“It's odd, then, that I have n't met you about before,” said the girl, giving him a more scrutinising glance than she had hitherto troubled to bestow upon him. A second afterwards she felt that her remark might have been in the nature of an indiscretion, for her companion had not at all the air of a man moving in the smart world to which she belonged. His dress-suit was old and of lamentable cut; his shirt-cuffs were frayed; a little bone stud, threatening every moment to slip the button-hole, precariously secured his shirt-front. His thin, iron-grey hair was untidy; his moustache was ragged, innocent of wax or tongs or any of the adventitious aids to masculine adornment. His aspect gave the impression, if not of poverty, at least of narrow means and humble ways of life. Although he had sat next her at dinner, she had paid little attention to him, finding easier entertainment in her conversation with King on topics of common interest, than in possible argument with a strange man whom she heard discussing the functions of art and other such head-splitting matters with his right-hand neighbour. Indeed, her question about Ranelagh when she found him by her side, later, in the drawing-room was practically the first she had addressed to him with any show of interest.
She hastened to repair her maladroit observation by adding before he could reply,—
“That is rather an imbecile thing to say considering the millions of people in London. But one is apt to talk in an imbecile manner after a twelve hours' day of hard racket in the season. Don't you think so? One's stock of ideas gets used up, like the air at the end of a dance.”
“Not if you keep your soul properly ventilated,” he answered.
The words were, perhaps, not so arresting as the manner in which they were uttered. Norma Hardacre was startled. A little shutter in the back of her mind seemed to have flashed open for an elusive second, and revealed a prospect wide, generous, alive with free-blowing airs. Then all was dark again before she could realise the vision. She was disconcerted, and in a much more feminine way than was habitual with her she glanced at him again. This time she lost sight of the poor, untidy garments, and found a sudden interest in the man's kind, careworn face, and his eyes, wonderfully blue and bright, set far apart in the head, that seemed to look out on the world with a man's courage and a child's confidence. She was uncomfortably conscious of being in contact with a personality widely different from that of her usual masculine associates. This her training and habit of mind caused her to resent; despising the faint spiritual shock, she took refuge in flippancy.
“I fear our Tobin tubes get choked up in London,” she said with a little laugh. “Even if they did n't they are wretched things, which create draughts; so anyway our souls are free from chills. Look at that woman over there talking to Captain Orton—every one knows he's paymaster-general. A breath of fresh air in Mrs. Chance's soul would give it rheumatic fever.”
The abominable slander falling cynically from young lips brought a look of disapproval into Jimmie Padgate's eyes.
“Why do you say such things?” he asked. “You know you don't believe them.”
“I do believe them,” she replied defiantly. “Why shouldn't one believe the bad things one hears of one's neighbours? It's a vastly more entertaining faith than belief in their virtues. Virtue—being its own reward—is deadly stale to one's friends and unprofitable to oneself.”
“Cynicism seems cheap to-day,” said Jimmie, with a smile that redeemed his words from impertinence. “Won't you give me something of yourself a little more worth having?”