Part 19 (1/2)

'Yes, doesn't it? Mavis dear, will you do up your hair and come out to dinner?'

'Vincy dear, I think I'd better not, because of Aunt Jessie.'

'Oh, very well; all right. Then you will another time?'

'Oh, you don't want me to stay?'

'Yes, I do; do stay.'

'No, next time--next Tuesday.'

'Very well, very well.'

He took a dark red carnation out of one of the vases and pinned it on to her coat.

'The next time I see you,' she said, 'I want to have a long, _long_ talk.'

'Oh yes; we must, mustn't we?'

He took her downstairs, put her into a cab. It was half-past six.

He felt something false, worrying, unreliable and incalculable in Mavis. She didn't seem real.... He wished she were fortunate and happy; but he wished even more that he were never going to see her again. And still!...

He walked a little way, then got into a taxi and drove to see Edith.

When he was in this peculiar condition of mind--the odd mixture of self-reproach, satisfaction, amus.e.m.e.nt and boredom that he felt now --he always went to see Edith, throwing himself into the little affairs of her life as if he had nothing else on his mind. He was a little anxious about Edith. It seemed to him that since Aylmer had been away she had altered a little.

CHAPTER XVI

More of the Mitch.e.l.ls

Edith had become an immense favourite with the Mitch.e.l.ls. They hardly ever had any entertainment without her. Her success with their friends delighted Mrs Mitch.e.l.l, who was not capable of commonplace feminine jealousy, and who regarded Edith as a find of her own. She often reproached Winthrop, her husband, for having known Bruce eight years without discovering his charming wife.

One evening they had a particularly gay party. Immediately after dinner Mitch.e.l.l had insisted on dressing up, and was solemnly announced in his own house as Prince Gonoff, a Russian n.o.ble. He had a mania for disguising himself. He had once travelled five hundred miles under the name of Prince Gotoffski, in a fur coat, a foreign accent, a false moustache and a special saloon carriage. Indeed, only his wife knew all the secrets of Mitch.e.l.l's wild early career of unpractical jokes, to some of which he still clung. When he was younger he had carried it pretty far. She encouraged him, yet at the same time she acted as ballast, and was always explaining his jokes; sometimes she was in danger of explaining him entirely away. She loved to tell of his earlier exploits. How often, when younger, he had collected money for charities (particularly for the Deaf and Dumb Cats' League, in which he took special interest), by painting halves of salmon and s.h.i.+ps on fire on the cold grey pavement! Armed with an accordion, and masked to the eyes, he had appeared at Eastbourne, and also at the Henley Regatta, as a Mysterious Musician. At the regatta he had been warned off the course, to his great pride and joy. Mrs Mitch.e.l.l a.s.sured Edith that his bath-chair race with a few choice spirits was still talked of at St Leonard's (bath-chairmen, of course, are put in the chairs, and you pull them along). Mr Mitch.e.l.l was beaten by a short head, but that, Mrs Mitch.e.l.l declared, was really most unfair, because he was so handicapped--his man was much stouter than any of the others--and the race, by rights, should have been run again.

When he was at Oxford he had been well known for concealing under a slightly rowdy exterior the highest spirits of any of the undergraduates. He was looked upon as the most fascinating of _farceurs_. It seems that he had distinguished himself there less for writing Greek verse, though he was good at it, than for the wonderful variety of fireworks that he persistently used to let off under the dean's window. It was this fancy of his that led, first, to his popularity, and afterwards to the unfortunate episode of his being sent down; soon after which he had married privately, chiefly in order to send his parents an announcement of his wedding in _The Morning Post_, as a surprise.

Some people had come in after dinner--for there was going to be a little _sauterie intime_, as Mrs Mitch.e.l.l called it, speaking in an accent of her own, so appalling that, as Vincy observed, it made it sound quite improper. Edith watched, intensely amused, as she saw that there were really one or two people present who, never having seen Mitch.e.l.l before, naturally did not recognise him now, so that the disguise was considered a triumph. There was something truly agreeable in the deference he was showing to a peculiarly yellow lady in red, adorned with ugly real lace, and beautiful false hair. She was obviously delighted with the Russian prince.

'Winthrop is a wonderful man!' said Mrs Mitch.e.l.l to Edith, as she watched her husband proudly. 'Who would dream he was clean-shaven! Look at that moustache! Look at the wonderful way his coat doesn't fit; he's got just that Russian touch with his clothes; I don't know how he's done it, I'm sure. How I wish dear Aylmer Ross was here; he _would_ appreciate it so much.'

'Yes, I wish he were,' said Edith.

'I can't think what he went away for. I suppose he heard the East a-calling, and all that sort of thing. The old wandering craving you read of came over him again, I suppose. Well, let's hope he'll meet some charming girl and bring her back as his bride. Where is he now, do you know, Mrs Ottley?'

'In Armenia, I fancy,' said Edith.

'Oh, well, we don't want him to bring home an Armenian, do we? What colour are they? Blue, or brown, or what? I hope no-one will tell Lady Hartland that is my husband. She'll expect to see Winthrop tonight; she never met him, you know; but he really ought to be introduced to her. I think I shall tell him to go and undress, when they've had a little dancing and she's been down to supper.'

Lady Hartland was the yellow lady in red, who thought she was flirting with a fascinating Slav.