Eliphalet was entirely proficient in the art of love-making. It was part of his equipment as an actor. He knew the moment to fold to his bosom the form of an adored one, and how to brush the hair back from her forehead with just sufficient pressure to elevate the chin to the ideal angle for imprinting a kiss. He knew how to drop his voice to a quality of whispering and passionate vibration. All of these services he most faithfully rendered, with one or two minor improvements suggested by a productive mind. Repetition, however, if pursued beyond a given margin, is apt to weary the soul, and after a while Blanche began to yearn for variety, and to doubt if he were indeed the ideal lover. Certain misgivings also arose in his own mind. At first he was enveloped in the wonder of love new-born, but as time went on he was able to detect certain faults in the poetic composition of his destined bride. For instance, she did not respond very rapidly to the Shakespearian atmosphere he diligently sought to produce by passionately-delivered quotations from Romeo and Juliet. She showed a marked lack of interest in the story of Abélard and Héloise, and a greater enthusiasm at the prospect of a donkey-ride on the New Brighton sands than a lovers’ wander in leafy solitudes. She became sick of holding hands, and more than once told him stories the humour of which would have been better suited to the court of Bluff King Hal.
To a sensitive mind these passages of wit were distasteful, but nevertheless Eliphalet Cardomay remained in love with praiseworthy constancy. He built palaces, masoned and mortared of their united talents, and spoke of the future that should be theirs—a future which would be spoken of in retrospect by posterity. With love and guidance he convinced himself that Blanche would in time come to a fuller understanding of the vast responsibility they jointly held for the furtherance of art. He pictured her as blossoming into a great emotional actress, and to that end tried to dissuade her from over-hilarity in public places, and to attach less importance to such trivial pleasures as ice-creams consumed in small Italian cafés. He spoke of the glory of mutual understanding, reciprocity, and many other long-worded matters, tedious to a person of light-hearted habit.
For her part, Blanche was heartily disappointed that none of the alleged characteristics displayed in the affair of the titled lady had been revealed to her. His behaviour had been of a scrupulous purity, and high-standing little short of ridiculous. It has been said that Blanche was a Bohemian, which implies a taste for the savoury diet. She enjoyed risky friendships—she liked to see the eyes of her lover catch fire and to quell the fire by some cold drench of inconsequent nonsense. That was caviare! There was a relish in such intimacy—but with Eliphalet, and his erotic quotations, there was none. Wherefore, partly to stimulate more vivid emotions, and partly for her own entertainment, she adopted other methods, and in Mr. Harrington May and his natural villainies she found the desired means.
May was a heavily-built man with a hearty laugh and a bullying manner. He bullied his juniors and his lovers alike, and by so doing achieved something of a reputation for manhood. His principle in life was to take his fun where he found it, so, accordingly, when Blanche yearned towards him, he threw an arm around her with a strong man’s zeal.
“Can’t see what you found to amuse you in that young spring poet,” he observed, after the first elaborately-resisted embrace had been achieved.
“Anyway,” returned Blanche, who was a firm believer in tantalising methods, “he scored off you all right.”
Harrington May did not deny the charge, but “I’m scoring off him pretty heavily at the moment,” he said.
When, that night, Eliphalet suggested to Blanche they should take sandwiches and aerated waters and have a picnic in the pleasaunces of Jesmond Dene the following day, she shook her head and declined.
“But my dearest, there will be no rehearsal, and you and I could——”
“I’ve something else to do, I tell you.”