3
Bruce Carmyle, in the capacity of accepted suitor, found himself at
something of a loss. He had a dissatisfied feeling. It was not the
manner of Sally's acceptance that caused this. It would, of course, have
pleased him better if she had shown more warmth, but he was prepared to
wait for warmth. What did trouble him was the fact that his correct mind
perceived now for the first time that he had chosen an unsuitable
moment and place for his outburst of emotion. He belonged to the
orthodox school of thought which looks on moonlight and solitude as the
proper setting for a proposal of marriage; and the surroundings of the
Flower Garden, for all its nice-ness and the nice manner in which it was
conducted, jarred upon him profoundly.
Music had begun again, but it was not the soft music such as a lover
demands if he is to give of his best. It was a brassy, clashy rendering
of a ribald one-step, enough to choke the eloquence of the most ardent.
Couples were dipping and swaying and bumping into one another as far as
the eye could reach; while just behind him two waiters had halted in
order to thrash out one of those voluble arguments in which waiters love
to indulge. To continue the scene at the proper emotional level was
impossible, and Bruce Carmyle began his career as an engaged man by
dropping into Smalltalk.
"Deuce of a lot of noise," he said querulously.
"Yes," agreed Sally.
"Is it always like this?"
"Oh, yes."
"Infernal racket!"
"Yes."
The romantic side of Mr. Carmyle's nature could have cried aloud at the
hideous unworthiness of these banalities. In the visions which he had
had of himself as a successful wooer, it had always been in the moments
immediately succeeding the all-important question and its whispered
reply that he had come out particularly strong. He had been accustomed
to picture himself bending with a proud tenderness over his partner in
the scene and murmuring some notably good things to her bowed head. How
could any man murmur in a pandemonium like this. From tenderness Bruce
Carmyle descended with a sharp swoop to irritability.
"Do you often come here?"
"Yes."
"What for?"
"To dance."
Mr. Carmyle chafed helplessly. The scene, which should be so romantic,
had suddenly reminded him of the occasion when, at the age of twenty, he
had attended his first ball and had sat in a corner behind a potted palm
perspiring shyly and endeavouring to make conversation to a formidable
nymph in pink. It was one of the few occasions in his life at which he
had ever been at a complete disadvantage. He could still remember the
clammy discomfort of his too high collar as it melted on him. Most
certainly it was not a scene which he enjoyed recalling; and that he
should be forced to recall it now, at what ought to have been the
supreme moment of his life, annoyed him intensely. Almost angrily he
endeavoured to jerk the conversation to a higher level.
"Darling," he murmured, for by moving his chair two feet to the right
and bending sideways he found that he was in a position to murmur, "you
have made me so..."
"Batti, batti! I presto ravioli hollandaise," cried one of the disputing
waiters at his back--or to Bruce Carmyle's prejudiced hearing it
sounded like that.
"La Donna e mobile spaghetti napoli Tettrazina," rejoined the second
waiter with spirit.
"... you have made me so..."
"Infanta Isabella lope de Vegas mulligatawny Toronto," said the first
waiter, weak but coming back pluckily.
"... so happy..."
"Funiculi funicula Vincente y Blasco Ibanez vermicelli sul campo della
gloria risotto!" said the second waiter clinchingly, and scored a
technical knockout.
Bruce Carmyle gave it up, and lit a moody cigarette. He was oppressed
by that feeling which so many of us have felt in our time, that it was
all wrong.
The music stopped. The two leading citizens of Little Italy vanished
and went their way, probably to start a vendetta. There followed
comparative calm. But Bruce Carmyle's emotions, like sweet bells
jangled, were out of tune, and he could not recapture the first fine
careless rapture. He found nothing within him but small-talk.
"What has become of your party?" he asked.
"My party?"
"The people you are with," said Mr. Carmyle. Even in the stress of his
emotion this problem had been exercising him. In his correctly ordered
world girls did not go to restaurants alone.
"I'm not with anybody."
"You came here by yourself?" exclaimed Bruce Carmyle, frankly aghast.
And, as he spoke, the wraith of Uncle Donald, banished till now,
returned as large as ever, puffing disapproval through a walrus
moustache.
"I am employed here," said Sally.
Mr. Carmyle started violently.
"Employed here?"
"As a dancer, you know. I..."
Sally broke off, her attention abruptly diverted to something which had
just caught her eye at a table on the other side of the room. That
something was a red-headed young man of sturdy build who had just
appeared beside the chair in which Mr. Reginald Cracknell was sitting in
huddled gloom. In one hand he carried a basket, and from this basket,
rising above the din of conversation, there came a sudden sharp yapping.
Mr. Cracknell roused himself from his stupor, took the basket, raised
the lid. The yapping increased in volume.
Mr. Cracknell rose, the basket in his arms. With uncertain steps and a
look on his face like that of those who lead forlorn hopes he crossed
the floor to where Miss Mabel Hobson sat, proud and aloof. The next
moment that haughty lady, the centre of an admiring and curious crowd,
was hugging to her bosom a protesting Pekingese puppy, and Mr.
Cracknell, seizing his opportunity like a good general, had deposited
himself in a chair at her side. The course of true love was running
smooth again.
The red-headed young man was gazing fixedly at Sally.
"As a dancer!" ejaculated Mr. Carmyle. Of all those within sight of the
moving drama which had just taken place, he alone had paid no attention
to it. Replete as it was with human interest, sex-appeal, the punch, and
all the other qualities which a drama should possess, it had failed to
grip him. His thoughts had been elsewhere. The accusing figure of Uncle
Donald refused to vanish from his mental eye. The stern voice of Uncle
Donald seemed still to ring in his ear.
A dancer! A professional dancer at a Broadway restaurant! Hideous doubts
began to creep like snakes into Bruce Carmyle's mind. What, he asked
himself, did he really know of this girl on whom he had bestowed the
priceless boon of his society for life? How did he know what she was--he
could not find the exact adjective to express his meaning, but he knew
what he meant. Was she worthy of the boon? That was what it amounted to.
All his life he had had a prim shrinking from the section of the
feminine world which is connected with the light-life of large cities.
Club acquaintances of his in London had from time to time married into
the Gaiety Chorus, and Mr. Carmyle, though he had no objection to the
Gaiety Chorus in its proper place--on the other side of the
footlights--had always looked on these young men after as social
outcasts. The fine dashing frenzy which had brought him all the way from
South Audley Street to win Sally was ebbing fast.
Sally, hearing him speak, had turned. And there was a candid honesty in
her gaze which for a moment sent all those creeping doubts scuttling
away into the darkness whence they had come. He had not made a fool of
himself, he protested to the lowering phantom of Uncle Donald. Who, he
demanded, could look at Sally and think for an instant that she was not
all that was perfect and lovable? A warm revulsion of feeling swept over
Bruce Carmyle like a returning tide.
"You see, I lost my money and had to do something," said Sally.
"I see, I see," murmured Mr. Carmyle; and if only Fate had left him
alone who knows to what heights of tenderness he might not have soared?
But at this moment Fate, being no respecter of persons, sent into his
life the disturbing personality of George Washington Williams.
George Washington Williams was the talented coloured gentleman who had
been extracted from small-time vaudeville by Mr. Abrahams to do a
nightly speciality at the Flower Garden. He was, in fact, a
trap-drummer: and it was his amiable practice, after he had done a few
minutes trap-drumming, to rise from his seat and make a circular tour of
the tables on the edge of the dancing-floor, whimsically pretending to
clip the locks of the male patrons with a pair of drumsticks held
scissor-wise. And so it came about that, just as Mr. Carmyle was bending
towards Sally in an access of manly sentiment, and was on the very verge
of pouring out his soul in a series of well-phrased remarks, he was
surprised and annoyed to find an Ethiopian to whom he had never been
introduced leaning over him and taking quite unpardonable liberties with
his back hair.
One says that Mr. Carmyle was annoyed. The word is weak. The
interruption coming at such a moment jarred every ganglion in his body.
The clicking noise of the drumsticks maddened him. And the gleaming
whiteness of Mr. Williams' friendly and benignant smile was the last
straw. His dignity writhed beneath this abominable infliction. People at
other tables were laughing. At him. A loathing for the Flower Garden
flowed over Bruce Carmyle, and with it a feeling of suspicion and
disapproval of everyone connected with the establishment. He sprang to
his feet.
"I think I will be going," he said.
Sally did not reply. She was watching Ginger, who still stood beside
the table recently vacated by Reginald Cracknell .
"Good night," said Mr. Carmyle between his teeth.
"Oh, are you going?" said Sally with a start. She felt embarrassed.
Try as she would, she was unable to find words of any intimacy. She
tried to realize that she had promised to marry this man, but never
before had he seemed so much a stranger to her, so little a part of her
life. It came to her with a sensation of the incredible that she had
done this thing, taken this irrevocable step.
The sudden sight of Ginger had shaken her. It was as though in the last
half-hour she had forgotten him and only now realized what marriage with
Bruce Carmyle would mean to their comradeship. From now on he was dead
to her. If anything in this world was certain that was. Sally Nicholas
was Ginger's pal, but Mrs. Carmyle, she realized, would never be allowed
to see him again. A devastating feeling of loss smote her like a blow.
"Yes, I've had enough of this place," Bruce Carmyle was saying.
"Good night," said Sally. She hesitated. "When shall I see you?" she
asked awkwardly.
It occurred to Bruce Carmyle that he was not showing himself at his
best. He had, he perceived, allowed his nerves to run away with him.
"You don't mind if I go?" he said more amiably. "The fact is, I can't
stand this place any longer. I'll tell you one thing, I'm going to take
you out of here quick."
"I'm afraid I can't leave at a moment's notice," said Sally, loyal to
her obligations.
"We'll talk over that to-morrow. I'll call for you in the morning and
take you for a drive somewhere in a car. You want some fresh air after
this." Mr. Carmyle looked about him in stiff disgust, and expressed his
unalterable sentiments concerning the Flower Garden, that apple of
Isadore Abrahams' eye, in a snort of loathing. "My God! What a place!"
He walked quickly away and disappeared. And Ginger, beaming happily,
swooped on Sally's table like a homing pigeon.
