“What a little brick.”
“He is like that to everybody. And always so. …”
“So what?”
“Oh, I can’t express him. But he’s a Jew, you know, a Spanish Jew. Isn’t it extraordinary?”
“Well really Miriam I can’t see that there is anything extraordinary about a man’s being a Spanish Jew if he wants to?”
“I was most awfully surprised. Mrs. Bailey told me. There is some Jewish girl he has been meeting in Kensington; he drew her portrait, a special one, for her father, for five guineas, and he has engaged himself to her because he thought she had money and now finds she has not damn her, he said damn her to Mrs. Bailey, and that he has been boring himself for nothing. He is going into hospital for his gastric ulcer when the season is over and then going to disappear. He told me he never spoke to a woman more than twice; but that he is willing to marry any woman with enough money.”
“Wise man.”
“He has spoken more than twice to you.”
“Yes but I know what he means. Besides we don’t talk, in the society way.”
“How do you talk?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I air my theories sometimes. He always disagrees. Once he told me suddenly it was very bad for me to go about with him.”
“But you go.”
“Of course I do.” The untold scenes were standing in the way. There was no way of telling them. … Tansley Street life was more and more unreal to them the deeper it grew. It was unreal to them because things were kept back. They were still interested in stories of Wimpole Street, but even there now they only glanced in passing, their thoughts busy in the shared life they perpetually jested over. They listened with reservations; not always believing; sitting in dressing-gowns believing or not as they chose; because one knew one had lost touch and tried to make things interesting to get back into the old glow. …
“How did the dinner-party go off?”
“Beautifully.”
“Did you talk German?”
“There was no need; the man talked better English than anybody.”
“Why did it go off beautifully? Tell us about the beautiful things.”
The strange silent twilight, the reassuring shyness of all the guests; no attempt to talk about anything in particular; cool hard face and upright coldly jewelled body; the sense of success with each simple remark. The evening of music. Life-marked people; their marks showing without pain, covered, half-healed by the hours of kindness.
“It’s something in the Orlys.”
“What do you think it is?”
“It’s something frightfully beautiful.”
“They are very nice people.”
“That doesn’t mean anything at all.”
“The secret of beauty is colour and texture. The ointment will preserve the colour and the texture of your skin—in any climate. Read her the piece about the movement of the hands over a tea-tray. … In pouring out tea never allow the hands to fall slack, or below the level of the tray. Keep them well in view, moving deftly among the articles on the tray; sitting well back on the seat of the chair the body upright and a little inclined forward from the hips—see Chap.: III. ‘How to Sit’—so that the movements of the wrist and hands are in easy harmony with the whole body. Restrain the hands. Do not let the fingers splay out. Do not cramp them or allow any effort to appear in the movement of any part of the hand.”
“Good heavens. Can’t you see those women. But that must be by an American.”
“Why an American?”
“Oh. I don’t know. You can tell. Are you going to try all these things?”
“Rather. We’re going in heavily for beauty culture.”
“We are going to skip, and have Turkish baths, and steam our faces.”
“I suppose one ought.”
“I think so. I don’t see why one should look old before one’s time. One’s life is ageing and ravaging. After a Turkish bath one feels like a newborn babe.”
“But it would take all one’s time and money.”
“Even so. It restores your self-respect to feel perfectly groomed and therefore perfectly self-possessed. It makes the office respect you.”
“I know. I hate the grubbiness of snipe-life—sometimes.”
“Only sometimes?”
“Well, I forget about it. If I didn’t I should go mad of grit and dust.”
“We are mad of grit and dust. That’s why we think it’s time to do something.”
“H’m.”
“You really like the Orlys, don’t you?”
“You can’t like everybody at once. You have to choose. That’s the trouble. If you are liking one set of people very much you get out of touch with the others.”
“You have so many sets of people.”
“I haven’t. I hardly know anybody.”
“You have hosts of friends.”
“I haven’t. In the way you mean. I expect I give you wrong impressions.”
“Well I think you’ve a capacity—Don’t you think she has a capacity—von Bohlen?”
“She has some very nice friends and some extraordinary ones.”
“Like the Flat.”
“How is the Flat?”
“Is she still living on a hard-boiled egg and a bottle of stout?”
“And sending notes?”
“Come round at once my state of mind is awful?”
“She’s moved. I forgot to tell you. She came to tell me. She stood on the landing and said she had taken up journalism. Writing articles, for The Taper. Isn’t it wonderful?”
“Isn’t what wonderful?”
“Suddenly being able to write articles. She’s met some people called occultists and says she has never been so happy in her life.” … Are you going to say anything … why do you not think it wonderful? …
Miriam flung down Tansley Street telling her news. Her conflict with the June dust and
