The Doctor"s brilliant eyes were fixed upon Armine with an expression half humorous, half affectionate.
"Any smart hotel would seem the wrong place for you," he said. "I can see you on the snows of the Alps, or your own moors at Etchingham, even at--where is it?"
"Sennoures."
"But at the Savoy, the Ritz, the Carlton--no. Their gilded ba.n.a.lity isn"t the _cadre_ for you at all."
"I"m very happy at the Savoy," Armine replied.
As he spoke, he looked away from Meyer Isaacson across the table to the wall opposite to him. Upon it hung a large reproduction of Watts"s picture, "Progress." He gazed at it, and his face became set in a strange calm, as if he had for a moment forgotten the place he was in, the people round about him. Meyer Isaacson watched him with a concentrated interest. There was something in this man--there always had been something--which roused in the Doctor an affection, an admiration, that were mingled with pity and even with a secret fear. Such a nature, the Doctor often thought, must surely be fore-ordained to suffering in a world that holds certainly many who cherish ideals and strive to mount upwards, but a majority that is greedy for the constant gratification of the fleshly appet.i.tes, that seldom listens to the dim appeal of the distant voices which sometimes speak, however faintly, to all who dwell on earth.
"What a splendid thing that is!" Armine said, at last, with a sigh. "You know the original?"
"I saw it the other day at the gallery in Compton."
"Progress--advance--going on irresistibly all the time, whether we see it, feel it, or not. How glorious!"
"You are always an optimist?"
"I do believe in the triumph of good. More and more every day I believe in that, the triumph of good in the world, and in the individual. And the more believers there are--true believers--in that triumph, the more surely, the more swiftly, it will be accomplished. You can help, Isaacson."
"By believing?"
"Yes, that"s the way to help. But Lord! how few people take it!
Suspicion is one of the most destructive agents at work in the world.
Suspect a man, and you almost force him to give you cause for suspicion.
Suspect a woman, and instantly you give her a push towards deceit. How I hate to hear men say they don"t trust women."
"Women say that, too."
"s.e.x treachery! Despicable! They who say that are traitresses in their own camp."
"You value truth, don"t you?"
"Above everything."
"Suppose women truly mistrust other women; are they to pretend the contrary?"
"They can be silent, and try to stamp out an unworthy, a destructive, feeling."
He said nothing for a moment. Then he looked up at Meyer Isaacson and continued:
"Are you going anywhere when you leave here?"
"I"ve accepted something in Chesham Place. Why?"
"Must you go to it?"
"No."
"Come and have supper with me at the Savoy."
"Supper! My dear Armine! You know nowadays we doctors are preaching, and rightly preaching, less eating and drinking to our patients. I can eat nothing till to-morrow after my morning ride."
"But you can sit at a supper-table, I suppose?"
"Oh, yes, I can do that."
"Come and sit at mine. Let"s go away from here together."
"Certainly."
"You shall see whether I am out of place at the Savoy."
IV
At a quarter to eleven that night Meyer Isaacson and Nigel Armine came down the bit of carpet that was unrolled to the edge of the pavement in front of Lady Somerson"s door, and got into the former"s electric brougham. As it moved off noiselessly, the Doctor said:
"You had a long talk with Mrs. Derringham in the drawing-room."
"Yes," replied Armine, rather curtly.
He relapsed into silence, leaning back in his corner.
"I like her," the Doctor continued, after a pause.
"Do you?"
"And you--don"t."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because I feel it; I gather it from the way you said "yes.""
Armine moved, and leaned slightly forwards.
"Isn"t she rather _mauvaise langue_?" he asked.
"Mrs. Derringham? I certainly don"t think her so."
"She"s one of the disbelievers in women you spoke of after dinner; one of the traitresses in the woman"s camp. Why can"t women hang together?"
"They do sometimes."