The Island Pharisees Part 5

Shelton suddenly perceived that he was face to face with one of those dumb moments in which two people declare their inextinguishable hatred--the hatred underlying the s.e.xual intimacy of two ill-a.s.sorted creatures--and he was suddenly reminded of a scene he had once witnessed in a restaurant. He remembered with extreme minuteness how the woman and the man had sat facing each other across the narrow patch of white, emblazoned by a candle with cheap shades and a thin green vase with yellow flowers. He remembered the curious scornful anger of their voices, subdued so that only a few words reached him. He remembered the cold loathing in their eyes. And, above all, he remembered his impression that this sort of scene happened between them every other day, and would continue so to happen; and as he put on his overcoat and paid his bill he had asked himself, "Why in the name of decency do they go on living together?" And now he thought, as he listened to the two players wrangling on the stage: "What 's the good of all this talk?

There's something here past words."

The curtain came down upon the act, and he looked at the lady next him.

She was shrugging her shoulders at her husband, whose face was healthy and offended.

"I do dislike these unhealthy women," he was saying, but catching Shelton's eye he turned square in his seat and sniffed ironically.

The face of Shelton's friend beyond, composed, satirical as ever, was clothed with a mask of scornful curiosity, as if he had been listening to something that had displeased him not a little. The goggle-eyed man was yawning. Shelton turned to Halidome:

"Can you stand this sort of thing?" said he.

"No; I call that scene a bit too hot," replied his friend.

Shelton wriggled; he had meant to say it was not hot enough.

"I'll bet you anything," he said, "I know what's going to happen now.

You'll have that old a.s.s--what's his name?--lunching off cutlets and champagne to fortify himself--for a lecture to the wife. He'll show her how unhealthy her feelings are--I know him--and he'll take her hand and say, 'Dear lady, is there anything in this poor world but the good opinion of Society?' and he'll pretend to laugh at himself for saying it; but you'll see perfectly well that the old woman means it. And then he'll put her into a set of circ.u.mstances that are n't her own but his version of them, and show her the only way of salvation is to kiss her husband"; and Shelton grinned. "Anyway, I'll bet you anything he takes her hand and says, 'Dear lady.'"

Halidome turned on him the disapproval of his eyes, and again he said,

"I think Pirbright 's ripping!"

But as Shelton had predicted, so it turned out, amidst great applause.

CHAPTER V

THE GOOD CITIZEN

Leaving the theatre, they paused a moment in the hall to don their coats; a stream of people with spotless bosoms eddied round the doors, as if in momentary dread of leaving this hothouse of false morals and emotions for the wet, gusty streets, where human plants thrive and die, human weeds flourish and fade under the fresh, impartial skies. The lights revealed innumerable solemn faces, gleamed innumerably on jewels, on the silk of hats, then pa.s.sed to whiten a pavement wet with newly-fallen rain, to flare on horses, on the visages of cabmen, and stray, queer objects that do not bear the light.

"Shall we walk?" asked Halidome.

"Has it ever struck you," answered Shelton, "that in a play nowadays there's always a 'Chorus of Scandalmongers' which seems to have acquired the att.i.tude of G.o.d?"

Halidome cleared his throat, and there was something portentous in the sound.

"You're so d---d fastidious," was his answer.

"I've a prejudice for keeping the two things separate," went on Shelton.

"That ending makes me sick."

"Why?" replied Halidome. "What other end is possible? You don't want a play to leave you with a bad taste in your mouth."

"But this does."

Halidome increased his stride, already much too long; for in his walk, as in all other phases of his life, he found it necessary to be in front.

"How do you mean?" he asked urbanely; "it's better than the woman making a fool of herself."

"I'm thinking of the man."

"What man?"

"The husband."

"What 's the matter with him? He was a bit of a bounder, certainly."

"I can't understand any man wanting to live with a woman who doesn't want him."

Some note of battle in Shelton's voice, rather than the sentiment itself, caused his friend to reply with dignity:

"There's a lot of nonsense talked about that sort of thing. Women don't really care; it's only what's put into their heads."

"That's much the same as saying to a starving man: 'You don't really want anything; it's only what's put into your head!' You are begging the question, my friend."

But nothing was more calculated to annoy Halidome than to tell him he was "begging the question," for he prided himself on being strong in logic.

"That be d---d," he said.

"Not at all, old chap. Here is a case where a woman wants her freedom, and you merely answer that she dogs n't want it."

"Women like that are impossible; better leave them out of court."

Shelton pondered this and smiled; he had recollected an acquaintance of his own, who, when his wife had left him, invented the theory that she was mad, and this struck him now as funny. But then he thought: "Poor devil! he was bound to call her mad! If he didn't, it would be confessing himself distasteful; however true, you can't expect a man to consider himself that." But a glance at his friend's eye warned him that he, too, might think his wife mad in such a case.

"Surely," he said, "even if she's his wife, a man's bound to behave like a gentleman."

"Depends on whether she behaves like a lady."

"Does it? I don't see the connection."

Halidome paused in the act of turning the latch-key in his door; there was a rather angry smile in his fine eyes.

"My dear chap," he said, "you're too sentimental altogether."

The word "sentimental" nettled Shelton. "A gentleman either is a gentleman or he is n't; what has it to do with the way other people behave?"

Halidome turned the key in the lock and opened the door into his hall, where the firelight fell on the decanters and huge chairs drawn towards the blaze.

"No, Bird," he said, resuming his urbanity, and gathering his coat-tails in his hands; "it's all very well to talk, but wait until you're married. A man must be master, and show it, too."

An idea occurred to Shelton.

"Look here, Hal," he said: "what should you do if your wife got tired of you?"

The expression on Halidome's face was a mixture of amus.e.m.e.nt and contempt.