Then Dominic Iglesias perceived that he had ceased to be sole occupant of the bench. A dog, a tiny toy spaniel, sat beside him. It sidled very close, gazing at him with foolishly prominent eyes. Its ears, black edged with tan, soft and lustrous as floss silk, hung down in long lappets on either side its minute and melancholy face. The tip of its red tongue just showed. It was abnormally self-conscious and solemn. It planted one fringed paw upon Iglesias' arm and it snored.
"Cappadocia!—well, of all the cheeky young beggars——"
This time the voice broke in unmistakable merriment, wholly spontaneous, as of relief, even of mischievous triumph; and Mr. Iglesias, looking up, found himself confronted by a young woman. She advanced slowly, her trailing string-coloured lace skirts gathered up lazily in one hand. About her shoulders she wore a long blue-purple silk scarf, embroidered with dragons of peacock, and scarlet, and gold. These rather violent colours found repetition in the nasturtium leaves and flowers that crowned her lace hat, the wide brim of which was tied down with narrow strings of purple velvet, gipsy fashion, beneath her chin. Under her arm she carried another tiny spaniel, the creature's black morsel of a head peeping out quaintly from among the forms of the embroidered dragons, which last appeared to writhe, as in the heat of deadly conflict, as their wearer moved. Her face was in shadow owing to the breadth of the brim of her hat. Otherwise the sunshine embraced her whole figure, conferring on it a glittering yet singularly unsubstantial effect, as though a column of pale windswept dust were overlaid, here and there, with splendour of rich enamel.
And it was just this effect of something unsubstantial, in a way fictitious and out of relation to sober fact, which struck Dominic Iglesias, robbing him for the moment of his dignified courtesy. Frankly he stared at this appearance, so strangely at variance with the realities of his own melancholy thought. Meanwhile the little dog snuggled up yet closer against him.
"Yes—pray don't disturb yourself," the young lady went on volubly "It's too bad, I know, to intrude on you like this. But as Cappadocia refuses to come to me, it is clear I have to come after Cappadocia. It's simply disgraceful the way she carries on when one takes her out, making acquaintances like this, casually, all over the place. The maids flatly refuse to air her, even on a string. They say it becomes a little too compromising. But, as I explain to them, she's not a bit the modern woman. She belongs to a stage of social development when pretty people infinitely preferred being compromised to being squelched." The speaker laughed again quietly. "I'm not altogether sure they weren't right. When you are squelched, finished, done for, it matters precious little whether you've been compromised first or not. Don't you agree? Any way, Cappadocia's not going to be squelched if she can help it. She's horribly scared, or pretends to be, at motors. Let one toot and she forgets all her fine-lady manners, and just skips to anybody for protection. She'll take refuge in the most unconventional places to escape."
The part of wisdom, in face of this very forthcoming young person, would have been no doubt to arise and withdraw. But to Dominic Iglesias, just then, dogs, woman, conversation, were alike so remote and unreal, part merely of the scene which he had been contemplating, that he failed to take them seriously. Divorced from routine, he was divorced, in a way, from habitual modes of mind and conduct. He neither consented nor refused, but just let things happen, attaching little or no meaning to them. If this feminine being chose to prattle—well, let her do so. Really he did not care.
"I am not very modern myself," he said, with a shade of weariness. "So perhaps your small dog had some intuition of a kindred spirit when taking refuge with me."
"All the same, you hardly date from the social era of Charles II., I fancy," the young lady answered quickly.
As she spoke she raised her chin with a slightly impudent movement, thus bringing her countenance into the sunlight. For the first time Iglesias clearly saw her face. It was small, the features insignificant, the skin smooth and fine in texture, but sallow. Her hair, black and very massive, was puffed out and dressed low, hiding her ears. Her lips were rather positively red, and the tinge of colour on either cheek, though slight, was not wholly convincing in tone. Even to a person of Mr. Iglesias' praiseworthy limitation of experience in such matters, her face was vaguely suggestive of the footlights—would have been distinctly so but for her eyes. These were curiously at variance with the rest of her appearance. They belonged to a quite other order of woman, so to speak—a woman of finer physique, of higher intelligence, possibly of nobler purposes. They were arrestingly large in size, thereby helping to dwarf the proportions of her face. In colour they were a rather light warm hazel, with a slight film over both iris and pupil, and a noticeably bluish shade in the whites of them. In these last particulars they were like a baby's eyes; but very unlike in the reflective intensity of their observation as she fixed them upon Dominic Iglesias.
"Cappadocia may be a fool about motors," she remarked, "but she's uncommonly shrewd in reading character. She seems to like you, to have taken you on, don't you know; and she's generally right. So I'll sit down, please. Oh! no, no, come along now"—this as Mr. Iglesias rose and made a movement to depart—"why, dear man, the very point of the whole show is that you should sit down, too."