Part 41 (2/2)

Lord Coombe was ushered into the little drawing-room by an extremely immature young footman who--doubtless as a consequence of his immaturity--appeared upon the scene too suddenly. The War left one only servants who were idiots or barely out of Board Schools, Feather said.

And in fact it was something suggesting ”a scene” upon which Coombe was announced. The athletic and personable young actor--ent.i.tled upon programmes Owen Delamore--was striding to and fro talking excitedly.

There was theatrical emotion in the air and Feather, delicately flushed and elate, was listening with an air half frightened, half pleased. The immaturity of the footman immediately took fright and the youth turning at once produced the fatal effect of fleeing precipitately.

Mr. Owen Delamore suddenly ceased speaking and would doubtless have flushed vividly if he had not already been so high of colour as to preclude the possibility of his flus.h.i.+ng at all. The scene, which was plainly one of emotion, being intruded upon in its midst left him transfixed on his expression of anguish, pleading and reproachful protest--all thrilling and confusing things.

The very serenity of Lord Coombe's apparently un.o.bserving entrance was perhaps a shock as well as a relief. It took even Feather two or three seconds to break into her bell of a laugh as she shook hands with her visitor.

”Mr. Delamore is going over his big scene in the new play,” she explained with apt swiftness of resource. ”It's very good, but it excites him dreadfully. I've been told that great actors don't let themselves get excited at all, so he ought not to do it, ought he, Lord Coombe?”

Coombe was transcendently well behaved.

”I am a yawning abyss of ignorance in such matters, but I cannot agree with the people who say that emotion can be expressed without feeling.”

He himself expressed exteriorly merely intelligent consideration of the idea. ”That however may be solely the opinion of one benighted.”

It was so well done that the young athlete, in the relief of relaxed nerves, was almost hysterically inclined to believe in Feather's adroit statement and to feel that he really had been acting. He was at least able to pull himself together, to become less flushed and to sit down with some approach to an air of being lightly amused at himself.

”Well it is proved that I am not a great actor,” he achieved. ”I can't come anywhere near doing it. I don't believe Irving ever did--or Coquelin. But perhaps it is one of my recommendations that I don't aspire to be great. At any rate people only ask to be amused and helped out just now. It will be a long time before they want anything else, it's my opinion.”

They conversed amiably together for nearly a quarter of an hour before Mr. Owen Delamore went on his way murmuring polite regrets concerning impending rehearsals, his secret grat.i.tude expressing itself in special courtesy to Lord Coombe.

As he was leaving the room, Feather called to him airily:

”If you hear any more of the Zepps--just dash in and tell me!--Don't lose a minute! Just das.h.!.+”

When the front door was heard to close upon him, Coombe remarked casually:

”I will ask you to put an immediate stop to that sort of thing.”

He observed that Feather fluttered--though she had lightly moved to a table as if to rearrange a flower in a group.

”Put a stop to letting Mr. Delamore go over his scene here?”

”Put a stop to Mr. Delamore, if you please.”

It was at this moment more than ever true that her light being was overstrung and that her light head whirled too fast. This one particular also overstrung young man had shared all her amus.e.m.e.nts with her and had ended by pleasing her immensely--perhaps to the verge of inspiring a touch of fevered sentiment she had previously never known. She told herself that it was the War when she thought of it. She had however not been clever enough to realise that she was a little losing her head in a way which might not be to her advantage. For the moment she lost it completely. She almost whirled around as she came to Coombe.

”I won't,” she exclaimed. ”I won't!”

It was a sort of shock to him. She had never done anything like it before. It struck him that he had never before seen her look as she looked at the moment. She was a shade too dazzlingly made up--she had crossed the line on one side of which lies the art which is perfect.

Even her dress had a suggestion of wartime lack of restraint in its style and colours.

It was of a strange green and a very long scarf of an intensely vivid violet spangled with silver paillettes was swathed around her bare shoulders and floated from her arms. One of the signs of her excitement was that she kept twisting its ends without knowing that she was touching it. He noted that she wore a big purple amethyst ring--the amethyst too big. Her very voice was less fine in its inflections and as he swiftly took in these points Coombe recognised that they were the actual result of the slight tone of raffishness he had observed as denoting the character of her increasingly mixed circle.

She threw herself into a chair palpitating in one of her rages of a little cat--wreathing her scarf round and round her wrist and singularly striking him with the effect of almost spitting and hissing out her words.

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