"Jack Waring of New College? I"ve known him all my life. They"re neighbours of ours in Hampshire. You know he"s missing?"
Barbara nodded quickly.
"So I heard. . . . I suppose nothing definite"s known?"
"I haven"t met any of the family since the news was published, but I shall see his sister this week-end."
"Well, if you can find out anything without too much bother----"
"Oh, she"s a great friend of mine," Eric explained. "It"s no trouble."
Barbara turned to him with a rapid backward cast to her earlier quest.
"Are you in love with her? Oh, but why not?" she demanded querulously.
"It would do you so much good--as a man and as a writer. You"ll never get rid of your self-satisfaction till then; and you"ll never write a good play. It"s such a pity, when you"ve everything except the psychology. Why don"t you fall in love with me? I could teach you such a lot, and you"d never regret it." Barbara caught her hostess" eye and picked up her gloves. "You"d write a tolerable play in the middle of it, a work of genius at the end----"
Eric"s laugh interrupted her eager outpour.
"I"m quite satisfied to be an observer of life."
"Dear child, you"re quite satisfied with _every_thing. You"re sunk in soulless contentment; you shirk emotion because it would force you to see below the pink-and-white surface; that"s why you write such bad plays. Margaret!" She approached Lady Poynter with outstretched arms.
"I"ve argued myself hoa.r.s.e trying to persuade Mr. Lane to fall in love with me. Do see what you can do! He shews all the obstinacy of a young, weak man; he won"t _see_ how much I should improve him. When he"d learnt life at my hands----"
Lady Poynter threw a crushing arm round the girl"s waist.
"Come on, Babs. You"re looking better than you did," she said. "I _told_ you you"d fall in love with him," she added, as they walked upstairs.
"There"s nothing much the matter with Babs," commented Gaymer meaningly, as he shut the door and settled into a chair beside Lord Poynter.
4
As Barbara"s voice faded and died away, an air of guilty quiet settled upon the dining-room. Eric tidied himself a place among her wreckage of crumpled napkin, sloppy finger-bowl, nut-sh.e.l.ls and cigarette-ash. For ten minutes he could rest; conversation with either of his companions threatened to be as difficult as it was unnecessary. John Gaymer, in upbringing, intellect, habits of mind and method of speech, belonged to a self-centred world which cheerfully defied subjugation by a brigade of Byrons, reinforced by a division of Wesleys and an army of Rousseaus; for him there was one school and no other, one college and no other, one regiment, club, restaurant, music-hall, tailor, hairdresser and no other. Eric was always meeting John Gaymers and never penetrating below the sleek, well-bred and uninterested exterior; they were politely repellent, as though an intrusion from outside would disturb their serenity and the advantageous bargain which they had struck with life; it might cause them to think, and thought was a synonym of death. The Flying Corps, at first sight, was an una.s.similating environment for a John Gaymer, but this one had not gone in alone and he had certainly not been a.s.similated. A closely knit and self-isolated group had formed itself there, as it could be trusted to form itself in a house-party or under the shadow of the guillotine, genially unapproachable and uncaringly envied.
To shew his fairness and breadth of mind Eric tested the specimen under his hand with politics, the war and a current libel action, only to be rewarded at the third venture. Before surrendering to his desire for silence and rest, he glanced under lowered lids at his host"s blue-tinged, loosely-hanging cheeks. Conscientiously silent when his wife wished to discuss literature with her new discoveries, Lord Poynter became dutifully loquacious when exposed defenceless to the task of entertaining them and took refuge in gusty, nervous geniality or odd, sly confidences on matters of no moment.
"Aren"t you drinking any port wine?" he demanded of Eric after brooding indecision.
"Thank you, yes. It"s a "63, isn"t it?" Eric asked, as he helped himself and pa.s.sed the decanter.
Lord Poynter"s discoloured eyes shone with interest for the first time that night.
"Ah, come now! A kindred spirit!" he wheezed welcomingly. "I"ll be honest with you; I was in two minds whether to give you that wine to-night. Women don"t appreciate it, they"re not educated up to it. It was that or the Jubilee Sandeman, and I"m _not_ an admirer of the Jubilee wines. Very delicate, very _good_," he cooed, "but--well, you"ll understand me if I call them all _women"s_ wines. Now, if you _like_ port, I"ve a few bottles of "72 Gould Campbell. . . . Johnny, your grandfather would have had a fit, if he"d seen you trying to drink port wine with a cigarette in your mouth. Not that it makes much difference, when people have been smoking all the way through dinner; your palate"s tainted before you come to your wine. People pretend that it makes a difference whether you approach the tobacco through the wine or the wine through the tobacco. I don"t see it, myself. . . ."
His tongue uncoiled, he soliloquized on wines of the past and present, as the survivor of a dead generation might dwell dotingly on the great men and beautiful women of a long life-time. Empire, devolving its cares upon his shoulders, enabled him--as he explained with sly gusto--to secure that there should be no inharmonious inruption of coffee and liqueurs until the sacred wine had been in reverent circulation for twenty minutes. Half-way through, warming to his new friend, he rang for a bottle of wood port first known to history in 1823, when it was already a middle-aged wine, and fortified from every subsequent vintage.
"I don"t say you"ll like it, but it"s an experience," he told Eric with an air of cunning, respectable conspiracy. "Like a _ve-ery_ dry sherry.
If I may advise you, I would say, "Drink it as a liqueur"; don"t waste your time on my brandy, I"m afraid I"ve none fit to offer _you_. There was a tragedy about my last bottle of the Waterloo. . . ."
He diverged into a long and untidy story about a dinner-party in honour of a late Austrian Amba.s.sador which coincided with the collapse of his wife"s maid with pneumonia. Eric, listening with half his brain, wondered whether any one would believe him if he transplanted the room, the conversation and Lord Poynter into a play; with the other half he thought of Lady Barbara"s advice that he should fall in love, if not with her, at least with somebody. His sister"s telephone message had started the train of thought; he was looking forward to the week-end and the opportunity of meeting Agnes Waring. The time would come--if there were many hosts like Lord Poynter and if they all talked "Hibernia" port and Tuileries brandy, it would come very soon--when he would grow tired of being pushed from one house to another and made to talk for the diversion of sham intellectuals. In this, at least, he had had enough of his triumphal progress; there was rest and companionship in being married, it was the greatest of all adventures. . . . He wondered how Agnes would acquit herself at a party like this; he would not like people to cease inviting him because they felt bound to invite a tiresome wife as well. . . .
Gaymer, too, was growing impatient of his uncle"s cellar Odyssey and was calling aloud for a cigar, while he scoured the side-board for Benedictine.
"They"ll be wondering where we"ve got to," said Lord Poynter guiltily, recalling his mind from a distance and lapsing into silence. And Eric felt compunction in helping to cut short the man"s one half-hour of happiness in the day.
In the drawing-room they found the four women seated at a bridge-table, disagreeing over the score. Lady Poynter archly reproached her husband and Gaymer for "monopolizing poor Mr. Lane"; there was a shuffling of feet, cutting, changing of chairs, and Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley crept to the door, whispering that she had to start work early next day or she would not dream of breaking up such a delightful party; she was promptly arrested and brought back by Mrs. O"Rane with the offer of Lady Maitland"s brougham, which was to call for her at eleven. After an exhibition of half-hearted self-effacement by all, a new four was made up, and Eric found himself contentedly alone on a sofa with Lord Poynter mid-way between him and the table, uncertain whether to watch the game or venture on more conversation. He had whispered: "I can tell you a story about that cigar you"re smoking . . .," when, at the end of the second hand, Barbara looked slowly round, pushed back her chair and walked to the sofa.
"Thinking over your wasted opportunities?" she asked, as she sat down beside Eric.
"There are none," he answered lazily. "I"ve been a great success to-night. I can see that our host won"t rest content till I"ve promised to dine here three times a week to drink his port; I"ve been good value to Lady Poynter; if I play bridge, I shall lose a lot of money to Gaymer--not that I don"t play quite a fair game, but I"m sure, without even seeing him, that he plays a diabolically good game and I know I shall cut against him. Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley? Every one"s always a success with her; talking to her is as demoralizing as cracking jokes from the Bench.
Mrs. O"Rane wants me to write her a duologue--just as one draws a rabbit for a child . . . . That only leaves you. And you capitulated more completely even than Poynter, without the "63 port as an introduction and bond."
Barbara looked at him with a dawning smile.
"I _think_ you"re the most insufferably conceited young man I"ve ever met!" she exclaimed.
"I"m adjusting the balance. If you hadn"t disparaged me the whole way through dinner. . . . Now, when you got up here, you pumped Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley with both hands for everything you could get her to tell you about me.
Didn"t you?"
"Well?"
Eric smiled to himself.
"She"s the only one here who knows me, but she didn"t tell you much."
"I shan"t say."
Three impatient voices from the bridge-table met and struggled in an unmelodious chorus of "_Babs!_ Come--here!"
She returned a moment later, but had hardly sat down before Gaymer spread out the substantial remains of his hand with a challenge of "Any one anything to say about the rest? Babs, don"t keep us waiting _again_!"
As she stood up, Eric rose, too, and said good-bye.
"I have some work to finish before I go to bed," he told her.
"Won"t you wait and see me home? Sonia O"Rane"s got a brougham, and we"ll borrow it first."
Eric laughed and shrugged his shoulders.
"Certainly, if you wish it."
"You"re not very gracious," she pouted.
"It was so transparent. You could go with Mrs. O"Rane. Or Gaymer would be delighted to find you a taxi. Or you could go on foot."
She drew herself up to her full height.
"Instead of which I humiliated myself by asking a small thing which was just big enough to give you the opportunity of being rude."