I rather flatter myself that Agatha had no reason to complain of my dulness at dinner. In my converse with her I was faced by various alternatives. I might lay bare my heart, tell her of my love for Lola and my bewildered despair at her desertion; this I knew she would no more understand than if I had proclaimed a mad pa.s.sion for a young lady who had waited on me at a tea-shop, or for a ca.s.sowary at the Zoo; even the best and most affectionate of sisters have their sympathetic limitations. I might have maintained a mysterious and Byronic gloom; this would have been sheer bad manners. I might have attributed my lack of spontaneous gaiety to toothache or stomach-ache; this would have aroused sisterly and matronly sympathies, and I should have had the devil"s own job to escape from the house unpoisoned by the nostrums that lurk in the medicine chest of every well-conducted family. Agatha, I knew, had a peculiarly Borgiaesque equipment. Lastly, there was the worldly device, which I adopted, of dissimulating the furnace of my affliction beneath a smiling exterior. Agatha, therefore, found me an entertaining guest and drove me to the Palace Theatre in high good humour.
There, however, I could resign my role of entertainer in favour of the professionals on the stage. I sat back in my corner of the box and gave myself up to my hara.s.sing concerns. Young ladies warbled, comic acrobats squirted siphons at each other and kicked each other in the stomach, jugglers threw plates and bra.s.s b.a.l.l.s with dizzying skill, the famous dancers gyrated pyrotechnically, the house applauded with delight, Agatha laughed and chuckled and clapped her hands and I remained silent, unnoticed and unnoticing in my reflective corner, longing for the foolery to end. Where was Lola? Why had she forsaken me? What remedy, in the fiend"s name, was there for this heart torture within me? The most excruciating agonies of the little pain inside were child"s play to this. I bit my lips so as not to groan aloud and contorted my features into the semblance of a smile.
During a momentary interval there came a knock at the box door. I said, "Come in!" The door opened, and there, to my utter amazement, stood Dale Kynnersley--Dale, sleek, alert, smiling, attired in the very latest nicety of evening dress affected by contemporary youth--Dale such as I knew and loved but six months ago.
He came forward to Agatha, who was little less astounded than myself.
"How d"ye do, Lady Durrell? I"m in the stalls with Harry Essendale. I tried to catch your eye, but couldn"t. So I thought I"d come up." He turned to me with frank outstretched hand, "How do, Simon?"
I grasped his hand and murmured something unintelligible. The thing was so extraordinary, so unexpected that my wits went wandering. Dale carried off the situation lightly. It was he who was the man of the world, and I the unresourceful stumbler.
"He"s looking ripping, isn"t he, Lady Durrell? I met old Oldfield the other day, and he was raving about your case. The thing has never been done before. Says they"re going mad over your chap in Paris--they"ve given him medals and wreaths and decorations till he goes about like a prize bull at a fair. By Jove, it"s good to see you again."
"You might have taken an earlier opportunity," Agatha remarked with some acidity.
"So I might," retorted Dale blandly; "but when a man"s a born a.s.s it takes him some time to cultivate sense! I"ve been wanting to see you for a long time, Simon--and to-night I just couldn"t resist it. You don"t want to kick me out?"
"Heaven forbid," said I, somewhat brokenly, for the welcome sight of his face and the sound of his voice aroused emotions which even now I do not care to a.n.a.lyse. "It was generous of you to come up."
He coloured. "Rot!" said he, in his breezy way. "Hallo! The curtain"s going up. What"s the next item? Oh, those fool dogs!"
"I adore performing dogs!" said Agatha, looking toward the stage.
He turned to me. "Do you?"
The last thing on earth I desired to behold at that moment was a performing animal. My sensitiveness led me to suspect a quizzical look in Dale"s eye. Fortunately, he did not wait for my answer, but went on in a boyish attempt to appease Agatha.
"I don"t despise them, you know, Lady Durrell, but I"ve seen them twice before. They"re really rather good. There"s a football match at the end which is quite exciting."
"Oh, the beauties!" cried Agatha over her shoulder as the dogs trotted on the stage. I nodded an acknowledgment of the remark, and she plunged into rapt contemplation of the act. Dale and I stood at the back of the box. Suddenly he whispered:
"Come out into the corridor. I"ve something to say to you."
"Certainly," said I, and followed him out of the box.
He thrust his hands into his pockets and looked at me with the defiant and you-be-d.a.m.ned air of the young Briton who was about to commit a gracious action. I knew what he was going to say. I could tell by his manner. I dreaded it, and yet I loved him for it.
"Why say anything, my dear boy?" I asked. "You want to be friends with me again, and G.o.d knows I want to be friends again with you. Why talk?"
"I"ve got to get if off my chest," said he, in his so familiar vernacular. "I want to tell you that I"ve been every end of a silly a.s.s and I want you to forgive me."
I vow I have never felt so miserably guilty towards any human being as I did at that moment. I have never felt such a smug-faced hypocrite.
It was a humiliating position. I had inflicted on him a most grievous wrong, and here he was pleading for forgiveness. I could not p.r.o.nounce the words of pardon. He misinterpreted my silence.
"I know I"ve behaved rottenly to you since you"ve been back, but the first step"s always so difficult. You mustn"t bear a grudge against me."
"My dear boy!" I cried, my hand on his shoulder, touched to the heart by his simple generosity, "don"t let us talk of grudges and forgiveness.
All I want to know is whether you"re contented?"
"Contented?" he cried. "I should just think I am. I"m the happiest a.s.s that doesn"t eat thistles!"
"Explain yourself, my dear Dale," said I, relapsing into my old manner.
"I"m going to marry Maisie Ellerton."
I took him by the arm and dragged him inside the box.
"Agatha," said I, "leave those confounded dogs for a moment and attend to serious matters. This young man has not come up to see either of us, but to obtain our congratulations. He"s going to marry Maisie Ellerton."
"Tell me all about it," said Agatha intensely interested.
A load of responsibility rolled off my shoulders like Christian"s pack.
I looked at the dog football match with the interest of a Sheffield puddler at a Cup-tie, and clapped my hands.
An hour or so later after we had seen Agatha home, and Dale had incidentally chucked Lord Essendale (the phrase is his own), we were sitting over whisky and soda and cigars in my Victoria Street flat. The ingenuousness of youth had insisted on this prolongation of our meeting.
He had a thousand things to tell me. They chiefly consisted in a reiteration of the statement that he had been a rampant and unimagined silly a.s.s, and that Maisie, who knew the whole lunatic story, was a brick, and a million times too good for him. When he entered my humble lodging he looked round in a bewildered manner.
"Why on earth are you living in this mouse-trap?"
"Agatha calls it a pill-box. I call it a bird-cage. I live here, my dear boy, because it is the utmost I can afford."
"Rot! I"ve been your private secretary and know what your income is."
I sighed heavily. I shall have to get a leaflet printed setting out the causes that led to my change of fortune. Then I can hand it to such of my friends as manifest surprise.
Indeed, I had grown so used to the story of my lamentable pursuit of the eumoirous that I rattled it off mechanically after the manner of the st.u.r.dy beggar telling his mendacious tale of undeserved misfortune. To Dale, however, it was fresh. He listened to it open-eyed. When I had concluded, he brought his hand down on the arm of the chair.
"By Jove, you"re splendid! I always said you were. Just splendid!"
He gulped down half a tumbler of whisky and soda to hide his feelings.
"And you"ve been doing all this while I"ve been making a howling fool of myself! Look here, Simon, you were right all along the line--from the very first when you tackled me about Lola. Do you remember?"
"Why refer to it?" I asked.
"I must!" he burst in quickly. "I"ve been longing to put myself square with you. By the way, where is Lola?"
"I don"t know," said I with grim truthfulness.
"Don"t know? Has she vanished?"
"Yes," said I.
"That"s the end of it, I suppose. Poor Lola! She was an awfully good sort you know!" said Dale, "and I won"t deny I was. .h.i.t. That"s when I came such a cropper. But I realise now how right you were. I was just caught by the senses, nothing else; and when she wrote to say it was all off between us my vanity suffered--suffered d.a.m.nably, old chap. I lost the election through it. Didn"t attend to business. That brought me to my senses. Then Essendale took me away yachting, and I had a quiet time to think; and after that I somehow took to seeing more of Maisie. You know how things happen. And I"m jolly grateful to you, old chap. You"ve saved me from G.o.d knows what complications! After all, good sort as Lola is, it"s rot for a man to go outside his own cla.s.s, isn"t it?"
"It depends upon the man--and also the woman," said I, beginning to derive peculiar torture from the conversation.
Dale shook his wise head. "It never comes off," said he. After a pause he laughed aloud. "Don"t you remember the lecture you gave me? My word, you did talk! You produced a string of ghastly instances where the experiment had failed. Let me see, who was there, Paget, Merridew, Bullen. Ha! Ha! No, I"m well out of it, old chap--thanks to you."