At this supreme tribute the girl blushed like dawn upon the hills.
‘My word, she is pretty!’ thought Logan; but what he said was, ‘You know Mr. Tierney, your neighbour? Out of a job as a composition master. Almost reduced to University Extension Lectures on the didactic Drama.’
Tierney was talking eagerly to his neighbour, a fascinating lady laundress, la belle blanchisseuse, about starch.
Further off a lady instructress in cookery, Miss Frere, was conversing with a tutor of bridge.
‘Tierney,’ said Logan, in a pause, ‘may I present you to Miss Martin?’ Then he turned to Miss Markham, formerly known at St. Ursula’s as Milo. She had been a teacher of golf, hockey, cricket, fencing,
and gymnastics, at a very large school for girls, in a very small town. Here she became society to such an alarming extent (no party being complete without her, while the colonels and majors never left her in peace), that her connection with education was abruptly terminated. At present raiment was draped on her magnificent shoulders at Madame Claudine’s. Logan, as he had told Merton, ‘occasionally met her,’ and Logan had the strongest reasons for personal conviction that she was absolutely proof against infection, in the trying circumstances to which a Disentangler is professionally exposed. Indeed she alone of the women present knew from Logan the purpose of the gathering.
Cigarettes had replaced the desire of eating and drinking. Merton had engaged a withdrawing room, where he meant to be closeted with his guests, one by one, administer the oath, and prosecute delicate inquiries on the important question of immunity from infection. But, after a private word or two with Logan, he deemed these conspicuous formalities needless. ‘We have material enough to begin with,’ said Logan. ‘We knew beforehand that some of the men were safe, and certain of the women.’
There was a balcony. The providence of nature had provided a full moon, and a night of balm. The imaginative maintained that the scent of hay was breathed, among other odours, over Pall Mall the Blest. Merton kept straying with one guest or another into a corner of the balcony. He hinted that there was a thing in prospect. Would the guest hold himself, or herself, ready at need? Next morning,
if the promise was given, the guest might awake to peace of conscience. The scheme was beneficent, and, incidentally, cheerful.
To some he mentioned retainers; money down, to speak grossly. Most accepted on the strength of Merton’s assurances that their services must always be ready. There were difficulties with Miss Willoughby and Miss Markham. The former lady (who needed it most) flatly refused the arrangement. Merton pleaded in vain. Miss Markham, the girl known to her contemporaries as Milo, could not hazard her present engagement at Madame Claudine’s. If she was needed by the scheme in the dead season she thought that she could be ready for whatever it was.