Now the reason of all this affliction was simple enough and old as time. To each of us had come the desire of his life, and to each had it been denied. That morning we had spent at the Albert Docks, and had seen a tall ship sail out for foreign lands, bearing upon her decks two maidens who were taking with them our hearts to the world’s end.
I never was much of a chap for lover’s rhapsodies, so I will make no effort to explain to you how sweet a girl was Gwen Delahay, nor why she held my heart in the hollow of her hand. She was one of the many good and beautiful women—God bless them—who walk this earth, and are to their lovers peerless. And as I worshipped her, so did Gerry worship Vi, her sister—a thing perhaps inexplicable, in that he had seen Gwen, but one to be truly thankful for, seeing that we were friends beyond the ordinary sympathies of life. And now were we left hopeless.
Plain Captain Dorinecourte was I, with a slender six hundred pounds beyond my pay, and Gerry, poor lad, had less. You will not exhaust yourself with wonder then, when I relate the fact that Lady Delahay declined on behalf of her daughters our attentions, contemned our eligibility, and hated poisonously the sight of our ingenuous faces. For all these things, I take it, a Society mother is bound by her allegiance to Society to do. Yet though we felt that she played the game as we understood it, none the less did we cry out upon our luck in being the losers. And now it seemed that we might well throw down our cards.
The fond mother’s fears of the blight which our undivided attentions might throw upon her daughters’ careers had culminated that morning. A month before an announcement in the Morning Post had spurred her to an action which her fear alone would never have conceived. It ran as follows—
“Among the passengers by the s.s. Madagascar, which sails on August 4 for her winter’s cruise around the world, will be the Earl of Denvarre. His lordship will be accompanied by his brother the Hon. Stephen Garlicke.”
This item of intelligence had caught the dutiful mother’s eye, and taken vigorous root in her somewhat languid intelligence. Two eligible young men were to be shut up for eight or nine months in a space not more than one hundred yards long by twenty wide. Walking lawlessly in London were two extremely ineligible youths, unchained, ready and willing to wreck her daughters’ happiness. Why not extract the victims from this hazardous propinquity, placing them at the same time in the financially commendable vicinitude of a live earl and his brother. Action was born only too rapidly from reflection. We had seen them off that very morning.
So there sat we in the desolation of a mere club, disconsolate amid the roar of the city, while the sunset became the twilight, the shadows of the lamp-posts lengthened, and darkness fell upon the town even as upon our hearts. And out of the plenitude of my regret I failed to find the word of sympathetic comfort for Gerry.
Lost in our heavy-hearted musings, it was past eight when we realized that food was yet a distasteful necessity of existence, and sought the club dinner. Silently we entered the dining-room, Gerry with the air of one who approached poisoned dishes, and chose a table apart. Though the soup and sherry warmed my companion to conversation, it had a bias of marked contempt.
Clubs, he showed beyond dispute, were traps for the unwary, committees were things of naught, secretaries insolent and overpaid. Waiters were plucked from the gutter to be trained in pot-houses, and cooks cherished the idea that to evolve a savoury it was but necessary to taint an olive with a decayed anchovy. Women who were guests of brother members—it was Wednesday night—were all dressed in seventeen tints of garish atrocity, and were of a mediocrity of feature which he plainly condemned. He mentioned the names of no less than six social resorts off which he purposed to take his name in the morning. This, of course, preparatory to stirring activities which would remove him beyond their sphere of usefulness. Still soured, but evidently relieved, he then retired behind the sheets of the Westminster, with which he screened himself from further intercourse with his fellows. Apathetically I proceeded with my repast.
Suddenly the decorum of the room received a shock. A sound burst from Gerry’s throat which I can only term a crow. He endeavored frantically and indecently to masticate the portion which he had placed between his teeth, beating the paper at me furiously. The sounds which continued to issue from his lips were such as no one could approve. He mouthed unutterable things.