Part 10 (1/2)
”Well, you know how, when travelling, it is easy to get into intimacies with people whom one doesn't want to be intimate with at home.”
”Yes. I know all about that.”
”At my age one has learnt to avoid not only such intimacies but many others less disagreeable, but which at moments might give one what I can only call mental gooseflesh. Is that aloofness?”
”I think it would probably be called so by some.”
”By whom?”
”Oh, by mental gooseflesh-givers!”
She laughed, laughed quite out with a completeness which had something almost of youth in it.
”I wonder,” he added rather ruefully, after the pause which the laugh had filled up, ”I wonder whether I am one of them?”
”I don't think you are.”
”And Ambrose Jennings?”
”That's a clever man!” was her reply.
And then she changed the conversation to criticism in general, and to the type of clever mind which, unable to create, a.n.a.lyses the creations of others sensitively.
”But I much prefer the creators,” she presently said.
”So do I. They are like the fresh air compared with the air in a carefully closed room,” said Craven. ”Talking of closed rooms, don't you think it is strange the liking many brilliant men and women have, both creators and a.n.a.lysers of creators, for the atmosphere of garish or sordid cafes?”
”You are thinking of the Cafe Royal?”
”Yes. Do you know it?”
”Don't tell Beryl--but I have never been in it. Nevertheless, I know exactly what it is like.”
”By hearsay?”
”Oh, no. In years gone by I have been into many of the cafes in Paris.”
”And did you like them and the life in them?”
”In those days they often fascinated me, as no doubt the Cafe Royal and its life fascinates Beryl to-day. The hectic appeals to something in youth, when there is often fever in the blood. Strong lights, noise, the human pressure of crowds, the sight of myriads of faces, the sound of many voices--all that represents life to us when we are young. Calm, empty s.p.a.ces, single notes, room all round us for breathing amply and fully, a face here or there--that doesn't seem like life to us then.
Beryl dines with me alone sometimes. But she must finish up in the evening with a crowd if she is near the door of the place where the crowd is. And you must not tell me you never like the Cafe Royal, for if you do I shall not believe you.”
”I do like it at times,” he acknowledged. ”But to-night, sitting here, the mere thought of it is almost hateful to me. It is all vermilion and orange colour, while this . . .”
”Is drab!”
”No, indeed! Dim purple, perhaps, or deepest green.”
”You couldn't bear it for long. You would soon begin longing for vermilion again.”