A Young Man's Year. Hope Anthony
up like that. His great contentment was impaired and could no longer absorb him. His sober scheme of happiness was crumbling. His spirit was for adventure. Finality had become suddenly odious – and marriage presents itself as finality to those who are not yet married. If he had not been ready for the plunge before, now he was a thousand times less ready.
The evening belied the apprehensions he had of it. There was a merry party – Mildred Quain, Amabel Osling, Joe Halliday, and half-a-dozen other young folk. And Mr. Sarradet was out! Dining at his club with some old cronies, Marie explained. There were games and music, plenty of chaff and a little horseplay. There was neither the opportunity nor the atmosphere for sentiment or sentimental problems. In gratitude to fate for this, and in harmony with what was his true inward mood behind and deeper than his perplexity, Arthur's spirits rose high; he chaffed and sported with the merriest. Marie was easy, cordial, the best of friends with him – not a hint of anything except just that special and pleasant intimacy of friendship which made them something more to one another than the rest of the company could be to either of them. She was just as she had always been – and he dismissed his suspicion. She had known nothing at all of Mr. Sarradet's inquisition; she was in no way to blame for it. And if she were innocent, why, then, was not he innocent also? His only fault could lie in having seemed to her to mean what he had not meant. If he had not seemed to her to mean it, where was his fault, – and where his obligation? But if he acquitted Marie, and was quite disposed to acquit himself, he nursed his grudge against old Sarradet for his bungling attempt to interfere between friends who understood one another perfectly.
Marie watched him, without appearing to watch, and was well content. Her present object was to set him completely at his ease again – to get back to where they were before Mrs. Veltheim interfered and her father blundered. If she could do that, all would be well; and she thought that she was doing it. Had Mrs. Veltheim and Mr. Sarradet been the only factors in the case, she would probably have proved herself right; for she was skilful and tenacious, and no delicacy of scruple held her back from trying to get what she wanted, even when what she wanted happened to be a man to marry. There that toughness of hers served her ends well.
When he said good-night, he was so comfortable about the whole position, so friendly to her and so conscious of the pleasure she had given him in the last few weeks, that he said with genuine ruefulness, "Back to the Temple to-morrow! I shan't be able to play about so much!"
"No, you must work," she agreed. "But try to come and see us now and then, when you're not too busy."
"Oh, of course I shall – and I'm not at all likely to be busy. Only one has to stop in that hole – just in case."
"I mean – just when you feel like it. Don't make a duty of it. Just when you feel inclined for a riot like this, or perhaps for a quiet talk some afternoon."
This was all just what he wanted to hear, exactly how he wanted the thing to be put.
Yes, but Mr. Sarradet would not always be so obliging as to be out! The thought of Mr. Sarradet, whom he had really forgotten, suddenly recurred to him unpleasantly.
"That's what I like – our quiet talks," she went on. "But you've only to say the word, and we'll have company for you."
Her tone was light, playful, chaffing. He answered in the same vein. "I'll send my orders about that at least twelve hours beforehand."
"Thank you, my lord," and, laughing, she dropped him a curtsey.
He left them still at their frolic and went home rather early. He had enjoyed himself, but, all the same, his dominant sense was one of relief, and not merely from the obligation which officious hands had sought to thrust on him, regardless of the fact that he was not ready to accept it and might never be. It was relief from the sense of something that he himself had been doing, or been in danger of doing, to his own life – a thing which he vaguely defined as a premature and ignorant disposal of that priceless asset. Together with the youthful vanity which this feeling about his life embodied, there came to him also a moment of clear-sightedness, in the light of which he perceived the narrow limits of his knowledge of the world, of life, even of himself. He saw – the word is too strong, rather he felt somehow – that he had never really wanted Marie Sarradet to share, much less to be the greatest factor in, that precious, still unexplored life; he had really only wanted to talk to her about it, with her to speculate about it, to hear from her how interesting it was and might become. He wanted that still from her. Or at all events from somebody? From her or another? He put that question behind him – it was too sceptical. He wanted still her interest, her sympathy. But he wanted something else even more – freedom to find, to explore, to fulfil his life.
So it was that Mr. Arthur Lisle, by a fortunate combination of circumstances on which he certainly had no right to reckon, found out, just in time, that after all he had never been in love – unless indeed with his own comely image, flatteringly reflected in a girl's admiring eyes.
Poor tender diplomatist! But possibly she too might make her own discoveries.
CHAPTER VII
ALL OF A FLUTTER
"Bernadette's got a new toy, Esther."
"I know it," said Mrs. Norton Ward, handing her visitor a cup of tea.
"Do you mean that you know the fact or that you're acquainted with the individual?"
"The latter, Judith. In fact I sent him to her."
"Well, it was she who went to him really, though Godfrey made some trouble about it. He thought the young man ought to have called first. However they got round him."
"They? Who?"
"Why, Bernadette and Oliver Wyse, of course. And he came to lunch. But Godfrey was quite on his high horse at first – stroked his beard, and dangled his eye-glass, and looked the other way when he was spoken to – you know the poor old dear when he's like that? Luckily the young man could tell Leeds from Wedgwood, and that went a long way towards putting matters right. Godfrey quite warmed to him at last."
"We like him very much, and I hope you did – even if you won't admit it. He's got a room in Frank's chambers, you know."
"I didn't speak more than six words to him – he was up at the other end of the table by Bernadette. But I liked the look of him rather. Of course he was all of a flutter."
"Oh, I daresay," smiled Esther. "But I thought we ought to risk that – and Sir Christopher felt quite strongly about it."
Judith Arden appeared to reflect for a moment. "Well, I think he ought to be," she said judicially. "I wouldn't give much for a man who didn't get into a flutter over Bernadette, at first anyhow. She must seem to them rather – well, irresistible."
"She's wonderfully" – Esther Norton Ward sought for a word too – "radiant, I mean, isn't she?"
"And there isn't a bit of affectation about her. She just really does enjoy it all awfully."
"All what?"
"Why, being irresistible and radiant, of course."
"That's looking at it entirely from her point of view."
"What point of view do you suppose she looks at it from? That is, if she ever looks at it at all. And why not? They ought to be able to look after themselves – or keep away."
"I really think you're a very fair-minded girl," laughed Esther. "Very impartial."
"You have to be – living with them as much as I do."
"Do you like it?"
Judith smiled. "The situation is saved just by my not having to do it. If I had to do it for my bread-and-butter I should hate it like poison. But, thank heaven, I've four hundred a year, and if I spend the summer with them, it's because Godfrey and Margaret want me. The winter I keep for myself – Switzerland part of the time, then Rome, or Florence. So I'm quite independent, you see. I'm always a visitor. Besides, of course, nobody could be more gracious than Bernadette; graciousness is part of being irresistible."
"I really do think that being pretty improves people," said Esther.
"Well, as far as I can see, without it there wouldn't