The Limit Part 27

"Nor I. Of course I know it's utterly absurd to come and give people advice on these subjects, and one can't dispute about tastes and all that. But my practical mind revolts to see any one so delightful as you throwing away the substance for the shadow. You see, I'm a ma.s.s of plat.i.tudes."

"Shadows are very attractive sometimes."

"But they go away too. And then where are you?"

She was silent.

"They do, really. I know what I'm talking about." He stood up. "Think over what I've said."

"You're kind, but you're rather depressing, Gillie," said Val. She looked a little frightened, but very pretty.

"When do you go back to the country?"

"Oh, to-day. We're there now. We only came up for the dance. We're motoring down to the Green Gate.... All of us."

"Oh yes.... I'm afraid you must think me very impertinent."

"Indeed I don't."

"And when I've gone you will give orders that you're never at home to me again. But, somehow, I couldn't help it. If it makes you hate me to remember what I've said, forget it."

She laughed as he rose to go.

"That's all right, Gillie; but what I want to know is, where you're really going."

"I'll tell you, exactly. I'm going home to lunch, because I've an urgent appointment immediately afterwards."

"More plays, I suppose? What sort this time?"

"A light comedy, with a very slight love interest," he answered, "all dialogue, no action.... At least, so far."

"Oh, then it isn't finished yet?"

"Not quite. Good-bye. And if you ever want a change, remember--a _superior_ man!"

They both laughed insincerely.

He left her looking thoughtfully out of the window.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE BALD-FACED STAG

Vaughan went home, and after lunching, chiefly on a newspaper and a cup of coffee, he got into a taxicab and gave a direction.

The vehicle flew smoothly along down Park Lane, past the Marble Arch into the Edgware Road, and on from there between houses and shops, growing gradually uglier and uglier, to Maida Vale, up Shoot-up Hill, and so on until there was a glimpse of suburban country, and gasworks, and glaring posters of melodramas on h.o.a.rdings, till it stopped suddenly at a real little old roadside inn, straight out of d.i.c.kens--"The Bald-faced Stag at Edgware." Edgware suggested _John Gilpin_, Gillie's favourite poem.

Here he got out, and was positively welcomed, and heartily, by a real roadside innkeeper--also out of d.i.c.kens--resembling the elder Weller--a local magnate called Tom Brill, who looked a relic of the coaching days, though really he never did anything but stand in front of the inn in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves and welcome people.

Vaughan, obviously an habitue, walked through the inn into a perfectly adorable garden, which was so large, so quiet, and so full of pinks, hollyhocks, and other old-fas.h.i.+oned flowers, so absolutely peaceful and sleepy, that one could have imagined oneself miles away in the country.

The garden belonged as much to the d.i.c.kens period as the inn itself. It contained a great many wooden arbours in which one could imagine ladies in crinolines archly accepting tea, or refusing sips of shrub (whatever that may be) with whiskered gentlemen. There was a large cage full of Persian pheasants with gorgeous Indian colouring, which always suggested to Vaughan--he didn't know why--the Crimean War. There was a parlour covered with coloured prints of racehorses and boxing matches, and in which was a little round table painted as a draught-board, and furnished with a set of Indian chessmen of red and white ivory. The whole thing, though only twenty minutes' drive from Mayfair, was unknown, unspoilt, and apparently had not altered in any particular since about 1856. Its great charm was that it was utterly unself-conscious; it had no idea that it was quaint.

Vaughan sat down on a rustic seat and plunged into the atmosphere of the period that he loved, revelling in the soothing, delightful calm, and in the fact that n.o.body there knew who he was (though they knew him well by name), and that none of his friends and acquaintances would have dreamt that he was there.

A large field beyond the garden contained cows, hay, and other rustic things.

Presently Tom Brill came up to him, and he asked after Mrs. Brill, whom her husband always described, with confidential pride, as "Though I say it that shouldn't say it, as fine a woman as you'll meet in a day's march."

Vaughan always a.s.sented to this proposition. As he had never himself in his life been for a day's march, and probably never would, he certainly would have had no right to contradict Mr. Brill on the subject.

"Is Miss Brill at home?" he presently asked. "May I see her?"

"Certainly, sir, of course you shall. She's helping her mother. I'll call her. Don't move, sir, don't move."

Miss Brill, who had been helping her mother to look out of the window, now came into the garden, which immediately became idyllic.

She was not in any way like the innkeeper's daughter of Comic Opera.

She was a schoolgirl of sixteen, with a long, fair plait, a short serge skirt, and a seraphic oval face. She ought to have been called f.a.n.n.y or Clara. Unluckily her name was Gladys.

She said in a very sweet voice--

"You're quite a stranger, sir." And she amplified the a.s.sertion by adding, "You haven't been here not this ever so long."

"I know I haven't, but I've been longing to come."

"Not you!" she said ironically.

She was standing opposite him, with her hands behind her back. Without a hat, in the glaring afternoon sun, with the complexion, pale pink and white, of a china doll that had never made up, she was a refres.h.i.+ng sight after the theatrical world in London, not to speak of society.

Vaughan seemed to think so.

"Well, how did you enjoy the play?" he asked.

"It was very kind of you to send us the tickets. Mother enjoyed it."

"You didn't care much for the piece yourself?"

"I thought it was rather silly," she answered.

He had never had a criticism on his work that pleased him more.

"I mean," she went on, "I shouldn't have thought--well, n.o.body would go on like that."

"Go on how?"