VI
It was on the following Sunday that I found myself in Aubrey Walk, discussing Ben's future with her, with Melanie Ames, and with two or three of the young men who were in the habit of dwelling within Melanie's aura. In Guy's absence in Meerut she did not deny herself certain detached male followers. More and more do English girls seem to be acquiring similar treasure.
The two girls made a pretty contrast: Ben so quick and alert, and Melanie so casual and apparently uninterested, although with an instant comment for every situation. Already, I observed, her tardiness had begun to draw out Ben's practicality. In appearance they were a contrast too, for Ben was fresh-complexioned, with rich brown hair which had maintained its steady natural shade ever since I had known her, whereas Melanie was pale and had changed the colour of her tresses three times at least and was now meditating a return from dark to fair.
Ben was not exactly clever or witty, but her brain was nimble enough and clear enough, and her laugh of such seductive clarity and readiness as to put men on their mettle. Women who make men talk better than they are accustomed to are always popular, even when they are plain; and Ben was by no means plain. Indeed, she had such pleasant looks as to cause constant surprise that she was still single and unattached; but only among those people who do not know how foolishly young men can choose their partners for life. Ben was probably too sane, too brightly normal. The feet of the young men of her acquaintance were either turned away from marriage altogether, or were dancing attendance upon creatures more capricious, more artificial, more suggestive even of decadence. Melanie, for example with her pallor and her exotic coiffure, was clearly more attractive to Tubby Toller and Eric Keene, who were plying her with cigarettes and other necessaries of life when I entered. Both these youths, who had been too young for the War, were now engaged in such walks of life as products of public schools and universities take to: Tubby having a clerkship in the Treasury, and Eric having one eye on the Bar, wherever the other may have been.
"Tell them about your scheme, Ben," said Melanie, when we were all at our ease.
"Well," said Ben, "there seems to be a vacancy for a kind of agent who will do all kinds of things for those who are too lazy or too busy or too helpless to do them for themselves and would pay to be relieved. Finding a house or flat, for example. There are heaps of people who would cheerfully give ten pounds to have these found for them. There are people all over the country, and in Scotland and Ireland, who would like their shopping done for them, particularly when the Sales come on. There are heaps of English people abroad—on the Continent, in India, in the Colonies—who want things done for them in London and have no one to apply to and trust. There is a constant demand for servants of every kind, not only housemaids and nurses, but chauffeurs and secretaries and private tutors. People want to know where they can have bridge lessons and golf lessons and billiard lessons. It's all very vague in my mind at present, but I'm sure there's something practical in it."
"It's not vague to me at all," said Tubby; "it's concrete. I've been thinking like a black while you've been talking, and I believe I've got a title. You must be original and alluring: a signboard, jolly colours, nice assistants."