Francis Wilmot was in a state of some enthusiasm.
“That was fine,” he said. “Who was the gentleman under the curtains?”
“The Speaker?”
“No; I mean the one who didn’t speak.”
“Exactly; he’s the dignity of the House.”
“They ought to feed him oxygen; it must be sleepy under there. I liked the delegate who spoke last but one. He would ‘go’ in America; he had big ideas.”
“The idealism which keeps you out of the League of Nations, eh?” said Michael with a grin.
Francis Wilmot turned his head rather sharply.
“Well,” he said, “we’re like any other people when it comes down to bed-rock.”
“Quite so,” said Michael. “Idealism is just a by-product of geography—it’s the haze that lies in the middle distance. The farther you are from bed-rock, the less quick you need be to see it. We’re twenty sea-miles more idealistic about the European situation than the French are. And you’re three thousand sea-miles more idealistic than we are. But when it’s a matter of niggers, we’re three thousand sea-miles more idealistic than you; isn’t that so?”
Francis Wilmot narrowed his dark eyes.
“It is,” he said. “The farther North we go in the States, the more idealistic we get about the negro. Anne and I’ve lived all our life with darkies, and never had trouble; we love them, and they love us; but I wouldn’t trust myself not to join in lynching one that laid his hands on her. I’ve talked that over many times with Jon. He doesn’t see it that way; he says a darky should be tried like a white man; but he doesn’t know the real South. His mind is still three thousand sea-miles away.”
Michael was silent. Something within him always closed up at mention of a name which he still spelt mentally with an h.
Francis Wilmot added ruminatively: “There are a few saints in every country proof against your theory; but the rest of us, I reckon, aren’t above human nature.”
“Talking of human nature,” said Michael, “here’s my father-inlaw!”
Chapter VI.
SOAMES KEEPS HIS EYES OPEN
Soames, having prolonged his week-end visit, had been spending the afternoon at the Zoological Gardens, removing his great-nephews, the little Cardigans, from the too close proximity of monkeys and cats. After standing them once more in Imogen’s hall, he had roosted at his Club till, idly turning his evening paper, he had come on this paragraph, in the “Chiff-chaff” column:
“A surprise for the coming Session is being confectioned at the Wednesday gatherings of a young hostess not a hundred miles from Westminster. Her husband, a prospective baronet lately connected with literature, is to be entrusted with the launching in Parliament of a policy which enjoys the peculiar label of Foggartism, derived from Sir James Foggart’s book called “The Parlous State of England.” This amusing alarum is attributed to the somewhat fantastic brain which guides a well-known weekly. We shall see what comes of it. In the meantime the enterprising little lady in question is losing no chance of building up her ‘salon’ on the curiosity which ever surrounds any buccaneering in politics.”
Soames rubbed his eyes; then read it again with rising anger. ‘Enterprising little lady is losing no chance of building up her “salon.”’ Who had written that? He put the paper in his pocket—almost the first theft he had ever committed—and all the way across St. James’s Park in the gathering twilight he brooded on that anonymous paragraph. The allusion seemed to him unmistakable, and malicious into the bargain. ‘Lion-hunter’ would not have been plainer. Unfortunately, in a primary sense ‘lion-hunter’ was a compliment, and Soames doubted whether its secondary sense had ever been ‘laid down’ as libellous. He was still brooding deeply, when the young men ranged alongside.
“Well, sir?”
“Ah!” said Soames. “I want to speak to you. You’ve got a traitor in the camp.” And, without meaning to at all, he looked angrily at Francis Wilmot.
“Now, sir?” said Michael, when they were in his study.
Soames held out the folded paper.
Michael read the paragraph and made a face.
“Whoever wrote that comes to your evenings,” said Soames; “that’s clear. Who is he?”
“Very likely a she.”
“D’you mean to say they print such things by women?”
Michael did not answer. Old Forsyte was behind the times.
“Will they tell me who it is, if I go down to them?” asked Soames.
“No, fortunately.”
“How d’you mean ‘fortunately’?”
“Well, sir, the Press is a sensitive plant. I’m afraid you might make it curl up. Besides, it’s always saying nice things that aren’t deserved.”
“But this—” began Soames; he stopped in time, and substituted: “Do you mean that we’ve got to sit down under it?”
“To lie down, I’m afraid.”
“Fleur has an evening tomorrow.”
“Yes.”
“I shall stay up for it, and keep my eyes open.”
Michael had a vision of his father-inlaw, like a plainclothes man in the neighbourhood of wedding-presents.
But in spite of assumed levity, Michael had been hit. The knowledge that his adored one had the collector’s habit, and flitted, alluring, among the profitable, had, so far, caused him only indulgent wonder. But now it seemed more than an amusing foible. The swiftness with which she turned her smile off and on as though controlled by a switch under her shingled hair; the quick turns of her neck, so charming and exposed; the clever roving, disguised so well but not quite well enough, of the pretty eyes; the droop and flutter of their white lids; the expressive hands grasping, if one could so call such slim and dainty apprehensions, her career—all this suddenly caused Michael pain. Still she was doing it for him and Kit! French women, they said, co-operated with their husbands in the family career. It was the French blood in her. Or perhaps just idealism, the desire to have and be the best of whatever bunch there was about! Thus Michael, loyally. But his uneasy eyes roved from face to face of the Wednesday gathering, trying to detect signs of quizzicality.
Soames followed another method. His mind, indeed, was uncomplicated by the currents awash in that of one who goes to bed with the object of his criticism. For him there was no reason why Fleur should not know as many aristocrats, Labour members, painters, ambassadors, young fools, and even writing fellows, as might flutter her fancy. The higher up they were, the less likely, he thought with a certain naivete would they be to borrow money or get her into a mess. His daughter was as good or better than any of them, and his deep pride was stung to the quick by the notion that people should think she had to claw and scrape to get them round her. It was not she who was after them, but they who were after her! Standing under the Fragonard which he had given her, grizzled, neatly moustached, close-faced, chinny, with a gaze concentrated on nothing in particular, as of one who has looked over much and found little in it, he might have been one of her ambassadors.
A young woman, with red-gold hair, about an inch long on her de-shingled neck, came and stood with her back to him, beside a soft man, who kept washing his hands. Soames could hear every word of their talk.
“Isn’t the little Mont amusing? Look at her now, with ‘Don Fernando’—you’d think he was her only joy. Ah! There’s young Rashly! Off she goes. She’s a born little snob. But that doesn’t make this a ‘salon,’ as she thinks. To found a ‘salon’ you want personality, and wit, and the ‘don’t care a damn’ spirit. She hasn’t got a scrap. Besides, who is she?”
“Money?” said the soft man.
“Not so very much. Michael’s such dead nuts on her that he’s getting dull; though it’s partly Parliament, of course. Have you heard them talk this Foggartism? All food, children, and the future—the very dregs of dulness.”
“Novelty,” purred the soft man, “is the vice of our age.”