Mabel looked up coldly from the book she was reading.
"Back again already?" she said. "Well, what was it you were saying?"
"I was saying," said Luke gaily, "that I hoped you enjoyed your visit to the Dammoth Circus with Mr. Dag Moomshaw."
"Port never did agree with you," said Mabel. "You shouldn"t take it."
She resumed her book.
Luke tried the second of the pleasant sentences.
"Dagshaw always seems to me to be one of those masterful men who sooner or later----"
He ducked his head just in time, and the book which Mabel had thrown knocked over the vase of flowers behind him.
"If you can"t let me read in peace," she said, "at any rate, you shan"t sneer at my friends. You"re always doing it, and everybody notices it. I simply can"t understand you. You"re like nothing on earth. What have you done with that love-letter of yours?"
"Oh, come," he said, "I"ve had no love letter."
"You silly liar; I mean the letter from your Lady Tyburn. Have you been kissing it?"
"Really, Mabel, this is absurd. I might as well ask you if you have been kissing the Mammoth Circus."
"I"m going to bed," said Mabel abruptly. "I"m absolutely fed up with you. I"m sick to death of you. I hate you. And I despise you."
She went out and slammed the door violently. Four more vases went over, and three pictures fell.
Luke went over to the open window and looked out into the cool night.
At the house opposite a girl was singing very beautifully "The End of a Perfect Day."
CHAPTER V
As he sat in his office on the following Thursday morning, the whistle of the speaking-tube sounded shrilly and interrupted him in the act of composition. He went angrily to the tube.
"What do you want to interrupt me for," he called, "when you know I"m busy? What the devil do you want, anyway?"
"I want you, Lukie," said a gentle voice in reply.
"Come up at once," he said. "Awfully sorry. Frightfully glad you"ve come. If there"s a chance of making a mistake within a hundred miles of me, I seldom miss it."
Lady Tyburn came radiantly into the room, drawing off her gloves.
"Nasty shock for you, isn"t it?" she said. She held out both hands to him. "Will you ... will you help yourself?"
"Thanks," he said, as he clasped them warmly. "I will have some of each."
After a minute or two she withdrew her hands and sat down.
"Has that dirty dog given you a partnership yet?" she asked.
"Diggle? Not yet. I ask him from time to time. He always seems too busy to talk about it at any length. It"s wonderful to see you here, Jona."
"You got my letter?"
"I did. In fact, there was some considerable beano about it at home.
But never mind about that."
"You didn"t come to see me, so I was drawn here. Magnet and tin-tack."
He looked at her little white nose. "I see the point," he said.
"Say some more," she said, "I like to hear you talk, Funnyface. Funny old ears. Funny old cocoanut with, oh, such a lot of milk in it. You do think a lot of thinky thoughts, don"t you. And you put them all down in those dear little books of yours."
"Not all," said Luke, "I"m limited in my subjects. Jam, you know.
Pickles. Sardines. That hurts--to be limited. I want to be free. Here, I am imprisoned. I am buried alive. Plunged, still teething, in the brougham."
"Still teething? I knew you were young at heart. Still, at the age of thirty-two----"
"I had intended to say that I was plunged, still breathing, in the tomb. I do get carried away so. Sometimes I form plans. I think I will leave this business and write my biography. It would be a record, not of the facts that are, but of the facts as I should like them to be."
"Brilliant," said Jona.
"I don"t know," said Luke, wagging his ears, "I sometimes doubt whether I am sufficiently in touch with real life. I must consult somebody about it."
"Consult me. No, not now. Show me the first of the little books that you ever wrote."
He handed her the little lilac-bound copy of "The Romance of a Raspberry." She put it reverently to her lips, patted it gently, and laid it down again.
"Do you talk it over with Mabel? Isn"t Mabel tremendously proud of it?"
"She is tremendously proud, but she has great self-restraint." He recalled the end of the perfect day. "As a general rule," he added, "when nothing happens to irritate her."
"Does she love you very much?"
"I don"t remember her mentioning anything of the kind recently. But it"s you I want to talk about, Jona. Tell me about your life."
"I don"t live. I"m marking time. You throw a brick into the stream----"
"No," said Luke, "not a brick. I sometimes play boats."
"I was going to say," Jona continued, "that the brick remains motionless while the stream goes past it."
"But cannot we apply the principle of relativity here?" he asked. "May it not be that the stream stands still while the brick goes past it?
It would appear so to the brick."