Part 5 (1/2)

”His selfishness is splendid but absolutely futile,” said Youghal; ”now my selfishness is commonplace, but always thoroughly practical and calculated. He will have great difficulty in getting the swans to accept his offering, and he incurs the odium of reducing us to a bread-and-b.u.t.terless condition. Incidentally he will get very hot.”

Elaine again had the sense of being thoroughly baffled. If Youghal had said anything unkind it was about himself.

”If my cousin Suzette had been here,” she observed, with the shadow of a malicious smile on her lips, ”I believe she would have gone into a flood of tears at the loss of her bread-and-b.u.t.ter, and Comus would have figured ever after in her mind as something black and destroying and hateful. In fact I don't really know why we took our loss so unprotestingly.”

”For two reasons,” said Youghal; ”you are rather fond of Comus. And I-am not very fond of bread-and-b.u.t.ter.”

The jesting remark brought a throb of pleasure to Elaine's heart. She had known full well that she cared for Comus, but now that Courtenay Youghal had openly proclaimed the fact as something unchallenged and understood matters seemed placed at once on a more advanced footing. The warm sunlit garden grew suddenly into a Heaven that held the secret of eternal happiness. Youth and comeliness would always walk here, under the low-boughed mulberry trees, as unchanging as the leaden otter that for ever preyed on the leaden salmon on the edge of the old fountain, and somehow the lovers would always wear the aspect of herself and the boy who was talking to the four white swans by the water steps. Youghal was right; this was the real Heaven of one's dreams and longings, immeasurably removed from that Rue de la Paix Paradise about which one professed utterly insincere hankerings in places of public wors.h.i.+p.

Elaine drank her tea in a happy silence; besides being a brilliant talker Youghal understood the rarer art of being a non-talker on occasion.

Comus came back across the gra.s.s swinging the empty basket-dish in his hand.

”Swans were very pleased,” he cried, gaily, ”and said they hoped I would keep the bread-and-b.u.t.ter dish as a souvenir of a happy tea-party. I may really have it, mayn't I?” he continued in an anxious voice; ”it will do to keep studs and things in. You don't want it.”

”It's got the family crest on it,” said Elaine. Some of the happiness had died out of her eyes.

”I'll have that scratched off and my own put on,” said Comus.

”It's been in the family for generations,” protested Elaine, who did not share Comus's view that because you were rich your lesser possessions could have no value in your eyes.

”I want it dreadfully,” said Comus, sulkily, ”and you've heaps of other things to put bread-and-b.u.t.ter in.”

For the moment he was possessed by an overmastering desire to keep the dish at all costs; a look of greedy determination dominated his face, and he had not for an instant relaxed his grip of the coveted object.

Elaine was genuinely angry by this time, and was busily telling herself that it was absurd to be put out over such a trifle; at the same moment a sense of justice was telling her that Comus was displaying a good deal of rather shabby selfishness. And somehow her chief anxiety at the moment was to keep Courtenay Youghal from seeing that she was angry.

”I know you don't really want it, so I'm going to keep it,” persisted Comus.

”It's too hot to argue,” said Elaine.

”Happy mistress of your destinies,” laughed Youghal; ”you can suit your disputations to the desired time and temperature. I have to go and argue, or what is worse, listen to other people's arguments, in a hot and doctored atmosphere suitable to an invalid lizard.”

”You haven't got to argue about a bread-and-b.u.t.ter dish,” said Elaine.

”Chiefly about bread-and-b.u.t.ter,” said Youghal; ”our great preoccupation is other people's bread-and-b.u.t.ter. They earn or produce the material, but we busy ourselves with making rules how it shall be cut up, and the size of the slices, and how much b.u.t.ter shall go on how much bread. That is what is called legislation. If we could only make rules as to how the bread-and-b.u.t.ter should be digested we should be quite happy.”

Elaine had been brought up to regard Parliaments as something to be treated with cheerful solemnity, like illness or family re-unions.

Youghal's flippant disparagement of the career in which he was involved did not, however, jar on her susceptibilities. She knew him to be not only a lively and effective debater but an industrious worker on committees. If he made light of his labours, at least he afforded no one else a loophole for doing so. And certainly, the Parliamentary atmosphere was not inviting on this hot afternoon.

”When must you go?” she asked, sympathetically.

Youghal looked ruefully at his watch. Before he could answer, a cheerful hoot came through the air, as of an owl joyously challenging the sunlight with a foreboding of the coming night. He sprang laughing to his feet.

”Listen! My summons back to my galley,” he cried. ”The G.o.ds have given me an hour in this enchanted garden, so I must not complain.”

Then in a lower voice he almost whispered, ”It's the Persian debate to-night.”

It was the one hint he had given in the midst of his talking and laughing that he was really keenly enthralled in the work that lay before him. It was the one little intimate touch that gave Elaine the knowledge that he cared for her opinion of his work.