December Love Part 36

She leaned forward, with her small, plump, and conspicuously freckled hands grasping the arms of her chair.

"You don't think, Mr. Braybrooke, that Beryl is not here for the Wallace Collection? You don't think that she is in love with someone in London?"

Francis Braybrooke was decidedly taken aback by this abrupt emotional outburst. He had not meant to provoke it. Indeed, in his preoccupation with Craven's affairs and Adela Sellingworth's possible indiscretions--really he knew of no gentler word to apply to what he had in mind--he had entirely forgotten that f.a.n.n.y Cronin's charming profession of sitting in deep arm-chairs, reposing on luxurious sofas, and lying in perfect French beds, might, indeed would, be drastically interfered with by Miss Van Tuyn's marriage. It was very careless of him. He was inclined to blame himself almost severely.

"My dear Miss Cronin," he hastily exclaimed. "If you were ever to think of changing your--your"--he could not find the word; "condition" would not do; "state of life" suggested the Catechism; "profession" was preposterous, besides, he did not mean that--"your sofa"--he had got it--"your sofa in the Avenue Henri Martin for a sofa somewhere else, I know of at least a dozen charming houses in Paris which would gladly, I might say thankfully, open their doors to receive you."

This was really a lie. At the moment Braybrooke did not know of one.

But he hastily made up his mind to be "responsible" for f.a.n.n.y Cronin if anything should occur through his amiable machinations.

"Thank you, Mr. Braybrooke. You are kindness itself. So, then, Beryl _is_ going to marry! And she never hinted it to me, although we talked over marriage only yesterday, when I gave her Bourget's views on it as expressed in his '_Physiologie de l'amour moderne_.' She never said one word. She never--"

But at this point Braybrooke felt that an interruption, however rude, was obligatory.

"I have no reason whatever to suppose that Miss Van Tuyn is thinking of marriage at this moment," he said, in an almost shrill voice.

"But surely you would not frighten me without a reason," said f.a.n.n.y Cronin with mild severity, sitting back again in her chair.

"Frighten you, dear Miss Cronin! I would not do that for the world. What have I said to frighten you?"

"You talked of my changing my sofa for a sofa somewhere else! If Beryl is not going to marry why should I think of changing?"

"But nothing lasts for ever. The whole world is in a state of flux."

"Really, Mr. Braybrooke! I am quite sure _I_ am not in a state of flux!"

said Miss Cronin with unusual dignity. "We American women, you must understand, have our principles and know how to preserve them."

"On my honour, I only meant that life inevitably brings with it changes.

I am sure you will bear me out in that."

"I don't know about bearing you out," said Miss Cronin, looking rather helplessly at Francis Braybrooke's fairly tall and well-nourished figure. "But why should Beryl want to change? She is very happy as she is."

"I know--I know. But surely such a lovely girl is certain to marry some day. And can we wish it otherwise? Some day a man will come who knows how to appreciate her as she deserves, who understands her nature, who is ready to devote his life to fulfilling her deepest needs."

Miss Cronin suddenly looked intelligent and at the same time like a dragon. Never before had Braybrooke seen such an expression upon her face, such a stiffening of dignity to her ample figure. She sat straight up, looked him full in the face, and observed:

"I understand your meaning, Mr. Braybrooke. You wish to marry Beryl.

Well, you must forgive me for saying that I think you are much too old for her."

Braybrooke had not blushed for probably at least forty years, but he blushed scarlet now, and seized his beard with a hand that looked thoroughly unstrung.

"My dear Miss Cronin!" he said, in a voice which was almost hoa.r.s.e with protest. "You absolutely misunderstood me. It is much too la--I mean that I have no intention whatever of changing my condition. No, no!

Let us talk of something else. So you are reading '_Le Disciple_'" (he picked it up). "A very striking book! I always think it one of Bourget's very best."

He poured forth an energetic cataract of words in praise of Miss Cronin's favourite author, and presently got away without any further quite definite misunderstanding. But when he was out in the corridor on his way to the lift he indulged himself in a very unwonted expression of acrimonious condemnation.

"d.a.m.n these red-headed old women!" he muttered in his beard. "There's no doing anything with them! The idea of my going to her to propose for Miss Van Tuyn! What next, I wonder?"

When he was out in Brook Street he hesitated for a moment, then took out his watch and looked at it. Half-past three! He thought of the Wallace Collection. It seemed to draw him strangely just then. He put his watch back and walked towards Manchester Square.

He had gained the Square and was about to enter the enclosure before Hertford House by the gateway on the left, when he saw Miss Van Tuyn come out by the gateway on the right, and walk slowly towards Oxford Street in deep conversation with a small horsey-looking man, whose face he could not see, but whose back and legs, and whose dress and headgear, strongly suggested to him the ring at Newmarket and the Paddock at Ascot.

Braybrooke hesitated. The attraction of the Wallace Collection no longer drew him. Besides, it was getting late. On the other hand, he scarcely liked to interrupt an earnest tete-a-tete. If it had not been that he was exceptionally strung up at that moment he would probably have gone quietly off to one of his clubs. But who knew what that foolish old woman at Claridge's might say to Miss Van Tuyn when she reached her hotel? It really was essential in the sacred interest of truth that he should forestall f.a.n.n.y Cronin. The jockey--if it was a jockey--Miss Van Tuyn was with must put up with an interruption. But the interruption must be brought about naturally. It would not do to come up behind them.

That would seem too intrusive. He must manage to skip round deftly when the occasion offered, and by a piece of masterly strategy to come upon them face to face.

Seized of this intention Braybrooke did a thing he had never done before; he "dogged" two human beings, walking with infinite precaution.

His quarry presently turned into the thronging crowds of Oxford Street and made towards the Marble Arch, keeping to the right-hand pavement.

Braybrooke saw his opportunity. He dodged across the road to an island, waited there till a policeman, extending a woollen thumb, stopped the traffic, then gained the opposite pavement, hurried decorously on that side towards the Marble Arch, and after a sprint of perhaps a couple of hundred yards recrossed the street almost at the risk of his life, and walked warily back towards Oxford Circus, keeping his eyes wide open.

Before many minutes had pa.s.sed he discerned the graceful and athletic figure of Miss Van Tuyn coming towards him; then, immediately afterwards, he caught a glimpse of a blue shaven face with an aquiline nose beside her, and realized that the man he had taken for a jockey was d.i.c.k Garstin, the famous painter.

As Braybrooke knew everyone, he, of course, knew Garstin, and he wondered now why he had not recognized his back at Manchester Square.

Perhaps his mind had been too engrossed with f.a.n.n.y Cronin and the outrage at Claridge's. He only knew the painter slightly, just sufficiently to dislike him very much. Indeed, only the acknowledged eminence of the man induced Braybrooke to have anything to do with him. But one has to know publicly acclaimed geniuses or consent to be thoroughly out of it. So Braybrooke included Garstin in the enormous circle of his acquaintances, and went to his private views.

But now the recognition gave him pause, and he almost wished he had not taken so much trouble to meet Miss Van Tuyn and her companion. For he could say nothing he wanted to say while Garstin was there. And the man was so d.a.m.nably unconventional, in fact, so downright rude, and so totally devoid of all delicacy, all insight in social matters, that even if he saw that Braybrooke wanted a quiet word with Miss Van Tuyn he would probably not let him have it. However, it was too late now to avoid the steadily advancing couple. Miss Van Tuyn had seen Braybrooke, and sent him a smile. In a moment he was face to face with them, and she stopped to greet him.

"I have been spending an hour at the Wallace Collection with Mr.

Garstin," she said. "And quarrelling with him all the time. His views on French art are impossible."

"Ah! how are you?" said Braybrooke, addressing the painter with almost exaggerated cordiality.

Garstin nodded in his usual offhand way. He did not dislike Braybrooke.

When Braybrooke was there he perceived him, having eyes, and having ears heard his voice. But hitherto Braybrooke had never succeeded in conveying any impression to the mind of Garstin. On one occasion when Braybrooke had been discussed in Garstin's presence, and Garstin had said: "Who is he?" and had received a description of Braybrooke with the additional information: "But he comes to your private views! You have known him for years!" he had expressed his appreciation of Braybrooke's personality and character by the exclamation: "Oh, to be sure! The beard with the gentleman!" Braybrooke did not know this, or he would certainly have disliked Garstin even more than he did already.

As Garstin's nod was not followed by any other indication of humanity Braybrooke addressed Miss Van Tuyn, and told her of his call at Claridge's.

"And as you were not to be found I paid a visit to Miss Cronin."

"She must have bored you very much," was the charming girl's comment.

"She has the most confused mind I know."

What an opening for Braybrooke! But he could not take it because of Garstin, who stood by cruelly examining the stream of humanity which flowed past them hypnotized by the shops.

"May I--shall I be in the way if I turn back with you for a few steps?"

he ventured, with the sort of side glance at Garstin that a male dog gives to another male dog while walking round and round on a first meeting. "It is such a pleasure to see you."

Here he threw very definite admiration into the eyes which he fixed on Miss Van Tuyn.

She responded automatically and begged him to accompany them.

"d.i.c.k is leaving me at the Marble Arch," she said. "The reason he gives is that he is going to take a Turkish Bath in the Harrow Road. But that is a lie that even an American girl brought up in Paris is unable to swallow. What are you really going to do, d.i.c.k?"

As she spoke she walked on, having Garstin on one side of her and Francis Braybrooke on the other.

"I'm going to have a good sweat in the Harrow Road."

Braybrooke was disgusted. It was not that he really minded the word used to indicate the process which obtains in a Turkish Bath. No; it was Garstin's blatant way of speaking it that offended his susceptibilities.