Kenyon"s face was wreathed in smiles. "It can"t be done, dear lad," he said. "Your mother would be the last person on earth to permit you to be discourteous to our two distinguished Dons, and by this time in all human probability Betty will be preparing for bed."
Peter had been building all his hopes on another hour with Betty. She was leaving Oxford with his people the next afternoon and he wanted above all things, however incoherently, to let her know something of the state of his feelings. He had never been so angry with Kenyon before.
"Curse you!" he said. "You"ve spoiled everything. If you must play about with these chorus girls why can"t you do it alone? Why drag me in?"
Kenyon"s eyes narrowed. "Only the angels die young, Peter, my friend,"
he said. "As I"ve been obliged to tell you before, you stand a pretty good chance of an early demise. Have you ever heard the word "priggish"?
For a whole week I"ve played the game by you and devoted myself, lock, stock and barrel, to your family. Mere sportsmanship demands that you make some slight return to me by joining my little party to-night. Don"t you agree with me, Graham?"
Graham"s vanity was vastly appealed to by the fact that this perfect man of the world had taken him into his intimacy. Hitherto he hadn"t met English chorus girls. He rather liked the idea. "Why," he said, "I can"t see why we shouldn"t go. I"m with you, anyway. Come on, Peter. Be a sport."
But Peter held his ground. He had all the more reason for so doing because he had met Betty. "All right!" he said. "You two can do what you jolly well like. Cut me out of it. I shall turn in. If that"s being priggish--fine. Good-night!"
He wheeled round and marched off, and as he pa.s.sed beneath the windows of the Randolph Hotel he drew up short for a moment and with a touch of knightliness which was quite unself-conscious he bared his head beneath the window of the room in which he believed that Betty was to sleep, but which, as a matter of fact, harboured a short, fat, wheezy Anglo-Indian with a head as bald as a billiard ball.
Kenyon disguised his annoyance under an air of characteristic imperturbability. "Well, that"s our Peter to the life," he said, taking Graham"s eager arm. "He"s a sort of Don Quixote--a very pure and perfect person. One of these days he"s likely to come an unholy cropper, and that"s to my way of thinking what he most needs. I don"t agree with a man"s being a total abstainer in anything. It narrows him and makes him provincial. Then, too, a man who fancies himself as better than his fellows is apt to wear a halo under his hat, and that disgusting trick ruins friendship and leads to a hasty and ill-considered marriage with the first good actress who catches him on the hop and makes use of his lamentable ignorance. Come along, brother, we"ll see life together."
"Fine!" said Graham. "Me for life all the time."
So these two,--the one curiously old and the other dangerously young,--made their way to the stage door of the Theatre Royal and waited among the little crowd of undergraduates for the moment when the ladies of the chorus should have retouched their make-up and be ready for further theatricalisms.
Lottie Lawrence and Billy Seymour were the first out. The latter"s greeting was exuberant. "What-ho, Nick! Where"s the blooming giant you said you were going to bring?"
"Otherwise engaged, dear Billy; but permit me to introduce to you a financial magnate from the golden city of New York."
Billy was young and slim and so tight-skirted that her walk was almost like that of a Chinese Princess. Even under the modest light of the stage door-keeper"s box her lips gleamed crimsonly and her long eyelashes stuck out separately in black surprise. Her small round face was plastered thickly with powder. She was very alluring to the very young. Her friend had come from an exactly similar mould and might have been a twin but for her manner, which was that of the violet--the modest violet--on a river"s brim.
Kenyon hailed a cab, gave the man the address in Wellington Square and sat himself between the two girls, with an arm round each.
Billy Seymour had taken in Graham with one expert glance of minute examination. "Graham Guthrie, eh?" she said. "It smacks of Caledonia, bag-pipes and the braes and banks o" bonnie Doon. I take it your ancestors went over on the S. S. Mayflower, of the White Star Line--that gigantic vessel which followed the beckoning finger of Columbus--and started the race which invented sky-sc.r.a.pers and the cuspidors."
Graham let out a howl of laughter and told himself that he was in for a good evening, especially as the ladies" knees were very friendly.
Lottie Lawrence placed her head on Kenyon"s shoulder, sighed a little and said: "Oh, I"m so tired and so hungry; and I"ve a thirst I wouldn"t sell for a tenner."
Kenyon tightened his hold. "All those things shall be remedied, little one," he said. "Have no fear."
The first things which met their eyes when they entered the sitting-room of the sordid little house in which a series of theatricals had lodged from time immemorial, were a half-dozen bottles of champagne--sent in by Nick"s order. The two girls showed their appreciation for his tactfulness in different ways. Billy fell upon one of the bottles as though it were her long-lost sister, pressed it to her bosom and placed a pa.s.sionate kiss upon its label; while Lottie, with an eloquent gesture, immediately handed Graham a rather battered corkscrew. "Help me to the bubbly, boy," she said. "My throat is like a limekiln."
All the clocks of the City of Spires were striking three as Kenyon and Graham supported each other out into the quiet and deserted street.
There was much powder on Graham"s coat and a patch of crimson on Kenyon"s left cheek.
"Life with a big L, Graham, my boy," said Kenyon a little thickly.
"A h.e.l.l of a big L," said Graham, with a very much too loud laugh at his feeble joke. "You certainly do know your way about."
"And most of the short cuts," said Kenyon dryly. "Presently I shall scale the wall of St. John"s, climb through the window of one of our fellows who"s about to take holy orders, and wind up the night in the hospitable arms of Morpheus." This eventually Graham watched him do, with infinite delight, and was still wearing a smile of self-congratulation as he pa.s.sed the door of his mother"s bedroom in the hotel and entered his own.
His father heard the heavy footsteps as they went along the pa.s.sage, but imagined that they were those of the night watchman on his rounds.
Fate is the master of irony.
IX
The following morning at eight o"clock Peter, as fit as a fiddle, stalked into Kenyon"s bedroom and flung up the blind. The sun poured in through the open window. Innumerable sparrows twittered among the trees in the gardens and scouts were moving energetically about the quad. From the other windows the sounds of renewed life were coming. The great beehive of a college was about to begin a new and strenuous day.
Kenyon was sleeping heavily with a blanket drawn about his ears. His clothes were all over the floor and a tumbler one-fourth filled with whiskey stood on the dressing-table among a large collection of ivory-backed brushes, links, studs, tie-pins and other paraphernalia which belong to men of Kenyon"s type,--the bloods of Oxford. With a chuckle, Peter dipped a large sponge in the water of the hip-bath which had been placed ready on the floor, and throwing back the blanket squeezed its contents all over Kenyon"s well-cut face.
The effect was instantaneous. The sleeper awoke, and cursed. Peter"s howl of laughter at the sight of this pale blinking man with his delicate blue silk pajamas all wet round the neck advertised the fact to the whole college that he was up and about.
Kenyon got slowly out of bed. "There are fools--d.a.m.ned fools--and Peter Guthrie," he said quietly. "What"s the time?"
"Time for you to get up, shave and bathe, if you want to breakfast at the Randolph. How late were you last night?"
"Haven"t a notion," said Kenyon. "The first faint touch of dawn was coming over the horizon, so far as I remember, when your little brother watched me climb through the window of the man Rivers, upon whose "tummie" I planted my foot. For a man who"s about to enter the Church he has an astounding vocabulary of gutter English. You look abominably fit, old boy--the simple life, eh? Heigh-ho!--Manipulate this machine for me while I"m doing my hair." He picked up the small black case of his safety-razor and threw it at Peter, who caught it. Then he got into a very beautiful silk dressing-gown, stuck his feet into a pair of heelless red morocco slippers, and with infinite pains and accuracy made a centre parting in his fair hair, in which there was a slight natural curl.
From his comfortable position on the foot of the bed Peter watched his friend shave,--a performance through which he went with characteristic neatness. It was a very different performance from the one through which Peter was in the habit of going. Soap flew all round this untidy man, giving the scout much extra work in his cleaning-up process.
Kenyon didn"t intend to enter into any details as to the orgy of the night before. He knew from previous experience that Peter"s sympathy was not with him. For many reasons he desired to stand well with his friend, especially looking to the fact that he needed an immediate loan. One or two of his numerous creditors were pressing for part payment. So he let the matter drop and took the opportunity to talk like a father to Peter on another point which had grown out of the visit of his people. "Tell me," he said, "what is precisely the state of your feelings in regard to your sister"s friend? It seems to me that you"re getting a bit sloppy in that direction. Am I right?"
"No," said Peter, ""sloppy" isn"t the word."
"Oh! Well, then, what is the word? I may be able to advise you."
"I don"t want your advice," said Peter. "My mind is made up."
Kenyon turned round. "Is that so? Quick work."
Peter nodded. "It"s always quick when it"s inevitable."
"Oho! What have we here--romance?"
"Yes; I think so," said Peter quietly.
"Who"d have thought it? Our friend Peter has met his soul-mate! Out of the great crowd he has chosen the mother of his children. It is to laugh!"
"Think so?" said Peter. "I don"t."
Kenyon put down his razor and stood in front of the man with whom he had lived for several years and who had now apparently come up against a big moment in his life. It didn"t suit him that Peter should be seriously in love yet. He looked to his friend to provide him with a certain amount of leisure in the future. His plans would all go wrong if he had to share him with someone else. He had imagined that his friend was only temporarily gone on this little girl whose brief entry into Oxford had helped to make Eight"s week very pleasant. It was his duty to find out exactly how Peter stood.
"Do you mean to tell me," he asked, "that you"ve proposed to Betty Townsend?"
"Not yet," said Peter, "but I"m going to this morning--that is if I have the pluck."
"My dear fellow," said Kenyon, with a genuine earnestness, "don"t do it.
I"ve no doubt she"ll jump at you, being under the influence of this place and seeing you as a small hero here; but take the advice of a man who knows and bring caution to your rescue. What"ll happen if you tie yourself up to this girl? After all, you can"t possibly be in love with her--that"s silly. You"re under the influence of a few silver nights, and that most dangerous of all things--propinquity. Dally with her of course, kiss her and write her letters in which you quote the soft stuff of the poets. That"ll provide you with much quiet amus.e.m.e.nt and a.s.sist you in the acquisition of a literary style; but, for G.o.d"s sake, don"t be serious. You"re too young. You"ve not sown your wild oats. What"s the use of taking a load of responsibility on your shoulders before you"re obliged to do so? I"m talking to you like a father, old man, and I"ve the right."