The Rustle of Silk Part 9

he said, "it will give me an admirable opportunity of inviting you to supper. Keep an eye on the old birds and as soon as they show a disposition to evacuate the situation we'll limber up and wait for them in the foyer. He's a hero of yours. Is that the idea?"

"Yes," she said simply.

"Do you happen to know Lady Feo?"

"Very well, indeed. She has been very kind to me. I like her."

Chalfont shifted his shoulders. That was quite enough. "Are you going to give me the whole of the evening?" he asked. "Or will that escort of yours show up sooner or later and claim you?"

"He's as good as dead, as far as I'm concerned. What do you suggest?"

He bent forward eagerly. "I dunno. A show of sorts. Not the theater. I can't stand that. We might drop into one of the Reviews or see what they are doing at the Coliseum. I love the red-nosed comedian who falls over a pin and breaks a million plates in an agony of economical terror. Do you like that sort of thing?"

Lola's experience of Reviews and Variety entertainments was limited to Hammersmith and the suburbs. "You're going to do something for me," she said, "so I am perfectly ready to do something for you. I'm rather keen about give and take."

Which was good hearing for Chalfont. He hadn't met many women who understood that golden rule. He could see even then that the little de Breze was going to play ducks and drakes with his future plans, put him to a considerable amount of inconvenience and probably keep him hanging about town,-for which he had very little use now that the sun was shining. Already Lola's attraction had begun its disturbing effect. He was on the verge of becoming brother of a valet, a butler, two footmen and the Lord knew how many of the hobble-de-hoys of Queen's Road, Bayswater.

The fish came and they both fell to,-Lola watching Fallaray's table keenly. "I saw a rather decent photograph of you in the _Tatler_ to-day," she said. It might have been Feo who spoke. "You won the point to point, didn't you?"

"I did," said Chalfont. "But I should have been beaten by the Boy if I hadn't had a better horse. He rode like the devil."

"You don't think that point to points are rather playing the fool just now, then?" The question came quietly but had the effect of making Chalfont suspend his fork in mid-air.

"Yes. I do. But under the present system what is the ordinary plain man to do but stand aside and watch our political muddlers mess everything up? I was asked to rejoin and take over a district in Ireland. Not me. I could see myself raising Cain in about ten minutes and washed out at the end of a week. Soldiers aren't required in Ireland."

"No?"

"No. Nor policemen, nor machine guns. Ireland stands in need of a little man with an Irish accent and the soul of Christ."

Lola rose to her feet. Fallaray had done the same thing and was bending over his mother.

And so Chalfont with, it must be confessed, a slightly rueful glance at his plate, told the waiter to give his bill to his chief, and followed Madame de Breze along the lane between the tables and up the long path of the "monkey house." And presently, when Fallaray gave his number to the flunkey and waited for his coat and hat, Chalfont carried out his orders. He went forward. "How do you do?" he said. "Wonderful weather."

It was a little lame.

Fallaray did not recognize the speaker except as a man who obviously had been a soldier. A left hand had been presented. The other was eloquent enough. "How are you?" he replied. "Yes, it _is_ wonderful weather."

And then Chalfont made the plunge. "I want to introduce you, if I may, to one of our Allies who admires you very much, Madame de Breze-Mr.

Fallaray."

Fallaray turned. From the little eager hand that nestled into his own Lola sent a message of all the hero-worship and adoration that possessed her soul and all the desire to serve and love that had become the one overwhelming pa.s.sion of her life. But neither spoke.

A moment later she was standing with Peter Chalfont, watching Fallaray on his way out with the two little ladies.-Her heart was fluttering like the wings of a bird.

But half-way through the evening, after having been swept away by Tschaikowsky's "Francesca da Rimini" and the Fantasy from "Romeo and Juliet" and stirred deeply by Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries," Fallaray underwent a strange and disconcerting experience. Leaving his place between his mother and old Lady Ladbroke, he went to smoke a cigarette in the foyer of the hall during the intermission. The music had gone to his brain and driven out of it for the moment the anxieties that beset him. All the vibrations of that wonderful orchestra flew about him like a million birds and the sense of s.e.x that he had got from Lola's touch ran through his veins.

He went through the swing-doors and out onto the steps of the building.

It was one of those wonderful nights which come sometimes in April and touch the city with magic. It was like the advance guard of June bringing with it the warmth and the scents of that exquisite month. The sky was clear and almost Italian, and the moonlight lay like snow on the roofs. It cast long shadows across the street. Fallaray looked up at the stars and a new and curious thrill of youth ran through him and a sort of impatience at having missed something-he hardly knew what. Wherever he looked he seemed to see two wide-apart eyes filled with adoration and longing and a little red mouth half open. "De Breze," he said to himself. "De Breze." And the name seemed to hold romance and to carry his thoughts out of London, out of the present and back to the times of beflowered garments and powdered heads, of minuets and high red heels.

And as he stood there, far away from the bewilderment and futility of Parliament, a car drove up to the hall and two women got out. They were Mrs. Malwood and Feo and they were dressed in country clothes-the curious country clothes affected by them both. Mrs. Malwood, who was laughing and excited, pa.s.sed Fallaray without noticing him and entered the building. But Feo drew up short in front of him, amazed at his expression. "Good Lord, Arthur," she said, "what are you doing here and what on earth are you thinking about?"

Music and the stars and Lola were in his eyes as he looked at her. "I thought you were in the country," he said.

"I was. I shall be again in an hour or two. In the middle of dinner I suddenly remembered that a protege of mine, Leo Kirosch, was to sing here to-night. So I dashed up. He's in the second part of the program, so I shall be in time to hear him. It entirely rotted the party, but that couldn't be helped."

She had never seen that look in Fallaray's eyes before and was intrigued. It had never been brought to life by her. Could it be possible that this Quixote, this St. Anthony, had looked at last upon the flesh pots? What fun if he had! How delicious was the mere vague idea of Fallaray, of all men, being touched by anything so ordinary and human as love, and how vastly amusing that she, who had worked herself into a sort of half belief that she was attracted by this young Polish singer, should now stand face to face with the man to whom she was tied by law, though by no other bonds. The dash up from the country was worth it even though she had risen unsatisfied from dinner and missed her coffee and cognac.... Or was it that she herself, having dropped from the clouds, and looking as she knew she did, more beautiful and fresh than usual because of her imaginary love affair with this long-haired youth who sang like a thrush, had brought this unaccustomed look into her husband's eyes?... How very amusing!

"Do you mean to say that having only driven down this afternoon to the country, you've come all the way up again just to hear two or three songs?"

"I do," she said. "Mad, isn't it? 'That crazy woman Feo on the rampage again.' Is that what you're thinking?"

"Something like that," he answered, and smiled at her. He felt queerly and charmingly young that night and lenient and rather in sympathy with madness. The Cromwellianism in which he had wrapped himself had fallen temporarily from his shoulders. He put his hand under her elbow and brought her up to the top step on a level with himself.

"My G.o.d," thought Lady Feo, "the man's alive for once. He tingles. I _must_ be looking well." What did it matter if Leo Kirosch was singing and she would miss his songs? It was much better sport to stand on the steps of that old building and flirt with her husband. She took his arm and stood close against him and looked up into his face with her most winning smile. "It gave me the shock of my life to see you here," she said. "I didn't know that you had a penchant for these suburban orgies.

Who are you with?"

"My mother and Aunt Betsy."

Under any other circ.u.mstances Feo would have thrown back her head and laughed derisively. Those two old birds. Instead of which she snuggled a little closer just to see the effect. It was ages since she had treated this man to anything in the nature of familiarity, in fact it was the first time since that night when she had made him kiss her because his profile and his tennis playing had obsessed her.

"After you've taken them home," she said, "why not motor back with us?

It's a gorgeous night, and the Eliots' cottage is high up on a range of hills almost within reaching distance of the stars."

Her grotesque sense of humor carried her away. How immense it would be to tempt this man out of the stony path of duty and see what he would do. What a story for her little friends! What screams of mirth she could evoke in her recital of so amazing an event, especially as she could dress it all up as she alone knew so well how to do! And then to be able to add to it all the indignant broken English of Kirosch at finding himself deserted. He had promised to sing to her that night. What a frightfully funny story.

For a moment or two, with the intoxication of music and of those wide-apart eyes still upon him, Fallaray stood closer to his wife than he had ever been. It seemed to him that she had grown softer and sweeter and he was surprised and full of wonder, until he remembered that she had come to see Kirosch, whom she called her protege-and then he understood.

Mrs. Malwood came out and luckily broke things up. "He's singing," she said. "Aren't you coming in? Good heavens, Feo, what the deuce are you playing at? You've dragged me up and ruined everything, only to miss the very thing you seemed so keen to hear. What is the idea?" She recognized Fallaray and said, "Oh, it's you."

And he bowed and got away-that kink in Feo's nature was all across her face like a birthmark.

And when Feo looked again, she saw in Fallaray's eyes once more the old aloofness, the old dislike. And she laughed and threw back her head.

"_Cherchez la femme_," she said. "One of these days I'll get you to tell me why you looked like that." And she disappeared with Mrs. Malwood to smile down on Kirosch from her seat near the platform.

And Fallaray remained out under the stars, his intoxication all gone.

Nowhere could he see and nowhere did he wish to see those wide-apart eyes with their adoration. The tingle of that little hand had left him.

And just as he turned to go back into the building a newspaper boy darted out to a side street with a shrill raucous cry, "Speshall. Mines Floodin'. Riots in Wales. Speshall."

III

The tears that blinded her eyes had gone when Chalfont came back from the cloakroom. He saw on Lola's face a smile that made him think of sunlight on a bank of primroses.

But they didn't go to the Coliseum, after all. It so happened that just as they were about to leave the Savoy, Chalfont was pounced upon by a little woman, the sight of whom made Lola long to burst into a laugh.

She was amazingly fat, almost as fat indeed as one of those pathetic women who go round with circuses and sit in a tent all by themselves dressed in tinsel and present an unbelievable leg to gaping yokels and say, "Pinch it, dearie, and see for yourself." Her good-natured face, with eyes as blue as birds' eggs, ran down into three double chins. It was crowned with a ma.s.s of hair dyed a brilliant yellow, the roots of which grew blackly like last year's leaves under spring's carpet. With an inconceivable lack of humor she was dressed like a flapper. She was a comic note in a tragic world. "Oh, h.e.l.lo, Peter," she said. "You bad boy, you've deserted me," and then she looked at Lola with a beaming smile of appreciation and added, "No wonder."

More than a little annoyed, because the one thing that he most wanted was to keep Lola to himself, Peter presented his cork hand. "I've been in the country," he said. "I'm awfully sorry I had to miss your party.

Lady Cheyne-Madame de Breze."