And Shelmerdene’s eyes softly followed the figure among the tall tulips, while young Raymond Paris murmured: “You see, what editors want is a story with some sort of point....”
II: WHEN THE NIGHTINGALE SANG IN BERKELEY SQUARE
THERE is a tale that is told in London about a nightingale, how it did this and that and, finally, for no apparent reason, rested and sang in Berkeley Square. A well-known poet, critic, and commentator heard it, and it is further alleged that he was sober. Some men, of course, now say that it was not a nightingale at all, but only the South wind singing in the trees of the square, but it is a fact that some men will say anything. And some men have formed a Saint James’s Square school of thought, but it was in Berkeley Square that the poet, critic, and commentator, who was sober, distinctly heard the song of the nightingale, on a night in the heart of the drought of the year 1921.
In the drawing-room of a house midway on the entailed side of the square sat a lady and a gentleman silently. Or rather, the lady lay, while the gentleman sat, and the sofa on which she lay was far from the arm-chair in which he sat. The room was spacious; four shaded candles in tall candlesticks of ancient brass gave calm colour to its dimness; and four open windows, from which the curtains were withdrawn in slack folds of shining silver, gave out to the leaves of the trees, which murmured among themselves just a little.
At last the gentleman roused himself from the gloom of his chair in the recess of the room, and threw back his head and stretched his arms so that little things cracked behind his shoulders. But the lady did not stir nor look round at him, she lay still on the sofa by the windows, her head deep in the hollow of a crimson cushion, her eyes thoughtfully on the ceiling, which was high enough to refuse itself to exact scrutiny in the affected light of four candles.
The gentleman drew a cigar-case from his breast pocket, and a cigar from the case. He bit the cigar, and then he moved, to deposit what he had bitten from the tip of his finger into an ash-tray. Then he lit his cigar, thoughtfully, and he said: “Hell, it’s hot!”
“Perhaps, dear, it’s a rehearsal for same,” said the lady.
“I shouldn’t wonder,” he said, and stood with his back to the great Adam fireplace, and smoked his cigar. He was of medium-height, weathered looking, and broadly set: getting a little stout lately, and his fair hair thinning at the top. A commonplace face, you might call it, but the nose was good: straight, short and sensitive, very English. This was Ralph Loyalty, whose aunt, the late “John Loyalty,” had delighted our fathers with her books, which were of the sentimental-sophisticated sort and have now dated a good deal. Ralph Loyalty was more than usually happy in his aunt, for she had left him a fortune, a famous name, but, people said, only the more solid side of her good sense. He was a man who liked the company of men; his recreations were golf, joining clubs, auction-bridge, and dining with his wife; he enjoyed George Robey, and he admired other people’s brains. Some people thought him rather solid and unimaginative—“estimable qualities,” they said, “but rather heavy on the hand.” But, as “Ralph” in half a dozen clubs meant Ralph Loyalty, other people said that popularity was his form of genius, and they were probably right. He was said to be in love with his wife. He tolerated rakes, cads, and co-respondents among his acquaintance, but he never understood them. Effeminate men he laughed at rather shyly, and left it at that. He had no enemies, but most of his wife’s friends disliked him. They would have been surprised to see him at this moment, so miserable he looked, but they would not have been surprised at his wife’s attitude on the sofa, for naturally she was bored to death with the man. His wife’s friends had long since despaired of Ralph Loyalty ever seeing that his wife was bored to death with him, and that is why they would have been surprised to see him now, for it was obviously because he had realised that this evening, at last, that he looked so miserable.
“Well ...” began Ralph Loyalty suddenly, and then very deliberately knocked the ash of his cigar into the fireplace, which was unlike him with an ash-tray at hand, for he was an orderly man. And then he said a wicked word and banged out of the room. The candles flickered madly in the sudden draught.
But it was as though Mrs. Loyalty did not hear the crash of the door, she did not stir. She did not sigh, nor did she instantly light a match for the cigarette which had lain for many minutes forgotten near her hand.