The Oyster. Peer
an honour, they are generally full up, and there's a dance this time."
He omitted to remark that his reply down the telephone had been: "Who? I don't know the brat. Oh, send her along; I'll invite. Suppose you'd sulk and wouldn't manage the cotillon if I refused. Can't you let girls alone, Jimmie? Yes, I've got the address—I'll invite—bother her!"
Mrs Chauntsey wavered, gave way, turned to a stout lady who was anxiously waiting for the brougham she still clung to, and told her.
"I wouldn't let my girls walk past the garden wall," said Lady Adderley, grimly. "Sybil's a child, too."
Mrs Chauntsey grew doubtful again. This stout and dowdy woman held the keys of the dullest and most exclusive houses. And Sybil had once been asked to luncheon there on Sunday; but a Prince, and a future Marquis—one must give a girl her chance.
Esmé was going on to a tea-party. She sat down by the open window, looking out at the Park, a dull place now, its afternoon hour not yet upon it.
"Rather full here." Jimmie Gore Helmsley's dark face appeared close to her; he pulled up a chair and sat down. "Feel as if we're all Aunt Sallies being pelted with gold; the riches jump out and hit you in the face."
"He's kind," said Esmé, remembering her hock.
"Kind? Oh, yes! he can be! Appreciate," he muttered, "what I've done coming here—to meet you, eh? I've talked to Lady Susan and Lady Hebe Ploddy for ten minutes, and I've only just escaped from the horns of Lady Hebe's jersey cattle. They have been going out for ten years," said Jimmie, "and Mamma, her grace, still calls them 'my baby girls.' They are coming this way," he added, "with the pigs and cows in the leash of their minds. Are you off it—hipped?" he whispered softly, "you look pale."
Whispers had gained him many things in life; a sudden drop of voice, a change of tone, an intimacy as it were of sympathy. But Esmé scarcely noticed it. She was too carelessly selfish to dream of the inconveniences of a lover, even if she had not been fond of Bertie.
"Coming Saturday," he asked, "to the Bungalow?"
"Oh, I suppose so. I've promised that child. Where am I going to? To buy a toy which has taken my fancy. Yes, you may come with me."
Half an hour later one of the new crisp notes had gone for the emerald clasp, and the Ladies Susan and Hebe Ploddy, coming by chance into the shop, told all their friends that Captain Gore Helmsley had given it to that Mrs Carteret.
CHAPTER III
Esmé Carteret had chosen her own picture in the tableaux vivants at the Leigh-Dilneys. It was called Joy.
"I'm so happy," she had said merrily, "it will suit me."
The Leigh-Dilneys gave entertainments in the name of charity, and since charity is all-powerful, and the pheasants at Leigh Grange were as flies in summer, everyone who was anyone in London gasped for air in the big drawing-room.
Faint breaths of summer breeze eddying over scarlet geraniums and white marguerites were powerless to stir the heat generated by the crowd which packed itself in resignation on hired chairs and dreamt of getting away. Lady Delilah Leigh-Dilney looked as though she spent life trying to live down her name. A high-nosed, earnest woman, with an insatiable appetite for organized entertainment. Her bridge winnings went to support missions in distant China; an invitation to tea was certain to plunge the accepter into the dusty uncertainty of a bran pie at five shillings a dip, proceeds for something; or the obligatory buying of tickets for a vase or cushion which was too ugly ever to be used.
Electric fans, Lady Delilah said, were noisy, useless and merely fashionable. Her guests sweltered on hard chairs as an overheated stage manager scrabbled the blue curtains of the miniature stage to and fro and wished he had never seen a tableaux.
And Esmé was Joy. Merely herself, dressed in a cloud of rosy pink, her setting an ordinary room; her hands outstretched to, as it were, meet Life; her radiant face lighted by smiles; her burnished hair fluffed out softly.
"Yet not so much Joy as self-satisfaction," murmured a panting cynic as he finished applauding. "For true Joy is a simple thing—its smile of the eyes and not of the teeth."
Esmé had chosen the scene because she was really so happy. She seemed to have everything she wanted. Popular, young, helped by a dozen kindly friends, with Bertie as lover and husband satisfying every whim.
The audience fled from sandwiches and thin coffee to amuse themselves after self-sacrifice. Esmé, in her pink gown, had danced the night away at two balls.
She had not felt ill again; she put her secret fear away, hoping eagerly that she was mistaken. Went out next morning to shop. Was there not always something one wanted?
Joy! She had acted her part yesterday, flashed her dazzling smile at the world. To-day discontent walked with her on the hot pavement.
She had been contented, happy, in her little flat, childishly pleased with her new life, her pretty clothes, her gaieties. And now she wanted more. Electric motors glided by, silent, powerful; wealth which would not have missed the Carterets' yearly income for a day passed her on all sides.
A fat woman got out of a car; the Pekingese dog she carried had cost two hundred pounds.
"Oh! Mrs Carteret!" Mrs Holbrook held out a fat hand. "Hot, isn't it? I'm just going in to Benhusan's here. This necklace Luke gave me yesterday has a bad clasp. So dangerous! I want a pendant for it too. Come in and advise me—do!"
Into the shop with its sombre splendour. Background to pearl and ruby, to diamond and opal and sapphire and emerald.
These spread before this merchant's wife, dazzling toys of pink and blue and sparkling white.
Esmé wanted them. Mere youth ceased to content her. She could not buy even one of these things. She must look and long.
"This one is two hundred guineas, madam."
"Oh! Luke said I might go to that. Mrs Carteret, do advise me. This pearl, the pear shaped; or the circle of opals—or what do you think of the sapphires? I am so stupid."
Sapphires would not go with the pearl and diamond necklace. Esmé's slim fingers picked up the pearl pendant, held it longingly.
It was the only possible thing, and even then not quite right, but it would do, she said.
"You've such perfect taste, child. Luke always says so. So glad I met you. Well, see you soon again—to-morrow. We've a large party."
Men and women buying lovely—perhaps unneeded—jewels, spending hundreds, thousands, that they might see someone turn to look at their adornments. A millionaire American grumbled over the merits of pearls spread on purple velvet.
He wanted something extra. "Get these anywhere. Mrs Cyrus J. Markly was going to Court. He'd promised she should have a string to knock creation. No, these wouldn't do."
Hurried calling on heads of departments, rooting into hidden safes. Fresh glistening treasures laid out.
Mr Markly might trust Benhusan's. The rope with its diamond links and clasps should be magnificent. He might leave it in their hands. They would ransack London for perfect pearls.
With a little gasp of impatience Esmé Carteret went out.
She wanted money. Mere comfort was nothing to her to-day.
Furs are neglected in summer, but Esmé strolled into the great Bond Street store. She was sending a coat for alteration and storage.
Denise Blakeney was there, a stole of black fox spread before her.
"Summer prices, my lady. See, a rare bargain."
"And out of fashion by September or October;