Part 17 (1/2)

”I hope,” I said, ”that I haven't lit on an inconvenient evening. Had you any other engagement?”

I was eating a very small piece of fish when he spoke to me, and was trying to guess what the sauce was flavoured with. It occurred to me suddenly that I might have broken in upon some sort of private anniversary, a day which Ascher and his wife observed as one of abstinence. There was, I could scarcely fail to notice it, a sense of subdued melancholy about our proceedings.

”Oh, no,” said Ascher, ”but on Wednesdays we always have some music. I was inclined to think that you might have preferred to spend the evening talking, but my wife----”

He looked at Mrs. Ascher. I should very much have preferred talk to music. It was chiefly in order to hear Ascher talk that I had accepted the invitation.

”I know,” said Mrs. Ascher, ”that Sir James likes music.”

She laid a strong emphasis on the word ”know,” and I felt that she was paying me a nice compliment. What she said was true enough. I do like music, some kinds of music. I had heard for the first time the night before a song, then very popular, with a particularly attractive chorus.

It began to run through my head the moment Ascher mentioned music. ”I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to do it.” I liked that song. I was not sure that I should like the Aschers' music equally well. However, I had no intention of contradicting Mrs. Ascher.

”I'm pa.s.sionately fond of music,” I said.

Ascher is a singularly guileless man. I cannot imagine how any one so unsuspicious as he is can ever have succeeded as a financier, unless indeed people are far honester about money than they are about anything else. I do not think Mrs. Ascher believed that I am pa.s.sionately fond of music. Her husband did. The little shadow of anxiety which had rested on his face cleared away. He became almost cheerful.

”To-night,” he said, ”we are going to hear some of the work of----”

He said a name, but I utterly failed to catch it. I had never heard it before, and it sounded foreign, very foreign indeed, possibly Kurdish.

”------,” said Ascher, ”is one of the new Russian composers.”

I heard the name that time, but I can make no attempt, phonetic or other, to spell it. I suppose it can be spelled, but the letters must be given values quite new to me. The alphabet I am accustomed to is incapable of representing that man's name.

”I daresay you know him,” said Mrs. Ascher.

I strongly suspected that she was trying to entrap me. I have never been quite sure of Mrs. Ascher since the day she discovered that I was talking nonsense about the statuette of Psyche. Sometimes she appears to be the kind of foolish woman to whom anything may be said without fear.

Sometimes she displays most unexpected intelligence. I looked at her before I answered. Her narrow, pale-green eyes expressed nothing but innocent inquiry. She might conceivably think that I had already made a careful study of the music of the new Russian composer. On the other hand, she might be luring me on to say that I knew music which was to be played in her house that night for the first time. I made up my mind to be safe.

”No,” I said, ”I never even heard of him.”

Then Ascher began to talk about the man and his music. He became more animated than I had ever seen him. It was evident that Russian music interested Ascher far more than finance did; that it was a subject which was capable of wakening real enthusiasm in him. I listened, eating from time to time the delicate morsels of food offered to me and sipping the delicious wine. I did not understand anything Ascher said, and all the names he mentioned were new to me; but for a time I was content to sit in a kind of half-conscious state, hypnotised by the sound of his voice and the feeling that Mrs. Ascher's eyes were fixed on me.

Not until dinner was nearly over did I make an effort to a.s.sert myself.

”I was talking to Gorman the other day,” I said, ”about Irish affairs and especially about the Ulster situation. I have also been hearing Malcolmson's views. Malcolmson is a colonel and an Ulsterman. You know the sort of views an Ulster Colonel would have.”

Ascher smiled faintly. He seemed no more than slightly amused at the turn Irish affairs were taking. After all neither international finance nor Russian music was likely to be profoundly affected by the Ulster rebellion. (Malcolmson will not use the word rebellion, but I must.

There is no other word to describe the actions he contemplates.) No wonder Ascher takes small interest in the matter. On the other hand, Mrs. Ascher was profoundly moved by the mention of Ulster. I could see genuine pa.s.sion in her eyes.

”Belfast,” she said, ”stands for all that is vilest and most hateful in the world. It is worse than Glasgow, worse than Manchester, worse than Birmingham.”

Belfast is, no doubt, the main difficulty. If there were no Belfast the resistance of the rest of Ulster would be inconsiderable. I admired the political instinct which enabled Mrs. Ascher to go straight to the very centre of the situation. But, in all probability, Gorman gave her the hint. Gorman does not seem to understand how real the Ulster opposition is, but he has intelligence enough to grasp the importance of Belfast.

What puzzled me first was the extreme bitterness with which Mrs. Ascher spoke.

”What has Belfast ever given to the world?” she asked.

”Well,” I said, ”s.h.i.+ps are built there, and of course there's linen. I believe they manufacture tobacco, and----”