FullReads

`But not you to it?’

`Ah, no indeed,’ he said gravely, looking at the roses which he had laid carefully on the marble table. `I am the happiest of men.’

He sipped his coffee, and stared out across the piazza, out beyond it into the past.

`I am the happiest of men,’ he repeated. I plied him with the spur of silence.

`And I owe it all to having once yielded to a bad impulse. Absurd, the threads our destinies hang on!’

Again I plied him with that spur. As it seemed not to prick him, I repeated the words he had last spoken. `For instance?’ I added.

`Take,’ he said, `a certain evening in the spring of ’95. If, on that evening, the Duchess of Hertfordshire had had a bad cold; or if she had decided that it WOULDN’T be rather interesting to go on to that party–that Annual Soiree, I think it was–of the Inkwomen’s Club; or again–to go a step further back–if she hadn’t ever written that one little poem, and if it HADN’T been printed in “The Gentlewoman,” and if the Inkwomen’s committee HADN’T instantly and unanimously elected her an Honorary Vice-President because of that one little poem; or if- -well, if a million-and-one utterly irrelevant things hadn’t happened, don’t-you-know, I shouldn’t be here…. I might be THERE,’ he smiled, with a vague gesture indicating England.

`Suppose,’ he went on, `I hadn’t been invited to that Annual Soiree; or suppose that other fellow,–

`Braxton?’ I suggested. I had remembered Braxton at the moment of recognising Maltby.

`Suppose HE hadn’t been asked…. But of course we both were. It happened that I was the first to be presented to the Duchess…. It was a great moment. I hoped I should keep my head. She wore a tiara. I had often seen women in tiaras, at the Opera. But I had never talked to a woman in a tiara. Tiaras were symbols to me. Eyes are just a human feature. I fixed mine on the Duchess’s. I kept my head by not looking at hers. I behaved as one human being to another. She seemed very intelligent. We got on very well. Presently she asked whether I should think her VERY bold if she said how PERFECTLY divine she thought my book. I said something about doing my best, and asked with animation whether she had read “A Faun on the Cotswolds.” She had. She said it was TOO wonderful, she said it was TOO great. If she hadn’t been a Duchess, I might have thought her slightly hysterical. Her innate good-sense quickly reasserted itself. She used her great power. With a wave of her magic wand she turned into a fact the glittering possibility that had haunted me. She asked me down to Keeb.

`She seemed very pleased that I would come. Was I, by any chance, free on Saturday week? She hoped there would be some amusing people to meet me. Could I come by the 3.30? It was only an hour-and-a- quarter from Victoria. On Saturday there were always compartments reserved for people coming to Keeb by the 3.30. She hoped I would bring my bicycle with me. She hoped I wouldn’t find it very dull. She hoped I wouldn’t forget to come. She said how lovely it must be to spend one’s life among clever people. She supposed I knew everybody here to-night. She asked me to tell her who everybody was. She asked who was the tall, dark man, over there. I told her it was Stephen Braxton. She said they had promised to introduce her to him. She added that he looked rather wonderful. “Oh, he is, very,” I assured her. She turned to me with a sudden appeal: “DO you think, if I took my courage in both hands and asked him, he’d care to come to Keeb?”

`I hesitated. It would be easy to say that Satan answered FOR me; easy but untrue; it was I that babbled: “Well–as a matter of fact– since you ask me–if I were you–really I think you’d better not. He’s very odd in some ways. He has an extraordinary hatred of sleeping out of London. He has the real Gloucestershire LOVE of London. At the same time, he’s very shy; and if you asked him he wouldn’t very well know how to refuse. I think it would be KINDER not to ask him.”