THE COLLECTED WORKS OF E. F. BENSON (Illustrated Edition). E. F. Benson
might mean. It seemed almost incredible, but she found herself almost longing for a return of that which had frightened her before.
It was impossible for her to cram any more engagements into that day, since they already fitted into each other like the petals of a rose not yet fully blown, but she made an appointment with her doctor for next morning. The interview was not a long one, but Dodo came out from it, wreathed in smiles, immensely excited, and hurried home, where she went straight up to Jack's room. She seized him with both hands, and kissed him indiscriminately.
"Oh, my dear, you can't possibly guess," she said, "because it is quite too ridiculous, and only a person like me could possibly have done anything of the kind, and you're Zacharias, but you needn't be dumb. Oh, Jack, don't you see? Yes: it's that. I'm going to have a baby, instead of cancer. I was prepared—at least not quite—for its being cancer, which I shouldn't have enjoyed at all, but Dr. Ingram says it's the other thing. Did you ever hear anything so nice, and I am a very wonderful woman, aren't I, and pray God it will be a boy! Oh, Jack, think how bored I was with the bearing of my first child. I didn't deserve it, and you used to come and cheer me up. And then, poor little innocent, it was taken from me. Poor little chap: he would have been Lord Chesterford now instead of you if he had lived. Won't it seem funny giving birth to the same baby, so to speak, twice? Ah, my dear, but it's not the same! It's your child this time, Jack, and I shan't be bored this time. You see I didn't really become a woman at all till lately. I was merely a sprightly little devil, and so I suppose God is giving me another chance. Jack, it simply must be a boy: I shall love to hear Lord Harchester cry this time."
Jack, though informed that he needn't be like Zacharias, had been dumb because there was no vacant moment to speak in. The news had amazed and astounded him.
"Oh, Dodo!" he said. "Next to yourself, that is the best gift of all. But I'm not sure I forgive you, for suspecting you were ill, and not telling me."
"Then I shall get along quite nicely without your forgiveness," said she. "Forgiveness, indeed! Or will it be twins? Wouldn't that be exciting? But a boy anyhow: I've ordered him, and he shall have one blue eye because he's yours and one brown eye because he's mine, and so he'll be like a Welsh collie, and every one will say: 'What a pretty little dog; does he bite?' Jack, I hope he'll be rather a rip when he grows up and make his love to other people's wives. I suppose I oughtn't to wish that, but I can't help it. I like a boy with a little dash in him. He shall be about as tall as you, but much better looking, and oh, to think that I once had a boy before, and didn't care! My conscience! I care now, and only yesterday I said I should probably soon be a grandmother, and now I've got to leave out the grand, and be just a humble mother first. I'm not humble: I'm just as proud as I can stick together."
Suddenly this amazing flood of speech stopped, and Dodo grew dim-eyed, and laid her head on her husband's shoulder.
"My soul doth magnify the Lord!" she whispered.
The night of Dodo's ball had arrived, and she was going to lead the cotillion, but not dance more than she felt to be absolutely necessary. She had told everybody what was going to happen to her, in strict privacy, which was clearly the best way of keeping it secret for the present. Since she was not going to dance more than a step or two she had put on all the jewels she could manage to attach to herself, including the girdle of great emeralds that Waldenech had given her. This was a magnificent adornment, far too nice to give back to him when she divorced him, and she meant to let Nadine have it, as soon as she could bear to part with it herself, which did not seem likely to happen in the immediate future. It consisted of large square stones set in brilliants, and long pear-shaped emeralds depended from it. Jack had once asked her how she could bear to wear it, and she had said: "Darling, when emeralds are as big as that, they help you to bear a good deal. They make a perfect Spartan of me." In other respects she wore what she called the "nursery fender," which was a diamond crown so high that children would have been safe from falling over it into the fire, the famous Chesterford pearls, and a sort of breast-plate of rubies, like the High-priest.
"I suppose it's dreadfully vulgar to wear so many jewels," she said to Jack, as they took their stand at the top of the stairs, where Dodo intended to remain and receive her guests, as long as she could bear not being in the ball-room, "but most people who have got very nice stones like me I notice are vulgar. The truly refined people are those who have got three garnets and one zircon. They also say that big pearls, great eggs like these, are vulgar and seed-pearls tasteful. What a word, 'tasteful'! And they talk of people's being very simply and exquisitely dressed. Thank God, no one can say I'm simply dressed to-night. I'm not: I'm the most elaborate object for miles round. Jack, when my baby— Dear Lady Ayr, how nice to see you, and Esther and John. Seymour dined here, and he has been taking notes of our clothes for the new paper called Gowns!"
As in the old days, when Dodo piped, the world danced, and she was as vital, as charged with that magnetism that spreads enjoyment round itself more infectiously than influenza, to-night as ever. Her beauty, too, was like a rose, full-blown, but without one petal yet fallen: and she stood there, in the glory of her incomparable form, jeweled and superb, a Juno decked for a feast among the high gods. All the world of her friends streamed up the stairs to be welcomed by that wonderful smiling face, and many instead of going in to the ball-room waited round the balustrade at the stair-head watching her. By degrees the tide of arriving guests slackened, and she turned to Jack.
"Jack dear, the band is turning all my blood into champagne," she said. "Come and have one turn with me round the ball-room. Why are they all standing about, instead of going to dance? Do they want to be shown how? Just once round, or perhaps twice, and then I will stop quiet until the cotillion."
Dodo suddenly knit her eyebrows, and looked sharply down into the hall below.
"I was right, and you were wrong," she said. "There's Waldenech just come in. He is not going to come upstairs. Wait here for me."
Jack stepped forward.
"No, that's for me to do," he said
Dodo laid her hand on his arm.
"Do as I tell you, my dear," she said. "Wait here: it won't take me a minute."
She went straight down into the hall: all smiles and gaiety had left her face, but its vitality was quite unimpaired. The color that was in her cheeks had left them, but it was not fear that had driven it away, but anger. He was just receiving a ticket for his hat and coat, and she went straight up to him.
"Waldenech, take your hat and coat, and go away," she said. "You must have come to the wrong house, you were not asked here."
He turned at the sound of her voice, and looked up at her.
"You incomparable creature," he said rather thickly. "You pearl!"
"Give the Prince his hat and coat," said Dodo. "Now go, Waldenech, before I disgrace you. I mean it: if you do not go quietly and at once, you shall be turned out."
His eyes wandered unsteadily from her face to her bosom, and down to her waist where the great girdle gleamed and shone.
"You still wear the jewels I gave you," he said.
Dodo instantly undid the clasp, and the girdle fell on to the carpet.
"I do not wear them any more," she said. "Take them, and go."
He stood there for a moment without moving. Then he bent down and picked them up.
"I ask your pardon most humbly," he said. "I am a gentleman, really. Please let me see you put the girdle on again, before I go; and say you forgive me. If your husband knows I am here, ask his pardon for me also."
Some great wave of pity came over Dodo, utterly quenching her anger.
"Oh, Waldenech, you have all my forgiveness, my dear," she said. "But take the jewels."
"I ask you to give me that sign of your forgiveness," he said.
Dodo smiled at him.
"Fasten it yourself, then," she said.
His fingers halted over this, but in a moment he had found and secured the clasp.
"Good-night,"