Too Old for Dolls: A Novel

by Anthony M. Ludovici

And so they reached the terrace,—she feeling that she wanted a wash; he feeling only that he had bungled it, because she was too worldly, too sophisticated to be natural.

Meanwhile, however, in another part of the grounds, a very much more subtle, irresistible, and skilful proposal was being pronounced. True, it was being made by a man who desired at all costs, and in good time, to secure his achieved success from threatened assault, and who was therefore a little desperate; but it was also the performance of a creature who knew his subject, who understood its difficulties, and who was not hindered by any of those scruples of ignorance and purity which temper ardour and paralyse daring.

For Malster was in the condition in which a man's desire may truly be said to have become a physical ache. A feeling of sick longing held his heart and entrails as in a vise, a sort of cramp of violent tension stiffened all his tissues. On Leonetta his eyes were fastened as if by some powerful magnet. The rest of the world, as also its inhabitants, was obliterated; they seemed nothing more than shadows passing and re-passing,—shadows which, if need be, could be pushed aside, offended, outraged. For what, after all, are shadows?

People are mistaken if they imagine that it requires any effort to sacrifice position, power, friends, parents,—aye, even home, nationality, and honour,—when a man is in this condition. For these things are as nothing, beside the all-devouring anguish of so great a desire. They are not sacrificed in such circumstances; they simply do not enter within his purview.

If Leonetta had acted wilfully, deliberately, and with her object clearly conceived before she began, she could not have achieved any greater success; for Malster was her abject slave. Jealous of every look or word she vouchsafed to another, hating even the kitten that her rosy well-made fingers clasped, literally ill away from her presence, and thrilled almost painfully by the sound of her voice when she returned, the whole of Brineweald had become for him but a fantastic and hardly material background, to a scene in which his emotions beat out their gigantic throbs like Titans wrestling for freedom. He was not even in a fit state to use an ordinary foot-rule with accuracy.

To speak to such a man of morals, of ethical duty, of certain obligations to an elder sister, of responsibility to host or hostess, or to society, would have been little better than to try to teach table etiquette to a boa-constrictor. There was only one thing that could force him to become sober for one instant and to reflect, and that was the menace of successful rivalry. But even then his sober mood would last only as long as he was maturing panic schemes to overcome the difficulty.

Such a mood of sober reflection had, however, possessed him ever since the advent of Lord Henry, and although he had not the slightest reason either to suspect or to surmise that the young nobleman wished to defeat him in any field, such was the magnitude of his desire for Leonetta and the jealousy it provoked, that every minute that Lord Henry spoke, every minute that his voice held the flapper's ears in attentive subjection, were to him so many hours of agonising dread.

A glance at Leonetta would convince him that she was listening; further observation would reveal the fact that she was also interested; and finally he would recognise that her eyes were upon the young nobleman, even when he was silent.

Denis Malster had perceived with female quickness the infernal charms of Lord Henry's personality; he had measured almost exactly, despite the natural tendency to exaggeration into which his jealousy led him, the precise effect of Lord Henry's persuasive and emphatic tongue upon the female ear. He had seen its effect on Mrs. Delarayne, on Vanessa, on Agatha, on Mrs. Tribe. Was it likely that Leonetta would long remain insensible to the difference between himself and the new arrival?

Already he had been obliged to abandon those daily contests on the subject of the Inner Light with the wretched Gerald Tribe, because Lord Henry promised to be too much for him. And yet they had been so valuable,—such a splendid opportunity for exhibiting his proudest achievements!