Reginald slid a carnation of the newest shade into the
buttonhole of his latest lounge coat, and surveyed the
result with approval. “I am just in the mood,” he
observed, “to have my portrait painted by some one with an
unmistakable future. So comforting to go down to posterity
as `Youth with a Pink Carnation' in catalogue-company with
`Child with Bunch of Primroses,' and all that crowd.”
“Youth,” said the Other, “should suggest innocence.”
“But never act on the suggestion. I don't believe the
two ever really go together. People talk vaguely about the
innocence of a little child, but they take mighty good care
not to let it out of their sight for twenty minutes. The
watched pot never boils over. I knew a boy once who really
was innocent; his parents were in Society, but they never
gave him a moment's anxiety from his infancy. He believed
in company prospectuses, and in the purity of elections, and
in women marrying for love, and even in a system for winning
at roulette. He never quite lost his faith in it, but he
dropped more money than his employers could afford to lose.
When last I heard of him, he was believing in his innocence;
the jury weren't. All the same, I really am innocent just
now of something every one accuses me of having done, and so
far as I can see, their accusations will remain unfounded.”
“Rather an unexpected attitude for you.”
“I love people who do unexpected things. Didn't you
always adore the man who slew a lion in a pit on a snowy
day? But about this unfortunate innocence. Well, quite long
ago, when I'd been quarrelling with more people than usual,
you among the number---it must have been in November, I
never quarrel with you too near Christmas---I had an idea
that I'd like to write a book. It was to be a book of
personal reminiscences, and was to leave out nothing.”
“Reginald!”
“Exactly what the Duchess said when I mentioned it to
her. I was provoking and said nothing, and the next thing,
of course, was that every one heard that I'd written the
book and got it in the press. After that, I might have been
a goldfish in a glass bowl for all the privacy I got.
People attacked me about it in the most unexpected places,
and implored or commanded me to leave out things that I'd
forgotten had ever happened. I sat behind Miriam Klopstock
one night in the dress-circle at His Majestys, and she began
at once about the incident of the Chow dog in the bathroom,
which she insisted must be struck out. We had to argue it in
a disjointed fashion, because some of the people wanted to
listen to the play, and Miriam takes nine in voices. They
had to stop her playing in the `Macaws' Hockey Club because
you could hear what she thought when her shins got mixed up
in a scrimmage for half a mile on a still day. They are
called the Macaws because of their blue-and-yellow costumes,
but I understand there was nothing yellow about Miriam's
language. I agreed to make one alteration, as I pretended I
had got it a Spitz instead of a Chow, but beyond that I was
firm. She megaphoned back two minutes later, `You promised
you would never mention it; don't you ever keep a promise?'
When people had stopped glaring in our direction, I replied
that I'd as soon think of keeping white mice. I saw her
tearing little bits out of her programme for a minute or
two, and then she leaned back and snorted, `You're not the
boy I took you for,' as though she were an eagle arriving at
Olympus with the wrong Ganymede. That was her last audible
remark, but she went on tearing up her programme and
scattering the pieces around her, till one of her neighbours
asked with immense dignity whether she should send for a
wastepaper-basket. I didn't stay for the last act.
“Then there is Mrs.---oh, I never can remember her name;
she lives in a street that the cabmen have never heard of,
and is at home on Wednesdays. She frightened me horribly
once at a private view by saying mysteriously, `I oughtn't
to be here, you know; this is one of my days.' I thought she
meant that she was subject to periodical outbreaks and was
expecting an attack at any moment. So embarrassing if she
had suddenly taken it into her head that she was Cesare
Borgia or St. Elizabeth of Hungary. That sort of thing
would make one unpleasantly conspicuous even at a private
view. However, she merely meant to say that it was
Wednesday, which at the moment was incontrovertible. Well,
she's on quite a different tack to the Klopstock. She
doesn't visit anywhere very extensively, and, of course,
she's awfully keen for me to drag in an incident that
occurred at one of the Beauwhistle garden-parties, when she
says she accidentally hit the shins of a Serene Somebody or
other with a croquet mallet and that he swore at her in
German. As a matter of fact, he went on discoursing on the
Gordon-Bennett affair in French. (I never can remember if
it's a new submarine or a divorce. Of course, how stupid of
me!) To be disagreeably exact, I fancy she missed him by
about two inches---overanxiousness, probably---but she likes
to think she hit him. I've felt that way with a partridge
which I always imagine keeps on flying strong, out of false
pride, till it's the other side of the hedge. She said she
could tell me everything she was wearing on the occasion. I
said I didn't want my book to read like a laundry list, but
she explained that she didn't mean those sort of things.
“And there's the Chilworth boy, who can be charming as
long as he's content to be stupid and wear what he's told
to; but he gets the idea now and then that he'd like to be
epigrammatic, and the result is like watching a rook trying
to build a nest in a gale. Since he got wind of the book,
he's been persecuting me to work in something of his about
the Russians and the Yalu Peril, and is quite sulky because
I won't do it.
“Altogether, I think it would be rather a brilliant
inspiration if you were to suggest a fortnight in Paris.”