When William Came

“Hell!  And it’s true, that’s the worst of it.  It’s damned true!”

Yeovil turned, with some dozen others, to see who was responsible for this vigorously expressed statement.

Tony Luton confronted him, an angry scowl on his face, a blaze in his heavy-lidded eyes.  The boy was without a conscience, almost without a soul, as priests and parsons reckon souls, but there was a slumbering devil-god within him, and Yeovil’s taunting words had broken the slumber.  Life had been for Tony a hard school, in which right and wrong, high endeavour and good resolve, were untaught subjects; but there was a sterling something in him, just that something that helped poor street-scavenged men to die brave-fronted deaths in the trenches of Salamanca, that fired a handful of apprentice boys to shut the gates of Derry and stare unflinchingly at grim leaguer and starvation.  It was just that nameless something that was lacking in the young musician, who stood at the further end of the room, bathed in a flood of compliment and congratulation, enjoying the honey-drops of his triumph.

Luton pushed his way through the crowd and left the room, without troubling to take leave of his hostess.

“What a strange young man,” exclaimed the Duchess; “now do take me into the next room,” she went on almost in the same breath, “I’m just dying for some iced coffee.”

Yeovil escorted her through the throng of Ronnie-worshippers to the desired haven of refreshment.

“Marvellous!” Mrs. Menteith-Mendlesohnn was exclaiming in ringing trumpet tones; “of course I always knew he could play, but this is not mere piano playing, it is tone-mastery, it is sound magic.  Mrs. Yeovil has introduced us to a new star in the musical firmament.  Do you know, I feel this afternoon just like Cortez, in the poem, gazing at the newly discovered sea.”

“‘Silent upon a peak in Darien,’” quoted a penetrating voice that could only belong to Joan Mardle; “I say, can any one picture Mrs. Menteith-Mendlesohnn silent on any peak or under any circumstances?”

If any one had that measure of imagination, no one acknowledged the fact.

“A great gift and a great responsibility,” Canon Mousepace was assuring the Grafin; “the power of evoking sublime melody is akin to the power of awakening thought; a musician can appeal to dormant consciousness as the preacher can appeal to dormant conscience.  It is a responsibility, an instrument for good or evil.  Our young friend here, we may be sure, will use it as an instrument for good.  He has, I feel certain, a sense of his responsibility.”

“He is a nice boy,” said the Grafin simply; “he has such pretty hair.”

In one of the window recesses Rhapsodie Pantril was talking vaguely but beautifully to a small audience on the subject of chromatic chords; she had the advantage of knowing what she was talking about, an advantage that her listeners did not in the least share.  “All through his playing there ran a tone-note of malachite green,” she declared recklessly, feeling safe from immediate contradiction; “malachite green, my colour—the colour of striving.”

Having satisfied the ruling passion that demanded gentle and dextrous self-advertisement, she realised that the Augusta Smith in her craved refreshment, and moved with one of her over-awed admirers towards the haven where peaches and iced coffee might be considered a certainty.

The refreshment alcove, which was really a good-sized room, a sort of chapel-of-ease to the larger drawing-room, was already packed with a crowd who felt that they could best discuss Ronnie’s triumph between mouthfuls of fruit salad and iced draughts of hock-cup.  So brief is human glory that two or three independent souls had even now drifted from the theme of the moment on to other more personally interesting topics.

“Iced mulberry salad, my dear, it’s a specialite de la maison, so to speak; they say the roving husband brought the recipe from Astrakhan, or Seville, or some such outlandish place.”

“I wish my husband would roam about a bit and bring back strange palatable dishes.  No such luck, he’s got asthma and has to keep on a gravel soil with a south aspect and all sorts of other restrictions.”

“I don’t think you’re to be pitied in the least; a husband with asthma is like a captive golf-ball, you can always put your hand on him when you want him.”

“All the hangings, violette de Parme, all the furniture, rosewood.  Nothing is to be played in it except Mozart.  Mozart only.  Some of my friends wanted me to have a replica of the Mozart statue at Vienna put up in a corner of the room, with flowers always around it, but I really couldn’t.  I couldn’t.  One is so tired of it, one sees it everywhere.  I couldn’t do it.  I’m like that, you know.”

“Yes, I’ve secured the hero of the hour, Ronnie Storre, oh yes, rather.  He’s going to join our yachting trip, third week of August.  We’re going as far afield as Fiume, in the Adriatic—or is it the ?gean?  Won’t it be jolly.  Oh no, we’re not asking Mrs. Yeovil; it’s quite a small yacht you know—at least, it’s a small party.”