Part 16 (2/2)
”And then?”
”Oh, I write in them. It would be impolite not to, you know. I have an invaluable formula. I write, 'Dear Madam, I am very sorry to say that I cannot accede to your kind request for an autograph. The practice is one with which I am not in sympathy. Yours very truly, Gilbert Lothian!'”
”That's splendid, Mr. Lothian, better than sending a telegram, as some one did the other day to an importunate girl. They were talking about it last night at the Amberleys' after you left. I suppose that's really what gave me courage to send 'Surgit Amari' by Mr. d.i.c.kson Ingworth.
Mr. and Mrs. Toftrees said that they always write pa.s.sages from their novels when they are asked.”
”Perhaps that's a good plan,” Lothian answered, listening to the ”viols in her voice” and not much interested in the minor advertising arts of the Toftrees. What rare maiden was this with whom he was chatting? What had made him come to see her after all?--a mere whim doubtless--but was he not about to reap a very delightful harvest?
For he was conscious of immense pleasure as he stood there talking to her, and there was excitement mingled with the pleasure. It was as though he was advancing upon a landscape, and at every step something fresh and interesting came into view.
”I _did_ so dislike Mr. Toftrees and his wife,” Rita said with a mischievous little gleam in her eyes.
”Did you?” he asked in surprise. ”They seemed very pleasant people I thought.”
”I expect that was because you thought nothing whatever about them, Mr.
Lothian,” she replied.
He realised the absolute truth of the remark in a flash. The novelists had in no way interested him. He had not thought about these people at all--this maiden was a psychologist then! There was something subtly flattering in what she had said. His point of view had interested the girl, she had discovered it, small and unimportant though it was.
”But why did you dislike poor Mr. Toftrees?” he said, with an eminently friendly smile--already an unconscious note of intimacy had been sounded, he was interested to hear why she disliked the man, not the woman.
”He is pompous and insincere,” she replied. ”He tries to draw attention to his great success, or rather his notoriety, by pretending to despise it. Surely, it would be far more manly to accept the fact frankly, and not to hint that he could be a great artist if he could bring himself to do without a lot of money!”
Lothian wondered what had provoked this little outburst. It was quiveringly sincere, that he saw. His eyes questioned hers.
”It's such dreadful appalling treacle they write! I saw a little flapper in the Tube two days ago, with the Toftrees' latest book--'Milly Mine.' Her expression was ecstatic!”
”For my part I think that's something to have done, do you know, to have taken that flapper out of the daily tube of her life into Romance.
Heaven with electric lights and plush fittings is better than none at all. I couldn't grudge the flapper her ecstasy, nor Mr. Toftrees his big cheques. I should very much like to see the people in Tubes reading my books--it would be good for them--and to pouch enormous cheques myself--would be good for me! But there must be Toftrees sort of persons now that every one knows how to read!”
”Well, I'll let his work alone,” she answered, ”but I certainly do dislike him. He was trying to run your work down last night--though we wouldn't let him.”
So the secret was out now! Lothian smiled and the quick, enthusiastic girl understood. A little ripple of laughter came from her.
”Yes, that's it,” she cried. ”He did all he could.”
”Did he? Confound him! I wonder why?”
Lothian asked the question with entire simplicity. Subtle-minded and complex as he was, he was incapable of mean thoughts and muddy envy when he was not under the influence of drink.
Poisoned, alas, he was entirely different. All the evil in him rose to the surface. As yet it by no means obscured or overpowered the good, but it became manifest and active.
In the case of this fine intellect and splendid artist, no less than in the worker in the slum or the labourer in the field, drink seemed an actual key to unlock the dark and secret doors of wickedness which are in every heart. Some coiled and sleeping serpent within him, no less than in them, raised its head into baleful life and sudden enmity of good.
A few nights ago, half intoxicated in a club--intoxicated in mind that is, for he was holding forth with a caustic bitterness and sharp brilliancy that had drawn a crowd around him--he had abused the work of Herbert Toftrees and his wife with contemptuous and venomous words.
He was quite unconscious that he had ever done so. He knew nothing about the couple and had never read a line of their works. The subject had just cropped up somehow, like a bird from a stubble, and he had let fly. It was pure coincidence that he had met the novelists at the Amberleys' and Lothian had entirely forgotten that he had ever mentioned their work at the club.
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