"I beg your pardon?"
"A Cheops--of the Fourth Dynasty."
Lord Emsworth began to feel like a hunted stag. He could not go on saying "Ah!" indefinitely; yet what else was there to say to this curious little beastly sort of a beetle kind of thing?
"Dear me! A Cheops!"
"Of the Fourth Dynasty!"
"Bless my soul! The Fourth Dynasty!"
"What do you think of that--eh?"
Strictly speaking, Lord Emsworth thought nothing of it; and he was wondering how to veil this opinion in diplomatic words, when the providence that looks after all good men saved him by causing a knock at the door to occur. In response to Mr. Peters"
irritated cry a maid entered.
"If you please, sir, Mr. Threepwood wishes to speak with you on the telephone."
Mr. Peters turned to his guest. "Excuse me for one moment."
"Certainly," said Lord Emsworth gratefully. "Certainly, certainly, certainly! By all means."
The door closed behind Mr. Peters. Lord Emsworth was alone. For some moments he stood where he had been left, a figure with small signs of alertness about it. But Mr. Peters did not return immediately. The booming of his voice came faintly from some distant region. Lord Emsworth strolled to the window and looked out.
The sun still shone brightly on the quiet street. Across the road were trees. Lord Emsworth was fond of trees; he looked at these approvingly. Then round the corner came a vagrom man, wheeling flowers in a barrow.
Flowers! Lord Emsworth"s mind shot back to Blandings like a homing pigeon. Flowers! Had he or had he not given Head Gardener Thorne adequate instructions as to what to do with those hydrangeas? a.s.suming that he had not, was Thorne to be depended on to do the right thing by them by the light of his own intelligence? Lord Emsworth began to brood on Head Gardener Thorne.
He was aware of some curious little object in his hand. He accorded it a momentary inspection. It had no message for him.
It was probably something; but he could not remember what. He put it in his pocket and returned to his meditations.
At about the hour when the Earl of Emsworth was driving to keep his appointment with Mr. Peters, a party of two sat at a corner table at Simpson"s Restaurant, in the Strand. One of the two was a small, pretty, good-natured-looking girl of about twenty; the other, a thick-set young man, with a wiry crop of red-brown hair and an expression of mingled devotion and determination. The girl was Aline Peters; the young man"s name was George Emerson. He, also, was an American, a rising member in a New York law firm. He had a strong, square face, with a dogged and persevering chin.
There are all sorts of restaurants in London, from the restaurant which makes you fancy you are in Paris to the restaurant which makes you wish you were. There are palaces in Piccadilly, quaint lethal chambers in Soho, and strange food factories in Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. There are restaurants which specialize in ptomaine and restaurants which specialize in sinister vegetable messes. But there is only one Simpson"s.
Simpson"s, in the Strand, is unique. Here, if he wishes, the Briton may for the small sum of half a dollar stupefy himself with food. The G.o.d of fatted plenty has the place under his protection. Its keynote is solid comfort.
It is a pleasant, soothing, hearty place--a restful temple of food. No strident orchestra forces the diner to bolt beef in ragtime. No long central aisle distracts his attention with its stream of new arrivals. There he sits, alone with his food, while white-robed priests, wheeling their smoking trucks, move to and fro, ever ready with fresh supplies.
All round the room--some at small tables, some at large tables --the worshipers sit, in their eyes that resolute, concentrated look which is the peculiar property of the British luncher, ex-President Roosevelt"s man-eating fish, and the American army worm.
Conversation does not flourish at Simpson"s. Only two of all those present on this occasion showed any disposition toward chattiness. They were Aline Peters and her escort.
"The girl you ought to marry," Aline was saying, "is Joan Valentine."
"The girl I am going to marry," said George Emerson, "is Aline Peters."
For answer, Aline picked up from the floor beside her an ill.u.s.trated paper and, having opened it at a page toward the end, handed it across the table.
George Emerson glanced at it disdainfully. There were two photographs on the page. One was of Aline; the other of a heavy, loutish-looking youth, who wore that expression of pained gla.s.siness which Young England always adopts in the face of a camera.
Under one photograph were printed the words: "Miss Aline Peters, who is to marry the Honorable Frederick Threepwood in June"; under the other: "The Honorable Frederick Threepwood, who is to marry Miss Aline Peters in June." Above the photographs was the legend: "Forthcoming International Wedding. Son of the Earl of Emsworth to marry American heiress." In one corner of the picture a Cupid, draped in the Stars and Stripes, aimed his bow at the gentleman; in the other another Cupid, clad in a natty Union Jack, was drawing a bead on the lady.
The subeditor had done his work well. He had not been ambiguous.
What he intended to convey to the reader was that Miss Aline Peters, of America, was going to marry the Honorable Frederick Threepwood, son of the Earl of Emsworth; and that was exactly the impression the average reader got.
George Emerson, however, was not an average reader. The subeditor"s work did not impress him.
"You mustn"t believe everything you see in the papers," he said.
"What are the stout children in the one-piece bathing suits supposed to be doing?"
"Those are Cupids, George, aiming at us with their little bow-- a pretty and original idea."
"Why Cupids?"
"Cupid is the G.o.d of love."
"What has the G.o.d of love got to do with it?"
Aline placidly devoured a fried potato. "You"re simply trying to make me angry," she said; "and I call it very mean of you. You know perfectly well how fatal it is to get angry at meals. It was eating while he was in a bad temper that ruined father"s digestion. George, that nice, fat carver is wheeling his truck this way. Flag him and make him give me some more of that mutton."
George looked round him morosely.
"This," he said, "is England--this restaurant, I mean. You don"t need to go any farther. Just take a good look at this place and you have seen the whole country and can go home again. You may judge a country by its meals. A people with imagination will eat with imagination. Look at the French; look at ourselves, The Englishman loathes imagination. He goes to a place like this and says: "Don"t bother me to think. Here"s half a dollar. Give me food--any sort of food--until I tell you to stop." And that"s the principle on which he lives his life. "Give me anything, and don"t bother me!" That"s his motto."
"If that was meant to apply to Freddie and me, I think you"re very rude. Do you mean that any girl would have done for him, so long as it was a girl?"
George Emerson showed a trace of confusion. Being honest with himself, he had to admit that he did not exactly know what he did mean--if he meant anything. That, he felt rather bitterly, was the worst of Aline. She would never let a fellow"s good things go purely as good things; she probed and questioned and spoiled the whole effect. He was quite sure that when he began to speak he had meant something, but what it was escaped him for the moment.
He had been urged to the homily by the fact that at a neighboring table he had caught sight of a stout young Briton, with a red face, who reminded him of the Honorable Frederick Threepwood. He mentioned this to Aline.
"Do you see that fellow in the gray suit--I think he has been sleeping in it--at the table on your right? Look at the stodgy face. See the gla.s.sy eye. If that man sandbagged your Freddie and tied him up somewhere, and turned up at the church instead of him, can you honestly tell me you would know the difference?
Come, now, wouldn"t you simply say, "Why, Freddie, how natural you look!" and go through the ceremony without a suspicion?"
"He isn"t a bit like Freddie."
"My dear girl, there isn"t a man in this restaurant under the age of thirty who isn"t just like Freddie. All Englishmen look exactly alike, talk exactly alike, and think exactly alike."
"And you oughtn"t to speak of him as Freddie. You don"t know him."
"Yes, I do. And, what is more, he expressly asked me to call him Freddie. "Oh, dash it, old top, don"t keep on calling me Threepwood! Freddie to pals!" Those were his very words."
"George, you"re making this up."
"Not at all. We met last night at the National Sporting Club.
Porky Jones was going twenty rounds with Eddie Flynn. I offered to give three to one on Eddie. Freddie, who was sitting next to me, took me in fivers. And if you want any further proof of your young man"s pin-headedness; mark that! A child could have seen that Eddie had him going. Eddie comes from Pittsburgh--G.o.d bless it! My own home town!"