"Let me see," said Lady Durwent as the meal came to a close and the butler looked questioningly at her. "Shall we"--she opened the caverns of her throat, producing a volume that instantly silenced every one--"SHALL WE HAVE COFFEE IN HERE OR IN THE DRAWING-ROOM? I suppose you gentlemen, as usual, want to chat over your port and cigars alone."
H. Stackton Dunckley protested that absence from the ladies, even for so short a time, would completely spoil his evening--receiving in reward a languorous glance from Lady Durwent. Johnston Smyth, who had done more than ample justice to the wines, offered to "pink" at fifty yards any man who would consider the proposition for a moment. Only Norton Pyford, in a sort of befuddled gallantry, suggested that the ladies might have sentimental confidences to exchange, and leered amorously at Elise Durwent.
"Well," said Lady Durwent, "I am sure we are all curious to hear what Mr. Selwyn thinks of England, so I think we shall have coffee here. Is it agreeable to every one?"
Unanimous approval greeted the proposal, and, at a sign from the hostess, cigarettes, cigars, and coffee made their appearance, with the corresponding niceties of "Just one, please," "Well, perhaps a cigarette might be enjoyable," "I know men like a cigar," "After you, old man," and all those various utterances which tickle the ear, creating in the speaker"s breast the feeling of saying the right thing and doing it rather well.
Throughout the dinner the daughter of the house had sat practically without a remark, and even when chorus effects were achieved by the rest, remained with almost immobile features, merely glancing from one to another, momentarily interested or openly bored. Several times the American had looked furtively at the arresting face, marred by too apparent mental resentment, but the barricade of Johnston Smyth"s angular personality had been too powerful for him to surmount with anything but the most superficial persiflage.
He had watched her take a cigarette, accepting a light from Smyth, who surrounded the action with a ludicrous dignity, when she looked up and met his eyes.
"Mr. Selwyn," she said, speaking with the same rapidity of phrasing that had both held and exasperated him before, "we are all waiting for the verdict of the Man from America."
"Over there," he smiled, "it is customary to take evidence before giving a verdict."
"Good," boomed the resolutionist; "very good!"
"Then," said Lady Durwent, "we seven shall const.i.tute a jury."
"Order!" Johnston Smyth rose to his feet and hammered the table with a bottle. "_Oyez, oyez_, you hereby swear that you shall well and truly try"----
"Can"t," said Norton Pyford, pulling himself up; "I"m prejudiced."
"For or against?"
"Against the culprit."
"My discordant friend," said Smyth, producing a second bottle from an unsuspected source and making it disappear mysteriously, "means that he is prejudiced against England. Am I right, sir?"
"Not exactly," drawled the composer. "I don"t mind England--but I think the English are awful."
"That is a nice point," said Lady Durwent.
"Ah," broke in Madame Carlotti, "but, much as I detest the English, I hate England more. _Nom de Dieu_! I--a daughter of the Mediterranean, where the sun ees so rarely a stranger, and the sky and the water it ees always blue. In Italy one lives because she ees alive--it ees sufficient. Here it ees always gray, gray--always g-r-ray. When the sun comes--_sacramento_! he sees his mistake and goes queek away. Ah, Signor Selwyn, it ees _desolant_ that I am compelled to live here."
A roar of unfeeling laughter greeting her familiar plaint, Madame Carlotti took a hitch in her gown and reimprisoned some of her person which had escaped from custody.
"Then," said Johnston Smyth, "if we are all of a mind, there is no need to have a trial. You have all seen the accusation in Mr. Selwyn"s eye, you have considered the unbia.s.sed evidence of the lovely Carlotti"----
"But jurors can"t give evidence," muttered Mr. Dunckley.
"My dear sir, I know she can"t, but she did," said Smyth triumphantly.
"_Oyez, oyez_--all in favour"----
"But," interrupted the American, "are we not to hear any one for the defence?"
"No," said Smyth, who was thoroughly happy as a self-const.i.tuted master of ceremonies. "No one would accept the brief."
"Then," said Selwyn, "I apply for the post of counsel for the defence, for in the limited time I have been in your country I have seen much that appeals to me."
"Of course, it is a well-known fact," said Dunckley sententiously, "that American humour relies on exaggeration."
"No, no," said Johnston Smyth, hushing the voices with a _pianissimo_ movement of his hands, "it is not humour on Mr. Selwyn"s part, but grat.i.tude. In return for Christopher Columbus discovering America, this gentleman is going to repay the debt of the New World to the Old by discovering England."
"SHALL WE HAVE SOME PORT?" said Lady Durwent, opening the sluice-gates of her vocal production.
II.
"Speaking of America," said Mrs. Le Roy Jennings a few minutes later, Johnston Smyth having sat down in order to do justice to the wine of Portugal, "she is in the very vanguard of progress. Women have achieved an independence there unknown elsewhere in the world."
"That is true," said Lady Durwent, who knew nothing whatever about it.
"You are right," said Madame Carlotti.
"The other day in Paris I heard an American woman whistling. "Have you lost your dog?" I asked. "No," she says; "my husband.""
A chorus of approval greeted this malicious sally, followed by the retailing of various anti-American anecdotes that made up in sting what they lacked in delicacy. These showed no signs of abatement until, slightly nettled, Selwyn put in an oar.
"I had hoped," he said, "to find some illuminating points in the conversation to-night. But it seems as if you treat not only your own country in a spirit of caricature, but mine as well. We are a very young race, and we have the faults of youth; but, then, youth always has a future. It was a sort of post-graduate course to come to England and Europe to absorb some of the lore--or isn"t it one of your poets who speaks of "The Spoils of Time"? Your past is so rich that naturally we look to you and Europe for the fundamental things of civilisation."
"And what have you found?" asked Elise Durwent.
"Well," said the American, "much to admire--and much to deplore."
"In other words," said Johnston Smyth, "he has been to Edinburgh and to London."
"That is so," smiled Selwyn; "but I don"t"----
"All people," said Smyth serenely, "admire Edinburgh, but abuse London.
Over here a man will jest about his religion or even his grandfather, but never about Edinburgh. On the other hand, as every one d.a.m.ns London, and as an Englishman is never so happy as when he has something on hand to grouse about, London"s population has grown to some eight millions."
"I think, Mr. Smyth," said Lady Durwent, "that you are as much a philosopher as a painter."
"Lady Durwent," said the futurist, "all art is philosophy--even old Pyford"s here, though his amounts almost to theology."
For a few minutes the conversation drifted in inconsequential channels until H. Stackton Dunckley becalmed everything with a laborious dissertation on the lack of literary taste in both England and America.
Selwyn took the opportunity of studying the elusive beauty of Elise Durwent, which seemed to provoke the eye to admiration, yet fade into imperfection under a prolonged searching. Pyford grew sleepy, and even Smyth appeared a little melancholy, when, on a signal from Lady Durwent, brandy and liqueurs were served, checking Mr. Dunckley"s oratory and reviving every one"s spirits noticeably.
"Mr. Selwyn," said Mrs. Le Roy Jennings in her best manner, "after you have subjected England to a microscopic examination for a sufficient length of time, you will discover that we are a nation of parasites."
"I would rather you said that than I, Mrs. Jennings."
"Parasites," reiterated the speaker, fixing an eye on some point on the wall directly between Selwyn and the hostess. "We sprawl over the world--why? To develop resources? No! It is to reap the natural growth of others" endeavours? Yes! The Englishman never creates. He is the world"s greatest brigand"----
"Too thoroughly masculine to be really cruel," chimed in the irrepressible Smyth.
"Brigand," repeated Mrs. Jennings, not deigning the artist so much as a glance, "skimming the earth of its surface riches, and rendering every place the poorer for his being there."