The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1

“I’m much obliged to you for calling me a duck. How’s your tea?”

“Well, it’s rather hot.”

“That’s intended to be a merit.”

“Ah, there’s a great deal of merit,” murmured the old man, kindly. “He’s a very good nurse, Lord Warburton.”

“Isn’t he a bit clumsy?” asked his lordship.

“Oh no, he’s not clumsy—considering that he’s an invalid himself. He’s a very good nurse—for a sick-nurse. I call him my sick-nurse because he’s sick himself.”

“Oh, come, daddy!” the ugly young man exclaimed.

“Well, you are; I wish you weren’t. But I suppose you can’t help it.”

“I might try: that’s an idea,” said the young man.

“Were you ever sick, Lord Warburton?” his father asked.

Lord Warburton considered a moment. “Yes, sir, once, in the Persian Gulf.”

“He’s making light of you, daddy,” said the other young man. “That’s a sort of joke.”

“Well, there seem to be so many sorts now,” daddy replied, serenely. “You don’t look as if you had been sick, anyway, Lord Warburton.”

“He’s sick of life; he was just telling me so; going on fearfully about it,” said Lord Warburton’s friend.

“Is that true, sir?” asked the old man gravely.

“If it is, your son gave me no consolation. He’s a wretched fellow to talk to—a regular cynic. He doesn’t seem to believe in anything.”

“That’s another sort of joke,” said the person accused of cynicism.

“It’s because his health is so poor,” his father explained to Lord Warburton. “It affects his mind and colours his way of looking at things; he seems to feel as if he had never had a chance. But it’s almost entirely theoretical, you know; it doesn’t seem to affect his spirits. I’ve hardly ever seen him when he wasn’t cheerful—about as he is at present. He often cheers me up.”

The young man so described looked at Lord Warburton and laughed. “Is it a glowing eulogy or an accusation of levity? Should you like me to carry out my theories, daddy?”

“By Jove, we should see some queer things!” cried Lord Warburton.

“I hope you haven’t taken up that sort of tone,” said the old man.

“Warburton’s tone is worse than mine; he pretends to be bored. I’m not in the least bored; I find life only too interesting.”

“Ah, too interesting; you shouldn’t allow it to be that, you know!”

“I’m never bored when I come here,” said Lord Warburton. “One gets such uncommonly good talk.”

“Is that another sort of joke?” asked the old man. “You’ve no excuse for being bored anywhere. When I was your age I had never heard of such a thing.”

“You must have developed very late.”

“No, I developed very quick; that was just the reason. When I was twenty years old I was very highly developed indeed. I was working tooth and nail. You wouldn’t be bored if you had something to do; but all you young men are too idle. You think too much of your pleasure. You’re too fastidious, and too indolent, and too rich.”

“Oh, I say,” cried Lord Warburton, “you’re hardly the person to accuse a fellow-creature of being too rich!”

“Do you mean because I’m a banker?” asked the old man.

“Because of that, if you like; and because you have—haven’t you?—such unlimited means.”

“He isn’t very rich,” the other young man mercifully pleaded. “He has given away an immense deal of money.”

“Well, I suppose it was his own,” said Lord Warburton; “and in that case could there be a better proof of wealth? Let not a public benefactor talk of one’s being too fond of pleasure.”

“Daddy’s very fond of pleasure—of other people’s.”

The old man shook his head. “I don’t pretend to have contributed anything to the amusement of my contemporaries.”

“My dear father, you’re too modest!”

“That’s a kind of joke, sir,” said Lord Warburton.

“You young men have too many jokes. When there are no jokes you’ve nothing left.”

“Fortunately there are always more jokes,” the ugly young man remarked.

“I don’t believe it—I believe things are getting more serious. You young men will find that out.”

“The increasing seriousness of things, then that’s the great opportunity of jokes.”

“They’ll have to be grim jokes,” said the old man. “I’m convinced there will be great changes, and not all for the better.”

“I quite agree with you, sir,” Lord Warburton declared. “I’m very sure there will be great changes, and that all sorts of queer things will happen. That’s why I find so much difficulty in applying your advice; you know you told me the other day that I ought to ‘take hold’ of something. One hesitates to take hold of a thing that may the next moment be knocked sky-high.”

“You ought to take hold of a pretty woman,” said his companion. “He’s trying hard to fall in love,” he added, by way of explanation, to his father.

“The pretty women themselves may be sent flying!” Lord Warburton exclaimed.

“No, no, they’ll be firm,” the old man rejoined; “they’ll not be affected by the social and political changes I just referred to.”

“You mean they won’t be abolished? Very well, then, I’ll lay hands on one as soon as possible and tie her round my neck as a life-preserver.”

“The ladies will save us,” said the old man; “that is the best of them will—for I make a difference between them. Make up to a good one and marry her, and your life will become much more interesting.”

A momentary silence marked perhaps on the part of his auditors a sense of the magnanimity of this speech, for it was a secret neither for his son nor for his visitor that his own experiment in matrimony had not been a happy one. As he said, however, he made a difference; and these words may have been intended as a confession of personal error; though of course it was not in place for either of his companions to remark that apparently the lady of his choice had not been one of the best.

“If I marry an interesting woman I shall be interested: is that what you say?” Lord Warburton asked. “I’m not at all keen about marrying—your son misrepresented me; but there’s no knowing what an interesting woman might do with me.”

“I should like to see your idea of an interesting woman,” said his friend.