Part 4 (1/2)
”Close on eleven.”
”Then I must really be moving, Mildred. But Jack will play; he isn't coming on with me.”
”Where are you going, Lady Alston?” asked Arthur.
”To see Blanche Devereux.”
Arthur Naseby's face fell.
”I never knew she was giving a party,” he said.
Marie laughed, rising.
”She isn't; don't be frightened; it is still possible that she has not dropped you, like Mildred. I'm only going to see her about the soldiers'
bazaar. In fact, it is because she isn't giving a party that I am going.”
Jim Spencer got up too.
”Will you give me a lift?” he asked. ”I am going to Eaton Place also.”
”Certainly. Good-night, Mildred. Yes, I know my carriage is here. They told me half an hour ago. Jack is stopping to play, I suppose. Please tell him I have taken the carriage.”
The two went out, and Mrs. Brereton and Naseby stood still looking at them. When they had disappeared they looked at each other.
”Dear Marie!” said that lady effusively, ”how delighted she evidently is to see Jim Spencer again! Oh, dear, yes, they were very great friends in the old days, very great friends indeed. Come, Arthur, they are waiting for us.”
”You always have such delightful people at your house,” said Arthur, ”and you always have something interesting to say about them. And that stiff young man is very rich, is he not?”
”Beyond the dreams,” said Mrs. Brereton. ”I wonder whom he will find to make his money fly for him?”
”One can never tell. He looks to me as if he might spend it on Corots or charity or something of that imperishable kind. Doesn't it strike you as odd that whereas the perishable nature of money is always dinned into one, yet one can apparently purchase imperishable treasure by being charitable with it? No, I can't imagine any one making his money fly.
Some one might make it march away, very solemnly and in good order, but not fly. He is a little stiff, is he not?”
”Perhaps a little reserved. But when reserve breaks down, it is so _very_ unreserved. I like seeing a reserved person having a real holiday.”
”How many days would you say it was to the holidays?” asked Arthur, in a low voice, as they reached the card-table where Jack and another were waiting.
”I can't tell. I shouldn't wonder--no, I can't tell.”
Marie and Jim Spencer meantime were driving down from Grosvenor Square towards the Park. The night was warm, and hosts of stars burned very large and luminous in a sky that was beyond the usual London measure of clearness. After the heat of the rooms, in particular after a certain feverishness of atmosphere, not physical so much as moral, a sense of extreme hurry and pressure, the night air and the cool steadiness of the stars were refres.h.i.+ng, not only physically but morally. Perhaps from their years of early companions.h.i.+p and intimacy, perhaps from a certain more deeply seated sympathy of mind, each was very conscious of the thoughts of the other, and the swift silent motion through the glare of the streets seemed to isolate them from the world. It was with something of this in her mind that Lady Alston spoke to the other.
”Yes, put down my window, Jim,” she said, ”and your own, too, if you are not afraid of catching cold. We are both outdoor people, I think.”
”We used to be,” said he.
”Do you mean you have changed? Or do you find I have?”
”I find you have. But I am quite willing to believe that it may be some change in myself that makes me think so.”