Mary did not quite see the logic of this; but she had long ago been successfully cured of asking why; and, since the prospect of marrying Mr. Alison was at least as pleasant as the prospect of marrying anybody else, she was not sufficiently interested to pursue the topic.
But Mr. Alison took Mary into dinner; Lady Flower felt that he deserved some reward for hurrying back from Nice.
James Alison, known generally as Jemmie Alison, was a stockbroker who had succeeded at the age of twenty-seven to a lucrative business. As a boy, when he had fair, curly hair, he had been definitely handsome. He was now a florid man with a heavy fair mustache, who was still good-looking, although his hair was beginning to require some arranging before it would cover the top of his head, and his features showed signs of coarsening. From his schooldays at Eton, indeed from the day he was born, he had never been compelled to deny himself anything, and like many men who have inherited a fortune early in life he looked older than he was and felt older than he looked. After dinner he was separated from Mary for some time; but at last he managed to find a seat beside her in the conservatory while a famous tenor was singing:
I had a message to send her,
To her, whom my soul loved best;
But I had my task to finish,
And she has gone home to rest.
"Beautiful song," said Mr. Alison.
"Exquisite!" Mary sighed.
I had a message to send her,
So tender, and true, and sweet,
I longed for an Angel to bear it,
And lay it down at her feet.
"Things can be said in songs that can't be said any other way," Mr. Alison murmured with a sigh.
Mary appeared wrapt in the melody.
I cried, in my passionate longing;—
"Has the earth no Angel-friend
Who will carry my love the message
That my heart desires to send?"