CHAPTER XII. BRIGHT EYES--AND A FLY
The Hermitage (unrivalled scenery, superb cuisine, Daniel Brewster,proprietor) was a picturesque summer hotel in the green heart of themountains, built by Archie's father-in-law shortly after he assumedcontrol of the Cosmopolis. Mr. Brewster himself seldom went there,preferring to concentrate his attention on his New York establishment;and Archie and Lucille, breakfasting in the airy dining-room some tendays after the incidents recorded in the last chapter, had consequentlyto be content with two out of the three advertised attractions of theplace. Through the window at their side quite a slab of the unrivalledscenery was visible; some of the superb cuisine was already on thetable; and the fact that the eye searched in vain for Daniel Brewster,proprietor, filled Archie, at any rate, with no sense of aching loss. Hebore it with equanimity and even with positive enthusiasm. In Archie'sopinion, practically all a place needed to make it an earthly Paradisewas for Mr. Daniel Brewster to be about forty-seven miles away from it.
It was at Lucille's suggestion that they had come to the Hermitage.Never a human sunbeam, Mr. Brewster had shown such a bleak front to theworld, and particularly to his son-in-law, in the days following thePongo incident, that Lucille had thought that he and Archie would for atime at least be better apart--a view with which her husband cordiallyagreed. He had enjoyed his stay at the Hermitage, and now he regardedthe eternal hills with the comfortable affection of a healthy man who isbreakfasting well.
"It's going to be another perfectly topping day," he observed, eyeingthe shimmering landscape, from which the morning mists were swiftlyshredding away like faint puffs of smoke. "Just the day you ought tohave been here."
"Yes, it's too bad I've got to go. New York will be like an oven."
"Put it off."
"I can't, I'm afraid. I've a fitting."
Archie argued no further. He was a married man of old enough standing toknow the importance of fittings.
"Besides," said Lucille, "I want to see father." Archie repressed anexclamation of astonishment. "I'll be back to-morrow evening. You willbe perfectly happy."
"Queen of my soul, you know I can't be happy with you away. You know--"
"Yes?" murmured Lucille, appreciatively. She never tired of hearingArchie say this sort of thing.
Archie's voice had trailed off. He was looking across the room.
"By Jove!" he exclaimed. "What an awfully pretty woman!"
"Where?"
"Over there. Just coming in, I say, what wonderful eyes! I don't thinkI ever saw such eyes. Did you notice her eyes? Sort of flashing! Awfullypretty woman!"
Warm though the morning was, a suspicion of chill descended upon thebreakfast-table. A certain coldness seemed to come into Lucille's face.She could not always share Archie's fresh young enthusiasms.
"Do you think so?"
"Wonderful figure, too!"
"Yes?"
"Well, what I mean to say, fair to medium," said Archie, recovering acertain amount of that intelligence which raises man above the levelof the beasts of the field. "Not the sort of type I admire myself, ofcourse."
"You know her, don't you?"
"Absolutely not and far from it," said Archie, hastily. "Never met herin my life."
"You've seen her on the stage. Her name's Vera Silverton. We saw herin--"
"Of course, yes. So we did. I say, I wonder what she's doing here?She ought to be in New York, rehearsing. I remember meetingwhat's-his-name--you know--chappie who writes plays and what not--GeorgeBenham--I remember meeting George Benham, and he told me she wasrehearsing in a piece of his called--I forget the name, but I know itwas called something or other. Well, why isn't she?"
"She probably lost her temper and broke her contract and came away.She's always doing that sort of thing. She's known for it. She must be ahorrid woman."
"Yes."
"I don't want to talk about her. She used to be married to someone,and she divorced him. And then she was married to someone else, and hedivorced her. And I'm certain her hair wasn't that colour two years ago,and I don't think a woman ought to make up like that, and her dress isall wrong for the country, and those pearls can't be genuine, and I hatethe way she rolls her eyes about, and pink doesn't suit her a bit. Ithink she's an awful woman, and I wish you wouldn't keep on talkingabout her."
"Right-o!" said Archie, dutifully.
They finished breakfast, and Lucille went up to pack her bag. Archiestrolled out on to the terrace outside the hotel, where he smoked,communed with nature, and thought of Lucille. He always thought ofLucille when he was alone, especially when he chanced to find himselfin poetic surroundings like those provided by the unrivalled sceneryencircling the Hotel Hermitage. The longer he was married to her themore did the sacred institution seem to him a good egg. Mr. Brewstermight regard their marriage as one of the world's most unfortunateincidents, but to Archie it was, and always had been, a bit of allright. The more he thought of it the more did he marvel that a girl likeLucille should have been content to link her lot with that of a Class Cspecimen like himself. His meditations were, in fact, precisely what ahappily-married man's meditations ought to be.
He was roused from them by a species of exclamation or cry almost athis elbow, and turned to find that the spectacular Miss Silverton wasstanding beside him. Her dubious hair gleamed in the sunlight, and oneof the criticised eyes was screwed up. The other gazed at Archie with anexpression of appeal.
"There's something in my eye," she said.
"No, really!"
"I wonder if you would mind? It would be so kind of you!"
Archie would have preferred to remove himself, but no man worthy ofthe name can decline to come to the rescue of womanhood in distress. Totwist the lady's upper lid back and peer into it and jab at it with thecorner of his handkerchief was the only course open to him. His conductmay be classed as not merely blameless but definitely praiseworthy. KingArthur's knights used to do this sort of thing all the time, and lookwhat people think of them. Lucille, therefore, coming out of thehotel just as the operation was concluded, ought not to have feltthe annoyance she did. But, of course, there is a certain superficialintimacy about the attitude of a man who is taking a fly out of awoman's eye which may excusably jar upon the sensibilities of his wife.It is an attitude which suggests a sort of rapprochement or camaraderieor, as Archie would have put it, what not.
"Thanks so much!" said Miss Silverton.
"Oh no, rather not," said Archie.
"Such a nuisance getting things in your eye."
"Absolutely!"
"I'm always doing it!"
"Rotten luck!"
"But I don't often find anyone as clever as you to help me."
Lucille felt called upon to break in on this feast of reason and flow ofsoul.
"Archie," she said, "if you go and get your clubs now, I shall just havetime to walk round with you before my train goes."
"Oh, ah!" said Archie, perceiving her for the first time. "Oh, ah, yes,right-o, yes, yes, yes!"
On the way to the first tee it seemed to Archie that Lucille wasdistrait and abstracted in her manner; and it occurred to him, not forthe first time in his life, what a poor support a clear conscience isin moments of crisis. Dash it all, he didn't see what else he could havedone. Couldn't leave the poor female staggering about the place withsquads of flies wedged in her eyeball. Nevertheless--
"Rotten thing getting a fly in your eye," he hazarded at length. "Dashedawkward, I mean."
"Or convenient."
"Eh?"
"Well, it's a very good way of dispensing with an introduction."
"Oh, I say! You don't mean you think--"
"She's a horrid woman!"
"Absolutely! Can't think what people see in her."
"Well, you seemed to enjoy fussing over her!"
"No, no! Nothing of the kind! She inspired me with absolutewhat-d'you-call-it--the sort of thing chappies do get inspired with, youknow."
"You were beaming all over your fac
e."
"I wasn't. I was just screwing up my face because the sun was in myeye."
"All sorts of things seem to be in people's eyes this morning!"
Archie was saddened. That this sort of misunderstanding should haveoccurred on such a topping day and at a moment when they were to be tornasunder for about thirty-six hours made him feel--well, it gave him thepip. He had an idea that there were words which would have straightenedeverything out, but he was not an eloquent young man and could not findthem. He felt aggrieved. Lucille, he considered, ought to haveknown that he was immune as regarded females with flashing eyes andexperimentally-coloured hair. Why, dash it, he could have extractedflies from the eyes of Cleopatra with one hand and Helen of Troy withthe other, simultaneously, without giving them a second thought. It wasin depressed mood that he played a listless nine holes; nor had lifebrightened for him when he came back to the hotel two hours later, afterseeing Lucille off in the train to New York. Never till now had they hadanything remotely resembling a quarrel. Life, Archie felt, was a bit ofa wash-out. He was disturbed and jumpy, and the sight of Miss Silverton,talking to somebody on a settee in the corner of the hotel lobby, senthim shooting off at right angles and brought him up with a bump againstthe desk behind which the room-clerk sat.
The room-clerk, always of a chatty disposition, was saying something tohim, but Archie did not listen. He nodded mechanically. It was somethingabout his room. He caught the word "satisfactory."
"Oh, rather, quite!" said Archie.
A fussy devil, the room-clerk! He knew perfectly well that Archie foundhis room satisfactory. These chappies gassed on like this so as to tryto make you feel that the management took a personal interest in you.It was part of their job. Archie beamed absently and went in to lunch.Lucille's empty seat stared at him mournfully, increasing his sense ofdesolation.
He was half-way through his lunch, when the chair opposite ceased tobe vacant. Archie, transferring his gaze from the scenery outside thewindow, perceived that his friend, George Benham, the playwright, hadmaterialised from nowhere and was now in his midst.
"Hallo!" he said.
George Benham was a grave young man whose spectacles gave him the lookof a mournful owl. He seemed to have something on his mind besides theartistically straggling mop of black hair which swept down over hisbrow. He sighed wearily, and ordered fish-pie.
"I thought I saw you come through the lobby just now," he said.
"Oh, was that you on the settee, talking to Miss Silverton?"
"She was talking to ME," said the playwright, moodily.
"What are you doing here?" asked Archie. He could have wished Mr. Benhamelsewhere, for he intruded on his gloom, but, the chappie being amongstthose present, it was only civil to talk to him. "I thought you were inNew York, watching the rehearsals of your jolly old drama."
"The rehearsals are hung up. And it looks as though there wasn't goingto be any drama. Good Lord!" cried George Benham, with honest warmth,"with opportunities opening out before one on every side--with lifeextending prizes to one with both hands--when you see coal-heaversmaking fifty dollars a week and the fellows who clean out the sewersgoing happy and singing about their work--why does a man deliberatelychoose a job like writing plays? Job was the only man that ever livedwho was really qualified to write a play, and he would have foundit pretty tough going if his leading woman had been anyone like VeraSilverton!"
Archie--and it was this fact, no doubt, which accounted for hispossession of such a large and varied circle of friends--was alwaysable to shelve his own troubles in order to listen to other people'shard-luck stories.
"Tell me all, laddie," he said. "Release the film! Has she walked out onyou?"
"Left us flat! How did you hear about it? Oh, she told you, of course?"
Archie hastened to try to dispel the idea that he was on any such termsof intimacy with Miss Silverton.
"No, no! My wife said she thought it must be something of that nature ororder when we saw her come in to breakfast. I mean to say," saidArchie, reasoning closely, "woman can't come into breakfast here andbe rehearsing in New York at the same time. Why did she administer theraspberry, old friend?"
Mr. Benham helped himself to fish-pie, and spoke dully through thesteam.
"Well, what happened was this. Knowing her as intimately as you do--"
"I DON'T know her!"
"Well, anyway, it was like this. As you know, she has a dog--"
"I didn't know she had a dog," protested Archie. It seemed to him thatthe world was in conspiracy to link him with this woman.
"Well, she has a dog. A beastly great whacking brute of a bulldog. Andshe brings it to rehearsal." Mr. Benham's eyes filled with tears, asin his emotion he swallowed a mouthful of fish-pie some eighty-threedegrees Fahrenheit hotter than it looked. In the intermission caused bythis disaster his agile mind skipped a few chapters of the story, and,when he was able to speak again, he said, "So then there was a lot oftrouble. Everything broke loose!"
"Why?" Archie was puzzled. "Did the management object to her bringingthe dog to rehearsal?"
"A lot of good that would have done! She does what she likes in thetheatre."
"Then why was there trouble?"
"You weren't listening," said Mr. Benham, reproachfully. "I told you.This dog came snuffling up to where I was sitting--it was quite dark inthe body of the theatre, you know--and I got up to say something aboutsomething that was happening on the stage, and somehow I must have givenit a push with my foot."
"I see," said Archie, beginning to get the run of the plot. "You kickedher dog."
"Pushed it. Accidentally. With my foot."
"I understand. And when you brought off this kick--"
"Push," said Mr. Benham, austerely.
"This kick or push. When you administered this kick or push--"
"It was more a sort of light shove."
"Well, when you did whatever you did, the trouble started?"
Mr. Benham gave a slight shiver.
"She talked for a while, and then walked out, taking the dog with her.You see, this wasn't the first time it had happened."
"Good Lord! Do you spend your whole time doing that sort of thing?"
"It wasn't me the first time. It was the stage-manager. He didn't knowwhose dog it was, and it came waddling on to the stage, and he gave it asort of pat, a kind of flick--"
"A slosh?"
"NOT a slosh," corrected Mr. Benham, firmly. "You might call it atap--with the promptscript. Well, we had a lot of difficulty smoothingher over that time. Still, we managed to do it, but she said that ifanything of the sort occurred again she would chuck up her part."
"She must be fond of the dog," said Archie, for the first time feeling atouch of goodwill and sympathy towards the lady.
"She's crazy about, it. That's what made it so awkward when Ihappened--quite inadvertently--to give it this sort of accidental shove.Well, we spent the rest of the day trying to get her on the 'phone ather apartment, and finally we heard that she had come here. So I tookthe next train, and tried to persuade her to come back. She wouldn'tlisten. And that's how matters stand."
"Pretty rotten!" said Archie, sympathetically.
"You can bet it's pretty rotten--for me. There's nobody else who canplay the part. Like a chump, I wrote the thing specially for her. Itmeans the play won't be produced at all, if she doesn't do it. So you'remy last hope!"
Archie, who was lighting a cigarette, nearly swallowed it.
"_I_ am?"
"I thought you might persuade her. Point out to her what a lot hangs onher coming back. Jolly her along, YOU know the sort of thing!"
"But, my dear old friend, I tell you I don't know her!"
Mr. Benham's eyes opened behind their zareba of glass.
"Well, she knows YOU. When you came through the lobby just now she saidthat you were the only real human being she had ever met."
"Well, as a matter of fact, I did take a fly out of her eye. But--"
"You did? Well, then, the whole thing's simple. All you have to do is toask her how her eye is, and tell her she has the most beautiful eyes youever saw, and coo a bit."
"But, my dear old son!" The frightful programme which his friend hadmapped out stunned Archie. "I simply can't! Anything to oblige and allthat sort of thing, but when it comes to cooing, distinctly Napoo!"
"Nonsense! It isn't hard to coo."
"You don't understand, laddie. You're not a married man. I mean to say,whatever you say for or against marriage--personally I'm all for it andconsider it a ripe egg--the fact remains that it practically makes achappie a spent force as a cooer. I don't want to dish you in any way,old bean, but I must firmly and resolutely decline to coo."
Mr. Benham rose and looked at his watch.
"I'll have to be moving," he said. "I've got to get back to New York andreport. I'll tell them that I haven't been able to do anything myself,but that I've left the matter in good hands. I know you will do yourbest."
"But, laddie!"
"Think," said Mr. Benham, solemnly, "of all that depends on it! Theother actors! The small-part people thrown out of a job! Myself--but no!Perhaps you had better touch very lightly or not at all on my connectionwith the thing. Well, you know how to handle it. I feel I can leaveit to you. Pitch it strong! Good-bye, my dear old man, and a thousandthanks. I'll do the same for you another time." He moved towards thedoor, leaving Archie transfixed. Half-way there he turned and came back."Oh, by the way," he said, "my lunch. Have it put on your bill, willyou? I haven't time to stay and settle. Good-bye! Good-bye!"
Indiscretions of Archie Page 12
