The soirée of the Ancient Artists' Guild was in the full flow of its success. There had been some excellent music, and the programme promised more. The brilliancy of the attendance was equal to the highest hopes of the most ambitious committee. Long hair and strange dresses vouched for the presence of self-conscious intellect; small receding foreheads, hopeless mouths, and fair but painted faces, announced the presence of that shade of aristocracy which prefers to patronize.
William Hicks was not on the committee of the Ancient Artists, but he moved about from group to group, dispensed ices, and exchanged artistic jargon with a greater grace than was at the command of that entire august body. By some subtle means, peculiarly his own, he managed to convey to many the erroneous idea that he was in some indefinite way connected with the obvious success of this soirée; and several stout ladies went so far as to thank him, later on, for a pleasant evening, which gratitude he graciously and deprecatingly disowned in such a way as to make it appear his due. The pleasant evening had been in most cases spent between a nervous concern as to the effect produced by personal and filial adornment, and an ill-disguised contempt for common women who flaunt titles and diamonds (both uncoveted) in the faces of their superiors, possessing neither. But we men cannot be expected to understand those things.
Chiefly was William Hicks' devotion laid at Brenda's feet. For her was reserved his sweetest smile, just tempered with that suggestion of poetic pathos which he knew well how to sprinkle over his mirth. To her ear was retailed the very latest witticism, culled from the brain of some other man, and skilfully reproduced, not as a cutting, but as a modest seedling. To her side he returned most often, and over her chair stooped most markedly.
It has been hinted already that Hicks, with all his talents and mental gifts, was not an observant man. In certain small diplomacies of social life he was no match for the quiet-faced girl whom he was pleased to honour this evening with his conspicuous attention.
She was miserably anxious, but she hid it from him; and he talked on, quite ignorant of the fact that she was in no manner heeding his words. Her quick, acquired smile was ready enough; when an answer was required, she was equal to the occasion. Ah! these social agonies! There is a sort of pride in enduring them with cheerful stoicism.
'I am glad,' murmured Hicks, with a deprecating smile, 'that my mother succeeded in dragging you here. It is a sort of intellectual treat for me. We painters are so incurably shoppy in our talk, that it is really a relief to have you at my mercy—so to speak. This is a success, is it not? There are a great many celebrities in the room.'
'Indeed?'
'Yes; and I always feel a slight difference in the atmosphere when there is someone present with a name one likes to hear.'
He looked round the room with glistening eye and delicate nostrils slightly distended, as if sniffing his native atmosphere of Fame.
'One can generally recognise a celebrated man or woman, I think,' he continued. 'There is an indefinite feeling of power—a strength of individuality which seems to hover round them like an invisible halo.'