Part 29 (1/2)

II

For the first time since Feo had lifted Georgie Malwood into her intimacy, in that half-careless, half-cautious way that belongs usually to the illegitimate offspring of kings, her small, unemotional friend was late for her appointment. Always before, like every other member of the gang, Georgie Malwood had reported on the early side of the prescribed moment and killed time without impatience until it had occurred to Feo to put in an appearance. That morning, which was without word from Arrowsmith, as she had predicted with the uncanny intuition that makes women suffer before as well as after they are hurt, Feo was punctual. She entered her den with the expectation of finding Georgie curled up on the sofa, halfway through a slim volume of new poems. The room was empty and there had been no message of apology, no hastily scribbled note of endearment and explanation.

During the longest forty-five minutes that she had ever spent, Feo pa.s.sed from astonishment to anger and finally into the chilly realization that her uncharacteristic behavior of the last few weeks had been discussed and criticized, and that the judgment of her friends was unmistakably reflected in the new att.i.tude of the hitherto faithful and obsequious Georgie,-always the first to catch the color of her surroundings. She, Feo, the Queen of Flippancy, the ringleader of eroticism, had had the temerity to play serious, an unforgivable crime in the estimation of the decadent set which had ignored the War and emerged triumphantly into the chaos of peace. Well, there it was. A long and successful innings was ended. She would be glad to withdraw from the field.

She waited in her favorite place with her beautiful straight back to the fireplace, both elbows on the low mantel board and one foot on the fender. Her face was as white as a candle, her large violet eyes were filled with grim amus.e.m.e.nt, and her wide, full-lipped mouth was a little twisted. She wore a frock that was the color of seaweed, cut almost up to her knees, with short sleeves, a loose belt, and a great blob of jade attached to a thin gold chain lying between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Her thick, wiry hair was out of curl and fell straight, like that of a page in the Court of Cesare Borgia. For all her modernity there was something about her that was peculiarly medieval, masculinely girlish rather than effeminately boyish. She might have been the leading member of a famous troupe of Russian ballet dancers, ready at a moment's notice to slip out of her wrapper and spring with athletic grace high into the air.

Her first remark upon Georgie's lazy entrance was Feoistic and disconcerting.

”So I'm over, I see,” she said, and waited ironically for its effect.

Not honest enough to say, ”Yes, you are,” Georgie hedged, with some little confusion.

”What makes you think so, Feo?”

”Your infernal rudeness, my dear, which you wouldn't have dared to indulge in a week ago. You've all sensed the fact that I'm sick to tears of the games I've led you into, and would gladly have gone in for babies if I'd had the luck to seem desirable to the right man.” She made a long arm and rang the bell. ”I am ripe for repentance, you see, or perhaps it might be more accurate, though less dramatic, to say eager for a new sensation. It isn't coming off, but you can all go and hang yourselves so far as I'm concerned. I'm out. I'm going to continue to be serious.

Bring lunch in here,” she added, as a footman framed himself in the doorway, ”quickly. I'm starving.”

Almost any other girl who had been the favorite of such a woman as Feo would have found in this renunciation of leaders.h.i.+p something to cause emotion. Mere grat.i.tude for many favors and much kindness seemed to demand that. But this young phlegmatic thing was just as unmoved as she had been on receipt of the various war office telegrams officially regretting the deaths of Lord Clayburgh, Captain Graham Macoover, and Sir Harry Pytchley. She lit the inevitable cigarette, chose the much-cus.h.i.+oned divan, and stretched herself at full length.

”I can do with a little groundsel too,” she said, as though the other subject had been threshed out.

And so it had, for the time being. Feo, oddly enough, had no bricks to throw. She could change her religion, it seemed, without pitching mud at the church of her recent beliefs. It was not until lunch was finished and the last trickle of resentment at Georgie's failure to apologize had gone out of her system that she returned to the matter and began, in a way, to think aloud. It was not as indiscreet as it might have been, because Georgie Malwood was completely self-contained and had developed concentration to such a degree, her first three husbands having been given to arguing, that she could lie and follow her own train of thought as easily in a room in which a ma.s.s of women were playing bridge as in a monkey house. Her interest in Feo was dead. She was over.

And so Feo gave herself away to a little person whose ears were closed.

”I don't know what exactly to do,” she said. ”At the moment, I feel like a fish out of water. If Arrowsmith had liked me and been ready to upset the conventional ideas of his exemplary family, I'd have eloped with him, however frightfully it would have put Edmund in the cart. I don't mind owning that Arrowsmith is the only man I've ever met who could have turned me into the Spartan mother and worthy _haus-frau_. I had dreams of living with him behind the high walls of a nice old house and making the place echo with the pattering feet of babes. It's the culminating disappointment of several months of 'em,-the bad streak which all of us have to go through at one time or another, I suppose. However, he doesn't like me, worse luck, and so there it is. So I think I'd better make the best of a bad job and cultivate Edmund. I think I'd better study the life of Lady Randolph Churchill and make myself useful to my husband. Politics are in a most interesting state just now, with Lloyd George on the verge of collapse at last, and the brainy dishonesty of a woman suddenly inspired with political ambition is exactly what Edmund needs to push him to the top. He has been too long without a woman's unscrupulous influence.”

She began to pace the room with long swinging strides, eagerly, clutching at this new idea like a drowning man to a spar. Her eyes began to sparkle and the old ring came back to her voice. Here was a way to use her superabundant energy and build up a new hobby.

”I'm no longer a flapping girl with everything to discover,” she went on, ”I've had my share of love stuff. By Jove, I'll use my intelligence, for a change. I'll get into the fight and develop strategy. Every one's looking to Edmund as the one honest man in the political game, and I'll buckle to and help him. He's an amazing creature. I've always admired him, and there's something that suits my present state of mind in making up to him for my perfectly rotten treatment all these years. If I can't make a lover into a husband, by Jingo, I can set to work to make a husband into a lover. There's an idea for you, Feo, my pet! There's a mighty interesting scheme to dig your teeth into, my broad-shouldered friend!”

She sent out an excited laugh and flung up her hand as though to welcome a brain wave. Her amazing resilience stood her in good stead in this crisis of her life,-to say nothing of her courage and queer sense of humor. Her blood began to move again. Fed up with decadence, she would plump whole-heartedly for usefulness now, be normal, go to work, get into the good books of George Lytham and his party, surprise Fallaray by her sudden allegiance to his cause and to him, and gradually break down the door that she had slammed in his face.

”I'll let my hair grow,” she continued gayly, working the vein that was to rescue her from despondency and failure with pathetic eagerness.

”I'll chuck eccentric clothes. I'll turn up slang and blasphemy. I'll teach myself manners and the language of old political hens. I'll keep brilliance within speed limits. Yes, I'll do all that if I have to work like a coolie. And I'll tell you what else I'll do. I'll bet you a thousand pounds to sixpence that before the end of the year I'll be the wife-I said the wife, Georgie-of the next Prime Minister. Will you take it?”

She drew up short, alight and excited, her foot already on the beginning of the new road, and paused for a reply.

Georgie stretched like a young Angora cat and yawned with perfect frankness.

”I'll take whatever I can get, Feo,” she said. ”But what the devil are you talking about? I haven't heard a blessed word.”

And Feo's laugh must have carried into Bond Street.

III