XXXIII SLOW MAGIC

Lady Bridgminster paid her son a visit next morning while he was still in bed and drinking his tea. He was but half awake and pretended to no enthusiasm. But his mother pushed a chair to the bedside and tapped the coverlet with her long fingers. It was patent that for once in her life she was nervous.

“I must speak, Johnny,” she exclaimed. “And as I have several engagements to-day, this is my only opportunity.”

“Where can you have engagements in London at this time of year?”

“I am lunching with Rosamond, and then we visit a flower show, and afterwards attend a committee meeting—one of her charities—”

“So she is in town?”

“It is no more remarkable that she should come to town in this stifling weather for the sake of doing good than that little American should suddenly discover that she must come up for second-rate concerts. It does not strike you as odd, I suppose?”

“If I for a moment believed that Miss Cutting came up to London in August on my account, I should be flattered to death; but as a matter of fact, she quite snubbed me.”

“Fiddlesticks!”

“But she did. I can assure you I have felt a walking tragedy ever since.”

“She was probably in a bad temper about something.”

“She looked precisely like an angel.”

“Well, no doubt angels have their moods, and she is a spoilt child of fortune. Two millions sterling, and I cannot pay my dressmaker!”

“You wrote me once that an American daughter-in-law would be sure to pay your bills.”

“So would Rosamond. I do not want American dollars.”

“Am I to understand that Rosamond Hayle has also come up to London in August—”

“She does not know that you are back from the north, poor dear. I lured her up, pretending interest in her charity.” She leaned forward and took her son’s hands in the close grasp of her own. “Johnny,” she said intensely, “promise me that you will not marry this Cutting girl—at least that you will not propose to her until you have tried to like Rosamond. That dear English girl has vastly improved. And perhaps I have done wrong to hurry you. There are other girls growing up that will have a good bit of their own. I can think of three. If you will not consider poor Rosamond, at least promise me that you will not fall headlong into the net of these Americans.”

“Of course.”

“Do you forget that I brought you up?” His mother’s voice rose with her indignation. “At least pay me the compliment of frankness. And you will say ‘Of course’ at the altar instead of ‘I will,’ if you are not on your guard.”

“Well, then, I won’t. Eliminate Rosamond Hayle at once and forever. I am not at all sure that I wish to marry Miss Cutting. Before I met her again yesterday I knew that I should be hard driven indeed to make up my mind to marry a chatterbox. Now, although she has astonishingly improved, I do not know that I even like her. But she fascinates and interests me. I shall certainly see more of her. If I can like her well enough, and she will look at me—of which I am by no means sure—I fancy—I don’t know—it may be that I shall marry her. At least she would do me credit and assist me in my career. She is ideally beautiful, uncommonly clever, she has the grand air, and she has millions. You are asking me to marry a woman with less than half her fortune, whom smart Continental women would laugh at. I’d starve before I married a woman I should have to apologize for. No doubt I shall end by worrying along until Bridg drinks himself to death.”

“I don’t believe he is in any immediate danger—with that physique. And I had a remarkably lucid letter from him this morning. He wants me to try to persuade you to assist him in breaking the entail of Ordham—some rich brewer wants to buy it. Of course you will not?”

“I shan’t even discuss the question.”

Lady Bridgminster rose with an impatient jerk of her shoulders. As she stood there in the dim light, so long and narrow, draped, rather than dressed like ordinary women, she looked extraordinarily distinguished and handsome. Ordham’s ?sthetic sense stirred, and he put out his hand and took hers.

“We will pay those bills, somehow,” he said. “I got a thousand from Bridg, and Hines, who has been adding up, finds that I overestimated my indebtedness. I will bring you two hundred this afternoon, and if ever I do marry riches, be sure that you and the boys shall have all you want.”

A dark red tide rose to Lady Bridgminster’s hair. She stooped impulsively and kissed her son. “You are a dear generous boy!” she exclaimed. “And we are all cats! cats! Every one of us.”

And leaving her son puzzled as much by her unusual demonstration as by that cryptic arraignment of her sex, she swept her long draperies out of the room.

Ordham dined that evening in the beautiful house, which, under artificial light, looked more than ever a palace evoked by the stroke of a wand for a fairy princess to dwell in. The princess wore misty robes of white, with green leaves in her hair, her ethereal loveliness rendered almost nebulous by her mother’s substantial gown of black jet, and the five big footmen in dark green plush. The dinner might have been sent over from Bignon’s. Certainly these Americans knew how to spend their money. Their very newness inspired them to aim at effects that never would enter the old indifferent heads of the homogeneous races.

Mabel had almost nothing to say. She made no effort whatever, but Mrs. Cutting, accustomed all her life to lead in conversation, as well as to keep it from flagging, entertained the guest so conscientiously that he hardly had time to feel snubbed by the young beauty. Mrs. Cutting’s talk rarely bored him, for she had a wide range of subjects and never clung too long to any one of them, after the fashion of some Americans, and he at least found time to realize that he could not have stood the same amount of chatter from a miss of one season. Mabel’s new reticence became her, the more particularly as when she did speak it was to the point; and it was more and more apparent that she was not the charming little goose he had thought her in Munich. But he was taken aback, as they left the dining room, to receive a polite good night from the young lady, who floated down the long line of rooms and disappeared.

Mrs. Cutting bit her lip and tapped her fan in manifest annoyance as she led the way to the front drawing-room. “Mabel has a slight headache,” she said apologetically. “She always droops a little in warm weather. She wants to return to the country; but I shall continue to be very frank with you, Mr. Ordham—I am most anxious that you should know one another.”

“It looks as if the less she knows me the better she may like me.” Ordham spoke with some humour; he was piqued but not angry. “However, I shall always be grateful to you for letting me look at her.”

“Ah! You do think my chick a beauty?” There was a little break in Mrs. Cutting’s cultivated voice, but she did not lift her eyes to Ordham’s.

“I have never seen a girl half as beautiful.”

Mrs. Cutting rose and moved about with uncommon restlessness. “Oh, if it could only be!” she cried. “Why not? Why not? I cannot live forever. The few relatives I have live in New York, and Mabel is so thoroughly Europeanized. She must marry. There is no other solution for a dainty helpless creature like that. Some man must take care of her as well as of her fortune. I have set my heart upon it, and I have had very few disappointments in life. I really could not endure the failure of this darling project. And you two should be as mutually attracted as the first man and the first woman. I cannot understand it!”

“I can fancy myself feeling the full force of the attraction if encouraged a bit. But if Miss Cutting will not speak to or look at me—”

“Girls are the eternal enigmas—and the most provoking little beasts that nature ever invented. She was quite mad about you when we left Munich. Now she fancies that no man will ever come up to her ideal—whatever it may be! She has no inordinate social ambitions; titles here and in France have been offered to her. But let us not talk about it. Come and see me. I positively refuse to return to the country and the society of tutors. They can come here. If Mabel droops, she can take a tonic. I could remain in this London I adore, winter and summer, autumn and spring. . . . And who knows? All this indifference, this nonchalance, may be but a ruse to draw you on. No one knows a girl less than her mother. And as to girls in general—there is no end to their nonsense and affectations. Fortunately they outgrow them, or what would become of the race? Do light another cigarette and let us sit on the balcony. I am too old for moonlight and balconies, and shall only inspire you with vain regrets—but never mind. At least it will be pleasant for me, and unselfishness is good for the soul!”