I remembered. "The crime," said I, "has lain heavily on my conscience."
"I don"t believe a word of it," she laughed, dismissing me with a bow. I raised my hat and joined Carlotta.
It was a Miss Gascoigne, a flirtatious intimate of Aunt Jessica"s house.
To this irresponsible young woman I had openly avowed that I was the guardian of a beautiful Mohammedan whose religious instinct compelled her to destroy little dogs. I shall hear of this from my Aunt Jessica.
I walked stonily away with Carlotta.
"You are cross with me," she whimpered.
"Yes, I am. You might have killed the poor little beast. It was very wicked and cruel of you."
Carlotta burst out crying in the midst of the promenade.
The tears did not romantically come into her eyes as they had done an hour before; but she wept copiously, after the unrestrained manner of children, and used her pocket-handkerchief. From their seats women put up their lorgnons to look at her, pa.s.sers-by turned round and stared.
The whole of the gaily dressed throng seemed to be one amused gaze. In"
a moment or two I became conscious that reprehensory glances were being directed towards myself, calling me, as plain as eyes could call, an ill-conditioned brute, for making the poor young creature, who was at my mercy, thus break down in public. It was a charming situation for an even-tempered philosopher. We walked stolidly on, I glaring in front of me and Carlotta weeping. The malice of things arranged that ne.
neighbouring chair should be vacant, and that the path should be unusually crowded. I had the satisfaction of hearing a young fellow say to a girl:
"He? That"s Ordeyne--came into the baronetcy--mad as a dingo dog."
I was giving myself a fine advertis.e.m.e.nt.
"For heaven"s sake stop crying," I said. Then a memory of far-off childhood flashed its inspiration upon me. "If you don"t," I added, grimly, "I"ll take you out and give you to a policeman."
The effect was magical. She turned on me a scared look, gasped, pulled down her veil, which she had raised so as to dab her eyes with her pocket-handkerchief, and incontinently checked the fountain of her tears.
"A policeman?"
"Yes," said I, "a great, big, ugly blue policeman, who shuts up people who misbehave themselves in prison, and takes off their clothes, and shaves their heads, and feeds them on bread and water."
"I won"t cry any more," she said, swallowing a sob. "Is it also wicked to cry?"
"Any of these ladies here would sooner be burned alive with dyspepsia or cut in two with tight-lacing," I replied severely. "Let us sit down."
We stepped over the low iron rail, and pa.s.sing through the first two rows of people, found seats behind where the crowd was thinner.
"Is Seer Marcous still angry with me?" asked Carlotta, and the simple plaintiveness of her voice would have melted the bust of Nero. I lectured her on cruelty to animals. That one had duties of kindness towards the lower creation appealed to her as a totally new idea.
Supposing the dog had broken all its legs and ribs, would she not have been sorry? She answered frankly in the negative. It was a nasty little dog. If she had hurt it badly, so much the better. What did it matter if a dog was hurt? She was sorry now she had hurled it into s.p.a.ce, because it belonged to my friends, and that had made me cross with her.
Of course I was shocked at the thoughtless cruelty of the action; but my anger had also its roots in dismay at the public scandal it might have caused, and in the discovery that I was known to the victim"s owner.
It is the sad fate of the instructors of youth that they must hypocritically credit themselves with only the sublimest of motives. I spoke to Carlotta like the good father in the "Swiss Family Robinson." I gave vent to such n.o.ble sentiments that in a quarter of an hour I glowed with pride in my borrowed plumes of virtue. I would have taken a slug to my bosom and addressed a rattlesnake as Uncle Toby did the fly. I wonder whether it is not through some such process as this that parsons manage to keep themselves good.
The soothing warmth of conscious merit restored me to good temper; and when Carlotta slid her hand into mine and asked me if I had forgiven her, I magnanimously a.s.sured her that all the past was forgotten.
"Only," said I, "you will have to get out of this habit of tears. A wise man called Burton says in his "Anatomy of Melancholy," a beautiful book which I"ll give you to read when you are sixty, "As much count may be taken of a woman weeping as a goose going barefoot.""
"He was a nasty old man," said Carlotta. "Women cry because they feel very unhappy. Men are never unhappy, and that is the reason that men don"t cry. My mamma used to cry all the time at Alexandretta; but Hamdi!--" she broke into an adorable trill of a chuckle, "You would as soon see a goose going with boots and stockings, like the Puss in the shoes--the fairy tale--as Hamdi crying. _Hou_!"
Half an hour later, as we were driving homewards, she broke a rather long silence which she had evidently been employing in meditation.
"Seer Marcous."
"Yes?"
She has a child"s engaging way of rubbing herself up against one when she wants to be particularly ingratiating.
"It was so nice to dine with you on Sat.u.r.day."
"Really?"
"Oh, ye-es. When are you going to let me dine with you again, to show me you have forgiven me?"
A hansom cab offers peculiar facilities for the aforesaid process of ingratiation.
"You shall dine with me this evening," said I, and Carlotta cooed with pleasure.
I perceive that she is gradually growing westernised.
July 8th.
In obedience to a peremptory note from Judith, I took Carlotta this afternoon to Tottenham Mansions. I shook hands with my hostess, turned round and said
"This, my dear Judith, is Carlotta."
"I am very pleased to see you," said Judith.
"So am I," replied Carlotta, not to be outdone in politeness.
She sat bolt upright, most correctly, on the edge of a chair, and responded monosyllabically to Judith"s questions. Her demeanour could not have been more impeccable had she been trained in a French convent.
Just before we arrived, she had been laughing immoderately because I had ordered her to spit out a ma.s.s of horrible sweetmeat which she had found it impossible to masticate, and she had challenged me to extract it with my fingers. But now, compared with her, Saint Nitouche was a Maenad. I was entertained by Judith"s fruitless efforts to get behind this wall of reserve. Carlotta said, "Oh, ye-es" or "No-o" to everything. It was not a momentous conversation. As it was Carlotta in whom Judith was particularly interested, I effaced myself. At last, after a lull in the spasmodic talk, Carlotta said, very politely:
"Mrs. Mainwaring has a beautiful house."
"It"s only a tiny flat. Would you like to look over it?" asked Judith, eagerly, flashing me a glance that plainly said, "Now that I shall have her to myself, you may trust me to get to the bottom of her."
"I would like it very much," said Carlotta, rising.
I held the door open for them to pa.s.s out, and lit a cigarette.
When they returned ten minutes afterwards, Carlotta was smiling and self-possessed, evidently very well pleased with herself, but Judith had a red spot on each of her cheeks.
The sight of her smote me with an odd new feeling of pity. I cannot dismiss the vision from my mind. All the evening I have seen the two women standing side by side, a piteous parable. The light from the window shone full upon them, and the dark curtain of the door was an effective background. The one flaunted the sweet insolence of youth, health, colour, beauty; of the bud just burst into full flower. The other wore the stamp of care, of the much knowledge wherein is much sorrow, and in her eyes dwelled the ghosts of dead years. She herself looked like a ghost-dressed in white pique, which of itself drew the colour from her white face and pale lips and ma.s.s of faint straw-coloured hair, the pallor of all which was accentuated by the red spots on her cheeks and her violet eyes.
I saw that something had occurred to vex her.
"Before we go," I said, "I should like a word with you. Carlotta will not mind."
We went into the dining-room. I took her hand which was cold, in spite of the July warmth.