Simon the Jester Part 5

Dale did not reply. For some odd reason he is devotedly attached to me, and respects my opinion on worldly matters. He walked to the window and looked out. Presently, without turning round, he said:

"I suppose she has been rubbing it in about Lola Brandt?"

"She did mention the lady's name," said I. "So did Renniker at the club.

I suppose every one you know and many you don't are mentioning it."

"Well, what if they are?"

"They're creating an atmosphere about your name which is scarcely that in which to make an entrance into public life."

Still with his back turned, he morosely informed me in his vernacular that he contemplated public life with feelings of indifference, and was perfectly prepared to abandon his ambitions. I took up my parable, the same old parable that wise seniors have preached to the deluded young from time immemorial. I have seldom held forth so plat.i.tudinously even in the House of Commons. I spoke as impressively as a bishop. In the midst of my harangue he came and sat by the library table and rested his chin on his palm, looking at me quietly out of his dark eyes. His mildness encouraged me to further efforts. I instanced cases of other young men of the world who had gone the way of the flesh and had ended at the devil.

There was Paget, of the Guards, eaten to the bone by the Syren--not even the gold lace on his uniform left. There was Merridew, once the hope of the party, now living in ign.o.ble obscurity with an old and painted mistress, whom he detested, but to whom habit and sapped will-power kept him in thrall. There was Bullen, who blew his brains out. In a generous glow I waxed prophetic and drew a vivid picture of Dale's moral, mental, physical, financial, and social ruin, and finished up in a masterly peroration.

Then, without moving, he calmly said:

"My dear Simon, you are talking through your hat!"

He had allowed me to walk backwards and forwards on the hearthrug before a blazing fire, pouring out the wealth of my wisdom, experience, and rhetoric for ten minutes by the clock, and then coolly informed me that I was talking through my hat.

I wiped my forehead, sat down, and looked at him across the table in surprise and indignation.

"If you can point out one irrelevant or absurd remark in my homily, I'll eat the hat through which you say I'm talking."

"The whole thing is rot from beginning to end!" said he. "None of you good people know anything at all about Lola Brandt. She's not the sort of woman you think. She's quite different. You can't judge her by ordinary standards. There's not a woman like her in the wide world!"

I made a gesture of discouragement. The same old parable of the wise had evoked the same old retort from the deluded young. She was quite different from other women. She was misunderstood by the cynical and gross-minded world. A heart of virgin purity beat beneath her mercenary bosom. Her lurid past had been the reiterated martyrdom of a n.o.ble nature. O Golden Age! O unutterable silliness of Boyhood!

"For Heaven's sake, don't talk in that way!" he cried (I had been talking in that way), and he rose and walked like a young tiger about the room. "I can't stand it. I've gone mad about her. She has got into my blood somehow. I think about her all day long, and I can't sleep at night. I would give up any mortal thing on earth for her. She is the one woman in the world for me! She's the dearest, sweetest, tenderest, most beautiful creature G.o.d ever made!"

"And you honour and respect her--just as you would honour and respect Maisie?" I asked quietly.

"Of course I do!" he flashed. "Don't I tell you that you know nothing whatever about her? She is the dearest, sweetest----" etc., etc. And he continued to trumpet forth the Olympian qualities of the Syren and his own fervent adoration. I was the only being to whom he had opened his heart, and, the floodgates being set free, the torrent burst forth in this tempestuous and incoherent manner. I let him go on, for I thought it did him good; but his rhapsody added very little to my information.

The lady who had "houp-la'd" her way from Dublin to Yokohama was the spotless queen of beauty, and Dale was frenziedly, idiotically in love with her. That was all I could gather. When he had finished, which he did somewhat abruptly, he threw himself into a chair and took out his cigarette-case with shaky fingers.

"There. I suppose I've made a d.a.m.n-fool exhibition of myself," he said, defiantly. "What have you got to say about it?"

"Precisely," I replied, "what I said before. I'll repeat it, if you like."

Indeed, what more was there to say for the present about the lunatic business? I had come to the end of my arguments.

He reflected for a moment, then rose and came over to the fireplace.

"Look here, Simon, you must let me go my own way in this. In matters of politics and worldly wisdom and social affairs and honourable dealing and all that sort of thing I would follow you blindly. You're my chief, and a kind of elder brother as well. I would do any mortal thing for you. You know that. But you've no right to try to guide me in this matter. You know no more about it than my mother. You've had no experience. You've never let yourself go about a woman in your life.

Lord of Heaven, man, you have never begun to know what it means!"

Oh, dear me! Here was the situation as old as the return of the Prodigal or the desertion of the trusting village maiden, or any other cliche in the melodrama of real life. "You are making a fool of yourself," says Mentor. "Ah," shrieks Telemachus, "but you never loved! You don't know what love is."

I looked at him whimsically.

"Don't I?"

My thoughts sped back down the years to a garden in France. Her name was Clothilde. We met in a manner outrageous to Gallic propriety, as I used to climb over the garden wall to the peril of my epidermis. We loved. We were parted by stern parents--not mine--and Clothilde was packed off to the good Sisters who had previously had care of her education. Now she is fat and happy, and the wife of a banker and the mother of children.

But the romance was sad and bad and mad enough while it lasted; and when Clothilde was (figuratively) dragged from my arms I cursed and swore and out-Heroded Herod, played Termagant, and summoned the heavens to fall down and crush me miserable beneath their weight. And then her brother challenged me to fight a duel, whereupon, as the most wors.h.i.+pped of all She's had not received a ha'porth of harm at my hands, I called him a silly a.s.s and threatened to break his head if he interfered any more in my legitimate despair. I smile at it now; but it was real at two-and-twenty--as real, I take it, as Dale's consuming pa.s.sion for the lady of the circus.

There was also, I remembered, a certain ---- But this had nothing to do with Dale. Neither had the tragedy of my lost Clothilde. The memories, however, brought a wistful touch of sympathy into my voice.

"You soberly think, my dear old Dale," said I, "that I know nothing of love and pa.s.sion and the rest of the divine madness?"

"I'm sure you don't," he cried, with an impatient gesture. "If you did, you wouldn't--"

He came to an abrupt and confused halt.

"I wouldn't--what?"

"Nothing. I forgot what I was going to say. Let us talk of something else."

"It was on the tip of your impulsive tongue," said I cheerfully, "to refer to my att.i.tude towards Miss Faversham."

"I'm desperately sorry," said he, reddening. "It was unpardonable. But how did you guess?"

I laughed and quoted the Latin tag about the ingenuous boy of the ingenuous visage and ingenuous modesty.

"Because I don't feverishly search the postbag for a letter from Miss Faversham you conclude I'm a bloodless automaton?"

"Please don't say any more about it, Simon," he pleaded in deep distress.

A sudden idea struck me. I reflected, walked to the window, and, having made up my mind, sat down again. I had a weapon to hand which I had overlooked, and with the discovery came a weak craving for the boy's sympathy. I believe I care more for him than for any living creature. I decided to give him some notion of my position.

Sooner or later he would have to learn it.

"I would rather like to tell you something," said I, "about my engagement--in confidence, of course. When Eleanor Faversham comes back I propose to ask her to release me from it."

He drew a long breath. "I'm glad. She's an awfully nice girl, but she's no more in love with you than my mother is. But it'll be rather difficult, won't it?"

"I don't think so," I replied, shaking my head. "It's a question of health. My doctors absolutely forbid it."

A look of affectionate alarm sprang into his eyes. He broke into sympathy. My health? Why had I not told him before? In Heaven's name, what was the matter with me?

"Something silly," said I. "Nothing you need worry about on my account.

Only I must go _piano_ for the rest of my days. Marriage isn't to be thought of. There is something else I must tell you. I must resign my seat."

"Resign your seat? Give up Parliament? When?"

"As soon as possible."

He looked at me aghast, as if the world were coming to an end.