Part 22 (2/2)

He loved his desire because it made him feel young, and, loving it, he thought he loved Elise.

And what Corbett was thinking, Markham and Thurston, and Hawtrey and young Hawtrey, and Grainger, would be thinking too. They would all see him as the still young, romantic adventurer, the inspirer of pa.s.sion.

And Bevan--But no, he didn't want Bevan to see him like that. Or rather, he did, and yet again he didn't. He had scruples when it came to Bevan, because of f.a.n.n.y. And because of f.a.n.n.y, while he rioted in visions of the possible, he dreaded more than anything an actual detection, the raking eyes and furtive tongues of the townspeople. If f.a.n.n.y called on Mrs. Levitt it would stop all the talking.

That was how f.a.n.n.y came to know Mrs. Levitt, and how Mrs. Levitt (and Toby) came to be asked to the September garden party at Lower Wyck Manor.

2

Mrs. Levitt, of the White House, Wyck-on-the-Hill, Gloucesters.h.i.+re.

She thought it sounded very well. She had been out, that is to say, she had judged it more becoming to her dignity not to be at home when f.a.n.n.y called; and f.a.n.n.y had been actually out when Mrs. Levitt called, so that they met for the first time at the garden party.

”It's absurd our not knowing each other,” f.a.n.n.y said, ”when my husband knows you so well.”

”I've always felt, Mrs. Waddington, that I ought to know you, if it's only to tell you how good he's been to me. But, of course, you know it.”

”I know it quite well. He's always being good to people. He likes it.

You must take off some of the credit for that.”

She thought: ”She has really very beautiful eyes.” A lot of credit would have to be taken off for her eyes, too.

”But isn't that,” said Mrs. Levitt, ”what being good _is_? To like being it? Only I suppose that's just what lays him open--”

She lowered the eyes whose brilliance had blazed a moment ago on f.a.n.n.y; she toyed with her handbag, smiling a little secret, roguish smile.

”That lays him open?”

Mrs. Levitt looked up, smiling. ”To the attacks of unscrupulous people like me.”

It was risky, but it showed a masterly boldness and presence of mind. It was as if she and f.a.n.n.y Waddington had had their eyes fixed on a live scorpion approaching them over the lawn, and Mrs. Levitt had stooped down and grasped it by its tail and tossed it into the lavender bushes.

As if Mrs. Levitt had said, ”My dear Mrs. Waddington, we both know that this horrible creature exists, but we aren't going to let it sting us.”

As if she knew why f.a.n.n.y had called on her and was grateful to her.

Perhaps if Mrs. Levitt had never appeared at that garden party, or if, having appeared, she had never been introduced, at their own request, to Major Markham, Mr. Thurston, Mr. Hawtrey and young Hawtrey and Sir John Corbett, Mr. Waddington might never have realized the full extent of her fascination.

She had made herself the centre of the party by her sheer power to seize attention and to hold it. You couldn't help looking at her, again and again, where she sat in a clearing of the lawn, playing the clever, pointed play of her black and white, black satin frock, black satin cloak lined with white silk, furred with ermine; white stockings and long white gloves, the close black satin hat clipping her head; the vivid contrast and stress repeated in white skin, black hair, black eyes; black eyes and fine mouth and white teeth making a charming and perpetual movement.

She had been talking to Major Markham for the last ten minutes, displaying herself as the absurdly youthful mother of a grown-up son.

Toby Levitt, a tall and slender likeness of his mother, was playing tennis with distinction, ignoring young Horace, his partner, standing well up to the net and repeating the alternate smas.h.i.+ng and sliding strokes that kept Ralph and Barbara bounding from one end of the court to the other. Mrs. Levitt was trying to reconcile the proficiency of Toby's play with his immunity from conscription in the late war. The war led straight to Major Markham's battery, and Major Markham's battery to the battery once commanded by Toby's father, which led to Poona and the great discovery.

”You don't mean Frank Levitt, captain in the gunners?”

”I do.”

”Was he by any chance stationed at Poona in nineteen-ten, eleven?”

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