The Simpkins Plot Part 15

"After what your reverence was saying to me I'd have been afraid to let her out of my sight."

"Very well, Callaghan, you can go home. I shall have to think the matter over. I don't deny that I'm disappointed. I thought when I saw you standing there on the sh.o.r.e that you'd have had some definite news for me."

"I was up at the Major's house searching for you," said Callaghan, "and when you weren't within I took a look round and I seen the yacht coming in on the tide, so I thought it would save me a journey to-morrow if I waited for you."

"Quite right," said Meldon. "It's not your fault nothing has happened, and I don't blame you in the least. Good-night."

Callaghan shambled off along the beach. The Major and Meldon, who carried the punt's oars, struck across the fields towards Portsmouth Lodge.

"I can't understand it at all," said Meldon. "After what I said to Simpkins I simply can't understand his neglecting his opportunities like this. You'd think from the way he's behaving that he doesn't want to be married at all."

"Perhaps he doesn't," said the Major. "Any way, you can do no more than you've done. You may as well drop it now, and have the rest of your holiday in peace."

"The fact is," said Meldon, "I ought not to have gone away and left them. I had no business to take that cruise in the _Spindrift_. If I'd been here--"

"I don't see what you could have done. If the fellow doesn't want the girl, how could you force him to go and marry her? Any way, it's a good job for Miss King that he hasn't."

"If I'd been here--" said Meldon, and then paused.

"What would you have done?"

"I'd have done what I'm going to do now that I'm back."

"And what's that?"

"Throw them together," said Meldon. "Insist on his being constantly with her until he begins to appreciate her charm. I defy any one, any one who's not already married, to resist Miss King if she looks at him out of the corners of her eyes as she did at me the other day."

"She won't do that," said the Major. "No woman would, once she had seen Simpkins."

"Oh, she'll do it all right. Don't you fret about that. All I have to do is to give her a proper opportunity by throwing them together a bit."

"I don't quite see how you're going to do that if Simpkins won't go near her."

"You wouldn't see, of course. Indeed you couldn't, because I don't quite know myself yet how it is to be managed. I shall have to think it all over very carefully. I may have to spend the greater part of the night considering the matter; but one thing you may be quite confident about, Major, and that is that when I say they are to be thrown together, they will be thrown together. I shall make such arrangements that Simpkins simply won't be able to escape, however hard he tries."

Meldon was not obliged to spend a sleepless night devising meetings between Simpkins and Miss King. He put the oars into the coach-house as soon as he reached Portsmouth Lodge, and then settled down with a pipe on a hammock-chair outside the door. He was ready with a practical suggestion by the time Major Kent had finished dressing for dinner. Being too wise to propose a difficult matter to a hungry man, he waited until the meal was nearly over before he said anything to his friend.

"Major," he said, "to-morrow is Sunday, and I think it would be a capital thing if you introduced yourself to Miss King after church.

You could waylay her just outside the porch, and tell her who you are.

I've talked to her a good deal about you, so she'll know you directly she hears your name."

"I don't think I'll do that, J. J.," said the Major. "From what you've told me about her I don't think she's the kind of woman I'd care about.

I think I'll keep clear of her as much as I can."

"I told you," said Meldon, "that she was good-looking and had pleasant manners when not irritated. I don't see what objection you can have to her."

"I wasn't thinking about her appearance or her manners. They may be all right, but if what you said is true and she really--"

"Don't be narrow-minded, Major. I hate that kind of pharisaical bigotry. The fact that Mrs. Lorimer behaved as she did is no reason in the world why you should cut the poor woman. It's a well-known fact that people who are really much worse than she is are freely received into the best society; and, in any case, the latest systems of morality are quite changing the view that we used to take about murder. Take Nietzsche, for instance--"

"Who's Nietzsche?"

"He's a philosopher," said Meldon, "or rather he was, for he's dead now. He divided all morality into two kinds--slave morality, which he regards as despicable, and master morality, which is of the most superior possible kind."

"Still--I don't know anything about the man you mention, but I suppose even he would have drawn the line at murder."

"Not at all. Master morality, which, according to his system, is the best kind, consists entirely of being the sort of man who is able to get into a position to bully other people. Slave morality, on the other hand, consists in having the kind of temperament which submits to being bullied, and pretends to think it a fine thing to suffer. Now murder, as any one can see, is simply an extreme form of bullying; and therefore a successful murderer, according to Nietzsche's philosophy, is the finest kind of man there is. Whereas his victims, the late Lorimer, for instance, are mere slaves, and therefore thoroughly despicable. You follow me so far, I suppose?"

"No, I don't. If any man says what you say that fellow says--"

"Nietzsche doesn't actually say all that," said Meldon. "He hadn't a sufficiently logical mind to work out his philosophy to its ultimate practical conclusions, but you may take my word for it that I've given you the gist of his system."

"Then he ought to have been hanged."

"I daresay he ought," said Meldon. "I need scarcely say I don't agree with him. But that's not the point. As a matter of fact, so far from being hanged or incurring any kind of odium, his system is quite the most popular there is at present. London is full of young men in large, round spectacles, and scraggy women who haven't succeeded in getting married--the leaders of modern thought, you'll observe, Major--every one of whom is deeply attached to Nietzsche. You can't, without labelling yourself a hopeless reactionary, fly right in the face of cultured society by refusing to a.s.sociate with Miss King."

"I won't mix myself up with--"

"Come now, Major, that sort of att.i.tude would have been all very well fifty years ago, but it won't do now. You simply can't shut yourself up and say that you won't speak to any one who doesn't agree with you in every opinion you have. As a matter of fact, you a.s.sociate freely with lots of people who differ from you in religion and politics far more fundamentally than poor Miss King does. You can't refuse to know her simply because she accepts a system of philosophy which you never heard of till this minute, and even now don't thoroughly understand in spite of all I've told you about it."

"In any case," said the Major, "I don't like women who flirt. And you told me yourself that she tried to flirt with you."

"Ah," said Meldon, "now we're getting at your real reasons. I thought you couldn't be in earnest about the Nietzschean philosophy. That was merely an excuse. What you're really afraid of is that Miss King might marry you. I don't blame you for being a little cautious about that, knowing what you do about the fate of her former husbands. At the same time I may point out--"

"I'm not the least afraid of her marrying me. She won't get the chance."

"Then why do you say you object to her flirting?"

"Because I do object to it. I don't like that kind of woman."

"Do you mean to say, Major, that a girl isn't to be allowed to make eyes at the man she's going to marry?"

"I don't say anything of the sort. Of course, if she's going to marry a man--but really, J. J., I don't know anything about these things."

"Then don't talk about them. You may take my word for it, Major, that Miss King is perfectly justified in being as nice as ever she can to Simpkins."

"I never said anything about Simpkins. As far as I can make out she isn't particularly nice to Simpkins."

"No, she isn't, so far; but that's only because she hasn't had a fair chance. When we get them out together in the _Spindrift_--"

"What?"

"When we get the two of them out together in the _Spindrift_," said Meldon, speaking slowly and distinctly, "you'll see that she'll make herself perfectly fascinating--not to you or me, but to Simpkins."

"Leaving Miss King out of the question," said the Major, "I'd like you to be perfectly clear about this. I won't--"

"Before we go on to Simpkins," said Meldon, "we must settle definitely about Miss King. Is it understood that you catch her after church tomorrow and invite her out for a sail with us in the _Spindrift_?"

"No; I won't. I wouldn't in any case; but if Simpkins--"