THE COLLECTED NOVELS OF E. M. DELAFIELD (6 Titles in One Edition). E. M. Delafield
however, was not destined to be the keynote of the evening.
Zella was ready before her ever-unpunctual hostess, and before Alison, who had walked upstairs ten minutes before dinner, remarking that her body should never be the master of her soul.
Zella accordingly received James alone.
The sense of intimacy conferred by the near relationship was pleasant to both of them, and James took instant advantage of it by inquiring:
"Well, what do you think of Miss St. Craye?"
Zella hesitated for a moment, then decided that James would expect admiration, but leavened by impartial criticism.
"She is rather—wonderful," she observed slowly, and quite unconsciously borrowing from Alison's own vocabulary.
Very," said James with an odd emphasis.
"Utterly unlike other people, of course, and I dare say her very unconventionally causes her to be misunderstood by ordinary minds," said Zella, remembering her Aunt Marianne's strictures. "But she has a splendid brain, of course, and knows how to use it. There is nothing she hasn't read, I believe."
"I don't suppose she's ever condescended to read the 'Pickwick Papers,' which would do her all the good in the world," observed James coolly. "Though she's quite capable of going through them without a smile."
"When I say read," said Zella with some dignity, "I mean serious reading."
"Kant and Hegel, to wit, I suppose. Don't you go and follow Miss Alison's taste in literature, Zella. I hate girls to have a smattering of that sort of thing, and for those who read in earnest it's worse still."
"Do you mean that Alison doesn't read in earnest?" asked Zella, guiltily conscious of a semi-resolution that had formed itself on hearing Alison's frequent allusions to the very writers in question.
"I should think she was much too busy wondering what Miss Alison St. Craye thought of Emmanuel Kant, to have time to look for his meaning."
"I see what you mean," said Zella, hedging.
"It's a very common form of self-deception, I suppose," began James in the old instructive voice. "I mean, so many people seem to do their reading for the sake of forming their own opinion, and not in the least with any idea of learning anything. I can't quite get at what I mean—anyhow, it's a form of intellectual dishonesty."
"Alison's theory is—and I am inclined to agree with her—that one should evolve one's own philosophy from life itself, merely using books as sign-posts, and not mistaking them for the goal itself," enunciated Zella, determined to betprofound at all costs.
This time it was at the cost of considerable mortification, for James smothered an unmistakable laugh, and exclaimed:
"Well done, Zella! You must be a friend after Miss St. Craye's own heart if you have evolved a philosophy from life already! I congratulate you."
Zella coloured so furiously that Lady St. Craye, entering the room with profuse apologies, ceased them abruptly as the thought crossed her mind that possibly the two cousins had been glad of their tête-à-tête.
Sir George Kindersley was announced, and proved to be a contemporary and obvious admirer of Lady St. Craye.
"I think," she said gently, "we won't wait. Alison went to dress rather late, and won't be down just yet. Shall we come?"
They went, and Zella, seated beside James, found herself wondering with some curiosity how he and Alison would treat one another."
Greetings between them there were none, for when Alison swept in, in a black and gold dress that resembled nothing so much as a kimono, she contented herself with an agreeable gesture of dégagé apology that comprised the assembly, and established herself without further ado in her favourite posture, both elbows on the table and her hands clasped beneath her chin.
"Do not let us be bandies" was her first observation, at the mild platitude uttered by Sir George Kindersley by way of opening a conversation.
The remark might have been the keynote of the occasion. Alison herself could not have been more resolved against any suspicion of banalities than was Zella, anxious to impress James, and even more anxious to cultivate her own pose of being a deeply read and fearlessly unconventional young woman of the world.
But James remained obstinately unimpressionable. His manner towards Zella was tinged with something of the sulky reserve of his boyhood, and she was angrily conscious of it and left most of the conversation to Alison.
Miss St. Craye was at no loss.
"And what of our Ibsen!" she suddenly demanded, across the small round table, of James, when the latter had been exchanging for some moments shameless platitudes with Lady St. Craye on the subject of the English drama.
"He may be your Risen," said James coolly; "he is not mine. I do not understand him, to begin with."
"That," said Alison, smiling kindly, with her head on one side, "I refuse to believe. Surely Ibsen's point of view is almost childish in its directness, its determined pessimism?"
"It is such a pity to be pessimistic," said Lady St. Craye wistfully. "It is only young people, I believe, who like sad things best, isn't it?" She looked with her disarming child-like smile at Sir George.
"My dear mother, Ibsen would turn in his grave if he heard you speak of his dramas as sad things. What fearful profanation!"
"Aren't they sad?" said James with a transparent assumption of simplicity. "They are dreary, but perhaps that is only because they are boring."
Alison looked at him in weighty silence, and then said:
"That is not worthy of you. Surely, even if his outlook means nothing to you, you can respect the sincerity of it."
"Come, come, Miss Alison, surely you don't want us to believe that you hold Ibsen's creed—woman a doll, and a dicky-bird, and all the rest of it," said Sir George, with a fatal effort towards inducing the conversation into a lighter vein.
Alison's enormous eyes annihilated him, and Lady St. Craye said plaintively:
"Alison doesn't really think that sort of thing, you know. Her creed is quite a different one, and most beautiful."
She looked lovingly at her daughter. James looked at Lady St. Craye with a different expression in his dark eyes, and Zella felt that it was time to draw attention to herself.
"Tell us your creed, Alison," she said, unable at the moment to think of a creed more personal, and perhaps knowing that in any case she would lack courage to enunciate one with the latent sarcasm of her cousin's eyes upon her.
"Ah," said Alison—and her eyes took on an odd effect of darkening and deepening—" my creed is that of the Theosophist."
Sir George looked uncomfortable, and turned to Lady St. Craye with an obvious desire to change the conversation. She immediately began to talk of other things, and Alison's audience was reduced to two. But she received no lack of attention.
"Theosophy as an attitude interests me a good deal," said James. "There is something so original about a creed which boasts that it condemns no other creed."
"Theosophy is not a creed," said Alison gravely. "It is bound by no limits, save those of our own inner vision; and those of us who grow, who become bigger and wider in outlook, learn to tolerate all sects and creeds for the sake of the fragment of truth that each has preserved."
Zella wondered if the Catholic Church came within the sphere of things tolerated by the exponents of Theosophy, and felt guiltily that Reverend Mother would have called this one of the occasions when human respect should be trampled underfoot and a fearless testimony uttered. Reverend Mother, however, not being there to enforce the precept by her presence, Zella merely said, with an earnest expression on her face:
"Ah, toleration is the finest of hall-marks in any society."
"But are you a member of the Society, Miss