But it was of a piece with his new mood, with the present turn of his feelings under the stress of fortune. To this mood matters appertaining to women—to use the old phrase, the female interest—did not belong. He was liberated for the time from the attack of that, from his obsession with it, and in his freedom was turning a detached, a critical, eye on his days of bondage. Rather oddly it had been a woman's work, not indeed to bring about his release, but still to mark the moment when he began to be conscious of it; for the turn of the tide of his mind was marked by the moment when, in kissing Ayesha Layard, he forgot his telegram. That little episode satirically mocked the erstwhile devotee and the inconsolable lover, and all the more because it hovered itself pleasantly near the confines of sentiment. It pointedly and recurringly reminded him that there were more women than one in the world, that there were, in fact, a great many. And when a young man's heart is open to the consideration that there are a great many women in the world, it is, for all serious purposes, much the same with him as though there were none.
Esther Norton Ward was not in possession of the full facts, or she might better have understood why Arthur's smile had resisted even the appeal of Judith's tears.
On the last evening before he left London, he dined with Joe Halliday and, with a heart opened by good wine, Joe gave his personal view of the Burlington Theatre disaster.
"I'm sorry I let the Sarradets and Amabel in," he said, "and of course I'm awfully sorry I stuck you for such a lot—though that was a good deal your own doing——"
"It was all my own doing," Arthur protested.
"And I'm sorry for everybody involved, but for myself I don't care much. As long as a fellow's got a dinner inside him and five quid in his pocket, what's there to worry about? I've got lots of other jobs maturing. In fact, as far as I'm personally concerned, perhaps it's rather a good thing we did take such a toss. The fact is, old chap, I was getting most infernally gone on Ayesha."
"I thought you were touched! Well, she's very attractive."
"You're right! If we'd run a hundred nights, I should have been a fair goner! And on the straight too, mind you! Even as it is, I don't mind telling you—as a pal—that I'm hardly my usual bright self since she went to Yankeeland. Keep thinking what's she up to—like a silly ass! Beastly! And what did I get out of it? Nothing!" His voice grew plaintively indignant. "On my word, not so much as that, Arthur!" With the words he put two fingers to his lips and flung a kiss to the empty air.
"That was rather hard lines," Arthur remarked, smiling, pleased to hear that, so far as Joe was concerned at least, Miss Ayesha's promise about her medicine had been handsomely kept.
"Well, I suppose you wouldn't notice it much"—(A veiled allusion to the Romantic and Forsaken Lover!)—"but she's enough to make any man make a fool of himself over her." He heaved a ponderous sigh. "I expect I'm well out of it! She'd never have given me more than a string of beads to play with. And if by a miracle she had succumbed to my charms, I should have been as jealous as a dog every time she went to the theatre! No sound way out of it! All just silly!" He looked up and caught Arthur smiling at him. He burst into a laugh, "Lord, what an ass I am! Come along, old chap! If we get moving, we shall be just in time to see Trixie Kayper at the Amphitheatre. I hear she knocks stars out of High Heaven with her twinkling feet!"