Love at Second Sight Part 25

'Oh, Landi!'

'And if there are, they shouldn't by rights be admitted into decent society. But the dear Meetchels don't know that; it's not public. I adore them both,' he went on, changing his satirical tone, and again apparently drinking the health of Mrs Mitch.e.l.l, who waved her hand coquettishly from the end of the long table.

'Now listen, my child. Don't see Aylmer for a little while.'

'He wants me to take him out for a drive.'

'Take him for a drive. But not this week. How Madame Frabelle loves Bruce!' he went on, watching her.

'Really, Landi, I a.s.sure you you're occasionally as mistaken as she is.

And she thinks I'm in love with our host.'

'That's because _elle voit double_. I don't.'

'What makes you think....'

'I read between the lines, my dear--between the lines on Madame Frabelle's face.'

'She hasn't any.'

'Oh, go along,' said Landi, who sometimes broke into peculiar English which he thought was modern slang. Raising his voice, he said: 'The dinner is _exquis--exquis_,' so that Mr Mitch.e.l.l could hear.

'I can't help noting what you've eaten tonight, Landi, though I don't usually observe these things,' Edith said. 'You've had half-a-tomato, a small piece of vegetable marrow, and a sip of claret. Aren't you going to eat anything more?'

'Not much more. I look forward to my coffee and my cigar. Oh, how I look forward to it!'

'You know very well, Landi, they let you smoke cigarettes between the courses, if you like.'

'It would be better than nothing. We'll see presently.'

'Might I inquire if you live on cigars and coffee?'

'No,' he answered satirically; 'I live on eau sucre. And porreege. I'm Scotch.'

'I can't talk to you if you're so silly.'

'You'll tell me the important part on the little sofa upstairs in the salon,' he said. 'After dinner. Tonight, here, somehow, the food and the faces distract one--unless one is making an acquaintance. I know you too well to talk at dinner.'

'Quite true. I ought to take time to think then.'

'There's no hurry. Good heavens! the man has waited four years; he can wait another week. Quelle idee!'

'He's going back,' said Edith, 'as soon as he's well. He wants me to promise before he goes.'

'Does he! You remind me of the man who said to his wife: "Good-bye, my dear, I'm off to the Thirty Years' War." It's all right, Edith. We'll find a solution, I have no fears.'

She turned to Mr Mitch.e.l.l.

The rest of the evening pa.s.sed pleasantly. Alone with the women, Madame Frabelle was the centre of an admiring circle, as she lectured on 'dress and economy in war-time,' and how to manage a house on next to nothing a year. All the ladies gasped with admiration. Edith especially was impressed; because the fact that Madame Frabelle was a guest, and was managing nothing, did not prevent her talking as if she had any amount of experience on the subject, although, by her own showing she had been staying at hotels ever since the war began, except the last weeks she had spent with the Ottleys.

The men soon joined them.

A group of war valetudinarians, amongst whom Bruce was not the least emphatic, told each other their symptoms in a quiet corner. They described their strange s.h.i.+verings down the spine; the curious fits of hunger that came on before meals; the dislike to crossing the road when there was an accident; the inability to sleep, sometimes taking the form of complete insomnia for as much as twenty minutes in the early morning.

They pitied each other cordially, though neither listened to the other's symptoms, except in exchange for sympathy with their own.

'The war has got on my nerves; I can't think of anything else,' Bruce said. 'It's an _idee fixe_. I pant for the morning when the newspaper's due, and then I can't look at it! Not even a glance! Odd, isn't it?'

The Rev. Byrne Fraser, who gave his wife great and constant anxiety by his fantasies, related how he had curious dreams--the distressing part of which was that they never came true--about the death of relatives at the front. Another man also had morbid fancies on the subject of the casualty list, and had had to go and stay at a farm so as to 'get right away from it all'. But he soon left, as he had found, to his great disappointment, that his companions there were not intellectual, and could not even talk politics or discuss literature. And yet they went in (or so he had heard) for 'intensive culture'!...

Presently Sir t.i.to played his Italian march. The musical portion of the party, and the unmusical alike, joined in the chorus. Then the party received a welcome addition. Valdez, the great composer, who had written many successful operas and had lived so much abroad that he cared now for nothing but British music, looked in after a patriotic concert given in order to help the unengaged professionals. Always loyal to old friends, he had deserted royalty itself tonight to greet Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l and was persuaded by adoring ladies to sing his celebrated old song, 'After Several Years.' It pleased and thrilled the audience even more than Landi's 'Adieu Hiver'. Indeed, tonight it was Valdez who was the success of the evening. Middle-aged ladies who had loved him for years loved him now more than ever. Young girls who saw him now for the first time fell in love, just as their mothers had done, with his splendid black eyes and commanding presence, and secretly longed to stroke at least every seventh wave of his abundant hair. When Edith a.s.sured him that his curls were 'like a flock of goats on Mount Gilead' he laughed, declared he was much flattered at the comparison, and kissed her hand with courtly grace.

Young Mr. Cricker, who came because he wasn't asked, insisted on dancing like Nijinsky because he was begged not to, but his leaps and bounds were soon stopped by a few subalterns and very young officers on leave, who insisted, with some fair partners, on dancing the Fox Trot to the sound of a gramophone.

For a few moments on the little sofa Edith managed to convey the rest of her confidence to Landi. She pointed out how hurried, how urgent, how pressing it was to give an answer.

'He wants a war elopement, I see,' said Landi. 'Mais ca ne se fait pas!'

'Then what am I to say?'

'Rien.'

'But, Landi, you know I shan't really ever...'

'Would it give you pleasure to see him married to the Spanish girl?'

'She's not exactly Spanish--she only looks it. Don't laugh like that!'

'I don't know why, but Spain seems always to remind me of something ridiculous. Onions--or guitars.'

'Well, I shouldn't mind her nearly so much as anyone else.'

'You don't mind her,' said Landi. 'Vous savez qu'il ne l'epouse pas?

What would you dislike him to do most?'

'I think I couldn't bear anyone else to take my place exactly,' admitted Edith.

'C'est ca! you don't want him to be in love with another married woman with a husband like Bruce? Well, my dear, he won't. There is no other husband like Bruce.

Landi promised to consider the question, and she arranged to go and see him at his studio before seeing Aylmer again.

As they went out of the house Miss Coniston ran after Madame Frabelle and said eagerly:

'Oh, do tell me again; you say _soupe a la vinaigre_ is marvellously nouris.h.i.+ng and economical. I can have it made for my brother at our flat?'