Tales of two people

“Can’t you see for yourself?” she snapped back pettishly. “You were dining there last night – have you no eyes?”

Thus adjured – and really Jane’s scorn is sometimes a little hard to bear – I set myself to recover the impressions of the dinner-party. The scene came back easily enough. I remembered that Katharine Constantine and Valentine Hare had once more been sent in together, and had once more sat side by side. I remembered also that Lady Lexington had once more whispered to me, when I arrived, that the affair was “all but settled,” and had once more said nothing about it when I left. I remembered watching the pair closely.

True, I was placed, as a friend of the family, between Miss Boots, the Lexingtons’ ex-governess, and Mr Sharples, Lady Lexington’s latest curate (she always has one in tow; some of the earlier ones are now in a fair way to achieve gaiters), so that there was nothing very likely to distract my attention from the centre of interest. But I should have watched them, anyhow. Who could be better to watch? Katharine, with her positive incisive beauty (there was nothing of the elusive about her; some may prefer a touch of it); the assurance of manner which her beauty gave, and the consciousness of her thousands enhanced; her instinctive assumption of being, of being most indisputably, Somebody; and to-night, as it seemed, a new air about her, watchful, expectant, and telling of excitement, even if it stopped short of nervousness – Katharine, with all this, had a claim to attention not seriously challenged by Miss Boots’ schoolroom reminiscences, or Mr Sharples’ views on Church questions of the day.

And Valentine too, the incomparable Val! Of course I watched him, as I always have, when fortunate enough to be thrown into his company, with a fascinated inquiring interest, asking myself always whether I was a believer or whether scepticism crept into my estimate. Val, however, demands, as the old writers were fond of saying, a fresh chapter to himself. He shall have it, or at least a section.

But before ending this one, for the sake of symmetry and of my reputation for stage management, also in order to justify at the earliest possible moment the importance which Jane attached to the events of the evening, let me add that just beyond me, on the other side of Miss Boots, and consequently quite remote from Miss Constantine, sat a short young man with a big round bullet of a head: it looked as if it might be fired out of a cannon at a stone wall, with excellent results from the besiegers’ point of view. This was Oliver Kirby, and I have to own at once that the more than occasional glances which Miss Constantine directed, or allowed to stray, towards our end of the table were meant, as my observation suggested before the evening was out, for Kirby, and not, as I had for some happy moments supposed, for me. I am never ashamed of confessing to an amiable sort of mistake like that.

II

WITHOUT present prejudice to the question of his innermost personality, Val was at least a triumph of externals. Perhaps I should say of non-essentials – of things which a man might not have, and yet be intrinsically as good a man – but, having which, he was, for all outside and foreign purposes, a man far more efficient. Val was, as I shall indicate in a moment, a bit of a philosopher himself, so he could not with reason object to being thus philosophically considered. Birth had been his discreet friend – a friend in setting him in the inner ring, among the families which survive, peaks of aristocracy, above the flood of democracy, and are more successful than Canute was in cajoling the waves; discreet in so ordering descent that, unless a robust earl, his uncle, died prematurely, Val had time to lead the House of Commons (or anything of that sort) before suffering an involuntary ascension, which might or might not be, at the political moment, convenient. He had money, too – a competence without waiting for his uncle’s shoes. He had no need to hunt a fortune: it was merely advisable for him, and natural too, to annex one under temptations not necessarily unromantic. Nobody could call Miss Constantine necessarily unromantic.

So much for birth, with all the extraordinary start it gives – a handicap of no less than fifteen years, one might be inclined to say, roughly generalising on a comparison of the chances of the “born” and of the bourgeois. Now, about brains. If you come to think of it, brains were really a concession on Val’s part; he could have achieved the Cabinet without them – given a clever Prime Minister, at least. But he had them – just as splendid shop-window brains as his birth was flawless under the most minute Heralds’ College inspection. There was, indeed, a lavishness about his mental endowment. He ventured to have more than one subject – a dangerous extravagance in a rising statesman. North Africa was his professional subject – his foreign affairs subject. But he was also a linguist, an authority on French plays, and a specialist on the Duc de Reichstadt. Also he had written a volume of literary essays; and, finally, to add a sense of solidity to his intellectual equipment, he was a philosopher. He had written, and Mr Murray had published, a short book called “The Religion of Primitive Man.” This work he evolved on quiet evenings in his flat off Berkeley Square in two months of an early winter in London. All that can be said about it is that it sounded very probable, and set forth in exceedingly eloquent language what primitive man ought to have believed, even if he did not, because it led to a most orthodox, if remote, conclusion. Whether he did or not, Val, and most other people, had neither time nor inclination to discover. That would, in fact, have needed a lot of reading. After all, Val might plead the example of some eminent metaphysicians.

Birth, brains – now comes the rarest of Val’s possessions, one that must be handled most delicately by one who would do Val justice at any cost. I mean Val’s beauty. Val himself bore it lightly, with a debonair depreciation which stopped only, but definitely, short of unconsciousness. He had hereditary claims to it; a grandmother had attracted – and by a rarer touch of distinction repelled – royalty. But Val made it all his own. A slim figure, bordering on six feet; aquiline features, a trifle ruddy in hue; hands long and slender; above all, perhaps, a mass of black hair touched with white – ever so lightly silver-clad. The greyness proclaimed itself premature, and brought contrast to bear on the youthfulness of the face beneath – a face the juvenility of which survived the problems of North Africa and his triumphs in the à priori. Add to this, a fine tradition of schoolboy and university athletics, and – well, a way with him of which women would talk in moments of confidence.

Speaking quite seriously, I cannot suppose that such a fascinating person has often appeared; never, surely, a more decorative? And it was “all but settled”! Why, then, those glances toward our end of the table? Because they were not for me, as I have already acknowledged. Kirby? The bullet-head, with its close-cropped wire-thick hair? Could that draw her eyes from the glories of Val’s sable-silver crown? These things are unaccountable; such really appeared to be the case.

III

AFTER dinner I used the freedom of old acquaintance to ask Lady Lexington precisely what she meant by saying that it – the alliance between Miss Constantine and Valentine Hare – was “all but settled.” We chanced to be alone in the small drawing-room; through the curtained archway we could see the rest of the company formed into groups. Val was again by Miss Constantine’s side; Kirby was now standing facing them, and apparently doing most of the talking.

“He hasn’t asked her in so many words yet,” said Lady Lexington; “but he will soon, of course. It’s been practically settled ever since she came to stay here – after her father’s death, you know. And it’s an ideal arrangement.”

“Suppose she refuses him?”

“I sha’n’t suppose anything so ridiculous, George,” said my friend sharply. “I hope I have more sense! What girl would refuse Valentine?”

“It would be heterodox,” I admitted.

“It would be lunacy, stark lunacy. Even for her – I admit she has a right to look high – but even for her it will be a fine match. He’s got everything before him. And then look how handsome, how fascinating he is!” She laughed. “Old as I am, I wouldn’t trust myself with him, George!”

“I haven’t met Kirby here before,” I observed, perhaps rather abruptly.

“Mr Kirby? Oh, he’s quite a protégé of Frank’s. We met him in Switzerland last winter, and Frank and he did all sorts of unsafe things together – things you oughtn’t to do in winter.”

“He probably stops the avalanches with his head.”

“I really don’t know where he comes from or who he is, but he’s in the Colonial Office, and Frank says they think enormous things of him there. I like him, but, do you know, he’s rather hard to keep up a conversation with. He always seems to say the last thing about a subject first.”

“Very bad economy,” I agreed.

“Some people – well, I have heard people say it’s hardly polite – when they’re just thinking of something to say themselves, you know – ”

“He probably can’t help it,” I pleaded.

“Katharine seems to like him, though, and I daresay she’ll get Val to give him a lift in the future.”

“You’re treating it as quite settled.”

“Well, it really is; I feel sure of that. It might happen any – Why, look there, George! Suppose it happened to-night!”

Lady Lexington’s air of pleasurable flutter was occasioned by a movement in the next room. Miss Constantine was passing from the drawing-room into the library beyond, Val holding the door for her. Kirby had not moved, but now stood looking at her with a smile. Just as she passed through the door she turned, looked at him, and made the slightest little grimace. I read it as defiance – playful defiance. Whether I was right in that or not, it was, beyond all doubt, a confidential communication of some sort. If “it” were indeed going to be “settled,” the moment seemed an odd one for the exchange of that secret signal with Mr Kirby; for her grimace was in answer to his smile, his smile the challenge that elicited her grimace. Yes, they were in communication. What about? I got no further than an impression that it was about Valentine Hare. I remembered the glances at dinner, and mentally corrected the little misapprehension which I have already acknowledged. But had the signals been going on all the evening? About Valentine Hare?

“I shall wait for news with great interest,” I said to Lady Lexington.

She made no direct answer. Looking at her, I perceived that she was frowning; she appeared, indeed, decidedly put out.

“After all,” she said reflectively, “I’m not sure I do like Mr Kirby. He’s rather familiar. I wonder why Frank brings him here so much.”

From which I could not help concluding that she, too, had perceived the glances toward my end of the table, Kirby’s smile, and Katharine Constantine’s answering grimace. From that moment, I believe, a horrible doubt, an apprehension of almost incredible danger, began to stir in her mind. This, confided to Jane, had inspired my sister’s gloomily significant manner.

IV

A WEEK passed by without my getting any news from Lady Lexington. My next advices came, in fact, from Jane. One morning she burst into my room when I was reading the paper after breakfast. I had been out late the night before, and had not seen her since yesterday at lunch. Her present state of excitement was obvious.

“She’s asked for time to consider!” she cried. “Imagine!”

“The dickens she has!” I exclaimed. Of course I guessed to whom she was referring.

“Ah, I thought that would startle you!” Jane remarked, with much gratification. “I was at the Lexingtons’ yesterday. She is queer.”

I saw that Jane wanted me to ask questions, but I always prefer having gossip volunteered to me; it seems more dignified, and one very seldom loses anything in the end. So I just nodded, and relighted my pipe. Jane smiled scornfully.

“You’ll go there yourself to-day,” she said. “I know you.”

“I was going, anyhow – to pay my dinner call.”

“Of course!” She was satisfied with the effect of her sarcasm – I think I had betrayed signs of confusion – and went on gravely: “You can imagine how upset they all are.”

“But she only proposes to consider.”

“Well, it’s not very flattering to be considered, is it? ‘I’ll consider’ – that’s what one says to get out of the shop when a thing costs too much.”

I had to ask one question. I did it as carelessly as possible. “Did you happen to see Miss Constantine herself?”

“Oh yes; I saw Katharine. I saw her, because she was in the room part of the time, and I’m not blind,” said Jane crossly.

“I gather that she hardly took you into her full – her inner – confidence?”

Jane’s reply was impolite in form, but answered my question substantially in the affirmative. She added: “Lady Lexington told me that she won’t say a word about her reasons. You won’t find it a cheerful household.”

I did not. Jane was right there. I daresay my own cheerfulness was artificial and spasmodic: the atmosphere of a family crisis is apt to communicate itself to guests. It must not be understood that the Lexingtons, or Miss Boots, or Mr Sharples, who was there again, were other than perfectly kind to Katharine. On the contrary, they overdid their kindness – overdid it portentously, in my opinion. They treated her as though she were afflicted with a disease of the nerves, and must on no account be worried or thwarted. If she had said that the moon was made of green cheese they would have evaded a direct contradiction – they might just have hinted at a shade of blue. She saw this; I can quite understand that it annoyed her very much. For the rest, Lady Lexington’s demeanour set the cue: “It must end all right; meanwhile we must bear it.”

She and Mr Sharples and Miss Boots were all going to an afternoon drawing-room meeting, but I was asked to stay and have tea. “You’ll give him a cup of tea, won’t you, Katharine?” And did my ears deceive me, or did Lady Lexington breathe into my ear, as she shook hands, the words, “If you could say a word – tactfully!”? I believe she did; but Jane says I dreamed it – or made it up, more likely. If she did say it, it argued powerfully for her distress.

I had known Katharine Constantine pretty well for three or four years; I had, indeed, some claim to call myself her friend. All the same, I did not see my way to broach the engrossing subject to her, and I hardly expected her to touch on it in talk with me. My idea was to prattle, to distract her mind with gossip about other people. But she was, I think, at the end of her patience both with herself and with her friends. Her laugh was defiant as she said: