Part 35 (1/2)
There was, moreover, a particular reason for her discontent. n.o.body realised the presence of Lady Tamworth, and this unaccustomed neglect shot a barbed question at her breast. ”After all why should they?” She was useless, she reflected; she did nothing, exercised no influence.
The thought, however, was too painful for lengthened endurance; the very humiliation of it produced the antidote. She remembered that she had at last persuaded her lazy Sir John to stand for Parliament. Only wait until he was elected! She would exercise an influence then. The vision of a _salon_ was miraged before her, with herself in the middle deftly manipulating the destinies of a nation.
”Lady Tamworth!” a voice sounded at her elbow.
”Mr. Dale!” She turned with a sudden sprightliness. ”My guardian angel sent you.”
”So bad as that?”
”I have an intuition.” She paused impressively upon the word.
”Never mind!” said he soothingly. ”It will go away.”
Lady Tamworth glared, that is, as well as she could; nature had not really adapted her for glaring. ”I have an intuition,” she resumed, ”that this is what the suburbs mean.” And she waved her hand comprehensively.
”They are perhaps a trifle excessive,” he returned. ”But then you needn't have come.”
”Oh, yes! Clients of Sir John.” Lady Tamworth sighed and sank with a weary elegance into a chair. Mr. Dale interpreted the sigh. ”Ah! A wife's duties,” he began.
”No man can know,” she interrupted, and she spread out her hands in pathetic forgiveness of an over-exacting world. Her companion laughed brutally. ”You _are_ rude!” she said and laughed too. And then, ”Tell me something new!”
”I met an admirer of yours to-day.”
”But that's nothing new.” She looked up at him with a plaintive reproach.
”I will begin again,” he replied submissively. ”I walked down the Mile-End road this morning to Sir John's jute-factory.”
”You fail to interest me,” she said with some emphasis.
”I am so sorry. Good-bye!”
”Mr. Dale!”
”Yes!”
”You may, if you like, go on with the first story.”
”There is only one. It was in the Mile-End road I met the admirer--Julian Fairholm.”
”Oh!” Lady Tamworth sat up and blushed. However, Lady Tamworth blushed very readily.
”It was a queer incident,” Mr. Dale continued. ”I caught sight of a necktie in a little dusty shop-window near the Pavilion Theatre. I had never seen anything like it in my life; it fairly fascinated me, seemed to dare me to buy it.”
The lady's foot began to tap upon the carpet. Mr. Dale stopped and leaned critically forward.
”Well! Why don't you go on?” she asked impatiently.
”It's pretty,” he reflected aloud.
The foot disappeared demurely into the seclusion of petticoats. ”You exasperate me,” she remarked. But her face hardly guaranteed her words. ”We were speaking of ties.”
”Ah, the tie wasn't pretty. It was of satin, bright yellow with blue spots. And an idea struck me; yes, an idea! Sir John's election colours are yellow, his opponent's blue. So I thought the tie would make a tactful present, symbolical (do you see?) of the state of the parties in the const.i.tuency.”