The Divine Fire
May Sinclair
CHAPTER XXXVII Page 2
Flossie sent out a little winged look at him like a soft dark butterfly. It skimmed and hovered about him, and flitted, too ethereal to alight.
Miss Bishop however had no scruples, and put it to him point blank.
"Devonshire?" said Miss Bishop, "were you doing down there?" She planted her elbows on the table and propped her chin on her finger-tips; her stare thus tilted was partly covered by her eyelids.
"If you really want," said Mr. Spinks, "to see that gentleman opposite, you'll have to take a telescope." The adoring youth conceived that it had been given to him alone of the boarders to penetrate the mind of Rickman, he was the guardian of his mood, whose mission it was to protect him from the impertinent approaches of the rest.
"A telescope? Wot d'you mean?"
"Don't you think he's got a sort of a far-away look? Especially about the mouth and nose?"
Whether it was from being stared at or for some other reason, but by this time Mr. Rickman had certainly become a little distant. He was not getting on well with anybody or anything, not even with Mrs. Downey's excellent dinner, nor yet with the claret, an extra ordered for his private drinking, always to Mrs. Downey's secret trepidation. She gave a half-timid, half-tender look at him and signalled to her ladies to withdraw. She herself remained behind, superintending the removal of the feast; keeping a motherly eye, too, on the poor boy and his claret. Ever since that one dreadful Sunday morning when she had found him asleep in full evening dress upon his bedroom floor, Mrs. Downey was always expecting to see him drop under the table. He had never done it yet, but there was no knowing when he mightn't.
Whatever the extent of Mr. Rickman's alleged intemperance, his was not the vice of the solitary drinker, and to-night the claret was nearly all drunk by Spinks and Soper. It had the effect of waking in the commercial gentleman the demon of sociability that slept.
Mr. Soper wanted to know was whether Rickman could recommend 'Armouth as a holiday resort? Could he tell him of any first-class commercial hotel or boarding-house down there? To which Rickman replied that he really couldn't tell him anything at all.
"Perhaps," said Mrs. Downey, peering over the edge of the table-cloth she was helping to fold. "Perhaps he has his reasons."
The claret had made Mr. Soper not only sociable but jocose. "Reasons? That's a new name for 'em. If he don't want more than one at a time, I wish he'd introduce the rest of 'em to me."
"Understand 'em? Why, I don't suppose they talk Greek."
"Ryzors," said Spinks indignantly, "could give 'em points if they did. He speaks the language."
Mrs. Downey and Mr. Partridge retreated in some alarm. Mr. Soper, however, was one of those people who are not roused but merely disconcerted by the spectacle of passion. Mr. Soper said he supposed he could "make a 'armless remark." And still thirsting for companionship he pursued Mrs. Downey to the drawing-room. As he went, he fingered his little box of bon-bons as if it had been a talisman or charm.
Rickman poured himself out some claret which he drank slowly, closed eyelids, leaning back in his chair. "For God's sake, Spinks," he muttered; "don't speak to me."
"All right, old chappy, I won't." But he whispered, "I wouldn't go off just yet, Ryzors, if I were you" (by "going off," Mr. Spinks meant departure in a train of thought). "He'll be back in anotminute."
He was back already, sociable, elated, smoking a cigar. Upstairs with the ladies he and his bon-bons had met with unprecedented success. Rickman opened his eyes.
"Ever try," said Mr. Soper, "a Flor di Dindigul? 'Ave one. You'll find the flavour very delicate and mild." He held it out, that Flor di Dindigul, as an olive branch to the tempestuous young man.
It was not accepted. It was not even seen.
Rickman rose to his feet. To his irritated vision the opposite wall seemed to heave and bulge forward, its chocolate design to become distended and to burst, spreading itself in blotches on the yellow ochre. On the face of the hideous welter swam the face of Mr. Soper, as it were bodiless and alone.
Spinks looked after him sorrowfully.
"Wy couldn't you leave him alone, Soper? You might see he didn't want to talk."
"How could I see wot he wanted? One minute 'e's as chatty and sociable--and the next he's up like three dozen of bottled stout. _It's wot I sy._ You can't dee-pend on 'im with any certainty."
That opinion was secretly shared by Miss Flossie Walker.