December Love Part 8

"Now I must go."

"Must you really? Then Mr. Craven will get you a taxi."

"If it's fine, I will walk. It seems more suitable to walk home after dining here."

"Walk! Then let us all walk together, and we'll persuade you into the Cafe Royal."

"d.i.c.k Garstin will be there," said Ambrose Jennings in a frail voice, "Enid Blunt, a Turkish refugee from Smyrna who writes quite decent verse, Thapoulos, Penitence Murray, who is just out of prison, and Smith the sculptor, with his mistress, a round-faced little Russian girl.

She's the dearest little Bolshevik I know."

He looked plaintively yet critically at Lady Sellingworth, and pulled his little black beard with fingers covered with antique rings.

"Dear little bloodthirsty thing!" he added to Lady Sellingworth. "You would like her. I know it."

"I'm sure I should. There is something so alluring about Bolshevism when it's safely tucked up at the Cafe Royal. But I will only walk to the door."

"And then Mr. Craven will get you a taxi," said Miss Van Tuyn. "Shall we go?"

They fared forth into the London night--Craven last.

He realized that Miss Van Tuyn had made up her mind to keep both him and Jennings as her possessions of the evening, and to send Lady Sellingworth, if she would go home early, back to Berkeley Square without an escort. Her cult for her friend, though doubtless genuine, evidently weakened when there was any question of the allegiance of men.

Craven made up his mind that he would not leave Lady Sellingworth until they were at the door of Number 18A, Berkeley Square.

In the street he found himself by the side of Miss Van Tuyn, behind Lady Sellingworth and Ambrose Jennings, who were really a living caricature as they proceeded through the night towards Shaftesbury Avenue. The smallness of Jennings, accentuated by his bat-like cloth cloak, his ample sombrero and fantastically long stick, made Lady Sellingworth look like a moving tower as she walked at his side, like a leaning tower when she bent graciously to catch the murmur of his persistent conversation.

And as over the theatres in letters of fire were written the names of the stars in the London firmament--Marie Lohr, Moscovitch, Elsie Janis--so over, all over, Lady Sellingworth seemed to be written for Craven to read: "I am really not a Bohemian."

"Do you genuinely wish Lady Sellingworth to finish the evening at the Cafe Royal?" he asked of his companion.

"Yes. They would love her there. She would bring a new note."

"Probably. But would she love them?"

"I don't think you quite understand her," said Miss Van Tuyn.

"I'm quite sure I don't. Still--"

"In past years I am certain she has been to all the odd cafes of Paris."

"Perhaps. But one changes. And you yourself said there were--or was it had been?--two Adela Sellingworths, and that you only knew one."

"Yes. But perhaps at the Cafe Royal I should get to know the other."

"May she not be dead?"

"I have a theory that nothing of us really dies while we live. Our abode changes. We know that. But I believe the inhabitant is permanent. We are what we were, with, of course, innumerable additions brought to us by the years. For instance, I believe that Lady Sellingworth now is what she was, to all intents and purposes, with additions which naturally have made great apparent changes in her. An old moss-covered house, overgrown with creepers, looks quite different from the same house when it is new and bare. But go inside--the rooms are the same, and under the moss and the creepers are the same walls."

"It may be so. But what a difference the moss and the creepers make.

Some may be climbing roses."

Craven felt the shrewd girlish eyes were looking at him closely.

"In her case some of them certainly are!" she said. "Oh, do look at them turning the corner! If Cirella were here he would have a subject for one of his most perfect caricatures. It is the leaning tower of Pisa with a bat."

The left wing of Ambrose Jennings's cloak flew out as he whirled into Regent Street by Lady Sellingworth's side.

CHAPTER VI

At the door of the Cafe Royal they stopped, and Miss Van Tuyn laid a hand on Lady Sellingworth's arm.

"Do come in, dearest. It will really amuse you," she said urgently.

"And--I'll be truthful--I want to show you off to the Georgians as my friend. I want them to know how wonderful an Edwardian can be."

"Please--please!" pleaded Jennings from under his sombrero. "d.i.c.k would revel in you. You would whip him into brilliance. I know it. You admire his work, surely?"

"I admire it very much."

"And he is more wonderful still when he's drunk. And to-night--I feel it--he will be drunk. I pledge myself that d.i.c.k Garstin will be drunk."

"I'm sure it would be a very great privilege to see Mr. Garstin drunk.

But I must go home. Good night, dear Beryl."

"But the little Bolshevik! You must meet the little Bolshevik!" cried Jennings.

Lady Sellingworth shook her deer-like head, smiling.

"Good night, Mr. Craven."

"But he is going to get you a taxi," said Miss Van Tuyn.

"Yes, and if you will allow me I am going to leave you at your door,"

said Craven, with decision.

A line appeared in Miss Van Tuyn's low forehead, but she only said:

"And then you will come back and join us."

"Thank you," said Craven.

He took off his hat. Miss Van Tuyn gave him a long and eloquent look, which was really not unlike a Leap Year proposal. Then she entered the cafe with Jennings. Craven thought at that moment that her back looked unusually rigid.

A taxi was pa.s.sing. He held up his hand. It stopped. Lady Sellingworth and he got in, after he had given the address to the chauffeur.

"What a lovely girl Beryl Van Tuyn is!" said Lady Sellingworth, as they drove off.

"She is--very lovely."

"And she has a lot of courage, moral courage."