Lady Sunningdale, though often irrelevant from sheer irrelevancy, was also sometimes irrelevant on purpose, using preposterous conversation, as Bismarck used truth, as a valuable instrument to secure definite ends. Just now, for instance, her attack on Martin had purpose at its back, for she had seen quite distinctly that something had gone wrong between him and Stella, and had made the diversion in order to prevent the topic of friction, whatever it was, being subjected to further rubbing. Providence had lent aid to her benevolent scheme, sending Martin off to his music-lesson and leaving Stella alone with her. In fact, her request to be told what she should do next needed no answer at all, for she knew quite well that what she would do next was to get Stella to confide in her and tell her all that had happened. She was a great believer in talking things out; the important point, however, was not that the principals should talk things out, which was, indeed, worse than useless, but that they should severally talk it out with somebody else. She wondered, and indeed rather hoped, that Martin might simultaneously talk it out with Karl, for, as she had had occasion to observe before, Martin’s music-lesson consisted chiefly of discussion on character.
Stella returned in a moment, and Lady Sunningdale was irrelevant no longer. She only took a preliminary circuit or two in the manner of a homing pigeon before it takes the straight, unswerving line.
“Martin is simply absorbed in the thought of his concert,” she said. “And he is going to play just all the things that make me laugh and cry. Personally, I shall go with five handkerchiefs and a copy of some English comic paper. The handkerchiefs are for the tears I shall shed, and the comic paper is to check my laughter when he plays the Paganini Variations. Dear Stella, how very wise of you to marry a genius. You will never be dull. But it is rather bold, too. Oh, please take Suez Canal out of the grate; he is trying to commit suicide, I think, because Sahara is not here. Yes. Geniuses are so unexpected and violent. It must be like marrying somebody who keeps several full-sized flashes of lightning about him, and also a large lump of damp clay. You never know which you will put your hand on, and they are both so dreadfully disconcerting.”
Stella picked Suez Canal out of the grate. Apparently he was putting ashes on his head as a sign of mourning, and she dusted him carefully before replying.
“I am disconcerted,” she said.
Lady Sunningdale never pressed for a confidence. “To show that you want a thing,” she once said, “usually means that you are grudgingly given half of it. But if you firmly turn your back on it, it is hurled at you.” She turned her back now, using irrelevance again.
“It is nearly three years since I was disconcerted,” she said, “and the terrible thing is that I quite forget what disconcerted me. I think it must have been Sunningdale. Do you know he spoke in the House of Lords the other day on one side, and then voted on the other. His reason was that he felt his own remarks to be so feeble that he was sure there was more to be said on the other side. But I believe he merely forgot. Yes. That marble fireplace is so good. Surely it must be Adams’s.”
This was completely efficacious.
“Shall I bore you, if I talk to you?” asked Stella.
“No, dearest Stella. I love being talked to. What is it?”