Part 27 (1/2)

”I hope,” he said, lifting and lowering his bushy eyebrows, ”I hope, at any rate, she will never be so foolish as to marry a man who is what is called young. That would be a terrible mistake, both for her and for him. Now I really must be going. I am dining to-night rather early with--oh, by the way, it is with one of your chiefs--Eric Learington.

A good fellow--a good fellow! We are going to some music afterwards at Queen's Hall. Good-bye. I'm very glad you realize Adela Sellingworth's great distinction and charm. But--” He paused, as if considering something carefully; then he added:

”But don't forget that she and Seymour Portman would be perfectly suitable to one another. She is a delightful creature, but she is no longer a young woman. But I need not tell you that.”

And having thus done the needless thing he went away, walking with a certain unwonted self-consciousness which had its source solely in dry Martinis.

CHAPTER III

Craven realized that he had ”given himself away” directly Braybrooke was gone. The two empty gla.s.ses stood on a low table in front of his chair.

He looked at them and for an instant was filled with anger against himself. To be immortal--he was old-fas.h.i.+oned enough to believe surrept.i.tiously in his own immortality--and yet to be deflected from the straight path of good sense by a couple of dry Martinis! It was humiliating, and he raged against himself.

Braybrooke had certainly gone away thinking that he, Craven, had fallen in love with Lady Sellingworth. That thought, too, might possibly have come out of one of those little gla.s.ses, the one on the left. But nevertheless it would stick in Braybrooke's mind long after the Martinis were forgotten.

And what if it did?

Craven said that to himself, but he felt far less defiant than sensitively uncomfortable. He was surprised by himself. Evidently he had not known his own feelings. When Braybrooke mentioned Seymour Portman as a suitable husband for Lady Sellingworth something strong, almost violent, had risen up in Craven to protest. What was that? And why was he suddenly so angry? He was surely not going to make a fool of himself.

He felt almost youthfully alarmed and also rather excited. An odd sense of romance suddenly floated about him. Did that too come from those cursed dry Martinis? Impossible to be sure for the moment. He found himself wondering whether teetotallers knew more about their souls than moderate drinkers, or less.

But the odd sense of romance persisted when the effect of the dry Martinis must certainly have worn off. It was something such as Craven had never known, or even imagined before. He had had his little adventures, and about them had thrown the woven robes that gleam with prismatic colours; he had even had deeper, pa.s.sionate episodes--as he thought them--in his life. As he had acknowledged in the _Ristorante Bella Napoli_ he had seldom or never started on a journey abroad without a secret hope of romance meeting him on the way. And sometimes it had met him. Or so he had believed at the time. But in all these episodes of the past there had been something definitely physical, something almost horribly natural, a prompting of the body, the kind of thing which belongs to youth, any youth, and which any doctor could explain in a few crude words. Even then, in those now dead moments, Craven had sometimes felt sensitive youth's impotent anger at being under the yoke which is laid upon the necks of innumerable others, clever, dull, aristocratic, common, the elect and the hopelessly vulgar.

In this new episode he was emanc.i.p.ated from that. He was able to feel that he was peculiar, if not unique. In the strong attraction which drew him towards Lady Sellingworth there was certainly nothing of the--well, to himself he called it ”the medically physical.” Something of the body there might possibly be. Indeed, perhaps it was impossible that there should not be. But the predominant factor had nothing whatever to do with the body. He felt certain of that.

When he got home from the Club he found on his table a note from Beryl Van Tuyn:

HYDE PARK HOTEL, Thursday.

My dear Mr. Craven,--What a pity you couldn't get away last night.

But you were quite right to play Squire of Dames to our dear Lady Sellingworth. We had a rather wonderful evening after you had gone. d.i.c.k Garstin was in his best vein. Green chartreuse brings out his genius in a wonderful way. I wish it would do for me what it does for him. But I have tried it--in small doses--quite in vain. He and I walked home together and talked of everything under the stars. I believe he is going to paint me. Next time you make your way to the Bella Napoli we might go together. Two lovers of Italy must always feel at home there, and the sight of Vesuvius is encouraging, I think. So don't forget that my ”beat,” as you call it, often lies in Soho.

Isn't dear Adela Sellingworth delightful? She looked like a wonderful antique in that Italian frame. I love every line in her face and would give my best bronze to have white hair like hers. But somehow I am almost glad she didn't fall to the Cafe Royal. She is right. It is too Georgian for her. She is, as she says, definitely Edwardian and would scarcely understand the new jargon which comes as easily as how d'you do to _our_ lips.

By the way, coming out of the Cafe Royal last night I saw a living bronze.--Yours,

BERYL VAN TUYN.

This note half amused and half irritated Craven on a first reading. On a second reading irritation predominated in him. Miss Van Tuyn's determined relegation of Lady Sellingworth to the past seemed somehow to strike at him, to make him--or to intend to make him--ridiculous; and her deliberate cla.s.sing of him with herself in the underlined ”_our_”

seemed rather like an attempt to a.s.sert authority, the authority of youth over him. But no doubt this was very natural. Craven was quite sure that Miss Van Tuyn cared nothing about him. But he was a not disagreeable and quite presentable young man; he had looked into her violet eyes, had pressed her hand, had held it longer than was at all necessary, had in fact shown that he was just a young man and easily susceptible; and so she did not choose to let an elderly woman take possession of him even for an hour without sharpening a weapon or two and bringing them into use.

No wonder that men are conceited when women so swiftly take up arms on their account!

For a moment Craven almost disliked Miss Van Tuyn, and made up his mind that there would be no ”next time” for him in Soho while she was in London. He knew that whenever they met he would feel her attraction; but he now cla.s.sed it with those attractions of the past which were disgustingly explicable, and which just recently he had learnt to understand in a way that was almost old.

Was he putting on horn spectacles while his eyesight was still unimpaired? He felt doubtful, almost confused for a moment. Was his new feeling for Lady Sellingworth subtly pulling him away from his youth?

Where was he going? Perhaps this new sensation of movement was only deceptive; perhaps he was not on the way to an unknown region. For a moment he wished that he could talk freely, openly, with some understanding friend, a man of course. But though he had plenty of men friends he could not think of one he would be able to confide his present feelings to.

Already he began to realize the human ridicule which always attends upon any departure from what, according to the decision of all absolutely ordinary people, is strictly normal.