Mammon and Co Part 11

CHAPTER VIII

THE SIMPLY n.o.bODY

The "quiet dinner, simply n.o.body," to which Kit had invited the gratified Mrs. Murchison and her daughter the night before had grown like a rolling s...o...b..ll during the hours of the Hungarian ball. If you are having a quiet dinner, one more does not make any difference or change the character of the entertainment, and there had been many such.

Among others, Kit had met Alice Haslemere in the Park next morning, and the latter had made an appeal _ad misericordiam_ to her.

"I am bidden to meet a Serene Transparency or a Transparent Serenity of some sort to-night," she had said. "Who? Oh, some second-cla.s.s little royalty made in Germany, and I don't intend to go, and have said so. I gave an excuse, Kit; I gave you as my excuse, because you are a sort of privileged person, and even royalty lets you do as you choose. How do you manage it, dear? I wish you would tell me. Anyhow, I said that you asked me to dine to-night six weeks ago. You see, I owe you one over that disingenuous way you treated me about Jack and the baccarat. So you did ask me, didn't you?"

Kit slowed down; she was riding a white bicycle picked out with crimson.

"Seven weeks ago, Alice," she said; "and if you had forgotten I should never have forgiven you. Quite quietly, you know; and so we are quits.

Lady Conybeare's dinner," she said with some ceremony, "will be served as usual at eight-thirty."

They were both riding the wrong side of the road, and Lady Haslemere cast an offended look at her father's coachman, who did not recognise her, and made way for the carriage.

"I knew it was an old, old engagement," she said, with feeling. "And who is coming? I forget; it is so long since you told me."

"Murchison _mere et fille_," said Kit; "and the _fille_ is going to marry Toby. You just see. Also Ted and Toby and the baccarat man. Jack is very thick with him just now, and my ladys.h.i.+p smells money. Oh, Alice, we might play baccarat again to-night; I was thinking that it would be rather tiresome having to play gooseberry to Toby all the evening, but a hand at cards would help to pa.s.s the time, would it not?

Let's see, baccarat is the game where you have to try and get nine, isn't it? How pleasant! There are some other people coming, too, and there will probably be more before evening. I notice that when there are dinners for Transparencies people ask me to ask them. I am a sort of refuge from royalty."

"Yes, and how transparent!" remarked Lady Haslemere.

"Isn't it? and what a bad joke! But wear a tea-gown, Alice, because I told Mrs. M. to do so. Yes, we'll play detectives on the Alington this evening. I hope he'll cheat again. It must be so amusing to be a real detective. I think I shall become one if all else fails. And most things have failed."

"To see if shopping takes so long, and whether the club accounts for late hours," quoted Lady Haslemere, with a touch of regret. "But, Kit, what a blessing it is that one does not feel bound to watch one's husband! Haslemere is so safe, you know; one might as well watch St.

Paul's Cathedral to see if it flirted with St. Mary Magdalene's. It would bore me to death watching him. Only once have I seen him at all excited."

"Who was the happy lady?" asked Kit, with interest.

"It wasn't a lady at all--not even me. It was a wire puzzle, and he said it was mathematically impossible, and woke me up about three in the morning to tell me so. He was really quite feverish about it. But in demonstrating to me how impossible it was he accidentally did it, upon which he became perfectly normal, and we lived happily ever afterwards."

They turned into the road north of the Serpentine by the Achilles statue, and quickened their pace.

"One always does live happily ever afterwards," said Kit thoughtfully.

"Truth is quite as strange as fiction. There's the old d.u.c.h.ess--what a cat! And just look at her wig all sideways! But I am also thankful that one's husband is not a detective. Jack would make such a bad one. I should be ashamed of him."

"I suppose he would. He is clever," said Alice, "and criminals are so short-sighted. They make the obvious mistakes. But Jack would make a ripping criminal."

"That is just it. As a detective Jack would overlook the obvious things because they are so obvious. Consequently, he would never find out anything, because criminals always make stupid mistakes, not clever ones. Jack never found out that the mine man cheated at baccarat, for instance. Oh, I forgot, you guessed that. Look, there's Ted. How badly he rides!"

"And he never finds out about Ted," remarked Lady Haslemere, with extreme dryness.

"Never. You see, there's nothing to find out. I always tell him what a darling Ted is, and so he never thinks he is a darling. I'm very fond of Ted, but--but---- After all, frankness pays better than anything else, especially when you have nothing to conceal."

Lady Haslemere considered the proposition for a moment, but found nothing to say about it.

"How is the mine man?" she asked abruptly.

"Green bay-trees. So he must be wicked. A few nights ago, when he dined with us, I asked him to sing after dinner, and he sang a sort of evening hymn in four sharps. Don't you know the kind? He has a really beautiful voice, and it nearly made me cry, I felt so regretful for something I had forgotten. Now, that shows he must be wicked. Good people only make me yawn, because they try and adapt themselves to me and talk about worldly things. And it is only wicked people who sing hymns with real feeling, who make me want to cry. Luckily, they are rare."

"And the mines?" asked Alice.

"Well, Jack is excited about the mines, like Haslemere with the wire puzzle, and when Jack is excited it means a good deal. He told me that if things went decently we should be solvent again--it sounds like a chemical--in fact, the mines are playing up. For to make Jack and me solvent, Alice, means a lot."

They had reached the Serpentine, and Kit dismounted and rested by the rails. It was a typically fine June day. The sky was cloudless, the trees were comparatively green, large wood-pigeons wandered fatly about, and childlike old gentlemen were sailing miniature yachts across the water.

"What a pity one is not a person of simple pleasures!" remarked Lady Haslemere. "There is an old gentleman there who takes more delight in his silly little boat than you do in the prospect of solvency, or Haslemere even in a new wire puzzle. How happy he must be and how dull!

I think dulness is really synonymous with happiness. Think of cows! You never found an absorbing cow, nor an unhappy one. The old gentleman has eaten a good breakfast; he will eat a good lunch. And he has probably got a balance at his bank."

"It's all stomach," said Kit regretfully--"all except the balance, I mean."

"Yes, that's what it comes to. So we shall play detectives to-night, Kit."

Kit started; she was absorbed in the toy yacht.

"Detectives? Oh, certainly," she replied. "But I almost wish we were wrong about the whole concern."

"The mine man cheated," said Alice, with decision. "I was thinking of asking Tom whether he saw."

"Oh, don't do that," said Kit. "We don't want a scandal. Look!"

A squall shattered the reflections in the calm water, and the old gentleman's toy yacht bowed to it and skimmed off like a swallow.

"Oh, how nice!" cried Kit, who was rapidly taking the colour of her surroundings. "Alice, shall we save up our money and buy a little toy yacht? Think how happy we should be!"

"If you are going to play the milkmaid, Kit," said Alice severely, "I shall go home. I won't play milkmaid for anybody. Playing gooseberry to Toby is nothing to it."

Kit sighed.

"Dear old gentleman!" she said. "Alice, I would give anything to be an old gentleman with white whiskers and a silly little yacht. Yes, I know, it is an impossible dream. About the baccarat, what were you saying?"

"I have things to say, if you will be so kind as to attend. Try to forget about your white whiskers, Kit."

"Yes, I will. There were no such white whiskers."

"Last night," said Lady Haslemere, "I lost two hundred and forty pounds and sixpence."

"How sixpence? What small stakes you must have been playing! Was it the game where you try to get nine?"

"Yes," said Alice, "and I lost the sixpence because I dropped it on the floor. I don't know how I got it, and I don't know what happened to it."

"Like Melchisedech," put in Kit.

"Exactly. Anyhow, I dropped it, and it just shows what extraordinary people people are. We all took candles and grovelled on the ground looking for that sixpence. Losing it annoyed me more than I can say. I didn't care so much about the rest."