“I’ll have some brandy,” whispered Tarlyon.
XI: SALUTE THE CAVALIER
I
THE Felix Waites, as every one knows, are the most exclusive people in Hampstead. And since the war, with its attendant new people, the family have become so aristocratic that they can scarcely speak, for Mrs. Felix Waite says that every one talks too much nowadays. The Felix Waites are understood to spend most of their time in the country, where they entertain only very small parties. There was a time when they spent anxious moments about their only son, Thomas, but all that is over now. Once upon a time young Thomas did the superman on them about a chorus-girl, and broke away. Young Thomas had never fancied himself as an aristocrat, and so he did not marry the chorus-girl at once; but he said he would, and in the meanwhile he concentrated on making money. He was understood to be making big money—so big that he could inhabit a suite of rooms at the Ritz for a week, sign the bill in pencil, and get away before the hotel clerks had rubbed the dazzle of his sapphire tie-pin out of their eyes. But one day young Thomas forgot to wear his tie-pin, whereupon he adjourned to Brixton Prison for two days and four hours, which he spent in trying to imagine the expression on his father’s face on hearing of his son’s latest telegraphic address. However, Mr. Felix Waite paid up like a gentleman, as he did everything else like a gentleman. That is the only time a Felix Waite has ever stayed with King George, but they do not mention it. Whether the chorus girl became a footlight-favourite or just faded away was never known. Young Thomas married county.
It occurred to Mrs. Felix Waite during the season of 1922 that she might give a garden-party. There was a something about a garden-party, a certain elegance which, Mrs. Felix Waite thought, was lacking in a ball. Every one, after all, can give a ball. Whereas, except for the King and the Queen, very few can give a garden-party in London, for the central idea of a garden-party is that it be held in a garden, and gardens in London are rarer than the jewels on the Mikado’s brow. Now Mrs. Felix Waite had a spacious garden; and about it the walls were so high that the youth of Hampstead Heath had to stand on each other’s shoulders to catch a glimpse of the garden life of the gentry.
II
The garden-party was a great success. Quite half the people who were asked came, and nearly all the people who weren’t. The fact that it poured with rain from three o’clock onwards might have interfered with the pleasure of the company, had not Mrs. Felix Waite been a woman of invention and, with great presence of mind, held the garden-party in her spacious drawing-rooms; thereby, some have thought, changing the garden-party into an At Home or Afternoon Reception, but that is a matter for argument.
Among those present was Mr. Michael Wagstaffe, the young gentleman with the broken nose who called himself, with perhaps too much pomp, the cavalier of the streets; a list of what other people called him might be of interest, but could have no bearing on this story. It was not a habit with the cavalier of the streets to go to garden-parties, or to parties of any kind, for in London there were not a few people who would have been pleased to meet him just once more. However, on this occasion, he had happened to be passing Mrs. Felix Waite’s house towards six o’clock, and, hearing music and being thirsty, had walked in. Not long after, he walked out. But he had not walked more than a few yards when some one caught his shoulder, and an abrupt voice said:
“Come back, you!”
Mr. Michael Wagstaffe turned round. “I never drink with strangers,” he said proudly.