She was enchanted. It gave me the idea of setting her to read "Lamb"s Tales from Shakespeare." I was turning this over in my mind while she chewed the cud of her enjoyment, when she suddenly asked whether I would like to hear a Turkish story. She knew lots of nice, funny stories. I bade her proceed. She curled herself up in her favourite att.i.tude on the sofa and began.
I did not allow her to finish that tale. Had I done so, I should have been a monster of depravity. Compared with it the worst of Scheherazade"s, in Burton"s translation, were milk and water for a nunnery. She seemed nonplussed when I told her to stop.
"Are oriental ladies in the habit of telling such stories?" I asked.
"Why, yes," she replied with a candid air of astonishment. "It is a funny story."
"There is nothing funny whatever in it," said I. "A girl like you oughtn"t to know of the existence of such things."
"Why not?" asked Carlotta.
I am always being caught up by her questions. I tried to explain; but it was difficult. If I had told her that a maiden"s mind ought to be as pure as the dewy rose she would not have understood me. Probably she would have thought me a fool. And indeed I am inclined to question whether it is an advantage to a maiden"s after career to be dewy-roselike in her unsophistication. In order to play tunes indifferently well on the piano she undergoes the weary training of many years; but she is called upon to display the somewhat more important accomplishment of bringing children into the world without an hour"s educational preparation. The difficulty is, where to draw the line between this dewy, but often disastrous, ignorance and Carlotta"s knowledge. I find it a most delicate and embarra.s.sing problem. In fact, the problems connected with this young woman seem endless. Yet they do not disturb me as much as I had antic.i.p.ated. I really believe I should miss my pretty Persian cat. A man must be devoid of all aesthetic sense to deny that she is delightful to look at.
And she has a thousand innocent coquetries and cajoling ways. She has a manner of holding chocolate creams to her white teeth and talking to you at the same time which is peculiarly fascinating. And she must have some sense. To-night she asked me what I was writing. I replied, "A History of the Morals of the Renaissance." "What are morals and what is the Renaissance?" asked Carlotta. When you come to think of it, it is a profound question, which philosophers and historians have wasted vain lives in trying to answer. I perceive that I too must try to answer it with a certain amount of definition. I have spent the evening remodelling my Introduction, so as to define the two terms axiomatically with my subsequent argument, and I find it greatly improved. Now this is due to Carlotta.
The quant.i.ty of chocolate creams the child eats cannot be good for her digestion. I must see to this.
July 2d.
A telegram from Judith to say she postpones her return to Monday. I have been longing to see the dear woman again, and I am greatly disappointed.
At the same time it is a respite from an explanation that grows more difficult every day. I hate myself for the sense of relief.
This morning came an evening dress for Carlotta which has taken a month in the making. This, I am given to understand, is delirious speed for a London dress-maker. To celebrate the occasion I engaged a box at the Empire for this evening and invited her to dine with me. I sent a note of invitation round to Mrs. McMurray.
Carlotta did not come down at half-past seven. We waited. At last Mrs.
McMurray went up to the room and presently returned shepherding a shy, blushing, awkward, piteous young person who had evidently been crying.
My friend signed to me to take no notice. I attributed the child"s lack of gaiety to the ordeal of sitting for the first time in her life at a civilised dinner-table. She scarcely spoke and scarcely ate. I complimented her on her appearance and she looked beseechingly at me, as if I were scolding her. After dinner Mrs. McMurray told me the reason of her distress. She had found Carlotta in tears. Never could she face me in that low cut evening bodice. It outraged her modesty. It could not be the practice of European women to bare themselves so immodestly before men. It was only the evidence of her visitor"s own plump neck and shoulders that convinced her, and she suffered herself to be led downstairs in an agony of self-consciousness.
When we entered the box at the Empire, a troupe of female acrobats were doing their turn. Carlotta uttered a gasp of dismay, blushed burning red, and shrank back to the door. There is no pretence about Carlotta.
She was shocked to the roots of her being.
"They are naked!" she said, quiveringly.
"For heaven"s sake, explain," said I to Mrs. McMurray, and I beat a hasty retreat to the promenade.
When I returned, Carlotta had been soothed down. She was watching some performing dogs with intense wonderment and delight. For the rest of the evening she sat spell-bound. The exiguity of costume in the ballet caused her indeed to glance in a frightened sort of way at Mrs.
McMurray, who rea.s.sured her with a friendly smile, but the music and the maze of motion and the dazzle of colour soon held her senses captive, and when the curtain came down she sighed like one awaking from a dream.
As we drove home, she asked me:
"Is it like that all day long? Oh, please to let me live there!"
A nice English girl of eighteen would not flaunt unconcerned about my drawing-room in a shameless dressing-gown, and crinkle up her toes in front of me; still less would she tell me outrageous stories; but she will wear low-necked dresses and gaze at ladies in tights without the ghost of an immodest thought. I was right when I told Carlotta England was Alexandretta upside-down. What is immoral here is moral there, and vice-versa. There is no such thing as absolute morality. I am very glad this has happened. It shows me that Carlotta is not devoid of the better kind of feminine instincts.
CHAPTER VIII
July 4th.
Judith has come back. I have seen her and I have explained Carlotta.
All day long I felt like a respectable person about to be brought before a magistrate for being drunk and disorderly. Now I have the uneasy satisfaction of having been let off with a caution. I am innocent, but I mustn"t do it again.
As soon as I entered the room Judith embraced me, and said a number of foolish things. I responded to the best of my ability. It is not usual for our quiet lake of affection to be visited by such tornadoes.
"Oh, I am glad, I am glad to be back with you again. I have longed for you. I couldn"t write it. I did not know I could long for any one so much."
"I have missed you immensely, my dear Judith," said I.
She looked at me queerly for a moment; then with a radiant smile:
"I love you for not going into transports like a Frenchman. Oh, I am tired of Frenchmen. You are my good English Marcus, and worth all masculine Paris put together."
"I thank you, my dear, for the compliment," said I, "but surely you must exaggerate."
"To me you are worth the masculine universe," said Judith, and she seated me by her side on the sofa, held my hands, and said more foolish things.
When the tempest had abated, I laughed.
"It is you that have acquired the art of transports in Paris," said I.
"Perhaps I have. Shall I teach you?"
"You will have to learn moderation, my dear Judith," I remarked. "You have been living too rapidly of late and are looking tired."
"It is only the journey," she replied.
I am sure it is the unaccustomed dissipation. Judith is not a strong woman, and late hours and eternal gadding about do not suit her const.i.tution. She has lost weight and there are faint circles under her eyes. There are lines, too, on her face which only show in hours of physical strain. I was proceeding to expound this to her at some length, for I consider it well for women to have some one to counsel them frankly in such matters, when she interrupted me with a gesture of impatience.
"There, there! Tell me what you have been doing with yourself. Your letters gave me very little information."
"I am afraid," said I, "I am a poor letter writer."
"I read each ten times over," she said.
I kissed her hand in acknowledgment. Then I rose, lit a cigarette and walked about the room. Judith shook out her skirts and settled herself comfortably among the sofa-cushions.
"Well, what crimes have you been committing the past few weeks?"
A wandering minstrel was harping "Love"s Sweet Dream" outside the public-house below. I shut the window, hastily.
"Nothing so bad as that," said I. "He ought to be hung and his wild harp hung behind him."