"It"s Miss Elsie April."
"Do you mean to say, Marrier," complained Edward Henry, "that you"ve known Miss Elsie April all these months and never told me? ... There aren"t two, I suppose? It"s the cousin or something of Rose Euclid?"
Mr. Marrier nodded. "The fact is," he said, "she and I are joint honorary organising secretaries for the annual conference of the Azure Society. You know, it leads the New Thought movement in England."
"You never told me that either."
"Didn"t I, sir? I didn"t think it would interest you. Besides, both Miss April and I are comparatively new members."
"Oh!" said Edward Henry with all the canny provincial"s conviction of his own superior shrewdness; and he repeated, so as to intensify this conviction and impress it on others, "Oh!" In the undergrowth of his mind was the thought: "How dare this man, whose brains belong to me, be the organising secretary of something that I don"t know anything about and don"t want to know anything about?"
"Yes," said Mr. Marrier modestly.
"I say," Edward Henry enquired warmly, with an impulsive gesture, "who is she?"
"Who is she?" repeated Mr. Marrier blankly.
"Yes. What does she do?"
"Doesn"t do anything," said Mr. Marrier. "Very good amateur actress.
Goes about a great deal. Her mother was on the stage. Married a wealthy wholesale corset-maker."
"Who did? Miss April?" Edward Henry had a twinge.
"No; her mother. Both parents are dead, and Miss April has an income--a considerable income."
"What do you call considerable?"
"Five or six thousand a year."
"The deuce!" murmured Edward Henry.
"May have lost a bit of it, of course," Mr. Marrier hedged. "But not much, not much!"
"Well," said Edward Henry, smiling. "What about _my_ tea? Am I to have tea all by myself?"
"Will you come down and meet her?" Mr. Marrier"s expression approached the wistful.
"Well," said Edward Henry, "it"s an idea, isn"t it? Why should I be the only person in London who doesn"t know Miss Elsie April?"
It was ten minutes past four when they descended into the electric publicity of the Grand Babylon. Amid the music and the rattle of crockery and the gliding waiters and the large nodding hats that gathered more and more thickly round the tables, there was no sign of Elsie April.
"She may have been and gone away again," said Edward Henry, apprehensive.
"Oh, no! She wouldn"t go away." Mr. Marrier was positive.
In the tone of a man with an income of two hundred pounds a week he ordered a table to be prepared for three.
At ten minutes to five he said:
"I hope she _hasn"t_ been and gone away again!"
Edward Henry began to be gloomy and resentful. The crowded and fact.i.tious gaiety of the place actually annoyed him. If Elsie April had been and gone away again, he objected to such silly feminine conduct.
If she was merely late, he equally objected to such unconscionable inexact.i.tude. He blamed Mr. Marrier. He considered that he had the right to blame Mr. Marrier because he paid him three pounds a week. And he very badly wanted his tea.
Then their four eyes, which for forty minutes had scarcely left the entrance staircase, were rewarded. She came in furs, gleaming white kid gloves, gold chains, a gold bag, and a black velvet hat.
"I"m not late, am I?" she said after the introduction.
"No," they both replied. And they both meant it. For she was like fine weather. The forty minutes of waiting were forgotten, expunged from the records of time, just as the memory of a month of rain is obliterated by one splendid sunny day.
IV.
Edward Henry enjoyed the tea, which was bad, to an extraordinary degree.
He became uplifted in the presence of Miss Elsie April; whereas Mr.
Marrier, strangely, drooped to still deeper depths of unaccustomed inert melancholy. Edward Henry decided that she was every bit as piquant, challenging, and delectable as he had imagined her to be on the day when he ate an artichoke at the next table to hers at Wilkins"s. She coincided exactly with his remembrance of her, except that she was now slightly more plump. Her contours were effulgent--there was no other word. Beautiful she was not, for she had a turned-up nose; but what charm she radiated! Every movement and tone enchanted Edward Henry. He was enchanted not at intervals, by a chance gesture, but all the time--when she was serious, when she smiled, when she fingered her teacup, when she pushed her furs back over her shoulders, when she spoke of the weather, when she spoke of the social crisis, and when she made fun, with a certain brief absence of restraint, rather in her artichoke manner of making fun.
He thought and believed:
"This is the finest woman I ever saw!" He clearly perceived the inferiority of other women, whom nevertheless he admired and liked, such as the Countess of Ch.e.l.l and Lady Woldo.
It was not her brains, nor her beauty, nor her stylishness that affected him. No! It was something mysterious and dizzying that resided in every particle of her individuality.
He thought:
"I"ve often and often wanted to see her again. And now I"m having tea with her!" And he was happy.
"Have you got that list, Mr. Marrier?" she asked in her low and thrilling voice. So saying, she raised her eyebrows in expectation--a delicious effect, especially behind her half-raised white veil.
Mr. Marrier produced a doc.u.ment.
"But that"s _my_ list!" said Edward Henry.
"Your list?"
"I"d better tell you." Mr. Marrier essayed a rapid explanation. "Mr.
Machin wanted a list of the raight sort of people to ask to the corner-stone-laying of his theatah. So I used this as a basis."
Elsie April smiled again. "Ve-ry good!" she approved.
"What is your list, Marrier?" asked Edward Henry.
It was Elsie who replied:
"People to be invited to the dramatic _soiree_ of the Azure Society. We give six a year. No t.i.tle is announced. n.o.body except a committee of three knows even the name of the author of the play that is to be performed. Everything is kept a secret. Even the author doesn"t know that his play has been chosen. Don"t you think it"s a delightful idea?