Quisanté | Page 5

been his handkerchief.
An evening or two later Dick Benyon took her in to dinner. Entirely in
concession to him--for the subject had passed from her own
thoughts--she asked, "Well, how's your genius going on?" Before the

meal was over she regretted her question. It opened the doors to Dick's
confused eloquence and vague laudations of his protégé; putting Dick
on his defence, it involved an infinite discussion of Quisanté. She was
told how Dick had picked him up at Naples, gone to Pompeii with him,
travelled home with him, brought him and Jimmy together, and how
the three had become friends. "And if I'm a fool, my brother's not," said
Dick. May knew that Jimmy would shelter himself under a plea
couched in identical language. From this point Dick became less
expansive, for at this point his own benefactions and services had
begun. She could not get much out of him, but she found herself trying
to worm out all she could. Dick had no objection to saying that he had
induced Quisanté to go in for politics, and had "squared" the influential
persons who distributed (so far as a free electorate might prove docile)
seats in Parliament. Rumour and Aunt Maria would have supplemented
his statement by telling of substantial aid given by the Benyon brothers.
May, interested against her wish and irritated at her interest, yet not
content, like Dick's wife, to shrug away Dick's aberrations, turned on
him with a sudden, "But why, why? Why do you like him?"
"Like him!" repeated Dick half-interrogatively. He did not seem sure
that his companion had chosen the right, or at any rate the best, word to
describe his feelings. In response she amended her question.
"Well, I mean, what do you see in him?"
Here was another fatal question, for Dick saw everything in him.
Hastily cutting across the eulogies, she demanded particulars--who was
he, where did he come from, and so forth. On these heads Dick's
account was scanty; Quisanté's father had grown wine in Spain; and
Quisanté himself had an old aunt in London.
"Not much of a genealogy," she suggested. Dick was absurd enough to
quote "Je suis un ancêtre." "Oh, if you're as silly as that!" she
exclaimed with an annoyed laugh.
"He's the man we want."
"You and Jimmy?"

"The country," Dick explained gravely. He had plenty of humour for
other subjects, but Quisanté, it seemed, was too sacred. "Look here," he
went on. "Come and meet him again. Amy's going out of town next
week and we'll have a little party for him."
"That happens best when Amy's away?"
"Well, women are so----"
"Yes, I know. I'm a woman. I won't come."
Dick looked at her not sourly but sadly, and turned to his other
neighbour. May was left to sit in silence for five minutes; then a pause
in Dick's talk gave her time to touch him lightly on the arm and to say
when he turned, "Yes, I will, and thank you."
But she said nothing about the weaselly flirtation.
CHAPTER II.
MOMENTS.
At the little dinner which Lady Richard's absence rendered more easy
there were only the Benyon brothers (a wag had recently suggested that
they should convert themselves into Quisanté Limited), Mrs. Gellatly,
Morewood the painter, and the honoured guest. Morewood was there
because he was painting a kit-cat of Quisanté for the host (Heaven
knew in what corner Lady Richard would suffer it to hang), and Mrs.
Gellatly because she had expressed a desire to meet Lady May Gaston.
Quisanté greeted May with an elaborate air of remembrance; his
handshake was so ornate as to persuade her that she must always hate
him, and that Dick Benyon was as foolish as his wife thought him. This
mood lasted half through dinner; the worst of Quisanté was uppermost,
and the exhibition depressed the others. The brothers were apologetic,
Mrs. Gellatly gallantly suave; her much-lined, still pretty face worked
in laborious smiles at every loudness and every awkwardness.
Morewood was so savage that an abrupt conclusion of the
entertainment threatened to be necessary. May, who had previously

decided that Mr. Quisanté would be much better in company, was
travelling to the conclusion that he was not nearly so trying when alone;
to be weaselly is not so bad as to be inconsiderate and ostentatious.
Just then came the change which transformed the party. Somebody
mentioned Mahomet; Morewood, with his love of a paradox, launched
on an indiscriminate championship of the Prophet. Next to believing in
nobody, it was best, he said, to believe in Mahomet; there, he
maintained, you got most out of your religion and gave least to it; and
he defended the criterion with his usual uncompromising
aggressiveness. Then Quisanté put his arms on the table, interrupted
Morewood without apology,