Part 27 (2/2)

Everybody would understand and approve if he were to fall desperately in love with Beryl Van Tuyn; but if he were to prefer a great friends.h.i.+p with Lady Sellingworth to a love affair with her youthful and beautiful friend no one would understand, and everybody would be ready to laugh and condemn.

He knew this and yet he felt obstinate, mulish almost, as he sat down to reply non-committally to Miss Van Tuyn's letter. It was only when he did this that he thought seriously about its last words.

Why had she troubled to write them down? Comparatively young though he was he knew that a woman's ”by the way” usually means anything rather than what it seems to mean--namely, a sentence thrown out by chance because it has just happened to turn up in the mind. ”A living bronze.”

Miss Van Tuyn was exceptionally fond of bronzes and collected them with enthusiasm. She knew of course the Museum at Naples. Craven had often visited it when he had been staying at the Villa Rosebery. He could remember clearly almost every important bronze in that wonderful collection. He realized what ”a living bronze” must mean when written of by a woman. Miss Van Tuyn had evidently seen an amazingly handsome man coming out of the Cafe Royal. But why should she tell him about it?

Perhaps her motive was the very ordinary one, an attempt to rouse the swift jealousy of the male animal. She was certainly ”up” to all the usual feminine tricks. He thoroughly realized her vanity and, contrasting it with Lady Sellingworth's apparently almost careless lack of self-consciousness, he wondered whether Lady Sellingworth could ever have been what she was said to have been. If so, as a snake sheds its skin she must surely have sloughed her original nature. He was thankful for that, thankful for her absolute lack of pose and vanity. He even delighted in her self-mockery, divined by him. So few women mocked at themselves and so many mocked at others.

If Miss Van Tuyn had intended to give a flick to his jealousy at the end of her letter she had failed. If she met fifty living bronzes and added them to her collection it was nothing to him. He compared his feeling when Braybrooke had suggested Seymour Portman as a husband for Lady Sellingworth with his lack of feeling about Miss Van Tuyn and her bronze, and he was almost startled. And yet Miss Van Tuyn was lovely and certainly did not want him to go quite away out of her ken. And, when she chose, she had made him very foolish about her.

What did it all mean?

He wrote a little letter in answer to hers, charmingly polite, but rather vague about Soho. At the end of it, before signing himself ”Yours”--he could do no less with her letter before him--he put, ”I feel rather intrigued about the living bronze. Was it in petticoats or trousers?”

CHAPTER IV

Craven had been right in his supposition about the world's governess.

Braybrooke had gone away from the Club that evening firmly persuaded that his young friend had done the almost unbelievable thing, had fallen in love with Adela Sellingworth. He was really perturbed about it.

A tremulous sense of the fitness of things governed his whole life, presided as it were over all his actions and even over most of his thoughts. He instinctively shrank from everything that was bizarre, from everything that was, as he called it, ”out of keeping.” He was responsible for the introduction of young Craven into Adela Sellingworth's life. It would be very unfortunate indeed, it would be almost disastrous, if the result of that well-meant introduction were to be a preposterous pa.s.sion!

When the effect of the two c.o.c.ktails had subsided he tried to convince himself that he was giving way to undue anxiety, that there was really nothing in his supposition except alcohol taken in the afternoon. But this effort failed. He had lived a very long time, much longer than almost anyone knew; he was intimately familiar with the world, and, although unyieldingly discreet himself, was well acquainted with its follies and sins. Life had taught him that practically nothing is impossible. He had known old men to run--or rather to walk--off with young girls; he had known old women to be infatuated with mere boys; he had known well-born women to marry grooms and chauffeurs; a Peer of his acquaintance had linked himself to a cabman's daughter and stuck to her; chorus girls of course perpetually married into the Peerage; human pa.s.sions--although he could not understand it--ran as wild as the roots of eucalyptus trees planted high within reach of water. So he could not rule out as impossible a sudden affection for Adela Sellingworth in the heart of young Craven. It was really very unfortunate. Feeling responsible, he thought perhaps he ought to do something discreetly. The question was--what?

Braybrooke was inclined to be a matchmaker, though he had neglected to make one match, his own. Thinking things over now, he said to himself that it was quite time young Craven settled down. He was a very promising fellow. Eric Learington, of whom he had made some casual inquiries during the interval between the two parts of the concert at Queen's Hall, had spoken quite warmly about Craven's abilities, industry and ambition. No doubt the young man would go far. But he ought to have a clever wife with some money to help him. A budding diplomatist needs a wife more than most men. He is destined to do much entertaining. Social matters are a part of his duty, of his career. A suitable wife was clearly indicated for young Craven. And it occurred to the world's governess that as he had apparently done harm unwittingly, or approached the doing of harm, by introducing Craven to dear Adela Sellingworth, it was inc.u.mbent on him to try to do good, if possible, by now knocking the harm on the head, of course gently, as a well-bred man does things.

Beryl Van Tuyn came into his mind.

As he had told Craven, he knew her quite well and knew all about her.

She came of an excellent American family in Philadelphia. She was the only child of parents who could not get on together, and who were divorced. Both her father and mother had married again. The former lived in New York in Fifth Avenue; the latter, who was a beauty, was usually somewhere in Europe--now on the Riviera, now in Rome, at Aix, in Madrid, in London. She sometimes visited Paris, but seldom stayed long anywhere.

She professed to be fond of Beryl, but the truth was that Beryl was far too good looking to be desirable as her companion. She loved her child intensely--at a distance. Beryl was quite satisfied to be at a distance, for she had a pa.s.sion for independence. Her father gave her an ample allowance. Her mother had long ago unearthed f.a.n.n.y Cronin from some lair in Philadelphia to be her official companion.

Braybrooke knew all this, knew about how much money Miss Van Tuyn had, and about how much she would eventually have. Without being vulgarly curious, he somehow usually got to know almost everything.

Beryl Van Tuyn would be just the wife for young Craven when she had settled down. She was too independent, too original, too daring, and far too unconventional for Braybrooke's way of thinking. But he believed her to be really quite all right. Modern Americans held views about personal liberty which were not at all his, but that did not mean that they were not entirely respectable. Beryl Van Tuyn was clever, beautiful, had plenty of money. As a diplomatist's wife, when she had settled down, she would be quite in her element. After some anxious thought he decided that it was his duty to try to pull strings.

The ascertained fact that Craven had met Adela Sellingworth and Beryl Van Tuyn on the same day and together, and that the woman of sixty had evidently attracted him far more than the radiant girl of twenty-four, did not deter Braybrooke from his enterprise. His long experience of the world had led him to know that human beings can, and perpetually do, interfere successfully in each other's affairs, help in making of what are called destinies, head each other off from the prosecution of designs, in fact play Providence and the Devil to each other.

His laudable intention was to play Providence.

On the following day he considered it his social duty to pay a call at Number 18A, Berkeley Square. Dear Adela Sellingworth would certainly wish to know how things were going in Paris. Although she now never went there, and in fact never went anywhere, she still, thank G.o.d, had an interest in what was going on in the world. It would be his pleasure to gratify it.

He found her at home and alone. But before he was taken upstairs the butler said he was not sure whether her ladys.h.i.+p was seeing anyone and must find out. He went away to do so, and returned with an affirmative answer.

When Braybrooke came into the big drawing-room on the first floor he fancied that his friend was looking older, and even paler, than usual.

As he took her hand he thought, ”Can I be right? Is it possible that Craven can imagine himself in love with her?”

<script>