A Nest of Linnets

by Frank Frankfort Moore

CHAPTER XXXI

With what story was he to go to her? What excuse was he to make for interfering between her and the carrying out of her whims? How was he to tell her that she was no longer to make a fool of the youth whom she had taken a fancy to fool?

He found no answer to any of these questions which he asked himself. But when he went on to ask himself if she would not have a right to accuse him of impudence and presumption were he to go to her for the purpose of remonstrating with her, he had no difficulty in finding an answer.

He had never set about any business for which he had less aptitude than this. He was sufficiently a man of the world to know that he was the last person who should go to Mrs. Abington to remonstrate with her. The man who interposes in a quarrel between a man and a wife is accounted a fool; but a man who interposes between an actress and her lover is much worse—he is a busybody, and he usually comes off as badly as does an arbitrator, who reconciles two of his friends in order to become the enemy of both.

Dick felt that not only would his mission be fruitless, he would be regarded by both the actress and the lover with righteous rage. And then he was a little afraid of Mrs. Abington. She had availed herself to the uttermost of her opportunities of studying men, and she had, he believed, acquired a knowledge of how to treat individual cases without risk to herself, that was little short of marvellous. A woman possessing such powers was one whom every sensible man feared; the others fell in love with her. And he had promised to go to her upon a mission that would have been odious to him if it had not been suggested by Betsy Linley.

He could not explain to Betsy that there are certain lessons in life that must be learned by all men who wish to be men, and that these lessons cannot be learned from the study of books, but only by experience, and that her brother was learning his lesson at the sacrifice only of a few weeks of his time (he did not believe that at the best—or was it the worst?—Mrs. Abington’s caprice would last longer than a week or two), at a period of his life that could by no means be called critical. Betsy would not have understood, and he was glad at the thought that she would not have understood.

When he had given himself up to thinking with what wisdom on his lips he should go to Mrs. Abington, he did what a wise man would do—that is, a moderately wise man; an entirely wise man would have stayed at home—he went to her without a portfolio. He had no idea what he would say to her; he had no policy to carry out. In dealing with a capricious woman, so much depends on her caprice. About Mrs. Abington nothing was steadfast except her capriciousness; and Dick felt that, in going to her, his success would be dependent on his treatment of her caprice of the moment.

He thought that the hour of his visit to her should be immediately following the departure of Tom Linley from her presence. He took it for granted that Tom would be paying her his usual afternoon visit, and he was not astray. Passing her lodgings, he heard the long and melancholy wail of a violin in which a young man has hidden his heart, turning the instrument into an oubliette with air-holes, so that the moaning and the wailing of the immured can be heard at some distance. On and on went the moan of the imprisoned heart, until Dick felt that the lady was paying a high price for her caprice, if she was compelled to listen daily to such melodies.

No, this particular whim of hers could not possibly last longer than a few more weeks, he thought, as he strolled by and waited for Tom to leave the house. Tom stayed a long time; but Dick reflected that the longer he stayed the better chance there would be of Mrs. Abington’s listening to reason. After the dolorous complaint of the catgut, even reason, though usually unpalatable, would sound grateful to her ears.