The Parts Men Play. Beverley Baxter
the culprit.'
'My discordant friend,' said Smyth, producing a second bottle from an unsuspected source and making it disappear mysteriously, 'means that he is prejudiced against England. Am I right, sir?'
'Not exactly,' drawled the composer. 'I don't mind England—but I think the English are awful.'
'That is a nice point,' said Lady Durwent.
'Ah,' broke in Madame Carlotti, 'but, much as I detest the English, I hate England more. Nom de Dieu! I—a daughter of the Mediterranean, where the sun ees so rarely a stranger, and the sky and the water it ees always blue. In Italy one lives because she ees alive—it ees sufficient. Here it ees always gray, gray—always g-r-ray. When the sun comes—sacramento! he sees his mistake and goes queek away. Ah, Signor Selwyn, it ees désolant that I am compelled to live here.'
A roar of unfeeling laughter greeting her familiar plaint, Madame Carlotti took a hitch in her gown and reimprisoned some of her person which had escaped from custody.
'Then,' said Johnston Smyth, 'if we are all of a mind, there is no need to have a trial. You have all seen the accusation in Mr. Selwyn's eye, you have considered the unbiassed evidence of the lovely Carlotti'——
'But jurors can't give evidence,' muttered Mr. Dunckley.
'My dear sir, I know she can't, but she did,' said Smyth triumphantly. 'Oyez, oyez—all in favour'——
'But,' interrupted the American, 'are we not to hear any one for the defence?'
'No,' said Smyth, who was thoroughly happy as a self-constituted master of ceremonies. 'No one would accept the brief.'
'Then,' said Selwyn, 'I apply for the post of counsel for the defence, for in the limited time I have been in your country I have seen much that appeals to me.'
'Of course, it is a well-known fact,' said Dunckley sententiously, 'that American humour relies on exaggeration.'
'No, no,' said Johnston Smyth, hushing the voices with a pianissimo movement of his hands, 'it is not humour on Mr. Selwyn's part, but gratitude. In return for Christopher Columbus discovering America, this gentleman is going to repay the debt of the New World to the Old by discovering England.'
'SHALL WE HAVE SOME PORT?' said Lady Durwent, opening the sluice-gates of her vocal production.
II.
'Speaking of America,' said Mrs. Le Roy Jennings a few minutes later,
Johnston Smyth having sat down in order to do justice to the wine of
Portugal, 'she is in the very vanguard of progress. Women have
achieved an independence there unknown elsewhere in the world.'
'That is true,' said Lady Durwent, who knew nothing whatever about it.
'You are right,' said Madame Carlotti.
'The other day in Paris I heard an American woman whistling. "Have you lost your dog?" I asked. "No," she says; "my husband."'
A chorus of approval greeted this malicious sally, followed by the retailing of various anti-American anecdotes that made up in sting what they lacked in delicacy. These showed no signs of abatement until, slightly nettled, Selwyn put in an oar.
'I had hoped,' he said, 'to find some illuminating points in the conversation to-night. But it seems as if you treat not only your own country in a spirit of caricature, but mine as well. We are a very young race, and we have the faults of youth; but, then, youth always has a future. It was a sort of post-graduate course to come to England and Europe to absorb some of the lore—or isn't it one of your poets who speaks of "The Spoils of Time"? Your past is so rich that naturally we look to you and Europe for the fundamental things of civilisation.'
'And what have you found?' asked Elise Durwent.
'Well,' said the American, 'much to admire—and much to deplore.'
'In other words,' said Johnston Smyth, 'he has been to Edinburgh and to
London.'
'That is so,' smiled Selwyn; 'but I don't'——
'All people,' said Smyth serenely, 'admire Edinburgh, but abuse London. Over here a man will jest about his religion or even his grandfather, but never about Edinburgh. On the other hand, as every one damns London, and as an Englishman is never so happy as when he has something on hand to grouse about, London's population has grown to some eight millions.'
'I think, Mr. Smyth,' said Lady Durwent, 'that you are as much a philosopher as a painter.'
'Lady Durwent,' said the futurist, 'all art is philosophy—even old
Pyford's here, though his amounts almost to theology.'
For a few minutes the conversation drifted in inconsequential channels until H. Stackton Dunckley becalmed everything with a laborious dissertation on the lack of literary taste in both England and America. Selwyn took the opportunity of studying the elusive beauty of Elise Durwent, which seemed to provoke the eye to admiration, yet fade into imperfection under a prolonged searching. Pyford grew sleepy, and even Smyth appeared a little melancholy, when, on a signal from Lady Durwent, brandy and liqueurs were served, checking Mr. Dunckley's oratory and reviving every one's spirits noticeably.
'Mr. Selwyn,' said Mrs. Le Roy Jennings in her best manner, 'after you have subjected England to a microscopic examination for a sufficient length of time, you will discover that we are a nation of parasites.'
'I would rather you said that than I, Mrs. Jennings.'
'Parasites,' reiterated the speaker, fixing an eye on some point on the wall directly between Selwyn and the hostess. 'We sprawl over the world—why? To develop resources? No! It is to reap the natural growth of others' endeavours? Yes! The Englishman never creates. He is the world's greatest brigand'——
'Too thoroughly masculine to be really cruel,' chimed in the irrepressible Smyth.
'Brigand,' repeated Mrs. Jennings, not deigning the artist so much as a glance, 'skimming the earth of its surface riches, and rendering every place the poorer for his being there.'
There was an awesome silence, which no one seemed courageous enough to break.
'Yes,' said H. Stackton Dunckley finally, 'and in addition England is decadent.'
'But, Mr. Selwyn'—again the American heard the voice of Elise Durwent, that quick intensity of speech that always left a moment of startled silence in its wake—'you have discovered something admirable about England. Won't you tell us what it is?'
'Well,' he said, smiling, 'for one thing, no one can deny the beauty of your women.'
'All decadent nations,' said H. Stackton Dunckley, 'produce beautiful women—it is one of the surest signs that they are going to pieces. The Romans did at the last, and Rome and England are parallel cases. As Mrs. Le Roy Jennings says, they are parasitic nations. What did the Romans add to Greek art? The Greeks had this'—he made an elliptical movement of his hands—'the Romans did that to it'—he described a circle, then shrugged his shoulders, convinced that he had said something crushing.
'So you think English women beautiful, Mr. Selwyn?' said Lady Durwent, trying to retrieve the conversation from the slough of her inamorato's ponderosity.
'Undoubtedly,' answered the American warmly. 'It is no doubt the out-of-door life they lead, and I suppose the moist climate has something to do with their wonderful complexions, but they are womanly as well, and their voices are lovely.'
'I smell a rat,' said Smyth, who had in his mouth an unlit cigarette, which had fastened itself to his lip and bobbed up and down with his speech, like a miniature baton. 'When a man says a woman's voice is sweet, it means that she has bored him; that what she has to say interests him so little that he turns to contemplation of her voice. This American is a devilish cute fellow.'