"Still the insincerity of politeness," she laughed. "You forget I have read The Mass. I find you a terribly earnest partisan; very keenly occupied, I should say. Till to-morrow evening, then!"
And she was gone, and Rivers was leading in, like a bear on a cord, a tousled Polish Jew named Kraunski, who was teaching us how the Metropolitan Police Force should be run, and how tyrannically its wicked myrmidons oppressed worthy citizens of Houndsditch, like Mr. Kraunski—quite a good Mass feature.
So I stepped back again, feeling as though Constance Grey had carried away the pale London sunlight with her when she left my littered den.
XII
SATURDAY NIGHT IN LONDON
"Corrupted freemen are the worst of slaves."—David Garrick.
I remember that the evening of the day following my dinner engagement with Miss Grey and her aunt was consecrate, by previous arrangement, to Beatrice Blaine. I had received seven guineas a couple of days before for a rather silly and sensational descriptive article, the subject of which had been suggested by Beatrice. Indeed, she had made me write it, and liked the thing when it appeared in print. It described certain aspects of the quarter of London which stood for pleasure in her eyes; the quarter bounded by Charing Cross and Oxford Street, Leicester Square and Hyde Park Corner.
I think I would gladly have escaped the evening with Beatrice if I could have done so fairly. Seeing that I could not do this, and that my mood seemed chilly, I plunged with more than usual extravagance, and sought to work up all the gaiety I could. I had a vague feeling that I owed so much to Beatrice; that the occasion in some way marked a crisis in our relations. I did not mentally call it a last extravagance, but yet I fancy that must have been the notion at the back of my mind; from which one may assume, I think, that Constance Grey had already begun to exercise some influence over me.
With the seven guineas clinking in the pockets of my evening clothes—here, at all events, was a link with University days, for these seldom-worn garments bore the name of a Cambridge tailor—I drove to the corner of the road beside Battersea Park in which the Blaines lived, and there picked up Beatrice, in all her vivid finery, by appointment. She loved bright colours and daring devices in dress. That I should come in a cab to fetch her was an integral part of her pleasure, and, if funds could possibly be stretched to permit it, she liked to retain the services of the same cab until I brought her back to her own door.