gurdy bernamer kept his twentieth birthday in a trench. the next week his regiment was withdrawn from the line to a dull village where gurdy was taking a warm bath in a zinc tub behind the mairie when a german aeroplane crossed above and lifted his attention from a red cross copy of “the brook kerith” which he read while he soaked. he dropped the dialectics of george moore and watched, then saw the whitewashed wall of the yard bend in slowly, its cracks blackening. he spent a month in hospital getting the best of the wandering, deep wound that began at his right hip and ended in his armpit. he wrote to mark, “i kept trying to remember a quotation from twain’s tramp abroad. ‘not by war’s shock or war’s shaft. shot with a rock on a raft.’ they dug a piece of zinc out of me. i feel fairly well. mrs. tilford arbuthnot has the y. m. c. a. cafeteria in bordeaux. her brother was with me at saint andrew’s. she brings me novels and things. i think she has a secret passion for you.[105] she says you were a great actor. my nurse also thinks you were. her name is zippah coe and she looks it. she says the immorality of french women is too awful for words. she is coming to take my temperature.” the temperature displeased the nurse and gurdy passed into a daze. the wet hemlocks beyond the window sometimes turned cerise, inexcusably. pneumonia succeeded his influenza.
through all this lapse he meditated and drew toward a belief that life was a series of meaningless illusions, many painful. he expanded “all the world’s a stage.” suicide wasn’t universal as some of the players acquired a thrilling interest in their parts, rose to be directors—wilsons, northcliffes, millerands. it was satisfactory to know this at twenty. his education was complete in its departments passional, athletic and philosophical. saint andrew’s school. two and a half years of yale in smart company. the miscellany of his regiment. he must certainly begin maturity as a critic. he lay composing an essay on the illusory value of passion in a loop of paradoxes which vanished as his pulse improved. then he was conscious that a surgeon took interest in him. orderlies came from the hospital adjutant inquiring. gurdy sat up, read the papers and accepted five thousand francs in mauve and blue bills from a bank agent. it seemed[106] that mark had run him to earth by cabling. soon he was uniformed again and given orders that assigned him to duty in a paris military bureau. there gurdy found mark’s broker, decorated as a major.
“of course, i got you up here,” said major villay. “why not?”
“but—” with recovery gurdy had shed some sense of illusions. he stood thinking of his regiment rather sourly, rather sadly.
the broker-major grunted, “rot, gurdy. you’re all mark’s got—son, and all that. dare say margot’ll marry some englishman. anyhow, it’s all over. bulgaria’s on the skids. mark thinks too much of you.”
gurdy was subtly pleased. he stood thinking of mark fondly, with annotations in contempt. mark was nothing but a big blunderer among the arts, a man who couldn’t see the strength of russian drama or disillusioned comedy, who didn’t admire granville barker’s plays. but if margot stayed in england gurdy could steer his uncle toward proper productions. mark meant well, very well. he had done some fine things, had a feeling for vesture, anyhow.
“i see the celebrities people have bought the terriss pictograph,” said major villay, “exchange of stock. funny. mark hates the movies so and he makes twenty thousand a year[107] out of them. and the movie people gave him fifteen thousand for that rotten gail play. here, take this stuff and translate it. i can probably get you a pass over to london if you want to see margot.”
gurdy didn’t want to see her. his last view of margot had been in the stress of her removal from miss thorne’s school. mark had gone five times to england on visits of a month, reported her beautiful, witty, petted by mrs. ilden, by mrs. ilden’s friends. but he wrote her a note dutifully and got an answer in three lines. “glad you are out of the silly mess. try to run over. frightfully rushed catching a train for devon. more later.” he was not offended. he thought that margot disliked him as he disliked her. he threw the note into the waste basket and went on translating french political comments into english.
the armistice broke on the third week of this employment. the bureau became a negation of labour. gurdy roamed contentedly about the feverish, foolish city with various friends—young officers, sergeant majors on agreeable posts. he was tall, still pallid from sunless convalescence. his uniform happened to fit a long, loosely moving body and he liked dancing. he equably observed male diversion with his dark blue eyes and was often diverted. this might be the collapse[108] of known society, the beginning of a hygienic and hardworked future. this churning of illusions might bring something fresh. men might turn to new programs of stupidity, exhausting the old. he danced and was courted. he wrote to mark, choosing words: “there will be plays about this, i suppose. i do not think any one will believe it fifty years from now. it is an upheaval of cheap pleasure. i keep thinking how carlson calls people hogs.” he hesitated, continued: “i do not know that there is an excuse for all of it. some of the americans make bigger hogs of themselves than is necessary.” then he destroyed the letter. after all, mark was your typical patriot. he took america seriously, the american soldier seriously, the american red cross had profited by his sentiment. there was no point in hurting mark. gurdy wrote a gay tale of driving through paris in a vegetable cart with a drunken australian colonel and went to dine at luca’s.
from luca’s his party retired to the opera comique, stopped to drink champagne in the bar and stayed there until it wasn’t worth while to hear the last act. “and,” said a youth from san francisco, “we can go to ariana joyce’s. she’s giving a party.”
“but she’s dead,” gurdy objected.
[109]“damn healthy corpse! come ahead and see if she’s dead!”
they floated in a taxicab along paris. the machine slipped from the lavender rush of some broad street up a slope and gurdy stumbled into a brilliance of laughing people where his guide pushed him toward a green dais and hissed, “she won’t know you from adam. tell her you’re from chicago.”
her rounded beauty had come to death under much fat. she lolled in a red chair waving a peacock fan. gurdy’s friend kissed the arm she thrust out and told her, “you look awfully well, miss joyce.”
the dancer nodded, beaming down at her painted feet in their sandals of blue leather. through her nose she said, “feelin’ fine,” then in throaty refinement, “do get choute aurec to dance. she’s so difficult now she’s had a success. so very difficult—rodin used to say—” her empty and tired stare centred on gurdy. with a vague dignity she asked, “do i know you?”
“corporal bernamer’s from chicago,” the guide said.
miss joyce planted a thumb under her chin and drawled, “de mon pays!” then her eyes rolled away. she reached for a silver cup on a table and forgot her guests. looking back,[110] gurdy saw her famous head thrown back and, for a moment, comely as she drank.
“bakst,” said his friend, jerking a hand about to show the walls of grey paint where strange beasts cavorted among spiked trees, above the mixed and coloured motion of the crowd. an american was playing ragtime at the gold piano, in a clot of women. choute aurec was teaching a british aviator some new dance. beyond, a mass of women and officers surrounded a lean shape on a divan. they gazed, gaped, craned at the young man. his decorations twinkled in the glow. his blue chest stirred when he spoke and his teeth flashed. gurdy’s companion murmured, “they say he’s got ten times more sense than most prize-fighters.... i think that thin man’s bernstein—the one with a dinner jacket. you get drinks in the next room. oh, there’s alixe!”
he ran off. gurdy slid through the mingling harlots and warriors into the next, cooler room, fringed with men drinking champagne. an american colonel glared at him over a glass, shifted the glare back to a handsome ensign who had penned a blond girl in a corner. gurdy found a tray covered with sandwiches and ate one, pondering. he wondered whether the ensign would go on trying to kiss the girl if he knew that she had been, last month, on trial for the technical murder of an octogenarian general. well,[111] morals were illusory, too. some one slapped his shoulder. he saw ian gail. the playwright was dressed as a british captain. “intelligence,” he said, “i’m too old and adipose for anything else. and we shouldn’t be here, should we? a poisonous place.”
“funny mixture.”
“pride,” said gail, “the poor woman can’t stand being neglected so she gives these atrocious parties. but it’s nice running into you, old son. i’d a letter from mark yesterday. he told me you were here and i was coming to look you up tomorrow in any case. i’m just from london. olive ilden and margot are hoping you’ll get leave to come over for christmas. can’t you?”
“i don’t quite see how i can, sir.”
“but do try. i think you’d cheer olive up. margot’s a jolly little thing but frightfully busy celebrating the peace. how decent of mark to let her stay with olive! i fancied he’d take her back to the states directly the war began.”
“submarines,” gurdy said, “but why does mrs. ilden need cheering up, sir? she used to be an awfully cheerful sort of person.”
“oh,” said gail, “her boy—bobby.”
“i hadn’t heard he—”
“fell a year ago. do try to run over.... how pretty margot is!”
gurdy ate another sandwich, correcting champagne.[112] there would be long illusions after this war. grudges, idealized memories of trivial folk. but he was sorry for olive ilden. he said, “i’ll try to get over. i’ll—”
choute aurec ran through the doorway, yelped, “ariane va danser, messieurs, dames!” and darted out again.
“what did that incontinent little brute say?” gail asked.
“i think miss joyce is going to dance,” said gurdy.
“it’s disgusting,” the englishman snorted, “some cad always flatters her into dancing and the poor woman falls on her face. don’t go.”
the doorway filled with watchers. women giggled. some one played slowly the first bars of the volga barge song. there was an applausive murmur—then a thud. “she’s fallen,” said gail and suddenly gurdy remembered that this was an american, that he had seen her dance to the jammed ecstasy of the metropolitan. the women in the doorway squealed their amusement. the crowd parted and he saw the green gauze wrapping her limp body as two frenchmen carried her back to her throne. the crowd applauded, now.
“swine,” said gail.
gurdy summoned up his philosophy and shrugged. the young prize-fighter came through[113] the press and snapped to a civilian, “je me sauve, etienne!”
“mais—”
“c’est nauséabonde! elle était artiste, vois tu? allons; je file!”
“the boy’s right,” said the playwright, “sickening. come along.” they passed through the beginning of a dance in the great chamber and down the stairs into an alley where motors were lined. in a taxicab gail concluded, “end of an artist.”
gurdy thought this sententious but a queer oppression filled him. it was hideous that any one should finish as a butt with a prize-fighter for apologist. of course, life was nothing but a meaningless spectacle. money, something to drink, a dancing floor drew this crowd together. the fat dancer was rather funny, if one looked it all over. mark could contrive the whole effect on a stage if he wanted.
“mark writes that he’s almost decided to build his theatre in west forty seventh.”
“i wish he’d hurry,” said gurdy, “he’s been planning the walling for years. funny. he told mr. frohman all about it just before the lusitania.”
“poor frohman,” the englishman murmured, “awfully decent to me.”
there should be a certain decency, a cool[114] restraint in life, the philosopher mused. he thought of this next morning when choute aurec telephoned hopefully for a loan of a thousand francs. by noon he had discovered that he was flatly homesick for mark and thought of margot in london as the nearest familiar creature. the bureau permitted his departure. he crossed a still channel and made his way to london in the company of an earnest red cross girl from omaha who wanted fontainebleau turned into a reform school for rescued parisian street walkers. she had a general for uncle and gurdy feared that she would be able to forward her plan to the french government.
“d’you really feel that we’ve any business telling the french what to do with their own homes?”
“but fontainebleau could be made into a real home, corpril!”
“so could mount vernon.”
“it’s too small. fontainebleau’s so huge. all those rooms.”
“you don’t think that it’s any use just letting it stay beautiful?”
“but it isn’t really beautiful,” the young woman retorted, “it’s so much of it renaissance, you know?”
he was still hating this vacuity when the taxicab left him at mrs. ilden’s house in chelsea. the butler told him that “lady ilden” was not at[115] home and guided him through grey halls to a bedroom. gurdy washed, tried to recall ilden’s rank in the british navy and the name of olive’s last novel. he strolled downstairs and met margot in the lower hall without knowing it. he saw a slim person in stark yellow reading a letter and was startled when the girl said, “good god, they didn’t tell me you’d got here! come and help me stick this holly about in the library.”
she thrust a bowl filled with small sprays of holly into his hands and frowned between the wings of her black, bobbed hair. he remembered her plump. she was slender. she still wore glittering pumps with silver buckles. when she chuckled it was in the former chime. she exclaimed, “of course! uncle eddie was born in norway, wasn’t he?”
“i think dad was born in the steerage, coming over,” gurdy said.
“you’re not at all american, anyhow,” she announced, “and that’s a relief. i’m quite mad about scandinavians. only sensible people in europe. come along. there’s a rehearsal in half a minute and—”
“rehearsal?”
“charity show. barge along. this way.”
he grinned and followed her into the long library where she tossed bits of holly to and fro[116] on the shelves. she said, “cosmo rand’s rehearsing us. better not tell that to dad. he mightn’t like it.”
“who’s cosmo?”
“cora boyle’s husband. they’re playing here. don’t get shocked about it.”
“don’t see anything to get shocked about. so cora boyle’s over here again? what’s she playing?”
“a silly melodrama. she’s at the diana. saw her the other night. she’s getting fat. ought to be a law against fat women wearing old rose.”
“you’ve lost some weight,” gurdy said.
“work, old thing, work! sewing shirts for snipers. dancing with convalescents.—it’s beastly you’ve got so tall. i hate looking up at men.”
gurdy laughed down at her and asked, “when did mrs. ilden get to be lady ilden?”
“jutland. it’s just the bath, not a baronetcy. olive’s at church.”
“i thought she was agnostic?”
margot said gently, “it takes them that way, rather often. she’s been to church a goodish bit ever since bobby—”
“oh, yes. young ilden was killed.—what sort of person was he?”
“one of the silent, strong empire builders—but nice about it.... olive’s aged, rather.” she[117] planted the last holly spray on the lap of a gilt buddha then smiled at gurdy across a yellow shoulder, “i’d forgotten how blue your eyes are. almost violet. goes with your hair. very effective.... your chin’s still too big.... oh, a letter from dad this morning. he was thinking of running over. but carlson’s worse.... d’you know, it’d be a noble deed to poison carlson. there he is stuck in the house. why don’t useless people like that dry up and blow away?”
“i don’t think he’s useless,” gurdy argued, “he makes mark put on a comedy now and then. he swears better than any one i know. and you ought to be grateful to him. if mark hadn’t had him for company you’d probably have been hauled home long ago.”
margot opened a russian, lead box on a table and lit a cigarette. she said, “don’t think so. dad’s never made the slightest sign of hauling me home. especially after mr. frohman.... ugh! i almost had nervous prostration, when i heard dad had sailed after the lusitania!” her lids fell and shook the astonishing lashes against the pale brown of her cheeks. then she chuckled, “the joke is, i’d as soon have gone home long ago. i’m mad about olive, of course. and i’ve had all sorts of a good time. but i’d rather be home.... how’s your mother?”[118] he was answering when the butler barked names from the doorway. margot whispered, “run. the rehearsal. go hide in the drawing room. these are all bores.”
he passed out through a group of men and girls, encountered a colonel of the british general staff in the hall and was cordially halted. he stood discussing military shoes with this dignitary as olive ilden let herself into the hall. gurdy recalled her slim and tall. now that he looked down, she seemed stout, no longer handsome but the deep voice remained charming as it rose from her black veils. she led him off into the drawing room and said, at once, “margot’s pretty, isn’t she?”
“yes. mark’s been raving about her but i thought—”
“you thought he was idealizing, after his customary manner? he sent me a picture of you, so i’m not surprised. don’t sit in that chair. it’s for pygmies.... i want to talk about margot and it’s likely we won’t have another chance. you two don’t write each other letters. had you heard from mark that she wants to play?”
“play?”
“be an actress. i thought i’d better warn you,” olive laughed, “i don’t know when it started. i know mark wouldn’t like it. otherwise the child’s the delight of my life.” she sank[119] into a couch and asked, “now, what are these diplomatic idiots doing in paris? i don’t like the look of things.”
“arranging for another war.”
“i do hope they’ll arrange it for twenty years from date. i’ll be past sixty then and i won’t care. i’ll be able to sit and grin at the women who’re going through what—only, of course, i shouldn’t grin. i’m a true blue briton of the old breed when it comes to an emotion. i simply can’t enjoy an emotion when it’s my emotion.... had you ever thought that that’s why bad plays and cinema rubbish are so popular? it’s the unreality of the passions.... i dare say that’s why i’ve just been to church.... perhaps that’s why margot wants to go on the stage. she’s never had an emotion worth shedding a tear for. well, how’s mark?”
“putting on three plays after christmas and thinks they’re all winners.”
she drew her hands over her eyes and murmured, “mark’s extraordinary. endless enthusiasm. like a kiddy with a box of water colours. i suppose it’s belief. he really believes in his job.... i once thought he needed education.... if he’d been educated, he couldn’t have believed so hard.... there has to be something childish to get along in the theatre.... if he were worldly wise he’d have known half[120] these plays were rubbish and the rest not very good.... but i’m not sure what a good play is, gurdy. tell me. you’re young, so you should know.”
he flushed, then laughed and asked what play margot and her friends rehearsed. the loud, spaced voices came across the hall. he felt an unruly curiosity stir.
“it’s a one act thing of ronny dufford’s—colonel the honourable ronald dufford. quite a pal of margot’s. that was he talking to you in the hall just now—the brass hat. what are you laughing at?”
“wondering what would happen to an american general staff man if he wrote plays.... dufford? mark put a thing of his on in nineteen sixteen. it failed.”
“his things are rather thin. he’s been nice to margot, though. he took her about when i was in mourning—he’s a good sort. forty eight or so. i dare say he lectured margot on the greatness of empire and the sacredness of the house of lords. it didn’t hurt her. she hears enough about the sacredness of the plain people, in the studios.”
“i thought you were an anti-imperialist and an anarchist?”
the tired woman laughed, “so i am.... it was tremendous fun being all the right things[121] when i was young and anarchists were rather few. i expect you’re a cubist and a communist and agnostic and don’t believe in marriage. so many of them don’t. then they get married to prove the soundness of their theory and get hurt; then they’re annoyed because they’re hurt and get interested in being married. most amusing to watch.... the world’s got past me and i’m frightened by it.—we had such a good time railing at the victorians and repression. and now all the clever young things tell their emotions to cab drivers and invent emotions if they haven’t any.—all the gestures have changed and i feel—you look rather like mark. you know he was stopping at winchester when he heard margot’s father’d been killed. i tried to shock him. he.... oh, do go and watch them rehearse, gurdy!... i’ve just come from church.... the music’s made me silly. i don’t know what i’m saying....” the artifice smashed into a sob. gurdy swung and hurried across the hall. certainly, the woman’s illusion of pain was notably real.
he sat smoking on a window seat of the library and tried to follow the rehearsal at the other end of the wide room. the men and girls strode about talking loudly. a slender man in grey broke the chatter from time to time and gave directions in a level, pleasing voice. this must[122] be cosmo rand, the husband of cora boyle. gurdy looked at him with interested scorn but the amateurs took his orders in docile peace and only margot answered him from a deep green chair, “rot, cossy! i’m supposed to be lost in thought, aren’t i? then i shan’t look interested when stella giggles. go on, stella.”
gurdy became intent on her posture in the dark chair. she was smoking and her hair appeared through the vapour like solid, carved substance. she seemed fixed, a black and yellow figure on the green. a vaporous halo rose in the lamplight above her head. he stirred when she spoke again, shifting, and a silver buckle sent a spark of light flitting across the rug. he remembered that she had italian blood from her grandmother. she looked italian. mark was right. she was beautiful in no common fashion. the other girls vibrating against the shelves were mere bodies, gurgling voices.—the butler stole down the room and spoke to cosmo rand who, in turn, spoke aloud.
“i say, margot, cora’s brought the motor around. might i have her in? chilly and she’s been feeling rather seedy.”
a tall woman in black velvet entered as if this were a stage and reposed herself in a chair. gurdy had never seen cora boyle perform. she was familiar from pictures when she drew up a[123] veil across an obvious beauty of profile and wide eyes. presently she commenced a cigarette and the motion of lighting it was admirably effected. an expanding, heavy scent of maltreated tobacco welled from the burning roll between her fingers. the line of her brows was prolonged downward with paint. the whole mask was tinted to a false and gleaming pallor. grey furs were arranged about the robustness of her upper body. she was older than mark, gurdy’s father said. she must be passing forty. she should be weary of tight slippers. a glance stopped gurdy’s meditation. he looked away at margot’s effortless stroll along the imagined footlights. cora boyle spoke to him in a flat and pinched whisper.
“isn’t your name bernamer?” he bowed. she came to sit with him on the window seat and dusted ash from her cigarette into the chinese bowl. her eyes explored his face with a civil amusement. “you look awfully like your father. you startled me. let me see.... you and miss walling live with mark, don’t you? sweet, isn’t she? and how is mark? i’ve played over here so long that i’ve rawther lost touch. mr. carlson’s still alive?”
“oh, yes. he’s bedridden, you know? lives with mark.”
she inhaled smoke, nodding.
“that’s so characteristic of mark, isn’t it?[124] but of course, carlson was kind to him. the dear old man’s bark was much worse than his bite. good heavens how frightened i was of him! i see that mark acted in a couple of red cross shows? i expect that all his old matinée girls turned out and cried for joy.... but i do think that mark was something more than a flapper’s dream of heaven. still, he must like management better. he never thought more of acting than that it was a job, did he?” she sighed, “one has to think more of it than that to get on.”
gurdy wished that this woman didn’t embarrass him, resenting her perfumed cigarette and the real, frail loveliness of her hands. the embarrassment ended. rand told the amateurs that they weren’t half bad and departed with his wife, a trim, boyish figure behind her velvet bulk. colonel dufford implored the grouped players to learn their lines. margot was much kissed by the other girls, dismissed them and came in a sort of dance step to ask gurdy what he thought of her acting.
“couldn’t hear you. i had to talk to miss boyle. ugly voice she has. are people really crazy about her here?”
margot frowned and pursed her lips, tapping a cigarette on a nail. “oh, she has a following. they don’t dither about her as they do over[125] elsie whatsername and some of the other americans. dull, isn’t she?”
“very. she made a point of talking about mark.—lady ilden’s all broken up, isn’t she?”
“she’s too repressed,” margot explained. “tried not to show it when bobby fell and so she’s been showing it ever since. and sir john’s been at sea constantly and that’s a strain. he’s in paris, now.—you don’t show your feelings at all, do you? i was watching you talk to the boyle and you beamed very nicely. and you must have been bored. one of those rather sticky women. come and play pool. there’s an american table.”
he played pool and stolidly listened to her ripple of comments. she had a natural disrespect for the american army that flashed up. “the men did all they could, i dare say, but, my god, gurdy, what thugs the officers were! some of them turned up at a garden party where the king dropped in and he went to speak to one. the thing was cleaning its nails in a corner and it shook hands with its pocket knife in the other hand. i fainted and ronny dufford lugged me home in a taxi. i say, do let me have st. ledger grant do a pastel of you. dad would love it and st. ledger needs ten pounds as badly as any one in cheyne walk.”
“who’s sillijer?”
[126]“artist. poor bloke who got patriotic and lost a leg in the dardanelles mess. serve him right and so on but he’s ghastly poor.”
“you a pacifist?”
“rather!”
“that’s why you like the scandinavians? because they stayed out?”
“right. i forgive you though because you’re young and simple and your legs are rather jolly in those things.” she twisted her head to stare at his leggings and the black hair rose, settled back into its carved composure below the strong, shaded lamp. the clear red of her lips parted as she laughed, “not a blush? made the world safe for democracy and aren’t proud of it? how did your friends get through? that rather sweet lad who used to come to lunch when you were at school? lacy—?”
“lacy martin. lost a leg.”
she frowned. “doesn’t matter so much for a chap like that with billions but—the artists. i must have st. ledger do you. we’ll go there tomorrow. i had cosmo—rand have himself done.”
gurdy made a shot and said, “rand’s a much prettier subject than i’d be.”
“don’t get coy, my lad! you’re rather imposing and you know it.—like to meet gilbert chesterton? you used to read his junk. i can[127] have you taken there. never met him, myself.”
“no thanks.—what’s that bell?”
“dress for dinner. you can’t. i must.—i say, you’re altogether different from what i thought you’d be.”
“what did you think?”
“i couldn’t possibly tell you but i’m damned glad you’re not. the butler can make cocktails. dad taught him in nineteen seventeen.”
the butler brought him an evil mixture. gurdy emptied it into the fireplace and leaned on the pool table wondering what margot had expected. it didn’t matter, of course. yet she might recall him as a sixteen year old schoolboy much absorbed in polevaults and stiff with conceit for some acquirements in english letters. how people changed and how foolish it was to be surprised at change! sophomoric. mark really knew a pretty woman when he saw one. a man of genuine taste outside the selection of plays.—she must know london expertly. she must have a sense of spectacle. she must meet all conditions with this liberal, successful woman as a guide. if she wanted a pastel made for mark she should have it. gurdy dusted chalk from his leggings, evenly taped about the long strength of his calves, strolled into the drawing room and played the languid movement of the faun’s afternoon. illusory or not there was always beauty in[128] the blended exterior of things. a man should turn from the inner crassness to soothe himself with the fair investiture, with the drift of delicate motions that went in colour and music.—olive thought him like mark as she came in. she was worried because gail had written of meeting the boy on montmartre.
“you’ve been enjoying paris?”
“more or less. it’s a holy show, just now. i don’t suppose the barkeepers—and other parasites—will ever have such a chance again.”
“i hope you’ve not been in too much mischief. ian gail wrote me that he met you in some horrid hole or other.”
“a party at ariana joyce’s. i wasn’t doing any more harm there than the rest of the allied armies. but it was pretty odious.” the memory jarred into the present satisfaction. he halted his long fingers on the keys and margot came rustling in, her gown of sheer black muslin painted with yellow flowers and gold combs in her hair.
“were you playing l’après midi?—and he’s only twenty, olive! most americans don’t rise to respectable music until they’ve lost all their money and have to come and live over here. any nails in your shoes, gurdy? we’re going to a dance.”
“where?” asked olive.
[129]“something for war widows at mrs. rossiter-rossiter-rossiter’s—that fat woman from victoria. i promised some one or other i’d come. we’ll go in time for supper.”
the charity dance seemed less fevered than dances in paris. there were ranks of matrons about the walls of a dull, long room. at midnight margot rescued him from a girl who was using him as an introduction to american economics and found a single table in the supper hall. here the batter of ill played ragtime was endurable and the supping folk entertained him.
“the country’s so ghastly with houses shut and no servants that most people have stuck to town,” margot said, refusing wine. “lot of eminences here. who’re you looking at?”
“the dark girl in pink. she’s familiar.”
“she should be. she has a press agent in new york. lady selene tucker. she’s going to marry that man who looks like a lewis baumer picture in punch as soon as every one’s in town again and she can get westminster abbey and he can get his mother shipped to new zealand, or somewhere. his mother will drink too much and then tell lies about queen victoria. she’s rather quaint. she sues for libel every time any one writes a novel with a dissolute peeress in it. frightfully self-conscious. don’t people who insist on telling you how depraved[130] they are make you rather ill? they always seem to think they’ve made such a good job of it. and i could think of much worse things to do.—how nice your hair is! like uncle eddie’s.”
“thanks. who’s the skinny woman with the pearls?”
margot put aside the palm branch that shadowed her chin and frowned. “it looks like my namesake, mrs. asquith, from this angle.—no, it’s lady flint. oh, look at the big brute in mauve. lovely, isn’t she?”
he looked at the shapely, fair woman without interest. the round of margot’s forearm took his eyes back.
“lovely? why?”
“so glad you don’t think so. one gets so sick of hearing women gurgled about as wonders. i think it was salisbury who said she was the most beautiful woman alive. and she goes right on, you know? once you get fixed here as frightfully beautiful or witty you can die of old age before they stop saying so. such a fraud! it’s just what dad says about all the managers and stars in new york being myths. all those legends about his being a woman hater and—who’s the man who’s supposed to never hire a chorus girl until he’s seen her au naturel? such piffle!”
“but they like being myths,” gurdy laughed.
[131]“oh, every one does, of course. some one started a yarn about me—don’t tell dad this—that i was the daughter of some frightfully rich american banker and that my mother was a spanish dancer. olive was wild with rage. but it was rather fun.—i say, i’m sick of this, gurdy. do make dad order me home.” she lit a cigarette, let her lashes drop and ignored a man who bowed, passing. gurdy thought this was cosmo rand and said so. margot shrugged. “he rehearses us every day. decent sort. people like him.—but do make dad have me come home.”
gurdy pondered. mark now knew a few gentlewomen, the wives of authors and critics. he had mannerly friends outside the theatre, had drilled smart war theatricals. the girl could move beyond this wedge of certainty wherever she chose. but gurdy said, “you might not like new york.”
“but i want to see it! it’s hardly pleasant seeing dad about once every year for two weeks or so. i happen to love him. you mean i shan’t be recognized as a human being by the fat ladies in the social register? that’ll hardly break my heart, you know? the world is so full of a number—is that god save the—”
the supping people rose in a vast puff of smoke from abandoned cigarettes. officers stiffened.[132] the outer orchestra jangled the old tune badly. the sleek gowns showed a ripple of bending knees. the prince went nodding down the room toward an inner door with a tiny clink of bright spurs as his staff followed him.
“they say he’s going to the states. i should like to be there to see the women make fools of themselves. and grandfather’ll be so furious because every one’ll talk about a damned britisher.—finish your coffee. i want to dance again.”
she danced with a smooth, lazy rhythm and gurdy felt a brusque jealousy of all the men who danced with her, after him. he was angry because he so soon liked her, against reason. it was folly to let himself be netted by a girl who showed no signs of courting him. he watched her spin, her black skirt spreading, with cosmo rand. the man danced gracefully, without swagger. he might be amusing, like many actors. gurdy pulled his philosophy together and talked about mark’s plan of the walling theatre while they drove home.
“dad’s wanted a shop of his own so long,” she sighed, “and it’ll be quite charming. he does understand colours! wish he wouldn’t wear black all the time.... i always feel fearfully moral at two in the morning. i’m going to lecture you.”
[133]“what about?”
“you’re so damned chilly. you always were, of course. don’t you like anything?”
they came to the ilden house before he could answer and margot didn’t repeat the question all the week he stayed in london. they were seldom alone. lady ilden seemed to want the girl near her. there were incessant callers. men plainly flocked after the dark girl. her frankness added something to the wearisome chaff of teatime and theatre parties, to the dazing slang of the young officers. gurdy speculated from corners, edged in at random dances. but his blood had caught a fresh pulsation. he felt a trail of mockery in the artifice of lady ilden’s talk as if the tired woman observed him falling into love and found it humorous. she said once, “i was afraid you’d grown up too fast. and you’ve not,” but he let the chance of an argument slide by his preoccupation with the visible flutter of margot’s hands pinning a tear in her yellow frock. his resistance weakened although he hunted repugnances, tried to shiver when the girl swore.
“profanity’s a sign of poor imagination,” he told her.
“the hell you say,” said margot. “haven’t turned out on the heavy side, have you, gurdy? i bar serious souls. war shaken you to the[134] foundations? cheeryo! you’ll get over it.” and she walked upstairs singing,
“there ayn’t a goin’ to be no wa-ah,
now we’ve got a king like good king hedward,
there ayn’t a goin’ to be no wa-ah.
’e ’ates that sort of fing,
muvvers, don’t worry,
now we’ve got a king like hedward,
peace wiv ’onor is ’is motter,
so, god sive the king!”
