"Then the man is a husk, a husk with a tongue," said Jim.
"Probably about that; at least, I never heard that any one had reason to believe there was anything more than the husk. Jim, I wonder how many of us have real people inside. I expect there are lots of husks and nothing more."
"Do you think so? I rather believe that most of us have got something real, though perhaps nothing very wholesome or very pleasant. That being so, one tries to conceal it, though sometimes it pops out like a lizard from a crevice. I think I would give anything to get inside anybody else, just for a minute, to see what he was really like."
"You would be rash to do it. It is quite certain that if you could get inside anybody, as you say, you would never speak to him again. Good gracious! could you imagine writing down all that had been in your mind during a normal half-hour?"
"It depends who was to read it."
"You mean you would let a friend read it?"
Jim laughed.
"Well, if I am as bad as you think, it would clearly be a dangerously stupid thing to show it to an enemy."
"Ah! you would sooner lose a friend than give a handle to an enemy," said Marie. "I entirely disagree with that. I would choose to make or keep one friend, even at the risk of arming a whole regiment of enemies against myself. Enemies matter so little."
"Certainly friends matter more," said Jim, "and perhaps acquaintances less than either. The worst of having been away from London so long is that one finds so many of the latter and so few of either of the others!"
"What are your general impressions at present?" asked Marie.
The stream of talk from Mr. Naseby was apparently beginning to run dry; the pressure was diminishing, and Jim spoke lower.
"I hardly know what to think at present," he said. "London seems to me to have changed extraordinarily during the last few years. As far as I can make out, it does not matter now how dull and stupid a man is, how vulgar or vicious a woman is, as long as he or she is rich enough."
Marie raised her eyebrows.
"Why, of course," she said calmly. "What else did you imagine?"
"That is not all. Apparently, also, you can go to a man's house or a woman's house, eat her food and drink her wines. Then you hurry on to the next and tell them that it was the most awful party you ever were at. But still, apparently, you can go there again on the 16th."
Mildred Brereton had joined them, and lit a cigarette from a fire-breathing Japanese dragon. She blew out a great cloud of laughter and smoke together, with her mouth very wide.
"Dear Jim, you are too delicious!" she shrieked. "Really, I shall get you to come and talk to me instead of Mr. Naseby, for you amuse me much more. Arthur, you are dropped; Jim is funnier. Of course we are all going on the 16th, because Pagani and Guardina are both going to sing, and they sing too divinely for words. Also, considering what we all know about them, and considering that they know we all know it, it is exceedingly amusing to see them look at each other with frigid politeness. Why, only the other day Mrs. Maxwell introduced them to each other, saying she must make two great artists acquainted. Too screaming! But you are too delightful and old-fashioned. Your idea about the obligations entailed by hospitality is a savage notion, dear Jim, like cannibalism, and vanishes before the march of civilization. I believe there is an excessively native tribe in Java or Japan, or somewhere, which still practises it. If you eat their salt, they stick to you through thick and thin."
Arthur Naseby had joined them.
"How too dreadful!" he exclaimed. "Fancy having a lot of assorted savages, thick and thin, sticking to one! It sounds as if one was a kind of superior fly-paper."
"Arthur, you mustn't begin talking again, or we shall never get any Bridge," said Mrs. Brereton. "Won't you play, Marie?"
"No, I really haven't got time," she said. "I told you I have to go on at half-past ten. Please what time is it, Jim?"
"Close on eleven."
"Then I must really be moving, Mildred. But Jack will play; he isn't coming on with me."
"Where are you going, Lady Alston?" asked Arthur.
"To see Blanche Devereux."
Arthur Naseby's face fell.
"I never knew she was giving a party," he said.
Marie laughed, rising.
"She isn't; don't be frightened; it is still possible that she has not dropped you, like Mildred. I'm only going to see her about the soldiers' bazaar. In fact, it is because she isn't giving a party that I am going."
Jim Spencer got up too.
"Will you give me a lift?" he asked. "I am going to Eaton Place also."
"Certainly. Good-night, Mildred. Yes, I know my carriage is here. They told me half an hour ago. Jack is stopping to play, I suppose. Please tell him I have taken the carriage."
The two went out, and Mrs. Brereton and Naseby stood still looking at them. When they had disappeared they looked at each other.
"Dear Marie!" said that lady effusively, "how delighted she evidently is to see Jim Spencer again! Oh, dear, yes, they were very great friends in the old days, very great friends indeed. Come, Arthur, they are waiting for us."
"You always have such delightful people at your house," said Arthur, "and you always have something interesting to say about them. And that stiff young man is very rich, is he not?"
"Beyond the dreams," said Mrs. Brereton. "I wonder whom he will find to make his money fly for him?"
"One can never tell. He looks to me as if he might spend it on Corots or charity or something of that imperishable kind. Doesn't it strike you as odd that whereas the perishable nature of money is always dinned into one, yet one can apparently purchase imperishable treasure by being charitable with it? No, I can't imagine any one making his money fly. Some one might make it march away, very solemnly and in good order, but not fly. He is a little stiff, is he not?"
"Perhaps a little reserved. But when reserve breaks down, it is so very unreserved. I like seeing a reserved person having a real holiday."
"How many days would you say it was to the holidays?" asked Arthur, in a low voice, as they reached the card-table where Jack and another were waiting.
"I can't tell. I shouldn't wonder—no, I can't tell."
Marie and Jim Spencer meantime were driving down from Grosvenor Square towards the Park. The night was warm, and hosts of stars burned very large and luminous in a sky that was beyond the usual London measure of clearness. After the heat of the rooms, in particular after a certain feverishness of atmosphere, not physical so much as moral, a sense of extreme hurry and pressure, the night air and the cool steadiness of the stars were refreshing, not only physically but morally. Perhaps from their years of early companionship and intimacy, perhaps from a certain more deeply seated sympathy of mind, each was very conscious of the thoughts of the other, and the swift silent motion through the glare of the streets seemed to isolate them from the world. It was with something of this in her mind that Lady Alston spoke to the other.
"Yes, put down my window, Jim," she said, "and your own, too, if you are not afraid of catching cold. We are both outdoor people, I think."
"We used to be," said he.
"Do you mean you have changed? Or do you find I have?"
"I find you have. But I am quite willing to believe that it may be some change in myself that makes me think so."
Marie unwound the light shawl which she had thrown over her head, and undid the fastening of her gold-thread cloak, so as to let the air play on her uncovered neck. In another woman, he felt, this might have indicated some suspicion of coquetry, but he did her the justice to feel