Part 20 (1/2)
”Good-night--boy,” she gasped.
He turned sharply, quivering under the familiar name. Her maid, standing in the snow, moved forward, and he motioned her to enter the brougham.
”Home,” he said unsteadily; and stood there very still for a minute or two, even after the carriage had whirled away into the storm. Then, looking up at the house, he felt for his keys; but a sudden horror of being alone arrested him, and he stepped back, calling out to his cabman, who was already turning his horse's head, ”Wait a moment; I think I'll drive back to Mrs. Gerard's... . And take your time.”
It was still early--lacking a quarter of an hour to midnight--when he arrived. Nina had retired, but Austin sat in the library, obstinately plodding through the last chapters of a brand-new novel.
”This is a wretched excuse for sitting up,” he yawned, laying the book flat on the table, but still open. ”I ought never to be trusted alone with any book.” Then he removed his reading gla.s.ses, yawned again, and surveyed Selwyn from head to foot.
”Very pretty,” he said. ”Well, how are the yellow ones, Phil? Or was it all debutante and slop-twaddle?”
”Few from the cradle, but bunches were arriving for the dance as I left.”
”Eileen went at half-past eleven.”
”I didn't know she was going,” said Selwyn, surprised.
”She didn't want you to. The Playful Kitten business, you know--frisks apropos of nothing to frisk about. But we all fancied you'd stay for the dance.” He yawned mightily, and gazed at Selwyn with ruddy gravity.
”Whisk?” he inquired.
”No.”
”Cigar?”--mildly urgent.
”No, thanks.”
”Bed?”
”I think so. But don't wait for me, Austin... . Is that the evening paper? Where is St. Paul?”
Austin pa.s.sed it across the table and sat for a moment, alternately yawning and skimming the last chapter of his novel.
”Stuff and rubbish, mush and piffle!” he muttered, closing the book and pus.h.i.+ng it from him across the table; ”love, as usual, grossly out of proportion to the ensemble. That theory of the earth's rotation, you know; all these absurd books are built on it. Why do men read 'em? They grin when they do it! Love is only the sixth sense--just one-sixth of a man's existence. The other five-sixths of his time he's using his other senses working for a living.”
Selwyn looked up over his newspaper, then lowered and folded it.
”In these novels,” continued Gerard, irritably, ”five-sixths of the pages are devoted to love; everything else is subordinated to it; it controls all motives, it initiates all action, it drugs reason, it prolongs the tuppenny suspense, sustains cheap situations, and produces agonisingly profitable climaxes for the authors... . Does it act that way in real life?”
”Not usually,” said Selwyn.
”n.o.body else thinks so, either. Why doesn't somebody tell the truth? Why doesn't somebody tell us how a man sees a nice girl and gradually begins to tag after her when business hours are over? A respectable man is busy from eight or nine until five or six. In the evening he's usually at the club, or dining out, or asleep; isn't he? Well, then, how much time does it leave for love? Do the problem yourself in any way you wish; the result is a fraction every time; and that fraction represents the proper importance of the love interest in its proper ratio to a man's entire life.”
He sat up, greatly pleased with himself at having reduced sentiment to a fixed proportion in the ingredients of life.
”If I had time,” he said, ”I could tell them how to write a book--” He paused, musing, while the confident smile spread. Selwyn stared at s.p.a.ce.
”What does a young man know about love, anyway?” demanded his brother-in-law.
”Nothing,” replied Selwyn listlessly.