The Paliser case

Cassy looked up at him. "You forget my little errand."

"Ah, yes! The rhinoceros. Couldn't you ask me to meet him?"

"I shall be giving dinner-parties for him every evening. Would you care to come?"

They had reached cavernous steps down which Cassy was going.

Lennox raised his hat. "I will come to-night."

Through the metallic roar, the four words dropped and hummed.

XXXVIII

"It is going to be splendid. There will be candles!" – a young person, dead since but still living, exclaimed of her poet's fête. The fête, however lavish, and which you will find reported by Murger, was not held in a kitchen. The poet's garret did not contain a kitchen. That was Paris.

Hereabouts, nowadays, walk-ups are more ornate. Cassy's dinner that night was served on rich linoleum and not out of snobbishness either but because the table had gone from the living-room and though the piano remained one could not very well dine on that, or, for that matter, on the sofa. There are details into which a hostess never enters. Cassy – in black chiffon – did not offer any and Lennox – in evening clothes – did not ask. He had never dined in a kitchen before and, so far as the present historian knows not to the contrary, he did not dine in one again. But he enjoyed the experience. There was cold chicken, a salad, youth, youth's wine and running laughter. For dessert, a remark.

The rich linoleum then had been abandoned for the other room where Cassy sat on the sofa and Lennox on the one surviving chair. Beyond was the piano. Additionally, in some neighbourly flat, a phonograph performed.

Among these luxuries sweets were served. A question preceded them.

"Do you remember the afternoon you were in my rooms?"

Yes, Cassy remembered it.

Then came the remark. "That afternoon I laughed. Until to-night – except once – I haven't laughed since then."

Very good dessert, with more to follow.

"When you went, the sunlight went with you. It went out at your heels like a dog. I was thinking about it recently. I don't seem to have seen the sunlight again, until it played about your rhinoceros."

There are sweets that are bitter. Cassy took one.

"Mr. Jones told me. It does seem such a pity, such a great pity. I saw her once and I could see she was not merely good to look at but really good, good through and through."

"May I smoke?" Lennox asked.

Had he wished he could have stood on his head. Cassy nodded at him. He got out a cigar.

"Miss Austen is all you say. She is a saint. A man doesn't want a saint. A man wants flesh and blood."

Cassy took another bitter-sweet. "She's that. Any one would know it."

Lennox bit at the cigar. "Too good for me, though. So good that she threw me over."

Cassy put a finger through it. "She did not understand. Any girl might have done the same."

Sombrely Lennox considered her. "Would you? You say she did not understand. I know well enough she did not. But if you cared for a man, would you throw him over because of a charge which you could not be sure was true and without giving him a chance to disprove it? Would you?"

He could stand on his head, yes, but it was unfair to grill her. She flushed.

"I don't see what that has to do with it."

"How, you don't see?"

"Isn't it obvious? Miss Austen and I move in different worlds. On any subject our views might differ and I don't mean at all but that hers would be superior."

"There can be but one view of what's square."

"I am sure she meant to be."

Unconcernedly, Lennox smiled. The smile lit his face. From sombre it became radiant.

"That's all very well. The point is what you would think. Would you think it square to throw a man over as she threw me?"

Cassy showed her teeth. "If I didn't care for him, certainly I would."

"But if you did?"

That was too much. Cassy exclaimed at it. "If! If! How can I tell? I don't know. I lack experience."

"But not heart."

He was right about that, worse luck. How it beat, too! It would kill her though to have him suspect it.

"I do wish you would tell me," he added.

Cassy, casting about, felt like an imbecile and said brilliantly: "Haven't you a match? Shall I fetch one?"

Lennox extracted a little case. "Thanks. It's an answer I'd like."

It was enough to drive you mad and again casting about, but not getting it, she hedged.

"It will have to be in the abstract, then."

"Very good. Let's have it in the abstract."

Yet even in the abstract! However, with an uplift of the chin that gave her, she felt, an air of discussing a matter in which she had no concern at all, she plunged.

"One never knows, don't you know, but it seems to me that if by any chance I did care for a man – not that it is in the least presumable that I ever shall – but if I did, why, then, no. He couldn't get rid of me, not unless he tried very hard, but if he didn't, then no matter what I heard, no matter how true it might be, I would cling to his coat-tails, that is, if he wore them, and if, also, he cared for a ninny like me."

Cassy paused, shook her docked hair and solemnly resumed: "Which, of course, he couldn't."

"I knew you would say that."

"Say what?" Previously flushed, she reddened. But there is a God. The room had grown dim.

"That you wouldn't cut and run."