“But I wanted to go; I paid for it. Why should I protest at getting what I wanted?”
“True, true; there is the younger generation again. And what impression, what etching of an image, was conveyed to your sensory nerves at the moment when you began to leave that pellet of conglomerated matter, which, for want of a better word, we call the world? Were there not ‘fallings-from you, vanishings,’ as the most didactic of all poets puts it? In fact, my dear boy, didn’t it make you feel at all sick?”
But the sensation of Robin’s arrival, even in those days, when a flying machine was not quite the common fowl it has become, was a matter to be reckoned in minutes only; indeed, the scale of seconds was sufficient to see its complete extinction. Nothing was surprising nowadays, though so many things were new, and before Robin had fairly got out of his leather coat, Lord Thorley was again immersed in the attempt to understand Mrs. Trayle’s explanation of her mystical play, which really seemed to become more and more involved with every step of her elucidation, and Mr. Boyton was indulging his Duchess with that type of story that was so immensely characteristic of him. It was not in itself actually shocking, but could not fail to produce in the mind of the listener comments and reflections that were. His stories had the effect of raising giggles rather than laughter, and he told them with a babe-like innocence that set off their little saletés to perfection. Elsewhere Mr. Bellingham was robustly discoursing to Mrs. Lockwater, who was fulfilling her complete functions of being dumb and beautiful, and the French Ambassador, with his ascetic face alight with enthusiasm, was being dithyrambic to Lady Instow on the subject of a sauce of escargots.
The spirit of the gathering, distilled from all those various personalities, poured out in ever-increasing volume. The main ingredient in it was a sort of Athenian irresponsibility: nothing mattered but the present hour, and the delight of “some new thing.” Wit, beauty, intelligence, above all, an astonishing youthfulness of mind, gave their grapes to compose the heady compound, that foamed and sparkled from one end of the table to the other. Some, though those were the minority of the guests, had some serious business in life, that professionally occupied them, but most were utterly idle people, apart from their feverishly busy pursuit of the pleasure of the extravagant minute. For most of them only two ills existed in life, the one physical ill-health, the other boredom; the one highest and all-embracing blessing which life offered, was the sense of being amused, and being “in it,” and every minute not employed in either avoiding the ills of life or securing its blessings was a wasted opportunity let slip from careless or incompetent fingers into the chill waters of past time.
Excitement, physical and mental, was what each of them was out for, with the exception perhaps of Lord Thorley, who, in conditions of the utmost-conceivable perturbation, would have maintained his detached tranquillity. But for the rest, even for the mystical Mrs. Trayle, the whirl of the moment, the striking of the clock were the things to be waited and listened for. The ferment of the world, and in particular, the ferment of the little world which is called the great world, was the intoxication they all demanded. In Lady Grote’s house that ferment invaded hole and corner; whatever was of contemporaneous interest was focussed there, be it painting, or singing, or politics, or love. Nothing was amiss, so long as it was alive, but it had to be alive with the vitality of to-day. In a fashion, also, this house with its opulence of extravagance and noble entertainment, signified all that was now going on: the people collected here every Saturday were types as well as individuals, each “stood for” something of which he was only a specimen.
Dinner broke up gradually: there was no formal exit of women that left the men to circulate port and cigarettes and stories that up till that moment could not be perfectly enjoyed. From the thirty guests there some twenty drifted away, but the exit was not only of women, nor was it all of the feminine portion of the diners who went out. Mrs. Trayle, for instance, remained, so, too, did Lady Massingberd, sitting next her host. Before long Lord Grote and she got up and wandered out into the big starry night; the other couples left, and soon the dining-room was empty, and bridge-tables and corners of conversation began to sort themselves into groups in the loggia. Then somebody alluded to poker, and a half dozen of people, Robin and Bellingham among them, collected round a baize-topped table. Counters arranged themselves into heaps, packs of cards appeared, and a table of half a dozen players found themselves possessed of a hundred pounds each, in blue-coronetted counters, which denoted five pounds, in yellow counters which denoted one, and in silver counters that implied a shilling. Something vague was said about limit, but anybody, apparently, who wanted a hundred pounds, had it instantly supplied. It all happened, just happened....
This gratuitous distribution of capital naturally roused Mr. Bellingham to abstruse reflection as he received his cards.
“And this, I take it,” said he, “is, in fact, hospitality in excelsis. I have merely to sit down, and by the act of what we may call squatting, my dear Robin, am given a whole century of the gold which—— Indeed, I feel as if I had been granted a bounty from the Civil List, in aid of my probably impecunious old age. I figure to myself what would happen if I pocketed these extraordinary artistic symbols of a wealth which is not actually mine. My dear lady, I will take one card, but the immodesty of that which I am playing for beggars and denudes all sense of decency. The full house, for instance, surely all evening, as long as we play this entrancing and hazardous sport, must surely remain in our hostess’s charming hands. If ever a house was full, it is hers. Yes, in fact, I see that two pounds, and with all the timidity possible to so middle-aged a creature, I venture to raise it another two.”
Robin was on Mr. Bellingham’s left, and came in with a further rise of three pounds. No one else took any interest in the hand, and Mr. Bellingham, as he saw Robin’s three pounds, and got dreadfully mixed about what to do next, contrived to pour out an abstruse soliloquy.
“I see you and raise you—is that the consecrated phrase,” he said, “as if it was not enough to see Robin, and as impossible to raise him. And then you see me, do you, which can hardly, I may say, be worth doing, so commonplace an object as I unfortunately am. Nevertheless, should you insist on gazing at what is called my hand, you will find, as I show you, that I have, in fact, usurped the full house which belongs as by right to our hostess. In fact, I have three kings and not less than two sevens. And that, I conjecture by your returning your cards face downwards to the dustbin, I may say, of the rest of the pack, is in the jargon of our game, good, and I annex, do I not, a pool that for its attractive amplitude may fairly be called a lake.”