The Vanity Girl Part 21

Olive begged her dearest Dorothy to wait for Sylvia's explanation before she got angry with herself, and on Monday afternoon Sylvia of her own accord came to the flat.

"I know everything," said Dorothy, frigidly.

"Then for Heaven's sake tell me what Hausberg said when he opened the door and saw the chimpanzee. Did he say, 'Are you there, Lily?' and did the chimpanzee answer with a cocoanut?"

"Chimpanzee," repeated Dorothy, wrathfully. "You who call yourself my friend deliberately set out to ruin my whole life, and when I reproach you with it you talk about chimpanzees!"

"Don't be silly, Dorothy," Sylvia scoffed. "Hausberg wanted a lesson for saying I was living on Lily, and with Arthur Lonsdale's help I gave him one."

"And what about Clarehaven?" asked Dorothy. "Did he help you?"

"Oh, that foolish fellow wanted a lesson, too. So I took him down to Brighton and gave him a jolly good one, though it wasn't so brutal as Hausberg's."

"Thanks very much," said Dorothy, sarcastically. "In future when my--my--"

"Your man. Say it out," Sylvia advised.

"When a friend of mine requires a lesson I prefer to give it him myself."

"My dear Dorothy," exclaimed Sylvia, with a laugh, "you're not upsetting yourself by getting any ridiculous ideas into your head about Clarehaven and myself? I a.s.sure you that--"

"I don't want your a.s.surances," Dorothy interrupted. "It doesn't matter to me what you do with Clarehaven, except that as a friend of mine I think you might have been more loyal."

"Don't be foolish. I'm the last person to do anything in the least disloyal."

"Really?" sneered Dorothy.

"Clarehaven simply came down to Brighton to talk about you. He's suffering from the moth and star disease. Though you won't believe me, I was very fond of you, Dorothy dear; I am still, really," she added, with a little movement of affection that Dorothy refused to notice. "But I do think you're turning into a shocking little sn.o.b. That's the Vanity _galere_. No girl there could help being a sn.o.b unless she were as simple and sweet as Olive."

"Perhaps you'd like to steal Olive from me, too?" Dorothy asked, bitterly.

"I tell you," the other answered, "it's not a question of stealing anybody. I kept Clarehaven up all night drinking whiskies-and-sodas while I lectured him on his behavior to you. We sat in the sitting-room.

If you want a witness, ask the waiter, who has varicose veins and didn't forget to remind us of the fact."

"I suppose Lonsdale and Lily were sitting up with you at this conference? Do you think I was born yesterday? Well, I warn you that I shall tell Queenie Molyneux what's happened."

"If you do," said Sylvia, "I've an idea that Lonsdale will be only too delighted. I fancy that's exactly what he wanted."

"This is all very sordid," said Dorothy, loftily. Then she told Sylvia that she never wished to see her again, and they parted.

Dorothy insisted that Olive ought also to quarrel with Sylvia, but, much to her annoyance, Olive dissented. She said that in any case the dispute had nothing to do with her, and actually added that in her opinion Sylvia had behaved rather well.

"I'm sure she's speaking the truth," she said.

Dorothy thought how false all friends were, and promised that henceforth she would think about no one except her own much-injured self.

"One starts with good resolutions not to be selfish," she told Olive, "and then one is driven into it by one's friends."

Sylvia's story seemed contradicted next day by the arrival of Clarehaven in a most complacent mood, for when Dorothy asked how he had enjoyed his week-end he did not seem at all taken aback and hoped that her Jew friend had enjoyed his.

"I wish I could make you understand just how little you mean to me," she raged. "How dare you come here and brag about your--your-- Oh, I wish I'd never met you."

"If you don't care anything about me," he said, "I can't understand why you should be annoyed at my taking Sylvia Scarlett down to Brighton. I don't pretend to be in love with her. I'm in love with you."

Dorothy interrupted him with a contemptuous gesture.

"But it's true, Dorothy. I'm no good at explaining what I feel, don't you know; but ever since that day I first saw you in St. Mary's I've been terrifically keen on you. You drove me into taking up Sylvia. I don't care anything about Sylvia. Why, great Scot! she bores me to death. She talks forever until I don't know where I am. But I must do something. I can't just mope round London like an a.s.s. You know, you're breaking my heart, that's what you're doing."

"You'd better go abroad," said Dorothy. "They mend hearts very well there."

"If you're not jolly careful I shall go abroad."

"Then go," she said, "but don't talk about it. I hate people who talk, just as much as you do."

Within a week Lord Clarehaven had equipped himself like the hero of a late nineteenth-century novel to shoot big game in Somaliland, and on the vigil of his departure Arthur Lonsdale came round to see Dorothy.

"Look here. You know," he began, "I'm the cause of all this.

Hard-hearted little girls and all that who require a lesson."

"Yes, it's evident you've been spending a good deal of time lately with Sylvia," said Dorothy.

"Now don't start backfiring, Doodles. I've come here as a friend of the family and I don't want to sprain my tongue at the start. Poor old Tony came weeping round to me and asked what was to be done about it."

"It?" asked Dorothy, angrily. "What is _it_? The chimpanzee?"

"No, no, no. _It_ is you and Tony. If you go on interrupting like this you'll puncture my whole speech. When Tony skidded over that rope of pearls and you froze him with a look, he came and asked my advice about what to do next. So I loosened my collar like Charles Wyndham and said: 'Make her jealous, old thing. There's only one way with women, which is to make them jealous. I'm going to make the Molyneux jealous. If you follow my advice, you'll do the same with the Lonsdale.'"

Dorothy nearly put her fingers in her ears to shut out any more horrible comparisons between herself and Queenie, but she a.s.sumed, instead, a martyred air and submitted to the gratification of her curiosity.

"Well, just about that fatal time," Lonsdale continued, "Tony and I went for a jolly little b.u.mp round at Covent Garden and b.u.mped into Sylvia and Lily _en pierrette_, as they say at my crammer's, where they're teaching me enough French to administer the destinies of Europe for ten years to come. Where were we? Oh yes, _en pierrette_. 'h.e.l.lo, h.e.l.lo' I said. 'Two jolly little girls _en pierrette_, and what about it? Well, we had two or three more b.u.mps round, and Tony was getting more and more depressed about himself, and so I said, 'Why don't we go down to Brighton and cheer ourselves up?' 'That's all right,' said Sylvia, 'if you'll help me put a jolly old chimpanzee in a fellow's flat.' I said, I'll put a jolly old elephant, if you like.' You see, the notion was that when Hausberg opened the door of the flat he should say, 'Are you there, Lily?' It was all to be very amusing and jolly."

"And what has this to do with Clarehaven?" asked Dorothy.

"Wait a bit. Wait a bit. I'm changing gears at this moment, and if you interrupt I shall jam. You see, my notion was that Tony should buzz down to Brighton with us and ... well ... there's a nasty corner here.... I told you, didn't I, that the only way with hard-hearted little girls is to make them jealous? And the proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating, what? Anyway, no sooner did Queenie hear I'd eloped with an amorous blonde than we made it up. Look here, the road's clear now, so let's be serious. Tony's madly in love with you. It's no use telling me you're a good little girl, because look round you. Where's the evidence?

I mean to say, your salary's six pounds a week. So, I repeat, where's the evidence? You may dream that you dwell in marble halls on six pounds a week, but you can't really do it."

"If Lord Clarehaven has sent you here to insult me," said Dorothy, "he might at least have had the courage to come and do it himself."

"You're taking this very unkindly. On my word of honor I a.s.sure you, Doodles, that Tony's trip to Brighton ended in talk. I know this, because I heard them. In fact, I summoned the night porter and asked him to stop the beehive next door."

"This conversation is not merely insulting," said Dorothy, "it's very coa.r.s.e."

"I see you're prejudiced, Doodles. Now Queenie was also prejudiced; in fact, at one point she was so prejudiced that she jabbed me with a comb.

But I calmed her down and she gradually began to appreciate the fact that not only is there a silver lining to every cloud, but that there is also a cloud to most silver linings. Bored with mere luxury, she realized that a good man's love--soft music, please--should not be lightly thrown away; and now, to be absolutely serious for one moment, what about commissioning me to buzz down to Devons.h.i.+re and tell Tony that there's no need for him to go chasing the okapi through equatorial Africa?"

"All this levity may be very amusing to you, Mr. Lonsdale, but to me it is only painful."

"Well, of course, if you're going to take my friendly little run round the situation like that, there's nothing more to be said."