“I see,” said Dinny; “that’s terribly interesting and I daresay quite true. My aunt’s getting up, so I must remove my epidermis and leave your nerve centres to quiet down.” She rose, and over her shoulder smiled back at him.
Young Tasburgh was at the door. At him too she smiled, and murmured: “Talk to my friend the enemy; he’s worth it.”
In the drawing-room she sought out the ‘leopardess,’ but converse between them suffered from the inhibition of a mutual admiration which neither wished to show. Jean Tasburgh was just twenty-one, but she impressed Dinny as older than herself. Her knowledge of things and people seemed precise and decided, if not profound; her mind was made up on all the subjects they touched on; she would be a marvellous person—Dinny thought—in a crisis, or if driven to the wall; would be loyal to her own side, but want to rule whatever roost she was in. But alongside her hard efficiency Dinny could well perceive a strange, almost feline fascination that would go to any man’s head, if she chose that it should. Hubert would succumb to her at once! And at that conclusion his sister was the more doubtful whether she wished him to. Here was the very girl to afford the swift distraction she was seeking for her brother. But was he strong enough and alive enough for the distractor? Suppose he fell in love with her and she would have none of him? Or suppose he fell in love with her and she had all of him! And then—money! If Hubert received no appointment or lost his commission what would they live on? He had only three hundred a year without his pay, and the girl presumably nothing. The situation was perverse. If Hubert could plunge again into soldiering, he would not need distraction. If he continued to be shelved, he would need distraction but could not afford it. And yet—was not this exactly the sort of girl who would carve out a career somehow for the man she married? So they talked of Italian pictures.
“By the way,” said Jean, suddenly, “Lord Saxenden says you want him to do something for you.”
“Oh!”
“What is it? Because I’ll make him.”
Dinny smiled.
“How?”
Jean gave her a look from under her lashes.
“It’ll be quite easy. What is it you want from him?”
“I want my brother back in his regiment, or, better—some post for him. He’s under a cloud owing to that Bolivian expedition with Professor Hallorsen.”
“The big man? Is that why you had him down here?”
Dinny had a feeling that she would soon have no clothes on.
“If you want frankness, yes.”
“He’s rather fine to look at.”
“So your brother said.”
“Alan’s the most generous person in the world. He’s taken a toss over you.”
“So he was telling me.”
“He’s an ingenuous child. But, seriously, shall I go for Lord Saxenden?”
“Why should you worry?”
“I like to put my fingers into pies. Give me a free hand, and I’ll bring you that appointment on a charger.”
“I am credibly informed,” said Dinny, “that Lord Saxenden is a tough proposition.”
Jean stretched herself.
“Is your brother Hubert like you?”
“Not a scrap; he’s dark, and brown-eyed.”
“You know our families intermarried a long way back. Are you interested in breeding? I breed Airedales, and I don’t believe much in either the tail male or the tail female theories. Prepotency can be handed down through either male or female, and at any point of the pedigree.”
“Perhaps, but except for not being covered with yellow varnish, my father and my brother are both very like the earliest portrait we have of a male ancestor.”
“Well, we’ve got a Fitzherbert woman who married a Tasburgh in 1547, and she’s the spit of me except for the ruff; she’s even got my hands.” And the girl spread out to Dinny two long brown hands, crisping them slightly as she did so.
“A strain,” she went on, “may crop out after generations that have seemed free from it. It’s awfully interesting. I should like to see your brother, if he’s so unlike you.”
Dinny smiled.
“I’ll get him to drive over from Condaford and fetch me. You may not think him worth your wiles.”
And at this moment the men came in.
“They do so look,” murmured Dinny, “as if they were saying: ‘Do I want to sit next to a female, and if so, why?’ Men are funny after dinner.”
Sir Lawrence’s voice broke the hush:
“Saxenden, you and the Squire for Bridge?”
At those words Aunt Wilmet and Lady Henrietta rose automatically from the sofa where they had been having a quiet difference, and passed towards where they would continue the motion for the rest of the evening; they were followed closely by Lord Saxenden and the Squire.
Jean Tasburgh grimaced: “Can’t you just see Bridge growing on people like a fungus?”
“Another table?” said Sir Lawrence: “Adrian? No. Professor?”
“Why, I think not, Sir Lawrence.”
“Fleur, you and I then against Em and Charles. Come along, let’s get it over.”
“You can’t see it growing on Uncle Lawrence,” murmured Dinny. “Oh! Professor! Do you know Miss Tasburgh?”
Hallorsen bowed.
“It’s an amazing night,” said young Tasburgh on her other side: “Couldn’t we go out?”
“Michael,” said Jean, rising, “we’re going out.”
The night had been justly described. The foliage of holmoaks and elms clung on the dark air unstirring; stars were diamond bright, and there was no dew; the flowers had colour only when peered into; and sounds were lonely—the hooting of an owl from away towards the river, the passing drone of a chafer’s flight. The air was quite warm, and through the cut cypresses the lighted house stared vaguely. Dinny and the sailor strolled in front.
“This is the sort of night,” he said, “when you can see the Scheme a bit. My old Governor is a dear old boy, but his Services are enough to kill all belief. Have you any left?”
“In God, do you mean?” said Dinny: “Ye-es, without knowing anything about it.”
“Don’t YOU find it impossible to think of God except in the open and alone?”
“I HAVE been emotionalised in church.”
“You want something beyond emotion, I think; you want to grasp infinite invention going on in infinite stillness. Perpetual motion and perpetual quiet at the same time. That American seems a decent chap.”
“Did you talk about cousinly love?”
“I kept that for you. One of our great-great-great-great-grandfathers was the same, under Anne; we’ve got his portrait, terrible, in a wig. So we’re cousins—the love follows.”
“Does it? Blood cuts both ways. It certainly makes every difference glare out.”
“Thinking of Americans?”
Dinny nodded.
“All the same,” said the sailor, “there isn’t a question in my mind that in a scrap I’d rather have an American with me than any other kind of foreigner. I should say we all felt like that in the Fleet.”
“Isn’t that just because of language being the same?”
“No. It’s some sort of grain and view of things in common.”
“But surely that can only apply to British-stock Americans?”
“That’s still the American who counts, especially if you lump in the Dutch and Scandinavian-stock Americans, like this fellow Hallorsen. We’re very much that stock ourselves.”
“Why not German–Americans, then?”
“To some extent. But look at the shape of the German head. By and large, the Germans are Central or Eastern Europeans.”
“You ought to be talking to my Uncle Adrian.”
“Is that the tall man with the goatee? I like his face.”
“He’s a dear,” said Dinny. “We’ve lost the others and I can feel dew.”
“Just one moment. I was perfectly serious in what I said at dinner. You ARE my ideal, and I hope you’ll let me pursue it.”
Dinny curtsied.
“Young Sir, you are very flattering. ‘But—’ she went on with a slight blush—‘I would point out that you have a noble profession—’”
“Are you never serious?”
“Seldom, when the dew is falling.”