Sit William Dering, whom no one had ever called Bill, was quite as astonished as Mary Cliffe when he discovered that he was to dine at Palings in the immediate future. He bent a stare upon his wife, which was rendered all the more alarming by his bushy eyebrows, and desired to know whether she had taken leave of her senses.
"Not only sane, but sober," replied Lady Dering, quite unimpressed by the martial note in Sir William's voice. "I wouldn't miss it for worlds! The amazing Ermyntrude has dug up a Russian prince!"
"Good God!" ejaculated Sir William. "You're not going to tell me, I trust, that you accepted that invitation for the sake of meeting some wretched foreign prince?"
His wife considered this, a humorous gleam in her pleasant grey eyes. "Well, not quite entirely. I mean, not for the Prince alone. But a Russian prince in that setting! You couldn't expect me to miss anything as rich as that!"
This response, so far from mollifying Sir William, made hire look even more shocked than before. "My dear lluth, aren't you letting your sense of humour carry you too far? Dash it, you can't accept people's hospitality just to make fun of them!"
"Dear old silly!" said Lady Dering affectionately, "I wasn't going to."
"You said-'
"No, darling, far from it. I never make fun of anyone except you. I am just going to be gloriously entertained."
"Well, I don't like it at all. I haven't anything against Mrs. Carter, beyond the fact of her being a damned common woman, made up to the eyes, and reeking of scent, but that fellow, Carter, I bar. We've always kept them at arm's-length, and now Heaven knows what you've let us in for!"
"An occasional invitation to them to dine."
"But why?" demanded Sir William. "Don't tell me it's because of a Russian prince! I never heard such nonsense!"
"Dear William, I like you so much when you're stupid! The amazing Ermyntrude is going to build the hospital for us."
"Mat?"
"Not with her own fair hands, dearest. She's going to give us a really big cheque, though. I don't call a few dinner-parties much of a price to pay."
"I call it disgusting!" said Sir William strongly.
"You may call it what you please, my dear, but you know as well as I do that that's how these things are done. Ermyntrude's a kind soul, but she's no fool, and she has a daughter to launch. I don't in the least mind being useful to her if she'll make our hospital possible."
"Do you mean to tell me you're going to drive some sordid bargain with the woman?"
"Dear me, no! Nothing of the kind. I shall merely tell her how much we all want her to join the committee, and how we hope she and her husband will be free to dine with us next month, to meet Charles and Pussy, when they come to stay. Not a breath of sordidness, I promise you!"
"It makes me sick!" declared Sir William. "You had better go a step further while you are about it, and and tell Carter how delighted we should be to welcome his ward into our family."
"That would be excessive," replied Lady Dering calmly. "Besides, I don't know that I should be altogether delighted."
"You surprise me!" said her lord, with awful sarcasm.
The arrival upon the scene of their son and heir put an end to this particular topic of discussion. Hugh Dering, in grey flannel trousers, and an aged tweed coat, came strolling across the lawn towards them, and sat down beside his mother on the wooden garden seat.
He was a large, and sufficiently good-looking young man, not quite thirty years old, who was engaged in building up a practice at the Chancery Bar. He had his mother's eyes, but his father's stern mouth, and could look extremely pleasant, or equally forbidding, according to the mood of the moment.
Just now, he was looking pleasant. He began to fill a pipe, remarking cheerfully: "Well, Ma? Secret conclave?"
"No, not a bit. Your father and I were just discussing tomorrow's party."
Hugh grinned appreciatively. "Ought to be pretty good value, I should think. Were you asked to shoot as well, sit-?"
"No, I was not," replied Sir William. "And if I had been I should have refused!"
"I wasn't nearly so proud," said Hugh, gently pressing the tobacco down into the bowl of his pipe.
"Are you telling me that you're going to shoot there tomorrow?"
"Rather! Why not?"
"If I'd known you wanted to shoot, you could have taken my place," said Sir William, who belonged to a syndicate. "You'd have had better company and better sport. The way the Palings' shoot has been allowed to deteriorate since Fanshawe's death is a scandal. You'll find the birds as wild as be - damned - if you see any birds at all."
"Then I shan't shoot anything," responded Hugh fatalistically. "I'm not good enough for your crowd, in any case, sir. You're all so grand, with your loaders and your second guns. I can't cope at all."
Sir William relapsed into silence. His wife, who knew him to be brooding over the changed times that had made it impossible for him any longer to run his own shoot, and thus see to it that his son was not flustered by two guns and a loader, diverted his attention by asking Hugh if he had yet met Vicky Fanshawe.
"No, that's a pleasure to come. Mary tells me she has to be seen to be believed."
"I saw her in Fritton the other day," said Lady Dering. "Very pretty, rather what one imagines her mother might have been like at the same age. Why did Mary say she had to be seen to be believed?"
"I gather that she's a turn in herself. Full of histrionic talent."
"She looked rather sweet. They tell me that all the young men in the neighbourhood are wild about her."
"Gentlemen prefer blondes, in fact," said Hugh, striking a match. "Is the Russian prince one of the more eligible suitors?"
"Good gracious, I don't know! What an engaging idea, though! We shall have fun tomorrow!"
Sir William snorted audibly, but his son only laughed, and inquired who else was to be of the party.
"Well, I don't know the extent of the party, but the Bawtrys are going," replied Lady Dering.
"The Bawtrys?" exclaimed Sir William, surprised out of his resolve to take no part in a conversation he found distasteful.
"Ermyntrude is getting on, isn't she?" said Hugh. "I thought Connie Bawtry was stoutly Old Guard?"
"Ha!" said Sir William. "Another of the hospital committee! Upon my soul, things have come to a pretty pass!"
"Oh, is that the racket?" said Hugh. "I rather wondered."
"That's my racket," corrected his mother. "Not Connie Bawtry's. At least, it is really, only she won't own it."
"Then what the devil takes her to Palings?" demanded Sir William.
"God, apparently. It's all right, dear; I'm not being profane. Connie's been Changed. She's got under God Control, or something, and she says what the world needs is God-guided citizens, and if you learn Absolute Love you don't mind about Ermyntrude's accent, or Wally Carter's habits."
"Gone Groupy, has she?" said Hugh. "How rotten for Tom!"
"Well, it is rather, because Connie's started forgiving him for all sorts of things he never knew he'd done. We're hoping that she'll get over it quickly, because she's president of the Women's Conservative Association, besides running the Mothers, and the Village Club, and now that she's a God-guided citizen she simply hasn't a moment to attend to Good Works. I don't know why it is, but when people get Changed they never seem to be as nice as they were before."
"Tomfoolery!" said Sir William. "I thought she had more sense!"
"It's since Elizabeth got married, and went to India," explained his wife. "Poor dear, I expect she suddenly felt rather aimless, and that's how it happened. Only I thought I'd better warn you both."
"Good God!" said Sir William. "She won't talk that stuff, will she?"
"Oh yes, she's bound to! As far as I can make out, you practically have to testify, if you're God-controlled."
"At a dinner-party?" said Sir William awfully.
"Anywhere, dearest."
"But you don't talk about God at dinner! Damme, it's not decent!"
"No, it does make it all seem rather cheap, doesn't it?" agreed Lady Dering. "However, they seem to think that a good thing, and after all, it's nothing to do with us."
"I wish more than ever that you had not been misguided enough to accept that woman's invitation!"
"Oh, I don't!" said Hugh. "I'm definitely out to enjoy myself. What with a dizzy blonde, a Russian prince, and Connie Bawtry gone Groupy, I foresee a rare evening. Mary was rather dreading the Russian Prince when last I saw her, but she's bound to appreciate a really farcical situation. I hope the Prince turns out to be up to standard. I suppose he'll have arrived by now."
The Prince had indeed arrived, and was at that moment bowing over his hostess's plump hand. He was very dark, and of uncertain age, but extremely handsome, blessed with the slimmest of figures, very gleaming teeth, and the most elegant address. In fact, when he raised Ermyntrude's hand to his lips, she could not refrain from casting a triumphant glance towards her husband and Mary.
"Dear lady!" murmured the Prince. "As radiant as ever! I am enchanted! And the little Vicky! But no! This is not the little Vicky!"
He had turned to Mary, with his well-manicured hand held out. She put hers into it, saying rather inadequately: "How do you do?" He continued to hold her hand, but looked towards Ermyntrude with a question in his smiling, dark eyes.
"No, this is my husband's ward, Miss Cliffe," said Ermyntrude. "And here is my husband. Wally, this is Prince Varasashvili."
"Delighted!" the Prince said, releasing Mary's hand to clasp Wally's. "Of you I have heard so much!"
Wally looked quite alarmed, but before he could demand to know who had been telling tales about him, Ermyntrude intervened with an offer to escort the Prince to his room.
Though perfectly well-meant, his remark had added considerably to Wally's prejudice against him, and he had no sooner gone away upstairs in Ermyntrude's wake, than Wally began to disparage his manners, tailoring, and general appearance. "A gigolo, that's what he is," he told Mary. "Where does he get the money from to go about dressed up to the nines like that? Tell me that!"
Mary was quite unable to oblige him, but since she had not discovered from Ermyntrude that the Prince pursued any gainful occupation, she could not help feeling that there might be some truth in Wally's guess. Having been brought up exclusively in England, she was charitably inclined to ascribe the Prince's rather too smart attire to the fact of his being a foreigner. She thought that he looked out-of-place in the English countryside, and although willing to make every allowance for him, could not help hoping that his visit was not to be of long duration.
Ermyntrude, meanwhile, had led her guest upstairs to the best spare room, and had expressed an anxious hope that he would be comfortable there. As the apartment was extremely spacious, and furnished in the height of luxury, it seemed probable that he would be; but Ermyntrude, with purely British ideas about princes, could never see her Alexis without also perceiving an entirely apocryphal background of wealth, palaces, and royal purple.
He assured her that his comfort was a foregone conclusion, and she made haste to point out to him that a private bathroom led out of the apartment, and that if he wanted anything he had only to touch the bell.
He waved away the suggestion that he could want anything more than had been provided, and once more kissed her hand, saying, as he retained it in his clasp: "Now, at last, I see you in your own setting! You must let me tell you that it is charming. And you! so beautiful! so gracious!"
No one had ever talked to Ermyntrude in this way, not even the late Geoffrey Fanshawe, in the first flush of his infatuation for her. She had, in fact, been more used to listen to strictures upon her lack of breeding; and, being a very humble-minded woman, had always accepted her neighbours' obvious valuation of her as the true one. It was, therefore, delightful to hear herself extolled, and by no less a person than a prince; and she made no attempt either to draw her hand away, or to discourage further flattery. She even blushed rather prettily under her rouge and her powder, and inquired artlessly whether Alexis thought that the setting became her.
"You are so many-sided: everything becomes you! You would be beautiful in a garret," he replied earnestly. "Yet - I may say it? - always since I have first seen you, I have felt that something there is lacking in your life. I think you are not understood. You have never been understood. On the surface you are so gay that everyone says: "She has everything to make her happy, the beautiful Mrs. Carter: a husband, a lovely daughter, much money, much beauty!" It is perhaps only I who have seen behind the sparkle in those eyes, something - how shall I express it? - of loneliness, of a soul that is not guessed at, even by those who stand nearest to you."
This was most gratifying, and although Ermyntrude had not previously suspected that she was misunderstood, she began to realise that it was so, and reflected that one of the more attractive attributes of foreign gentlemen was their subtle perception. She gave a faint sigh, and bestowed upon the Prince a very speaking glance. "It's funny, isn't it?" she said. "I seemed to know, right at the start, that you were what I call understanding."
He pressed her hand. "There is a bond of sympathy between us. You too are aware of it, for you are not like the rest of your country-women."
Ermyntrude believed firmly that England was the best country in the world, and the English immeasurably superior to any other race, but she accepted this remark as a compliment, as indeed it was meant to be, and at once began to enumerate the characteristics that made her different from her compatriots. These were many, and varied from a hatred of tweeds and brogue shoes, to a sensitiveness of soul, which was hidden (as Alexis had so rightly supposed) under a cheerful demeanour, and a tolerance of foreigners rarely to be met with in other Englishwomen.
"You are a true cosmopolitan," the Prince assured her.
Ermyntrude would have been perfectly happy to have continued this conversation indefinitely, but at that moment the Prince's suitcases were borne into the room, so she rather regretfully withdrew.
She rejoined Wally and Mary in a somewhat exalted mood. Her gait was queenly enough to attract Wally's attention, and he immediately demanded to be told why she was sailing about like a dying swan. She relaxed sufficiently to inform him pithily that if he wanted to be vulgar he could take his vulgarity to those that liked it; for in spite of having grace, beauty, and a lonely soul, she was also a woman of spirit, and saw no reason for putting up with rudeness from Wally, or from anyone else. But this was only a temporary emergence from the cloud of abstraction in which she had wrapped herself, and she sank into an armchair, with really very creditable grace for a woman of her size, and became so aloof from her surroundings that she failed to notice that the dog, Prince, was lying curled up under her husband's chair. Her discovery of his unwanted presence coincided rather unfortunately with the human-Prince's entry into the room, when the spaniel, who was of a friendly disposition, at once rushed forward to accord the stranger an effusive welcome.
Ermyntrude's air of pensiveness fell from her as soon as she saw the spaniel jumping up at her guest, and she exclaimed with strong indignation: "If you haven't let that Prince come into the house, Wally! I told you the stable was the place for him!"
"There, I knew what it would be!" said Wally, not without satisfaction. He observed a slightly startled look upon the other Prince's face, and added: "It's all right, she doesn't mean you. Down, Prince. Good old dog, lie down then!"
"Ah!" the Prince said, showing his gleaming teeth in a smile of perfect comprehension. "There are two of us then, and this fine fellow is a prince also! It is very amusing! But you will not banish him on my account, I beg! I am very fond of dogs, I assure you."
"He oughtn't to be in the drawing-room at all," said Ermyntrude. "He smells."
"Ah, poor fellow!" said the Prince, sitting down, and stroking the spaniel. "Look, Trudinka, what sad eyes he makes at you! But you are a lucky prince, and I shall not pity you, for you are more lucky than I am, do you see, with a fine home of your own, which no Bolsheviki will burn to the ground."
"Is that what was done to your house?" asked Ermyntrude, shocked.
He made a gesture with his hands. "Fortune of war, Trudinka. I am lucky that I have not also lost my life."
"How dreadful for you!" said Mary, feeling that some remark was expected of her. "I didn't know the Bolsheviks were as bad in Georgia."
"Did you lose everything?" said Ermyntrude.
"Everything!" replied the Prince.
So comprehensive a statement, with the picture it conjured up of unspeakable privation, smote his audience into silence. Mary felt that it was prosaic to reflect that the Prince had exempted, in the largeness of his mind, his signet ring,, and his gold cigarette-case, and perhaps some other trifles of the same nature.
Ermyntrude, easing the constraint of the moment, began to wonder, audibly, where Vicky could be. The Prince responded, with the effect of shaking off the dark thoughts his own words had evoked in his brain.
Vicky came in some little time after the tea-table had been spread before Ermyntrude. Mary had little patience with poses, but had too much humour not to appreciate the manner of this entrance.
The Sports Girl had vanished. Vicky was sinuous in a tea-gown that swathed her limbs in folds of chiffon, and trailed behind her over the floor. She came in with her hand resting lightly on the neck of the Borzoi, and paused for a moment, looking round with tragic vagueness. The Borzoi, lacking histrionic talent, escaped from the imperceptible restraint of her hand to investigate the Prince.
Ermyntrude found nothing to laugh at in the teagown, or the exotic air that hung about her daughter. Mentally she applauded a good entrance, and thought that Vicky looked lovely. She called her attention to the Prince, who had sprung to his feet.
Wally, in whom the sight of his stepdaughter outplaying his guest had engendered emotions that threatened to overcome him, very soon finished his tea, and withdrew, taking the dog - Prince - with him. Mary stayed on, a rather silent but interested spectator of the comedy being enacted before her. She had early written the Prince down as a fortune-hunter, and had wondered a little that he should waste his time on the married Ermyntrude. She now began to suspect that his designs were set on Vicky, for he devoted himself to her with the utmost gallantry, including Ermyntrude in the conversation merely to corroborate his various estimates of Vicky's unplumbed soul.
After a time, Mary grew tired of listening to absurdities, and went away. She did not see the Prince again until dinner-time, but went to Vicky's room, to remonstrate with her, as soon as she herself had changed her dress.
Vicky was engaged in rolling her fair locks into sophisticated curls upon the top of her head. She smiled happily at Mary, and said with disarming frankness: "I say, isn't this grown-up, and rather repulsive? I feel frightfully femme fatale."
"I do wish you wouldn't pose so much!" said Mary. "Really, you're making a complete ass of yourself. You can't look like a femme fatale at nineteen."
"With eye-black, I can," replied Vicky optimistically.
"Well, don't. And if it's for the Prince's benefit, I think he's phoney."
"Oh yes, so do I!" Vicky assented.
"Then why on earth bother to put on this sickening act?"
"It isn't a bother; I like it. I wish I were on the stage."
"You're certainly wasted here. Why has the Prince come here, do you suppose?"
"Well, I think because Mummy's so rich."
"Yes, but he knew she was married."
"But she could divorce Wally, couldn't she? I think it's all frightfully subtle of Alexis, only Ermyntrude's very respectable, so perhaps he'll murder Wally in the end."
"Oh, don't talk rot!" said Mary impatiently.
"Well, I do think he might, quite easily," said Vicky, applying eye-black with a lavish hand. "Oh, darling, don't I look grand and dangerous? I think Russians are sinister, particularly Alexis."
"I don't see anything sinister about Alexis. And you look awful."
"Ugly-awful, or fast-awful? I don't trust his smile. Like velvet, with something at the back of his eyes which makes me shiver a little."
"Don't waste that stuff on me: I'm the worst audience you'll ever have."
"I was rehearsing," said Vicky, quite unabashed. "Do you suppose secret agents have fun?"
"No. Why?"
"Oh, I don't know, except that I've made myself look like Sonia the Spy, and Robert Steel is dropping in after dinner."
"I don't see what that's got to do with it."
"Well, nothing really, except that I told him to, because it'll make a situation, and I think Robert and Alexis and Wally are the loveliest sort of triangle. Bottled passions, and things."
"Vicky!" Mary sounded shocked.
Vicky was busy reddening her lips, and said with difficulty: "Robert might murder Alexis. And anyway Mummy will know Solid Worth, and perhaps give up being thrilled by Alexis. Either way, it'll do."
"Look here, Vicky, that isn't funny!" said Mary severely. "You ought not to talk about your mother like that."
"Oh, darling, I do think you're sweet!"
This response annoyed Mary so much that she walked out of the room, and went down to the drawing-room. Here she found the Prince in the smartest of dinnerjackets, and his pique shirtfront embellished by pearl studs. He cast aside the newspaper he had been reading, and at once laid himself out to be agreeable. As though he was aware that the impression he had so far made on Mary was not good, he took pains to engage her liking, and succeeded fairly well. Yet the very fact of his adapting his conversation and manners to her taste had the effect of arousing a certain antagonism in her heart. She could not perceive any reason for his wanting her to like him.
Dinner passed without incident, but Wally did not keep the Prince long over his port, and led him presently into the drawing-room, his own face wearing an expression of sleepy resignation.
The question of what to do now began to trouble Ermyntrude, for although she would have enjoyed an evening spent tete-a-tete with the Prince, a party spent without the diversions of cards or dancing seemed to her not only dull, but a grave reflection upon the hostess.
Vicky, holding a cigarette-holder quite a foot long between her fingers, glided across the floor to turn on the radio. Ermyntrude was only saved from begging her to find something a bit more lively by the Prince's recognising the music of Rimsky-Korsakoff, and hailing it with a kind of wistful delight.
At this moment, Vicky's invited guest was announced, a strong, square-looking man with crisp hair slightly grizzled at the temples, and rather hard grey eyes that looked directly out from under craggy brows.
Ermyntrude got up, looking surprised, but not displeased, and exclaimed: "Well, I never! Who'd have thought of seeing you, Bob? Well, I do call this nice!"
Robert Steel took her hand in a firm clasp, reddening, and explaining somewhat self-consciously that Vicky had invited him. His gaze took in that damsel, as he spoke, and he blinked.
Ermyntrude had now to present him to the Prince. They made a sufficiently odd contrast, the one so thin, and handsome, and smiling, the other stocky, and rugged, and a little grim. Mary, who knew, and was sorry for, Steel's silent adoration of Ermyntrude, was not surprised to see him look more uncompromising than usual, for Ermyntrude was hanging on the Prince's lips. To make matters worse, Wally, although he had not lingered over the port, had fortified himself with a good many drinks before dinner, and was now looking a little blear-eyed. Steel's lips had tightened when his glance had first fallen on him, and beyond giving him a curt good-evening he had not again addressed him.
If Vicky's aim had been to provoke an atmosphere of constraint, she had succeeded admirably, Mary reflected. Nor, having introduced Steel into the party, did she show the least disposition to try to ease the tension. She remained standing backed against the amber-silk curtains, beside the radio, which she had turned down until the music became a faint undercurrent, a murmur behind the voices. It was left to the Prince to set the party at its ease, which outwardly he did, to Ermyntrude's satisfaction, and Steel's silent annoyance.
"Well, Bob, how are the crops and things?" inquired Ermyntrude kindly. "Mr. Steel," she added, turning to the Prince, "farms his own land, you know."
"I'm a farmer," stated Steel, somewhat pugnaciously disclaiming the implied suggestion that he toiled for his pleasure.
"Ah, perfectly!" smiled the Prince. "Alas, I find myself wholly ignorant of the art!"
"Precious little art about it," said Steel. "Hard work's more like it."
From her stance beyond the group, Vicky spoke thoughtfully. "I think there's something rather frightening about farming."
"Frightening?" repeated Steel.
"Primordial," murmured Vicky. "The struggle against Nature, savagery of the soil."
"What on earth are you talking about?" Steel demanded. "I never heard such rot!"
"But no, one sees exactly what she means!" the Prince exclaimed.
"I'm afraid I don't," replied Steel. "Struggle against Nature! I assure you, I don't, young lady!"
"Oh yes! Rain. And weeds," sighed Vicky.
"That's right," said Wally, entering unexpectedly into the conversation. "Getting earth under your nails, too. Oh, it's one long struggle!"
"It's a good life," said Steel.
"It may be your idea of a good life. All I know is that it isn't mine. Fancy getting up in the middle of the night to help a sheep have a lamb! Well, I ask you!"
"That'll do!" said Ermyntrude. "There's no need to get coarse."
It was generally felt that the possibilities of farming as a topic for conversation had been exhausted. An uneasy silence fell. The Prince began to recall to Ermyntrude memories of Antibes. As Steel had not been there, he was unable to join in. He said that his own country was good enough for him, to which the Prince replied with suave courtesy that it might well be good enough for anyone.
A diversion was created by the sound of footsteps on the flagged terrace outside. The evening was so warm that the long windows had been left open behind the curtains. These parted suddenly, and a face looked in. "Hallo! Anyone at home?" inquired Harold White with ill-timed playfulness.
Only Wally greeted this invasion with any semblance of delight. He got up and invited his friend to come in, and upon discovering that White was accompanied by his son and daughter, said the more the merrier.
Neither White nor his son had changed for dinner, a circumstance which still further prejudiced Ermyntrude against them. Janet White, a somewhat insignificant young woman, whose skirts had a way of dipping in the wrong places, was wearing a garment which she designated as semi-evening dress. It was she who first addressed Ermyntrude, saying with an anxious smile: "I do hope you don't mind us dropping in like this, Mrs. Carter? Father wanted to see Mr. Carter, you see, so I thought probably you wouldn't mind if Alan and I came too. But if you do mind - I mean, if you'd rather we didn't-'
Ermyntrude broke in on this indeterminate speech, her natural kindliness prompting her to say with as much heartiness as she could assume: "Now, you know I'm always pleased to see you and Alan, dear. This is Prince Alexis Varasashvili."
Any fears that Ermyntrude might have nourished that Janet would try to monopolise her exalted guest were soon dispersed. Janet looked flustered, and retreated as soon as she could to Mary's side. Janet was engaged to be married to a tea-planter, living in Ceylon; and although she had so far been unable to reconcile it with her conscience to abandon her father and brother, she was a constant young woman, and found every other man than her tea-planter supremely uninteresting. The Prince alarmed her a little, for she was a simple creature, quite unused to cosmopolitan circles, and instead of listening to his conversation, she began to give Mary an account, in a tiresome undertone, of the tea-planter's adventures, as exemplified in his last letter to her.
Her brother, however, a willowy youth, who cultivated an errant lock of hair, took up a determined position on the sofa beside the Prince, and proclaimed himself to be a fervent admirer of the Russian School.
"And what school might that be?" asked Ermyntrude, bent on putting him in his place.
"My dear Mrs. Carter!" said Alan with a superior smile. "Literature!"
"Oh literature!" said Ermyntrude. "Is that all!"
"All! Yes, I am inclined to think that it is indeed all!"
White, who was waiting by a side-table while Wally mixed a drink for him, overheard this, and said, with a laugh: "That young cub of mine getting astride his hobbyhorse? You snub him, Mrs. Carter, that's my advice to you! If he read less and worked more, he'd do well."
"Oh well!" said Wally tolerantly. "I'm very fond of reading myself. Not in the summer, of course."
Alan apparently considered this remark beneath contempt, for he turned his shoulder to the rest of the room, and fixing the Prince with a stern and penetrating gaze, uttered one word: 'Tchekhov!"
Vicky, who thought she had been out of the limelight for long enough, and had once seen The Cherry Orchard, said thrillingly: "The psychology of humanity! Too, too marvellous!"
"Oh, Vicky, you're doing your hair a new way!" exclaimed Janet, suddenly noticing it.
"Yes," said Vicky, firmly putting the conversation back on to an elevated plane. "It's an expression of mood. Tonight I felt as though some other, stranger soul had entered into me. I had to fit myself to it. Had to!"
"You look beautiful!" Alan said, in a low voice. "I sometimes think there must be Russian blood in you. You're so sensitive, if you know what I mean."
"Storm-tossed," said Vicky unhappily.
"No, no, duchinka!" said the Prince, amused. "I find instead that you are youth-tossed."
"One must believe in youth," said Alan intensely.
With the exception of Vicky, none of his audience showed much sign of agreeing with this dictum. White told him that he talked too much, and Steel said that, speaking for himself, he had no use for Tchekhov.
"Good God!" exclaimed Alan, profoundly disgusted. "That mastery of under-statement! That fluid style! When I saw The Three Sisters, for instance, it absolutely shattered me!"
"Well, if it comes to that, it pretty well shattered me," said Wally. "In fact, had anyone told me what sort of a show it was, I wouldn't have gone."
"I must say, that was a dreary piece," admitted Ermyntrude. "I dare say it was all very clever, but it wasn't my idea of a cheery evening."
"To my mind, The Seagull was yet finer," said Alan. "There one had the crushing weight of cumulative gloom pressing on one until it became almost an agony!"
"When I go to the theatre," said Ermyntrude flatly, "I don't want to be crushed by gloom."
It was plain that Alan thought such an attitude of mind contemptible, but the Prince threw Ermyntrude one of his brilliant smiles, and said: "Always you are right, Trudinka. Indeed, you were made for light and laughter."
"Take Gogol!" commanded Alan. "Think of that subtle union of mysticism and realism, more especially in Dead Souls!"
"Well, what of it?" asked Wally. "It's all very well for you to say "take Gogol", but nobody wants to, and what's more we don't want to talk about dead souls either. You run along with Vicky and have a game of billiards, or something."
"The panacea of the inevitable ball!" said Alan, with a bitter smile. "Does it puzzle you, Prince, our obsession with Sport?"
"But I find that you are not obsessed with Sport, my friend, but on the contrary with the literature of my country. Yet I must tell you that in translation something is lost."
The mention of sport put Ermyntrude in mind of the borrowed shot-gun, and she at once turned to catch Wally's eye. Failing, she was obliged to nudge Mary, and to whisper: "Tell him to ask about the gun!"
Mary, who saw no reason for such stealth, at once said: "Oh, Uncle Wally, don't forget you were going to ask Mr. White for the shot-gun!"
Ermyntrude thought such a direct approach rather rude, and blushed; but White was at once profuse in apologies. "It slipped my memory," he said. "If you'd only given me a ring I could have brought it over tonight! I'll tell you what, Mrs. Carter, I'll pop across with it first thing in the morning."
"Oh, I'm sure I didn't mean That is, Wally's shooting tomorrow, you see!" said Ermyntrude, flustered. "Naturally, you're very welcome, what with Wally using it so seldom, and that."
Wally spoilt the effect of this generous speech by giving vent to his annoying snigger. "Well, that's not what you said this morning. A nice slating I got for lending you the gun, I can tell you, Harold!"
Ready tears of mortification sprang to Ermyntrude's eyes. Mary saw Steel watching her steadily, a little angry pulse throbbing in his temple, and said quickly: "I suggest we get up a game of snooker! You'll play, won't you, Janet?"
Janet, however, said that she was so bad at it that she would prefer to watch. Steel was more obliging, and the Prince announced that nothing could give him greater pleasure. After a good deal of argument, Janet was persuaded to overcome her diffidence, and everyone but Ermyntrude, Vicky and Alan consented to play. Vicky volunteered to mark, and Alan, refusing to play on the score that the sides were even without him, attached himself to her, and tried to hold her attention with a description of the wealth of sordid misery to be found in the works of Maxim Gorky. The billiard-room was a very large room, one end of it being furnished to constitute what Ermyntrude called a smoking-lounge. Here Ermyntrude ensconced herself, in a deep armchair. Between shots, the Prince stood beside her, conversing in low tones, a circumstance which did not find favour in Steel's eyes.
The game was necessarily a light-hearted affair, for the Prince and White were the only really skilled players, and Janet insisted upon being told continually which ball to aim at, which pocket to put it in, and how to handle her cue. White took no part in the coaching of his daughter, but seized the opportunity afforded by the Prince's patiently instructing her, to draw Wally aside, and say to him in a confidential undertone: "If you're looking for a good thing - mind you, when I say good I mean a regular snip! - I think I can put you on to it."
Wally, who was imbibing his third whisky since dinner, was feeling slightly querulous, and replied in a Complaining voice: "What about that money I lent you?"
"That'll be all right, old man," said White soothingly. "No need for you to worry about that."
"Oh, there isn't, isn't there? That's what you think, but I don't, Nice to-do there'd be if Ermy found out about it."
"Well, she won't. I tell you it's all right!"
"No, she won't find out because now I come to think of it you've got to pay it back next week," said Wally triumphantly.
These words, which were spoken in an unguarded tone, reached Mary's ears. At that moment, Janet, taking painstaking aim, miscued, and it became White's turn to play. As he walked over to the table, Mary caught Steel's eye, and realised, with a curious sinking of her spirits, that he also had overheard Wally's last speech. He was standing beside Mary, and asked in an abrupt undertone whether Wally had lent money to White.
"I don't know," Mary replied repressively.
Steel's hard gaze travelled to Ermyntrude's unconscious profile. He muttered: "Exploiting her! By God, I He checked himself, remembering to whom he spoke, and said briefly: "Sorry!"
Mary thought it wisest to disregard his outburst, and began to talk of something else, but she was privately a good deal perturbed by what she had heard, and contrived, soon after the departure of the Whites, to get a word with Wally alone. Knowing that evasive methods would not answer, she asked him bluntly whether he had lent money to White, and refused to be satisfied with his easy assurance that it was quite all right.
Questioned more strictly, Wally said bitterly that things were coming to a pretty pass now that his own ward spied upon him.
"You know I don't spy on you. I couldn't help hearing what you said to Mr. White tonight. You spoke quite loudly. Robert Steel heard you as plainly as I did."
Wally looked a little discomposed at this. "I wish that fellow would stop poking his nose into my business! It's my belief he'd like nothing better than to see me knocked down by a tram, or something."
"Nonsense!" said Mary.
"It isn't nonsense. Any fool can see with half an eye that be's after Ermy. He wants her money, you mark my words."
"It's Aunt Ermy's money that I want to speak about," said Mary. "You've no right to get money out of her to lend to Harold White."
Wally looked offended. "That's a nice way to talk to your guardian!"
"I know, but I must. I can't bear to see Aunt Ermy cheated. If she were mean I mightn't mind so much, but she gives you whatever you ask for without a murmur, and to be frank with you, Uncle, it makes me sick to hear the lies you tell her about what you want money for. What's more, she's beginning to realise - things."
"I must say, I didn't much like that crack of hers at breakfast today," agreed Wally. "Think she meant anything in particular?"
"I don't know, but I'll tell you this: if she finds out that you're lending her money to White, there'll be trouble. She'll stand a lot, but not that."
"Well, all right, all right, don't make such a song and dance about it!" said Wally, irritated. "As a matter of fact, I was a bit on at the time, or naturally I wouldn't have been such a fool. Lending money is a thing I never have believed in. However, there's nothing to worry about, because Harold's going to pay it back next week."
"What if he doesn't?"
"Don't you fret, he's got to, because I've got his bill for it.
Mary sighed. "You're so hopeless, Uncle: if he tries to get out of it, you'll let him talk you over."
"Well, that's where you're wrong. I may be easy-going, but if it comes to parting brass-rags with Harold, or getting under Ermy's skin, I'll part with Harold."
"I wish you would part with him," said Mary.
"Yes, I dare say you do, but the trouble with you is that you've got a down on poor old Harold. But as a matter of fact he can be very useful to me. You'll sing a different tune if you wake up one morning and find I've made a packet, all through Harold White."
"I should still hate your having anything to do with him," said Mary uncompromisingly.