I do not know how he had come to know the Driffields and whether it was esteem for the author that brought him to the house, but it was certainly not that which caused him to come again. He was a tall, stout, dark man with a bald head and a big hooked nose, a man of fifty, but of a powerful appearance, sensual, determined, and jovial. He made no secret of his admiration for Rosie. He was rich apparently, for he sent her roses every day; she chid him for his extravagance, but was flattered. I could not bear him. He was blatant and loud. I hated his fluent conversation in perfect but foreign English; I hated the extravagant compliments he paid Rosie; I hated the heartiness with which he treated her friends. I found that Quentin Forde liked him as little as I; we almost became cordial with one another.
“Mercifully he’s not staying long.” Quentin Forde pursed his lips and raised his black eyebrows; with his white hair and long sallow face he looked incredibly gentlemanly. “Women are always the same; they adore a bounder.”
“He’s so frightfully vulgar,” I complained.
“That is his charm,” said Quentin Forde.
For the next two or three weeks I saw next to nothing of Rosie. Jack Kuyper took her out night after night, to this smart restaurant and that, to one play after another. I was vexed and hurt.
“He doesn’t know anyone in London,” said Rosie, trying to soothe my ruffled feelings. “He wants to see everything he can while he’s here. It wouldn’t be very nice for him to go alone all the time. He’s only here for a fortnight more.”
I did not see the object of this self-sacrifice on her part.
“But don’t you think he’s awful?” I said.
“No. I think he’s fun. He makes me laugh.”
“Don’t you know that he’s absolutely gone on you?”
“Well, it pleases him and it doesn’t do me any harm.”
“He’s old and fat and horrible. It gives me the creeps to look at him.”
“I don’t think he’s so bad,” said Rosie.
“You couldn’t have anything to do with him,” I protested. “I mean, he’s such an awful cad.”
Rosie scratched her head. It was an unpleasant habit of hers.
“It’s funny how different foreigners are from English people,” she said.
I was thankful when Jack Kuyper went back to Amsterdam. Rosie had promised to dine with me the day after and as a treat we arranged to dine in Soho. She fetched me in a hansom and we drove on.
“Has your horrible old man gone?” I asked.
“Yes,” she laughed.
I put my arm round her waist. (I have elsewhere remarked how much more convenient the hansom was for this pleasant and indeed almost essential act in human intercourse than the taxi of the present day, so unwillingly refrain from labouring the point.) I put my arm round her waist and kissed her. Her lips were like spring flowers. We arrived. I hung my hat and my coat (it was very long and tight at the waist, with a velvet collar and velvet cuffs; very smart) on a peg and asked Rosie to give me her cape.
“I’m going to keep it on,” she said.
“You’ll be awfully hot. You’ll only catch cold when we go out.”
“I don’t care. It’s the first time I’ve worn it. Don’t you think it’s lovely. And look: the muff matches.”
I gave the cape a glance. It was of fur. I did not know it was sable.
“It looks awfully rich. How did you get that?”
“Jack Kuyper gave it to me. We went and bought it yesterday just before he went away.” She stroked the smooth fur; she was as happy with it as a child with a toy. “How much d’you think it cost?”
“I haven’t an idea.”
“Two hundred and sixty pounds. Do you know I’ve never had anything that cost so much in my life? I told him it was far too much, but he wouldn’t listen. He made me have it.”
Rosie chuckled with glee and her eyes shone. But I felt my face go stiff and a shiver run down my spine.
“Won’t Driffield think it’s rather funny, Kuyper giving you a fur cape that costs all that?” said I, trying to make my voice sound natural.
Rosie’s eyes danced mischievously.
“You know what Ted is, he never notices anything; if he says anything about it I shall tell him I gave twenty pounds for it in a pawnshop. He won’t know any better.” She rubbed her face against the collar. “It’s so soft. And everyone can see it cost money.”
I tried to eat and in order not to show the bitterness in my heart I did my best to keep the conversation going on one topic or another. Rosie did not much mind what I said. She could only think of her new cape and every other minute her eyes returned to the muff that she insisted on holding on her lap. She looked at it with an affection in which there was something lazy, sensual, and self-complacent. I was angry with her. I thought her stupid and common.
“You look like a cat that’s swallowed a canary,” I could not help snapping.
She only giggled.
“That’s what I feel like.”
Two hundred and sixty pounds was an enormous sum to me. I did not know one
