The Hillman Part 18

"I can only judge by results," John insisted. "I have dined, and I am happy; therefore, the dinner must have been good."

"You are so convincing!" Sophy murmured. "There is such a finality about your statements that I would not venture to dispute them. But remember that your future entertainment is in the hands of two women, one of whom is a deserving but struggling young artist without the means of gratifying her expensive tastes. There are heaps of places we are going to take you to which even Louise pretends she cannot afford. It is so fortunate, Mr. Strangewey, that you are rich!"

"I believe you would be just as nice to me if I weren't," John ventured.

"I am so susceptible!" Sophy sighed, looking into her empty coffee-cup; "much more susceptible than Louise."

"I won't have Mr. Strangewey spoiled," Louise put in. "And don't build too much upon his being content with us as entertainers-in-chief.

Remember the halfpenny papers. In a few days he will be interviewed--'Millionaire Farmer Come to London to Spend His Fortune.'

He will become famous. He will buy a green morocco engagement-book, and perhaps employ a secretary. We shall probably have to ask ourselves to luncheon three weeks ahead."

"I feel these things coming," John declared.

"My children," said Louise, rising, "we must remember that we are going to the Palace. It is quite time we started."

They made their way down two flights of narrow stairs into the street.

The commissionnaire raised his whistle to his lips, but Louise stopped him.

"We will walk," she suggested. "This way, Mr. Strangewey!"

They pa.s.sed down the long, narrow street, with its dingy foreign cafes and shops scarcely one of which seemed to be English. The people who thronged the pavements were of a new race to John, swarthy, a little furtive, a cla.s.s of foreigner seldom seen except in alien lands. Men and women in all stages of dishabille were leaning out of the windows or standing on the doorsteps. The girls whom they met occasionally--young women of all ages, walking arm in arm, with shawls on their heads in place of hats--laughed openly in John's face.

"Conquests everywhere he goes!" Louise sighed. "We shall never keep him, Sophy!"

"We have him for this evening, at any rate," Sophy replied contentedly; "and he hasn't spent all his fortune yet. I am not at all sure that I shall not hint at supper when we come out of the Palace."

"No hint will be necessary," John promised. "I feel the gnawings of hunger already."

"A millionaire's first night in London!" Sophy exclaimed. "I think I shall write it up for the _Daily Mail_."

"A pity he fell into bad hands so quickly," Louise laughed. "Here we are! Stalls, please, Mr. Millionaire. I wouldn't be seen to-night in the seats of the mighty."

John risked a reproof, however, and was fortunate enough to find a disengaged box.

"The tone of the evening," Louise grumbled, as she settled herself down comfortably, "is lost. This is the most expensive box in the place."

"You could restore it by eating an orange," Sophy suggested.

"Or even chocolates," John ventured, sweeping most of the contents of an attendant's tray onto the ledge of the box.

"After this," Sophy declared, falling upon them, "supper will be a farce."

"Make you thirsty," John reminded her.

They devoted their attention to the show, Louise and Sophy at first with only a moderate amount of interest, John with the real enthusiasm of one to whom everything is new. His laughter was so hearty, his appreciation so sincere, that his companions found it infectious, and began to applaud everything.

"What children we are!" Louise exclaimed. "Fancy shrieking with laughter at a ventriloquist whom I have seen at every music-hall I have been to during the last five or six years!"

"He was wonderfully clever, all the same," John insisted.

"The bioscope," Louise decided firmly, "I refuse to have anything to do with. You have had all the entertainment you are going to have this evening, Mr. Countryman."

"Now for supper, then," he proposed.

Sophy sighed as she collected the half-empty chocolate-boxes.

"What a pity I've eaten so many! They'd have saved me a luncheon to-morrow."

"Greedy child," Louise laughed, "sighing for want of an appet.i.te! I think we'll insist upon a taxi this time. I don't like overcrowded streets. Where shall we take him to, Sophy? You know the supper places better than I do."

"Luigi's," Sophy declared firmly. "The only place in London."

They drove toward the Strand. John looked around him with interest as they entered the restaurant.

"I've been here before," he said, as they pa.s.sed through the doors.

"Explain yourself at once," Louise insisted.

"It was eight years ago, when I was at Oxford," he told them. "We were here on the boat-race night. I remember," he added reminiscently, "that some of us were turned out. Then we went on to--"

"Stop!" Louise interrupted sternly. "I am horrified! The one thing I did not suspect you of, Mr. Strangewey, was a past."

"Well, it isn't a very lurid one," he a.s.sured them. "That was very nearly the only evening about town I have ever been guilty of."

Luigi, who had come forward to welcome Sophy, escorted them to one of the best tables.

"You must be very nice to this gentleman, Luigi," she said. "He is a very great friend of mine, just arrived in London. He has come up on purpose to see me, and we shall probably decide to make this our favorite restaurant."

"I shall be vairy happy," Luigi declared, with a bow.

"I am beginning to regret, Mr. Strangewey, that I ever introduced you to Sophy," Louise remarked, as she sank back into her chair. "You won't believe that all my friends are as frivolous as this, will you?"

"They aren't," Sophy proclaimed confidently. "I am the one person who succeeds in keeping Louise with her feet upon the earth. She has never had supper here before. Dry biscuits, hot milk, and a volume of poems are her relaxation after the theater. She takes herself too seriously."

"I wonder if I do!" Louise murmured, as she helped herself to caviar.

She was suddenly pensive. Her eyes seemed to be looking out of the restaurant. Sophy was exchanging amenities with a little party of friends at the next table.

"One must sometimes be serious," John remarked, "or life would have no poise at all."

"I have a friend who scolds me," she confided. "Sometimes he almost loses patience with me. He declares that my att.i.tude toward life is too a.n.a.lytical. When happiness comes my way, I shrink back. I keep my emotions in the background, while my brain works, dissecting, wondering, speculating. Perhaps what he says is true. I believe that if one gets into the habit of a.n.a.lyzing too much, one loses all elasticity of emotion, the capacity to recognize and embrace the great things when they come."

"I think you have been right," John declared earnestly. "If the great things come as they should come, they are overwhelming, they will carry you off your feet. You will forget to speculate and to a.n.a.lyze.

Therefore, I think you have been wise and right to wait. You have run no risk of having to put up with the lesser things."

She leaned toward him across the rose-shaded table. For those few seconds they seemed to have been brought into a wonderfully intimate communion of thought. A wave of her hair almost touched his forehead.

His hand boldly rested upon her fingers.

"You talk," she whispered, "as if we were back upon your hilltops once more!"