THE COLLECTED WORKS OF E. F. BENSON (Illustrated Edition). E. F. Benson
it was finished, there followed that silence which is so much more appreciative than applause. Then Herr Truffen turned to Edith.
"Ah, how you have improved," he said. "Who taught you this? It is beyond me. Perhaps you prayed and fasted, and then it came to you."
As Edith had chiefly written the Mass while smoking cigarettes after a hearty breakfast she merely said,—
"How does anything come to anyone? It is part of oneself, as much as one's arms and legs. But the service is not over yet."
Dodo meanwhile had gone back to the praying-table.
"I can't find it," she said, in a distracted whisper. "It's a chapter in the Revelation about a grey horse and a white horse."
"Dodo," said Edith, in an awful voice.
"Yes, dear," said Dodo. "Ah, here it is."
Dodo read the chapter with infinite feeling in her beautiful clear, full voice.
Chesterford was charmed. He had not seen this side of Dodo before. After she had finished, he came and sat by her side, while the others got up and began talking among themselves.
"Dodo," he said, "I never knew you cared about these things. What an unsympathetic brute I must seem to you. I never talked to you about such things, because I thought you did not care. Will you forgive me?"
"I don't think you need forgiveness much," said
Dodo softly. "If you only knew——" She stopped and finished her sentence by a smile.
"Dodo," he said again, "I've often wanted to suggest something to you, but I didn't quite like to. Why don't we have family prayers here? I might build a little chapel."
Dodo felt a sudden inclination to laugh. Her æsthetic pleasure in the chapter of Revelation was gone. She felt annoyed and amused at this simple-minded man, who thought her so perfect, and ascribed such fatiguingly high interpretations to all her actions. He really was a little stupid and tiresome. He had broken up all her little pleasant thoughts.
"Oh, family prayers always strike me as rather ridiculous," she said, with a half yawn. "A row of gaping servants is not conducive to the emotions."
She got up and joined the other groups, and then suddenly became aware that, for the first time, she had failed in her part. Jack was watching her, and saw what had happened. Chesterford had remained, seated at the window, pulling his long, brown moustache, with a very perceptible shade of annoyance on his face. Dodo felt a sudden impulse of anger with herself at her stupidity. She went back to Chesterford.
"Dear old boy," she said, "I don't know why I said that. I was thinking of something else. I don't know that I like family prayers very much. We used to have them at home, when my father was with us, and it really was a trial to hear him read the Litany. I suppose it is that which has made me rather tired of them. Come and talk to the Professor."
Then she went across to Jack.
"Jack," she said, in a low voice, "don't look as if you thought you were right."
Chapter Six
The same afternoon Chesterford took Mrs. Vivian off to see "almshouses and drunkards," as Dodo expressed it to Jack. She also told him that Edith and her Herr were playing a sort of chopsticks together in the drawing-room. Maud had, as usual, effaced herself, and Bertie was consuming an alarming number of cigarettes in the smoking-room, and pretending to write letters.
It was natural, therefore, that when Jack strolled into the hall, to see what was going on, he should find Dodo there with her toes on the fender of the great fireplace, having banished the collie to find other quarters for himself. Dodo was making an effort to read, but she was not being very successful, and hailed Jack's entrance with evident pleasure.
"Come along," she said; "I sent the dog off, but I can find room for you. Sit here, Jack."
She moved her chair a little aside, and let him pass.
"I can't think why a merciful providence sends us a day like this," she said. "I want to know whom it benefits to have a thick snowfall. Listen at that, too," she added, as a great gust of wind swept round the corner of the house, and made a deep, roaring sound up in the heart of the chimney.
"It makes it all the more creditable in Chesterford and Mrs. Vivian to go to see the drunkards," remarked Jack.
"Oh, but that's no credit," said Dodo. "They like doing it, it gives them real pleasure. I don't see why that should be any better, morally speaking, than sitting here and talking. They are made that way, you and I are made this. We weren't consulted, and we both follow our inclinations. Besides, they will have their reward, for they will have immense appetites at tea."
"And will give us something to talk about now," remarked Jack lazily.
"Don't you like Grantie, Jack?" asked Dodo presently. "She and Ledgers are talking about life and being in my room. I went to get a book from here, and the fire was so nice that I stopped."
"I wish Ledgers wouldn't treat her like a menagerie, and put her through her tricks," said Jack. "I think she is very attractive, but she belongs too much to a class."
"What class?" demanded Dodo.
"Oh, the class that prides itself on not being of any class—the all things to all men class."
"Oh, I belong to that," said Dodo.
"No, you don't," said he. "You are all things to some men, I grant, but not to all."
"Oh, Jack, that's a bad joke," said Dodo, reprovingly.
"It's quite serious all the same," said he.
"I'm all things to the only man to whom it matters that I should be," said Dodo complacently.
Jack felt rather disgusted.
"I wish you would not state things in that cold-blooded way," he said. "Your very frankness to me about it shows you know that it is an effort."
"Yes," she said, "it is an effort sometimes, but I don't think I want to talk about it. You take things too ponderously. Don't be ponderous; it doesn't suit you in the least. Besides, there is nothing to be ponderous about."
Dodo turned in her chair and looked Jack full in the face. Her face had a kind of triumph about it.
"I want to say something more," said Jack.
"Well, I'm magnanimous to-day," said Dodo. "Go on."
"All you are doing," said he gravely, "is to keep up the original illusion he had about you. It is not any good keeping up an illusion, and thinking you're doing your whole duty."
"Jack, that's enough," said Dodo, with a certain finality in her tone. "If you go on, you may make me distrust myself. I do not mean that as a compliment to your powers, but as a confession to a stupid superstitious weakness in myself. I am afraid of omens."
They sat silent a minute or two, until a door at the far end of the hall opened and Miss Grantham came through, with her showman in tow.
"Lord Ledgers and I were boring each other so," said Miss Grantham, "that we came to bore someone else. When you are boring people you may as well do it wholesale. What a pity it is that one hasn't got a tail like a dog, that cannot help wagging if the owner is pleased, and which stops wagging when he isn't."
"I shall certainly buy a tail," said Dodo, with grave consideration. "One or two, in case the first gets out of order. Must you wag it whenever you are pleased, Grantie? Is it to be an honest tail? Suppose you only think you are pleased, when you are not really, what does the tail do then? Oh, it's very complicated."
"The tail shares the same illusions as the dog," said Miss Grantham.
"Jack and I were talking about illusions," said Dodo.
"I'm