The Rustle of Silk
made him capable of any gladiatorial effort. Only as to brain was he a
case of arrested development. At twenty-eight he was still only just fit
for Oxford. In any case, as things were, this desertion from her leader
would leave Georgie exactly what she was,--someone who had the legal
right to provide him with funds.
"Well," he said, "it's your funeral," and let it go. The fact that the
elaborate dressing table was covered with framed photographs of his
three equally young predecessors, as well as toilet things bearing their
crests and initials, left this perpetual undergraduate unmoved. He had
never been in love with Georgie. He had been somewhat attracted by her
tinyness and imperturbability, but what had made him ask her to be his
wife was the fact that everybody was talking about her as a creator of a
record,--three times a widow in five years,--and he was one of those
men, who, being unable to attract attention by anything that he could
do, felt the need of basking in reflected glory. He had been fatuously
satisfied to follow her into a public place and see people nudge each
other as she passed. It was a thousand to one that if he had not married
Georgie, he would have hunted London to find a girl who had won her way
into the _Tatler_ as a high diver or a swallower of knives. Why Georgie
had married him was the mystery. Having acquired the married habit, it
was probable that she had accepted him before she had had time to
discover that beneath his astonishing good looks and magnificent
physique there was the mind of a potato. He had turned out to be an
expensive hobby because when his father's business had been ruined by
the War, he possessed nothing but his pay as a second lieutenant. Peace
had removed even that and left him in her little house in Knightsbridge
with eight pairs of perfect riding boots, a collection of old civvies,
and an absolute incapability of earning a legitimate shilling. With
characteristic cold-bloodedness she had, however, immediately advertised
that she would not be responsible for his debts, and made him an
allowance of ten pounds a week, a fourth of her income after the
depredation of income tax. An invulnerable sponge, with a contagious
chuckle, a fairly good eye for tennis, and a homogeneous nature, he
managed to hang on by the skin of his teeth and was perfectly happy and
satisfied. But for Georgie, he must have been a farm laborer in Canada
or a salesman in a motor-car shop on the strength of his appearance. Or
he might have gone to Ireland in the Black and Tans.
"Well," he said, having delivered his message, "cheerio. I'm going to
Datchet for a week to stay on the Mullets' houseboat."
Georgie looked round at him, stirred to a slight curiosity.
"Mullet? New friends?"
"Yes. War profiteers. Rolling in the stuff. Great fun. Know everybody.
Champagne and diamonds for breakfast. Haven't got a loose fiver about
you, I suppose?"
With a faint smile Georgie pointed to her cigarette case on the dressing
table. And without a qualm Malwood opened it, removed his wife's last
night's bridge winnings, murmured, "Thanks most awfully," and barged
out, whistling a tune from "The League of Notions."
"All right, then. For the last time, lunch with Feo," thought Georgie,
moving from the window seat lazily. "She's over."
II
For the first time since Feo had lifted Georgie Malwood into her
intimacy, in that half-careless, half-cautious way that belongs usually
to the illegitimate offspring of kings, her small, unemotional friend
was late for her appointment. Always before, like every other member of
the gang, Georgie Malwood had reported on the early side of the
prescribed moment and killed time without impatience until it had
occurred to Feo to put in an appearance. That morning, which was without
word from Arrowsmith, as she had predicted with the uncanny intuition
that makes women suffer before as well as after they are hurt, Feo was
punctual. She entered her den with the expectation of finding Georgie
curled up on the sofa, halfway through a slim volume of new poems. The
room was empty and there had been no message of apology, no hastily
scribbled note of endearment and explanation.
During the longest forty-five minutes that she had ever spent, Feo
passed from astonishment to anger and finally into the chilly
realization that her uncharacteristic behavior of the last few weeks had
been discussed and criticized, and that the judgment of her friends was
unmistakably reflected in the new attitude of the hitherto faithful and
obsequious Georgie,--always the first to catch the color of her
surroundings. She, Feo, the Queen of Flippancy, the ringleader of
eroticism, had had the temerity to play serious, an unforgivable crime
in the estimation of the decadent set which had ignored the War and
emerged triumphantly into the chaos of peace. Well, there it was. A long
and successful innings was ended. She would be glad to withdraw from the
field.
She waited in her favorite place with her beautiful straight back to the
fireplace, both elbows on the low mantel board and one foot on the
fender. Her face was as white as a candle, her large violet eyes were
filled with grim amusement, and her wide, full-lipped mouth was a little
twisted. She wore a frock that was the color of seaweed, cut almost up
to her knees, with short sleeves, a loose belt, and a great blob of jade
attached to a thin gold chain lying between her breasts. Her thick, wiry
hair was out of curl and fell straight, like that of a page in the Court
of Cesare Borgia. For all her modernity there was something about her
that was peculiarly medieval, masculinely girlish rather than
effeminately boyish. She might have been the leading member of a famous
troupe of Russian ballet dancers, ready at a moment's notice to slip out
of her wrapper and spring with athletic grace high into the air.
Her first remark upon Georgie's lazy entrance was Feoistic and
disconcerting.
"So I'm over, I see," she said, and waited ironically for its effect.
Not honest enough to say, "Yes, you are," Georgie hedged, with some
little confusion.
"What makes you think so, Feo?"
"Your infernal rudeness, my dear, which you wouldn't have dared to
indulge in a week ago. You've all sensed the fact that I'm sick to tears
of the games I've led you into, and would gladly have gone in for babies
if I'd had the luck to seem desirable to the right man." She made a long
arm and rang the bell. "I am ripe for repentance, you see, or perhaps it
might be more accurate, though less dramatic, to say eager for a new
sensation. It isn't coming off, but you can all go and hang yourselves
so far as I'm concerned. I'm out. I'm going to continue to be serious.
Bring lunch in here," she added, as a footman framed himself in the
doorway, "quickly. I'm starving."
Almost any other girl who had been the favorite of such a woman as Feo
would have found in this renunciation of leadership something to cause
emotion. Mere gratitude for many favors and much kindness seemed to
demand that. But this young phlegmatic thing was just as unmoved as she
had been on receipt of the various war office telegrams officially
regretting the deaths of Lord Clayburgh, Captain Graham Macoover, and
Sir Harry Pytchley. She lit the inevitable cigarette, chose the
much-cushioned divan, and stretched herself at full length.
"I can do with a little groundsel too," she said, as though the other
subject had been threshed out.
And so it had, for the time being. Feo, oddly enough, had no bricks to
throw. She could change her religion, it seemed, without pitching mud at
the church of her recent beliefs. It was not until lunch was finished
and the last trickle of resentment at Georgie's failure to apologize had
gone out of her system that she returned to the matter and began, in a
way, to think aloud. It was not as indiscreet as it might have been,
because Georgie Malwood was completely self-contained and had developed
concentration to such a degree, her first three husbands having been
given to arguing, that she could lie and follow her own train of thought
as easily in a room in which a mass of women were playing bridge as in a
monkey house. Her interest in Feo was dead. She was over.
And so Feo gave herself away to a little person whose ears were closed.
"I don't know what exactly to do," she said. "At the moment, I feel like
a fish out of water. If Arrowsmith had liked me and been ready to upset
the conventional ideas of his exemplary family, I'd have eloped with
him, however frightfully it would have put Edmund in the cart. I don't
mind owning that Arrowsmith is the only man I've ever met who could have
turned me into the Spartan mother and worthy _haus-frau_. I had dreams
of living with him behind the high walls of a nice old house and making
the place echo with the pattering feet of babes. It's the culminating
disappointment of several months of 'em,--the bad streak which all of us
have to go through at one time or another, I suppose. However, he
doesn't like me, worse luck, and so there it is. So I think I'd better
make the best of a bad job and cultivate Edmund. I think I'd better
study the life of Lady Randolph Churchill and make myself useful to my
husband. Politics are in a most interesting state just now, with Lloyd
George on the verge of collapse at last, and the brainy dishonesty of a
woman suddenly inspired with political ambition is exactly what Edmund
needs to push him to the top. He has been too long without a woman's
unscrupulous influence."
She began to pace the room with long swinging strides, eagerly,
clutching at this new idea like a drowning man to a spar. Her eyes began
to sparkle and the old ring came back to her voice. Here was a way to
use her superabundant energy and build up a new hobby.
"I'm no longer a flapping girl with everything to discover," she went
on, "I've had my share of love stuff. By Jove, I'll use my intelligence,
for a change. I'll get into the fight and develop strategy. Every one's
looking to Edmund as the one honest man in the political game, and I'll
buckle to and help him. He's an amazing creature. I've always admired
him, and there's something that suits my present state of mind in making
up to him for my perfectly rotten treatment all these years. If I can't
make a lover into a husband, by Jingo, I can set to work to make a
husband into a lover. There's an idea for you, Feo, my pet! There's a
mighty interesting scheme to dig your teeth into, my broad-shouldered
friend!"
She sent out an excited laugh and flung up her hand as though to welcome
a brain wave. Her amazing resilience stood her in good stead in this
crisis of her life,--to say nothing of her courage and queer sense of
humor. Her blood began to move again. Fed up with decadence, she would
plump whole-heartedly for usefulness now, be normal, go to work, get
into the good books of George Lytham and his party, surprise Fallaray by
her sudden allegiance to his cause and to him, and gradually break down
the door that she had slammed in his face.
"I'll let my hair grow," she continued gayly, working the vein that was
to rescue her from despondency and failure with pathetic eagerness.
"I'll chuck eccentric clothes. I'll turn up slang and blasphemy. I'll
teach myself manners and the language of old political hens. I'll keep
brilliance within speed limits. Yes, I'll do all that if I have to work
like a coolie. And I'll tell you what else I'll do. I'll bet you a
thousand pounds to sixpence that before the end of the year I'll be the
wife--I said the wife, Georgie--of the next Prime Minister. Will you
take it?"
She drew up short, alight and excited, her foot already on the beginning
of the new road, and paused for a reply.