Mammon and Co.

She was not there; vague people had seen her vaguely, "some time ago"; and the advent of tea made him wait, not because he wanted tea, but because his chance of finding her was better at a well-defined centre.

The rest of the party was spending Sunday afternoon in various orthodox manners: Lord Comber was abstaining from a pile of yellow French novels he had brought out, Kit was sleeping peacefully with her mouth open in a long deck-chair, Jack was throwing sticks into the water for the spaniels, and Lady Haslemere was in her bedroom (a recognised Sunday resort, like a public garden). But tea brought everyone flocking together, like eagles to a carcass, and among them came Lily.

Toby had not seen her come out through the drawing-room window; her step on the velvet of the grass was noiseless, and it was not till she was close to the table that he looked up. Then their eyes met, black eyes and blue; and so chance a meeting, a thing which had happened a dozen times before in the course of a meal, seemed strangely to disconcert each. The most simple of all changes had come over Toby; Mrs. Murchison's words had fired his inflammable material – it was all ablaze. And that beacon must have shone from his honest open eyes, for Lily saw the change that none other saw, the private signal flying for her; and when, soon afterwards, he lounged up to her, and asked her if she would care to go out in the punt, as it was cooler now, she knew, so she thought afterwards, what was coming.

She assented, and the two went down over the close-shaven lawn to where it was moored.

CHAPTER XI

MR. ALINGTON OPENS CHECK

Kit, like most people who possess that master-key to immense enjoyment of life, namely, a ravenous, insatiable appetite for pleasure, had always a vital instinct to put off as long as possible anything which was unpleasant. She usually found plenty of delightful things to do every day of her life; indeed, with her tremendous joie de vivre, almost everything she did was delightful, and if there was something not delightful to be done, as a rule she did not do it. In this complicated hurly-burly of life, it is a great thing to be able to simplify, as in the tutor-ridden days one used to simplify the huge vulgar fractions which covered the page, and turned out in the end to be equivalent to zero. Kit's methods of simplification were really notable; she cut out everything which looked as if it would give trouble, and did not care in the slightest degree about the result. And if you do not care about the result, life, like vulgar fractions and the wicked, ceases from troubling.

But occasionally, so cruelly conducted is this world, she was driven to take odiously disagreeable steps, for fear of the speedy and inevitable disaster which would attend their omission. There were also certain prophylactic measures she used habitually to take, just as one goes to the dentist to avoid possible toothache in the future. Under the latter head came such small affairs as bazaar-openings and tedious "Grundy" dinners; also the yearly visit to Jack's uncle, who was a Bishop – a grim ordeal, but efficacious. They gave one a firmer stand, so to speak. It would have argued a shocking lack of worldly wisdom to neglect such simple little things, and whatever Kit lacked, she had an admirable amount of that. But the avoidance of unpleasantness in the greed for the pleasures of the moment led her constantly to put off distasteful things, in the same way in which one puts off the writing of letters, blindly hoping that if they are left unanswered long enough they will, in a manner of speaking, answer themselves. This charming result is often attained, but sometimes it is not, whereby the children of Eve are disconcerted.

The tiresome baccarat incident had now been unanswered rather more than a fortnight, during which interval Kit had not seen Mr. Alington. She told Jack that the mine-man was rather too much for her. Besides, she had introduced him to a hundred houses; if he could not swim for himself now, he never would. But when on the morning following this Sunday, as Kit, figuratively speaking, looked over her old letters to see what had to be done in the last week in London, she came upon the baccarat letter, and read it through again, hoping that she would feel that it had by now answered itself, for she had given it time. But though she was sedulous in taking a favourable view of this and all other matters concerning herself, she came to the disheartening conclusion that it had not. There was clearly only one of two things to be done – either give it more time and another chance to answer itself unaided, or answer it herself at once. And, as a wise and perhaps a good wife should, she determined to consult her husband about it, wishing that she had done so before.

The confidence between the two was, in a certain well-defined area, of an intimate kind. There were, no doubt, certain things which Kit did not tell Jack, and she on her side felt that there might be developments in the Alington scheme, for instance, into which she would not be permitted to enter. She did not resent this; everyone may have his own private sitting-room, where, if one knocks, one may be refused admittance. It was wiser then not to knock, and certainly there were things in hers which it was not her intention to show Jack. But apart from these few exceptions, Kit always told Jack everything, especially if she was in difficulties.

"It produces such peace of mind," she had said once to Alice, "to know that no one can tell your husband worse things than he already knows about you. How some women can go on letting their husbands remain in ignorance about their bills and other indiscretions, I can't conceive. Why, I should have to ask Jack every evening what he had learned about me during the day. And that sort of revelations come much better from oneself. It wears," said Kit thoughtfully, "the guise of candour, and also possibly of regret."

The two women practised great freedom of speech with each other, and Alice replied frankly:

"Sometimes I think you are a clever woman, Kit; at other times I feel sure I am wrong, and that you are the most abject of fools."

"I suppose you mean that I seem to you an abject fool now," said Kit. "Why, please?"

"Because you tell Jack only the things that don't really matter. The things which if he heard from elsewhere would really make a row, you don't tell him."

"Ah, but those are the things which nobody can tell him," said Kit, with her customary quickness, and more than her usual penetration.

This conversation occurred to her mind to-day, when she determined to ask his advice about the baccarat. The only question was whether it, too, came under the head of what nobody else could tell him. If it had been someone of her own set who had seen, or whom she suspected to have seen, the little faux pas of the hundred-pound counter, it would no doubt have come under the head of the things incommunicable. To Tom, Toby, Jack, Lord Comber, it would have been impossible to repeat such a thing. But one could not guess what ideas of honour a wild West Australian miner might have. To repeat such a thing about a woman was contrary to the code in use among her associates, and a good thing, too, thought Kit, strictly confining the question to the particular instance, and not confounding issues by a consideration of honour in general.

Even after the lapse of a fortnight the thought of that evening was a smart and a mortification. Jack was going to entrust the ship of his fortunes to the wild man who sang hymns, and played a harmonium, for aught she knew, and her really laudable desire to have some hold, some handle over him, had ended in this débâcle. It was not certain, indeed, that he had seen, but Kit could not but admit that it was highly probable. After all, honesty was the best policy, and she determined to tell Jack.

He had gone up to town by an early train, and Kit, who disliked getting up early almost as much as she disliked going to bed early, followed him later. He was out when she reached Park Lane, and it was close on lunch-time when she heard a cab drive up. Next moment the butler had announced Mr. Alington. The two looked just like brothers.

"Good-morning, Lady Conybeare," he said very smoothly. "Your husband asked me to lunch here, as we have some business to talk over. I was to give you a message, if he was not yet in, asking you not to wait lunch for him. He might" – Mr. Alington appeared to ponder deeply for a moment – "he might be detained."

This meeting was intensely annoying to Kit. She had told Jack that she had had enough of the mine-man, and it was very tiresome to have this tête-à-tête, and quite particularly disagreeable after their last meeting to see him alone. However, she put on the best face she could to the matter, and spoke with familiar geniality.

"Oh, Jack is always late," she said. "But why he should think it necessary to ask me not to wait for him is more than I can say. I suppose you have been imbuing him with business habits. Jack a business man! You have no idea how droll that seems to his wife, Mr. Alington. Let us lunch at once; I am so hungry. Kindly ring that bell just behind you, please."

Mr. Alington sat still a moment, and then rose with deliberation, but did not ring.

"I am lucky to find you alone, Lady Conybeare," he said, "for the truth is, there was a little matter I wanted to talk over with you."

Kit rose swiftly from her seat before he had finished his sentence, and rang the bell herself. It was answered immediately, and as the man came into the room, "Indeed; and what is that?" she said. "Is lunch ready, Poole? Let us go in, Mr. Alington. I am always so hungry in London and elsewhere."

Kit could scarcely help smiling as she spoke. She had no intention whatever of talking any little matter over with Mr. Alington, especially if it was the one she had in her mind; and she could not help feeling amused by the simplicity of the means by which she had put the stopper on the possibility of a private talk. She wished to hold no private communications with the man. She had done her part in launching him, for the convenience of Jack; she had given him to understand, or rather given other people to understand, that he was an ami de la maison, and she washed her hands of him. He was very kindly going to make Jack's fortune in return for benefits received, but he had distinctly said that the arrangement was one of mutual advantage. It was give and take; he was on the same level as your grocer or bootmaker, except that those tradesmen gave in the hopes of eventually taking, while Mr. Alington took as he went along. At the best he was a sort of cash-down shop, and Kit did not habitually deal with such. She did not consider him dangerous, and she was so well pleased with her own adroitness that she very unwisely determined to drive her advantage home.

So, as he followed her through the folding-doors into the dining-room, "What is the little matter you referred to?" she asked again, feeling perfectly secure in the presence of servants in the room.

Mr. Alington closed his eyes for a moment before he took his seat, and murmured a brief grace to himself. He opened them a moment afterwards with a short sigh, and Kit's riposte to his thrust did not seem to have ruffled or disconcerted him in the least.

His broad butler-like face was as serene as ever.

"It was a matter which I thought you might have preferred to discuss alone," he said; "but as you seem to wish it, I will tell you here. The other night when I had the pleasure of playing baccarat with you, you won on a natural – "

A flush of anger rose to Kit's face. The man was intolerable, insolent, before the servants, too; but as he spoke she felt a sudden fear of him. He looked her full in the face with mild firmness, breaking his toast with one hand, while with the other he manipulated his macaroni on the end of his fork.

"Stop!" said Kit, quick as the curl of a whiplash.

But Mr. Alington did not wince.

"You will be so kind, then, as to give me the opportunity of speaking to you privately about it," he said. "I am quite of your way of thinking. It is far better discussed so. I quite see."

Kit felt herself trembling. She was not accustomed to such bland brutality at the hands of anyone. She would have been scarcely more surprised if her stationer or butcher had suddenly appeared in the room, and urged the propriety of a private talk. Alington, it is true, had been to her house, had a right to consider himself a guest; but that made it even more intolerable. Apparently he had no idea of the distinction between guests and guests, and it would be a shocking thing if this were overlooked. Meantime he went on eating macaroni with a superb mastery over that elusive provender, in silence, since Kit did not reply.

The dining-room was one of the most charming rooms in London, rather dark, as dining-rooms should be, the walls of a sober, self-tint green, and bare but for some half-dozen small pictures of the Barbizon school, which, if alienable, would long ago have been alienated to supply the chronic scarcity of money in the Conybeare establishment. They were wonderful examples, but Kit hated them, since they could not be sold. "They make me feel like a man on a desert island with millions of gold sovereigns and no food," she had said once. The chairs were all armed, and upholstered in green brocade, and the thick Ispahan carpet made noiseless the feet of those "who stand and wait." Partly this, partly the distraction of her thoughts, brought it about that red mullets were at Kit's elbow a full ten seconds unperceived. She could not make up her mind what to do. She bitterly repented having said "Stop!" just now to Alington, for the vehemence of her interjection gave herself away. She had practically admitted that something had occurred on the night they played baccarat which she earnestly desired not to have discussed in public. A fool could have seen that, and with all her distaste for the man she did not put this label to him. And with odiously familiar deference he had agreed with her; he had assumed the right of discussing things with her in private.

Again, she could not quarrel with him. Conybeare's application to business, his early visits to the City, his frequent conferences with Alington, his unexampled preoccupation, all showed for certain that there were great issues at stake, for he would not give himself such trouble for a few five-pound notes. All this passed through her mind very rapidly, and at the end of ten seconds she leaned back in her chair, saw the red mullets, and took two of them.

"Yes, you are quite right," she said; "we will talk of it afterwards. Ah, here is Jack! Morning, Jack!"

Jack nodded to her and Alington, and took his seat.

"You have heard the news, Kit?" he asked.

"Lots; but which?"

"Toby is engaged to Miss Murchison. The Crœsum told me in the train this morning. She is coming to see you this afternoon."

Kit for the moment forgot her other worries.

"Oh, how delightful!" she cried. "Dear Toby! And Lily is most charming, and so pretty! Do you know her, Mr. Alington?"

"I have met her at your house, I think. And an heiress, is she not?"

"I believe she has a little money," said Kit. "One has heard people say so. But mere gossip, perhaps."

Jack laughed low and noiselessly.

"That will be so pleasant for Toby," he observed, "if it is true."

Kit sighed.

"What a pity that it is not the custom for a bride to settle money on her husband's brother, Jack!" she said.