“Do you always find the success of your inferior rivals so comforting?” asked Norma. “I don't.” She thought of the depredatory American.
Jimmie pushed his hat to the back of his head—a discoloured Homburg hat that had seen much wear—and rammed his hands in his pockets.
“It's horrible to regard oneself and one's fellow-creatures as so many ghastly fishes tearing one another to pieces so as to get at the same piece of offal. That's what it all comes to, does n't it?”
The picture of the rapt duke as garbage floating on the tide of London Society brought with it a certain humourous consolation. That of her own part in the metaphor did not appear so soothing. Jimmie's proposition being, however, incontrovertible, she changed the subject and enquired after Aline. Why had n't he brought her?
“I am afraid we should have argued about Foljambe's painting,” said Jimmie, with innocent malice.
“And we should have agreed about it,” replied Norma. She talked about Aline. Morland King had been tale-bearing. It was refreshing, she confessed, once in a way to hear good of one's fellow-creatures: like getting up at six in the morning in the country and drinking milk fresh from the cow. It conferred a sense of unaccustomed virtue. The mention of milk reminded her that she was dying for tea. Was it procurable?
“There's a roomful of it. Can I take you?” asked Jimmie, eagerly.
She assented. Jimmie piloted her through the chattering crowd. On the way they passed by Mrs. Hardacre, still devoting the pearls of her attention to the pigs. She acknowledged his bow distantly and summoned her daughter to her side.
“What are you affiché-ing yourself with that nondescript man for?” she asked in a cross whisper.
Norma moved away with a shrug, and went with Jimmie into the crowded tea-room. There, while he was fighting for tea at the buffet, she fell into a nest of acquaintances. Presently he emerged from the crush victorious, and, as he poured out the cream for her, became the unconscious target of sharp feminine glances.
“Who is your friend?” asked one lady, as Jimmie retired with the cream-jug.
“I will introduce him if you like,” she replied. He reappeared and was introduced vaguely. Then he stood silent, listening to a jargon he was at a loss to comprehend. The women spoke in high, hard voices, with impure vowel sounds and a clipping of final consonants. The conversation gave him a confused impression of Ascot, a horse, a foreign prince, and a lady of fashion who was characterised as a “rotter.” Allusion was also made to a princely restaurant, which Jimmie, taken thither one evening by King, regarded as a fairy-land of rare and exquisite flavours, and the opinion was roundly expressed that you could not get anything fit to eat in the place and that the wines were poison.
Jimmie listened wonderingly. No one seemed disposed to controvert the statement, which was made by quite a young girl. Indeed one of her friends murmured that she had had awful filth there a few nights before. A smartly dressed woman of forty who had drawn away from the general conversation asked Jimmie if he had been to Cynthia yet. He replied that he very seldom went to theatres. The lady burst out laughing, and then seeing the genuine enquiry on his face, checked herself.
“I thought you were trying to pull my leg,” she explained. “I mean Cynthia, the psychic, the crystal gazer. Why, every one is going crazy over her. Do you mean to say you have n't been?”
“Heaven forbid!” said Jimmie.
“You may scoff, but she's wonderful. Do you know she actually gave me the straight tip for the Derby? She did n't mean to, for she does n't lay herself out for that sort of thing—but she said, after telling me a lot of things about myself—things that had really happened—she was getting tired, I must tell you—'I see something in your near future—it is a horse with a white star on its forehead—it has gone—I don't know what it means.' I went to the Derby. I had n't put a cent on, as I had been cleaned out at Cairo during the winter and had to retrench. The first horse that was led out had a white star on his forehead. None of the others had. It was St. Damien—a thirty to one chance. I backed him outright for £300. And now I have £9000 to play with. Don't tell me there's nothing in Cynthia after that.”
The knot of ladies dissolved. Jimmie put Norma's teacup down and went slowly back with her to the main room. He was feeling depressed, having lost his bearings in this unfamiliar world. Suddenly he halted.
“I wish you could pinch me,” he said.
“Why?”
“To test whether I am awake. Have I really heard a sane and educated lady expressing her belief in the visions of a crystal-gazing adventuress?”
“You have. She believes firmly. So do heaps of women.”
“I hope to heaven you don't!” he cried with a sudden intensity.
“What concern can my faith be to you?” she asked.
“I beg your pardon. No concern at all,” he said apologetically. “But I generally blurt out what is in my mind.”
“And what is in your mind? I am a person you can be quite frank with.”
“I could n't bear the poem of your life to be sullied by all these vulgarities,” said Jimmie.
“As I remarked to you the first evening I met you, Mr. Padgate,” she said, holding out her hand by way of dismissal, “you are an astonishing person!”
The poem of her life! The phrase worried her before she slept that night. She shook the buzzing thing away from her impatiently. The poem of her life! The man was a fool.
Chapter III—A MODERN BETROTHAL
A YOUNG woman bred to a material view of the cosmos and self-trained to cynical expression of her opinions may thoroughly persuade herself that marriage is a social bargain in which it would be absurd for sentiment to have a place, and yet when the hour comes for deciding on so trivial an engagement, may find herself in an irritatingly unequable frame of mind. For Norma the hour had all but arrived. Morland King had asked to see her alone in view of an important conversation. She had made an appointment for ten o'clock, throwing over her evening's engagements. Her parents were entertaining a couple of friends in somebody else's box at the opera, and would return in time to save the important conversation from over-tediousness. She intended to amuse herself placidly with a novel until King's arrival.
This was a week or two after her encounter with Jimmie at the picture-gallery, since which occasion she had neither seen nor heard of him. He had faded from the surface of a consciousness kept on continued strain by the thousand incidents and faces of a London season. To Jimmie the series of meetings had been a phenomenon of infinite import. She had come like a queen of romance into his homely garden, and her radiance lingered, making the roses redder and the grass more green. But the queenly apparition herself had other things to think about, and when she had grown angry and called him a fool, had dismissed him definitely from her mind. It was annoying therefore that on this particular evening the fool phrase should buzz again in her ears.
She threw down her book and went on to the balcony, where, on this close summer night, she could breathe a little cool air. A clock somewhere in the house chimed the half-hour. Morland was to come at ten. She longed for, yet dreaded, his coming; regretted that she had stayed away from the opera, where, after all, she could have observed the everlasting human comedy. She had dined early; the evening had been interminable; she felt nervous, and raged at her weakness. She was tired, out of harmony with herself, fretfully conscious too of the jarring notes in a room furnished by uneducated people of sudden wealth. The Wolff-Salamons, out of the kindness of their shrewd hearts,