IX
THEY got back to the city barely in time to dress for dinner. Basil dressed in twenty minutes, and then came into Teresa's room, handsome and smart, with his hat and coat on, and his watch in his hand. She was doing her hair; and it did not suit her, and had to be done over again.
"We ought to start in eight minutes," said Basil.
"All right. Go away now, that's a good boy, and don't bother," said Teresa easily.
Ten minutes passed and he returned. Teresa had just finished doing her hair. This time it suited her.
"Time to start," said Basil with a shade of vexation.
"Do go away! I'll be ready in three minutes, if you leave me alone," said Teresa sharply. "There's no use in being so beastly prompt. Nobody is."
"You know I hate being late," said Basil shortly, and went out.
Teresa had a new dress, blue and silver, which she had not even tried on. The belt was too loose, and had to be taken in hastily, and the tulle about the décolletage had to be adjusted. She rang for Mary to hook the dress, and Basil came and glowered in the doorway.
"You do fidget me so," snapped Teresa.
"Well, why in thunder can't you get ready, on time? You drive me wild!"
"That's right—spoil my evening."
"You spoil mine. I hate to go out with you." Teresa did not reply, but surveyed herself in the mirror. The perception that she was looking extremely well helped to calm her. She put on her gloves deliberately, slipped into her loose white coat, and swept out past Basil, who was blocking up the narrow hall. A cab was waiting for them below, and Teresa half expected that Basil would say something about extravagance; they had had cabs three times this week. But he sat silent in his corner, and she in hers, watching the street lights spin past. The Blackleys lived uptown, and they had a drive of twenty minutes, and they were twenty minutes late. The other guests were assembled in the drawing-room of the tiny house, squeezed in between two taller houses, which Alice Blackley had decorated according to her own æsthetic ideas, and entirely without regard to her husband's. One of Alice's present fads was a sparing allowance of light. The drawing-room was lit only by the fire and a few scattered candles. In the gloom Teresa could hardly make out who were the other people. Alice received her coldly. She was a tall, blonde woman, with a very pretty figure, and large, deer-like, rather vacant eyes. Dinner was instantly announced by the Japanese butler. Teresa was taken in by a man she liked—a young architect with a passion for philosophy.
She sat at the left of the host, a man of middle age, who liked to be jolly, but was usually handicapped. Opposite her was a woman of fifty, with the hard face of the society hack, a high collar of pearls and diamonds, a very low-cut gown, and an air of not knowing exactly where she found herself. Alice had this lady's husband at her right, and Basil at her left. Basil had taken in Mary Addams. Then there were two extra men, for Alice believed in a preponderance of the male element. The one opposite, next Mary Addams, Teresa knew she had seen somewhere; she gave him a bow and smile, and then recollected him—he was the Englishman whom Basil had brought home to that unlucky dinner. On her own side of the table, beyond Page, the architect, she caught a glimpse of an individual in an unstarched shirt-front and a large tie.
Talk burst out at once. The dining-room was gloomy—all done in peacock-blue, with no lights except those on the table, and two or three dull silver electric globes in the ceiling.
"It's Alice's idea of a summer night," murmured Page to Teresa. "Tell me what's the idea of that dress she's got on."
It was a dress of black velvet, and over it Alice wore a robe of Chinese embroidery of gold and purple.
"That dress means," said Teresa in the same tone, "that this is an artistic dinner. It is not a formal dinner, nor a commonplace society affair, but a gathering of intellectual people. You and I and Basil are artistic, you know, Mary Addams has written poems, and I imagine this has been got up to amuse the guests of honour, for certainly they are not artistic. As for the other two, you must tell me who they are."
"Alice said there was to be an African lion, and I imagine that's he, over there. He doesn't look very fierce, does he?"
"I wish I knew his name. Basil brought him to dinner unexpectedly one day last week. There was nothing to eat, and my aunt talked Woman Suffrage to us. I hoped I should never see him again, but I can see from his look that he remembers that steak. Basil said he was something in the East. Perhaps that accounts for his curious colour. Where did Alice find him?"
"I don't know. She picks up all sorts of people abroad. Have you noticed this person on my left?"
"Vaguely. From the coast of Bohemia?"
"Yes, shipwrecked. A starving genius whom Alice has rescued. He writes prose poems, and recites them to music of his own, and he has written a whole series of dances for Alice. You'll see if we don't catch it after dinner!"
"And she is introducing him to the Kerrs! Now you see why we're here."
"I forgive him for existing. I pardon him for sitting next to me. I remit to him even the sins he's going to commit after dinner. I haven't seen you for months."
"No, you're too busy building neo-Renaissance houses for the newly rich. How's Alice's villa getting on?"
"Hush! She wants a waterfall in the middle of it."
"Well, you must get her one. I can't see why you should deny her a trifle like that."
At this point, Mrs. Kerr having found something to say to the Englishman, Mr. Blackley turned to Teresa.
"Well, how is Art?" he enquired.
"You ought to know. You live in the very hot-bed of it," said Teresa. "You raise it under glass."
He cast a glance about the room, and lowered his voice, taking Page into the talk by a look.
"Say, honestly, how d'ye like the house? I call it fierce—simply fierce. Of course, you know it's her house—a woman ought to have her house as she likes it, for a man can always get out of it, you see. But, confound it, it does give me the blues. To go prowling round in this kind of a dim, religious light, breaking your shins against chairs and marble statues and things—and eating your food in a sort of Gotterdämmmerung—that word expresses my feelings—why, you might as well be at a table-d'hôte, for all you know what you're eating. And then, there ain't a comfortable chair in the place—except on my floor. I say, you two come up there after dinner, and I'll show you what's my idea of a room. I had to fight for that floor, too, I can tell you! Alice wanted to hang my bed-room with sea-green brocade and marquetry furniture. You can easily slip out, you know, for the drawing-room'll be pitch dark, except a circle of light where the fellow recites, and perhaps we could get Basil and Mary, too."
"I like that! Do you think you could steal away the audience and Alice not notice? Besides, I want to hear this wonderful person." "Oh, no, you don't! Really, you don't. D'you know why all the lights are turned out when he recites? Because he's so terribly indecent that people are ashamed to look each other in the face. He says it's because genius won't flow if he has to look at his audience, but I know better. I go away when he begins—I can't stand him, 'pon my word. I'm a modest man. I say, hang Art if it's got to be mixed up with indecency. What's your opinion, Teresa?"
"You are perfectly right. I shall put proper clothes on all the figures on that punch-bowl I'm making for you."
"Oh, I say! You know I don't mean that sort of thing! I'm not a prig. But—well, you wait till you hear him."
Teresa thought that the poet must certainly have heard some of these remarks, but he seemed absorbed in explaining to Alice and to Mr. Kerr, a gentleman of uncertain age and inexpressive countenance, something which required a great many gestures of unmanicured hands. She saw that Basil was having a good time with Mary Addams; he was laughing a good deal, drinking a good deal of excellent Burgundy; his eyes had the attentive and warm look called out by any woman he liked. There was more life and vigour in his handsome head than in all the others combined. Beside him Horace Blackley looked fat and commonplace, Page looked conventional, Mr. Kerr pallid and used, the poet greasy and theatrical, and the Englishman looked like a grave phantom—a phantom of distinction. Teresa could hardly believe that he was not an Eastern—she could imagine him with the white burnoose, the hood over his head, a typical Arab. She said as much to Page.
"Ah, you're right—I believe there is a drop of black blood somewhere in him—Egyptian or something—and part of his success is due to the fact that he can pass as a native among the Arabs—like Burton, you know. He's governor of some district down in the desert. Good-looking chap."
"Tell me his name," said Teresa.
"Crayven—that's all I know of it."
Teresa judged his age to be about thirty-five, though in expression he looked older—looked, in fact, any age. His face, with all the fineness and delicacy of its lines, was strong. His fore- head and eyes showed intellectual force ; his eyes were frank and simple, it seemed to Teresa, on this second view, and his mouth gentle. He interested Teresa, partly because of the extreme quiet and repose of his manner. Whether he was talking to Mrs. Kerr or to Mary Addams, whom he seemed to find attractive, or listening, which he seemed to prefer, he suggested somehow a world different from this. Teresa's imagination was stirred by the few facts she had heard about him. A simpler, a less nervous life, more primitive and harsher externals, more space and freedom, might be his proper setting. She fancied she saw in his face, in spite of its gentleness, the habit of command. His grey-brown colour and the lines about his eyes made her think of the glare of sun on the desert.
Dinner was nearly over when for the first time the conversation became more general. Basil, Mary Addams, Page, and the poet discussed the origin of Art. The poet maintained with vigour that all that was good in nature was due directly to art, that art came out of the vague, a creative force, and lifted nature from mere bestiality into the light of civilisation. Basil maintained the superior interest of nature and the imitative character of art, and the other two followed his lead. Soon the discussion ascended to metaphysical heights, and dealt with the philosophy of æsthetics. Mary dropped out, with a tolerant smile. Alice threw in a vague, irrelevant question now and then, and looked pleased; this was something really intellectual. Mrs. Kerr listened, and blinked with a faintly astonished air; Mr. Kerr and the host devoted themselves to game and currant jelly. The poet showed unexpected ability in dialectic; Basil and Page, who considered themselves philosophers, forgot the rest of the company. Crayven was silent, and turned his champagne-glass round and round with an abstracted look; he did not drink the champagne.
Teresa, rather tired of being talked across by Page and the poet, was studying Crayven's grave face, when, for the third time that evening, he interrupted her scrutiny by meeting it suddenly, with eyes in which now lurked a smile of irony and amusement. She smiled, too, and felt with interest that philosophy probably bored him as much as it did her. He was a man of action. Nearly all the men she knew were men of talk.
She felt irritated with Alice when the men were left in the dining-room and the women rustled up stairs together; she saw no present reason for this arrangement. Dress was the topic of discussion, and over their coffee and cigarettes Mrs. Kerr and Alice talked eagerly about a new dressmaker, one of their acquaintances turned to business, who was more expensive than anything in Paris, and promised to be the rage. For the first time that evening a real interest lighted Alice's large eyes; she looked, as she rapturously described a toilette of purple velvet, almost like a sentient being. Teresa and Mary Addams exchanged an expressive glance, and Teresa was about to move her chair nearer to Mary's, with a view to escaping further boredom, when Crayven walked into the room alone.
"Will you send me back, please, if you don't want me?" he said to Alice with a deprecating smile.
"Of course, we want you—we're highly flattered," she assured him graciously, but looking a little put out.
He sat down by Teresa, and offered her a cigarette from his own case. Alice gave him a cup of coffee.
"Your own, and made according to directions," she said.
He tasted it, smiled, shook his head, and put it down.
"It tastes like the ordinary bean of commerce," he said. "You won't taste real coffee till you come to Arabia."
"I shall come next year," Alice assured him. "It will be the most amusing thing I ever did. Four days on a camel, straight into the desert—and an old fort to live in, with a powder-magazine under the drawing-room!"
"We don't call it a drawing-room," said Crayven gravely. "And you won't be able to bring many boxes, you know."
"I shall come with one saddlebag, and then I shall dress like a native woman while I'm there," said Alice with interest.
"Voici que devant lui s'arreta une femme enveloppée de son ample voile en étoffe de Moussoul, en soie parsemée de paillettes d'or et doublées de brocart. Elle souleva un peu son petit voile de visage, et, d'en dessous, alors, apparurent des yeux noirs avec de longs cils et quelles paupières!" murmured Teresa.
"Ah, what's that?" asked Crayven, looking at her intently.
"The Thousand and One Nights."
"Ah, yes, I remember Burton. But those are town Arabs, you know—a very different thing from the Bedouins. You won't find any veils of brocade in my part of the desert!"
"There are some Bedouin stories, too—some of the time of the Prophet."
"I'd forgotten that. I'd like to see those—must look it up again."
He addressed himself particularly to Teresa, and now, smoking silently, seemed to expect her to say something more. "Did you enjoy your play the other night? " she asked idly.
"Oh—no. I hate the theatre. I didn't come to America to go to the theatre."
"What did you come for, then?" she enquired.
"I came for some big game shooting. I'm going on to the Rocky Mountains next Wednesday. I've got two months clear to spend in the open."
"But don't you live in the open—down there?" Teresa's ideas of Eastern geography were vague.
"It's rather a different thing! … When I get out of the desert I like to change—though I always want to get back there. I make for the mountains when I do go away."
"And you've wasted ten whole days or more in New York!"
"Yes—rather wasted. … May I come and see you before I go—say to-morrow afternoon?"
She nodded, with some amusement. In a few moments the other men came in—Page and Basil last, with their arms on one another's shoulders, and still mumbling the remnants of their argument. But now it was the poet's hour. The candles were collected about the piano; and while the audience sat in darkness, the poet, throwing back his head in the attitude of Beata Beatrix, received what light there was on his pale countenance and half-closed eyes; and, touching the keys lightly, he chanted a mysterious poem on Slumber. Horace Blackley had slipped out when the piano began; and through the curtains lie beckoned appealingly to Teresa and to Page, who sat near her. But he was obliged to stay alone. Teresa became slightly interested in the poem. It was indecent, but it was not commonplace. When its last sigh had died away, without waiting for comment, the poet struck several far-reaching chords, and glanced at Alice. She rose and came forward to the edge of the circle of candle-light. The poet played some unheard-of music, and Alice danced, or rather posed, lifting and swaying her arms, which emerged bare from the falling sleeves of the gold robe. The purpose of the robe now became apparent. Her face in shadow was barely seen, and it was at all times her least interesting point; but her beautiful figure, straight and lithe of line, expressed itself marvellously under the shimmer of the embroidery. The spectators were one and all intent. Teresa glanced round, and saw eyes gleaming with sudden wakefulness. Even Mr. Kerr was awake. Page leaned forward.
"By Jove, you know, they really have struck something—they really have!" he whispered, his gaze on the swaying figure. Crayven said nothing, but she thought she saw a faint smile on his lips. Basil sat nearest to the dancer; his face was more lit up. It was animated by the wine he had drunk, by energetic talk; and now by a decided feeling for the plastic figure before him. Teresa watched him, forgetting the others.