Carnival Part 40

"She feels rather seedy," Maurice explained.

"No, I don't."

"Do you like the opal brooch?" Castleton asked.

"I haven't seen it," Jenny replied.

"I was waiting to give it to her in here," Maurice suggested.

Jenny, who was examining herself in a pocket mirror, looked over at him from narrowing eyes. He turned to her, defending himself against the imputation of a lie.

"Castleton helped me to choose it. Look," he said, "it's an old brooch."

He produced from his pocket a worn leather case on the faded mauve velvet of whose lining lay the brooch. It was an opal of some size set unusually in silver filigree with seed pearls and brilliants.

"It's rather pretty," Jenny commented without enthusiasm. In her heart she loved the old-fas.h.i.+oned trinket, and wanted to show her delight to Maurice; but the presence of Castleton was a barrier, and she was strangely afraid of tears that seemed not far away. Maurice, who was by now thoroughly miserable, offered to pin the brooch where it would look most charming; but Jenny said she would put it in her bag, and he sat back in the chair biting his lips and hating Castleton for not immediately getting up and going home. The latter, realizing something was the matter, tried to change the subject.

"What about this Second Empire masquerade at Covent Garden?"

"I don't think we shall be able to bring it off. Ronnie Walker would be ridiculous as Balzac."

"There are others."

"Besides, I don't think I want to be Theophile Gautier."

"Don't be, then," advised Castleton.

"Anyway, it's a rotten idea," declared Maurice.

"What extraordinary tacks your opinions do take!" retorted his friend.

"Only this afternoon you were full of the most glittering plans and had found a prototype in 1850 for half your friends."

"I've been thinking it over," said Maurice. "And I'm sure we can't work it."

"Good-by, Gustave Flaubert," said Castleton. "I confess I regret Flaubert; especially if I could have persuaded Mrs. Wadman to be George Sand and smoke a cigar. However, perhaps it's just as well."

"Who's Mrs. Wadman?" asked Jenny.

"The aged female iniquity who 'does' for Maurice and me at Grosvenor Road. I'm sure on second thoughts it would be unwise to let her acquire the cigar habit. I might be rich next year, and I should hate to see her dusting with a Corona stuck jauntily between toothless gums."

"Oh, don't be funny," said Maurice. "You've no idea how annoying you are sometimes. Confound you, waiter," he cried, turning to vent his temper in another direction. "I ordered Munich and you've brought Pilsener."

"Very sorry, sir," apologized the waiter.

"It was I who demanded the blond beer," Castleton explained. Then, as the waiter retired, he said:

"Why not get him to come as Balzac?"

"Who?"

"The waiter."

"Don't be funny any more," Maurice begged wearily.

"Poor Fuz," said Jenny. "You're crushed."

"I now know the meaning of Blake's worm that flies in the heart of the storm."

Even Castleton was ultimately affected by the general depression; and Jenny at last broke the silence by saying she must go home.

"I'll drive you back," said Maurice.

"Hea.r.s.e or hansom, sir?" Castleton asked.

"Good night, Fuz," said Jenny on the pavement. "I'll bring Madge and Maudie to see you some time soon."

"Do," he answered. "They would invigorate even a sleepy pear. Good night, dear Jenny, and pray send Maurice back in a pleasanter mood."

For a few minutes the lovers drove along in silence.

It was Maurice who spoke first:

"Jenny, I've been an idiot, and spoilt the evening. Do forgive me, Jenny," he cried, burying his face in her shoulder. "My vile temper wouldn't have lasted a moment if I could just have been kissed once; but Castleton got on my nerves and the waiter would hover about all the time and everybody enraged me. Forgive me, sweet thing, will you?"

Jenny abandoning at once every tradition of obstinacy, caught him to her.

"You silly old thing."

"I know I am, and you're a little darling."

"And he wasn't ever going to see me again. What a liberty! Not ever."

"I am an insufferable a.s.s."

"And he wished he'd never met me. Oh, Maurice, you do say unkind things."

"Were you nearly crying once?" he asked. "When I gave you the brooch?"

"Perhaps."

"Jenny, precious one, are you nearly crying now?" he whispered.

"No, of course not."

Yet when he kissed her eyelids they were wet.

"Shall I pin the brooch now?"