LAST ADVENTURES OF THESE CHARMING PEOPLE

May Fair

By
Michael Arlen
Author of “These Charming People,” “The Green Hat,” “The London Venture,” etc.

BEING an Entertainment Purporting to Reveal to Gentlefolk the Real State of Affairs Existing in the Very Heart of London During the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Years of the Reign of His Majesty King George the Fifth: Together with Suitable Reflections on the Last Follies, Misadventures and Galanteries of These Charming People

Among which Episodes May be Found

THE REVOLTING DOOM OF A GENTLEMAN WHO WOULD NOT DANCE WITH HIS WIFE

THE BATTLE OF BERKELEY SQUARE THE ACE OF CADS

THE GENTLEMAN FROM AMERICA

TO LAMOIR

THE GHOUL OF GOLDERS
GREEN

THE PRINCE OF THE JEWS

THE THREE-CORNERED MOON

A ROMANCE IN OLD BRANDY

WHERE THE PIGEONS GO TO DIE

Jacket Design by Edmund Dulac

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY Publishers New York

May Fair
———
MICHAEL ARLEN
By MICHAEL ARLEN

• May Fair
• The Green Hat
• These Charming People
• “Piracy”
• The London Venture
• The Romantic Lady

May Fair

BEING AN ENTERTAINMENT PURPORTING TO
REVEAL TO GENTLEFOLK THE REAL STATE
OF AFFAIRS EXISTING IN THE VERY HEART
OF LONDON DURING THE FIFTEENTH AND
SIXTEENTH YEARS OF THE REIGN OF
HIS MAJESTY KING GEORGE THE FIFTH:
TOGETHER WITH SUITABLE REFLEC-
TIONS ON THE LAST FOLLIES, MIS-
ADVENTURES AND GALANTERIES
OF THESE CHARMING PEOPLE BY
Michael Arlen

NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
Copyright, 1925,
By George H. Doran Company
Copyright, 1924, 1925, by The Consolidated Magazines
Corporation [The Red Book].
Copyright, 1925, by The International Magazine Company,
Inc. [Harper’s Bazaar].
Copyright, 1924, Everybody’s Magazine.
MAY FAIR
—B—
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CONTENTS

MAY FAIR

PROLOGUE

I

ONCE upon a time in London there was a young gentleman who had nothing better to do one afternoon, so what should he do but take a walk? Now he did not set out as one on pleasure bent, but with an air of determination that would have surprised his friends, saying between his teeth: “I have always heard that walking is good exercise. I will try a bit.” However, he had not walked far before circumstances compelled him to abate his ardour, for it was an afternoon in July and quite warm for the time of the year.

Eastward our young gentleman strode, by Sloane Street, through Knightsbridge, across Hyde Park Corner, he strode even from Chelsea to Mayfair; for he was by way of being a writer and lived in Chelsea, whereas his people lived in Mayfair and understood nothing.

Now while we are about it we may as well add that the young writer’s father was a baronet who had for some years been a perfect martyr to bankruptcy, and had called his son to him on this afternoon to impress upon him the fact that in future he, the young writer’s father, could not and would not be a victim to his, the young writer’s, extravagances. So much, then, for the young writer’s father; but with himself we must continue yet a while, although what this tale is really about is a hand and a flower.

For that is what he chanced to see on the afternoon we tell of, a hand and a flower; and since it was inconceivable that the hand could belong to a man, so white and delicate it was, he put two and two together and decided that it could only belong to a lady. Further, there was that about the droop of the hand which fired him to think of it as the hand of an unhappy heart. While as for the flower, it was scarlet, and of the sort that anyone can buy at any florist’s by just going in and saying: “I want some carnations, please, but not white ones, please, thank you, good-day.”

Now the sun was so high and bright over London that day that the voices of Americans were distinctly heard rising above the polished tumult of the Berkeley Hotel, crying plaintively for ice; and when at last our young writer came into Mayfair he was grateful for the cool quiet streets, but being still at some discomfort from the effects of the heat on his person, he thought to turn into Mount Street Gardens and rest a while beneath the trees.

This, however, he was not to do that afternoon; for it chanced that he had not walked far towards that pleasaunce when, at that point of the pretty quarter of Mayfair where South Street becomes North Street and Grosvenor Square is but a step in the right direction, he was drawn to admire a great house that stood in a walled garden. Quite a country-house this looked like, and right in the heart of the town, so that our young gentleman thought: “Now I wonder whose house that is. Ah, to be rich! Or, at least, to be so attractive that rich people would take one to their hearts on sight!”

In this wise relishing the deplorable charms of money, he had stared long over the wall at the house in the garden had not something happened which instantly gave his fancies a prettier turn: for what should he suddenly espy through the curtain of leaves but a hand drooping from one of the upper windows, and what should he espy in the hand but a scarlet flower?

Now that made a delightful picture of innocence, of dreaming youth and fond imagining, and not at all the sort of thing you see every day, especially in Mayfair, where motor-cars grow from the cracks in the pavements and ladies recline in slenderness on divans, playing with rosaries of black pearls and eating scented macaroons out of bowls of white jade.

Presently a policeman happened by, and the young gentleman thought to turn from the wall and greet him in a friendly way with a view to further conversation.

“And what,” he asked, “is the name of the lady who lives in the house with the garden?”

“Young sir,” said the policeman severely, “that will do from you.”

“I beg your pardon!” said the young writer with spirit.

“Granted,” said the policeman severely.

“But this is absurd! I am an honest man and I have asked you an honest question.”

The policeman unbent his expression so far as to say, with a significant look at the great house in the walled garden: “Young sir,” said he, “there danger lies for the likes of you. For the likes of her is not for the likes of you.”

“Oh, nonsense!” cried our young gentleman. “This is a free country. This is not America!”

“Is it swearing at me you are?” said the policeman severely. “Now move on, young man, move on.”

“I will not!” cried our hero.

“Well, I will!” said the policeman, and walked away, while the young gentleman turned away from this unsatisfactory conversation just in time, alas, to see the scarlet flower drop from the white fingers; and the hand was withdrawn.

Now such was the effect of the hand and the flower on the young writer’s susceptible mind that he quite forgot to go and see his father, who thereupon cut him off with a shilling, which he sent to the young writer in the form of postage stamps. But the occasion was not without some profit, albeit of the spiritual sort, to the young man; for that very night he dreamed he was kissing that very hand, and who shall say that that was all he dreamed, for surely he is a sorry young man who cannot kiss more than a lady’s hand in a dream.

II

The Court Chronicles of the Grand Duchy of Valeria report the following conversation as having taken place between the reigning Duke and his consort. That the conversation took place in London is undoubtedly due to the fact that the Royal Duke and his Duchess were at the time on a state visit to that capital, with a view to taking a turn around the Wembley Exhibition.

“We will give a ball,” said His Highness the Hereditary Grand Duke of Valeria. “In fact, we must give a ball. And everyone in London will come to it.”

“Why should they?” said Her Highness.

“Now try not to be disagreeable, my dear. I have no idea why they should, but I am positive they will. They always do.”

“But, Frederick, what is the matter with you to-night? Why do you want to give a ball, since you cannot dance? Upon my word, if I danced like you I should be ill at the very idea of a ball! So be sensible, my love, and go to sleep again.”

“Now try not to be unpleasant, Ethelberta. You do not seem to understand that people in our position must every now and then give a ball. That is undoubtedly what balls are for, that people in our position should give them. I have worked out the matter very carefully.”

“Then you are quite wrong, my love. Balls are for something quite different. I assure you that I have also worked out the matter very carefully. Balls are for English people to give, Americans to pay for, and Argentines to dance at.”

“Now try not to be tiresome, my dear. It will seem extremely peculiar in us not to give at least one ball while we are in London. The Diplomatic Corps will not fail to remark our ill-timed economy. Do you forget that we are Royalty?”

“Fiddledidee!” said the Duchess.

“Now,” said the Duke, “try not to be——”

“Bother Royalty!” said the Duchess. “I’ve never got anything by being Royal except to be treated like a village idiot all my life. And now you want me to give a beastly ball, at which I shall have to dance with a lot of clumsy Ambassadors. Frederick, I tell you here and now that I will not give a ball. And if you want to know my reasons for not giving a ball, they are, briefly, as follows.”

They followed.

“Whereas,” said His Highness, “my reasons for wishing to give this confounded ball are not entirely social. Our daughter——”

“You are not going to pretend, my love, that the happiness of our only daughter is influencing you in the least! You will not dare to pretend that, Frederick, considering that ever since we have been in London you have kept the poor child locked in her room.”

“You know very well,” said the Duke hotly, “that we both decided that in the circumstances——”

“Well, I think it’s most insanitary,” said the Duchess, “keeping the poor child locked in her room day in and day out! In the end all that will happen will be that she will lose her figure and no one will marry her at all and then where are we?”

“Ethelberta!” cried His Highness, leaping from the bed and looking sternly down at her. “I did not think you could carry levity so far. Woman, would you compromise with our honour and the honour of Valeria?”

“If there was any money in it, my love, I would of course ask your advice first, as you know so much more than I do about selling things. I really don’t know where we would be now if you hadn’t been so clever about our neutrality during the war. Now, my love, stop being silly and get back to bed. You look too ridiculous in those bright pink pyjamas. What the Lord-in-Waiting was doing to let you buy them I can’t imagine!”

“Ethelberta,” said His Highness sternly, “understand this! We are in England, at considerable expense——”

“Naturally, my love, if you will buy pyjamas like that!”

“—— to avenge a mortal insult to our honour. Woman, would you have our innocent daughter be spurned by the villain who seduced her?”

“These are strong words!” said the Duchess.

“I feel strongly about it,” said the Duke.

“And anyhow, she can’t be as innocent as all that,” said the Duchess thoughtfully, “now. I know girls. Oh, dear, what fun girls have!”

“Ethelberta, this English lord must die!”

“All English lords must die, my love, in due course. It is a law of nature. Now come back to bed.”

“I have worked the matter out very carefully, and that is why I am giving this ball. We cannot kill this coward out-of-hand by hiring some low assassin, for he is, after all, a gentleman. And besides, in this confounded country,” His Highness continued warmly, “you cannot fire a revolver without every policeman in the neighbourhood wanting to know why you did it. Therefore, the ball.”

“What, are you going to fire revolvers off at our ball? My love, are you sure that will be quite safe?”

“My idea is that the noise of the ball will screen the rattle of musketry. For that purpose I shall engage the most violent saxophone-player in the country. I have already taken advice on that point. The firing-party will, of course, be in the garden. So now, Ethelberta, you understand why we must give this——”

“Oh, give your rotten ball!” said Her Highness sleepily.

III

The red carpet stretched from the doors of the great house in the walled garden to the broad pavement where South Street meets North Street and Grosvenor Square is but a step in the right direction; and up the red carpet walked the flower of England’s quality and fashion and the loftiest dignitaries of the Church and Press. Came, too, all the circumstance of diplomacy and the first among the burgesses. Decorations were worn. Art and literature were represented only by a painter with a beard who had forgotten to wear a tie, a young reporter with a boil on his neck, and a rugged novelist with a large circulation who liked hunting. Came, too, all the first actors of the day, talking about themselves to each other and thinking about each other to themselves. All the most intelligent young ladies of Society were present, murmuring hoarsely to each other: “One really cannot understand how one can come to a party when one might be reading a book by Maurice Baring.” Footlight favourites by Royal Appointment. Astorias and his band of the Loyalty Club were engaged to play. The reception given to the honourable company in every way accorded with the ancient dignity of the Grand Duchy of Valeria. The guests passed between two lines of the Hussars of Death or Honour, brilliant in white uniforms with crimson facings, epaulettes of gold and cloaks of black gabardine lined with ermine, under the command of Baron Hugo von Müsselsaroffsir. Champagne by G. H. Mumm.

Not among the last to arrive was my lord Viscount Quorn, a young nobleman whose handsome looks and plausible address were fated to be as a snare and a delusion to those who were not immediately informed as to his disordered temperament and irregular habits. Yet, although many a pretty young lady had lived to regret with burning tears the confidence she had been persuaded to misplace in that young gallant’s code of chivalry, not a man in England could be found to impugn my lord’s honour; for was he not renowned from Ranelagh to Meadowbrook for his incomparable agility, did not Australian cricketers wince at the mere mention of the name of Quorn, and did any soldier present on the high occasion we tell of wear pinned across his breast braver emblems of gallantry in war?

With him to the Duke’s ball came his boon companion, Mr. Woodhouse Adams, a gentleman whose claim to the regard of his familiars was based solidly on the fact that he knew a horse when he saw one; yet so great was his reserve that what he knew when he did not see a horse was a secret which Mr. Woodhouse Adams jealously guarded from even his most intimate friends. On this occasion, however, as they walked up the red carpet to the open doors of the house in the walled garden, Mr. Woodhouse Adams appeared to be unable to control a particular indignation, and presently spoke to the following effect:

“If you ask my opinion, Condor, I think you are putting your jaws into the lion’s head.”

“I gather,” said Lord Quorn, whose nickname took the peculiar form of Condor for reasons which are quite foreign to this story, “that you mean I am putting my head into the lion’s jaws. It may be so. But I tell you, Charles, that I am in love with this girl. At last, I am in love. And I am not going to miss the most slender chance of seeing her again—not to speak of my desire to take this unrivalled opportunity of paying my respects to her father with a view to a matrimonial entanglement.”

“You’re not going to do that!” incredulously cried his friend.

“Almost at once,” said Lord Quorn.

“Gentlemen’s Cloak-Room on the left,” said a Hussar of Death or Honour.

“Am I speaking to milord Quorn?” asked a page bearing a salver of gold.

“You are, boy.”

“Then I have the honour, milord, to be the bearer of a note to milord from my mistress, Her Select Highness the Princess Baba.”

“Well, don’t shout the glad news all over the Cloak-Room,” said Mr. Woodhouse Adams.

“Go tell Her Highness,” said my lord to the boy, “that I shall beg the honour of the first dance with her.”

“Milord, I go!” said the page, and went.

“I don’t like that boy,” said Mr. Woodhouse Adams.

“This note,” said Lord Quorn, “touches me very nearly.”

“Good Lord, Condor, she doesn’t want to borrow money from you already! Gad, my father was right when he told me on his death-bed never to have any financial dealings with Royalty. His exact words were: ‘It takes four Greeks to get the better of a Jew, three Jews to deal with an Armenian, two Armenians to a Scot, and the whole damn lot together to withstand the shock of Royalty in search of real-estate.’”

“My friend, there is but a line in this letter, yet I would not exchange this one line for all the rhapsodies of the poets. For in this one line,” sighed Lord Quorn, “the Princess Baba tells me that she loves me.”

“No girl,” gallantly admitted his friend, “can say fairer than that.”

“It is certainly very encouraging,” said my lord.

“Gentlemen’s Cloak-Room to the right!” said a Hussar of Death or Honour.

“Thank you, we’ve been,” said Mr. Woodhouse Adams.

“This way, messieurs!” said Baron Hugo von Müsselsaroffsir. “His Highness the Hereditary Grand Duke of Valeria will receive you at the head of the stairs.”

At the head of the stairs, indeed, His Highness was receiving his guests with all the circumstance of Royalty. He held great state, this puissant prince who had so notably enriched the land of his fathers by an heroic neutrality throughout the war. He wore the blue cordon of the Order of Credit and, over his heart, the Diamond Cross of Discretion. He said:

“How do you do, Lord Quorn?”

“Thank you, sir, I am very well,” returned my lord.

“And you, Mr. Woodhouse Eves?”

“Adams to you, sir,” said that gentleman. “But otherwise I am well, thank you.”

“Lord Quorn,” His Highness cordially continued, “I am really most pleased that you could accept my invitation.”

“You do me too much honour, sir. And may I take it that your courtesy in selecting me for an invitation for your probably enjoyable ball is a sign of your gracious forgiveness?”

“You may, Lord Quorn.”

“Then I have the honour, sir, to declare myself, without any reserve whatsoever, to be your Highness’s most obedient servant.”

“And I, sir,” said Mr. Woodhouse Adams.

“Gentlemen,” said His Highness, “you are very kind.”

“Your condescension, sir, but points our crudity,” protested my lord. “May I, however, further trespass on your indulgence by asking to be allowed to enroll myself as the humblest among your daughter’s suitors?”

“We can talk this matter out more comfortably,” said His Highness agreeably, “in my study. Ho, there! Ho, page!”

“Altesse!”

“Conduct milord Quorn and Mr. Woodhouse Eves to my study, and see to it that they have suitable refreshment. Lord Quorn, I will join you not a moment after I have received my guests.”

“I’m not sure I like this study business,” said Mr. Woodhouse Adams as they followed the page through many halls and corridors to a distant part of the house in the walled garden. They passed through marble halls radiant with slender columns and crystal fountains, through arcades flaming with flowers in vases of Venetian glass, beneath sombre tapestries of the chase after fabulous beasts, by tables of satinwood and cabinets of ebony, jade and pearl: until at last they were conducted to a quiet-seeming door, and were no sooner within than what appeared to be a regiment of Hussars of Death or Honour had pinioned their arms to their sides.

“This is outrage!” cried my lord with very cold eyes.

“Gentlemen, you are under arrest,” said an officer with moustachios whose name the chronicler has unfortunately overlooked.

“We’re under what?” cried Mr. Woodhouse Adams.

“And you will await His Highness’s pleasure in this room,” said the officer with moustachios, but he had no sooner spoken than the Duke entered, followed by a lean young officer with pitiless eyes.

“Altesse!” saluted the Hussars of Death or Honour.

Not so Lord Quorn. “Sir,” cried he, “this is outrage and assault on the persons of King George’s subjects. Do you forget that you are in England, sir?”

“Silence!” thundered the officer with moustachios.

“Silence be damned!” cried Mr. Woodhouse Adams. “Your Highness, what can this piracy mean? I wish to lodge a formal complaint.”

“Sir, take it as lodged,” said His Highness graciously, but it was with lowered brows that he turned to address my lord.

“Lord Quorn,” said he, “it was my first intention to have you shot like a dog. But I have suffered myself to be dissuaded from consigning you to that ignominious fate at the intercession of this gentleman here. I present Captain Count Rupprecht Saxemünden von Maxe-Middengräfen.”

“Oh, have a heart!” gasped Mr. Woodhouse Adams.

But Lord Quorn, being a much-travelled gentleman whose ears were hardened against the most surprising sounds, merely said: “How do you do?”

“Such information, sir, is not for scum!” snapped the lean young officer with the pitiless eyes.

“Were I to hit you once,” said Lord Quorn gently, looking at him as though he smelt so bad that he could readily understand why the dustman had refused to remove him, “your mother would not know you. Were I to hit you twice, she would not want to. Think it over.”

“Your differences will soon be arranged,” sternly continued His Highness. “Count Rupprecht has very properly put before me certain reasons which give him an undoubted right to be the agent of your destruction. The course of this night, Lord Quorn, shall see you as a duellist. And I can only hope that you have some knowledge of swordsmanship, for Count Rupprecht Saxemünden von Maxe-Middengräfen is the first swordsman of Valeria.

“I may add, Lord Quorn, that his engagement to the Princess Baba will be formally announced immediately after your interment, which will take place in a corner of the garden. That is already arranged. Also your death will be accounted for to the authorities in a satisfactory way. Mr. Woodhouse Eves will, no doubt, act as your second. I will now leave you until such time as the ball is at its height, when there will be little chance of any of my guests being distracted by the ring of steel in the garden. Au revoir, milord. You will yet find that to deflower a maid is a dangerous sport. Count Rupprecht, your arm to the ball-room!”

“Altesse!” saluted the Hussars of Death or Honour.

“And what a mess!” sighed Mr. Woodhouse Adams.

“I’ll have to kill that boy,” said Lord Quorn thoughtfully.

IV

The dance was not yet at its most furious: the dowagers had scarcely begun nudging each other the better to point their risqué tales of the days of good King Edward: Cabinet Ministers had not long been exchanging doubtful Limericks with jaded dexterity: when the following events happened:

Anyone penetrating to a secluded conservatory leading from a corner of the ball-room might have espied a young lady sitting at her ease on a bench of cedarwood beneath the dusty and unbalanced-looking growth which is sold in civilised countries as a palm-tree. The languid young lady’s air was that of one who is forlorn, of one who is sad, of one who is so bored, yet decidedly that of one who would not for worlds have her dolour interrupted by the general run of humanity, such as perspire without suavity and go poking their tedious noses into corners of ball-rooms, saying: “I say, will you dance? I say, do dance!” Woe and woe to such youths, for they shall instantly be answered by the magical words “Missing three” and their persons shall be enveloped in forgetfulness forever.

Secure in her solitude behind a screen of plants and flowers, our young lady had quite evaded the eye of even the most relentless dancer but for the whisper of her white dress through the leaves. It should further be noted that not one among all the flowers in that flaming conservatory was more beautiful than the flowers of Cartier, Lacloche, Boucheron, and Janesich, which graced the young lady’s slender forearm in the guise of bracelets of diamonds, emeralds, black onyx, pink pearls and sapphires, all wrought upon platinum in divers tender designs. Her throat was unadorned but for a double rope of pearls, while two captive emeralds wept from the tips of her ears. Her hair was tawny, and it glittered like a swarm of bees. As for her eyes, they were more than adequate to every occasion, men being what they are.

But no sudden intruder could have been more surprised to see the Princess Baba sitting alone—for it was she—than was the Princess Baba herself to see, by the merest hazard of a glance over her shoulder, the curious phenomenon of the hands, the feet and the person of a young gentleman forcing himself into the premises through one of the conservatory windows.

She said, sighed, cried: “Oh!”

The intruder said something denoting astonishment, confusion, and grief; while his appearance was notably devoid of that air of calm which is the mark of your perfect rogue or practising philosopher.

“Well!” said the Princess Baba. “To come in by the roof!”

“Sorry,” said the young gentleman. “Sorry.”

“Sir, what can this mean! It is not by saying ‘sorry’ that one is excused for housebreaking!”

“Madam,” begged the youth, “won’t you please allow me to explain?”

“And he calls me ‘madam’!” sighed the Princess Baba with vexation. “Now I ask you, young man, do I look like a ‘madam’?”

He said: “You look divine. You are beautiful.”

“Attractive I may be,” said the young Princess, “but beautiful, no. For, look at it which way you like, I’ve got a turned-up nose.”

“We are all as God made us,” sighed the young gentleman.

“By no means,” said the Princess Baba, “for some people are charming and some are not, and what does God know of charm? It is dreadful to lie awake at nights thinking that God lacks charm. Yet the word is never so much as mentioned in the Bible.”

“As for the Bible,” said the young gentleman, “it is nowadays the fashion among rich men to say that it makes the most delightful reading in the world. Perhaps one day I shall have the time to read it too. In the meanwhile, may I sit down?”

“But this is most unusual!” cried the young Princess. “To come to a ball through a window! May I ask, are you a burglar? You certainly do not look like a burglar. Explain yourself, sir!”

“I am a poor writer,” quoth our young friend. We, of course, knew that. But the Princess Baba was surprised, protesting: “Oh, come, that must be nonsense! For, firstly, you are rather a dear, and so you can’t be poor; and, secondly, you are quite well-dressed, and so you can’t be a writer.”

“Your nonsense suits my nonsense,” said the young gentleman. “Thank you.”

“Know, Sir Author, that I am the Princess Baba of Valeria.”

He rose and knelt and said: “Princess! What have I done!”

“Rise, my friend. Men no longer need to kneel to Royalty.”

“Princess, what shall I say! Oh, what have I done! How can I apologise for this intrusion!”

The young Princess cried: “Why, here is an idea! You might begin by kissing my hand. I assure you that that is quite usual. But oh, my friend, you must please not kiss my hand while you are kneeling! That will never, never do, for a man who is kneeling before a woman has her at a great disadvantage. Provided, of course, that the woman has a temperament. I am, unfortunately, full of temperament. My father is very worried about me.”

“Princess, this is not the first time I have kissed your hand.”

“Oh!” sighed the Princess Baba, and the young writer did his part like a man and a cavalier, whereupon she said: “You have a very pretty way of kissing a lady’s hand, Sir Author. And I had been told it was a lost art in England!”

“All the arts were lost in England by our fathers, Princess. Youth is just rediscovering them.”

“Young man,” said the Princess severely, “do you think it quite wise to be so full of self-confidence as all that?”

“Princess, forgive me! But I am so poor that I have to be full of what costs me least.”

“And may I ask what was that idiotic remark you just made about this not being the first time you have kissed my hand? Why, you had never so much as set eyes on me until a moment ago!”

“I have kissed your hand in a dream,” said the young writer gravely, and then he told how one afternoon he had seen her hand and in her hand a flower, and how he had woven such a web of romance about that hand and flower that he had never a wink of sleep from night to night.

“But you must sleep!” cried the young Princess. “Oh, dear, and so you are miserable, too! Ah, the misery of vain desire, and oh, the misery of delight cut short! But you certainly must get some sleep to-night. You can’t be allowed to go about kissing women’s hands as prettily as you do and getting no sleep for your pains. Now wait here a few moments while I go and get you some aspirin.”

But the youth dissuaded her, asking her how she could have the heart to put an aspirin between them when he had dared all the legal penalties for trespass for the sake of speech with her, nay, even for sight of her.

“Well, I think you are very bold,” sighed she, but he humbly protested that never was a man less bold than he by ordinary, but that the fires of chivalry had burned high in him at sight of her hand at the window, for, said he, could any but an unhappy heart sit with a hand drooping out of a window on the only sunny afternoon of an English summer?

“There is certainly something in that,” said the young Princess, and then she told him how miserable she was and how miserable she must always be, for her heart was engaged in a battle with superior odds. And she made him sit beside her on the bench of cedarwood, telling him of her father and mother and the gay Court of Valeria, “which is so gay,” she said, “that some of the most respectable ladies of the Court are goaded into getting themselves divorced just for the sake of the peace and quiet of being déclassée.”

And she told how it was to this Court that one fine day there came an English lord with the very best introductions and such very excellent white waist-coats for evening wear as were the envy of every cavalier in Valeria.

“Like this one of mine?” asked the young gentleman, for is he a proper man who will not belittle another by claiming an equal degree of eminence in the sartorial abyss?

“That is not the point,” said the Princess Baba, “but the point is that my Lord Quorn, for such was my lover’s name, was the handsomest man I ever saw, and I loved him and he loved me and I lost him and he lost me. That may seem a very reasonable combination of events to you, who are young and cynical, but to me it was a matter of the utmost wretchedness. My friend, know that this English lord had to fly for his life, for a jealous lady of the Court had gone to my parents saying he had seduced me.”

“The liar!” cried our hero.

“Oh, it was quite true!” sighed the Princess Baba.

“The cad!” cried our hero.

“I can’t agree with you,” said the Princess Baba. “I adore him. I adore him. I adore him. And, oh, I am so very unhappy!”

He rose and knelt and said: “Princess, mayn’t I be of some use? Can’t I help you? Please command me, for I would die for you.”

“At this very moment,” she sobbed, “he is very probably either dead or dying, for how can he hope to survive a duel with the best swordsman of Valeria, Captain Count Rupprecht Saxemünden von Maxe-Middengräfen?”

“It certainly does sound rather improbable,” said the youth dismally.

“And when it is all over and my lover lies dead—ah, how can I even say it!—my betrothal to his murderer will be formally announced.”

“What, you are actually to marry a man with a name like that!”

“Yes, isn’t it dreadful!” sobbed the Princess Baba, whereupon the young gentleman rose and stood before her with respectful determination, saying that he for one could not bear the idea of her marrying Captain Count Rupprecht God-knöws-what von Whät-not, and would therefore do all in his power to preserve life in the person of Lord Quorn, since the same was so delightful to her.

“For even at the risk of your grave displeasure,” said our hero, “I must tell you, Princess, that I like you frightfully and shall never again know delight but in your presence.”

“Now you are making love to a breaking heart!” pitifully cried the Princess Baba. “So this is chivalry!”

“Princess,” said he firmly, “I do but owe it to myself to ask you to make a note of the fact that I love you. And it is because I love you that I will do all in my power to save Lord Quorn.”

“But, my friend,” said she with very wide eyes, “however will you manage that?”

“I am just thinking, Princess. But shall we, while I am thinking, dance?”

“What, you would have me dance while my love lies bleeding? I had thought my confidence was placed in a more understanding mind. Ah listen, oh look!”

And with a cry the Princess tore aside the flowers that screened the conservatory windows and both looked down with eyes of horror on the figures grouped in the garden below. Within, the rout was at its height and the saxophone ever raised its frightful cry to the glory of the gods of Africa. Without, was silence and the ring of steel.

“Oh, I can’t bear it, but I can’t bear it!” sobbed the young Princess, holding a cry to her lips with a handkerchief plaintive with scent. The antagonists in the dark garden were plain to see, the whiteness of their vests moving dimly in the darkness; and the tall figure of Lord Quorn was seen to be forced back against a tree-trunk, so that there could be no doubt but that he must presently be run through.

“Oh, have I to watch him die!” cried the young Princess, and was suddenly made to stare incredulously at the youth beside her, for he had whispered in accents of triumph:

“By Heaven, I’ve got an idea, a marvellous idea! You want to be happy, Princess? Then come with me! Come, we will dance through the crowd to the door and then we will see about my plan.”

“But what is it, what is it, why do you keep me in such suspense? Ah; you are cruel!” sighed the Princess Baba. “But you certainly do dance very well. Oh, how I love dancing! When I was very young I used to dream that I would like to be loved by a fairy prince with finger-nails of lapis-lazuli, but lately I have dreamed that I would like to be an exhibition-dancer in a night-club. But are you sure this is the nearest way to the door? It is so very crowded that I can’t see it, but how well you guide, almost as well as you kiss a lady’s hand! But quick, quick, to the door!”

“I am doing my best, Princess, guiding you through this crowd. It is amazing how generously middle-aged people dance these days, denying their elbows and feet to no one who comes near them.”

“But my lover dies—the door, the door!” cried the Princess Baba.

“And by Heaven, through it!”

“And now your plan?”

“Ah, you may well ask!” laughed our hero.

V

The tall figure of Lord Quorn lay crumpled and inert where he had fallen against the tree-trunk. Only his eyes retained the magic gift of life, and they looked upon the scene with sardonic resignation. Who shall describe what thoughts then passed through the dying gallant’s mind? He was mortally wounded.

Count Rupprecht lay stretched on his back a few yards away, the grass about him soaked with the blood that flowed from his pierced lung. He was dead. Above him stood the Duke, silently. Mr. Woodhouse Adams was on his knees beside his dying friend.

“You got him, anyhow,” said he. “He’ll never know Christmas from Easter again.”

“Fluke,” sighed Lord Quorn. “I always had the luck.”

“Luck, do you call it,” cried his friend, “to be killed!”

“It is better to be killed than to die,” said Lord Quorn faintly.

His Highness called grimly: “Ho, there! Ho, page!”

“Altesse!”

“Boy, go call my chaplain instantly.”

“Pester me with no priests, sir, I beg you!” cried the wicked Lord Quorn. “I was born without one, I have lived without one, I have loved without one, and I can damn well die without one.”

“Then has death no terrors for you, Lord Quorn?”

“Why, sir, I go to meet my Maker with the best heart in the world! I have lived a perfectly delightful life in the best possible way. Can Paradise show a more consummate achievement! Or must one have been bored to death in this world to win eternal life in the next?”

“Then, page,” grimly said His Highness, “go tell the Princess Baba the issue of the duel. Do not spare the truth. Count Rupprecht lies dead in defence of her honour and the honour of Valeria; and Lord Quorn will shortly be answering to God for his sins. And further tell the Princess that she is permitted to say farewell to her lover. Begone!”

“Thank you very much,” sighed Lord Quorn.

But the page was not gone above a moment before he was returned, saying breathlessly:

“Altesse, I bear this message from the Platinum-Stick-in-Waiting. The Princess Baba was seen leaving the house a few minutes ago in a hired vehicle, and with her was a young gentleman with an unknown face and utterly devoid of decorations. Her Highness left word behind her with the attendant of the Gentlemen’s Cloak-Room to the effect that she could so little bear to await the issue of a duel in which her heart was so deeply engaged that she had eloped with one who would understand her grief.”

“Good!” sighed Lord Quorn into the livid silence.

“What’s that you say!” snapped the Duke.

“I was merely thanking my God, sir, that I die at last convinced of the truth of what I have always suspected, that nothing in this world means anything at all.”

“Except, of course, dogs and horses,” said Mr. Woodhouse Adams, and that will do well enough for the end of the tale of the hand and the flower, which is called Prologue because nobody ever reads a Prologue and how can it be to anyone’s advantage to sit out so improbable a tale without the accompaniment of a Viennese waltz?

As for our hero and his darling, there are, naturally, no words to describe the happiness they had in each other. It was not long, however, before the young writer ceased to be a writer, for there was no money in it; but with what his young wife made by selling the story of her elopement for to make a musical-comedy they opened a night-club in Golden Square called Delight is my Middle Name and lived happily ever after, the whilom Princess Baba making a great name for herself as a dancer, for she was all legs and no hips and her step was as light as her laughter and her laughter was as light as the breath of Eros.

In conclusion, may he who is still young enough and silly enough to have told this tale be some day found worthy to be vouchsafed that which will make him, too, live happily ever after in peace and good-will with his heart, his lady and his fellows; and may the like good fortune also befall such youths and maidens as, turning aside for a moment from the realities of life, shall read this book.

I: A ROMANCE IN OLD BRANDY

I

TALKING of dogs, no one will deny that dogs make the best, the dearest, and the most faithful companions in the world. No one will deny that even very small dogs have very large hearts. No one will deny that human beings are as but dirt beside dogs, even very small dogs. No one will deny that all dogs, large or small, are more acceptable to the Lord than foxes, rats or Dagoes. That is, if the Lord is a gentleman. No one can deny that. No one, anyhow, dares deny that. Let us be quite candid. A man who does not glory in the companionship of dogs is no fit mate for any woman. That is what Valerest said. A woman who glories in nothing else but the companionship of a dratted little beast with two unblinking black eyes is certainly no fit mate for any man. That is what Valentine thought.

Valentine and Valerest were sat at dinner. Valerest was the name of Valentine’s wife, and she was a nice girl. A pretty maid waited on them. Valentine and Valerest were silent. The pretty maid left them.

Valerest said: “Any man who does not like dogs is no fit mate for a woman.”

Valentine thought as above.

“I really don’t see,” said Valerest bitterly, “why you are so sulky this evening.”

Sulky! Ye gods and little fishes, to be moved by a profound and sorrowful anger—and to be called ‘sulky’! O God of words and phrases, O Arbiter of tempers and distempers, to sit in silent dignity and resignation—and to be called ‘sulky’! Verily, what a petty thing one word can make of martyrdom! Wherefore Valentine raised his voice and said: “I am not sulky.”

“Well,” said Valerest, “you needn’t shout.”

Valentine said: “I never shout.”

A situation was thus created. The pretty maid came in with the sweet in the middle of it. Valentine and Valerest were silent. Mr. Tuppy was not. Mr. Tuppy said “Yap!” Mr. Tuppy lay on a mouldy old cushion, and the mouldy old cushion lay on a chair, and the chair was beside Valerest. Dear Mr. Tuppy, sweet Mr. Tuppy! Tuppy was a Chinaman, Tuppy was a dog.

“The pretty darling, the mother’s tiny tot!” sighed Valerest. “And does he want his dinner then, the mother’s rabbit?”

“Yap!” said Mr. Tuppy.

“Isn’t he a darling!” cried Valerest.

“Charming,” said Valentine.

“Well,” said Valerest, “you aren’t very gay to-night, I do think!”

It could be asked, need Valerest have said that? Again, it could be asked, need Valerest have said that brightly? Valentine, at that moment, appeared to be engaged in spearing a boiled cherry, which formed part of a fruit-salad. It would not appear, therefore, that Valentine was engaged on anything very important. Indeed, there will not be wanting those to say that Valentine’s attention might well have been diverted to something more “worth while” (an American phrase meaning money) than even the most notable fruit-salad. They will be wrong. For there is a time in everyone’s life when even the most homely fruit-salad, even one unspiced with Kirsch or liqueur, can be of such moment that everything else must, for that time, go by the board. Therefore it must at once be apparent to even the most impatient reader that The Romance in Old Brandy must be delayed for at least another paragraph while impartial enquiry is made into the fruit-salad of Valentine Vernon Chambers.

Ever since he was so high Valentine would always eat a fruit-salad according to certain laws of precedence. Not for worlds would he have admitted it, but that is how it was. He liked the chunks of pineapple best, so he kept the chunks of pineapple to the last. Strawberries he liked next best, if they weren’t too sloppy, so they came one but last. As for grapes in a fruit salad, they are slippery and sour, and Valentine thought it was no fit place for them. After strawberries, he was partial to cherries. While first of all he would demolish the inevitable bits of banana. Cream he never took with a fruit-salad.

It will therefore be seen that, as he was then only at the beginning of the cherry stratum, the fruit-salad future of Valentine Vernon Chambers was one of exceptional promise. But it was not to be. Even as Valerest spoke, brightly, he couldn’t help but cast one furtive look at the chunks of pineapple. Nor were the strawberries sloppy. But queer depths were moving in him that evening. From the chunks of pineapple he looked across the table at his wife, and Valerest saw that his blue eyes were dark, and she was afraid, but did she look afraid? Valerest, Oh, Valerest!

“Yap!” said Mr. Tuppy.

“There, there!” said Valerest, and she kissed Mr. Tuppy, and Mr. Tuppy loved it.

“By Heaven, that dog!” snapped Valentine.

Valerest said: “That’s it! Vent your bad-temper on poor little Mr. Tuppy!”

Valentine looked at Valerest.

“I see,” said Valentine quietly. Very quietly. “Oh, I see!”

And worse. Much worse. Very quietly.

“I suppose you think,” said Valerest, “that because I’m your wife you can say anything you like to me. You’re wrong.”

“I think,” said Valentine, “that because you’re my wife you ought to behave like my wife. And I’m right.”

And then he left the room. And then he left the house. And then the house was very still.

Valerest, sitting very straight in her chair, heard the front-door slam. She listened. Through the open window behind her came the sound of manly footsteps marching away down South Street. She listened. Away the footsteps marched, away. Then a taxi screamed, and the incident of the manly footsteps was closed forever.

“Well, that’s that!” said Valerest.

“Yap!” said Mr. Tuppy.

“Mother’s rabbit!” said Valerest absently.

“Mr. Tuppy,” said Valerest suddenly, “this can’t go on. You know, this can’t go on.”

“Yap!” said Mr. Tuppy.

“I’m not a chattel,” said Valerest. “To be used just as a man likes. I will not be a chattel.”

The pretty maid came in.

Valerest said: “Come along, Mr. Tuppy. I’ve got a headache. Bed.”

II

Valentine walked. When he had been walking for some time he realised that he was achieving the impossible in combining an excess of motive power with a minimum of progress, for he found himself walking in a direction exactly opposed to that in which his destination lay. He corrected this, and presently stood before a house in Cadogan Gardens. The houses in Cadogan Gardens wear a gentle and sorrowful air, and Valentine grew more depressed than ever.

Now, years before, his guardian had said: “There may come a time, Valentine, when something happens to you about which you will think it impossible that anyone can advise you. But you may be wrong in thinking that. Try me then, if you care to.”

Valentine’s parents had died when he was very young, in one of those marvellously complete accidents arranged by any competent story-teller when he simply must deprive a child at one blow of a mother’s love and a father’s care. Valentine’s parents, however, had in some measure protested against their simultaneous fate, and Valentine’s mother had lived long enough after the accident to appoint Mr. Lapwing her boy’s sole guardian. Mr. Lapwing was the senior partner of the city firm of Lapwing & Lancelot, merchants. And as, quite apart from his regard for Valentine’s parents, he was wealthy, a widower, and childless, it can readily be understood that he eagerly accepted the trust. Although when it is said that he accepted the trust it is not to be implied that Mr. Lapwing tried to take a “father’s place” with the boy. Mr. Lapwing, like so many childless men, knew all about his place with any boy. He was without one theory as to education, but acted merely on a vague idea that the relations between parents and children, whether it was the Victorian one of shaming the joy out of children or the Georgian one of encouraging the joy into vulgarity, had gotten the world into more trouble than anything in history since the fall of Lucifer from Paradise.

On this evening, twenty-four years after he had first entered the house in Cadogan Gardens, Valentine stood quite a while before the door and wondered how he was to put It. It, you understand, was very difficult to put. A disagreement between a man and his wife remains indissolubly a disagreement between a man and his wife, and only a man or his wife may solve It. Indeed, Valentine had already solved It. He detested compromise. A divorce was, undoubtedly, indicated. Undoubtedly. So undoubtedly, indeed, that Valentine would not have dreamed of putting It to Mr. Lapwing at all had he not thought himself bound in honour to ask his guardian’s advice “when something happens to you about which you will think it impossible that anyone can advise you.”

III

Mr. Lapwing was cracking a nut. He said gloomily:

“Hullo, Valentine! Did you ring up to say you were coming round? I didn’t get the message.”

“I came,” said Valentine, “on an impulse.”

Mr. Lapwing said: “I see. Well, sit down, sit down! I don’t want you towering over me while I am trying to digest my food. Or is it one of those impulses you have to stand up to?”

Valentine said: “If you really want to know, I don’t care if I never sit down again. But I will, if only to show how well you’ve brought me up.”

“Now I don’t want any cheek,” said Mr. Lapwing.

“Cheek!” said Valentine, and he laughed, and the way he laughed caused Mr. Lapwing to look sharply up at him.

“Cheek!” said Valentine. “If you knew as much about cheek as I do, sir, you would think I was talking like a courtier.”