Chapter D: Appleton and Company (5)

Mame thanked the roughneck for his information and then obtained permission to keep the card. The address might come in useful. All the same there was nothing at the moment to lead one to suppose that it would.

From what the bailiff said, she would be wise to write off the money due her from _High Life_ as a bad debt.

XXI

Tuesday afternoon saw Miss Amethyst Du Rance armed _cap-à-pie_ for a second descent upon London society.

Since the opportune arrival of Elmer P.’s letter the invitation to Half Moon Street had been much in her thoughts. It opened up new possibilities. And the friend she had so providentially found was likely to prove of great value in the life she aspired to lead.

Having received her baptism of fire at Clanborough House, Mame had none of the qualms which, on that occasion, had assailed her. Within her now was a happy feeling of success. Moreover, a black cloud had been lifted from her mind. Elmer P.’s letter had changed everything.

By nature adventurous, she was stimulated by the prospect of big things. To begin with, she bestowed great pains upon her appearance. She had lately discovered that she paid for dressing; and it gave her real pleasure to linger over the last touches to her small but attractive self.

She had, too, an instinct for doing things well. The afternoon was fine, there was spring in the air, but she could afford a taxi to Half Moon Street. Therefore she taxi’d. It gave her a sense of being in the picture to drive up in state to Lady Violet’s flat.

It was about a quarter to four when she found herself going up in the lift--a handier word than elevator--to 16b on the second floor. She pressed a neat button and a dinky maid, who was much too smart for a hired girl, in snowy cap and apron and with a prim English look, ushered the visitor across a tiny entrance hall into a singularly cosy and artistically furnished drawing room. To Mame it was quite the last word in feminine elegance.

It was a little early for callers and she had the good luck to find Lady Violet alone. As soon as the visitor was announced the hostess laid aside the novel she was reading, got up cheerily and welcomed her with that forthcomingness which from the first had taken Mame.

There was great charm in this girl and Mame reacted to it. Here were a big outlook and first-hand knowledge of the great world. To Lady Violet life was a game; human nature an amusing spectacle, a kind of comedy farce; men and women, no matter how highly placed, were merely players. But she had not a spark of ill nature; at least Mame as yet had not detected one. Nor, as far as Mame could tell, was she grinding her own axe. The top-notchers Mame had been privileged to look on in New York from a respectful distance were not folks of this kidney. They were mighty careful to keep you at arm’s length, unless you could make them feel that you had something substantial to give them in return for any interest they condescended to take in a person as raw as yourself.

This afternoon, however, Mame was not feeling quite so raw as she had done. Clanborough House combined with the letter from New York had somehow given her a more substantial basis. It is wonderful what a feeling of success can do. Besides, Lady Violet, as usual, was just as easy as pie.

She told the visitor how pleased she was to see her and fixed her snugly in a chair.

“When are you thinking of going home?”

“I expect I’ll stay on through the summer now.” Mame had a slight air of importance. “I like the life here and I’ve just had a commission to report it for the New York _Monitor_.”

“That’ll be interesting.”

Mame hoped it would be. If she was careful how she played her cards it might be very interesting indeed, but the problem of the moment was the exact order in which to do so.

She was a creature of quick intuitions. And she promptly decided that the perfect frankness which up till now had served her so well was decidedly the card to bank on.

To go around, to see things from the inside, to get into the swim was Mame’s ambition and she naïvely confessed it to Lady Violet. This new friend did not discourage it. She did, indeed, seem a little amused, but not in the way of patronage or ill nature. Perhaps it was because this quaint thing from a land where Lady Violet herself had enjoyed jolly times was so liberally endowed with the quality that most appealed to her in man or woman, horse or hound. It was the quality best summed up by the good word “pluck,” which from their first chance meeting had inspired her with an honest desire to help this little American.

Something about Miss Amethyst De Rance had certainly touched Lady Violet. This girl was as different from the run of Americans with whom she occasionally rubbed shoulders on their native continent as chalk is different from cheese. And among her compatriots whom Lady Violet knew in London, not one in the least resembled her.

Obviously her general education was limited, but this girl was as live as a fire. She was very original; and her decidedly pretty head was full of ideas. Even if in the main they were directed to her own advancement, why blame her? But it was her way of saying things that appealed most strongly to this amateur of the human comedy. Lady Violet was a connoisseur, who in her spare time collected odd types of her fellow creatures, as other people collect postage stamps, foreign coins, pewter or old Sheffield. Moreover, having a keen, if rather freakish sense of fun, it pleased her sometimes to play one “type” off against another.

All the same, there was no young woman in London society more genuinely popular. If she could be, and frequently was, mischievous in a subtle way, she had a knack of helping lame dogs over stiles. Providing she liked a person, and she sometimes liked them for the oddest reasons, such as the shape of their ears, or because their toes turned in, she would take quite a lot of trouble over them.

This afternoon the funny little American she had met at the Carlton ten days ago, and who now graced her “collection” as if she had been a scarce butterfly with rare and attractive markings, was sending up a rather pathetic social S. O. S. Miss Du Rance, who was really pretty if she wouldn’t “make up” and wear the wrong sort of clothes, had already let her in on the ground floor in the matter of confidences. The girl had, it seemed, ambitions, which she had precious little chance of being able to gratify.

Lady Violet, however, did not tell her so. She was much too good-hearted for that. From the first she had been attracted by the child. Something looked out of those good grey eyes. Already this new friend’s worldly wise brain was at work.

Mame was encouraged to prattle artlessly on. There was no display of vulgar curiosity; but in the most natural way Lady Violet probed the secrets of her past. The life on the farm, four miles from Cowbarn, Iowa; the burning of the midnight candle to fit herself for the larger life; the good Miss Jenkins; the secret study of stenography; the escape to the _Independent_ office; the arrival of Aunt Lou’s legacy; the flight to New York; the police raid; the trip to Europe--warmed by sympathy, Mame told the story of her life. And as told in the vivid native idiom, which, to the dweller in another world, had all the charm of novelty, the story almost became an epic.

Yes, she was worth helping, this rather pathetic child. Lady Violet fixed on her again that masked look which had a strange power of seeing through the most complex people. But this little go-getter--her own priceless word--was not complex at all. She was perfectly easy to read. And yet so interesting. In fact she was something new.

Miss Du Rance had just told the story of her life, when a tall, slightly faded-looking woman of forty came into the room.

The first thing Mame noted about this lady was the way in which her hair was done. She must have a peach of a maid. It was turning a most becoming shade of grey; it was abundant and it had an air of great elegance. That indeed was the quality which dominated the lady herself; an air of great elegance. She was subdued in dress and in manner; she moved like some extremely dignified and well-nurtured cat; yet there was nothing about her of that passive hostility which caused Mame so actively to dislike the Tabbies of Fotheringay House.

Lady Violet addressed this rather formal yet most agreeable dame as Cousin Edith. “Let me introduce Miss Du Rance of Chicago,” she said to Cousin Edith with a pensive smile.

Mame returned vigorously Cousin Edith’s bow and then offered an equally vigorous hand. “Very pleased to meet you, ma’am,” said Mame cordially. Her democratic spirit was a little doubtful of the “ma’am” but she was using company manners, so it seemed all right.

“Of Chicago,” however, troubled her. “Cowbarn, Iowa.” She hastened with a frank smile to correct Lady Violet.

“Near Chicago,” said the hostess _sotto voce_ to Cousin Edith. For some reason, which was not at all clear, she seemed determined to locate Mame in a region wherein Mame had no desire to be located. Iowa was good enough for her, but evidently in London society Illinois was considered more Chick.

She took quite a liking to Cousin Edith. That lady had a nice flow of talk that was very amiable and kindly. Unlike Lady Violet’s it was not syncopated nor was it full of slang; it had no witty twists and turns, but it was well worth listening to. Cousin Edith appeared to have seen and known quite a lot, but she lacked Lady Violet’s force and humour and her modern touch. All the same she was light in hand and had the happy knack of meeting people a little more than half way, which could not be said for most Britishers.

Mame was getting on famously with Cousin Edith when a Mrs. Creber Newsum was announced. Mrs. Creber Newsum was tall, blonde, very blue-eyed, very fragile. Distinction seemed to stand off from her manner in festoons. Like her fair hair and her fine chin her fluting voice seemed to be raised a shade too high.

The moment Mrs. Creber Newsum entered the room, and even before being introduced to her, which she almost immediately was, Mame instinctively knew this was a kind of dame of whom she would do well to be careful. She had a subtle feeling before a word had passed between them that the newcomer was one of her own countrywomen. And in that case she shrewdly suspected that as far as Mrs. Creber Newsum was concerned she had better go slow. By now Miss Amethyst Du Rance knew enough of Europe to be aware that in the eyes of a Mrs. Creber Newsum, with her Fifth Avenue, Long Island, flat-in-Paris, villa-in-Italy style, she was very much, at present, “the wrong kind of American.”

However, she was not always going to be the wrong kind of American. But for the moment, knowing as much as she did, and being able to guess at what she didn’t, she intended to imitate the motions of a character famous in the Bible. She would walk delicately.

Miss Du Rance was not flustered at all. She had been through the fire at Clanborough House, she had learned a few things and she had the moral support of an influential and an able friend. Just how able that friend was she discovered within the next two minutes.

“Mrs. Creber Newsum,” said Lady Violet, in a voice that sounded quite impressive, “this is my friend Miss Du Rance of Chicago.”

It was odd, but Mame perceived in a flash the tactical value of the “Chicago.” Somehow it seemed to account for her in a general way, whereas the Iowa, let alone the Cowbarn, might have accounted for her much too definitely, at any rate in the eyes of Mrs. Creber Newsum. Beyond a doubt, Lady Violet was clever.

Mrs. Creber Newsum glanced at Mame, more in sorrow than in anger. Then she offered her hand as if it rather hurt her to do so; and then she withdrew it as if the touch of Mame’s fingers was a shade more than her spotless gloves could bear. Mame felt that her compatriot--she couldn’t tell exactly how she knew Mrs. Creber Newsum was an American, but she would have bet a hundred and fifty dollars that she was--was slightly overdoing the aristocracy racket. On Fifth Avenue it might have seemed all right; but it was so consciously “high-grade,” that it had a tendency to get on the nerves of common folks.

The introduction had just been got over with real queenliness on the one side--Mrs. Creber Newsum simply couldn’t help being queenly--and real discretion on the other, when Mame surprised the broadest smile she had yet seen on the averted face of Lady Violet. Plainly her friend was enjoying the moment hugely. What there was to be secretly so amused about, Mame couldn’t guess. But the smile of Lady Violet set her thinking.

Mrs. Creber Newsum sat slowly on an ottoman, about as far from her small compatriot as she could conveniently get. And then she said in a rather high but agreeable voice, although much troubled with culture, “Have you been in England long, Miss Du Rance?”

“Five weeks and four days,” said Mame.

“Five weeks and four days,” Mrs. Creber Newsum repeated softly. “An interesting experience for you, is it not?”

Mame was not to be drawn. The conversation as far as it touched Mrs. Creber Newsum and herself seemed to languish. But neither Cousin Edith nor Lady Violet was the kind of person who would permit it to languish generally. They had it well in hand. It could be wound up and set going just as soon as they chose, but Lady Violet, at least, wanted to see what the two Americans would make of each other.

As a matter of fact she knew. And there was no need to wait for her prescience to be demonstrated. But for some reason, these differing types greatly amused her. Perhaps she rather wanted to see what the homely little barnyard chick would make of the superlative cosmopolitan peacock. She knew exactly what the peacock had made already of the little chick.

Mame’s quick brain was busy even if her tongue was inert. She would get no good of Mrs. Creber Newsum and she must be particularly careful that the high-flyer did not call her bluff. As she sat listening to the light and clever talk of these new friends she determined from now on to watch her step with unceasing vigilance. The chances that were coming her way must be stepping stones to her great ambition; but she must expect no help and no mercy from the Mrs. Creber Newsums of the earth.

Cousin Edith soon began to address mild and non-committal nothings to Miss Du Rance, to ease, as it were, Chicago’s burden in the presence of Cosmopolis. Mame felt humbly grateful. Cousin Edith was a kind of natural dear. And Mame was sure she had as much culture as Mrs. Creber Newsum, but that she preferred to conceal it rather than to cut a dash. But what really interested Miss Du Rance was not the talk of Cousin Edith. She was responsive and polite, but one ear was kept open for the cavortings of Mrs. Creber Newsum and Lady Violet.

It was wonderful, the assurance and the calm with which Lady Violet lit on highbrow subjects. Duse, Cæsar Franck, Tchehov, Marcel Proust, all that kind of dope; she could take Mrs. Creber Newsum over the course without putting a foot wrong. She had no airs about it either. But she could ladle out highbrow eyewash till the cows came home, merely as a matter of course. Mrs. Creber Newsum, however, seemed to inflate. Mame resolved to study this kind of cross talk. A useful trick to learn.

Pretty soon other folks began to pile in and, from Mame’s viewpoint, things grew still more entertaining. Lady So-and-So; Mrs. This; Miss That. She did not always catch their names, or at least her memory, usually so good, was not always able to retain them. Some she was introduced to; some she was not; but no matter whom she found herself up against, she was careful to maintain a Biblical style of progress.

Most of these dashers thought her dull, no doubt. Let them. She must play for safety. Some of them eyed her curiously; they couldn’t quite conceal a “Hulloa-what-are-you-doing-here?” sort of look. But the fairly large room began to fill. And the fuller it became the more at ease grew Mame. There was a better chance to take cover.

This crowd was worth observing at close range. Mame did not let the opportunity slip. The proper study of mankind is man. According to the office calendar some wise guy had pulled that in the reign of Queen Anne. Mame had already developed considerable powers in that direction. She was getting quite expert at sizing folks up.

Socially speaking, she now divided her fellow creatures into two classes. Class A, on the level. Class B, four-flushers. Nothing had surprised her more in New York than the prevalence of Class B. They were everywhere. And, as far as she was concerned, they were highly dangerous people. One of their chief delights was to call the bluff of their competitors.

London also suffered from Class B. It was less dominant, however, than on the other side of the Atlantic. And for the most part, in London they were four-flushers with a difference. They saw bigger, they carried more sail; perhaps they were older hands at the game.

Even Lady Violet’s smart drawing room was not wholly free of Class B. As the place got fuller and fuller and the tea and cake began to circulate, the other sex made a bit of a show. Mame welcomed them as a pleasing diversion. She gave far less thought to men as a rule than she gave to women. Somehow she felt that she had so much less to fear from them.

London, she had heard, was rather famous for its men. They were said to wear their clothes better than any in the world. That might be so. But among those who blew in upon 16b Half Moon Street this afternoon were one or two whose clothes ought not to have been worn by anybody. Artistic johns, no doubt. One in particular, large, shambling, big-kneed, loud-voiced, had a regular Fifth of November appearance.

Mame was so struck by him that she asked her right-hand neighbour, a very knowledgeable girl who unmistakably belonged to Class A and who was full of natural elegance, who he was.

“Shelton France Mackelland, the Canadian poet,” the girl informed her.

“A Canuck, is he?” She wondered how he dared.

“Don’t you know his famous volume of poems, _The Old Shack_?”

Mame confessed that she did not.

“I adore them myself.” The girl, who was very pretty and quite simple, spoke with an unpremeditated innocence that Mame liked but deplored. Class A girls of this sort made it altogether too easy for Class B people to get away with it.

“No use for Canucks.” Mame looked towards Shelton France Mackelland with open hostility. “They are the worst kind of tinhorns mostly.”

Sweetly and gravely the girl begged Mame’s pardon. This odd, fierce, untamed little American was using what to her was a foreign language.

Before Mame could fully expound what her attitude was towards the Canucks of the earth, a young man of a different sort bore down upon her with a plate of cakes. He was the identical Bill whom Mame had admired so much when she had first seen him two weeks ago. This afternoon he was looking nicer than ever. A picture of health and comeliness, he was doing enormous credit to his tailor. And his manners were most engagingly frank. Even in the eyes of an observer severely democratic they hadn’t a suspicion of “lugs.”

“I like that one,” said Mame, after the bearer of the cakes had passed on. She bit a piece out of her recently acquired bun and found brandy in the heart of it. “If I was falling in love I’ll say he’d be the baby for me.”

The friendly neighbour glanced at her in mild but furtive wonder.

“I didn’t get his name?” said Mame interrogatively.

“That’s my cousin Kidderminster.”

“Kidderminster, is it?” In what connection had she heard the name? She suddenly remembered. “I guess he’s some relation of Lady Violet’s.”

“Her brother.”

For a reason Mame could not have explained her heart gave a little jump. “That’s bully,” she murmured. And then she went on, less perhaps from a desire for information than to divert attention from her own enthusiasm. “Then you, I s’pose, are Lady Violet’s cousin?”

“One of many,” said the girl. “Violet has any amount of cousins. Simply heaps and heaps of relations.”

“Plenty of influence?” The true meaning of that mystic word was now being revealed to Mame.

“Yes, in a way, one would say she had. But she’s got any amount of brains, as well, you know.”

Mame was quite sure that Lady Violet had.

“Everybody thinks her so clever.”

“Earns a big income, I guess.”

“I believe so. And perfectly wonderful how she gets about. Goes everywhere. Knows everybody.”

“Pulls the big stuff.”

“I beg your pardon.” A simple sort of tulip, this girl.

“Kinda got all the strings in her hand,” said Mame, trying to be lucid.

“Most of them, I think. Anyway she has a tremendously good time.”

The folks began to get a bit thinner, to diminish by twos and threes. Mame, having had a most entertaining afternoon, decided not to outstay her welcome. She rose and crossed to Lady Violet, who was talking very quick French to a foreign-looking bozo, with an imperial and a braided jacket, who stood peering over his teacup into her eyes.

“Can I come and see you again?” Mame offered a white glove, in which she took considerable pride, at the precise angle she had discovered to be fashionable.

“Oh, please, please!” Lady Violet spoke as if she really meant it. “And quite soon, you know.”

The cheery warmth of the words left Mame with a feeling that she was taking leave of a real friend.

XXII

When Mame had stepped into the lift outside the door of 16b, by pure coincidence she found it occupied already by the tall, immaculate top-hatted form of Bill. It was a piece of luck. She had taken quite a fancy to this young man and was ready to seize a chance of improving the acquaintance.

“I hope you enjoyed yourself,” he said, with hearty and cheerful politeness.

Miss Du Rance left him no sort of doubt upon that point. “Lady Violet’s your sister, ain’t she?”

Bill said she was. Further he remarked in genial brotherly fashion: “A good sort, old Vi! And clever as blazes, you know. Got clean away with all the brains of our family.”

Mame offered no comment, but she felt somehow that it was highly probable. Bill, with all his charm and manliness, made no pretence at intellect. But in the opinion of Miss Du Rance he had better things to show.

When they reached the ground floor and found themselves in the vestibule, Bill said, “Can I get you a taxi or anything?”

“Are you taxi-ing yourself?” inquired the judicious Mame.

“No, I’m hitting the pike.” Bill was proud of his American.

“Same here. Which way you going?”

“Along Piccadilly as far as St. James’s Street.”

Mame was going along Piccadilly as far as the Circus. They might walk together if he didn’t mind.

Bill said he was enchanted. Perhaps he was. There was nothing in his manner to suggest the contrary. An amusing little puss. She seemed different from all the other girls he knew. He must ask Vi what part of the States she came from. Perhaps he might have asked the amusing little puss herself had he not been kept so busy answering the questions she put to him.

The number of questions Bill had to answer in their pleasant saunter up the street, and across the road, and by the Green Park railings was astonishing. But he didn’t mind at all. In fact he rather liked it. She was as fresh as paint. And simply rippling with intelligence. No end of punch in her, too. Yes, she was altogether different from the other girls he knew. As for her comically expressive phrases, she sort of fired them off, a hundred to the minute, like some jolly old Maxim gun.

At the top of Saint James’s Street, they came to a stop and Bill remarked: “I get off here.”

Miss Du Rance looked a trifle disappointed.

“Goin’ into my pothouse to play a game at snooker. Into that funny old box, yonder, with the bow window.” Bill’s hand indicated Ward’s Club just opposite.

Somehow, yet without saying so, little Miss Du Rance, the quaint and charming American, was able to convey that to her mind for such an upstanding young fellow to spend a fair spring evening in that way was a pity.

“Daresay she’s right,” mused Bill. A bit of a thought reader, Bill.

“_I’m_ going as far as the Circus,” said the droll minx.

It really was such a fine evening that Bill suddenly decided that he might walk as far as the Circus for the good of his health.

When the young man had been steered in safety past the dangerous corner, the ply of questions began again.

Did he like living in London? What was his favourite flower? Did he care for jazz music? Who was his favourite author? Wasn’t it just a bore to be a blood-peer? Did he like fishing better than gunning? Or did he like gunning better than fishing? He played polo of course? How did he like the Prince of Wales? What did he think of soldiering? By the way, what was the name of his regiment? She had heard, but had forgotten.

“The Pinks.”

“Why were they called the Pinks?”

“A sort of rival show to the Blues.”

“But why the Blues?”

Bill shook his head and laughed. “Why anything?”

“Yes--why anything?”

“Had he got a decoration?”

As a matter of fact he had several. And a little shamefacedly he admitted it.

Then why didn’t he wear them?

People didn’t wear their decorations except on full-dress occasions.

“If I had a V. C.,” said Miss Du Rance, “I should just wear it any old time. And King George himself wouldn’t stop me.”

Without going so far as to offer contradiction, Bill seemed a little inclined to doubt it.

Howbeit that was neither here nor there. And their walk was most enjoyable. Bill was kept in a ripple of amusement. This little Miss Du Rance was the livest thing out. As for her ply of questions it was so unexpected that it never became tiresome. Perhaps it was because she was so nailingly pretty. Those serious grey eyes were as good as anything he had seen in a month of Sundays.

When they got to the Tube in Piccadilly Circus said Miss Du Rance, in whose voice was regret: “I must leave you now. You can go back to your snooker. But I am just awfully pleased and proud to have met you.” She held forth a neat white glove. “I do hope we shall meet again.”

Bill said, as he grasped the white glove fervently: “We must--if you _do_ think so.”

“I don’t say what I don’t think.” The sternness of Miss Du Rance was perfectly killing.

Bill, who was still enjoying every moment of her, ventured to hope that she didn’t. And as an earnest of that he went on to ask, tentatively, whether she cared for dancing.

“I’ll say yes.”

“That’s splendid! We must get Vi to arrange a party one afternoon for the Orient Dance Club.”

“When?”

Bill was hardly prepared to be picked up in that way. Such businesslike promptitude was a threat to his gravity. “One day next week if it can be managed and it’ll be convenient to you.”

Next week, any old day, would be quite convenient to Miss Du Rance. At that they left it.

XXIII

Ways and means were still a problem for Mame. The one hundred and fifty dollars, which had dropped like manna from the sky, were not going to carry her far. One cannot live on the air of London, England, solid though it may be compared with the champagne of New York. Even in that exhilarating climate one needs plenty of “dough” to carry on from day to day.

Miss Du Rance was by way of having quite a lot of success. Socially she had gone much further than she could have dared to hope in so short a time. Her foot was now planted well on the ladder, but she must take care lest she climb to an altitude a little too dizzy. It is so easy to lose one’s head.

Shrewd to the bone, a true daughter of the Middle West, she felt she had better call a halt and look around. It had been a rare bit of luck to strike these friends, but the margin of her resources was so narrow that unless she could add to it pretty soon, and also find other means of income, she would not be able to stay the course.

The situation was again growing serious. Those few providential dollars were already melting like snow. True, she now felt entitled to count on another draft from Elmer P. at an early date, but precisely when it would come she didn’t know. Besides even when it arrived it was not going to last very long. No, it would be wrong to shirk the fact that the margin upon which she was working was uncomfortably small.

This fact came directly home to her, when, about three days after her walk with Bill along Piccadilly, she received a hurried line from Lady Violet, suggesting that on that day week they should make up a party for tea and dancing at the Orient Club, Knightsbridge. If Miss Du Rance cared for that sort of thing she might find it rather amusing.

As it happened few girls cared more for it than Mame. Even in her primitive Cowbarn epoch, an occasional dance with the best and brightest of the boys had been her favourite, indeed her only, means of recreation. Moreover, in New York a certain amount of time had been given to the cultivation of the art. She had always felt it to be within the range of her lightly tripping toes to tread a measure in the best company. Dancing harmonised with her vitality and her love of movement. Had she not seriously considered having herself trained for vaudeville?

Keen as she was to fall in with Lady Violet’s suggestion, she was also wise enough to scent the peril. One way or another it would mean further expenditure that she really could not afford. The position was rather maddening. Her future, as she saw it, as she had planned it, as she had fully determined that it should be, lay with these influential and attractive folks. Perhaps she was a little snob, but this sort of life quite spoiled one for any other.

Still, money was needed to live it. Money was needed all the time. Unless one knew how to get it regularly and in good sums one would surely be wise to turn aside from the lures of English society.

Instinctively Mame felt that she ought not to accept Lady Violet’s invitation. She would be getting into deeper water than she cared about. Delightful as the sun and the ripples were upon the waves, she was nothing like a strong enough swimmer at present to trust herself to that treacherous sea. Yet, alas, there was a second instinct, equally powerful, which recalled a favourite text in the office calendar: There is a Tide.

That fly-marked old calendar had a wonderful knack of turning out to be true. There was a Tide, not a doubt of it. And Mame Durrance was poised upon the top, but so precariously that if she didn’t watch out she would find herself in difficulties; for at present she had not learned to swim beyond a very few strokes. But she was there all right, on the crest of the wave. And somehow she felt the power rising within her to breast those waters. She would sure be the worst fool alive if now she went back on her chances.

XXIV

A week passed. Miss Du Rance taxi’d again to Half Moon Street; this time with a brand new pair of dancing slippers gracing her small but lively feet. The paucity of her remaining dollars was beginning to alarm her now. No further word had come from New York. But whatever happened she was going to follow her luck.

She found Lady Violet seated before a typewriter, clucking away as if for dear life. This was a form of effort with which Mame was only too familiar.

“So sorry.” Lady Violet glanced up from her task. “Please excuse me five minutes. I’m all behind as usual. This weekly syndicate letter is such a bore. One tangled mass of detail.” She made a wry mouth. “Always leave it to the last moment. How can one find anything new to say about the high-class underwear at Peary’s and Hodnett’s Annual Spring Sale? Help yourself to a gasper. The box on the table. And that’s the new novel of Loti, by the side of it; the one with the paper cover. My review for the _Courier_ has to be in to-morrow. Luckily one doesn’t have to say anything new about Loti, does one?”

Mame did not smoke and she did not read French. But when in Rome, had said Paula Ling; or was it the office calendar that had said it for her? She left the silver box alone but took up the latest work of Pierre Loti with the air of a connoisseur.

The book, however, did not claim much of her attention. She sat watching Lady Violet work. In the sight of an expert she was by no means skilful; it was rather pathetic to see her dabbing with one uncertain finger of each hand. She also lent an ear to Lady Violet’s stream of whimsical complaint and humorous apology. Plainly this journalistic egg was bored by her luck. That old syndicate of hers was surely worth good and regular money. If only--! But why indulge vain thoughts?

In ten minutes, or less, Lady Violet was through. She shovelled her copy, some twenty badly typed pages, into a large envelope; sealed and addressed it; then with a comic sigh of relief she picked up the meerschaum holder and had recourse to the silver box. “So sorry,” she apologized for the _n_th time. “But we are not expected at the Orient until five.”

She rang for Davis, that treasure among parlour maids, of whose old-family-retainer air Mame was a shade in awe, and set down as “sniffy.” To Davis the envelope was handed; she was told to send it at once to Fleet Street by district messenger. And she was asked to get a taxi.

In a time surprisingly short, as it seemed to Mame, the maid had returned to say that the taxi awaited them. Lady Violet crammed on an expensive hat without seeming to care, but Mame realised that she had a marvellous knack of looking right in all circumstances. Paula Ling would not have treated a hat that way, not on her life. As for Mame herself, she had already taken a full twenty minutes to fix her own before starting from Fotheringay House. But this skirt flopped it on and there you were. Mame would have liked Paula to have seen her.

If Mame could have banished the feeling of being on such terribly thin ice, she would have enjoyed herself immensely at the Orient Dance Club. The floor was good; the band, although by no means equal to what New York could do--in Mame’s opinion it was hardly at the Cowbarn level in its interpretation of jazz music--was still well enough for London, England. All the folks were real select, even if their dancing was nothing to write home about. As for the soft drinks and the eats, they were quite O. K. But these matters, grave in their way, were of minor importance.

The really vital things, when all was said, were the lounge lizards with whom Mame was privileged to take the floor. First of all there was Bill. He was not as light in hand as Elmer P., to mention only one of Cowbarn’s kernoozers. Even if he didn’t move just naturally to jazz music he was a good trier. Mame was wise enough not to expect too much of the bo in the matter of hitting the parquet. But even if he was no star, and his stiff British joints would have been none the worse for a little oil, he was well enough, he would serve.

Anyhow the young man appeared to enjoy himself. He was all smiles and willingness and good humour. Mame felt quite proud of him as she guided his somewhat errant steps amid the Chick if slightly immobile throng. She also felt rather proud of herself. It was not a real top-notch dancing as she understood the art, but she had a kind of hunch that she was sort of cutting a shine.

Bill was only one among the lads of the village. There were others; to the taste of Miss Du Rance perhaps not so choice as he; still she was nowise ashamed to be seen with them in the centre of the floor. For the most part they were Bill’s brother officers and school pals and so on. And all were regular fellows even if they did not quite know how to move to ragtime.

What struck Mame as the chief difference between this mild festivity and a hop in her native land was the quietness of it all. The folks were so much more solemn, so much more serious. There was no whirling you off your feet, no shouting; compared with Cowbarn, Iowa, or even New York, it was rather like a high-class funeral. Mame had a powerful desire to let herself out a bit. However, she soon concluded that it would not be wise to do so. When in Rome! ... particularly when Rome has not even heard of the Monkey Clutch!

Still, these handsome, strapping, brown-faced, blue-eyed mothers’ boys were very friendly and very pleasant. Mame noticed that Lady Violet took to them quite kindly. She was the best dancer there, Mame considered, barring of course present company, and a couple of professionals, who had New York written all over them, although said to be French. But Lady Violet was a very good mover indeed, in an amateurish way. She had evidently benefited by her American experience; she got these lads around in proper style; and she seemed a great favourite with them all. A real sport Mame considered her.

The same applied to Bill; also to his friends and brothers in arms. And they had excellent taste in ices and cakes and in nice soft drinks; although the best drink of all, that was called Cup, was not so soft either. For a rather backward village like London things really went pretty well. If Miss Du Rance could have forgotten for a single moment that she was dancing on a full-sized volcano she would have thoroughly enjoyed herself.

Apart from the uncomfortable feeling that she ought not to be there at all, Mame was conscious of only one other blot on the proceedings. Not so much a blot as a cloud. And yet cloud was hardly the word. Everybody was so charming to everybody, so kind and so polite and yet so quietly merry, that it was a hunch rather than a rock-bottom fact which ever so slightly took the edge off Mame’s enjoyment.

The hunch assumed the form of a Miss Childwick. She was a hefty girl of twenty-three, buxom, upstanding, and a looker as Mame was bound to own. Lady Violet sought an early opportunity of telling her little friend that this was a regular Crœsus of a girl, the sole heiress of Childwick’s Three Ply Flannelette, whose singular merits were the theme of every hoarding from Land’s End to Hong Kong.

Miss Childwick’s money would not have mattered so much, but where the snag came, as it seemed to Miss Du Rance, was that its statuesque owner, as Lady Violet also took an early opportunity of making known to her, was very keen on Bill. In other words, although Lady Violet did not put it quite so crudely, it was up to the little lady from Cowbarn, Iowa, to keep off the grass.

Speaking strictly by the card, there was of course no particular reason why Miss Du Rance should keep off the grass. Bill was fair game for any little angler who really understood the use of a bug and pole. But Lady Violet gave a sort of hint that it would hardly be cricket for Miss Du Rance to butt in and spoil things. Miss Childwick was so rich that everybody in London and Shropshire hoped very much that she and Bill were going to make a match of it.

That’s all very well, thought Mame. Evidently she considers it will be unsporting of me to dance more than twice with the dandiest bird on the bough. At all events, if these were not exactly Lady Violet’s own views, it was a fair presumption they were the views of Miss Childwick. In fact the Celebrated Three Ply Flannelette had already given the Funny Little American a once-over at pretty close range. Her fine eyes seemed to glow out at the good grey ones of Miss Du Rance from every quarter of the room. And each time they did so they seemed to glow with the light of battle.

Mame did not blame Miss Childwick altogether. Human nature is just as liable to be human nature at the Orient Dance Club, Knightsbridge, London, England, as at the Temple of Terpsichore, Cowbarn, Iowa, or any other dive you care to name.

No, Miss Du Rance did not really blame Miss Childwick for sending a sort of general warning along the wires. But where she did blame Miss Childwick was for trying to put one over on her. When she came to think about it afterwards she was not exactly sure that the Three Ply Flannelette had really meant to do that, but it certainly looked uncommonly like it. When you are mozing around with the real nutty bits of nougat in Knightsbridge, London, England, it is easier, no doubt, to be mistaken than in a small burg in a Middle Western state.

What really happened was, that after Miss Du Rance had put Bill through his paces the second time in three, and they had encored a vanilla ice and cracker, and were just going to take the floor the third time in four, up barges the Three Ply Flannelette, all smiles and politeness, yet with an undercurrent of just owning the earth, though perhaps not really meaning it. And Bill, for all his dyed-in-the-wool niceness, at heart a simpleton, chose that identical moment to make his old friend Miss Childwick known to his new friend, Miss Du Rance of Chicago.

If ever youth, since the world began, simply insisted on finding trouble, it was the tactless Bill. Miss Childwick’s eyes snapped and Miss Du Rance did not blame her. The eyes of Miss Du Rance snapped back and it is to be hoped that Miss Childwick attached no blame to her either. It was a mere temperamental action on the part of Miss Du Rance. Honours were easy over that course. But immediately there followed the passage, which, brief as it was, caused Mame seriously to ask herself whether this girl was not trying to put one over on her.

Perhaps, after all, it did not amount to that. When, in cool blood, in the seclusion of her chamber, Miss Du Rance pondered Miss Childwick, quietly and sincerely, extenuating nought, yet attributing nothing to her in malice, she reached the conclusion that she had no real ground of complaint against the Three Ply Flannelette, beyond the fact that it looked a little too superior. Perhaps it didn’t mean to really. But she was one of those trained-to-the-minute girls whom Mame had glimpsed from time to time taking the air on Riverside Drive, previous, as Paula Ling declared, to their sailing for Europe in search of a stray Italian prince or British earl.

Miss Childwick had just that air. You could not call it “lugs.” It was something deeper, more full of meaning and less irritating than the quality the Britishers speak of as “side.” She had an I-mean-to-be-a-marchioness-if-it-kills-me look about her, which did not accord with the democratic notions of Miss Du Rance. No, they could never be real friends. And that was why, having been warned to keep off the grass, little Miss Du Rance was not quite clear in her own little mind whether she was going to obey the signal.

After all, a cat may look at a king even if it is not allowed to look at a canary. What sport it would be to get into the cage when Miss Three Ply was not about. Before now such things had happened. In fact they were always happening. It would not be the first occasion by many that a small outsider had made her way into a private aviary.

Still, at the moment such thoughts were far removed from the region of the practical. Yet Bill was a marquis, so his sister said. Therefore he was simply asking for trouble, from even the humblest of Columbia’s daughters. If Miss Three Ply, who had kind of appointed herself to look after the sweet rube, did not watch out, some other young skirt might easily get away with his coronet.

However, these were vain thoughts. At the present time Miss Du Rance had about fifty dollars between herself and bankruptcy. So really and truly the ice was thin. But she was determined to yield to the passing hour, even if she could never quite forget her nearness to unplumbed fathoms of icy water.

If she could have laid that knowledge by, these two crowded hours at the Orient Dance Club would have been the jolliest ever. This was a real taste of life. All was harmony, gaiety, good-humoured fun. But the clock struck seven, the band stopped playing, the dancers began to collect their taxis. Then it was that a kind of Cinderella feeling came upon Mame.

The ball was over. The dream was at an end. She would have to go back to Montacute Square, to inferior food and inferior people, to drudgery and grubbing, to the forming of plans for a mighty precarious to-morrow. As she stood on the Club steps by the side of Lady Violet, who was giving her friends a cheerful good-bye, Mame’s heart sank. She had been lifted up only to be cast down. Life was pretty tough for girls of her sort, with nothing between them and the weather. She watched Bill hand Miss Childwick into the smartest limousine imaginable, with chauffeur and footman complete in dark liveries faced with buff; and a Robert-E.-Lee-at-Gettysburg feeling came upon her.

“Which way are you goin’?”

Lady Violet’s clear gay voice suddenly impinged upon the bitterness of Mame’s reverie.

Mame hardly knew which way she was going. And at that moment she didn’t care. The bottom seemed out of things. “Any old way, I guess, is good enough for me,” she said despondently.

Lady Violet laughed. Mame had a great power of making this high-flyer laugh, but why she should have she didn’t know. But the laugh was friendly and kind; it implied no more than an unlimited capacity for seeing the most human side of human nature.

“Will you come and take pot luck with me at my club?”

Nascent hope stirred in Mame. Life could not be altogether a washout while twenty-two-carat fairy godmothers were out and about in it.

“I’d just love to do that.” There was no mistaking the note of gratitude.

“Come along, then. But we shall probably get nothing to eat. Hen clubs are hen clubs when it comes to fodder.”

“Anything in the way of a bone will fix me.” A blessed feeling of hope had begun to stir in Mame quite strongly again.

The evening being fine and lit by British summer-time which puts the clock back an hour, and as the club, by name the Ladies Imperium, was only a few doors beyond Hamilton Place, there seemed no reason why they should not walk.

Lady Violet said good-bye to her friends and several of them, including Bill and one or two of his brother officers, said good-bye to Miss Du Rance. And then these ladies strode off towards what the hostess prophesied would be the worst dinner in Europe.

Privately Mame doubted that. What she called the “worst” dinner and what Lady Violet called one were likely to come out of very different casseroles. A fortnight ago Miss Amethyst Du Rance might have argued the point, but in the past fourteen days a lot of water had flowed between the arches of London Bridge. She was not so certain of the things she knew and far more certain of the things she didn’t know. Anyhow, she was much less free with her opinions than she had been a fortnight ago.

They turned in at Albert Gate and took that pleasant path which the Metropolitan Force had managed to close against the wiser members of the public at nightfall. But night as yet had not fallen. None the less Miss Du Rance was stirred by certain memories. She kept a shrewd eye open for a certain dour-faced Scots constable.

There was not a sign of the young officer. Perhaps there was still a little too much light in the sky, away beyond the statue of Achilles. It might have been Mame’s idiom, her personal force, her gift of mimicry, but all the way from the park gates to the marble portico of the Ladies Imperium her friend was kept in a state of mirth. Even when they had emerged from the cloak room and made their way up the fine staircase as far as the _salle à manger_, the hostess of Miss Du Rance was still inclined to smile. She was great fun, this girl.

The Club’s most popular member had no difficulty in choosing a table for two, in a comfortable corner. As they sat down, she glanced at the menu. “You mustn’t expect terrapin and canvasback here, you know,” she said apologetically, handing the card to Mame.

Their first choice was plovers’ eggs, with cutlets and a charlotte russe to follow; a light and eupeptic meal. Miss Du Rance was offered a dry Sauterne to go with it. But the guest, in spite of agreeable memories of a recent “cup,” was by way of being a pussyfoot. That creed was good for the health, good for the purse, good for the moral nature. Yet having no wish to cast a blight on Lady Violet’s ardour, she saw no reason why her friend should not order something for herself.

Lady Violet said there was only one sort of wine she really liked and “fizz” was the name of it. And it was so expensive since the War that she only enjoyed drinking it when paid for by other people. But the Club had rather a reputation for barley water. To prove its _bona fides_ she asked the waitress to bring some.

Mame accepted the first beaker of that mild beverage and found it good. The plovers’ eggs, too, were excellent. Still, a quaint combination, as Lady Violet remarked. Yet could Cinderella have forgotten for one moment the nature of the ice beneath her slippers she would have given herself up to frank enjoyment of the nicest food she had had in years.