“Should you be in town next Thursday, come and dine; I have a box for the theatre. And as an extra inducement I will tell you that I have two very nice girls staying with me, who will interest you.—Yours very truly, HELEN SEVELEY.”
Some men of thirty would have instantly understood Lady Seveley's letter. But age gives us nothing we do not already possess, the years develop what is latent in us in youth, and it is certain that Frank at thirty would have understood the letter as vaguely and incompletely as he did to-day. We read our sympathies and antipathies in all we look upon, and Frank read in this letter an old woman with diamonds and dyed hair. He had met her twice. The first time was at a ball where he knew nobody; the second was at a dinner party. She had fixed her eyes upon him; she had prevented him from talking after dinner to a young girl whom he had admired across the table during dinner. He did not like her, and he thought now of the young girls he would meet if he accepted her invitation. Lady Seveley was a shadow; and when the shadow defined itself he saw the slight wrinkling of the skin about the eyes, the almost imperceptible looseness of the flesh about the chin; but, worse to him than these physical changes, were the hard measured phrases in which there is knowledge of the savour and worth of life. He unpacked his portmanteau, and, dallying with his resolutions, he wondered if he should go to Lady Seveley's: conclusions and determinations were constitutionally abhorrent, self-deception natural to him. Were he asked if he intended to turn to the right or the left, although he were going nowhere and an answer would compromise him in nothing, he would certainly say he did not know; and if he were expostulated with, he would reply rudely, arrogantly. This is worthy of notice, for what was special in his character was the combination it afforded of degenerate weakness and pride, complicated with a towering sense of self-sufficiency. Youth's illusions would not pass from him easily; in his eyes and heart the hawthorn would always be in bloom, young girls would always be beautiful, innocent, true to the lovers they had selected; nor was there of necessity degradation nor forced continuance in any state of vice. Love could raise and purify, love could restore, love could make whole; if one woman were faithless, another would be constant; if to-day were dark, to-morrow would be bright. Life had no deep truth for him, no underlying mysteries; it was not a problem capable of demonstration, capable of definition; it was not a thing of limitations and goals and ends; he could feel nothing of this—the philosophic temperament was absent in him. Life had no deep truth for him, no underlying mysteries; he did not dream of past times, and he placed few hopes in the future; life was a thing to be enjoyed in the moment of living, and the present moment was a very pleasant one. He leaned over the doors of the hansom resting his gloved hand upon his crutched stick. He was struck with the pride we feel when we are dressed for amusement and contemplate those in workaday garb; and in these sensations of pride he leaned forward, proud of his good looks, his shirt front, his shirt cuffs, his glazed shoes; he pleasured in the knowledge that many saw he was going to elegant company, to amusement. He was full of scorn for the women loitering, for the clerks hurrying, and especially for the crowds pressing about the entrances of the theatres.
London opened up upon a little black space of asphalt; crimson clouds moved over the many windowed walls of the great hotels, the black monumented square foamed with white water, children played, and the gold of the inscriptions over the shops caught the eye. London was tall on the heavens. Regent Street was full of young men as elegant as himself driving to various pleasures, and Frank wondered what sort of dinners they would eat, what kind of women they would sit by. Then as he drove through Mayfair he thought of his own party. He wondered what the girls would think of him.
Lady Seveley lived in Green Street. When he had rung the bell he listened impatiently for approaching steps, for he tingled with presentiment that he would somehow be disappointed, and he dreaded dinner by himself and his lonely lodgings. Nor was he wholly wrong. The butler who opened the door seemed surprised at seeing him, and in reply to his question if Lady Seveley was at home, replied hesitatingly:
“Her ladyship is at home, but she is not at all well, sir. She is, I think, in her room lying down, sir.”
“Oh, but did she not expect me? I was to have dined here to-night.”
“I heard nothing about it, sir; but I'd better ask. Will you come in, sir?”
Lady Seveley's house was a house of scent and soft carpets. The staircase was covered with pink silk, and in the recess on the first landing, or rather where the stairs paused, there was an aviary in which either hawks screeched or owls blinked; generally there was a magpie there, and the quaint bird now hopped to Frank's finger, casting a thievish look on his rings. The drawing-room was full of flowers. There was a grand piano, dark and bright; the skins of tigers Lord Seveley had shot carpeted the floor, and on their heads, Helen rested her feet, showing her plump legs to her visitors. On the walls there were indifferent water-colours, there were gold screens, the cabinets were full of china, there were three-volume novels on the tea-table—it was the typical rich widow's house, a house where young men lingered. Frank stood examining a portrait on china of Lady Seveley, it was happily hung with blue ribbon from the top of the mirror. It represented a woman inclined to stoutness, about three and thirty. The chestnut hair was piled and curled with strange art about the head. Above the face there was a mask, roses wreathed, and a swallow carrying a love missive, butterflies and arrows everywhere, and below the face there was a skull profusely wreathed and almost hidden in roses. This portrait would have stirred the imagination of many young men, but Frank thought nothing of it—the theatrical display displeased him, it seemed to him even a little foolish. He crossed over to the flowers.
“Lady Seveley will be down in a moment, sir,” said the maid. A few minutes after the door opened.
“How do you do? I am so glad to see you. Won't you sit down? I have been suffering terribly to-day—neuralgia; nothing for it but to lie down in a dark room.”