THE COLLECTED WORKS OF E. F. BENSON (Illustrated Edition). E. F. Benson
and a green one on the other, and a quantity of steam, and whistlings, and some rails? Then afterwards a curious frosty female appears suddenly in the hole of a tree and tells Wotan that his spear ought to be looked to before he fights. Waldenech, we went together to Baireuth, and you snored, but luckily on the right note, and everybody thought it was Fafner. John, I was sitting in my window at dawn this morning, and all the birds in the world began to sing. It made me feel so common. Nobody ought to see the dawn except the birds, and I suppose the worms for the sake of the birds."
Waldenech turned to her, and again spoke in German. "You are still yourself," he said. "After all these years you are still yourself."
Dodo's German was far more expressive than his, it was also ludicrously ungrammatical, and intensely rapid.
"There are no years," she said. "Years are only an expression used by people who think about what is young and what is old. Every one has his essential age, and remains that age always. This man is about sixty, the age of his mother."
John Sturgis smiled in a kind and superior manner.
"Perhaps I had better tell you that I know German perfectly," he said. "Also French and Italian, in case you want to say things that I shan't understand."
Dodo stared for a moment, then pealed with laughter.
"Darling John," she said, "I think that is too nice of you. If you were nasty you would have let me go on talking. Isn't my German execrable? How clever of you to understand it! But you are old, aren't you? Of course it is not your fault, nor is it your misfortune, since all ages are equally agreeable. We grow up into our ages if we are born old, and we grow out of them, like missing a train, if our essential age is young. When you are eighty, you will still be sixty, which will be delightful for you. I make plans for what I shall be when I am old, but I wonder if I shall be able to carry them out. When I am old, I shall be what I shall be, I suppose. The inevitable doesn't take much notice of our plans, it sits there like the princess on the top of the glass-hill while we all try, without the slightest success, to get at it. Ah, my dear Waldenech, there is the motor come round for you. You will have to start, because I have at last trained my chauffeur to give one no time to wait at the station, and you must not jilt the compartment I have engaged you to. It will get to London all alone: so bad for a young compartment."
He made no further attempt to induce her to let him stop, and Dodo, with a certain relief of mind, saw him drive off and blew a large quantity of kisses after him.
"He was such a dear about the year you were born, John," she said, "but you are too old to remember that. Now I must be Martha, and see the cook and all the people who make life possible. Then I shall become Mary again and have a delicious bathe before lunch. Certainly the good part is much the pleasantest, as is the case always at private theatricals. I think we must act this evening: we have not had charades or anything for nearly two days."
John, like most prigs, was of a gregarious disposition, and liked that his own superiority of intellect, of which he was so perfectly conscious, should be made manifest to others and, literally, he could not imagine that Dodo should not seem to prefer burying herself in household affairs when he was clearly at leisure to converse with her. He did not feel himself quite in tune with the younger members of the party, and sometimes wondered why he had come here. That wonder was shared by others. His tediousness in ordinary intercourse was the tediousness of his genus, for he always wanted to improve the minds of his circle. Unfortunately he mistook quantity of information for quality of mind, and thought that large numbers of facts, even such low facts as dates, held in themselves the germ of culture. But since, at the present moment, Dodo showed not the smallest desire to profit by his leisure, he wandered off to the tennis-courts, where he had reason to believe he should find companions. His faith was justified, for there was a rather typical party assembled. Berts and Hugh were playing a single, while Esther was fielding tennis-balls for them. They were both admirable performers, equally matched and immeasurably active. At the moment Esther standing, as before Ahasuerus, with balls ready to give to Berts, had got in his way, and he had claimed a let.
"Thanks awfully, Esther," he said, as he took a couple of balls from her, "but would you get a little further back? You are continually getting rather in my way."
"Oh, Berts, I'm so sorry," she said. "You are playing so well!"
"I know. Esther was in the light, Hugh."
"Oh rather, lot, of course," said Hugh.
Nadine took no active share. She was lying on the grass at the side of the court with Tommy, and was reading "Pride and Prejudice" aloud. When Esther had a few moments to spare she came to listen. John joined the reading party, and wore an appreciative smile.
Nadine came to the end of a chapter.
"Yes, Art, oh, great Art," she said, shutting the book, "but I am not enchained. It corresponds to Madame Bovary, or the Dutch pictures. It is beautifully done; none but an artist could have done it. But I find a great deal of it dull."
John's smile became indulgent.
"Ah, yes," he said, "but what you call dull, I expect I should call subtle. Surely, Nadine, you see how marvelous."
Esther groaned.
"John, you make me feel sick," she began.
"Balls, please," said Hugh.
Esther sprang up.
"Yes, Hugh, I'll get them," she said. "Aren't those two marvelous?" she added to Nadine.
"John is more marvelous," said Nadine. "John, I wish you would get drunk or cheat at cards. It would do you a world of good to lose a little of your self-respect. You respect yourself far too much. Nobody is so respectable as you think yourself. We were talking of you last night: I wish you had been there to hear; but you had gone to bed with your camomile tea. Perhaps you think camomile tea subtle also, whereas I should only find it dull."
"I think you are quibbling with words," he said. "But I, too, wish I had heard you talking last night. I always welcome criticism so long as it is sincere."
"It was quite sincere," said Nadine, "you may rest assured. It was unanimous, too; we were all agreed."
John found this not in the least disconcerting.
"I am not so sure that it matters then," he said. "When several people are talking about one thing—you tell me you were talking about me—they ought to differ. If they all agree, it shows they only see one side of what they are discussing."
Nadine sat up, while Tommy buried his dissipated face in his hands.
"We only saw one side of you," she said, "and that was the obvious one. You will say that it was because we were dull. But since you like criticism you shall know. We all thought you were a prig. Esther said you would be distressed if we thought differently. She said you like being a prig. Do tell me: is it pleasant? Or I expect what I call prig, you call cultured. Are you cultured?"
Tommy sat up.
"Come and listen, Esther," he shouted. "Those glorious athletes can pick up the balls themselves for a minute."
Esther emerged from a laurel bush triumphant with a strayed reveler.
"Oh, is Nadine telling John what she thinks?" she asked.
"Nadine is!" said Tommy.
Nadine meantime collected her thoughts. When she talked she ascertained for herself beforehand what she was going to say. In that respect she was unlike her mother, who ascertained what she thought when she found herself saying it. But the result in both cases had the spontaneous ring.
"John, somehow or other you are a dear," she said, "though we find you detestable. You think, anyhow. That gives you the badge. Anybody who thinks—"
Hugh, like Mr. Longfellow with his arrow, flung his racquet into the air, without looking where it went. He had a moment previously sent a fast drive into the corner of the court, which raised whitewash in a cloud, and won him the set.
"Nadine, are you administering the oath of the clan?" he said.