"Then you had no business to. Dear Jim! I shall be delighted to see him again. He is one of the few really reasonable people I know. He has got some sort of plan of his own; he has always known what he meant to do, though he has not always done it. For instance, he wanted impossible things; he had no money and I had none, so he proposed that we should marry and support ourselves by his writings. He has appeared before now in Christmas numbers."
"Then, perhaps you acted wisely. But he rolls in wealth now. A South African millionaire, without anything South African about him: no local colour, in fact. He is also remarkably handsome. Wealth, manners, good looks! A fairy-prince combination."
Lady Alston laughed.
"Dear me! I shall like to see Jim with society at his feet," she said.
"You make certain it will go there?"
Lady Alston raised her eyebrows.
"My dear, how can you ask? He is rich—that is sufficient alone."
"He must not kick us, then. It is to be understood he gives us halfpence, golden halfpence. And it is very interesting—that story about him and you, I mean."
Lady Alston did not at once reply.
"You give one a bad taste in the mouth sometimes, Mildred," she said at length.
"Very possibly. And you always tell one that one has done so."
"I know. That is why we are friends."
Mrs. Brereton looked doubtful.
"In spite of it, I should say."
"No, because of it. Ah! here is Jack."
Jack Alston was one of those people whom it was quite unnecessary to point out, because he was distinctly visible not only to the outward, but also to the inward eye. He was so large, that is to say, that you could not fail to notice that he had come into a room, and at the same time, he had about him the quality of making himself felt in some subtle and silent manner. As a rule he spoke but little; but his silence, as Mildred Brereton once remarked with more than her usual insight, took up all the time. It could not be described as a rich silence, for it was essentially dry, but somehow it compelled attention. Probably, if he had been short and squat, it would have passed unnoticed, but coming as it did from him, it was charged with a certain force, partaking of his own quality. Also it was doubly unnecessary for his wife to call attention to his entrance, for on no one did it produce such an effect as on her. Thus, on this occasion, having remarked on it, she said no more.
Jack lounged slowly into the balcony, shook hands with Mrs. Brereton, and sat down on a basket chair sideways to his wife, so that he looked straight at her profile.
"Decent afternoon for once, Mildred," he said. "Summer at last. You look summery, too."
"What there is left of me," said she. "Marie has been taking the hide off us all—skinning us."
Jack considered this a moment.
"Well, you look all right skinned," he said at length. "Bad habit of Marie's, though. What has she been skinning you about?"
"She's been telling me we are all wicked and stupid, and vicious and vulgar."
"That's a hobby of hers. One must have a hobby. Going out this afternoon, Marie?"
Mildred took the hint instantly.
"I must be off," she said. "Really, Jack, you have the most brutal manner. You send me to the right-about with the least possible ceremony. So I wish to tell you I was going in any case. I've a hundred things to do."
Jack rose.
"When have you not? I'll see you down. Wait a minute, Marie, if you're not in a hurry; I want to have a word with you."
"Oh, don't trouble," said Mildred. "I can find my way."
Jack said nothing, but merely followed her into the house, and when they had passed the drawing-room, "Has she been cutting up rough about anything in particular?" he asked.
"Oh, no; merely the rigid attitude, fire-works, thunder-storms, what you will."
"I'm rather tired of them. For several reasons she had better stop. I believe most idiots find it amusing."
Mildred took a parasol out of the stand, with the air of a purchaser selecting the one that most struck her fancy. As a matter of fact, it happened to be her own.
"I should take care if I were you," she said in a low voice. "A man like you cannot form the least idea of what a woman like Marie really is. Is my carriage here? Just see, please."
She stood on the bottom step of the stairs, putting on her rather thick and masculine driving-gloves, while Jack crossed the hall and rang the bell. Then he came back to the bottom of the stairs again.
"Do you mean that she suspects anything?" he asked.
"No, of course not. What I do mean is that she is beginning to see what we all are like. You and I, when we see that, are delighted. It is a nice big playground. But it does not strike Marie as a playground. Also you must remember that she is the—how shall I say it!—the sensation, the latest, the fashion. You've got to be careful. She is capable of exploding some day, and if she did it would be noticeable. It will hardly be worth while picking up the fragments of you and me that remain, Jack, if she does. Because if she does, it will be since something has touched her personally."
"Well?"
"You are extraordinarily slow. Of course the person who is most likely to touch her personally is you."
"I've got to mind my p's and q's, in fact. That's not the way to manage her."
Mrs. Brereton's face clouded a little as she walked across the hall to the door which was being held open for her.
"Well, au revoir," she said. "I shall have more to say to you to-night. You dine with us, you know."
Jack Alston did not appear to be in any particular hurry to go upstairs again after Mrs. Brereton had gone. He waited on the door-step to see her get in, a groom who barely reached up to the horses' heads holding them while she took up the reins, then running stiffly to scramble in behind, as she went off down Park Lane in the most approved fashion, elbows square, a whip nearly perpendicular, and her horses stepping as if there were a succession of hurdles to negotiate, each to be taken in the stride. Her remarks about the importance of taking care had annoyed Jack a little, and still more his own annoyance at being annoyed. He had his own ideas about the management of his affairs, among which, about halfway down, came his wife, and the hint that she might, even conceivably, make matters unpleasant for him was the same sort of indignity as a suggestion that he could not quite manage his own dogs or horses. But after a minute he turned.
"For what time is her ladyship's carriage ordered?" he asked of the footman.
"Half-past three, my lord."
"Tell them to come round at a quarter to four instead," he said, and went slowly upstairs again.
He found his wife on the balcony where he had left her, with her maid beside her with two hats in her hand.
"Yes, that one will do," she said, "and send the other back. No, I will take it myself this afternoon. It is all wrong. Put it in a box and leave it in the hall. I am going out immediately."
The maid retired with the condemned hat, and while Marie pinned the other on, she turned to her husband.
"You wanted to speak to me?" she said, not lifting her eyes.
Jack looked at her in silence a moment, and lit another cigar.
"Finish pinning on your hat first," he said.
Marie found herself obeying him, with a sense of wanting, just in order to see what happened, not to do as he told her. However, she pinned her hat on.
"Well?" she said again.