Part 13 (1/2)

he reflected, ”and I want to see old Rainham. It is stupid of me not to have written to him--yes, stupid! Wonder if he has heard? I mustn't give _him_ up, at any rate. We'll--we'll ask him to dinner, and all that sort of thing. And what the deuce am I going to send to the Academy? Thank goodness, I have enough Swiss sketches to work up for the other galleries to last me for years. But the Academy----”

Then he lost himself in contemplative enjoyment of the familiar vista of Regent Street, the curved, dotted lines of crocus-coloured lamps, fading in the evening fog, the flitting, ruby-eyed cabs, and the calm, white arc-lights, set irregularly about the circus, dulling the grosser gas. He owned to himself that he had secretly yearned for London; that his satisfaction on leaving the vast city was never so great as his joy on again setting foot upon her pavements.

The atmosphere of the long, low room, with its anomalous dark ceiling and grotesquely-decorated walls, was heavily laden with the incense of tobacco and a more subtile odour, which numbered among its factors whisky and absinthe. The slippered, close-cropped waiter, who, by popular report, could speak five languages, and usually employed a mixture of two or three, was still clearing away the debris of protracted dinners; and a few men sat about, in informal groups, playing dominoes, chatting, or engrossed in their Extra Specials. The fire shone cheerfully beneath the high mantel, and the pleasant lamplight lent a mellow glow, which was vaguely suggestive of Dutch interiors, as it flickered on the dark wooden floor, and glanced from the array of china on the dresser in the corner.

When Lightmark entered, closing the door briskly on the foggy, chill October night, he was greeted warmly and demonstratively. The fraternity which made Brodonowski's its head-quarters generously admired his genius, and, for the most part, frankly envied his good-fortune. The younger men respected him as a man who had seen life; and the narratives with which he occasionally favoured them produced in such of his hearers feelings very different to those which older men, like Oswyn, expressed by a turn of the eyebrow or a shrug. They were always ready enough to welcome him, to gather round him, and to drink with him; and this, perhaps, expresses the limits of their relation.

”Lightmark, by Jove!” cried one of them, waving his pipe in the air, as the new-comer halted in the low doorway, smiling in a rather bewildered manner as he unb.u.t.toned his overcoat. ”Welcome to the guerilla camp! And a dress suit! These walls haven't enclosed such a thing since you went away. This is indeed an occasion!”

Lightmark pa.s.sed from group to group, deftly parrying, and returning the chorus of friendly thrusts, and shaking hands with the affability which was so characteristic a feature of his att.i.tude toward them. The man he looked for, the friend whom he intended to honour with a somewhat tardy confidence of his happiness, was not there. When he asked for Rainham, he was told that ”the dry-docker,”

as these flippant youngsters familiarly designated the silent man, whom they secretly revered, had gone for an after-dinner stroll, or perchance to the theatre, with Oswyn.

”With Oswyn?” queried Lightmark, with the shadow of a frown.

”Oh, Oswyn and he are getting very thick!” said Copal. ”They are almost as inseparable as you two used to be. I'm afraid you will find yourself cut out. Three is an awkward number, you know. But when did you come back? When are you going to show us your sketches?

And how long did you stay in Paris?... You _didn't_ stop in Paris?

This won't do, you know. I say, Dupuis, here's a man who didn't stop in Paris! Ask him if he wants to insult you.”

”Ah, mon cher!” expostulated the Frenchman, looking up from his game of dominoes, ”I would not stop in London if I could help it.”

”Oh, shut up, Copal!” said Lightmark good-humouredly. ”I was with ladies--Dupuis will sympathize with me there, eh, _mon vieux_?--and they wanted to stay at Lucerne until the last minute. So we came straight through.”

”Then you haven't seen Sarah in 'Cleopatra,' and we were relying on you for an unvarnished account. Ladies, too! See here, my boy, you won't get any good out of touring about the Continent with ladies.

Hang it all! I believe it'll come true, after all?”

”Very likely--what?”

”Oh, well, they said--I didn't believe it, but they said that you were going to desert the camp, and prance about with corpulent R.A.'s in Hanover Square.”

”And so would we all, if we got the chance,” said McAllister cynically.

And after the general outcry which followed this suggestion, the conversation drifted back to the old discussion of the autumn shows, the pastels at the Grosvenor, and the most recent additions to the National Gallery.

When at last Rainham came into the room, following, with his habitual half-timid air, the shambling figure of the painter Oswyn, it struck Lightmark that he had grown older, and that he had, as it were, a.s.similated some of the intimate disreputability of the place: it would no longer have been possible to single him out as a foreign unit in the circle, or to detect in his mental att.i.tude any of the curiosity of the casual seeker after new impressions, the Philistine in Bohemia. There was nothing but pleasure in the slight manifestation of surprise which preceded his frank greeting of Lightmark, a greeting thoroughly English in its matter-of-fact want of demonstrativeness, and the avoidance of anything likely to attract the attention of others.

Oswyn seemed less at his ease; there was an extra dash of nervous brusqueness in the sarcastic welcome which he offered to the new-comer; and although there was a vacant seat in the little circle, of which Copal and Lightmark formed the nucleus, and to which Rainham had joined himself, he shuffled off to his favourite corner, and buried himself in ”Gil Blas” and an abnormally thick cloud of tobacco-smoke.

Rainham gazed after him for a moment or two with a puzzled expression.

”Amiable as ever!” said Lightmark, with a laugh. ”Poor old beggar!

Have a cigarette? You ought to give up pipes. Haven't you been told that cigarettes are--what is it?--'the perfect type----?'”

”Oh, chestnuts!” interposed Copal, ”that's at least six months old.

And it's rot, too! Do you know what McAllister calls them? Spittle and tissue. Brutal, but expressive. But I say, old man, won't Mrs.

Thingumy drop on you for smoking in your dress-coat? Or--or---- No, break it to me gently. You don't mean to say that you possess _two_?

I really feel proud of having my studio next door to you.”

”Copal is becoming quite an humorist,” Lightmark suggested in an impartial manner. ”What a wag it is! Keep it up, my boy. By the way, Mrs. Grumbit has been talking about your 'goings on,' as she calls them: she's apparently very much exercised in her mind as to the state of your morals. She told me she had to take you in with the matutinal milk three times last week. She wants me to talk to you like a father. It won't do, you know.”