Celia did not notice the young man with any interest, being painfully occupied with the congratulations of her friends, whom she now had reason to wish she had not chosen so exclusively for their bad taste. She did not even have a dance with him, since he oddly neglected to ask one from the daughter of the house. This, it appeared afterwards, was by no means his only lapse. During the days following the dance a gradually increasing chorus of disapprobation from confidential friends, callers, even letters, rose and muttered and swelled to thunder against this young man.
Everybody who came to the house, and everybody kept corning on every pretext, apparently did so for the purpose of drawing somebody else aside and saying, “Oh, my dear, I simply must tell you. You know that young man with the impossible name—well——”
The recurrent and accumulative list of accusations sounded in Celia’s ears something like this :
— That his name was Basil Dictripoulyos.
— “What a name!”
— “Not really?”
— “Yes, indeed ; it was on his card.”
— “Not a card. I can’t bear it.”
— “Yes, he left it next day. Such an address. 39 Rainbow Road.”
— “How poetic!”
— “And his name!”
— “What is he?”
“A Jew?”
“A Turk?”
“A Greek?”
— “No, is he?”
— “Not really?”
— That nobody minded his clothes being shabby, of course, but they need not have been showy.
— “And his name!”
— That he wore a red rose in his buttonhole.
— “No, it was not even a carnation.”
— “How poetic! ‘ My love’s like a red, red rose,’ you know.”
— “Was that to show he wore his bleeding heart in his buttonhole? I beg your pardon, I didn’t mean it like that.”
— “And his name!”
— That he squeezed your hand.
— “Whose hand?”
— “Everybody’s hand.”
— “Ugh!”
— “But his name!”
— “Dick how much?”
— “Dirty Dick?”
— “Dago Dick?”
— That he did everything too well.
— His dancing showed off.
— He talked like a comedian’s patter, never hesitating and always using the right word.
— And made jokes that really—well.
— Though of course everyone had laughed at the time.
— You had to or it would have made it so uncomfortable.
— Like those dreadful acrobatic tricks.
— Which, performed under the evergreen grass-widow’s encouragement, had caused roars of delighted merriment at the time but now only swelled the catalogue of crimes.
— That he had complimented Mrs. Belamy on her youthful appearance and had mistaken Colonel Belamy for one of his guests.
— Had it been one of his waiters, Colonel Belamy could not have seemed more insulted.
— Moreover, he had inquired of him as to the quality of his own champagne.
— That on the stairs he had breathed down the back of Iris’s neck and said, “I understand your type. Let me teach you how to love.”
— “No, did he?”
— “Not really.”
— “Darling, how lovely!”
— “What did you say?”
— “No, did you?”
— “Not really.”
— “Darling, how lovely.”
— “What’s that? What did he say? Impossible. Preposterous. Why did nobody tell me? He ought to have been kicked downstairs.”
— “Darling Papa, that would have been so bad for my dance shoes. And for the people below us.”
— “My dear, you may joke about it, but you don’t understand these things. ‘ Let me teach you how to love ’ indeed. What did your husband say?”
— “He said ‘ Useful fella! ’”
By which it will be seen that the current of delighted execration had bubbled and squeaked beyond its confidential boundaries of teacups and fireside chats and had invaded even the sheltered ears of Colonel Belamy.
Until then Celia had cheerfully sailed with the stream, comparing notes of exclamation with amusement tempered only with regret that she had not more closely observed the abhorrent but noticeable young man. But when her parents entered the hue and cry of this undeserving character with expressions of horror, when her father repudiated the whole modern system of trusting one’s friends so far as to tell them to bring their friends to the house and shook his head and said he was to blame for giving in to it in just the same richly sorrowful voice that he had blamed himself for Uncle Charles’s last quarrel, and when her mother said, “Poor Iris! What a dreadful young man! How could he say such a peculiar thing?” then Celia declared with surprising violence, “Well, why shouldn’t he? Iris didn’t mind or she wouldn’t have flirted with him.”
“How can you call your sister a flirt?”
“Why not? You are as proud of it as she is. Only I don’t see why a flirt need be a cad.”
“How dare you call your sister a cad?”
“Cad? cad? The girl seems to have mixed things up. We all know who the cad was in this case.”
“Just because he’s a foreigner.”
It was then that Colonel Belamy gave the most remarkable evidence of his leniency and breadth of mind.
“A foreigner,” he said, “need not always be a cad. But in this case——”
“Just because Iris leads him on and then tells everyone how he gave himself away. What would you think of a man who did that about a woman?”
“The two things are utterly different. A man has to protect a woman’s honour.”
“Because she’s got so little, I suppose.”
Mrs. Belamy said coldly, “I thought you hated women who ran down their own sex?”
“I do. I don’t. I’m standing up for it—the sex, I mean. If we have a young man to our house and get a certain amount of fun out of him, we needn’t all turn round afterwards and snarl at him just because his methods are a little different from ours.”
“Are you teaching your parents the laws of hospitality?”
“Really, Celia, you are making yourself ridiculous. You must have liked the look of this young man very much. Shall we have a rubber, Henry?”
While her parents busied themselves with the cards, Celia looked defiantly at Ronny, who had not said a word during the discussion.
“Well,” she said, “do you think it was because of that?”
“No. Of course I don’t. I know you wouldn’t look at anyone like that. Your mother knows it too, but she was annoyed at the way you spoke of your sister. I wish you didn’t think like that about her, Celia. She’s a jolly good sort.”
“I know she is. It wasn’t Iris I was angry with.”
“You called her a flirt.”
“But she is.”
“Well, I wish you wouldn’t say it.”
“But, Ronny, you know you like her for it.”
“Nonsense. I don’t flirt with Iris.”
He spoke quite angrily. His sense of humour had suddenly deserted him. Celia swallowed hard, and, choking with calm, observed, “Well, you’re the only man I’ve met who doesn’t, then, including Papa. Uncle Charles used to say that if there were nobody else, she’d flirt with a chimney-sweep at close distance range.”
“Then he must have been a nasty old man.”
“Ronny!”
“There you are! You don’t like my running down your everlasting old uncle, but you don’t mind running down your sister, who’s far too frank and natural to bother about the sort of impression she makes and so gets misjudged, even by you. Why can’t everybody be more tolerant?”
“The Whirligig of Life,” boomed Uncle Charles’s voice in her mind. She seemed to be gazing in dismay at a world that spun round her in confusion, all its colours suddenly obscured. Was Ronny understanding and sympathetic? He had been, but he was not now.
He was afraid he had said too much. She was probably jealous, not of him in particular or he would have hugged the flattering thought, but of Iris’s general popularity. He told her rather anxiously how pretty she looked in that frock, and naturally could not understand the expression of dismay that crept into her eyes. He thought she was being perverse and silly and he had to leave her since she did not play bridge.
She was left alone on the hearthrug. The others seemed to have drawn themselves into a solid group silently combating her, conquering her, beating her down. And Ronny didn’t like Uncle Charles and thought her a spiteful cat and Iris a jolly good sort; it was the phrase that all Iris’s young men used about her and in almost the same tenderly admiring tone. Well, why not? She must be sensible. Be sensible, that was all, you fool. There was nothing to feel frightened of.
For staring into the fire with her back to that silent group of adverse or indifferent judges, staring into red-hot caverns and lakes of leaping flame so that her cheeks burned, she felt cold with fear because she must be brave and go on being pretty in vain competition with Iris, because you could never find anyone to think just the same as yourself, because it was best to be wise and reserved and not say all you thought even with those who loved you best, because you were alone really always.
Surely it was unfair—and snobbish—to laugh at a young man because of his name and address. What was wrong with 39 Rainbow Road? She wished she lived in it herself. But of course it was Iris who ought to live in Rainbow Road. It was always Iris. Even her name, which at least Celia had never before envied, now gave her the advantage. And it would be just like Iris, after telling everyone how badly the young man had behaved, to write and tell him to come and see her, perhaps even to go and see him, and he too would think her a jolly good sort. And so she was, for she did what she liked and never minded if she behaved badly.
Celia suddenly sat up, seized the poker, and with quiet ferocity jabbed the coals. She too would behave badly, with a badness so bold, so unwarrantable and capricious that even Iris had never behaved quite as badly.
Ronny had said with complacent certainty that she “couldn’t look at anyone like that.” She hadn’t looked, it was true, but that was an oversight. She would show him that she could. She would say airily to him as they went in to dinner that night, “I ran round and paid a call on Dick Something while you were at bridge,” and then when he exclaimed and looked horrified and told her it was an outrageous thing to do to any young man who had never even danced with her, and to a cad like that— then she would draw herself up and her eyes down and say in a very cool voice, “I like cads.”
“I’m going out,” said Celia, and went to the door.
Ronny looked imploringly at Mrs. Belamy.
“Yes, of course,” she said. “We can finish the rubber without you.”
“Where on earth are you going at this time of night?” Colonel Belamy demanded.
“The time is 5.30,” said Celia. “No, thank you, Ronny. I want to go by myself. I shall be back to dinner.”