Bowen paused to light another cigarette, and then took up his theme. “Isn’t that the key to our easy divorces? If we cared for women in the old barbarous possessive way do you suppose we’d give them up as readily as we do? The real paradox is the fact that the men who make, materially, the biggest sacrifices for their women, should do least for them ideally and romantically. And what’s the result—how do the women avenge themselves? All my sympathy’s with them, poor deluded dears, when I see their fallacious little attempt to trick out the leavings tossed them by the preoccupied male—the money and the motors and the clothes—and pretend to themselves and each other that THAT’S what really constitutes life! Oh, I know what you’re going to say—it’s less and less of a pretense with them, I grant you; they’re more and more succumbing to the force of the suggestion; but here and there I fancy there’s one who still sees through the humbug, and knows that money and motors and clothes are simply the big bribe she’s paid for keeping out of some man’s way!”
Mrs. Fairford presented an amazed silence to the rush of this tirade; but when she rallied it was to murmur: “And is Undine one of the exceptions?”
Her companion took the shot with a smile. “No—she’s a monstrously perfect result of the system: the completest proof of its triumph. It’s Ralph who’s the victim and the exception.”
“Ah, poor Ralph!” Mrs. Fairford raised her head quickly. “I hear him now. I suppose,” she added in an undertone, “we can’t give him your explanation for his wife’s having forgotten to come?”
Bowen echoed her sigh, and then seemed to toss it from him with his cigarette-end; but he stood in silence while the door opened and Ralph Marvell entered.
“Well, Laura! Hallo, Charles—have you been celebrating too?” Ralph turned to his sister. “It’s outrageous of me to be so late, and I daren’t look my son in the face! But I stayed down town to make provision for his future birthdays.” He returned Mrs. Fairford’s kiss. “Don’t tell me the party’s over, and the guest of honour gone to bed?”
As he stood before them, laughing and a little flushed, the strain of long fatigue sounding through his gaiety and looking out of his anxious eyes, Mrs. Fairford threw a glance at Bowen and then turned away to ring the bell.
“Sit down, Ralph—you look tired. I’ll give you some tea.”
He dropped into an armchair. “I did have rather a rush to get here—but hadn’t I better join the revellers? Where are they?”
He walked to the end of the room and threw open the diningroom doors. “Hallo—where have they all gone to? What a jolly cake!” He went up to it. “Why, it’s never even been cut!”
Mrs. Fairford called after him: “Come and have your tea first.”
“No, no—tea afterward, thanks. Are they all upstairs with my grandfather? I must make my peace with Undine—” His sister put her arm through his, and drew him back to the fire.
“Undine didn’t come.”
“Didn’t come? Who brought the boy, then?”
“He didn’t come either. That’s why the cake’s not cut.”
Ralph frowned. “What’s the mystery? Is he ill, or what’s happened?”
“Nothing’s happened—Paul’s all right. Apparently Undine forgot. She never went home for him, and the nurse waited till it was too late to come.”
She saw his eyes darken; but he merely gave a slight laugh and drew out his cigarette case. “Poor little Paul—poor chap!” He moved toward the fire. “Yes, please—some tea.”
He dropped back into his chair with a look of weariness, as if some strong stimulant had suddenly ceased to take effect on him; but before the tea-table was brought back he had glanced at his watch and was on his feet again.
“But this won’t do. I must rush home and see the poor chap before dinner. And my mother—and my grandfather? I want to say a word to them—I must make Paul’s excuses!”
“Grandfather’s taking his nap. And mother had to rush out for a postponed committee meeting—she left as soon as we heard Paul wasn’t coming.”
“Ah, I see.” He sat down again. “Yes, make the strong, please. I’ve had a beastly fagging sort of day.”
He leaned back with half-closed eyes, his untouched cup in his hand. Bowen took leave, and Laura sat silent, watching her brother under lowered lids while she feigned to be busy with the kettle. Ralph presently emptied his cup and put it aside; then, sinking into his former attitude, he clasped his hands behind his head and lay staring apathetically into the fire. But suddenly he came to life and started up. A motor-horn had sounded outside, and there was a noise of wheels at the door.
“There’s Undine! I wonder what could have kept her.” He jumped up and walked to the door; but it was Clare Van Degen who came in. At sight of him she gave a little murmur of pleasure. “What luck to find you! No, not luck—I came because I knew you’d be here. He never comes near me, Laura: I have to hunt him down to get a glimpse of him!”
Slender and shadowy in her long furs, she bent to kiss Mrs. Fairford and then turned back to Ralph. “Yes, I knew I’d catch you here. I knew it was the boy’s birthday, and I’ve brought him a present: a vulgar expensive Van Degen offering. I’ve not enough imagination left to find the right thing, the thing it takes feeling and not money to buy. When I look for a present nowadays I never say to the shopman: ‘I want this or that’—I simply say: ‘Give me something that costs so much.’”
She drew a parcel from her muff. “Where’s the victim of my vulgarity? Let me crush him under the weight of my gold.”
Mrs. Fairford sighed out “Clare—Clare!” and Ralph smiled at his cousin.
“I’m sorry; but you’ll have to depute me to present it. The birthday’s over; you’re too late.”
She looked surprised. “Why, I’ve just left Mamie Driscoll, and she told me Undine was still at Popple’s studio a few minutes ago: Popple’s giving a tea to show the picture.”
“Popple’s giving a tea?” Ralph struck an attitude of mock consternation. “Ah, in that case—! In Popple’s society who wouldn’t forget the flight of time?”
He had recovered his usual easy tone, and Laura sat that Mrs. Van Degen’s words had dispelled his preoccupation. He turned to his cousin. “Will you trust me with your present for the boy?”
Clare gave him the parcel. “I’m sorry not to give it myself. I said what I did because I knew what you and Laura were thinking—but it’s really a battered old Dagonet bowl that came down to me from our revered great-grandmother.”
“What—the heirloom you used to eat your porridge out of?” Ralph detained her hand to put a kiss on it. “That’s dear of you!”
She threw him one of her strange glances. “Why not say: ‘That’s like you?’ But you don’t remember what I’m like.” She turned away to glance at the clock. “It’s late, and I must be off. I’m going to a big dinner at the Chauncey Ellings’—but you must be going there too, Ralph? You’d better let me drive you home.”
In the motor Ralph leaned back in silence, while the rug was drawn over their knees, and Clare restlessly fingered the row of gold-topped objects in the rack at her elbow. It was restful to be swept through the crowded streets in this smooth fashion, and Clare’s presence at his side gave him a vague sense of ease.
For a long time now feminine nearness had come to mean to him, not this relief from tension, but the ever-renewed dread of small daily deceptions, evasions, subterfuges. The change had come gradually, marked by one disillusionment after another; but there had been one moment that formed the point beyond which there was no