Mrs. Altham waited with considerable impatience next day for the return of her husband from the club, where he went on most afternoons, to sit in an arm-chair from tea-time to dinner and casually to learn what had happened while he had been playing golf. She had been to call on Mrs. Ames in the afternoon, and in consequence had matter of considerable importance to communicate. She could have supported that retarded spate of information, though she wanted to burst as soon as possible, but she had also a question to ask Henry on which a tremendous deal depended. At length she heard the rattle of his deposited hat and stick in the hall, and she went out to meet him. “How late you are, Henry,” she said; “but you needn’t dress. Mrs. Brooks, if she does come in afterwards, will excuse you. Dinner is ready: let us come in at once. Now, you were at the club last night, after dinner. You told me who was there; but I want to be quite sure.”
Mr. Altham closed his eyes for a moment as he sat down. It looked as if he was saying a silent grace, but appearances were deceptive. He was only thinking, for he knew his wife would not ask such a question unless something depended on it, and he desired to be accurate.
Then he opened them again, and helped the soup with a name to each spoonful.{128}
“General Fortescue,” he said. “Young Morton. Mr. Taverner, Turner, Young Turner.”
That was five spoonfuls—three for his wife, two for himself. He was not very fond of soup.
“And you were there all the time between ten and eleven?” asked his wife.
“Till half-past eleven.”
“And there was no one else?”
Mr. Altham looked up brightly.
“The club waiter,” he said, “and the page. The page has been dismissed for stealing sugar. The sugar bill was preposterous. That was how we found out. Did you mean to ask about that?”
“No, my dear. Nor do I want to know.”
At the moment the parlour-maid left the room, and she spoke in an eager undertone.
“Mrs. Ames told me that Major Ames went up to the club last night, when she went to bed at half-past ten,” she said. “You told me at breakfast whom you found there, but I wanted to be sure. Call them Mr. and Mrs. Smith and then we can go on talking.”
The parlour-maid came back into the room.
“Yes, Mr. Smith apparently went up to the club at half-past ten,” she said. “But he can’t have gone to the club, for in that case you would have seen him. It has occurred to me that he didn’t feel well, and went to the doctor’s.”
“It seems possible,” said Mr. Altham, not without enthusiasm, understanding that “doctor” meant “doctor,” and which doctor.
“We have all noticed how many visits he has been paying to—to Dr. Jones,” said Mrs. Altham, “during the time Mrs. Smith was away. But to pay another{129} one on the very evening of her return looks as if—as if something serious was the matter.”
“My dear, there’s nothing whatever to show that Major Ames went to the doctor’s last night,” he said.
Mrs. Altham gave him an awful glance, for the parlour-maid was in the room, and this thoughtless remark rendered all the diplomatic substitution of another nomenclature entirely void and useless.
“Mrs. Smith, I should say,” added Mr. Altham in some confusion, proceeding to make it all quite clear to Jane, in case she had any doubts about it.
“Suggest to me any other reasonable theory as to where he was, then,” said Mrs. Altham.
“I can’t suggest where he was, my dear,” said Mr. Altham, finding his legal training supported him, “considering that there is no evidence of any kind that bears upon the matter. But to know that a man was not in one given place does not show with any positiveness that he was at any other given place.”
“No doubt, then, he went shopping at half-past ten last night,” said Mrs. Altham, with deep sarcasm. “There are so many shops open then. The High Street is a perfect blaze of light.”
Mr. Altham could be sarcastic, too, though he seldom exercised this gift.
“It quite dazzles one,” he observed.
Mrs. Altham no doubt was vexed at her husband’s sceptical attitude, and she punished him by refraining from discussing the point any further, and from giving him the rest of her news. But this severity punished herself also, for she was bursting to tell him. When Jane had finally withdrawn, the internal pressure became irresistible.
“Mrs. Ames has done something to her hair,{130} Henry,” she said; “and she has done something to her face. I had a good mind to ask her what she had used. I assure you there was not a grey hair left anywhere, and a fortnight ago she was as grey as a coot!”
“Coots are bald, not grey,” remarked her husband.
“That is mere carping, Henry. She is brown now. Is this another fashion she is going to set us at Riseborough? What does it all mean? Shall we all have to plaster our faces with cold cream, and dye our hair blue?”
Mr. Altham was in a painfully literal mood this evening and could not disentangle information from rhetoric.
“Has she dyed her hair blue?” he asked in a slightly awestricken voice.
“No, my dear: how can you be so stupid? And I told you just now she was brown. But at her age! As if anybody cared what colour her hair was. Her face, too! I don’t deny that the wrinkles are less marked, but who cares whether she is wrinkled or not?”
These pleasant considerations were discontinued by the sound of the postman’s tap on the front door, and since the postman took precedence of everybody and everything, Mr. Altham hurried out to see what excitements he had piloted into port. Unfortunately, there was nothing for him, but there was a large, promising-looking envelope for his wife. It was stiff, too, and looked like the receptacle of an invitation card.
“One for you, my dear,” he said.
Mrs. Altham tore it open, and gave a great gasp.
“You would not guess in a hundred tries,” she said.{131}
“Then be so kind as to tell me,” remarked her husband.
Mrs. Altham read it out all in one breath without stops.
“Mrs. Evans at home Thursday July 20 10 p.m. Shakespeare Fancy Dress well I never!”
For a while little the silence of stupefaction reigned. Then Mr. Altham gave a great sigh.
“I have never been to a fancy dress ball,” he said. “I think I should feel very queer and uncomfortable. What are we meant to do when we get there, Julia? Just stand about and look at each other. It will seem very strange. What would you recommend me to be? I suppose we ought to be a pair.”
Mrs. Altham, to do her justice, had not thought seriously about her personal appearance for years. But, as she got up from the table, and consciously faced the looking-glass over the chimney-piece, it is idle to deny that she considered it now. She was not within ten years of Mrs. Ames’ age, and it struck her, as she carefully regarded herself in a perfectly honest glass, that even taking into full consideration all that Mrs. Ames had been doing to her hair and her face, she herself still kept the proper measure of their difference of years between them. But it was yet too early to consider the question of her impersonation. There were other things suggested by the contemplation of a fancy-dress ball to be considered first. There was so much, in fact, that she hardly knew where to begin. So she whisked everything up together, in the manner of a sea-pie, in which all that is possibly edible is put in the oven and baked.
“There will be time enough to talk over that, my dear,” she said, “for if Mrs. Evans thinks we are all{132} going to lash out into no end of expense in getting dresses for her party, she is wrong as far as I, for one, am concerned. For that matter you can put on your oldest clothes, and I can borrow Jane’s apron and cap, and we can go as Darby and Joan. Indeed, I do not know if I shall go at all—though, of course, one wouldn’t like to hurt Mrs. Evans’ feelings by refusing. Do you know, Henry, I shouldn’t in the least wonder if we have seen the last of Mrs. Ames and all her airs of superiority and leadership. You may depend upon it that Mrs. Evans did not consult her before she settled to give a fancy dress party. It is far more likely that she and Major Ames contrived it all between them, while Mrs. Ames was away, and settled what they should go as, and I daresay it will be Romeo and Juliet. I should not be in the least surprised if Mrs. Ames did not go to the party at all, but tried to get something up on her own account that very night. It would be like her, I am sure. But whether she goes or not, it seems to me that we have seen the last of her queening it over us all. If she does not go, I should think she would be the only absentee, and if she does, she goes as Mrs. Evans’ guest. All these years she has never thought of a fancy dress party——”
Mrs. Altham broke off in the middle of her address, stung by the splendour of a sudden thought.
“Or does all this staying away on her part,” she said, “and dyeing her hair, and painting her face, mean that she knew about it all along, and was going to be the show-figure of it all? I should not wonder if that was it. As likely as not, she and Major Ames will come as Hamlet and Ophelia, or something equally ridiculous, though I am sure as far as the ‘too{133} too solid flesh’ goes, Major Ames would make an admirable Hamlet, for I never saw a man put on weight in the manner he does, in spite of all the garden rolling, which I expect the gardener does for him really. But whatever is the truth of it all, and I’m sure every one is so secretive here in Riseborough nowadays, that you never know how many dined at such a place on such a night unless you actually go to the poulterer’s and find out whether one chicken or two was sent,—what was I saying?”
She had been saying a good deal. Mr. Altham correctly guessed the train of thought which she desired to recall.
“In spite of the secretiveness——” he suggested.
That served the purpose.
“No, my dear Henry,” said his wife rapidly, “I accuse no one of secretiveness: if I did, you misunderstood me. All I meant was that when we have settled what we are to go as, we will tell nobody. There is very little sense in a fancy dress entertainment if you know exactly what you may expect, and as soon as you see a Romeo can say for certain that it is Major Ames, for instance; and I’m sure if he is to go as Romeo, it would be vastly suitable if Mrs. Ames went as Juliet’s nurse.”
“I am not sure that I shall like so much finery,” said Mr. Altham, who was thinking entirely about his own dress, and did not care two straws about Major or Mrs. Ames. “It will seem very strange.”
“Nonsense, my dear; we will dine in our fancy dresses for an evening or two before, and you will get quite used to it, whatever it is. Henry, do you remember my white satin gown, which I scarcely wore a dozen times, because it seemed too grand for{134} Riseborough? It was too, I am sure: you were quite right. It has been in camphor ever since. I used to wear my Roman pearls with it. There are three rows, and the clasp is of real pearls. The very thing for Cleopatra.”
“I recollect perfectly,” said Mr. Altham. His mind instantly darted off again to the undoubted fact that whereas Major Ames was stout, he himself was very thin. If he had been obliged to describe his figure at that moment, he would have said it was boyish. The expense of a wig seemed of no account.
“Well, my dear, white dress and pearls,” said his wife. “You are not very encouraging. With that book of Egyptian antiquities, I can easily remodel the dress. And I remember reading in a Roman history that Cleopatra was well over thirty when Julius C?sar was so devoted to her. And by the busts he must have been much balder than you!”
It is no use denying that this was a rather heavy blow. Ever since the mention of the word Cleopatra, he had seen himself complete, with a wig, in another character.
“But Julius C?sar was sixty,” he observed, with pardonable asperity. “I do not see how I could make up as a man of sixty. And for that matter, my dear, though I am sure no one would think you were within five years of your actual age, I do not see how you could make up as a mere girl of thirty. Why should we not go as ‘Antony and Cleopatra, ten years later’? It would be better than to go as Julius C?sar and Cleopatra ten years before!”
Mrs. Altham considered this. It was true that she would find it difficult to look thirty, however many Roman pearls she wore.{135}
“I do not know that it is such a bad idea of yours, Henry,” she said. “Certainly there is no one in the world who cares about her age, or wants to conceal it, less than I. And there is something original about your suggestion—Antony and Cleopatra ten years later—Ah, there is the bell, that will be Mrs. Brooks coming in. And there is the telephone also. Upon my word, we never have a moment to ourselves. I should not wonder if half Riseborough came to see us to-night. Will you go to the telephone and tell it we are at home? And not a word to anybody, Henry, as to what we are thinking of going as. There will be our surprise, at any rate, however much other people go talking about their dresses. If you are being rung up to ask about your costume, say that you haven’t given it a thought yet.”
 
For the next week Mrs. Altham was thoroughly in her element. She had something to conceal, and was in a delicious state of tension with the superficial desire to disclose her own impersonation, and the deep-rooted satisfaction of not doing so. To complete her happiness, the famous white satin still fitted her, and she was nearly insane with curiosity to know what Major and Mrs. Ames “were going to be,” and what the whole history of the projected festivity was. In various other respects her natural interest in the affairs of other people was satiated. Mrs. Turner was to be Mistress Page, which was very suitable, as she was elderly and stout, and did not really in the least resemble Miss Ellen Terry. Mr. Turner had selected Falstaff, and could be recognized anywhere. Young Morton, with unwonted modesty, had chosen the part of the Apothecary in{136} Romeo and Juliet. Mrs. Taverner was to be Queen Catherine, and—almost more joyous than all—she had persuaded Mrs. Brooks not to attempt to impersonate Cleopatra. What Mrs. Brooks’ feelings would be when it dawned on her, as it not inconceivably might, that Mrs. Altham had seen in her a striking likeness to her conception of Hermione, because she did not want there to be two Cleopatras, did not particularly concern her. She had asked Mrs. Brooks to dinner the day after the entertainment, and her acceptance would bury the hatchet, if indeed there was such a thing as a hatchet about. Finally, she had called on Mrs. Evans, who had vaguely talked about Midsummer Night’s Dream. Mrs. Altham had taken that to be equivalent to the fact that she would appear as Titania, and Mrs. Evans had distinctly intended that she should so take it. Indeed, the idea had occurred to her, but not very vividly. Her husband was going to be Timon of Athens. That, again, was quite satisfactory: nobody knew at all distinctly who Timon of Athens was, and nobody knew much about Dr. Evans, except that he was usually sent for in the middle of something. Probably the same thing happened to Timon of Athens.
Indeed, within a couple of hours of the reception of Mrs. Evans’ invitations, which all arrived simultaneously by the local evening post, a spirit of demoniacal gaiety, not less fierce than that which inspired Mrs. Altham, possessed the whole of those invited. Though it was gay, it was certainly demoniacal, for a quite prodigious amount of ill-feeling was mingled with it which from time to time threatened to wreck the proceedings altogether. For instance,{137} only two days after all the invitations had been accepted, Mrs. Evans had issued a further intimation that there was to be dancing, and that the evening would open at a quarter past ten precisely with a quadrille in which it was requested that everybody would take part. It is easy to picture the private consternation that presided over that evening; how in one house, Mrs. Brooks having pushed her central drawing-room table to one side, all alone and humming to herself, stepped in perplexed and forgotten measures, and how next door Mrs. and Mr. Altham violently wrangled over the order of the figures, and hummed different tunes, to show each other, or pranced in different directions. For here was the bitter affair: these pains had to be suffered in loneliness, for it was clearly impossible to confess that the practice of quadrilles was so long past that the memory of them had vanished altogether. But luckily (though at the moment the suggestion caused a great deal of asperity in Mrs. Altham’s mind) Mrs. Ames came to the rescue with the suggestion that as many of them, no doubt, had forgotten the precise manner of quadrilles, she proposed to hold a class at half-past four to-morrow afternoon, when they would all run through a quadrille together.
“There! I thought as much!” said Mrs. Altham. “That means that neither Major nor Mrs. Ames can remember how the quadrille goes, and we, forsooth, must go and teach them. And she puts it that she is going to teach us! I am sure she will never teach me: I shall not go near the house. I do not require to be taught quadrilles by anybody, still less by Mrs. Ames. There is no answer,” she added to Jane.
Mr. Altham fidgeted in his chair. Last night he{138} had been quite sure he was right, in points where he and his wife differed, and that the particular “setting partners” which they had shown each other so often did not come in the quadrille at all, but occurred in lancers, just before the ladies’ chain. But she had insisted that both the setting to partners and ladies’ chain came in quadrilles. This morning, however, he did not feel quite so certain about it.
“You might send a note to Mrs. Ames,” he observed, “and tell her you are not coming.”
“No answer was asked for,” said his wife excitedly. “She just said there was to be a quadrille practice at half-past four. Let there be. I am sure I have no objection, though I do think you might have thought of doing it first, Henry.”
“But she will like to know how many to expect,” said Henry. “If it is to be at half-past four, she must be prepared for tea. It is equivalent to a tea-party, unless you suppose that the class will be over before five.”
During the night Mrs. Altham had pondered her view about the ladies’ chain. It would be an awful thing if Henry happened to be right, and if, on the evening of the dance itself, she presented her hand for the ladies’ chain, and no chain of any sort followed. She decided on a magnanimous course.
“Upon my word, I am not sure that I shall not go,” she said, “just to see what Mrs. Ames’ idea of a quadrille is. I should not wonder if she mixed it up with something quite different, which would be laughable. And after all, we ought not to be so unkind, and if poor Mrs. Ames feels she will get into difficulties over the quadrille, I am sure I shall be happy to help her out. No doubt she has summoned{139} us like this, so that she need not show that she feels she wants to be helped. We will go, Henry, and I daresay I shall get out of her what she means to dress up as! But pray remember to say that we, at any rate, have not given a thought to our costumes yet. And on our way, we may as well call in at Mr. Roland’s, for if I am to wear my three rows of pearls, he must get me a few more, since I find there is a good deal of string showing. I daresay that ordinary pearl beads would answer the purpose perfectly. I have no intention of buying more of the real Roman pearls. They belonged to my mother, and I should not like to add to them. And if you will insist on having some red stone in your cap, to make a buckle for the feather, I am sure you could not do better than get a piece of what he called German ruby that is in his shop now. I do not suppose anybody in Riseborough could tell it from real, and after all this is over, I would wear it as a pendant for my pearls. If you wish, I will pay half of it, and it is but a couple of pounds altogether.”
It did not seem a really handsome offer, but Henry had the sense to accept it. He wanted a stone to buckle the feather in a rather coquettish cap that they had decided to be suitable for Mark Antony, and did not really care what happened to it after he had worn it on this occasion, since it was unlikely that another similar occasion would arise. Deep in his mind had been an idea of turning it into a solitaire, but he knew he would not have the practical courage of this daring conception. It would want another setting, also.
In other houses there were no fewer anticipatory triumphs and past perplexities. There was also,{140} in some cases, wild and secret intrigue. For instance, a few evenings after, Mrs. Brooks next door, sorting out garments in her wardrobe from which she might devise a costume that should remind the beholder of Hermione, looked from her bedroom window, where her quest was in progress, and saw a strange sight in the next garden. There was a lady in white satin with pearls; there was a gentleman in Roman toga with a feathered cap. The Roman gentleman was a dubious figure; the lady indubitable. If ever there was an elderly Cleopatra, this was she.
Mrs. Brooks sat heavily down, after observing this sight. It certainly was Cleopatra in the next garden: as certainly it was a snake in the grass. In a moment her mind was made up. She saw why she had been discouraged from being Cleopatra; the false Mrs. Altham had wanted to be Cleopatra herself, without rival. But she would be Cleopatra too. Riseborough should judge between the effectiveness of the two representations. Of course, every one knew that Mrs. Altham had three rows of Roman pearls, which were nothing but some sort of vitreous enamel. But Mrs. Brooks, as Riseborough also knew, had five or six rows of real seed-pearls. It was impossible to denigrer seed-pearls: they were pearls, though small, and did not pretend to be anything different to what they were. But the Roman prefix, to any fair-minded person, invalidated the word “pearls.” Besides, even as Cleopatra without pearls, she would have been willing to back herself against Mrs. Altham. Cleopatra ought to be tall, which she was. Also Cleopatra ought to be beautiful, which neither was. And Mrs. Altham had urged her to go as Hermione! Of course, she had to revise her toilet, but luckily it{141} had progressed no further than the sewing of white rosettes on to a pair of slightly worn satin shoes, which were equally suitable for any of Shakespeare’s heroines.
The week which had passed for Mr. and Mrs. Altham in a succession of so pleasing excitements and anxieties, had not been without incident to Mrs. Ames. When (by the same post that bore their invitations to the other guests) the announcement of the fancy dress ball reached her, and she read it out to her husband (even as Mrs. Altham had done) towards the end of dinner, he expressed his feelings with a good deal of pooh-ing and the opinion that he, at any rate, was past the years of dressing-up. This attitude (for it had been settled that the invitation was to come as a surprise to him) he somewhat overdid, and found to his dismay that his wife quite agreed with him, and was prepared as soon as dinner was over to write regrets. The reason was not far to seek.
“I hope I am not what—what the servants call ‘touchy,’” she said (and indeed, it was difficult to see what else the servants could call it), “but I must say that, considering the length of time we have been in Riseborough, and the number of entertainments we have provided for the people here, I think dear Millie might have consulted me—or you, of course, Lyndhurst, in my absence—as to any such novelty as a fancy dress ball. I have no wish to interfere in any way with any little party that dear Millie may choose to give, but I suppose since she can plan it without me, she can also enjoy it without me. I am aware I am by no means necessary to the success of any party. And since you think that you are a little beyond the age of dressing up, Lyndhurst—though{142} I do not say I agree with you—I think we shall be happier at home that night. I will write quite kindly to dear Millie, and say we are engaged. No doubt the Althams would dine with us, as I do not imagine that she would care to get up in fancy dress.”
Major Ames was not a quick thinker, but he saw several things without a pause. One was that he, at any rate, must certainly go, but that he did not much care whether Amy went or not. A second was that, having expressed surprise at the announcement of the party, it was too late now to say that he knew about it from the first, and was going to impersonate Antony, while Mrs. Evans was to be Cleopatra. A third was that something had to be done, a fourth that he did not know what.
“I will leave you to your cigarette, Lyndhurst,” said his wife, rising, “and will write to dear Millie. Let us stroll in the garden again to-night.”
She passed out of the dining-room, he closed the door behind her, and she went straight to her writing-table in the drawing-room. Above it hung a looking-glass, and (still not in the frame of mind which servants call “touchy”) she sat down to write the kind note. A considerable degree of sunset still lingered in the western sky, and there would be no need to light a candle to write by. There was light enough also for her to see a rosy-tinted image of herself in the glass, and she paused. She saw there, what she was aware Mrs. Altham had seen this afternoon—namely, the absence of grey in her hair, and the softened and liquated wrinkles of her face. True, not even yet had her husband observed, or at any rate commented on those refurbished signals of{143} her youth, but Mrs. Ames had by no means yet despaired, and daily (as directed) tapped in the emollient cream. This rosy light of sunset gave her face a flush of delicate colour, and she unconsciously claimed for her own the borrowed enchantment of the light.... Then that which was not touchiness underwent a similar softening to that of her wrinkles. She knew she had been guilty of sarcastic intention when she said she was aware that her presence was not necessary to the success of any party. It would be unkind to dear Millie if she refused to go, for a dinner-party at home was no excuse at all; she could perfectly well go on there when carriages came at twenty minutes to eleven. Also it was absurd for Lyndhurst to say that he was past the age when “dressing up” is seemly. In spite of his hair, which he managed very well, he was still young enough in face to excuse the yielding to the temptation of embellishing himself, and a Venetian mantle would naturally conceal his tendency to corpulence. No doubt dear Millie had not meant to put herself forward in any way; no doubt she had not yet really grasped the fact that Mrs. Ames was acknowledged autocrat in all that concerned festivity.
All this train of thought needed but a few seconds for passage, and, as she still regarded herself, the name of the heroines of enchantment sounded delicately in her brain. Juliet and Ophelia she passed over without a pang, for she was not so unfocussed of imagination as to see her reflection capable of recapturing the budding spring of those, or the slim youthfulness of Rosalind. She wanted no girlish r?le, nor did she read into herself the precocious dignity of Portia. But was there not one who came down the green{144} Nile to the sound of flutes in a gilded barge—no girl, but a woman in the charm of her full maturity?
The idea detailed itself in plan and man?uvre. She wanted to burst on Lyndhurst like that, to let him see in a flash of revelation how bravely she could support the r?le of that sorceress.... At the moment the drawing-room door opened, and simultaneously they both began a sentence in identical words.
“Do you know, my dear, I’ve been thinking....”
They both stopped, and he gave his genial laugh.
“Upon my soul, my dear Amy,” he said, “I believe we always have the same thoughts. I’ll tell you what you were going to say. You were going to say, ‘I’ve been thinking it wouldn’t be very kind to dear Millie’—that is what you would say, of course—not very kind to Mrs. Evans if we declined. And I agree with you, my dear. No doubt she should have consulted you first, or if you were away she might even, as you suggested, have mentioned it to me. But you can afford to be indulgent, my dear—after all, she is your cousin—and you wouldn’t like to spoil her party, poor thing, by refusing to go. And if you go, why, of course, I shall put on one side my natural feelings about an old fogey like myself making a guy of himself, and I shall dress up somehow. I think I have an old costume with a Venetian cloak laid aside somewhere, though I daresay it’s moth-eaten and rusty now, and I’ll dress myself up somehow and come with you. I suppose there are some old stagers in Shakespeare—I must have a look at the fellow’s plays again—which even a retired old soldier can impersonate. Falstaff, for instance—some stout old man of that sort.{145}”
Some of this speech, to say the least of it, was not, it is to be feared, quite absolutely ingenuous. But then, Major Ames was not naturally quite ingenuous. He had already satisfied himself that the old costume in question had been perfectly preserved by the naphthaline balls which he was careful to renew from time to time, and was not in the least moth-eaten or rusty. Again, since he had settled to go as Antony, it was not perfectly straightforward to make allusion to Falstaff. But after all, the speech expressed all he meant to say, and it is only our most fortunate utterances that can do as much. Indeed, perhaps it leaned over a little to the further side of expression, for it struck Mrs. Ames at that moment (struck her as violently and inexplicably as a cocoanut falling on her head) that the question of the Venetian cloak had not come into her husband’s mind for the first time that evening. She felt, without being able to explain her feeling, that the idea of the fancy dress ball was not new to him. But it was impossible to tax him with so profound a duplicity; indeed, when she gave a moment’s consideration to the question, she dismissed her suspicion. But the suspicion had been there.
She met him quite half-way.
“You have guessed quite right, Lyndhurst,” she said; “I think it would be unkind to dear Millie if you and I did not go. I dare say she will have difficulty enough as it is to make a gathering. I will write at once.”
This was soon done, and even as she wrote, poor Mrs. Ames’ vision of herself grew more roseate in her mind. But she must burst upon her husband, she must burst upon him. Supposing her preposterous sus{146}picion of a moment before was true, there was all the more need for bursting upon him, for Cleopatraizing herself.... He, meantime, was wondering how on earth to keep the secret of his costume and his hostess’s, should Amy proceed to discuss costumes, or suggest the King and Queen of Denmark as suitable for themselves. It might even be better to accept the situation as such, and tell Mrs. Evans that his wife wanted to go as “a pair” (so Mrs. Altham expressed it) and that it was more prudent to abandon the idea of a stray Antony and a stray Cleopatra meeting on the evening itself unpremeditatedly. But her next words caused all these difficulties to disappear; they vanished as completely as a watch or a rabbit under the wave of the conjurer’s wand.
Mrs. Ames never licked envelopes; she applied water on a camel’s-hair brush, from a little receptacle like a tear-bottle.
“What nonsense, my dear Lyndhurst,” she said. “Fancy you going as Falstaff! You must think of something better than that! Dear me, it is a very bold idea of Millie’s, but really it seems to me that we might have great fun. I do hope that all Riseborough will not talk their costumes over together, so that we shall know exactly what to expect. There is little point in a fancy dress ball unless there are some surprises. I must think over my costume too. I am not so fortunate as to have one ready.”
She got up from the table, still with the roseate image of herself in her mind.
“I think I shall not tell you who I am going to be,” she said, “even when I have thought of something suitable. I shall keep myself as a surprise for you. And keep yourself as a surprise for me, Lynd{147}hurst. Let us meet for the first time in our costumes when the carriage is at the door ready to take us to the party. Do you not think that would be fun? But you must promise me, my dear, that you will not make yourself up as Falstaff, or any old guy. Else I shall be quite ashamed of you.”
He rang the bell effusively (the heartiness of the action was typical of the welcome he gave to his wife’s suggestion), and ordered the note to be sent.
“By Jove! Amy,” he said, “what a one you always are for thinking of things. And if you wish it, I’ll try to make a presentable figure of myself, though I’m sure I should be more in place at home waiting for your return to hear all about it. But I’ll do my best, I’ll do my best, and I dare say the Venetian cloak isn’t so shabby after all. I have always been careful to keep a bit of naphthaline in the box with it.”
 
Flirtation may not be incorrectly defined as making the pretence of being in love, and yet it is almost too solid a word to apply to Major Ames’ relations with Mrs. Evans during the week or two before the ball, and it would be more accurate to say that he was making the pretence of having a flirtation. Even as when he kissed her on that daring evening already described, he was thinking entirely about himself and the dashingness of this proceeding, so in the days that succeeded, this same inept futility and selfsatisfaction possessed him. He made many secret visits to the house, entering like a burglar, in the middle of the afternoon, by an unfrequented passage from the railway cutting, at hours when she told him that her husband and daughter would certainly{148} be out, and the secrecy of those meetings added spice to them. He felt—so deplorable a frame of mind almost defies description—he felt a pleasing sense of wickedness which was endorsed, so to speak, by the certificate which attested to his complete innocence. As far as he was concerned, it was a mere farce of a flirtation. But the farce filled him with a kind of childish glee; he persuaded himself that his share in it was real, and that by a tragic fate he and the woman who were made for each other were forbidden to find the fruition of their affinity. It was an adventure without danger, a mine without gunpowder. For even on two occasions when he was paying one of these clandestine visits, Dr. Evans had unexpectedly returned and found them together. The poor blind man, it seemed, suspected nothing; indeed, his welcome had been extremely cordial.
“Good of you to come and help my wife over her party,” he said. “What you’d do without Major Ames, little woman, I don’t know. Won’t you stop for dinner, Major?”
Then, after a suitable reply, and a digression to other matters, the Major’s foolish eye would steal a look at Millie, and for a moment her eyes would meet his, and flutter and fall. And considering that there was not in all the world probably a worse judge of human nature than Major Ames, it is a strange thing that his mental comment was approximately true.
“Dear little woman,” he said to himself; “she’s deuced fond of me!”