The Limit. Ada Leverson

The Limit - Ada Leverson


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it's like this, as you may say. We'll all meet at the Ritz and dine there. Good. Then we drive in separate vehicles to here, and have some music. Then I see you both home, and—well, I think that's all. It's not much."

      "I don't quite like the way Lady Walmer looks at you, Harry."

      "Oh, Valentia! If it comes to that, how do you fondly imagine I shall like the way Rathbone is sure to look at you?"

      "Oh, Harry! Why, he's tattooed!"

      "You see," went on Harry seriously, "I really am making a dash for it about Daphne. She'll really be happy with Van Buren, and I shall be ever so much happier—with Van Buren and everyone else—because, through Daphne being always with you, I never see you alone for one single second."

      "Oh, you exaggerate, Harry!"

      "I know I do. I don't see you for half a second."

      "Romer has been so nice lately," she answered gently.

      "Very amusing, I suppose?"

      "But—I often think how very nice he really is."

      "Oh, don't say that, even in fun. I'm coming to stay with you in the summer—at the Green Gate—unless you'd rather ask Rathbone instead."

      "Or unless you'd rather go yachting with the Walmers," she remarked. "They have a daughter, haven't they?"

      "Oh, Valentia, be anything but blasphemous! … "

      "Really? … Oh, Harry!"

      "Do you mean to say you need my saying it?"

      "No."

      "Then, I will. Valentia, I—"

      She got up and opened the door so that Daphne should not have to ring when she returned.

      When the two sisters left a few minutes later, Harry sat down again as if in deep thought and lighted a cigarette. His servant came in.

      "Please, sir, Mr. Van Buren is at the telephone."

      "Oh well, tell him … Oh no—, all right—I'll go."

       Table of Contents

       Table of Contents

      "It's extremely kind of you, Harry, to let me come around like this in the morning. I dare say you want to be working sometimes. I'm really afraid of being in the way, but I was rather at a loose end this morning and I wanted to have a talk with you," said Van Buren apologetically.

      "Rot. Awfully glad to see you, old chap. Have a cigarette?"

      "Thanks, Harry, no. I find I'm very much better if I don't smoke till after tea. … We're intimate friends now, and yet you never call me anything but my surname, or 'old chap'. That reminds me, there's a little request I'd like to make of you, Harry."

      "What's that?"

      "Call me Matthew—no, call me plain Mat. It would give me real pleasure."

      Harry smiled rather loudly—

      "My dear fellow, I couldn't call you plain Mat. It wouldn't be suitable! You're too good-looking!"

      Van Buren smiled and shook his head. In its way it was a handsome head in the fair, clean-shaven American style, with shining blond hair. He had very broad shoulders, and a very thin waist, and that naïve worldliness of air so captivating in many of his countrymen.

      Except that he wore a buttonhole of Parma violets, he was dressed in every particular exactly like Harry. But no one would have believed it—he looked so much better dressed.

      "That's your chaff, Harry. I'm not a Gibson man, and I don't pretend to be."

      He looked at his hands, which were small and white, the finger-tips brilliantly polished, and said meditatively—

      "I'm very much looking forward to meeting your cousin, Harry. I expect she's the ideal of a young English lady. Dark, did you say?"

      "Rather dark, and very pretty."

      "It's a curious thing, Harry, that to me a broonette has always more fascination than a blonde. It seems—I may be wrong—as though there's more piquancy, more character."

      "I quite agree with you," said Harry. "Now the sister—the married one—is very fair."

      "And she's quite what you call a professional beauty, isn't she?" asked Van Buren with great relish.

      "My dear fellow, I don't call anyone a professional beauty, and you mustn't either. There's no such thing. I can't think how in America you get hold of these prehistoric phrases! The expression must have been dead long before either of us was born! … Still, she is a beauty all the same."

      "Is that so? Mind you, Harry, there's something very attractive about a blonde, too. To me golden hair and blue eyes suggest gentleness and womanliness. … What is Mrs. Wyburn like?"

      "Well, she's rather like an angel on a Christmas card, with her hair down—I mean she was, as a little girl," said Harry quickly. "Now she's considered like 'Love among the Roses' by Burne-Jones."

      "Do you really mean that, Harry? Why, she must be more beautiful than Miss de Freyne!"

      "I wouldn't worry about her, if I were you," Harry said.

      "Why not, Harry?"

      "Well, you see she's got a husband," said Harry, looking at the ceiling as he puffed his cigarette.

      "And a cousin," replied Van Buren with unexpected quickness. He then burst out laughing.

      "What do you mean?" asked Harry, not laughing.

      "Harry, I do beg of you to forgive my indiscretion. I'm afraid you'll think it shows great want of delicacy on my part. It was only meant for English chaff. Don't be angry, Harry." Van Buren was quite distressed.

      "That's all right, old chap."

      "You see, I know you painted her portrait, and if you had felt a little sentiment for her, who could blame you? Of course, I'm well aware that you're far too much a man of high principle to come any way between a woman and her husband, or even to let her know if you had a fancy in that direction. … I thoroughly do you justice there, Harry."

      "I regard them as sisters," answered Harry.

      Van Buren went to the window and stood looking out for a few minutes.

      "Well, they are sisters. … What a wonderful place your London is!" he said. "Now there's the sort of thing I never can understand, which has just happened. A lady called a taxicab. Just as it came up a man—at least I suppose he calls himself a man—opened the door. I thought he meant to help her in. No! He got in himself and drove away.—Now, Harry, how do you account for that?"

      "I suppose he could walk quicker," said Harry.

      "It's the one fault I have to find with you Englishmen, Harry—the single fault. You're not gallant enough to the ladies. Nor is there, in my opinion, quite enough respect shown to them. I am always astonished, I admit, that they don't resent it. Why, in New York——."

      "My dear fellow, they complain bitterly that there's too much respect shown to them already," said Harry. "A little more, and they'd do without us altogether!"

      Van Buren laughed cheerily, and clapped Harry on the shoulder.

      "What a fellow you are for chaff! Now, will you come around and have lunch with me?"

      "When? Now? Thanks, old chap."

      "That's


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