Part 18 (1/2)
”It is impossible. You could not sit there and look like that if you were thirty-two.”
”The impossible is so often the true. I'm glad you don't think I seem old. It is nice to believe one can keep young at heart, in spite of the years. Shall we go to the lounge?”
Again they moved through the admiring crowd, but this time Lorraine felt less idle interest and more inward wonder; and without any misgiving she steered to a quiet alcove, where they could talk without again being the cynosure of many eyes.
Here, in a pleasant, friendly way, she led him once again to talk of the future, and was glad to find, in answering sincerity with sincerity, he was ready to admit that he was a little sorry about his own lack of ambition and want of application. He did not pretend now that it was of no moment. He told her he would like to achieve, only somehow he always found his attention wander to other things, and his desire grow slack after a week of rigid application.
She recognised that the motive-power was missing, and that unless something deeper than mere desire of achievement stirred him, he would probably never attain. He needed a goal that should make everything else in the world pale before it, and something that seemed almost as life and death to hang on his success. But how get it for him? If he loved, and was bidden wait until he had prospered, the end was all too sure and the love too easy.
It was something different that was needed; something that would bring him up with dead abruptness against a blank wall, and leave him with a taste of life that was dust and ashes unless he found a way through.
Either that or some sweet, wild, unattainable desire, that might drive him to work and ambition by way of escape.
And there again, where should he encounter such a desire? One had only to look into his calm, fine face to feel that the unattainable in the form of love, barred by marriage vows as lightly made as broken, would never stir the depths of his heart, nor appeal to his real self in any way whatever.
He would not love such a woman, however for a time she might fascinate him; and afterwards there would only be the nausea and the memory that was like an unpleasant taste. Such a woman might teach him many things it is no harm for a man to know; but she would never call to the best in him, nor help him to realise himself.
”Have you seen your friend the d.u.c.h.ess lately?” she asked, with a disarming smile, not wis.h.i.+ng to appear merely curious.
”Yes; I saw her on Friday, at a ball. She was in great form.”
”You danced with her?”
”Yes. She's not a good dancer.”
”Then you only had one, I suppose?”
”No, three.” He smiled a little. ”We sat out two.”
”You ought to have felt highly honoured.”
”Oh, I don't know. She is very amusing. A very funny thing happened last week. Out of sheer devilry, she and a friend and two men went to the Covent Garden Fancy Dress Ball, disguised of course, and just for an hour or two. To their horror, after the procession, the friend was handed a large gla.s.s-and-silver salad bowl, as a prize for being the best 'twostep' dancer in the room. Of course she had to go off with the beastly thing; but she was so proud of winning it, she couldn't resist giving their escapade away, and it got round everywhere.”
”I wonder if our escapade with Lady Bounce is out yet? I haven't seen Hal since Thursday.”
”Oh yes, it is,” eagerly; ”the d.u.c.h.ess had heard about it. She was pumping me to know who was in the joke. We are longing to see Quin and hear the latest, but he is down east.”
”What an oddity he is!” thoughtfully. ”I liked him so much: but it is difficult to reconcile him with slumming.”
”He's one of the best. Every one loves him. And he does his slumming in quite a way of his own. I've been with him sometimes, and he just goes among the rough characters down there as if he hated being a swell and wanted to be one of them. He positively asks them for sympathy, and of course it takes their fancy and he is friends with them all.”
”I think you are a remarkable trio altogether. Hal's cousin d.i.c.k is just as original in his way as St. Quintin. And you, of course, are somehow different to the majority. I wonder how you will each end?
St. Quintin will perhaps become a bishop. d.i.c.k Bruce will write an astounding, weird novel, and bound into fame. And you? ...”
He flushed a little. ”I shall be left far behind by both of them, futilely wis.h.i.+ng to catch up.”
”I hope not. Your chance is just as good as theirs, if you choose to make it so,”