sunday night with the poorest parishioner. Perhaps living in a strange country makes a man see many things he would not notice in his own.

'To finish with Cambridge--we joined a party of two large punts on Sunday afternoon, and with about twelve college chaps and local (approved) girls we went for a picnic up the river. The girls were fairly pretty and terrifically energetic, insisting upon doing an equal share in the punting, and managing to look graceful while they manoeuvred the punts, which were really fair-sized barges. And when we reached the picnic-place, they made all the preparations, and waited on us as if we were royal invalids. Bless their hearts! Edge, to restore a man's natural vanity, commend me to life in England. Coming home we played the gramophone, and, with appropriate flirtation, floated nearly the whole way to the holding of hands and the hearing of music.

'And, theologian as you are, if you deny the charm of that combination, I renounce you utterly.

'Just one more Cambridge thought. (This letter has as many false endings as one of your sermons.) There were quite a number of native students from India in attendance, and I noticed that these men, many of them striking-looking fellows, were left pretty much to themselves.

The English answer when spoken to, and offer that well-bred tolerance exerted by them so easily, but the Indian student must feel that he is not admitted on a footing of equality. I'm not certain that the dark races can be admitted as equals; but what effect on India will it have if these fellows are educated, then sent back with resentment fermenting their knowledge into sedition? It may be another case where the Englishman is instinctively right in his racial psychology; or, again, it may be a further example of his dislike to look facts squarely in the face.

'Of course, we have our own racial problem, and have hardly made such a success of it that we can afford to offer advice.

'Well, Edge, this letter has run on to too great a length to permit of any European treatment. That will have to wait. Of course, I have paid several visits to Paris, and understand as never before the saying: "Every man loves two countries--his own and France."

'Edge, why is it that people who travel always have the worst characteristics of their nationality? On the Continent one sees Englishmen wearing clothes that I swear are never to be seen in England, and their women so often appear angular and semi-masculine, whereas at home--but, then, you know what an admirer I am of English women. And our own people are worse. Tell me: at home, when a gentleman talks to you, does he keep his cigar in his mouth and merely resonate through his nose? Or is that a mannerism acquired through travelling?

'But enough, old boy. This has covered too vast an acreage of thought already. Oh yes--about my writing. I have been doing very little recently, but can feel the tide rising to that point where it will of necessity overflow the confines of my lethargy. I have had the honour of meeting several of the foremost writers here, and there is no question about it, they are doing excellent work. But I wish that I could feel a little more idealism in their work. The whole country here is parched for the lack of Heaven's moisture of idealism. People must have an objective in their lives, and the Arts should combine with the Church in creating it.

'Of course, there is an amazing amount of drivel written over here, most of which, I think, would never get past the office-boy of an American publication. The English short story and the English music-hall are things to be avoided.

'Before I end, have you seen Gerard Van Derwater recently? I heard that he joined the diplomatic service at Washington after leaving college. I often think of him with his strange pallor, but suggestion of brooding strength. Did it ever strike you that every one respected him, and yet he really never had a close friend? It always seemed to me that he carried about with him a sense of impending tragedy. Find out what he is doing, and let me know.

'Well, old boy, in another few months I shall pack up and return to America, and once more woo the elusive editor. I am looking forward to our sitting by your fireside and, through the cloud of tobacco-smoke, weaving again our old romances. I am really proud of you, Edgerton, and know that you must be a tremendous power for good.

'A letter any time addressed c/o The Royal Automobile Club, Pall Mall, will find me.--As ever, your old chum,

'AUSTIN SELWYN.'

The writer addressed an envelope, inserted the letter, sealed and stamped it, then yawned lazily. Gathering his outgoing correspondence and the old letters, he took his hat and sauntered into the street, conscious of having done his duty--also that he had unearthed some thoughts the existence of which he had not suspected beneath the surface shrubbery of everyday existence.

CHAPTER IX.