Winding Paths Part 11

"Have you ever been behind the scenes? I used to go sometimes, just for the fun of it, while it was a novelty; but it quite cured me of any possible taste of the stage. Most of the performers were so nervous they could hardly speak, their teeth just chattered with cold and fright mingled, and the gloom of it was like a vault. And then all the gaping, staring faces in rows, looking out of the darkness. You can't think how idiotic people look seen like that. It always suggested to me that both stage and stalls were like children playing at being lunatics."

"That's only your dreadfully prosaic, unromantic mind, Hal. You just like to write newspaper articles, and type letters, and smother your imagination under dry-and-dust facts."

"Smother my imagination," echoed Hal, with a laugh. "Why, it would take the imaginations of fifty ordinary people to concoct some of the paragraphs we fix up during the week. My imagination is a positive goldmine at the office, at least it would be if they dare print all that I suggest."

"You should run a paper yourself," suggested Hermon; "a few libel actions would made it pay like anything."

"Ah, you haven't seen Dudley," with a little grimace. "Dudley would have a fit and die before the first action had had time to reach its interesting stage. I'd take you home to see him now, but he happens to have gone up to Holloway to dinner."

"I'm dinning out myself, so I must fly." He turned to Lorraine, with a gay smile. "I say, may I come and dine with you some other time?"

"Come to the Carlton on Sunday, will you?"

Lorraine hardly knew why she made the sudden decision; she only knew perfectly well she would have to break another engagement to keep it, and that she was foolishly gland when he accepted.

"It's all right; you needn't ask me," volunteered Hal, as her friend glanced at her. "I'm going motoring with d.i.c.k, and I shall insist upon staying out until ten or eleven. I always try and fill my Sundays full of fresh air. "Where are you going to-night, Baby?" she added, with a charmingly impudent smile.

"The Albert Hall, with Lady Selon"; and a twinkle shone in his eyes.

"Goodness gracious! What in the world are you going to the Albert Hall for? and who is Lady Selon?"

"She is Soccer Selon's sister-in-law, and she asked me to take her to a concert. Is there anything else you would like to know?"

"Her age?" archly.

"Somewhere about thirty-five, I should imagine."

"Oh! your grandmother, or thereabouts. Well, skip along. Tell d.i.c.k to call for me early on Sunday."

When he had said good-bye to Lorraine and departed, Hal held up her hand, hanging in a limp fas.h.i.+on.

"I wish you'd teach him to shake hands, Lorry. It feels like shaking a blind cord and ta.s.sel. Are you going to mother him? What an odd idea for you to bother with a boy! You surely don't mean to tell me he interests you?"

"I like to look at him. He's such a splendid young animal. I feel - oh, I don't know what I feel."

"Lots of London policemen are splendid young animals, but you don't want tete-a-tete teas with them if they are."

"You absurd child! Is there any reason why I shouldn't have tea with Mr. Hermon, if it amuses me?"

"None specially; but if it's just a splendid young animal to look at, you want, I daresay it would be safer to import a polar bear from the Zoo."

Lorraine felt a spot of colour burn in het cheeks, but she only laughed the subject aside, and alluded to it no more before they parted at the theatre door.

Only at a late supper-party that night she was quieter than was her wont; and, contrary to her habit, one of the first to leave. A well-known rising politician, who had been paying her much attention of late, prepared, as usual, to escort her home. She wished he would have stayed behind, but had no sufficient reason for refusing his company.

He taxed her with silence as they spun westwards, and she pleaded a headache, wondering a little why all he said, and looked, and did, somehow seemed ba.n.a.l and irritating to-night.

He was so sure of himself, so fas.h.i.+onably blase, so carelessly clever, so daringly frank, with all the finished air of the modern smart man, basking callously in the a.s.sured fact of his own brilliance and superiority. She knew that most women would envy her the attentions of such a one, and that his interest was undoubtedly a great compliment, as such compliments go; but to-night she found herself remembering all the other women who had reigned before her, all those who would presently succeed her, and she was conscious of an impatient disgust of all the shallowness and insincerety of the fas.h.i.+nable, successful man.

"May I come in?" he asked, when they reached the flat, looking rather as if he were conferring a favour than soliciting one.

"No; it is too late. Good-night."

"Too late!... " he laughed a little, and Lorraine felt her temper rising. "It is not exceptionally late, a little earlier than usual in fact. Why mayn't I come in?"

"Because I don't want you," she said coldly, and she saw him bite his lip in swift vexation.

"I shall certainly not press you," he retorted, and turned away.

At the window of her drawing-room Lorraine lingered a few moments, gazin with a half-longing expression at the gleam of the lights on the dark flowing river. What was it that gave her that strange sense of heartache to-night? Why had her usual companions bored and irritated her? Why did Alymer Hermon's fine, boyish, refres.h.i.+ng face come so often to her mind?

She was certainly not in love with him. The mere idea was ridiculous, but it was equally certain that something about him had given rise to this vague unrest and longing. Was it perhaps that he called to her mind the youth she had never known, the young splendid, whole-hearted years, when it was so easy to believe and hope and enjoy that which life had never given her time for?

True, the world was at her feet now, just as much as it would ever be at his, but with what a difference? For her, with the work and stain of the knowledge of much evil, and little good. For him, at present, with aal the glorious freshness of the morning.

She glanced back into the dim room, and among the shadows she saw him standing there again, towering up upon her hearthrug, before her hearth, with that youthful, frank a.s.surance that was so attractive. Of a truth he was unspoilt yet, unspoilt and splendid as the dawn of the morning - but for how long?

What would they make of him presently, the women of the world, who must needs wors.h.i.+p such a man, and strew their charms before him. How was he to keep his freshness, when temptation hemmed him in on every side?

She felt a sudden yearning as of hungry mother-love towards him. If he had been her son, her very own son, how she would have fought the whole world to help him keep his armour bright, and his colours flying high.

And instead?...

The wave of hungry mother-love was followed by one as of swift and angry protest. Who had ever cared whether she kept her armour bright and her colours flying high? Had not life itself mocked at her early aspirations, and trampled jeeringly on her untutored, unformed high desires? What chance had she ever had, long as she might, to keep the morning freshness?

Well, what of it? She had sought and striven for fame, and fame had come; she was a poor creature if she could not look life in the face now, and laugh above her wounds.

And in the meantime perhaps she could help him fight some of those other women still; the women who would drag him down for their own satisfaction, and care nothing for the hurt to him.

Anyhow, she would try to be good pal to him, and not a temptress. For once she would fight for some one else's hand instead of her own, and gain what satisfaction she could in feeling herself a true friend.

CHAPTER VIII

About the time that the three in the Chelsea flat were leave-taking, a stream of women-clerks in the long pa.s.sages of the General Post Office proclaimed that pressure of work had again meant "overtime" to these energetic City-workers.

In consequence, there was a lack of elasticity in the many pa.s.sing feet, and the suggestion of a tired silence in the cloak-room; for though the girls hastened to get away from the dreary monotony of the huge building, they were, many of them, too tired to depart as joyfully as was their wont.

Yet most of them, behind the tiredness, looked out upon the world with clear, capable eyes, and strong, self-reliant faces, that spoke well for the spirit of their set. Up there in the big office-rooms, year in year out, these refined, well-educated women kept ledgers and accounts and did the general office work of the Civil Service with a precision and neatness and correctness equal to the work of any men, and invariably to the astonishment of any interested visitor who was permitted to inquire into the system.

Yet the majority of their salaries ranged from 90 a year to 210, and they were obliged to pas an examination of no mean stamp to attain a post.

Small wonder that many of them, having to help support others as well as keep themselves, had the delicate, listless, anaemic appearance of underfed women badly in need of fresh air, good food, and wholesome exercise.

The policy of Great Britain towards her women workers is surely one of the greatest contradictions of our enlightened age. Even putting aside the vexed question of suffragism, how little has she ever done to try and cope with the needs of working womanhood?

In som Government departments, as, for instance, the Army Clothing Department, it is a known fact that the women are actually sweated; and that in the higher branches, employing gentlewomen, they pay them the lowest possible wage, not because the work is ill-done, but because, owing to present conditions, plenty of gentlewomen are found to accept the offer.