“At any rate,” said Olive, “you’ve managed to make yourself quite a mystery. All the men we know are puzzled by you.”
“Tell them, my dear, I’m quite simple. I represent the original conception of the Hetæra, a companion. I don’t want to be made love to, and every man who makes love to me I dislike. If I ever do fall in love, I’ll be a man’s slave. Of that I’m sure. So don’t utter dark warnings, for I’ve warned myself already. I do want a certain number of things—nice dresses, because I owe them to myself, good books, and—well, really, I think that’s all. In return for the dresses and the books—I suppose one ought to add an occasional fiver just to show there’s no ill feeling about preferring to sleep in my own room—in return for very little. I’m ready to talk, walk, laugh, sing, dance, tell incomparably bawdy stories, and, what is after all the most valuable return of all, I’m ready to sit perfectly still and let myself be bored to death while giving him an idea that I’m listening intelligently. Of course, sometimes I do listen intelligently without being bored. In that case I let him off with books only.”
“You really are an extraordinary girl,” said Olive.
“You, on the other hand, my dear,” Sylvia went on, “always give every man the hope that if he’s wise and tender, and of course lavish—ultimately all men believe in the pocket—he will be able to cry Open Sesame to the mysterious treasure of romantic love that he discerns in your dark eyes, in your caressing voice, and in your fervid aspirations. In the end you’ll give it all to a curly-headed actor and live happily ever afterward at Ravenscourt Park. Farewell to Coriolanus in his smart waistcoat; farewell to Julius Cæsar and his amber cigarette-holder; farewell to every nincompoop with a top-hat as bright as a halo; farewell incidentally to Dolly Lonsdale, who’ll discover that Ravenscourt Park is too difficult for the chauffeur to find.”
“Oh, Sylvia, shut up!” Olive said. “I believe you drank too much champagne at lunch.”
“I’m glad you reminded me,” Sylvia cried. “By Jove! I’d forgotten the fizz. That’s where we all meet on common ground—or rather, I should say in common liquid. It sounds like mixed bathing. It is a kind of mixed bathing, after all. You’re quite right, Olive, whatever our different tastes in men, clothes, and behavior, we all must have champagne. Champagne is a bloody sight thicker than water, as the prodigal said when his father uncorked a magnum to wash down the fatted calf.”
Gradually Sylvia did succeed in sorting out from the various men a few who were content to accept the terms of friendship she offered. She had to admit that most of them fell soon or late, and with each new man she gave less and took more. As regards Lily, she tried to keep her as unapproachable as herself, but it was not always possible. Sometimes with a shrug of the shoulders she let Lily go her own way, though she was always hard as steel with the fortunate suitor. Once a rich young financier called Hausberg, who had found Lily somewhat expensive, started a theory that Sylvia was living on her friend; she heard of the slander and dealt with it very directly. The young man in question was anxious to set Lily up in a flat of her own. Sylvia let Lily appear to view the plan with favor. The flat was taken and furnished; a date was fixed for Lily’s entrance; the young man was given the latch-key and told to come at midnight. When he arrived, there was nobody in the flat but a chimpanzee that Sylvia had bought at Jamrack’s. She and Lily were at Brighton with Arthur Lonsdale and Tony Clarehaven, whom they had recently met again at a Covent Garden ball.
They were both just down from Oxford, and Lonsdale had taken a great fancy to Lily. He was a jolly youth, whose father, Lord Cleveden, had consented after a struggle to let him go into partnership with a distinguished professional motorist. It was with him that Dorothy Lonsdale claimed distant kinship. Clarehaven’s admiration for Dorothy had not diminished; somebody had told him that the best way to get hold of her would be to make her jealous. This was his object in inviting Sylvia to Brighton. Sylvia agreed to go, partly to tease Dorothy, partly to disappoint Clarehaven. Lonsdale had helped her to get the chimpanzee into the flat, and all the way down to Brighton they laughed.
“My word, you know!” Lonsdale chuckled, “the jolly old chimpanzee will probably eat the wall-paper. What do you think Hausberg will say when he opens the door?”
“I expect he’ll say, ‘Are you there, Lily?’” Sylvia suggested.