The Limit. Ada Leverson
Then will Hicks or Hardy be asked in my place?"
Valentia laughed. "Don't be so absurdly literal and hopelessly idiotic, darling! No, of course not. But I dare say Harry will get—well—perhaps Rathbone, the tattooed man, his Oxford friend."
"Really! And will this chap's being tattooed make the party go off better?"
"Oh yes, Romer dear; in a sort of way, because it makes him interesting, although you can't see it. When he was quite young he was always having lifelong passions for people, and being tattooed in their honour. He has blue chain bracelets with initials on his left wrist, and a heart and an anchor with other initials on his right arm, and a flight of swallows—oh, and goodness knows what! In fact, when you come to think of it Mr. Rathbone is really a kind of serial story—with illustrations. I wonder Lord Northcliffe doesn't bring him out in monthly parts!" She laughed again. "Harry might even get Hereford Vaughan, the man who has written all the plays that are going on now. Harry knows him quite well, and Van Buren would be so pleased."
"Does Daphne want to many this American chap?"
"Good gracious, no! The idea! Why, she doesn't even know him! … Yes, of course she does, naturally."
"Oh!"
Romer, though he never by any chance smiled at his wife's careless irresponsible chatter, nor laughed at her trivial jests, took the deepest interest in them, and would listen, as if under a charm, by the hour, to subtleties and frivolities that one would never have imagined he would enjoy. Sometimes the faint shadow of a smile would illuminate his face like a cold ray of wintry moonlight, but that was when she had ceased speaking. The smile was the effect of having watched the sparkle of her grey eyes, the expression of her pretty mouth, and her brilliant, sunshiny grace.
"It's very sweet of Harry," she said thoughtfully, "to do all this for me. It's all for me, or rather it's all for Daphne; he's so fond of Daphne."
"Really? Why doesn't he marry her himself?"
She looked surprised and blushed slightly.
"Harry? Why, he never marries!"
"He doesn't as a rule, I know," Romer admitted.
"Then, why should he make an exception for Daphne? He's fond of her—of us—in fact, devoted—just like a brother. Not that I ever saw a devoted brother. Besides, Harry's made to be a bachelor, and he isn't well off enough to marry."
"Really? Hard up? Poor chap! Never saw any sign of it."
"Hard up? No; how like you! Of course, he has plenty of money, for him, but he spends it all, poor boy. Anyhow, of course, he's not really rich like Van Buren. It's on a totally different scale—a different sort of thing altogether. But, of course, Van Buren may not care for Daphne; people have such funny tastes; and not only that, but if he adores and worships the ground she treads on I shan't let her dream of marrying him unless she absolutely returns it—at least, unless she likes him fairly well."
All this seemed to absorb Romer, and after a pause he said—
"I suppose you'll get Daphne a new dress for Harry's beano?"
Valentia smiled pityingly.
"Yes, of course, you would think that. No! Why, that would be l'enfance de l'art! First of all, Daphne looks ever so much better when she's dressed really simply, not the latest fashion; on the very verge of dowdiness! It suits her—shows her off. It would be silly to dress her up like a doll or make her look endimanchée on Thursday, or arranged and got up expensively, on purpose for Van Buren. I wouldn't, for instance, for anything, let her wear her new tulle dress from Armand! He'd see through it. Besides, I want her to contrast with me as if I'd taken any amount of trouble about my own appearance and none about hers. It'll make him pity her a little, and think how well she'd look in the sort of clothes he could give her. Besides, I myself am not going to be very smart—just tidy."
"Paquin?"
"How clever of you to guess! Well, now I must go and see Harry and hear all about the dinner, and tell him how sorry you are you can't come. And you're going to lunch at the Club, aren't you? And won't you go and dine with your mother on that evening?"
"I may as well."
"Do, Romer dear! I can't bear you to neglect her, although I never think it's safe to let you dine with her without me. She always takes advantage of my absence to be horrid about me, and then you will defend me, although I've implored you not to heaps of times, and then you quarrel. If, this time, she says I'm frivolous and worldly and an utter fool and very deep, you must agree with every word. I'm so fond of her, she's such a dear thing, it's too bad to worry her by contradicting her, and she has such a vile temper! Telephone and invite yourself—a pressing invitation, and give her my very best love."
Romer promised all she asked and then went out to the Club.
Valentia watched him through the window as he went. She thought he looked very well through a window, and ought by rights always to be seen in that way—as it were, under glass. She felt quite proud of him, of his smart appearance. In his way, he was an elaborate dandy, and spent years at his tailor's, slowly choosing the right thing. She remembered she had married him chiefly because of his fine presence and mysterious silence. She had thought at the time there must be so much at the back of it all, so much in him. He was in love with her and seemed difficult to understand. What could be more attractive? And now—well, he was ideally kind and good-natured. And she certainly felt sometimes that she couldn't even yet quite make him out. Then she gave a slight sigh, went to the door and called Daphne.
Daphne came in, trimming a hat. She had lived with the Wyburns ever since their marriage five years ago, and Valentia, having no children and a most passionately tender disposition—far too much natural affection to expend on Romer alone—lavished devotion on her sister. And Daphne was so nice and so pretty, almost as pretty as herself, in a satisfactorily different way. Valentia with her short straight features, grey eyes under dark brows, low forehead almost hidden by wavy fair hair, and a mouth curved and curled into subtle and complicated lines, was the type loved by Rossetti and Burne-Jones. She had a wonderful fair complexion, against which her long eyelashes showed, when she looked down, dark and effective, and though she was rather tall, slim and very modishly dressed, she never looked like a fashion-plate and had no air of being a mere mannequin for clothes, but seemed essentially real, with a suggestion in her personality of a beauty at once pagan and spiritual—the pagan predominating. Her pictorial appearance had no doubt made easier the artist's task, and the pale exquisite portrait had truly been described as a whispering likeness.
Daphne, who was not quite eighteen, was a good deal taller, and more slender. She had dark brown eyes, smooth dark hair, parted in the middle, a rather bright colour and features of the classic type. Her chin was rather long, and she had a brilliant, sudden smile, and all the attractive freshness and slight abruptness of her age, with an occasionally subdued air, caused by the shadow that had fallen on their youth by the death of their beautiful mother. Her gentle grace and touch of premeditated naïveté made her charming. Beyond question she would be a great success.
"Romer can't go on Thursday," Valentia said, taking the needle and hat out of her sister's hand and beginning to sew. "I must go and see Harry and tell him to get some one else. Really, Daphne, you go too far! It's all very well to be clever with your needle, but you needn't tear a Lewis hat to pieces and turn it inside out without asking my advice."
"Oh, I wasn't! I was only squashing in the brim and trying to make the hat smaller. It seems to have got larger since I put it away."
"Don't be perfectly absurd, darling. It's because you've been seeing smaller hats lately."
"Oh yes, I see. Who's going instead of Romer?"
"How should I know? We'll see."
"It's just as you like, darling," said Daphne in her level voice; "but in case the American hates me, and I hate him, and Harry's talking to you all the time, and I'm frightened of the celebrities, isn't anything going to be done for