AN UNCOUNTED HOUR
We were standing, Lady Mickleham and I, at a door which led from
the morning room to the terrace at The Towers. I was on a visit
to the historic pile (by Vanbrugh--out of the money accumulated
by the third Earl--Paymaster to the Forces--temp. Queen Anne).
The morning room is a large room. Archie was somewhere in it.
Lady Mickleham held a jar containing pate de foie gras; from time
to time she dug a piece out with a fork and flung the morsel to a
big retriever which was sitting on the terrace. The morning was
fine, but cloudy. Lady Mickleham wore blue. The dog swallowed
the pate with greediness.
"It's so bad for him," sighed she; "but the dear likes it so
much."
"How human the creatures are," said I.
"Do you know," pursued Lady Mickleham, "that the Dowager says I'm
extravagant. She thinks dogs ought not to be fed on pate de foie
gras."
"Your extravagance," I observed, "is probably due to your having
been brought up on a moderate income. I have felt the effect
myself."
"Of course," said Dolly, "we are hit by the agricultural
depression."
"The Carters also," I murmured, "are landed gentry."
"After all, I don't see much point in economy, do you, Mr. Carter?"
"Economy," I remarked, putting my hands in my pockets, "is going
without something you do want in case you should, some day, want
something which you probably won't want."
"Isn't that clever?" asked Dolly in an apprehensive tone.
"Oh, dear, no," I answered reassuringly. "Anybody can do
that--if they care to try, you know."
Dolly tossed a piece of pate to the retriever.
"I have made a discovery lately," I observed.
"What are you two talking about?" called Archie.
"You're not meant to hear," said Dolly, without turning round.
"Yet, if it's a discovery, he ought to hear it."
"He's made a good many lately," said Dolly.
She dug out the last bit of pate, flung it to the dog, and handed
the empty pot to me.
"Don't be so allegorical," I implored. "Besides, it's really not
just to Archie. No doubt the dog is a nice one, but--"
"How foolish you are this morning! What's the discovery?"
"An entirely surprising one."
"Oh, but let me hear! It's nothing about Archie, is it?"
"No, I've told you all Archie's sins."
"Nor Mrs. Hilary? I wish it was Mrs. Hilary!"
"Shall we walk on the terrace?" I suggested.
"Oh, yes, let's," said Dolly, stepping out, and putting on a
broad-brimmed, low-crowned hat, which she caught up from a chair
hard by. "It isn't Mrs. Hilary?" she added, sitting down on a
garden seat.
"No," said I, leaning on a sundial which stood by the seat.
"Well, what is it?"
"It is simple," said I, "and serious. It is not, therefore, like
you, Lady Mickleham."
"It's like Mrs. Hilary," said Dolly.
"No; because it isn't pleasant. By the way, you are jealous of
Mrs. Hilary?"
Dolly said nothing at all. She took off her hat, roughened her
hair a little, and assumed an effective pose. Still, it is a
fact (for what it is worth) that she doesn't care much about
Mrs. Hilary.
"The discovery," I continued, "is that I'm growing middle-aged."
"You are middle-aged," said Dolly, spearing her hat with its long
pin.
I was, very naturally, nettled at this.
"So will you be soon," I retorted.
"Not soon," said Dolly.
"Some day," I insisted.
After a pause of about half a minute, Dolly said, "I suppose so."
"You will become," I pursued, idly drawing patterns with my
finger on the sundial, "wrinkled, rough, fat--and, perhaps,
good."
"You're very disagreeable today," said Dolly.
She rose and stood by me.
"What do the mottoes mean?" she asked.
There were two; I will not say they contradicted one another, but
they looked at life from different points of view.
"Pereunt et imputantur," I read.
"Well, what's that, Mr. Carter?"
"A trite, but offensive, assertion," said I, lighting a
cigarette.
"But what does it mean?" she asked, a pucker on her forehead.
"What does it matter?" said I. "Let's try the other."
"The other is longer."
"And better. Horas non numero nisi serenas."
"And what's that?"
I translated literally. Dolly clapped her hands, and her face
gleamed with smiles.
"I like that one," she cried.
"Stop!" said I imperatively. "You'll set it moving!"
"It's very sensible," said she.
"More freely rendered, it means, I live only when you--"
"By Jove!" remarked Archie, coming up behind us, pipe in mouth,
"there was a lot of rain last night. I've just measured it in
the gauge."
"Some people measure everything," said I, with a displeased air.
"It is a detestable habit."
"Archie, what does Pereunt et imputantur mean?"
"Eh? Oh, I see. Well, I say, Carter!--Oh, well, you know, I
suppose it means you've got to pay for your fun, doesn't it?"
"Oh, is that all? I was afraid it was something horrid. Why did
you frighten me, Mr. Carter?"
"I think it is rather horrid," said I.
"Why, it isn't even true," said Dolly scornfully.
Now when I heard this ancient and respectable legend thus
cavalierly challenged, I fell to studying it again, and presently
I exclaimed:
"Yes, you're right! If it said that, it wouldn't be true; but
Archie translated it wrong."
"Well, you have a shot," suggested Archie.
"The oysters are eaten and put down in the bill," said I. "And
you will observe, Archie, that it does not say in whose bill."
"Ah!" said Dolly.
"Well, somebody's got to pay," persisted Archie.
"Oh, yes, somebody," laughed Dolly.
"Well, I don't know," said Archie. "I suppose the chap that has
the fun--"
"It's not always a chap," observed Dolly.
"Well, then the individual," amended Archie. "I suppose he'd
have to pay."
"It doesn't say so," I remarked mildly. "And according to my
small experience--"
"I'm quite sure your meaning is right, Mr. Carter," said Dolly in
an authoritative tone.
"As for the other motto, Archie," said I, "it merely means that a
woman considers all hours wasted which she does not spend in the
society of her husband."
"Oh, come, you don't gammon me," said Archie. "It means that the
sun don't shine unless it's fine, you know."
Archie delivered this remarkable discovery in a tone of great
self satisfaction.
"Oh, you dear old thing!" said Dolly.
"Well, it does you know," said he.
There was a pause. Archie kissed his wife (I am not complaining;
he has, of course, a perfect right to kiss his wife) and strolled
away toward the hothouses.
I lit another cigarette. Then Dolly, pointing to the stem of the
dial, cried:
"Why, here's another inscription--oh, and in English?"
She was right. There was another--carelessly scratched on the
old battered column--nearly effaced, for the characters had been
but lightly marked--and yet not, as I conceived from the tenor of
the words, very old.
"What is it?" asked Dolly, peering over my shoulder, as I bent
down to read the letters, and shading her eyes with her hand.
(Why didn't she put on her hat? We touch the Incomprehensible.)
"It is," said I, "a singularly poor, shallow, feeble, and
undesirable little verse."
"Read it out," said Dolly.
So I read it. The silly fellow had written:
Life is Love, the poets tell us, In the little books they sell
us; But pray, ma'am--what's of Life the Use, If Life be Love?
For Love's the Deuce.
Dolly began to laugh gently, digging the pin again into her hat.
"I wonder," she said, "whether they used to come and sit by this
old dial just as we did this morning!"
"I shouldn't be at all surprised," said I. "And another point
occurs to me, Lady Mickleham."
"Oh, does it? What's that, Mr. Carter?"
"Do you think that anybody measured the rain gauge!"
Dolly looked at me very gravely.
"I'm so sorry when you do that," said she pathetically.
I smiled.
"I really am," said dolly. "But you don't mean it, do you?"
"Certainly not," said I.
Dolly smiled.
"No more than he did!" said I, pointing to the sun dial.
And then we both smiled.
"Will this hour count, Mr. Carter?" asked Dolly, as she turned away.
"That would be rather strict," said I.
