The Primadonna Part 22

Margaret moved uneasily at the name, which seemed to pursue her since she had left New York; but her present companion was the first person who had applied to him the adjective 'poor.'

'Do you know him well?' she asked, by way of saying something.

Lady Maud was silent for a moment, and seemed to be considering the question.

'I had not meant to speak of him,' she answered presently. 'I like him, and from what you said at dinner I fancy that you don't, so we shall never agree about him.'

'Perhaps not,' said Margaret. 'But I really could not have answered that odious man's question in any other way, could I? I meant to be quite truthful. Though I have met Mr. Van Torp often since last Christmas, I cannot say that I know him very well, because I have not seen the best side of him.'

'Few people ever do, and you have put it as fairly as possible. When I first met him I thought he was a dreadful person, and now we're awfully good friends. But I did not mean to talk about him!'

'I wish you would,' protested Margaret. 'I should like to hear the other side of the case from some one who knows him well.'

'It would take all night to tell even what I know of his story,' said Lady Maud. 'And as you've never seen me before you probably would not believe me,' she added with philosophical calm. 'Why should you? The other side of the case, as I know it, is that he is kind to me, and good to people in trouble, and true to his friends.'

'You cannot say more than that of any man,' Margaret observed gravely.

'I could say much more, but I want to talk to you about other things.'

Margaret, who was attracted by her, and who was sure that the story Logotheti had told was a fabrication, as he said it was, wished that her new acquaintance would leave other matters alone and tell her what she knew about Van Torp.

'It all comes of my having mentioned him accidentally,' said Lady Maud. 'But I often do--probably because I think about him a good deal.'

Margaret thought her amazingly frank, but nothing suggested itself in the way of answer, so she remained silent.

'Did you know that your father and my father were friends at Oxford?'

Lady Maud asked, after a little pause.

'Really?' Margaret was surprised.

'When they were undergrads. Your name is Donne, isn't it? Margaret Donne? My father was called Foxwell then. That's our name, you know.

He didn't come into the t.i.tle till his uncle died, a few years ago.'

'But I remember a Mr. Foxwell when I was a child,' said Margaret. 'He came to see us at Oxford sometimes. Do you mean to say that he was your father?'

'Yes. He is alive, you know--tremendously alive!--and he remembers you as a little girl, and wants me to bring you to see him. Do you mind very much? I told him I was to meet you this evening.'

'I should be very glad indeed,' said Margaret.

'He would come to see you,' said Lady Maud, rather apologetically, 'but he sprained his ankle the other day. He was chivvying a cat that was after the pheasants at Creedmore--he's absurdly young, you know--and he came down at some hurdles.'

'I'm so sorry! Of course I shall be delighted to go.'

'It's awfully good of you, and he'll be ever so pleased. May I come and fetch you? When? To-morrow afternoon about three? Are you quite sure you don't mind?'

Margaret was quite sure; for the prospect of seeing an old friend of her father's, and one whom she herself remembered well, was pleasant just then. She was groping for something she had lost, and the merest thread was worth following.

'If you like I'll sing for him,' she said.

'Oh, he simply hates music!' answered Lady Maud, with unconscious indifference to the magnificence of such an offer from the greatest lyric soprano alive.

Margaret laughed in spite of herself.

'Do you hate music too?' she asked.

'No, indeed! I could listen to you for ever. But my father is quite different. I believe he hears half a note higher with one ear than with the other. At all events the effect of music on him is dreadful.

He behaves like a cat in a thunderstorm. If you want to please him, talk to him about old bindings. Next to shooting he likes bindings better than anything in the world--in fact he's a capital bookbinder himself.'

At this juncture Mustapha Pasha's pale and spiritual face appeared between the curtains of the small room, and he interrupted the conversation by a single word.

'Bridge?'

Lady Maud was on her feet in an instant.

'Rather!'

'Do you play?' asked the Amba.s.sador, turning to Margaret, who rose more slowly.

'Very badly. I would rather not.'

The diplomatist looked disappointed, and she noticed his expression, and suspected that he would feel himself obliged to talk to her instead of playing.

'I'm very fond of looking on,' she added quickly, 'if you will let me sit beside you.'

They went back to the drawing-room, and presently the celebrated Senorita da Cordova, who was more accustomed to being the centre of interest than she realised, felt that she was n.o.body at all, as she sat at her host's elbow watching the game through a cloud of suffocating cigarette smoke. Even old Griggs, who detested cards, had sacrificed himself in order to make up the second table. As for Logotheti, he was too tactful to refuse a game in which every one knew him to be a past master, in order to sit out and talk to her the whole evening.

Margaret watched the players with some little interest at first. The disagreeable Mr. Feist lost and became even more disagreeable, and Margaret reflected that whatever he might be he was certainly not an adventurer, for she had seen a good many of the cla.s.s. The Amba.s.sador lost even more, but with the quiet indifference of a host who plays because his guests like that form of amus.e.m.e.nt. Lady Maud and the barrister were partners, and seemed to be winning a good deal; the peer whose hobby was applied science revoked and did dreadful things with his trumps, but n.o.body seemed to care in the least, except the barrister, who was no respecter of persons, and had fought his way to celebrity by terrorising juries and bullying the Bench.

At last Margaret let her head rest against the back of her comfortable chair, and when she closed her eyes because the cigarette smoke made them smart, she forgot to open them again, and went sound asleep; for she was a healthy young person, and had eaten a good dinner, and on evenings when she did not sing she was accustomed to go to bed at ten o'clock, if not earlier.

No one even noticed that she was sleeping, and the game went on till nearly midnight, when she was awakened by the sound of voices, and sprang to her feet with the impression of having done something terribly rude. Every one was standing, the smoke was as thick as ever, and it was tempered by a smell of Scotch whisky. The men looked more or less tired, but Lady Maud had not turned a hair.

The peer, holding a tall gla.s.s of weak whisky and soda in his hand, and blinking through his gold-rimmed spectacles, asked her if she were going anywhere else.

'There's nothing to go to yet,' she said rather regretfully.

'There are women's clubs,' suggested Logotheti.

'That's the objection to them,' answered the beauty with more sarcasm than grammatical sequence.

'Bridge till all hours, though,' observed the barrister.

'I'd give something to spend an evening at a smart women's club,' said the playwright in a musing tone. 'Is it true that the Crown Prince of Persia got into the one in Mayfair as a waiter?'

'They don't have waiters,' said Lady Maud. 'Nothing is ever true. I must be going home.'

Margaret was only too glad to go too. When they were downstairs she heard a footman ask Lady Maud if he should call a hansom for her. He evidently knew that she had no carriage.