Ashley properly considered his friend's last remark an indication that he was feeling rather inclined to, and just possibly might, make or try to make (for often failure is salvation) a fool of himself. The man of unshaken sobriety of purpose needs no such protests. Ashley strolled on to his rooms, decidedly amused, somehow also a little vexed. Nothing had happened except a further and needless proof that he had been right in putting Ora in the first division of his classification. The vexation, then, remained unaccounted for, and it was not until he had reached home, lit his pipe, mixed his whiskey and water, and settled in his arm-chair, that he discovered that he was a little annoyed just because Lord Bowdon was apparently afraid of making a fool of himself. It was a thing that Bowdon or any other man had a perfect right to do, so far as the rest of the world was concerned. This sounded like a platitude; Ashley was surprised to find in his own soul an indefinite but not weak opposition to it. The instinct of exclusive possession was stirring in him, that resentment of intrusion which is the forerunner of a claim to property. Well, he was not forty-three but just thirty. His theory of life did not forbid a certain amount of making a fool of himself; his practice had included a rather larger quantity. Perturbation had been the ruling factor in Bowdon, in Ashley a pleasurable anticipation was predominant. In his case there were no very obvious reasons why he should not make a fool of himself again, if he were so disposed; for, dealing dispassionately with the situation and with his own standards, he could not treat this Jack Fenning as a very obvious reason. He went to bed with a vague sense of satisfaction; the last few days had brought to birth a new element in life, or at least a new feature of this season. It was altogether too soon to set about measuring the dimensions of the fresh arrival or settling to what it might or might not grow.
His anticipation would have been much heightened and the development of his interest quickened had he been able to see what was at this time happening to the lady who had made so abrupt and resolute an entry into his thoughts as well as into Lord Bowdon's. Her distress would have been sun and water to the growth of his feelings. For Mr. Sidney Hazlewood, an accomplished comedian and Ora Pinsent's Manager, had urged that she should try, and indeed must force herself, to regard a certain business arrangement from a purely business point of view. To Ora, still charged with the emotions of her performance in addition to her own natural and large stock of emotions, this suggestion seemed mere brutality, oblivious of humanity, and dictated solely by a ruthless and unhallowed pursuit of gain. So she burst into tears, and a weary wrinkle knitted itself on Mr. Hazlewood's brow. Lady Kilnorton had been blaming herself for judging genius from the stand of common-sense; Mr. Hazlewood did not theorise about the matter; that eloquent wrinkle was his sole protest against the existence and the ways of genius. The wrinkle having failed of effect, he observed that an agreement was an agreement and spoke, as a man who contemplates regrettable necessities, of his solicitor. Ora defied Mr. Hazlewood, the law, and the world, and went home still in tears. She was not really happy again until she had got into her dressing-gown, when quite suddenly she chanced on the idea that Mr. Hazlewood had a good deal to say for himself. Then she began to laugh merrily at the scene which had passed between them.
"He's very stupid, but he likes me and he's a good old creature," she ended in a charitable way.
CHAPTER III AN ARRANGEMENT FOR SUNDAY
"Elizabeth Aurora Pinsent; that's it. But Elizabeth was too solemn, and Betty was too familiar, and Aurora too absurd. So I'm just Ora."
Lord Bowdon nodded gravely.
"And I think," she went on, lying back on the sofa, "that the world's rather dull, and that you're rather like the world this afternoon."
He did not dispute the point. A man who wants to make love, but is withheld by the sense that he ought not, is at his dullest. Bowdon's state was this or even worse. Ora was a friend of Irene Kilnorton's; how much had she guessed, observed, or been told? Would she think loyalty a duty in herself and disloyalty in him a reproach? That would almost certainly be her mood unless she liked him very much; and she gave no sign of such a liking. On all grounds he was clear that he had better go away at once and not come back again. He thought first of Irene Kilnorton, then of his own peace and interest, lastly of Mr. Jack Fenning; but it must be stated to his credit that he did think quite perceptibly of Jack Fenning. Yet he did not go away immediately.