Changing Winds Part 48

"Oh, yes. It's supposed to be awfully jolly to be Irish. All the Irish people in books seem to be very amused about something. I suppose it's the climate. They say there's a great deal of rain in Ireland...."

"Yes," he answered vaguely, "there is some sometimes!"

She questioned him about Gilbert and Ninian Graham and Roger Carey.

"It must be awfully jolly," she said, "to be living together like that, you four men!"

He noticed that Lady Cecily always spoke of things being "awfully jolly"

and wondered why her vocabulary should be so limited in its expressions of pleasure.

"We get on very well together," he replied, "and it's very lively at times. Gilbert's very lively...."

"Is he?" she said. "He always seems so ... so ... well, not lively. I don't mean that he's solemn or pompous, but he's so ... so anxious to have his own way, if you understand me. Now, I'm not like that!" She broke off and laughed. "Oh, I don't quite mean that. I am selfish. I know I am. I love having my own way, but if I can't have a thing just as I want it ... well, I'm content to have it in the way that I can. Now, do you understand?"

Henry nodded his head.

"Gilbert isn't like me," she continued. "He says to himself, 'I must have this thing exactly in this way. If I can't have it exactly in this way, then I won't have it at all!' and it's so silly of him to behave like that!"

Henry looked up at her in a puzzled fas.h.i.+on. "What is it he wants?... I beg your pardon, I'm being impertinent!"

"Oh, no!" she replied, smiling graciously at him. "He wants ... oh, he wants everything like that. Haven't you noticed?"

"No," Henry answered, "I haven't."

"Well, you will some day. My motto is, Take what you can get in the way you can get it. It's so much easier to live if you act on that principle!"

"Gilbert's an artist, Lady Cecily, and he can't act on that principle.

No artist can. He takes what he wants in the way that he wants it or else he will not take it at all!"

"Exactly. That's what I've been saying. And it's so silly. But never mind. He's young yet, and he'll learn!"

She turned to gaze at the audience, and Henry, not knowing what else to do and having no more to say, looked too. He could think of plenty of fine things to say to her, but he could not get them on to his tongue.

He wanted to tell her that he had scarcely heard a word of what was said in the first act of the play because he had filled his mind with thoughts of her, and had spent most of the time in gazing up at her as she sat leaning on the ledge of her box; but when he tried to speak, his mouth seemed to be parched and his tongue would not move.

3

"Do you like this play?" she asked.

"No," he replied.

"Why? I thought everybody admired Wilde's wit. It's clever, isn't it?"

"I don't like it!"

"But it's supposed to be awfully clever!" she insisted.

"It's a common melodrama with bits of wit and epigram stuck on to it!"

Henry answered.

"Oh, really!"

"The wit isn't natural ... it doesn't grow naturally out of the life of the play, I mean. It's stuck on like ... like plaster images on the front of a house. The witty speeches aren't spontaneous ... they don't come inevitably!... I'm afraid I'm not making myself very clear, but anyhow, I don't like the play. I don't like anything Wilde wrote, except 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol,' and even that's not true. That's really why I dislike his work. It isn't true, any of it. It's all lies...."

"How awfully interesting!"

"Do you know 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol'? he asked.

"No.... Oh, yes! I have read it. Of course, I have. Somebody lent it to me or I bought it or something.... Anyhow, I have read it, but I can't remember...."

"Do you remember the lines?...

_For all men kill the thing they love, But all men do not die."_

"I seem to remember something ..." she said vaguely.

"Well, that's a lie. All men don't kill the thing they love. Wilde couldn't help lying even when he was most sincere!"

"That's awfully interesting," Lady Cecily said. "Do you know I've never thought of that before. Won't you come and see me one afternoon, Mr.

Quinn?"

"I should like to," he said, and as he spoke, the door of the box opened and Gilbert entered, followed by Lord Jasper.

Lady Cecily turned eagerly to Gilbert. "Oh, Gilbert," she said, "Mr.

Quinn promised to come and see me one afternoon. You'll bring him, won't you? Come on Wednesday, both of you!"

"I should like to," Henry murmured again.

"I don't think I can come on Wednesday," Gilbert said.

"Oh, yes, you can," Lady Cecily exclaimed, "and if you can't, you can come some other day. You'll come, Mr. Quinn, won't you?"

"Yes, Lady Cecily!..."

"And.... Jimphy, dear, do be nice and ask them to come to supper with us after the play. We're going to the Savoy afterwards. I thought it would please Jimphy to go there because he'd be sure not to like the play...."

"Yes, you come along, you chaps!" Jimphy said, willingly.

"I can't. I'm sorry," Gilbert replied. "I've got to go down to Fleet Street and write a notice of this play!"

"Can't you put it off for once, Gilbert!" Lady Cecily said.

Gilbert laughed. "I should like to see Dilton's face if I were to do that...."

"Dilton! Dilton!! Who is Dilton?" she demanded.

"My editor. Very devoted to the human note, Dilton is. No, Cecily, I'm sorry, but I must go down to Fleet Street. Henry can go with you."