imagination of youth paint the quite ordinary spectacle of a pretty woman's evening party, while an old lady on one side of him complains that "everybody" is there, and an old man on the other says that it is a beastly crush, or damns the draught from a window behind him – lucky, perhaps, if he does not damn the Potentates too, the one for keeping him from his bed, the other for marching through rapine to dismemberment, or some such act of policy plainly reprehensible.
Strange to think – it is Youth that holds the brush again – strange and intoxicating – that this is the woman with whom he drives in the Park, of whose family luncheon he partakes, with whom he had tea yesterday, who makes a friend of him. She talked to him an hour yesterday, told him all about that hard childhood and girlhood of hers, how she had scanty food and coarse, had to make her own frocks and wash her own handkerchiefs; she said that she feared the hard training had made her hard, yet hoped with a sigh that it was not so, and seemed to leave the question to his sovereign arbitrament. She had made the little narrow home she came from real to him with cunning touches; she had made her leap of escape from it so natural, so touching. Of what the leap had brought her she had made light, had spoken with a gentle depreciation of the place her beauty had won – "Such looks as I have helped, I suppose, besides Godfrey's position" – and let him see how much more to her taste was a quiet talk with a friend than all the functions of society. How much better than the receiving of Beauties and Potentates was a quiet hour in the twilight of her little den with Cousin Arthur!
Could it be the same woman? Yes, it was. There was the wonder and the intoxication of it. He was quite unknown to all that throng. But to himself he stood among them, eminent and superior. See, hadn't she thrown him a glance – right across the room? Well, at any rate he could almost swear she had!
Arthur Lisle – in the flesh at his cousin's evening party, in the spirit anywhere you like – felt a hand laid on his arm. He turned to find Sir Christopher Lance beside him.
"Ah, Mr. Lisle, aren't you glad you took my advice? I told you you were missing something by not coming here. Don't you remember?"
"Yes, sir, but you see, I didn't know – I didn't quite understand what you meant."
"You might have thought it worth while to find out," said the old man, smiling. "As it was, I'm told you had to be fetched."
Arthur laughed shamefacedly but happily. That was already a standing joke between him and Bernadette; hence the associations of it were altogether pleasant.
Sir Christopher's way was not to spoil joy in the name of wisdom nor to preach a safety that was to be won through cowardice. He saw the young man's excitement and exaltation, and commended it.
"Take as much of this sort of thing as you can get," he counselled, nodding his head towards the crowd and, incidentally, towards Bernadette. "Take a good dose of the world. It'll do you good. Society's an empty thing to people with empty heads, but not to the rest of us. And the more you go about, and so on – well, the fewer terrors will my Brother Pretyman possess for you."
Arthur Lisle caught at the notion eagerly. "Just what I've had in my own mind, sir," he said gravely.
"I thought from the look of you that you had some such wise idea in your head," said Sir Christopher with equal seriousness.
Arthur blushed, looked at him rather apprehensively, and then laughed. The Judge remained grave, but his blue eyes twinkled distantly. O mihi praeteritos– that old tag was running in his head.
"It's getting late; only bores stay late at large parties. Come and say good-night to our hostess."
"Do you think we might?" asked Arthur.
Certainly he was all of a flutter, as Judith Arden said.
CHAPTER VIII
NOTHING VENTURE, NOTHING HAVE!
Arthur Lisle sat in his chambers with a copy of the current number of the Law Reports (K.B.D.) before him and with utter discouragement in his heart. This mood was apt to seize him in the mornings, after the nights of gaiety which (obeying Mr. Justice Lance's advice) he eagerly sought. To-day it was intensified by the fact that Bernadette had gone to Paris for a fortnight. She bade him an affectionate, almost a tender, farewell, but she went, and was obviously glad to go. Though he asked nothing from her except to let herself be adored with a dog-like adoration, a shamefaced wonder that she should be so glad to go hid in his heart; mightn't she feel the loss of the adoration just a little more? However there it was. And he had nothing to do. Also he was hard up. The men he met at his parties had things to do and were doing them – interesting things that they could talk to women about, things they were actually doing, not mere hopes and dreams (such as had, not so long ago, been good enough to talk to Marie Sarradet about). They were making their marks, or, at least, some money. Talking of money, it was annoying, indeed humiliating, not being able to ask Bernadette to lunch at the resorts and in the style to which she was accustomed. He had done this once, and the same afternoon had suddenly been confronted with an appalling shininess in the back of his dress-coat; the price of the lunch would pretty well have paid for a new coat. But there – if you gave parties you could not have new coats; and what was the good of new coats unless you could give parties? A vicious circle!
Stagnation! That was what his life was – absolute stagnation. No avenues opened, there were no prospects. Stagnation and Vacancy – that's what it was!
A strange contrast is this to the young man at the evening party? Nay, no contrast at all, but just the other side of him, the complement of the mood which had pictured Potentates and thrilled over the Reigning Beauty. The more ardently youth gives one hand to hope, the more fiercely despair clutches the other.
Suddenly – even as Martin Luther flung his inkpot at Satan – Arthur Lisle with an oath seized the Law Reports (K.B.D.) and hurled them violently from him – across the room, with all his force, at this Demon of Stagnation and towards the door which happened to be opposite. They struck – not the door – but the waistcoat of Henry who at that moment opened it. Henry jumped in amazement.
"Beg your pardon, Henry. It slipped from my hand," said Arthur, grinning in ill-tempered mirth.
"Well, I thought no other gentleman was with you," remarked Henry, whose ideas of why one should throw books about were obviously limited. "A Mr. Halliday is here, sir, and wants to know if you'll see him."
"Of course I will. Show him in directly." As Henry went out, Arthur ejaculated the word "Good!"
Anybody would have been welcome – even Luther's Antagonist himself, perhaps – to Arthur in that black mood of his. Joe Halliday was a godsend. He carried cheerfulness with him – not of the order commended by moralists and bred by patience out of trouble, but rather a spontaneous hilarity of mind, thanks to which he derided the chances of life, and paddled his canoe with a laugh through the rapids of fortune. Joe had no settled means and he scorned any settled occupation. He preferred to juggle with half a dozen projects, keeping all of them in the air at once. He had something to sell and something to buy, something to find or something to get rid of; something had just been invented, or was just going to be; somebody needed money or somebody had it to invest. And all the Somebodies and Somethings were supposed to pay a toll to Joe for interesting himself in the matter. Generally they did; when they failed to, he paddled gaily on to another venture – Cantabat vacuus. But on the whole he was successful. The profits, the commissions, the "turns" came rolling in – and were rolled out again with a festive and joyous prodigality that took no thought for a morrow which, under the guidance of an acute and sanguine intelligence, should not have the smallest difficulty in providing for itself.
He bustled in and threw his hat on Arthur's table. "Morning, old chap. Sorry to interrupt! I expect you're awfully busy? Yes, I see! I see! Look at the briefs! Mr. Arthur Lisle – with you the Right Hon. Sir Richard Finlayson, k. c., m.p. – 300 guineas! Whew! Mr. Arthur Lisle – With you – " He fingered the imaginary briefs, rolling his eyes at Arthur, and scratching his big hooked nose with the other hand.
"Go to the devil, Joe," said Arthur, smiling, suddenly able to smile, at the Demon of Stagnation as represented by his empty table. "Have a cigarette?"
"The subject of my call demands a pipe," and he proceeded to