Part 33 (1/2)
”Because it would now be too late for me to take your advice,” said Reggie mysteriously.
”What do you mean?” Barrington asked.
”Last night I asked Yae to marry me; and I understand that she accepted.”
Geoffrey sat in the sunlight on the gunwale of a fis.h.i.+ng-boat.
”You can't do that,” he said.
”Oh, Geoffrey, I was afraid you'd say it, and you have,” said his friend, half laughing. ”Why not?”
”Your career, old chap.”
”My career,” snorted Reggie, ”protocol, protocol and protocol. I am fed up with that, anyway. Can you imagine me a be-ribboned Excellency, worked by wires from London, babbling plat.i.tudes over teacups to other old Excellencies, and giving out a lot of gas for the F.O. every morning. No, in the old days there was charm and power and splendour, when an Amba.s.sador was really plenipotentiary, and peace and war turned upon a court intrigue. All that is as dead as Louis Quatorze.
Personality has faded out of politics. Everything is business, now, concessions, vested interests, dividends and bond-holders. These diplomats are not real people at all. They are shadowy survivals of the _grand siecle_, wraiths of Talleyrand; or else just restless bagmen. I don't call that a career.”
Geoffrey had listened to these tirades before. It was Reggie's froth.
”But what do you propose doing?” he asked.
”Doing? Why, my music of course. Before I left England some music-hall people offered me seventy pounds a week to do stunts for them. Their first offer was two hundred and fifty, because they were under the illusion that I had a t.i.tle. My official salary at this moment is two hundred _per annum_. So you see there would be no financial loss.”
”Then are you giving up diplomacy because you are fed up with it? or for Yae Smith's sake? I don't quite understand,” said Geoffrey.
He was still pondering over the scene of last evening, and he found considerable comfort in ascribing Yae's behaviour to excitement caused by her engagement.
”Yae is the immediate reason: utter fed-upness is the original cause,”
replied Reggie.
”Do you feel that you are very much in love with her?” asked his friend.
The young man considered for a moment, and then answered,--
”No, not in love exactly. But she represents what I have come to desire. I get so terribly lonely, Geoffrey, and I must have some one, some woman, of course; and I hate intrigue and adultery. Yae never grates upon me. I hate the twaddling activities of our modern women, their little sports, their little sciences, their little earnestnesses, their little philanthropies, their little imitations of men's ways. I like the seraglio type of woman, lazy and vain, a little more than a lovely animal. I can play with her, and hear her purring.
She must have no father or mother or brothers or sisters or any social scheme to entangle me in. She must have no claim on my secret mind, she must not be jealous of my music, or expect explanations. Still less explain me to others,--a wife who shows one round like a monkey, what horror!”
”But Reggie! old chap, does she love you?”
Geoffrey's ideas were stereotyped. To his mind, only great love on both sides could excuse so bizarre a marriage.
”Love!” cried Reggie. ”What is Love? I can feel Love in music. I can feel it in poetry. I can see it in suns.h.i.+ne, in the wet woods, and in the phosph.o.r.escent sea. But in actual life! I think of things in too abstract a way ever to feel in love with anybody. So I don't think anybody could really fall in love with me. It is like religious faith.
I have no faith, and yet I believe in faith. I have no love, and yet I have a great love for love. Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed!”
When Reggie was in this mood Geoffrey despaired of getting any sense out of him, and he felt that the occasion was too serious for smiles.
They were walking back to the hotel in the direction of breakfast.