yes, mrs. currey was “at home,” the butler admitted, opening the doors hospitably.
by the hats and overcoats lying about the spacious hall of their flat in albert hall mansions, carey image knew he was not the only man who had hastened to congratulate claudia on her husband’s latest honour. he had seen the announcement in the papers that morning. gilbert currey had been made a k.c. image immediately sent a wire to his chambers, and now in person was giving himself the pleasure of calling on his “god-daughter by marriage,” as he called her.
the honour was no surprise to anyone; for the last year or more rumour had marked him out for this distinction. there had even been vague whispers of coming glory in the church at his wedding, eighteen months before. but now gilbert had stepped into the vacancy left by the death of howard barnes, that blunt and sarcastic personality who, under a forbidding exterior, had hidden the heart of a child.
image had seen very little of the pair since their marriage, for he who has once roamed in the orient never settles down for long in the dull, tidy lands of the west, and though cary image had fully intended to stop in england, he had broken his resolve a few weeks[92] after the ceremony. japan with her slender golden fingers had beckoned him and he had gone back to the land of almond blossom and universal courtesy.
the room overlooking the park which he entered, unusually large and lofty for a london flat, seemed crowded to his near-sighted eyes. there was an animated chatter of voices, for claudia had already gathered around her an amusing and socially attractive set, who talked well and easily, and required but little “managing.” image’s bright eyes peered out through his eyeglasses in search of his hostess.
she soon came towards him with her most hospitable and welcoming smile. she was always pleased to see him or receive one of his long, descriptive letters. she liked him and she liked his life-story. gilbert generally spoke of him a little slightingly.
“welcome, godfather; i’m delighted to see you. you’ve neglected me shamefully of late. from what part of the world have you come?”
“last of all from paris, chère madame, and this morning i saw the announcement in the paper. gilbert is forging ahead. my heartiest congratulations to his charming partner. what could one not hope to do with such a one!”
she listened with a conventional smile, but her eyes did not warm to any enthusiasm as she said lightly, “thank you, but i have had nothing to do with it such a partner as i”—there was a slight emphasis on the word—“is not entitled to claim any share in the congratulations.”
“that is not true,” said image warmly; “a wife is the closest and best partner a man can have; and i am sure, if the truth were known, that most of our famous men owed much of their success to their wives’ co-operation. the partner in the house is often far more important than the partner in the office.”
[93]
“mr. image, you really are the most refreshing person,” said a studiously lazy voice from under an enormous mass of lancer plumes at his left. “isn’t he, claudia? you are the one faithful appreciative soul in a multitude of scoffers howling in the wilderness. you almost induce a woman to believe in herself.”
image laughed and peered under the feathery erection to discover that it was rhoda carnegie, a cousin of claudia’s and a woman he had known in society for many years. she was married to an unsuccessful playwright, a “one play” man, who on the strength of a singleton had induced her to marry him, to their mutual regret. some people raved about her beauty in superlatives, while others merely dubbed her “queer-looking.” no one refrained from expressing an opinion about her. her looks and manners were of the arrogant “i-must-be-obeyed” order, and she had a reputation for being irresistible where she chose to charm.
“ah! mrs. carnegie, i could not see who it was. how do you do? i am so glad you agree with me.”
“i don’t in the least,” she responded languidly, through half-shut eyes. “it’s only bad women who play a big part in men’s lives; that’s why i gave up being good. the nice, virtuous, sympathetic wife is—just a super most of the time, unnoticed in the wings. and who wants to be super?”
with a careless laugh claudia moved away to greet a new arrival. rhoda carnegie watched her with a sort of detached, cold-blooded speculation.
“claudia was never cut out to be a super. i see signs that she will shortly get beyond that stage, for gilbert gives no one a chance to distinguish himself. he always plays lead. but claudia is not her mother’s daughter for nothing,” she drawled, playing with a set of golden baubles in her lap. she had but a small income of her own and her husband had less, but rhoda carnegie was[94] noted for her extravagance. how she got her very handsome toilettes was a mystery. at least, perhaps it was not an insolvable one to those who knew her well; but a mystery is always more decent than a scandal.
image listened, rather startled. then he remembered the type of woman to whom he was speaking. it was said that she made an art of demolishing reputations in as few words as possible.
“i find her looking exceedingly well,” he said, trying to change the subject; “and you, also,” he added courteously.
she looked up at him through her narrow slits of eyes, a trick which some men found fascinating.
“claudia is the type that goes on getting better-looking until she arrives at the age of fifty, then she remains handsome and distinguished, especially when her hair gets white. it’s a good job our styles don’t clash, or i should have to avoid her. but we are quite different. she is the charming, sympathetic, give-all type which has its admirers, and i—i hold men with a whip, which i don’t hesitate to use. you know the play doormats? well, i am the boot.” she laughed insolently. “now you like the claudia type. so does frank hamilton.”
“frank hamilton? is that the new artist that——”
“yes, claudia has made a success of him. she first introduced him socially, and they say he is deluged with commissions for portraits. he isn’t as strong as sargent or lavery, and i shouldn’t wonder if he fizzles out, but he has a trick of pleasing his sitters and doing very graceful work. i believe he is doing a portrait of claudia. that is he over there.”
she pointed quite openly with her fingers to a young man who stood at claudia’s elbow, holding some cigarettes. there was something in his very attitude that suggested his admiration for his hostess.
image saw a tall, broad-shouldered, but loose-jointed[95] figure, that spoke more of the studio than the cricket-field. his features were good, graceful rather than strong, and the whole face, he could see, would be one that would please women. his hazel eyes had an appealing, rather wistful look in them, and his mouth, if rather weak, spoke of a taste for and appreciation of beauty and luxury.
“claudia should prove a good subject for his brush,” said image, exchanging a nod with a foreign diplomatist whom he knew. “i have heard people speak of him and predict great things for his future.”
“mostly women, i suppose? women like him and men—are not keen about him. but then he’s not keen on them. women fill the bill. a good many of them are taking him up, and i don’t think his head can stand it. he hates me like poison. he loves to talk about himself, and i love and intend to talk about myself. he told a dear friend of mine, who never loses an opportunity of repeating the nasty things that are said about me, that i had the eyes of a lucretia borgia.”
“i have always wondered what colour they really are,” said image, playing up to her obvious lead.
she smiled. “continue—to wonder! that is the way to make men think about you. an ounce of conjecture is worth a hundredweight of knowledge where women are concerned.... good gracious, patricia, is there any more of you to unwind? i thought it was a boa-constrictor standing on his hind legs. haven’t you stopped growing?”
“in stature—yes.” she was more of an amazon than ever as she rose from somewhere behind the piano. she gripped image by the hand, and it was a real grip.
“how about goodness?” queried rhoda.
“a non-starter—the handicap frightens me. we are not a good family, you know.... what a lot of people and congratulations! i should have thought gilbert[96] might have got home early to have relieved his wife’s blushes, and given himself a sort of holiday treat.”
“working as hard as ever?”
“harder. i annoyed him the other day by predicting a nerve-breakdown—he was playing golf so badly—in a couple of years. and that same night at dinner he was so dead tired or cross that he hardly said a word, and i was left to talk to a boy i’d refused the night before. he was sulky and devoted himself to his food. i had a beastly time. i told gilbert that he fancied he was an indestructible machine, and that he would find he wasn’t. anyway, he hates dinner-parties, and he begins to show it in his manners.”
“if i were claudia i should leave him at home,” said rhoda coolly. “i always leave mine at home. i tell people not to invite him. a husband is always the skeleton at the feast.”
“why have a husband at all?” said pat lightly, who knew her rhoda.
“it’s a bad habit we shall outgrow in time, like needle-work and charity. a husband is like your appendix. when you don’t know it’s there, it’s no use, and when you do, it’s a nuisance.”
“had any tea?” inquired patricia of image.
“no, will you take me and give me some?” they walked together to the next room. “dear me, would you mind hobbling on your knees, or providing me with stilts? after the miniature women of japan you take my breath away. the modern englishwoman is really a glorious creature.”
pat laughed amiably. “i’m a sort of yard-measure, aren’t i? it’s a nuisance really, except when you get in a crowd. mother winces every time she sees me, and father says my feet are larger than his.”
but image looked admiringly at her over the edge of his tea-cup. to him this fine young girl, so amazingly[97] fresh and healthy, saxon in colouring, with the limbs of an athlete, was most attractive, though he knew she made his own lack of inches more conspicuous.
“i suppose we shall have you getting married soon?” he said, beaming on her through his glasses.
patricia shrugged her broad shoulders and nibbled at a sandwich. “didn’t you hear rhoda say that we women are getting out of the habit?”
“she talks a lot of nonsense. don’t listen to it. you are much too fresh and sweet to repeat such horrible cynicism.”
“we are all cynical nowadays. how is it you have escaped? how have you managed to keep on believing in people and things?”
image answered quite simply and directly. “by loving a woman, my dear. to love a woman well keeps the core of a man’s heart from withering and getting old. my blessings on all your sex, even a rhoda carnegie, because of her.”
it was said so naturally that patricia, who, like all young things, recoiled from any display of sentiment, could not find any fault with the frankness with which he had replied to her question. she became a little graver, and whether by accident or the prompting of some hidden association of ideas, she glanced up at the opposite wall, where hung a portrait of gilbert, a wedding-present from the tenants on his father’s estate.
“ah!” she said impulsively, “but why, then, do so many marriages go wrong? they seem so right beforehand, and then——” she checked herself suddenly and shot a sideways look at the little man beside her, like a child who fears she has betrayed a cherished secret. but though image’s mind was full of alarm at what he felt lay between the lines, he gave no sign that pat could have had any personal implication in her mind. to pat’s relief, frank hamilton came in for some tea, and she[98] seized upon him and made him known to carey image.
“i am delighted to make your acquaintance,” said image, with his old-world formality. “i have heard your praises sung, but never found myself in your company before. i saw one of your portraits photographed for an illustrated paper i found in japan. i understand you are engaged on a portrait of our hostess?”
hamilton’s face, which had been full of pleased attention—rhoda said he swallowed praise as a baby swallows milk—clouded a little. then he replied with an engaging air of frankness.
“to tell you the truth, i have not been successful so far. she is a most difficult subject, though a delightful one. i have already destroyed one portrait and several studies. i think she is tired of my efforts, for i cannot persuade her to come to the studio for sittings. and i want so much to get a good portrait of her.”
image nodded understandingly. “yes, i should say mrs. currey would be a difficult subject. her greatest charm is in her animation and spirit, and those qualities are always difficult to transfer to canvas. and such people always appear different to each of their friends, so that a popular success is, i should say, almost impossible. it is before the cow-like, plaster-of-paris woman that people throw up their hands and say ‘how like!’”
“i see you know something about the art of portrait-painting,” said hamilton, looking pleased.
“he knows something about everything,” exclaimed pat. “he’s a walking index and encyclop?dia, a who’s who and a dictionary of national biography all combined.”
claudia came up and caught the last words.
“he’s nothing so dull and uninteresting. it’s a deadly insult, godfather. up, sir, and at patricia.”
“how can i?” said image humorously. “just look at[99] us! i shall have to get some of the mushroom that alice nibbled before i fight your sister.”
“oh! but the pen is mightier than the sword! annihilate her with an epigram; that’s much more deadly, because your enemies go round repeating it,” said claudia gaily. image noticed that hamilton was feasting his eyes on her face and that claudia seemed rather to avoid looking at him. image received the impression that she was used to his homage and did not either actively encourage or resent it.
“such bad form,” jeered pat. “everyone epigrammates nowadays, and you never have the least idea what anyone is talking about. you answer in the same strain, and you wonder what on earth you yourself are talking about. anyone can get a reputation for being clever, if he’s only vague and wild enough in his conversation.”
in the general laugh at patricia the group shifted, and image found himself alone with claudia. she smiled upon him frankly and said with obvious sincerity:
“it’s so nice to see you again. don’t run away for a while. by and by, i expect another friend back from ‘furrin parts abroad.’ you remember colin paton?”
“indeed, yes, and shall be glad to see him again.”
“so shall i. he’s such an excellent and satisfying companion. a ‘collectable’ person, you know. at least,” she added, with a slight change of tone, “i used to find him so.”
“that sounds a little like granny, with her ‘when i was young, my dear, i used to——’”
claudia laughed. “oh well! friends change, even in eighteen months, or else it is that one changes one’s self, and friends seem different, judged by different standards. eighteen months may be a day—or an eternity. he went away just before our wedding, you know. he has written me some most delightful letters at intervals since. he is[100] one of the few men who can write something more than a telegram.”
although he did not appear to be doing so, the keen eyes of her companion were scrutinizing her face as she talked. in middle-age or its borderland lines tell their tale for all to read, massage she ever so assiduously, but the changes in a young face are much more subtle and difficult to classify. but to a student of physiognomy like carey image there is sometimes a hint conveyed in the softest curve, a suggestion in an apparently sunny smile, a warning in the glance of brilliantly youthful eyes, such as were now confronting him.
she was not satisfied, she was not happy. the eyes had lost a little of the eager, questioning softness he had noticed in the photograph in gilbert’s room two years ago, and the mouth had acquired a little more decisiveness and an inclination toward sarcasm rather than smiles. her whole bearing was much more assured, much more the woman of the world, the woman who has eaten of the tree of knowledge. but image knew that she had not found that fruit altogether sweet. and he was profoundly sorry. he would have been sorry to have read that information on any young man or woman’s face for he always wanted the world to be a more joyful place, but he particularly liked his young hostess. he saw in claudia the bud that has blossomed but has never been warmed by the good red sun, so that the petals at the heart are still cold and unopened. and with the kindly wisdom of his fifty-four years, image knew that this spelt danger ahead.
they chatted on, claudia questioning him about his wanderings abroad, until they were interrupted by one of the servants.
“the master has just rung up, madam, to say that he cannot get back this evening in time to accompany you out to hampstead to-night, and will you please make his apologies to mrs. rivington.”
[101]
claudia listened with a curious compression of her lips, like someone who listens with irritation to a too frequently told tale. then she made a quick movement towards the door.
“i must speak to him myself. it’s too bad. mrs. rivington——”
then she stopped short, as though second thoughts had put a check on her impulse. she came back to image with a resigned shrug of her shoulders.
“it really is too bad of gilbert. i spend half my time making apologies for him and meekly bearing the ill-temper of my hostess whose table has been disarranged.” yet she looked anything but meek as she said it. “i am sure people will soon cease to ask us, because it is annoying to have your table upset at the last minute. it would try the patience of a hostess in heaven. mrs. rivington will be furious. she has asked us several times and we’ve refused.... oh, well! i must go and telephone at once. that’s the only peace-offering and oblation i can make.”
“let me go, claud,” said patricia; “you can’t leave your guests, and as she is a stranger to me, her wrath will pass harmlessly over my head.”
claudia accepted the offer with relief. “you’ll find the number under major-general rivington, newcombe avenue. i say, pat, suggest that, as gilbert can’t come, i shall absent myself also.” hopefully. “perhaps she’ll let me off, as they are gilbert’s friends rather than mine. get me a reprieve if you can. it’s in the wilds of west hampstead, and it’s such a long drive for a bad dinner.”
“right-o! i’ll be a perfect machiavelli on the telephone,” sang out pat as she departed.
dr. fritz neeburg, who was sitting near by, looked up as pat went. “is gilbert in the habit of working in the evening, mrs currey?” he asked quietly.
[102]
“yes, pretty often, dr. neeburg. do you approve of it? you are his doctor, aren’t you?”
“yes, but he hasn’t been to see me for ages, so i suppose he keeps pretty fit. all the same, i don’t approve of it.”
“he’s looking very tired,” said claudia lightly. “last night he did go out with me to a party at the ‘ritz,’ but he was too tired to talk. i am sure the woman who sat next to him must be going about saying that the new k.c. is the dullest man in london.”
“i must talk to him,” said neeburg decidedly. “he’s just the sort of a man who has a splendid constitution and takes that as an excuse for overwork. when a man gets into the habit of thinking of himself as a machine nature has a little way of avenging such slights.”
“mrs. currey, give him a curtain lecture,” said image.
claudia’s lip curled a little and she raised her eyebrows. “you can’t curtain-lecture a man who listens in silence and then says, like putting in the cork, ‘you don’t understand. women never do. a man who wants to make his way nowadays must devote himself whole-heartedly to his work. the world is strewn with the wreckage of men who have relaxed too soon or “taken holidays.”’”
patricia has returned.
“claudia, i did my best, and even spoke quite plainly; but i couldn’t get you off. she was very cross indeed. her voice through the telephone was like that of an angry mosquito. she says you, at least, must come, and she wants you to bring a substitute. she suggested that mr. hamilton should come out with you, as she wants to make his acquaintance.”
claudia spoke coldly. “i can’t ask mr. hamilton, or anyone, to take gilbert’s place at a couple of hours’ notice.”
“no, i told her that, but she seemed to think you ought to get her out of the difficulty with the table.”
she did not tell her sister that lorna rivington’s[103] rather sharp reply had been, “your sister and he are such great friends that i am sure he would do it if she asked him.” instead she whispered in her sister’s ear, “why don’t you ask mr. image? he is such a nice, obliging dear.”
because her feelings were divided between an unreasonable anger that mrs. rivington should make such a suggestion and a pleasurable relief that her long drive might not be so boresome after all, she seized on the alternative suggestion.
“mr. image, you have heard of my dilemma. would you earn the martyr’s crown and take me out to hampstead? it’s too bad to ask you at such short notice, but——”
“i should have been only too pleased,” returned image, with a note of sincere regret, “but it is the anniversary of my mother’s death, and i always spend the evening quite quietly. at any other time, if such a situation occurs and i can fill the bill, ring me up and just give me time to dress. but you must give me an hour—i can’t do it in less.” it was well known that carey image took an age to attire himself. his neat, precise personal habits and leisurely methods of dressing were a constant amusement to his friends and a handle to his—very few—enemies.
several people came up to make their adieux, among them frank hamilton.
“why are you going so soon?” asked claudia of him, for he had lately slipped into the habit of outstaying other visitors and waiting for a talk with her.
“i promised to go to ealing to-night,” he said with a self-pitying sigh.
“ealing,” said claudia vaguely. “where is that? then it’s no good asking you to come out with me this evening? my husband is detained at his chambers and[104] i want a substitute.” she was conscious of a slight sense of disappointment, though she had fully made up her mind a minute previously not to ask hamilton.
“yes, it is,” he said eagerly. “i can send a wire.”
“but your engagement?”
“of no importance. i can easily go some other night. old friends.... if you will have me i am entirely at your service.”
he looked into her eyes with his, over which he had not troubled to draw the blinds of conventionality. they underlined and emphasized the spoken words so that no woman could fail to understand. and she felt a pleasing sensation of power as she parried his devotion. she did not acknowledge it to herself, but she was subtly aware that they were both on the brink of deep waters. his eyes had spoken words of love for many weeks. his very na?veté and boyishness had its attraction for her. he was just as easy to move as gilbert was difficult. she could colour his thoughts, deflect his mind, bring him instantly inside the circle of her mood. he took his colour from her like a chameleon, and she did not stop to consider whether she alone had this power, or if frank hamilton were always so influenced by attractive women.
“very well, then,” she said, holding out her hand, “you are bidden to take dinner at the house of one major-general rivington, who served her majesty queen victoria with great distinction, and is now resting on his laurels in the wilds of west hampstead. come for me at half-past seven.”
