Too Old for Dolls. Anthony M. Ludovici
then picked up the newspaper, and read aloud the concluding paragraph of the article on the subject:
"His departure from this country will be a severe blow to the hundreds of nervous invalids who annually benefit from his skill at his Sanatorium in Kent, and the world of science will find it difficult to replace him. It appears that Lord Henry has one or two ardent disciples who will be in a position to carry on his great work, but a leading London specialist, Dr. David Melhado, declared to our representative to-day, that without the guidance of Lord Henry's brilliant and original genius, it is doubtful whether any of his pupils will ever dare to treat the more obscure nervous cases on their master's drastic and unprecedented lines."
"There now!" she cried, crumpling up the paper and throwing it away. "You see what that means. It means that women like myself are once more to be condemned to the dangerous misunderstanding to which we were exposed before Lord Henry came on the scene. And we certainly can't survive it."
Sir Joseph surveyed his companion's robust figure and healthy countenance for some seconds, and an incredulous smile gradually spread over his flushed and puffy features. "Surely there can't be very much wrong with you—is there?" he dared to suggest for once.
Mrs. Delarayne's eyes suddenly flashed with fire, and she cowed him by a single glance. "Don't talk of things you understand so little," she snapped. "Lord Henry must at all costs be induced to remain in England—that's your job. He must not go. And anyhow China is such a ridiculous place to go to. Nobody ever goes to China except missionaries. Of course the Chinese haven't any nerves, because they haven't any daughters—they kill them all. That's a very simple way of keeping your mental balance. I confess that the prospect of going to China is not an inviting one, and yet if Lord Henry goes, I don't see what other alternative we poor sufferers will have."
Sir Joseph again glanced dubiously at the healthy woman beside him, and drummed his knees thoughtfully with his large fingers.
"You know without me telling you," he observed at last, "that I'll do whatever you want. It's happened before and it'll happen again." And he rolled his bloodshot eyes as if to make it quite clear that for this great favour a great reward would be expected.
Mrs. Delarayne examined him covertly and began to wonder with a sudden feeling of despair how such a creature could possibly hope to be a match for Lord Henry.
"And if I do induce Lord Henry to remain in England—what then?" the baronet demanded.
The widow sighed. "You'll be a public benefactor," she said; "a blessing to your race."
"I don't suppose there's much money, is there, in this trip to China?" he asked pompously. "And Lord Henry can't be a very rich man."
"He's very poor," replied Mrs. Delarayne.
Sir Joseph smiled knowingly and lay back amid the cushions with an air of perfect self-appreciation and confidence.
"There's only one thing that great wealth cannot do, it seems to me," he said, smiling and making every kind of grimace indicative of the immense difficulty he was experiencing in not laughing at what was passing through his mind.
Mrs. Delarayne dreaded the worst, but felt that not to press for enlightenment at this juncture would reveal an indifference which would prove unfavourable to her schemes. "And what is that?" she asked.
"It cannot change a woman's fancy, of course!" Sir Joseph ejaculated, and laughed very violently indeed. "'Ave you caught my meaning?" he added, as his hilarity subsided.
Mrs. Delarayne toyed with her book.
"Come, come, Edith!" he pursued. "If I get Lord Henry to remain in London, as I've no doubt I shall—what then?" He ogled her roguishly.
Mrs. Delarayne tried, while smiling politely, to introduce as little encouragement as possible into her expression.
"Between you and I," the baronet continued, "it isn't as if we had a whole lifetime before us. You may have—I haven't. These delays are a little unwise at our time of life."
He caught her hand and for some reason, possibly his great agitation, pressed her finger-nails deep into the convex bulb of his large hot thumb, as if he were intent upon testing their sharpness.
Mrs. Delarayne removed her hand. "Joseph, I had hoped you were not going to refer to this again for some while. I have told you hundreds of times, or more, that a woman cannot marry with decency a second time when she has two strapping daughters who have not yet married once."
Sir Joseph shrugged his shoulders.
"It's all very well," pursued the widow, "but it is difficult enough for Cleo to forgive my having married at all. I could not possibly confront her with a second husband before she, poor girl, had met her first. Oh no!—it would be too great an insult. I'd die of shame. No, before you have me you'll have to get my daughters married. That bargain I strike with you."
He smiled ecstatically. "Promise?"
"I promise."
He bent forward and kissed her very clumsily, and Mrs. Delarayne by blowing her nose was able deftly to wipe her mouth without his noticing the movement.
"What is that young fool, my secretary, doing?" he enquired at last. "Did I not bring him and Cleo together all through the spring at Brineweald Park?"
"Denis is a nincompoop," Mrs. Delarayne declared drily. "I don't believe for a minute that we should any of us be here if he had taken Adam's place in the Garden of Eden. What a fortunate thing it was, by-the-by, that the Almighty did not choose a very modern sort of man to live in sin with Eve!"
Sir Joseph laughed. "Denis a nincompoop? I don't believe it."
Mrs. Delarayne snorted.
"But how are they getting on?"
"Don't ask me," she sighed wearily. "They philander. They are now at the very dangerous and inconclusive stage of being 'practically engaged.' It never signifies anything, because no man who really means business has the patience to be practically engaged."
Sir Joseph looked and felt sympathetic.
"They hold hands, I believe," the widow resumed, "and discuss the philosophers. Probably in a year's time if all goes well they will kiss and discuss the poets."
Sir Joseph uttered an expletive of surprise.
"Yes—I'm disappointed in Denis. I don't trust these very cheerful men, who have a ready laugh and a sense of humour. They laugh to conceal the fact that they cannot crow, and they crack jokes because they cannot break hearts. Give me the broody serious men with fierce looks and slow smiles."
"Isn't Cleo in love with him?"
"Poor soul!" Mrs. Delarayne exclaimed. "She does her best. She would take him, of course, simply because it will soon be an indignity for her to remain single one minute longer. She would probably die of shame too if someone else took Denis from her. But I think you know, that the man who provokes Cleo's love will have to be a little bit different from Denis."
CHAPTER II
On being dismissed from her mother's presence, Cleopatra did not go as she had been commanded to her mirror in order to remove the little shadow of down that adorned her upper lip. She retired instead to the library, and ensconcing herself in one of the large leather easy chairs, continued her reading of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility.
Occasionally while she read she would raise her eyes from the printed page to look at her unengaged hand as it rested on the arm of the chair she occupied, and for some moments she would be wrapped in thought.
There had been no lack of competition for that hand since the day when, at her coming-out dance, she had so eagerly extended it to Life for all that Life had to offer. It was not that it had come back empty to her side