Cicely was not one of those ill-regulated people who treat the first meal of the day as a convenient occasion for serving up any differences or contentions that have been left over from the day before or overlooked in the press of other matters. She enjoyed her breakfast and gave Yeovil unhindered opportunity for enjoying his; a discussion as to the right cooking of a dish that he had first tasted among the Orenburg Tartars was the prevailing topic on this particular morning, and blended well with trout and toast and coffee. In a cosy nook of the smoking-room, in participation of the after-breakfast cigarettes, Cicely made her dash into debatable ground.
“You haven’t asked me how my supper-party went off,” she said.
“There is a notice of it in two of the morning papers, with a list of those present,” said Yeovil; “the conquering race seems to have been very well represented.”
“Several races were represented,” said Cicely; “a function of that sort, celebrating a dramatic first-night, was bound to be cosmopolitan. In fact, blending of races and nationalities is the tendency of the age we live in.”
“The blending of races seems to have been consummated already in one of the individuals at your party,” said Yeovil drily; “the name Mentieth-Mendlesohnn struck me as a particularly happy obliteration of racial landmarks.”
Cicely laughed.
“A noisy and very wearisome sort of woman,” she commented; “she reminds one of garlic that’s been planted by mistake in a conservatory. Still, she’s useful as an advertising agent to any one who rubs her the right way. She’ll be invaluable in proclaiming the merits of Gorla’s performance to all and sundry; that’s why I invited her. She’ll probably lunch to-day at the Hotel Cecil, and every one sitting within a hundred yards of her table will hear what an emotional education they can get by going to see Gorla dance at the Caravansery.”
“She seems to be like the Salvation Army,” said Yeovil; “her noise reaches a class of people who wouldn’t trouble to read press notices.”
“Exactly,” said Cicely. “Gorla gets quite good notices on the whole, doesn’t she?”
“The one that took my fancy most was the one in the Standard,” said Yeovil, picking up that paper from a table by his side and searching its columns for the notice in question. “‘The wolves which appeared earlier in the evening’s entertainment are, the programme assures us, trained entirely by kindness. It would have been a further kindness, at any rate to the audience, if some of the training, which the wolves doubtless do not appreciate at its proper value, had been expended on Miss Mustelford’s efforts at stage dancing. We are assured, again on the authority of the programme, that the much-talked-of Suggestion Dances are the last word in Posture dancing. The last word belongs by immemorial right to the sex which Miss Mustelford adorns, and it would be ungallant to seek to deprive her of her privilege. As far as the educational aspect of her performance is concerned we must admit that the life of the fern remains to us a private life still. Miss Mustelford has abandoned her own private life in an unavailing attempt to draw the fern into the gaze of publicity. And so it was with her other suggestions. They suggested many things, but nothing that was announced on the programme. Chiefly they suggested one outstanding reflection, that stage-dancing is not like those advertised breakfast foods that can be served up after three minutes’ preparation. Half a life-time, or rather half a youth-time is a much more satisfactory allowance.’”
“The Standard is prejudiced,” said Cicely; “some of the other papers are quite enthusiastic. The Dawn gives her a column and a quarter of notice, nearly all of it complimentary. It says the report of her fame as a dancer went before her, but that her performance last night caught it up and outstripped it.”
“I should not like to suggest that the Dawn is prejudiced,” said Yeovil, “but Shalem is a managing director on it, and one of its biggest shareholders. Gorla’s dancing is an event of the social season, and Shalem is one of those most interested in keeping up the appearance, at any rate, of a London social season. Besides, her début gave the opportunity for an Imperial visit to the theatre—the first appearance at a festive public function of the Conqueror among the conquered. Apparently the experiment passed off well; Shalem has every reason to feel pleased with himself and well-disposed towards Gorla. By the way,” added Yeovil, “talking of Gorla, I’m going down to Torywood one day next week.”
“To Torywood?” exclaimed Cicely. The tone of her exclamation gave the impression that the announcement was not very acceptable to her.
“I promised the old lady that I would go and have a talk with her when I came back from my Siberian trip; she travelled in eastern Russia, you know, long before the Trans-Siberian railway was built, and she’s enormously interested in those parts. In any case I should like to see her again.”
“She does not see many people nowadays,” said Cicely; “I fancy she is breaking up rather. She was very fond of the son who went down, you know.”
“She has seen a great many of the things she cared for go down,” said Yeovil; “it is a sad old life that is left to her, when one thinks of all that the past has been to her, of the part she used to play in the world, the work she used to get through. It used to seem as though she could never grow old, as if she would die standing up, with some unfinished command on her lips. And now I suppose her tragedy is that she has grown old, bitterly old, and cannot die.”
Cicely was silent for a moment, and seemed about to leave the room. Then she turned back and said:
“I don’t think I would say anything about Gorla to her if I were you.”
“It would not have occurred to me to drag her name into our conversation,” said Yeovil coldly, “but in any case the accounts of her dancing performance will have reached Torywood through the newspapers—also the record of your racially-blended supper-party.”