Too Old for Dolls. Anthony M. Ludovici
to account even for the meeting of these two people under the same roof, not to speak of the fact that they met on an equal footing.
The one, a plain but not unpretentious man of business, still a little perplexed by his stupendous success, and not yet certain of his precise social level, revealed in his unshapely but kindly features the modest rung on which Nature herself would probably have placed him, if the peculiar economic conditions of his Age had not intervened to bring about a different result; while two characteristics alone led one to suspect his latent power—his large energetic hands with their powerful spatulate fingers, and his masterful and meditative dark eyes.
The other—a tall, muscular, youthful-looking aristocrat, with deep-set thoughtful blue eyes, a straight finely-chiselled nose, and a full eloquent mouth (the whole overshadowed by an unusually lofty brow, from which, particularly over the temples, the hair had noticeably receded)—possessed that unconscious ease of manner and unassertive masterfulness of bearing, which derive on the one hand from breeding, and on the other from a constant habit of preoccupation with external problems, that is unfavourable to any self-concern. As his alert vision took in the details of his surroundings, including the person of Sir Joseph himself, on whom he appeared to cast only the most casual sidelong glances, it was clear that his mind, far from being occupied with internal questionings, was measuring even then the probable extent to which this visit might serve some ultimate important purpose upon which the whole gravity and earnestness of his being seemed to be concentrated; and if his solemn features occasionally relaxed into a smile, it was precisely the habitual gravity of his mien that lent his passing levity such extraordinarily persuasive merriness.
It was chiefly Lord Henry's air of preoccupation that set Sir Joseph so quickly at his ease. For although the baronet was familiar enough with the sons of peers and peers themselves—for had he not a number of them on his various boards?—there was, as we have seen, something more than mere rank in his youthful visitor to disturb him.
While the first courteous platitudes were being exchanged, Sir Joseph quietly took stock of his companion, and was for a brief moment a little perturbed by the latter's unconventional attire.
We have noticed that though he was young, Lord Henry's hair receded a little from his brow, and made it appear even loftier than it actually was. Between the high bald temples, however, a wisp of stiff fair hair still remained over the centre of the young man's forehead, somewhat resembling that seen in the portraits of Napoleon, and with this tuft his long well-shaped and sensitive fingers would play continuously while he spoke, with the result that he constantly bowed his head.
Occasionally, therefore, when his customary gravity gave way for a space and his face was irradiated with a smile or a laugh, an expression of such irresistible and almost wicked mirth suffused his features, owing to the upward glance he was constrained to give you from the bowed angle of his head, that willy-nilly you were compelled to laugh with him.
Sir Joseph felt this; he was also aware of the peculiar charm of it; but what struck him even more forcibly were Lord Henry's loose-fitting and apparently badly cut clothes. Anyone else so clad would have looked hopelessly dowdy, while the carelessly knotted green tie that bulged all askew from beneath the young man's ample collar, seemed for a moment almost offensive.
It was strange how the displeasure provoked by these shortcomings in his attire gradually vanished beneath the steady persuasiveness of the wearer's fascinating personality; and very soon not only had Sir Joseph ceased from feeling their aggressiveness, but had actually begun to associate them inseparably with the strange charm of the creature before him.
"Mrs. Delarayne," said Lord Henry, "would give me no peace until I came to see you, Sir Joseph, so you must forgive me for forcing myself upon you in this way, and relying for your forbearance simply upon the strength of the friendship you bear her."
He laughed, and Sir Joseph perforce laughed with him.
"'Ave you seen her lately?" the baronet enquired.
"She's always seeing me," Lord Henry replied, smiling in a manner that was at once childishly winsome and wise. He was still startlingly boyish, despite his thirty-three years, and though his slight baldness added a few years to his face, he did not look a month older than five-and-twenty.
"She is very fond of you," Sir Joseph proceeded earnestly, beginning to feel, for the first time, not only that Mrs. Delarayne's infatuation was clearly justified, but also that young St. Maur had probably been right in his remarks concerning Charles I.'s creations. It was strange to recognise the evidences of unusual wisdom in such a childish face; it reminded him vaguely of what he had heard or dreamt of Chinese mandarins—evidently such phenomena were possible.
"She's an amazingly captivating woman," muttered Lord Henry, still pulling at the tuft of hair over his brow. "Her blank refusal to accept the fact of her advancing years is the most wonderful and at the same time the most pathetic thing about her."
Sir Joseph, with an expression of deep curiosity, leant heavily over the right arm of his chair, and stared expectantly at his visitor.
"She has not had her second decisive love affair, you see," Lord Henry continued. "And every day she arrays herself to experience it—that second and decisive love affair which alone reconciles the best women to old age and to snow-white locks."
Sir Joseph fidgeted. He did not understand, but thought he did. "Her second and decisive love affair," he repeated—"yes."
"We are apt to forget," continued Lord Henry, "that all deep, decently constituted women have two definite relationships to man, one alone of which is insufficient to satisfy them. The first is their relationship of wife to the man more or less of their own generation whom they have loved; the second is the relationship of mother to the man of their children's generation, whom under favourable circumstances they worship."
Sir Joseph shifted in his chair, raised his hand to his chin and looked fixedly at the speaker.
"This last and most precious relationship is the only one that reconciles a woman to her wrinkles and makes her happy in her grey hairs. Without it she takes to peroxide, smooths out her wrinkles with cream, and what is even more tragic, developes a tendency to pursue the young men of her children's generation. People call it ridiculous, lunatic—so it would be, if it were not so nobly, so terribly pathetic."
"But I have known women with grown-up sons behave exactly as Mrs. Delarayne behaves," Sir Joseph objected with as much breath as he could summon in his surprise at what Lord Henry had said.
"Not sons with whom they are in love," Lord Henry corrected. "Most mothers have sons, but of these not all experience that great love for one of their male offspring which is perhaps the most beautiful, the most passionate, and the most permanent of earthly relationships. Mrs. Delarayne is obviously a woman who would have been capable of such a relationship had she only had a son."
"Is it only one particular son?" Sir Joseph enquired with an unconscious note of profound humility in his voice.
"Always—yes!"
Lord Henry, still tugging at his wisp of hair, now turned to Sir Joseph, and blinking very quickly, as was his wont when deeply absorbed in a subject, contemplated the baronet for a moment in silence.
"Doesn't that clear up the problem of Mrs. Delarayne a little for you?" he asked at last. "Believe me, few women care to admit that they are thirty-five unless they have a husband whom they love, and still fewer women resign themselves to their fiftieth year unless they are wrapped up in a beloved son."
Sir Joseph, to whom Mrs. Delarayne, except for her repeated refusals of his hand, had never been precisely a problem, demurred a little. "It certainly sheds some light—yes," he said slowly. "But don't you think that a second great love with a man more or less of her own generation is equally satisfying to a woman like that?"
"How can it be when it is simply a repetition of a former and thoroughly explored experience?" Lord Henry replied. "I do not mean, mind you, that great-hearted women who have not enjoyed that exquisite relationship to a beloved son, are conscious that it is this circumstance which has been lacking in