Chapter II

After the routing of my sister Sarah, I should have given up interest in her proceedings had not a letter from Clair reached me. It referred to a commission for book illustrations that I had secured for her. From this she volunteered her own patch of information--a crudely-contrastive one, but not without its value in the harmonious scheme.

"To-day," she wrote, "I was introduced to your _rara avis_, Philip Lorraine. Lady Sargent cannot praise him enough. Continued praise of one individual to another is boring, don't you think so? It is a moral throwing of the gauntlet. Besides, I always suspect the dear creature of designs. Something about her mode of introduction is Autolycus like; one feels like a pedlar's pack with all its little trinkets and tawdrinesses spread out for the buyer. Ah, you don't know your sister. To me she is a dear transparent soul with her whole purport printed on the surface like a sandwich board. She thinks the woman world is ranged in three tiers--the top story for eighteen-year-olds. Everything there must be out on approval. It's no good ticketing yourself 'Not for sale,' nor even pricing yourself at a prohibitive figure--no good whatever. She brings round her customers, provides them with her own lorgnon in the form of opinion, and pads them with conversational treatises on the subject in hand, like a Cook's guide to a party of tourists.

"'She has more refinement than that,' I can hear you say.

"Refinement, yes. Flowers do not grow with their roots uppermost, but we know they have roots all the same. Her social smile is a very guileless plant, but I detect how far its ramifications extend.

"Her second shelf is scarcely better, it is for the mothers, mild brooding creatures whose brains perform kaleidoscopic revolutions with the same _materia_--dinner _menus_, infant food, servants' industries, and wardrobe renovations. 'The idea,' she would say, 'of a woman earning her share of the family income, contributing three hundred or so to the housekeeping instead of saving! It is unconventional, and, consequently, bad form.'

"And the last shelf is for the matrons, dowagers, chaperones--middlewomen of the matrimonial market like her dear misguided self--social seals of respectability stamped with the impress of a Buckingham Palace curtsy; godmothers for the distribution of hall-marked silver and hall-marked morality, dragons----. But I forget your friend, the poet. Of course he thought I was 'trotted out;' of course I hated him for thinking it. I pretended never to have heard of him or read his works. Literature was practically barred, for I confessed I loathed poets. He agreed, quoted Coventry Patmore, who says a poet is one degree removed from a saint--or Balaam's ass. Well, men saints are chilly, and donkeys are troublesome, and kick. I told him so. Yet I abhor compromises! I can't say what I do care for; certainly not being thrown at men's heads like stale eggs at election time!

"And what do you think we talked of?

"Not the modern girl, you may be sure. Mr Lorraine is romantic, and thinks that intelligent women are bound to be ill-shod, splay-waisted, and brusque. I had half a mind to undeceive him, but he might have imagined I was accentuating my points. We talked of all sorts of things--neutral things. I believe we should have liked each other had I been some nice young married woman with a red star for 'Sold' dabbed on my frame. We always admire pictures that are so ticketed, don't we?--from sheer perversity, I suppose.

"I ate a huge tea. Byron hated women with healthy appetites; I daresay Mr Lorraine does the same. He watched the muffins and the cakes disappear with an almost zoological interest. I was on the verge of inquiring if he ever visited the lions at feeding time--but a song interposed.

"During this I intuitively felt his eye exploring, 'totting me up,' so to speak.

"Vaudin, the tenor, was singing exquisitely. The words were from Mr Lorraine's last book--they were beautiful, and I knew every line, but affected ignorance.

"'What is that tune?' I questioned with vulgar simplicity.

"'The one the old cow died of,' he answered.

"'But the words aren't bad?'

"'Think so?' he drawled, putting up his eyeglass and surveying the singer, as though the voice came from a marionette.

"I proceeded with some chocolate cakes, too nervous for the moment to meet his eye. He did not observe it, however, but resumed his interest in the departure of the edibles. It seemed absorbing! I wonder if he will write a poem on _gourmandes!_ What fun to illustrate it and surprise him! He does not know that I illustrate--what a horrible discovery! To find in this piece of plastic putty a nineteenth century working woman!

"If he had not been a poet and a _parti_ he might have been very charming! As Lady Sargent's dear friend, of course he shares her opinions about the shelves, and my mind was bent on dispelling that old-worldism, on stamping, 'Not for sale' into my speech somehow. But there was little opportunity, I saw he had mentally pronounced me such a silly little girl.

"'Did I play tennis?'--'Loved it.'

(Truthfully, it has no attractions for me. It was a recreation once, now it is a profession, and one cannot adopt two professions, but I didn't tell him that.)

"'Did I dance?'--'No.'

(I was forced into this admission. Balls I forswear--the shelf is bad enough, but to literally earn a husband by the "sweat of one's face" is humiliating.)

"'No, I never danced,' was my answer. 'I had no superfluous energy to work off.'

"Then we skimmed more trivialities.

"'Had he seen the new roller shaving apparatus?'

"'Did I approve Ladies' Tea Associations?'

"'Did he prefer German to French food, and was he a connoisseur of birds'-nest soup or frizzled frogs?'

"'Scarcely, but in his youth he had tackled periwinkles. That was valiant?'

"'Not at all. I was his match. I had eaten forty-two at a sitting!'

"'All self-picked with a pin?' he queried.

"'No,' I confessed, triumphantly, 'with a surer weapon still.'

"'I believe a pin is the orthodox weapon,' he advanced.

"'Take my advice next time and try a darning-needle.'

"Here Lady Sargent overheard us. You should have seen her face of disgust! Poor dear, how promptly her castle of Eros was blown to smithereens!"