"Being brought into life is just like being invited to a feast from which you may be called away at any minute. Well, if you have eaten and drunk to satiety you will be only too glad to get up and go away and sleep. But if you have sat at the table, hungering all the time and repressing yourself, then, when the sudden call comes, and you must rise and leave it for ever, think what a misery and bitterness to be dragged away from the brilliant table, with all its dishes and its wines untasted, its flowers unsmelt, and be crammed away into the darkness--hungry, thirsty, and unsatisfied. Take my word for it, Vic, you"ll have a bad five minutes on your deathbed!"
I listened in silence. I felt ill and dispirited and disinclined for talk.
"That"s all Horace. I don"t care much about Latin as a whole, but I do think he is splendid. I"d have that book made the general testament.
I"d have it taught in all the Board Schools and sworn on in the Law Courts. I"d have every fellow take it as a guide through life; if he really acts up to it, it ensures his happiness. Its philosophy beats all the religions hollow. "Take the day." "Put no trust in to-morrow."
"Seek not to know the future; whatever it is, bear it." "Each night be able to say I have lived." "Retire from life, satisfied, as from a banquet." And so on ad lib. You know it all, Victor. You were brought up upon it, but you haven"t profited by it--not a sc.r.a.p. Well, I"m going!"
He leant forward, picked up his shoes, and went into his own room. It was about twelve when he came in that night and found me just finishing off a chapter. The fire had gone out from neglect; the window stood open and the lace curtains waved in the damp night wind. Howard stalked across the room and banged the gla.s.s doors shut, and told me it was beastly cold in here. I was just fully absorbed in the closing pa.s.sages of my scene, and felt a nervous irritation at being interrupted.
"There"s a fire-lighter behind the scuttle, throw it into the grate and you"ll soon have a blaze," I said, without looking up.
Howard drew off his lavender gloves and flung them down on the table.
One fell on the last sheet I had written.
"Confound you! do be careful!" I muttered, picking it up, and noticing the great blur it left on the page. "The sheets are wet."
"It doesn"t matter, they"re not a new pair!" answered Howard, coolly, going down on his knees to light up the fire. He accomplished this in a few minutes, and then settled down in the long chair with a cigar. I wrote on feverishly, expecting to be addressed and interrupted every moment. It was a great bore his coming in just now, disturbing me. I had a difficult thing to express, and I was just pursuing the tail end of an idea I could not quite grasp. My pen hovered uncertainly over the paper. I could not exactly give words to the impression in my brain, and the sense that he was going to speak, about to speak each second, worried me. At the same time I never wished to be ungracious to Howard when he did return to our rooms; never wished to feel it was my execrably bad company that induced him to stay away from them all night instead of half.
"I say, Vic!"
"Well?"
"Do you know that kissing song Embra.s.se moi?"
I nodded.
"Don"t you think it awfully fetching? I like that refrain so much--Embra.s.se moi, chumph! chumph!--and then the orchestra exactly imitates the sound of a kiss--then Encore une fois!! chumph! chumph!
Don"t you?"
"Yes; it isn"t bad."
Silence.
"Victor!"
"What?"
"La Faina was there to-night!"
"Oh!"
"Do you know her?"
"I"ve heard of her."
Silence.
"Vic!"
"Yes?"
"Do you know what Faina means?"
"Of course I do!"
"Do you think it a nice name?"
"Not particularly."
"Well, it"s better than Grille d"Egout anyway, isn"t it?"
"About on a par, I should say." "How many frills do you think she had on her petticoat?"
"Oh, I don"t know--forty!"
"No; four. I counted them. Her figure is not much up atop, but her"--
"Oh, stow all that!" I interrupted; "there"s a good fellow, I"m just doing a convent interior."
"All right. The rest is silence. Ah!" with a yawn, and getting up to saunter round the room, "that"s a jolly good song--Embrace moi! chumph!
chumph! Encore une fois!! chumph! chumph!"
He did not address me again, but somehow my ideas were scattered. The convent scene went wrong. Ballet dancers seemed standing in the aisle where nuns should have been kneeling, and, after a second or so, I flung my pen down and pushed away the paper.
"Done?" exclaimed Howard, delightedly.
"Yes," I said simply, rising.
"Come and have a smoke," he said, drawing up both easy chairs to the fire.
I took the cigar he offered and sat down. Howard threw himself into the other chair, crossed his legs, and proceeded to give me an account of his experiences. I suppose I was rather silent, for after a time he broke in upon himself by saying abruptly,--
"Are you very savage with me for interrupting your work?"
"Savage?" I repeated. "Oh, no! the work can wait, I get plenty of time at it!" Perhaps he misunderstood me, and my words conveyed to him more than I meant. Any way, the next afternoon he came home early to dine with me, and afterwards, when I was speaking of the evening"s work, he came up to me where I stood at the mantelpiece and took something out of his pocket with a confident air.
"I"ve brought you something," he said, and he thrust suddenly into my hand--under my eyes--a photograph.
My glance fell full on it, and I saw distinctly what it was--a full-length figure of the danseuse Faina. Traditionally, perhaps, I ought to have flung it into the fire--any way the grate--or torn it up.
But I am not fond of throwing other, people"s things into the fire, nor of tearing them up, simply because they offend my own views. He had no right, perhaps, to thrust it upon me as he had, but that fact would not, in my opinion, const.i.tute my right to destroy it. So I merely laid it on the mantelpiece.
"Extraordinary thing! Where did you pick that up?"
"Faina sent it to you with her love, and an invitation to supper to-night after the last "turn,"" replied Howard, rolling a cigarette, sticking it with his lips, and looking at me over it.
"Oh! really?" I said, drily.
"Why, Victor, you"ve quite coloured up!" said Howard with a sort of derisive triumph.