Chapter II

1

Once in the hall of the house she did not look round at him: her steps rang sharply on the stone flags as she passed to a door at the far end of the wide and sombre hall of stone--for in it only one lamp was alight. He threw his hat on a chair and, in following her, had time to be surprised at the spaciousness about him. For, from the outside, the house had looked one of those tall and narrow houses common in Mayfair, where ground-rent is high: there had been no hint of this wide and spacious hall in which the lightest steps resounded portentously. It was like the hall of a house in, say, Carlton House Terrace, it was a hall to hold two butlers--now that footmen have become vulgar--the one to take your hat and the other your name; and at its extremity, near the door through which the chinchilla had passed, there swept upwards with a wide sweep a noble marble stairway, the kind of stairway from the top of which men may fairly envisage the ascending grace of the women who might have loved them or the shortcomings of the woman they have married; for very grievous for a mediocre figure is the ascending of such a gracious stairway as this.

The house was very still, but it is not unusual for a house to be very still towards half-past one. And as Ivor followed the tall lady into the room at the foot of the noble stairway, he wondered why she was doing this odd thing; but (since men cannot help thinking of such things) he did not seriously consider the idea that her invitation would finally include her bed, for any fool can tell a romantic lady from a calm lady, and she was deliciously calm. Probably she was bored, Ivor thought, and would amuse herself a while; and so, though he did not feel very amusing to-night, he would try to be as pleasant as possible.... And he wouldn’t mind a drink, anyway; but he didn’t get a drink.

2

Her voice met him as he went into the room: it was a large and wide room, and it was dim, for she had switched on but a few lights, faint electric-lights hidden in subtle vases here and there about the expanse of the room.

“Don’t, please, be shy,” her voice met him, the calm voice, “for I’m quite shy enough for two. And I asked you in because I want you to talk to me--just a little.”

He came forward towards her across the rugs that strewed the parquet floor. There were many things in that room, chairs and footstools and sofas of quality, but yet it was a room for leisured feet, a room easy to move in. She stood by the nobly carven fireplace, a figure in chinchilla, under which was visible a low-cut black dress: and this shone a little as though it were made of black armour, even as black sequins do sometimes shine.

“Well, it makes a man shy,” he protested, “to try to live up to the fact that you’ve let him speak to you.”

The candid eyes of the tall lady examined him; they were gray eyes, wide and inquiring and amazingly innocent, and now there was a subtle light of laughter in them, as though she was infinitely but quietly amused about something. But he did not meet her eyes, for his were suddenly engrossed in a large portrait on a farther wall, a portrait startling and remarkable even in that dim light. It was a portrait in oils of a woman in a green dress sitting in a high-backed chair, and her head was pressed back against the back of the chair so that her throat was a clean and white line, and appalling in its suggestion of luxuriance; and the eyes of the woman in the green dress, as her head leant back against her chair, had in them the frightening candour of innocence, and they laughed at you, without mockery, as though she was infinitely but quietly amused about something; and her hair was golden, and yet only a fool would have called it golden, for it was of the colour of fallen leaves on an October afternoon, russet brown and very dull gold shot with a fantasy of carmine. Anyway, the colour of her hair was more like that of an October leaf than anything else, and as for her dress, who shall describe that green dress? For it was a strange and surprising dress, yet it was not a cheeky dress but witty, and it required from its wearer more than the virtue of dignity, though even that is a considerable virtue in young women nowadays. At its foot was just visible the sweet tip of a cherry shoe--but at its other end, the queenly end, at that end where a dress must die so that a woman’s flesh may live for men’s admiration and distress, at that end where a dress curves in glorious luxury over breasts and dies in a last effort to reach and clutch a slender throat! What of that queenly end of that green dress? It was contrived, without detracting an iota from the elegant formality of its wearer, so that it swept in a thin green strand from the bosom over one shoulder--and never returned over the other! for that other shoulder was startling white and naked, it was the kind of shoulder that men dream about in lonely moments; it was a shoulder wantonly divorced from the green dress which curved, ever so luxuriously, over but half one of the breasts of the subtly laughing woman with the eyes of innocent candour. And Ivor stared at her.

“Ah, yes,” he said, towards the portrait, “I know you now. I know you well.”

“Oh, but am I so famous then!” the lady cried pathetically, and Ivor turned to her thoughtfully.

“That portrait is famous,” he said. “It set every one talking, even in war-time--and it set me longing. Years ago....”

The “Portrait of Pamela Star,” by Augustus John--who, in the autumn of 1916, when it was on exhibition at the Grosvenor Galleries, did not hear of it? Never did portrait create such a stir or leave such an impression as the portrait of Pamela Star. The _Daily Mail_ at once called her a “mystery woman,” and the _Evening News_ discovered a theory that the lovely creature was a Belgian refugee whom Major John had rescued at the risk of his life; and tried to interview the artist, but failed deplorably. And though there were not wanting fellow-artists to say that the portrait was a literary masterpiece rather than a painting, which is a boring remark and means nothing, and though Mr. George Moore was heard to say, as he walked away from a long contemplation of the portrait, that painting had died with Manet--yet it was commonly admitted that whereas Gainsborough had painted a lady like a landscape, Augustus John had made a lady into a legend; and what lady, it was asked, would not rather be a legend than a landscape?

“I was on leave in 1916,” Ivor told her, “and I happened to walk into the Grosvenor Galleries. And there you were! You were a great help to me, Pamela Star. You were indeed....”

“And were you as curious about me then as you are courteous now?” she asked him with a smile. They were standing close together, the room was an island and they were solitary and close on it; she smiled at him curiously; and Ivor had a funny feeling that he had never yet met a woman with such a clean, unveiled smile: absolutely frank. And he wondered about her age, thinking it must be that mysterious and intangible age which lies somewhere between twenty-five and thirty.

“Every one was curious about you,” he told her. “People wondered about you. They knew a little about you, you see, and on that little they built all kinds of gossip....”

“And didn’t Mr. John ever explain how quiet and harmless his sitter was?” asked Pamela Star.

“John never speaks about his sitters. If you should ask him a question about them he wouldn’t hear you. John is an artist, not a table-decoration....”

“And what kind of things did people wonder about me?” asked Pamela Star. “I want to know, please. For, you see, I know as little about people as they know about me. Less even....”

“They wondered,” said Ivor, “if you really want to know, whether you were a courtesan or a virgin. And that’s a great compliment to you, Pamela Star, for there’s generally no doubt about it one way or the other....”

“And you?”

“Oh, I wondered too!”

“And now--are you still wondering?”

“More than ever,” he assured her.

“I’m not wondering,” he explained quickly, “whether you are a courtesan, for I think I know just enough about them to know that you’re not one. And you look too wise to be a virgin. I’m just wondering about you, that’s all.”

“Shall I trust you?” she put to him, ever so suddenly.

“Please,” he said.

“Well----” she began childishly, and hesitated. Her eyes, those candid eyes, were very full on him, they searched his. She gulped, smiled, and spoke swiftly:--

“I’m a plumber’s daughter, and yet I own this house and all that’s in it and very much besides. In fact I’m very, very rich.”

“So, of course,” she said softly, “I’m not a virgin. Of course....”

And suddenly, from the recesses of that curious moment, there crept out laughter; and they laughed, those two, right at each other, a little shyly, a little wonderingly, like children uneasy under the burden of a new friendship. And then she said, very seriously:--

“I wouldn’t have let you speak to me in Down Street, if I hadn’t seen that you hadn’t the usual number of arms. You could do less damage with only one arm, I thought....”

“Oh, I can do quite a lot! One’s mind has a thousand arms to hurt with, after all.”

“I see,” said Pamela Star curiously.

And then that one arm made as though to sweep away some debris. “But how did we get talking of myself?”

“I was just trying to find out about men,” she confessed sweetly. “I’ve known so very few....”

“Ah, yes, you were telling me how you came to let me speak to you in Down Street,” he remembered. “Well, you know, I certainly wouldn’t have dreamed of speaking to you if I had known who you were. I would have been frightened....”

“And now--aren’t you frightened?”

“Oh, no! I like you, Pamela Star.”

And again they laughed together, but, suddenly, she became very earnest; and he wondered at himself for not having observed before that the candid eyes were sad and that her mouth was just a little sad, as of a woman who might cry but will not.

“And now I’ll confess to you, since you say you like me,” she told him without jest, “that I asked you here under false pretences....”

“But you’ve made no pretences at all!” he broke in quickly. “That’s what is so nice about you....”

“I told you,” she insisted, “that I asked you to come in because I wanted you to talk to me a little. I lied, my friend. I asked you to come in because I wanted to make sure if I liked you or not. And if I did like you I intended to show you something. I’ve simply got to show it to someone, don’t you see? Something important.”

“In fact,” she said very slowly, “I’m going to show you the most important--how does one say it?--factor in my life. Come, stranger.”

“I’ll tell you my name if you like,” said Ivor.

She considered his face.

“It doesn’t matter,” she told him. “I have known men with names, but known them no better for them. This will be in the nature of an experiment....”

“If ever,” she said, “you should see my eyes searching for a word, you will tell me your name. That will be the word I need.” And she smiled faintly at his absorbed face, and with a slight shake the chinchilla coat dropped off her to the floor, soft and shining silver about her feet, and she was a woman in a black sequin dress cut low about her throat and severely distant from her arms. Somewhere about the shining black was a splash of vivid green, maybe it was about its middle: just a little splash of vivid green on the shining black dress....

“Come,” she said again. And he followed Pamela Star across the room to double-doors at a far end. She laid her hands on the two knobs, as though dramatically to swing the doors open; but instead, as she stood thus against the dark panel of the door, she suddenly threw her head backwards to him with an adorable gesture, and she said:--

“You are my newest friend--and here is my oldest and my best!”

And Pamela Star threw open the doors to introduce her newest friend to her oldest, a dead man laid out on a great couch in the serene light of two tall candles, at its head, in two tall candlesticks of barbaric design in dull and twisted gold.

“That’s how he wished it,” she whispered.

They stood, the two young people, even as straight as the two candlesticks of the dead old man’s desire, in the open doorway: Ivor staring in wonder, and she in deep thoughtfulness, at the still and bearded figure on the great couch. Her oldest and best friend! And she, beside him in the doorway, was as still as the dead....

3

They stood facing one another on each side of the figure on the great couch, he staring down in wonder and she in thought; and the calm light of the two candles shone softly on her hair, so that red and gold and bronze danced on the waves and magic shades chased magic shadows in the depths.

The couch was low, it did not reach above Ivor’s knees; and it was very wide, but the old man was not lost in it, for even in death he could bewilder size and confuse proportion. Patriarchal he looked, that old man, where he lay with fine head and beard uncovered by the sheet--for what shame to cover the head, no matter how inert, of Aram Melekian! Of whom it had been said that he was the only proud gesture that wretched race has ever made since Jesus died to save the souls of men and to make a hecatomb of Hayastan, which is Armenia’s true name. A wise old man, Sir Aram Melekian, but bitter: the friend of man he had surely proved himself by many charities and endowments, but as surely he despised mankind; he lent money to it. It was said that he had financed several little wars, and it was known that, with the great Greek millionaire, he had helped the Allies considerably in the last war--his idea being, some people said, that since England and France had befriended Armenia almost out of existence he was only too pleased to do what he could for them: which does not show him in a very pleasant light, but is almost certainly a malicious fabrication of envy, for Sir Aram Melekian had always let it be known that he yielded to no one in his admiration for the recent civilisations of the West, saying: “The West is much more cunning than the East, which is why the East is called cunning, I suppose.” It was to such fresh and boyish remarks, no doubt, that the old multi-millionaire owed his amazing popularity among the societies of Paris, New York and London. Mr. Belloc and Mr. Chesterton, however, were understood not to like him very much, and the _Morning Post_ had made several disapproving references to him in connection with Mr. Lloyd George’s Near Eastern policy--but all this was no doubt due to a pardonable misunderstanding about Sir Aram Melekian’s nose, which was what’s called a decidedly Jewish-looking affair; whereas, though Armenians have frequently been described as very Jewish-looking, the truth of the matter is that Jews are very Armenian-looking, for the Armenians are the senior race and have, therefore, a prior right to that nose which the Jews, perhaps rather indiscreetly, have always claimed as their own. Sir Aram Melekian, like the late Viscount Northcliffe, had read the history of Napoleon; but, unlike the late Viscount Northcliffe, he had forgotten it....

But the death of the great Armenian, on the 1st of May, 1921, is too recent to deserve particular comment; and, indeed, little could be added to the biographical details, appreciations and tittle-tattle which filled the newspapers of the day; for editors, whose hands are nowhere if not on the pulse of the public, know that, though a multi-millionaire is but a fable while he is alive, the great heart of the public is at once touched by his death and deeply interested in the disposition of his fabulous monies; though in this case that disposition was found to be of less than usual interest, for the number of words in Sir Aram Melekian’s will did not exceed the rumoured number of his millions.

Ivor did not need to be told who the old man was. The curiosity about the “Portrait of Pamela Star” in 1916 had, anyway, ascertained one certain fact about Pamela Star, that she was in some way connected with Sir Aram Melekian; and though the old millionaire gained a little glamour from that connection, whether of love or guardianship no one knew, it was thought a little “peculiar” of him to keep her, “that lovely, tall creature,” so severely to himself; for there had been no chance of meeting her, even those brilliant and energetic hostesses who were intimate acquaintances of Aram Melekian’s were by him refused the slightest introduction to Pamela Star. “Later,” he would say; and always “Later.” They would be seen, however, now and then, side by side in the tonneau of a car; now and then riding in the Row, a fine pair for all his age, which must have been well over sixty: “the lovely, tall creature” and the iron-gray old man with the Assyrian beard and the deep eyes that only smiled at disconcerting moments: a suspicious man. And so Pamela Star remained unknown, a legend created by Augustus John and enjoyed only by an eccentric old man....

It was as Ivor at last raised his eyes from the old man’s face, to see if Pamela Star really existed, that she spoke. She said, in a very low voice:--

“He died this evening--at about seven o’clock. Gently--just as he looks. He expected to die, his heart was like that. And I expected it, too....”

“Dear, dear Aram!” her voice came so softly, so tenderly. “He was so strong--and so contemptuous--about everything but me!”

Ivor looked down again at the noble head on which age had left a mane of gray hair, and at the face, which was as though bleached white and taut with many years, many tempers.

“He looks,” Ivor said thoughtfully, “as I thought no man in the world could look, the richest man in the world.”

“And I?” Her sharp question startled him; he stared across the couch, into the gray irises into which the candlelight had dropped spots of gold. “And I? Do I look like the richest woman in the world?”

He stared; it was somehow appalling, the matter and manner of that swift question, so brittle and infinitely wretched! And he suddenly felt as though all his life had been leading to this particular and amazing point, that he had lived thirty-two years for nothing more--and nothing less!--than to be asked, across the body of an old man, this magnificently absurd question. And he tried to be silent, but he said something, he never knew what....