A Servant of the Public

"You live all alone here?" he asked, looking round the bright little room.

"Yes, I can, you see. That's the advantage of being married."

"I never looked at marriage in that light before."

"No," she laughed. "You've not looked at it in any light, you know; only from the outer darkness."

As his eyes rested on her lying there in graceful repose, he felt a grudge against the way fate was treating him. He wished he were ten or fifteen years younger; he wished he had nothing to lose; he wished he had no conscience. Given these desirable things, he believed that he could break down this indifference and banish this repose. Ora had done nothing to create such a belief; it grew out of his own sturdy and usually justifiable self-confidence.

"Have you a conscience?" he asked her suddenly.

"Oh, yes," she answered, "afterwards."

"That's a harmless variety," he said wistfully.

"Tiresome, though," she murmured with her eyes upturned to the ceiling as though she had forgotten his presence. "Only, you see, something else happens soon and then you don't think any more about it." Ora seemed glad that the cold wind of morality was thus tempered.

Such a remedy was not for the solid-minded man: he did think more about it, notwithstanding that many things happened; and his was not merely the harmless variety of conscience. Ora nestled lower on her cushions, sighed and closed her eyes; she did not treat him with ceremony, if any comfort lay in that. He rose, walked to the window, and looked out. He felt intolerably absurd, but the perception of his absurdity did not help him much. Again he complained of fate. This thing had come just when such things should cease to come, just also when another thing had begun to seem so pleasant, so satisfactory, so almost settled. He was ashamed of himself; as he stood there he regretted his midnight confidence to Ashley Mead a fortnight before. Since then he had made no confidences to Ashley; he had not told him how often he came to this house, nor how often he wished to come. Ora Pinsent's name had not been mentioned between them, although they had met several times over the initial business of launching their Commission.

He turned round and found her eyes on him. She began to laugh, sprang up, ran across the room, laid a hand lightly on his sleeve, and looked in his face, shaking her head with an air of determination.

"You must either go, or be a little more amusing," she said. "What's the matter? Oh, I know! You're in love!"

"I suppose so," he admitted with a grim smile.

"Not with me, though!"

"You're sure of that? Nothing would make you doubt it?"

"Well, I thought it was Irene Kilnorton," she answered; her eyes expressed interest and a little surprise.

"So it was; at least I thought so too," said Bowdon.

"Well, if you think so enough, it's all right," said Ora with a laugh.

"But I'm inclined to think differently now."

"Oh, I shouldn't think differently, if I were you," she murmured. "Irene's so charming and clever. She'd just suit you."

"You're absolutely right," said Bowdon.

"Then why don't you?" She looked at him for a moment and he met her gaze; a slight tint of colour came on her cheeks, and her lips curved in amusement. "Oh, what nonsense!" she cried a moment later and drew back from him till she leant against the opposite shutter and stood there, smiling at him. The next moment she went on: "It is quite nonsense, you know."

Lord Bowdon thought for a moment before he answered her.

"Nonsense is not the same as nothing," he said at last.

"You're not serious about it?" she asked with a passing appearance of alarm. "But of course you aren't." She began to laugh again.

He was relieved to find that he had betrayed nothing more decisive than an inclination to flirt. It would be an excellent thing to sail off under cover of that; she would not be offended, he would be safe.

"Tragically serious," he answered, smiling.

"Oh, yes, I know!" she said. Then she grew grave, frowned a little and looked down into the street. "You talk rather like Jack used to. You reminded me of him for an instant," she remarked. "Though you're not like him really, of course."

"Your husband?" His tone had surprise in it; she had never mentioned Jack before; both the moment and the manner of her present reference to him seemed strange.

"Yes. You never met him, did you? He used to be about London five or six years ago."

"No, I never saw him. Where is he now?"

A shrug of her shoulders and a slight smile gave her answer.

"Why did he go away?"

"Oh, a thousand reasons! It doesn't matter. I liked him, though, once."

"Do you like him now?"

A moment more of gravity was followed by a sudden smile; her eyes sparkled again and she laughed, as she answered,

"No, not just now, thank you, Lord Bowdon. What queer questions you ask, don't you?"

"The answers interest me."

"I don't see why they should."

"Don't you?"

"I mean I don't see how they ought."

"Quite so."

"You're really getting a little bit more amusing," said Ora with a grateful look.

He felt an impulse to be brutal with her, to do, in another sphere of action, very much what Mr. Hazlewood had done when he insisted that a business arrangement must be regarded in a business-like way. Suppose he told her that questions of morals, with their cognate problems, ought to be regarded in a moral way? He would perhaps be a strange preacher, but surely she would forget that in amazement at the novelty of his doctrine!

"How old are you?" he asked her, aghast this time at his question but quite unable to resist it.

She glanced at him for a moment, smiled, and answered simply,

"Twenty-seven last December."

He was remorseful at having extracted an answer, but he bowed to her as he said,

"You've paid me a high compliment. You're right, though; it wasn't impertinence."

"Oh, no, you're all right in that way," she murmured with a careless cordiality. "But why did you want to know?"