The Hillman Part 13

"Perhaps," she admitted. "Anyhow, I always felt that we should meet again, that you would come to London. The problem is," she added, smiling, "what to do with you now you are here."

"I haven't come to be a nuisance," he a.s.sured her. "I just want a little help from you."

She became indiscreet. She looked at him with a little smile at the corners of her lips.

"Nothing else?" she asked, almost under her breath.

"At the end of it all, yes," he answered simply. "I want to understand because it is your world. I want to feel myself nearer to you. I want--"

She gripped at his arm suddenly. She knew well enough that she had deliberately provoked his words, but there was a look in her face almost of fear.

"Don't let us be too serious all at once," she begged quickly. "If you have one fault, my dear big friend from the country," she went on, with a swiftly a.s.sumed gaiety, "it is that you are too serious for your years. Sophy and I between us must try to cure you of that! You see, we have arrived."

He handed her out, followed her across the pavement, and found himself plunged into what seemed to him to be an absolute vortex of human beings, all dressed in very much the same fas.h.i.+on, all laughing and talking together very much in the same note, all criticising every fresh group of arrivals with very much the same eyes and manner. The palm-court was crowded with little parties seated at the various round tables, partaking languidly of the most indolent meal of the day. Even the broad pa.s.sageway was full of men and women, standing about talking or looking for tables. One could scarcely hear the music of the orchestra for the babel of voices.

The Prince of Seyre beckoned to them from the steps. He seemed to have been awaiting their arrival there--a cold, immaculate, and, considering his lack of height, a curiously distinguished-looking figure.

"I have a table inside," he told them as they approached. "It is better for conversation. The rest of the place is like a beer-garden. I am not sure if they will dance here to-day, but if they do, they will come also into the restaurant."

"Wise man!" Louise declared. "I, too, hate the babel outside."

They were ushered to a round table directly before the entrance, and a couple of attentive waiters stood behind their chairs.

"We are faced," said the prince, as he took up the menu, "with our daily problem. What can I order for you?"

"A cup of chocolate," Louise replied.

"And Miss Sophy?"

"Tea, please."

John, too, preferred tea; the prince ordered absinth.

"A polyglot meal, isn't it, Mr. Strangewey?" said Louise, as the order was executed; "not in the least; what that wonderful old butler of yours would understand by tea. We become depraved in our appet.i.tes, as well as in our sensations. We are always seeking for something new. Sophy, put your hat on straight if you want to make a good impression on Mr.

Strangewey. I am hoping that you two will be great friends."

Sophy turned toward John with a little grimace.

"Louise is so tactless!" she said. "I am sure any idea you might have had of liking me will have gone already. Has it, Mr. Strangewey?"

"On the contrary," he replied, a little stiffly, but without hesitation, "I was thinking that Miss Maurel could scarcely have set me a more pleasant task."

The girl looked reproachfully across at her friend.

"You told me he came from the wilds and was quite unsophisticated!" she exclaimed.

"The truth," John a.s.sured them, looking with dismay at his little china cup, "comes very easily to us. We are brought up on it in c.u.mberland."

"Positively nourished on it," Louise agreed. "My dear Sophy, what he says is quite true. Up there a man would tell you that he didn't like the cut of your new blouse or the droop of your hat. It's a wonderful atmosphere, and very austere. You ought to meet Mr. Strangewey's brother, if you want to know the truth about yourself. Do go on looking about you, Mr. Strangewey; and when you have finished, tell us just what you are thinking."

"Well, just at that moment," he replied, "I was thinking that I ought not to have come here in these clothes."

The girl by his side laughed rea.s.suringly.

"As a matter of fact, you couldn't have done anything more successful,"

she declared. "The one thing up here that every one would like to do if he dared is to be different from his fellows; but very few have the necessary courage. Besides, at heart we are all so frightfully, hatefully imitative. The last great success was the prince, when he wore a black stock with a dinner-coat; but, alas, next evening there were forty or fifty of them! If you come here to tea to-morrow afternoon, I dare say you will find dozens of men wearing gray tweed clothes, colored s.h.i.+rts, and brown boots. I am sure they are most becoming!"

"Don't chatter too much, child," Louise said benignly. "I want to hear some more of Mr. Strangewey's impressions. This is--well, if not quite a fas.h.i.+onable crowd, yet very nearly so. What do you think of it--the women, for instance?"

"Well, to me," John confessed candidly, "they all look like dolls or manikins. Their dresses and their hats overshadow their faces. They seem all the time to be wanting to show, not themselves, but what they have on."

They all laughed. Even the prince's lips were parted by the flicker of a smile. Sophy leaned across the table with a sigh.

"Louise," she pleaded, "you will lend him to me sometimes, won't you?

You won't keep him altogether to yourself? There are such a lot of places I want to take him to!"

"I was never greedy," Louise remarked, with an air of self-satisfaction.

"If you succeed in making a favorable impression upon him, I promise you your share."

"Tell us some more of your impressions, Mr. Strangewey," Sophy begged.

"You want to laugh at me," John protested good-humoredly.

"On the contrary," the prince a.s.sured him, as he fitted a cigarette into a long, amber tube, "they want to laugh with you. You ought to realize your value as a companion in these days. You are the only person who can see the truth. Eyes and tastes blurred with custom perceive so little.

You are quite right when you say that these women are like manikins; that their bodies and faces are lost; but one does not notice it until it is pointed out."

"We will revert," Louise decided, "to a more primitive life. You and I will inaugurate a missionary enterprise, Mr. Strangewey. We will judge the world afresh. We will reclothe and rehabilitate it."

The prince flicked the ash from the end of his cigarette.

"Morally as well as sartorially?" he asked.

There was a moment's rather queer silence. The music rose above the hubbub of voices and died away again. Louise rose to her feet.

"Quite an intelligent person, really," she said, moving her head in the direction of the prince. "His little attacks of cynicism come only with indigestion or after absinth. Now, if you like, you shall escort me home, Mr. Strangewey. I want to show him exactly where I live," she explained, addressing the others, "so that he will have no excuse for not coming to pay his respects to me to-morrow afternoon."

The prince, with a skilful maneuver, made his way to her side as they left the restaurant.

"To-morrow afternoon, I think you said?" he repeated quietly. "You will be in town then?"

"Yes, I think so."

"You have changed your mind, then, about--"

"M. Graillot will not listen to my leaving London," she interrupted rapidly. "He declares that it is too near the production of the play. My own part may be perfect, but he needs me for the sake of the others. He puts it like a Frenchman, of course."

They had reached the outer door, which was being held open for them by a bowing commissionnaire. John and Sophy were waiting upon the pavement.

The prince drew a little back.