Part 34 (1/2)

”Then why abuse it?” laughed Sypher.

”Because it's a wanton and the wanton angers you and fascinates you at the same time. You never know how to take her. You are aware she hasn't got a heart, but her lips are red. She is unreal. She holds views in defiance of common sense. Which is the n.o.bler thing to do--to dig potatoes or paint a man digging potatoes? She swears to you that the digger is a clod of earth and the painter a handful of heaven. She is talking rot. You know it. Yet you believe her.”

Sypher was not convinced by the airy paradoxician. He had a childish idea that painters and novelists and actors were superior beings. Rattenden found this Arcadian and cultivated Sypher's society. They took long walks together on Sunday afternoons.

”After all,” said Rattenden, ”I can speak freely. I am a pariah among my kind.”

Sypher asked why.

”Because I don't play golf. In London it is impossible to be seriously regarded as a literary man unless you play golf.”

He found Sypher a good listener. He loved to catch a theory of life, hold it in his hand like a struggling bird while he discoursed about it, and let it go free into the suns.h.i.+ne again. Sypher admired his nimbleness of mind.

”You juggle with ideas as the fellows on the stage do with gilt b.a.l.l.s.”

”It's a game I learned,” said Rattenden. ”It's very useful. It takes one's mind off the dull question of earning bread and b.u.t.ter for a wife and five children.”

”I wish you'd teach it to me,” said Sypher. ”I've many wives and many children dependent on me for bread and b.u.t.ter!”

Rattenden was quick to note the tone of depression. He laughed kindly.

”Looking on is just as good. When you're worried in London why don't you look me up? My wife and I will play the game for you. She's an amusing body. Heaven knows how I should have got through without her. She also swears by Sypher's Cure.”

So they became friends. Sypher, since the blistered heel episode, had lost his fearless way of trumpeting the Cure far and wide, having a nervous dread of seeing the _p_ and _q_ of the hateful words form themselves on the lips of a companion. He became subdued, and spoke only of travel and men and things, of anything but the Cure. He preferred to listen and, as Rattenden preferred to talk, he found conversation a simple matter.

Rattenden was an amusing anecdotist and had ama.s.sed a prodigious amount of raw material for his craft. To the collector, by some unknown law of attraction, come the objects which he collects. Everywhere he goes he finds them to his hand, as Septimus's friend found the Toby jugs. Wherever Rattenden turned, a bit of gossip met his ear. Very few things, therefore, happened in literary and theatrical London which did not come inevitably to his knowledge. He could have wrecked many homes and p.r.i.c.ked many reputations. As a man of the world, however, he used his knowledge with discretion, and as an artist in anecdote he selected fastidiously. He seldom retailed a bit of gossip for its own sake; when he did so he had a purpose.

One evening they dined together at Sypher's club, a great semi-political inst.i.tution with many thousand members. He had secured, however, a quiet table in a corner of the dining-room which was adorned with full-length portraits of self-conscious statesmen. Sypher unfolded his napkin with an air of satisfaction.

”I've had good news to-day. Mrs. Middlemist is on her way home.”

”You have the privilege of her friends.h.i.+p,” said Rattenden. ”You're to be envied. _O fortunate nimium_.”

He preserved some of the Oxford tradition in tone and manner. He had brown hair turning gray, a drooping mustache and wore pince-nez secured by a broad black cord. Being very short-sighted his eyes seen through the thick lenses were almost expressionless.

”Zora Middlemist,” said he, squeezing lemon over his oysters, ”is a grand and splendid creature whom I admire vastly. As I never lose an opportunity of telling her that she is doing nothing with her grand and splendid qualities, I suffer under the ban of her displeasure.”

”What do you think she ought to do with them?” asked Sypher.

”It's a difficult and delicate matter to discuss a woman with another man; especially--” he waved a significant hand. ”But I, in my little way, have written a novel or two--studies of women. I speak therefore as an expert.

Now, just as a painter can't correctly draw the draped figure unless he has an anatomical knowledge of the limbs beneath, so is a novelist unable to present the character of a woman with sincerity and verisimilitude unless he has taken into account all the hidden physiological workings of that woman's nature. He must be familiar with the workings of the s.e.x principle within her, although he need not show them in his work, any more than the painter shows the anatomy. a.n.a.lyzing thus the imaginary woman, one forms a habit of a.n.a.lyzing the real woman in whom one takes an interest--or rather one does it unconsciously.” He paused. ”I told you it was rather delicate.

You see what I'm trying to get at? Zora Middlemist is driven round the earth like Io by the gadfly of her temperament. She's seeking the Beauty or Meaning or Fulfilment, or whatever she chooses to call it, of Life. What she's really looking for is Love.”

”I don't believe it,” said Sypher.

Rattenden shrugged his shoulders. ”It's true all the same. But in her case it's the great love--the big thing for the big man--the gorgeous tropical suns.h.i.+ne in which all the splendor of her can develop. No little man will move her. She draws them all round her--that type has an irresistible atmosphere--but she pa.s.ses them by with her magnificent head in the air.

She is looking all the time for the big man. The pathetic comedy of it is that she is as innocent and as unconscious of the object of her search as the flower that opens its heart to the bee bearing the pollen on its wings.

I'm not infallible as a general rule. In this case I am.”

He hastened to consume his soup which had got cold during his harangue.