The Yellow Dove. Gibbs George
and departmental, but she kept them nobly, aware that she lived in parlous times, when an unconsidered word might do a damage irreparable. Agents of the enemy, she knew, had been discovered in every walk of life, and while she lived in London’s innermost circle, she knew that even her own house might not have been immune from visitors whose secret motives were open to question. It was, therefore, with the desire to reassure herself as to the unadulterated loyalty of her intimates that she had carefully scrutinized her dinner lists, eliminating all uncertain quantities through whom or by whom the unreserved character of the conversation across her board might in any way be jeopardized. So it was that tonight’s dinner-table had something of the complexion of a family party, in which John Rizzio, the bright particular star in London’s firmament of Art, was to lend his effulgence. John Rizzio, dean of collectors, whose wonderful house in Berkeley Square rivaled the British Museum and the Wallace Collection combined, an Italian by birth, an Englishman by adoption, who because of his public benefactions had been offered a knighthood and had refused it; John Rizzio, who had been an intimate of King Edward, a friend of Cabinet ministers, who knew as much about the inner workings of the Government as majesty itself. Long a member of Lady Heathcote’s circle, it had been her custom to give him a dinner on the anniversary of the day of the acquisition of the most famous picture in his collection, “The Conningsby Venus,” which had, before the death of the old Earl, been the aim of collectors throughout the world.
As usual the selection of her guests had been left to Rizzio, whose variety of taste in friendships could have been no better shown than in the company which now graced Lady Heathcote’s table. The Earl and Countess of Kipshaven, the one artistic, the other literary; their daughter the Honorable Jacqueline Morley; Captain Byfield, a retired cavalry officer now on special duty at the War Office; Lady Joyliffe, who had lost her Earl at Mons, an interesting widow, the bud of whose new affections was already emerging from her weeds; John Sandys, under-secretary for foreign affairs, the object of those affections; Miss Doris Mather, daughter of the American cotton king, who was known for doing unusual things, not the least of which was her recent refusal of the hand of John Rizzio, one of London’s catches, and the acceptance of that of the Honorable Cyril Hammersley, the last to be mentioned member of this distinguished company, gentleman sportsman and man about town, who as everybody knew would never set the world afire.
No one knew how this miracle had happened, for Doris Mather’s brains were above the ordinary; she had a discriminating taste in books and a knowledge of pictures, and just before dinner, upstairs in a burst of confidence she had given her surprised hostess an idea of what a man should be.
“He should be clever, Betty,” she sighed, “a worker, a dreamer of great dreams, a firebrand in every good cause, a patriot willing to fight to the last drop of his blood–”
Lady Betty’s laughter disconcerted her and she paused.
“And that is why you chose the Honorable Cyril?”
Miss Mather compressed her lips and frowned at her image in the mirror.
“Don’t be nasty, Betty. I couldn’t marry a man as old as John Rizzio.”
Lady Betty only laughed again.
“Forgive me, dear, but it really is most curious. I wouldn’t laugh if you hadn’t been so careful to describe to me all the virtues that Cyril—hasn’t.”
Doris powdered the end of her nose thoughtfully.
“I suppose they’re all a myth—men like that. They simply don’t exist—that’s all.”
Lady Betty pinned a final jewel on her bodice.
“I’m sure John Rizzio is flattered at your choice. Cyril is an old dear. But to marry! I’d as soon take the automatic chess player. Why are you going to marry Cyril, Doris?” she asked.
A long pause and more powder.
“I’m not sure that I am. I don’t even know why I thought him possible. I think it’s the feeling of the potter for his clay. Something might be made of him. He seems so helpless somehow. Men of his sort always are. I’d like to mother him. Besides”—and she flashed around on her hostess brightly—“he does sit a horse like a centaur.”
“He’s also an excellent shot, a good chauffeur, a tolerable dancer and the best bat in England, all agreeable talents in a gentleman of fashion but—er—hardly–” Lady Betty burst into laughter. “Good Lord, Doris! Cyril a firebrand!”
Doris Mather eyed her hostess reproachfully and moved toward the door into the hallway.
“Come, Betty,” she said with some dignity, “are you ready to go down?”
All of which goes to show that matches are not made in Heaven and that the motives of young women in making important decisions are actuated by the most unimportant details. Hammersley’s good fortune was still a secret except to Miss Mather’s most intimate friends, but the conviction was slowly growing in the mind of the girl that unless Cyril stopped sitting around in tweeds when everybody else was getting into khaki, the engagement would never be announced. As the foreign situation had grown more serious she had seen other men who weighed less than Cyril throw off the boredom of their London habits and go soldiering into France. But the desperate need of his country for able-bodied men had apparently made no impression upon the placid mind of the Honorable Cyril. It was as unruffled as a highland lake in mid-August. He had contributed liberally from his large means to Lady Heathcote’s Ambulance Fund, but his manner had become, if anything, more bored than ever.
Miss Mather entered the drawing-room thoughtfully with the helpless feeling of one who, having made a mistake, pauses between the alternatives of tenacity and recantation. And yet as soon as she saw him a little tremor of pleasure passed over her. In spite of his drooping pose, his vacant stare, his obvious inadequacy she was sure there was something about Cyril Hammersley that made him beyond doubt the most distinguished-looking person in the room—not even excepting Rizzio.
He came over to her at once, the monocle dropping from his eye.
“Aw’fly glad. Jolly good to see you, m’dear. Handsome no end.”
He took her hand and bent over her fingers. Such a broad back he had, such a finely shaped head, such shoulders, such strong hands that were capable of so much but had achieved so little. And were these all that she could have seen in him? Reason told her that it was her mind that demanded a mate. Could it be that she was in love with a beautiful body?
There was something pathetic in the way he looked at her. She felt very sorry for him, but Betty Heathcote’s laughter was still ringing in her ears.
“Thanks, Cyril,” she said coolly. “I’ve wanted to see you—tonight—to tell you that at last I’ve volunteered with the Red Cross.”
Hammersley peered at her blankly and then with a contortion set his eyeglass.
“Red Cross—you! Oh, I say now, Doris, that’s goin’ it rather thick on a chap–”
“It’s true. Father’s fitting out an ambulance corps and has promised to let me go.”
John Rizzio, tall, urbane, dark and cynical, who had joined them, heard her last words and broke into a shrug.
“It’s the khaki, Hammersley. The women will follow it to the ends of the earth. Broadcloth and tweeds are not the fashion.” He ran his arm through Hammersley’s. “There’s nothing for you and me but to volunteer.”
The Honorable Cyril only stared at him blankly.
“Haw!” he said, which, as Lady Betty once expressed it, was half the note of a jackass.
Here the Kipshavens arrived and their hostess signaled the advance upon the dinner-table.
One of the secrets of the success of Lady Heathcote’s dinners was the size and shape of her table, which seated no more than ten and was round. Her centerpieces were flat and her candelabra low so that any person at the table could see and converse with anyone else. It was thus possible delicately to remind those who insisted on completely appropriating their dinner partners that private matters could be much more safely discussed in the many corners of the house