A Comedy of Masks | Page 9

when
they met a few months ago, in the broadest daylight, in Pall Mall!
Presently, while he was trying to recover his equanimity by devoting
himself to the cult of Eve, he heard the colonel whisper in a
confidential undertone to their hostess:
"Devilish clever fellow, my nephew, y'know, though perhaps I oughtn't
to say so. Those newspaper beggars think very highly of him--the
critics, y'know, and all that; why, 'pon my soul, I was reading
something about him only this morning at the club in the

what's-his-name--the __Outcry__. Said he ought to be in the
Academy."
"Yes," said Mrs. Sylvester sympathetically, "you are quite right to be
proud of him, Colonel Lightmark. Charles thinks he is very clever, and
he is so pleased with my portrait. We want him to paint Eve, you know,
only---- Oh, do let me give you another cup of tea, Mr. Lightmark!
Two lumps of sugar, I think?"
"Thank you, Mrs. Sylvester. Do you know, I have discovered that we
have a mutual friend--that is to say, I found out not long ago, quite by
accident, that my very good friend, Philip Rainham, has the pleasure of
your acquaintance."
"Oh, really!" said Eve delightedly; "do you know Philip--Mr. Rainham?
And have you seen him lately? We haven't heard anything of him for
weeks and weeks--not since Christmas, have we, mamma?"
"Ah!" answered Lightmark, smiling, and letting his eyes wander over
the white expanse of the Colonel's waistcoat. "I don't wonder at that.
You see, he has been nursing himself on the Riviera all the winter,
lucky dog! He only came back last night. I saw him at his dock, you
know, down the river--such a jolly old place. I have been sketching
there, on and off, nearly all the spring. He lets me make myself quite at
home."
"Take care, Dick, my boy," said the Colonel sententiously, fixing his
black-rimmed eyeglass under the bushy white brow that shaded his
right eye; "don't you let him entice you into that business. Don't pay
nowadays! All the shipping goes up North, y'know. The poor old
Thames is only used for regattas now, and penny steamers."
"How very nice for the Thames!" cried Eve. "Why, there's nothing I
like more than regattas! I do so hope we shall go to Henley this year;
but houseboats are so expensive, and it's no fun unless you have a
houseboat. We had a punt last year, a sort of thing like a long butler's
tray, and Charles got into fearful difficulties. You know, it looks so
easy to push a punt along with a pole, but the pole has a wicked way of

sticking in the mud at critical moments--when they are clearing the
course, for instance. Oh, it was dreadful! Everybody was looking at us,
and I felt like one of those horrid people who always get in the way at
the Oxford and Cambridge boat-race!"
"Or the Derby dog, by Jove!" suggested the Colonel.
"I can sympathize with you fully, Miss Sylvester," said his nephew. "I
shouldn't like to say how many times in the course of my first summer
term at Oxford I found myself sprawling ignominiously in the Cherwell,
instead of posing in a picturesque attitude in the stern of my punt. And
one looked such a fool going up to college in wet things. But there
aren't many regattas going on in the regions below London Bridge
nowadays. It's not much like Henley or Marlow, though it's pretty
enough in its way at times. You ought to get Rainham to invite you to
the dock; you would create an impression on the natives, and of course
he would be delighted. He's got a most amiable housekeeper, though I
don't think she has heard of thin bread-and-butter; and I have
discovered that his foreman is a judge of art--a regular Ruskin."
"And how is poor Philip, Mr. Lightmark?" asked Mrs. Sylvester
tentatively. "You must bring him here very soon, and make him give an
account of himself."
"Oh," said Lightmark vaguely, "he's looking pretty fit, though he
doesn't like to be told so. I really believe he would be unhappy if he
were in robust health. He finds his damaged lung such a good pretext
for neglecting the dock; and if it got quite well, half the occupation of
his life would be gone."
Mrs. Sylvester and Eve both protested laughingly against this
somewhat heartless view of the case; and after declining an offer of the
back seats of the carriage, which was already waiting at the door to take
Mrs. Sylvester and her daughter for their anteprandial drive in the Park,
and expressing their regret that they had not seen Charles, uncle and
nephew took their leave together.
"Dick, my boy," said the colonel, when they were