Chapter XVI: _Loves Halcyon_

The next fortnight passed quickly enough in the rapture of daily meetings and kisses still fresh and surprising as those first primroses of spring which few can keep from plucking. There was nobody to interrupt the intimacy; for Irene remained ill, and the rest of the world was as yet unconscious of the affair. Nevertheless, with all these opportunities for a complete understanding, the relation of Maurice and Jenny to one another was still essentially undefined. Their manner of life in that first fortnight of mutual adoration had the exquisite and ephemeral beauty of a daylong flower. It possessed the elusive joy that mayflies have in dancing for a few sunny days above a glittering stream. It had the character of a pleasant dream, where thought is instantly translated into action. It was the opening of a poem by Herrick or Horace before the prescience of transitoriness has marred the exultation with melancholy.

Everything favored a halcyon love. October had come in, windless and very golden. Such universal serenity was bound to preserve for lovers the illusion of permanence that exists so poignantly in fine autumn weather, when the leaves, falling one by one at rare intervals, scarcely express the year's decay. The sly hours stole onward in furtive disguises. Milk-white dawns evaporated in skies of thinnest azure and noons of beaten gold, until in pearl-gray dusks each day met its night delicately. For Maurice and Jenny even the night conjured no wintry thoughts, and when the moon came up round and tawny, floating unsubstantially above the black house-tops, an aged moon lacquered with rust, full of calamities, these lovers were not dismayed; although they were not influenced to quick and fervid enterprises.

No doubt, if they had wandered, treading violets under foot, beneath the silver moons of Spring, there would have been a more rapid encounter of emotions. But the tranquillity of nature affected Maurice particularly. He was like a man who, having endured the grief of long separation, meets his love in joyful security. It was as if with a sigh he folded her to his arms, conscious only of acquiring her presence. He had from the fret of London gained the quiet of high green cliffs and was no longer ambitious of anything save meditation on the beauty spread before his eyes. He had bought the much-desired book, and now was idly turning its leaves, safe in the triumph of possession.

Jenny, too, after her long experience of casual attraction, was glad to surrender herself to the luxury of absent effort; but in her case the feverishness of a child, who dreads any discussion that may rob the perfect hour of a single honeyed moment, made her fling white arms around his neck and hold him for her own against invisible thieves.

There exist in the heart of a London dawn a few minutes when the street lamps have just been extinguished, but before the sun has risen, when the city cannot fail to be beautiful even in its meanest aspects. At such an hour the Bayswater Road has the mystery of a dew-steeped glade; the Strand wears the frail hues of a sea-shell; Regent Street is crystalline. Even Piccadilly Circus stands on the very summit of the world, wind-washed and noble.

To Maurice and Jenny London was always a city seen at dawn; so many dull streets had been enchanted by their meetings, so many corners had been invested with the delight of the loved one's new appearance. But, though they were still imparadised, a certain wistfulness in looks and handclasps showed that they both instinctively felt they would never again tread the pavement so lightly, never again make time a lyric, life a measure.

On the afternoon before Jenny's birthday, she and Maurice had gone to Hampstead, there to discuss the details of a wonderful party that was to celebrate in the studio the lucky occasion. They had wandered arm in arm through the green alleys and orderly byways of the mellow suburb, dreaming away all sense of time and space. It was the very culmination of St. Luke's summer, and nowhere had the glories been more richly displayed. Robins sang in Well Walk, and Michaelmas daisies splashed every garden with constellations of vivid mauve. After tea they walked up Heath Street and on a wooden seat stayed to watch the sunset. Below them the Heath rolled away in grassland to houses whose smoke was heavy on the dull crimson of a stormy dusk. The sun sank with an absence of effect which chilled them both. Night, with a cold wind that heralded rain, came hard on the heels of twilight. The mist rose thickly from the lower parts of the Heath, and the night's jewelry was blurred.

Maurice spoke suddenly as if to a signal.

"Jenny, we seem to have spent a very long time together now in finding out nothing."

"What _do_ you mean?" she asked.

"I mean--we've been together a frightful lot, but I don't know anything about you and you don't know anything about me."

"I know you're a darling."

"Yes, I know that, but----"

"What!" she broke in, "well, if you don't properly go out with yourself."

"No, I mean--bother about me being a darling--what I mean is--what are we going to do?"

"What do you want us to do?"

"You don't help me out," he complained. "Look here, are you really in love with me?"

"Of course I am," she said softly.

"Yes, but really violently, madly in love to the exclusion of everything else in the world?"

"Kiss me," said Jenny, answering him from her heart.

"Kissing's too easy," said Maurice. "Kissing proves nothing. You've probably kissed dozens of men."

"Well, why not?"

"Why not? Good Heavens, if I give up my whole being to you, do you mean to say you're not going to think anything of kissing dozens of men?"

"Don't be silly. To begin with, they did all the kissing."

"That makes no difference."

"I think it makes all the difference."

"I don't," he maintained.

"I do."

"Look here, don't let's quarrel," he said.

"I'm not quarrelling. You began."

"All right. I know I did. Only do think things out."

"What's the matter with your brain to-night?" Jenny asked.

"Why?"

"You've taken a sudden craze for thinking."

"Oh, do be serious," he said petulantly. "Here are we. We meet. We fall in love at once. We roam about London in a sort of mist of love and we haven't settled anything."

"Why can't we go on roaming about, as you call it?"

"We can--up to a point. Only--" he hesitated.

"Only what?"

"Look here. Are you sure I'm the right person, not a possible, but the person you've dreamed of, thought of?"

"I'm sure you're a darling."

Jenny had no use for subtleties, no anxiety to establish the derivation of an affection which existed as a simple fact. She was not a girl to whose lips endearing epithets came easily. She had many words ready to describe everything except her deepest emotions. In love she became shy of herself. Maurice had a stock of sweet vocatives which she would have been too proud to imitate. "Darling" said what she wished to say, and it was difficult even to say that.

"Well, do you want anybody else?" he asked.

"No."

"You won't get tired of me in another month?"

"Don't be silly."

"You said the other day you didn't trust anybody. Do you mean to say seriously that you don't trust me?"

"I suppose I do. You're different."

"Only suppose?" asked Maurice.

"Well, I do."

"You're not certain. Great heavens, child, can't you see what a terrible thing that is to say?"

"I don't see that it's so very terrible."

"But it kills me dead. I feel all the time you think I'm masquerading. I feel like a figure with a mask in a carnival. I meet you in another mask. I say, 'Take it off,' and you won't. You shrivel up."

"I don't know who you're getting angry with," said Jenny. "I haven't said nothing."

"Nothing!" cried Maurice. "It's nothing to tell somebody who adores you--good heavens, it's raining now! Of course it _would_ rain in the middle of grappling with a situation. What a damnable climate this is!"

"I'm glad you're going to quarrel with the weather a bit for a change," said Jenny. "I think you're in a very nasty mood."

"You don't understand me," said Maurice.

"I don't want to." She spoke coldly.

"Jenny, I'm sorry I said that. Darling girl, do forgive me."

The wind had risen to half a gale. Heath Street was full of people hurrying to shelter, and the entrance to the Tube station was crowded.

"Don't be angry with me," Maurice whispered as the lift stopped. "I was tired and foolish. Jenny, I'm sorry."

"If any other man had spoken like you spoke," said Jenny, "I'd have got up and gone away and never seen him again, not ever, not however much I might want to, I wouldn't let myself. I couldn't."

Further discussion was killed by the noise of the train, and Jenny and Maurice could only sit speechless, gazing at a long line of damp people, most of them carrying rain-dabbled bunches of Michaelmas daisies. By the time Piccadilly was reached Maurice was himself again, full of plans for to-morrow's birthday party.

"Seeing those people in the Tube with those bluish flowers, what d'ye call them, made me think of a party I had for my birthday when I lived with an aunt in the country," said Jenny.

As it was not yet time for her to go into the theater, they turned aside into the Monico and drank Quinquina Dubonnet while the final arrangements were being made for the party.

"Now, who exactly is coming?" asked Maurice.

"Irene, if she's well enough, and Elsie Crauford, who isn't bad, but who's got to be told off sometimes, and Madge Wilson, who you haven't met, but she's a pretty girl, and Maud Chapman and perhaps Gladys West. Oh, and can't I bring Lilli Vergoe? She's a bit old--you know--but she's a nice girl and I used to know her when I was little."

"Right," said Maurice. "That makes seven. Then there'll be me and Castleton and Cunningham and Ronnie Walker and probably one or two odd ones'll drop in. You'll turn up about four--eh? It's lucky your birthday comes on a Sunday. Must you go now? All right, my sweet. Till to-morrow. By Jove, we'll have a great time, won't we?"

"Rather," said Jenny.

Then just as she prepared to cross to the other side of Piccadilly, from the island on which they were standing, Maurice called her back.

"Jenny, darling, I am forgiven, aren't I?"

"Of course."

She looked back before she turned the corner into Regent Street and waved to him. He sighed and went off very happy to meet Castleton for dinner.

It was characteristic of Jenny that she issued her invitations very coldly. Most girls grew enthusiastic over such events, but Jenny did not believe in "showing herself up" by demonstrations of delight.

"Coming to tea with that friend of mine to-morrow?" she asked Madge Wilson.

"Of course I am, duck, I'd love it," said Madge, a round-faced, fluffy-haired girl, pretty, but always apt to be mistaken for somebody else.

"It's nothing to rave over," said Jenny. "It's in a studio something like your mother's shop. But there's a jolly fine piano and I daresay it won't be bad."

"I shall love it," said Madge.

"Well, don't wave too many flags."

To the other girls Jenny offered the entertainment casually, like a chocolate-cream.

Then she went to look for Lilli Vergoe in the dressing-room of the second line of girls. Lilli seemed much surprised by the invitation.

"You don't want me," she said.

"Don't be silly. Why ever not?"

"Look at me."

"I can't see nothing the matter."

"I ask you, do I look like a birthday party? Never mind, kiddie, I'll come."

"Don't make a favor of it old girl. Only I thought you'd like it."

"Why don't you ever come up to Cranbourne Street and see me?" asked Lilli.

"You're always miserable. It gets on my nerves."

"I wish you would come sometimes. You've never been since that day you told me you'd joined the ballet."

"Well, you was Melancholy Sarah that day, wasn't you, Lilli?"

The call-boy's summons closed the conversation, and Jenny ran off to her own dressing-room for the last touch of powder.

When she came out of the theater that night, it was blowing a full October gale. There was nobody by the stage door in whom she felt the slightest interest, so without loitering and with pleasant anticipation of to-morrow's fun, she went straight home.

Mrs. Raeburn was sitting by the kitchen fire when Jenny got back.

"You're early," she said.

"I know. There wasn't anything to stay out for. It's a terrible night, pelting in rain. Shame after the glorious weather we've been having. It's my birthday to-morrow, too."

"Good gracious!" exclaimed Mrs. Raeburn. "And I'd forgotten all about it."

"You always do," said Jenny.

"I ought to have remembered this time. It was weather just like we've been having before you were born, and it come on to blow and rain just like this the very night. Twenty years! Tut-tut!"

"I don't feel a day older than fourteen," asserted Jenny.

"Tell me, do you enjoy being alive?" asked Mrs. Raeburn.

"Oh, what a question! Of course I do."

"You don't ever feel it was a pity you ever come into the world?"

"Of course I don't. Why should I? I think I'm a very lucky girl."

"You don't ever tell me anything about yourself," said Mrs. Raeburn. "So I don't know."

"There's nothing to tell."

"I wish you'd get married."

"Whatever for?"

"Aren't you a bit gay?"

"Gay! Of course not."

"I wish you'd settle down," urged the mother. "There's a lot of nice young chaps as would be glad to marry you."

"But I don't want to be married. I sha'n't ever get married. Ugh! Besides, what's going on as I am done? I'm enjoying myself."

"Too much, I'm afraid," said her mother.

"I don't want to get married," Jenny repeated. "I don't see that you did much good to yourself by getting married. I think you threw yourself away. Everybody must have liked you when you was a girl, and you go and marry Dad. I think you were potty. And yet you want me to do the same. I can't understand people."

"Why couldn't you have been nicer to that young baker chap?"

"Young baker chap? Yes, then I woke up. Him! Why, he used to hang his shoulders up when he took off his coat. Besides, he's common."

"You're getting very dainty."

"Well, look at the men you want me to marry. Why--they're awful--like navvies half of them. Oh, don't carry on, mother. I know what I want."

"Jenny," said her mother sharply, "you haven't done anything wrong, have you?"

"Of course not."

"Don't do anything wrong, there's a good girl. I was very upset about Edie, but nothing to what I should be about you."

"This little girl's all right. What's the matter with going to bed?"

"You go on up. I'll wait for your father."

"You're in a funny mood to-night, Mrs. Raeburn," said her daughter. "Good night."

When she reached the bedroom Jenny woke up her sister.

"Look here, young May, you haven't said nothing to mother, have you, about My Friend the Prince?"

"Of course not, you great stupid."

"Well, don't you, that's all, because I'll go straight off and live with one of the girls if you ever dared say a word about him. Mother wouldn't understand there's nothing in it."

"You know your own business best," said May sleepily.

"That's quite right," Jenny agreed, and began to undress herself to a sentimental tune and the faint tinkle of hairpins falling on the toilet-table.

In bed, she thought affectionately of Maurice, of his gayety and pleasant manner of speech, of his being a gentleman. He must be a gentleman because he never said so. Other girls had love affairs with gentlemen, but, with one or two exceptions, she believed they were all swankers. At any rate Maurice and Colonel Walpole were different from Irene's Danby (long idiot) and Madge Wilson's Berthold (dirty little "five to two!") and Elsie Crauford's Willie (him!), all examples of swank. Still in some ways it was a pity that Maurice was a gentleman. It would never mean a wedding. Those photographs of his mother and sisters had crushed that idea. Even if he asked her to marry him, she wouldn't. Other girls might brag about their education, their schools in Paris, their better days and dead gentlemen fathers, but they were all ballet girls, not one of the Mrs. Bigmouths could get away from that fact. Ballet girls! They got a laugh in comic songs. Ballet girls and mothers-in-law! They might gabble in a corner to each other and simper and giggle and pretend, but they were ballet-hoppers. And what of it? Why not? Wasn't a ballet girl as good as anybody else? Surely as good as a stuck-up chorus girl, who couldn't dance and couldn't act and couldn't even sing sometimes. They might be fine women with massive figures or they might have sweetly pretty Chevy Chases and not mind what they did after supper, but they weren't any better than ballet girls.

After all, Maurice did not look down on her. He did not patronize her. He loved her. She loved him. With that thought flooding her imagination, Jenny fell asleep and lay buried in her deep white pillow like a rosebud in a snowdrift.