Read Ebook: History of the Fifty-Seventh Regiment Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteer Infantry First Brigade First Division Third Corps and Second Brigade Third Division Second Corps Army of the Potomac by Various

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Ebook has 955 lines and 63635 words, and 20 pages

He was shaking hands now with Mrs. Shelley, and Barbara grew rigid with fear. His face turned, and their eyes met; but he passed on to Gaymer without recognizing her. She found herself trembling with relief; and the reaction swept away disappointment and all interest but dislike. Voice and eyes, movements and manner became hateful to her; she longed for an opportunity of upsetting his precarious composure, of pricking his conceit and hurting him. If Margaret Poynter did not put her next to him, she would walk out of the room and go home. . . .

The butler entered to announce that dinner was served, and Lady Poynter, with an unconcentrated "Babs, you haven't met Mr. Lane, have you?" tried to remember her ordering of the table.

"Tell me who 'Babs' is," Eric begged in an undertone, as he and Gaymer prepared to follow the others down to the dining-room.

"Babs Neave? Don't you know her?" Gaymer asked in surprise.

"Oh, by name, of course. I didn't recognize her."

"She's been rather ill, I think."

"I'm so sorry to hear you've not been well," he began timidly. Her expression and the angle at which she was seated convinced him that he had left an unfavourable impression on her, and he half feared a rebuff. "I suppose, like every one else, you've been overworking?"

"You'll find me thoroughly dull," Barbara announced abruptly, with the candour of one who studies her effects and with a brusqueness which discouraged further advances. "The doctor says--oh, Mrs. O'Rane's trying to attract your attention."

Eric felt himself dismissed and, submitting to her hint, looked over the malachite bowls of white roses to the place where Mrs. O'Rane was leaning forward with one elbow on the table and her other hand repressing Gaymer. The cast of the "Divorce" was being slightly changed, and they had thought it worth while to venture a sovereign on the name of one nonentity who was retiring in favour of another. Eric adjudicated in Gaymer's favour and was turning to give Barbara a last chance, when he found that the flood-gates were open and that every one, taking his time from Lady Poynter, was prepared to discuss dramatic art in general and, in particular, the construction and history of his play. Their enquiries were simple-minded; bombarded from four different quarters at once, he took the questions at the volley; then, as they seemed interested, he became more expansive, losing his stammer and straying unconsciously into an unrehearsed lecture. There were occasional objections and challenges; but Lady Poynter silenced them ruthlessly with a "Now, my dear, you mustn't interrupt when Mr. Lane's explaining the whole basis of his art," and he discovered suddenly that he was talking well.

"I've been twice, and some one's taking me to it again to-morrow," continued Mrs. O'Rane, for whom no subject of conversation was complete until she had decorated it with a personal touch.

"Even I've been once," murmured Barbara, rousing reluctantly from the silence which she had maintained since the beginning of dinner: "George Oakleigh insisted on taking me. It seems to be having a great success, Mr. Lane."

Eric smiled a little self-consciously; but her deliberate avoidance of enthusiasm chilled him after Lady Poynter's extravagant appreciation.

"No one here seems to have escaped it," he said.

"I kept thinking how clever of you it was to write it," she went on, half to herself.

Such criticism led to nothing but a second self-conscious smile; and, knowing her reputation, he had expected something more stimulating.

"Was it a good house?" he asked.

"Very full, if that's what you mean." She looked past him and lowered her voice. "It was full of Lady Poynters," she went on. "Rows and rows of them. They took it conscientiously, they laughed at the jokes, they missed nothing, even the obvious things; and, if I went next week, I should find them all there again--or other people exactly like them. It was a wonderful--" she hesitated and looked at him long enough to see that he was perplexed, if not annoyed--"experience."

"I hope you don't regret going?"

"I don't expect it would. Life is not measured by days, but by sensations. . . ."

"Those you experience or those you create?" Eric interrupted.

Barbara turned away and nodded to herself.

"They sometimes prevent accidental poisoning."

"I followed the despised calling of a journalist."

"Ah!"

She nodded and began eating her quail without explaining herself further. Eric was nettled by her tone, for she was taking pains to let him see that she had not liked his play, perhaps even that she despised him for writing it. He half turned to Lady Poynter, but she was deep in conversation with her nephew. For a time he, too, concentrated his attention on the quail; but every one else was talking, and, though Barbara's challenge was too pert to be taken seriously, he felt that half-praise from her was more valuable than the adulation of women like Mrs. Shelley who were content to worship success for its own sake.

"What was the precise meaning of the 'Ah!'?" he enquired lazily.

"'Meaning'; not 'precise meaning.' You surely don't want me to see that you're rather losing your temper and trying to cover it up by being dignified. You've been so careful with your effects, too! . . . I said 'Ah,' because you'd given me the clue I was looking for. You were a very clever journalist, I should think."

"Isn't that rash on half an hour's acquaintance?"

"You're forgetting your play--for the first time since it was produced! I felt that, however bad it was as a play, it was first-rate journalism. I've told you that I kept thinking how clever of you it was to write it. You mustn't think I didn't enjoy myself. The construction's quite tolerable, and the dialogue's admirable--not a word too much, not a syllable put in for 'cleverness,' no epigrams for epigrams' sake. And you've got a good sense of the theatre."

"I was a dramatic critic for some years. Hence my good press."

"I will endeavour to do so, Lady Barbara."

Barbara seemed to have talked away her listlessness. The champagne had brought colour into her cheeks and eyes. Eric looked at her with new interest, waiting for the next abrupt change.

"I'm not finding you as thoroughly dull as you warned me to expect," he observed, borrowing her candour of speech.

"I didn't think I should be spared that," he murmured.

"Poses?"

"Oh, my dear child, you've postured and advertised yourself till every one's sick of you! A good press--I should think you had! You're never out of it! An announcement that you've left London--and the intolerable effrontery of telling us all about it! The only way you could escape from your mob of adorers."

His voice had grown a little stiff. Barbara smiled to herself and discovered suddenly that the desire to hurt him was dead.

"When's the new play coming out?" she asked.

"In the middle of next month."

"You can't make it later?"

"Are you afraid you won't be able to attend the first night?" he laughed.

Her pupils had dilated until the irises were swamped in black. The early warm flush had shrunk and intensified into two vivid splashes of colour over her cheek-bones. Neurotic, Eric decided; but arresting and magnetic.

"And what do you propose to teach me?" he enquired.

As he spoke, he was conscious of a lull in the conversation. Without looking round, he knew that every one was watching them and that both their voices had risen a tone.

Eric turned to Lady Poynter.

"I have a new play coming out next month," he explained, "and Lady Barbara wants me to hang it up till she's taught me--did you say 'life'?"

There was a gasp of orotund protest from Lady Poynter.

Eric took a cigarette and lighted one for Barbara.

"I thought I knew a lot about life when I was twenty-two," he said, studiedly reflective. "I'd just come down from Oxford."

Her attention seemed to have wandered to her cigarette, for she drew hard at it and then asked for another match.

"Which was your college?" she enquired with neurotic suddenness of transition.

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