"Not often. Sometimes a St. Ursula girl gets a room in the town for me.
I have coached two or three of them at little reading parties. It gets one out of town in autumn: Bloomsbury in August is not very fresh. And at Oxford one can "tout," or "cadge," for a little work. But there are so many of us."
"What are you busy with just now?"
"Vatican transcripts at the Record Office."
"Any exciting secrets?"
"Oh no, only how much the priests here paid to Rome for their promotions.
Secrets then perhaps: not thrilling now."
"No schemes to poison people?"
"Not yet: no plots for novels, and oh, such long-winded pontifical Latin, and such awful crabbed hands."
"It does not seem to lead to much?"
"To nothing, in no way. But one is glad to get anything."
"Jephson, of Lincoln, whom I used to know, is doing a book on the Knights of St. John in their Relations to the Empire," said Merton.
"Is he?" said Miss Willoughby, after a scarcely distinguishable but embarra.s.sed pause, and she turned from Merton to exhibit an interest in the very original scheme of mural decoration behind her.
"It is quite a new subject to most people," said Merton, and he mentally ticked off Miss Willoughby as safe, for Jephson, whom he had heard that she liked, was a very poor man, living on his fellowship and coaching. He was sorry: he had never liked or trusted Jephson.
"It is a subject sure to create a sensation, isn"t it?" asked Miss Willoughby, a little paler than before.
"It might get a man a professorship," said Merton.
"There are so many of us, of them, I mean," said Miss Willoughby, and Merton gave a small sigh. "Not much larkiness here," he thought, and asked a transient waiter for champagne.
Miss Willoughby drank a little of the wine: the colour came into her face.
"By Jove, she"s awfully handsome," thought Merton.
"It was very kind of you to ask me to this festival," said the girl. "Why have you asked us, me at least?"
"Perhaps for many besides the obvious reason," said Merton. "You may be told later."
"Then there is a reason in addition to that which most people don"t find obvious? Have you come into a fortune?"
"No, but I am coming. My ship is on the sea and my boat is on the sh.o.r.e."
"I see faces that I know. There is that tall handsome girl, Miss Markham, with real gold hair, next Mr. Logan. We used to call her the Venus of Milo, or Milo for short, at St. Ursula"s. She has mantles and things tried on her at Madame Claudine"s, and stumpy purchasers argue from the effect (neglecting the cause) that the things will suit _them_.
Her people were ruined by Australian gold mines. And there is Miss Martin, who does stories for the penny story papers at a shilling the thousand words. The fathers have backed horses, and the children"s teeth are set on edge. Is it a Neo-Christian dinner? We are all so poor. You have sought us in the highways and hedges."
"Where the wild roses grow," said Merton.
"I don"t know many of the men, though I see faces that one used to see in the High. There is Mr. Yorker, the athletic man. What is he doing now?"
"He is sub-vice-secretary of a cricket club. His income depends on his bat and his curl from leg. But he has a rich aunt."
"Cricket does not lead to much, any more than my ability to read the worst handwritings of the darkest ages. Who is the man that the beautiful lady opposite is making laugh so?" asked Miss Willoughby, without moving her lips.
Merton wrote "Bulstrode of Trinity" on the back of the menu.
"What does _he_ do?"
"Nothing," said Merton in a low voice. "Been alligator farming, or ostrich farming, or ranching, and come back shorn; they all come back. He wants to be an ecclesiastical "chucker out," and cope with Mr. Kensitt and Co. New profession."
"He ought not to be here. He can ride and shoot."
"He is the only son of his mother and she is a widow."
"He ought to go out. My only brother is out. I wish I were a man. I hate dawdlers." She looked at him: her eyes were large and grey under black lashes, they were dark and louring.
"Have you, by any chance, a spark of the devil in you?" asked Merton, taking a social header.
"I have been told so, and sometimes thought so," said Miss Willoughby.
"Perhaps this one will go out by fasting if not by prayer. Yes, I _have_ a spark of the Accuser of the Brethren."
"_Tant mieux_," thought Merton.
All the people were talking and laughing now. Miss Maskelyne told a story to the table. She did a trick with a wine gla.s.s, forks, and a cork. Logan interviewed Miss Martin, who wrote tales for the penny fiction people, on her methods. Had she a moral aim, a purpose? Did she create her characters first, and let them evolve their fortunes, or did she invent a plot, and make her characters fit in?
Miss Martin said she began with a situation: "I wish I could get one somewhere as secretary to a man of letters."
"They can"t afford secretaries," said Logan. "Besides they are family men, married men, and so--"
"And so what?"
"Go look in any gla.s.s, and say," said Logan, laughing. "But how do you begin with a situation?"
"Oh, anyhow. A lot of men in a darkened room. Pitch dark."
"A seance?"
"No, a conspiracy. They are in the dark that when arrested they may swear they never saw each other."
"They could swear that anyhow."
"Conspirators have consciences. Then there comes a red light shining between the door and the floor. Then the door breaks down under a hammer, the light floods the room. There is a man in it whom the others never saw enter."
"How did he get in?"
"He was there before they came. Then the fighting begins. At the end of it where is the man?"
"Well, where is he? What was he up to?"