Reginald in Russia | Page 5

evenings; it was a part of their married life. There was no
recognised rejoinder to it, and Lady Anne made none.
Don Tarquinio lay astretch on the Persian rug, basking in the firelight
with superb indifference to the possible ill-humour of Lady Anne. His
pedigree was as flawlessly Persian as the rug, and his ruff was coming
into the glory of its second winter. The page- boy, who had
Renaissance tendencies, had christened him Don Tarquinio. Left to
themselves, Egbert and Lady Anne would unfailingly have called him
Fluff, but they were not obstinate.
Egbert poured himself out some tea. As the silence gave no sign of
breaking on Lady Anne's initiative, he braced himself for another
Yermak effort.
"My remark at lunch had a purely academic application," he announced;
"you seem to put an unnecessarily personal significance into it."
Lady Anne maintained her defensive barrier of silence. The bullfinch
lazily filled in the interval with an air from Iphigenie en Tauride.

Egbert recognised it immediately, because it was the only air the
bullfinch whistled, and he had come to them with the reputation for
whistling it. Both Egbert and Lady Anne would have preferred
something from The Yeomen of the Guard, which was their favourite
opera. In matters artistic they had a similarity of taste. They leaned
towards the honest and explicit in art, a picture, for instance, that told
its own story, with generous assistance from its title. A riderless
warhorse with harness in obvious disarray, staggering into a courtyard
full of pale swooning women, and marginally noted "Bad News",
suggested to their minds a distinct interpretation of some military
catastrophe. They could see what it was meant to convey, and explain it
to friends of duller intelligence.
The silence continued. As a rule Lady Anne's displeasure became
articulate and markedly voluble after four minutes of introductory
muteness. Egbert seized the milkjug and poured some of its contents
into Don Tarquinio's saucer; as the saucer was already full to the brim
an unsightly overflow was the result. Don Tarquinio looked on with a
surprised interest that evanesced into elaborate unconsciousness when
he was appealed to by Egbert to come and drink up some of the spilt
matter. Don Tarquinio was prepared to play many roles in life, but a
vacuum carpet-cleaner was not one of them.
"Don't you think we're being rather foolish?" said Egbert cheerfully.
If Lady Anne thought so she didn't say so.
"I dare say the fault has been partly on my side," continued Egbert,
with evaporating cheerfulness. "After all, I'm only human, you know.
You seem to forget that I'm only human."
He insisted on the point, as if there had been unfounded suggestions
that he was built on Satyr lines, with goat continuations where the
human left off.
The bullfinch recommenced its air from Iphigenie en Tauride. Egbert
began to feel depressed. Lady Anne was not drinking her tea. Perhaps
she was feeling unwell. But when Lady Anne felt unwell she was not
wont to be reticent on the subject. "No one knows what I suffer from
indigestion" was one of her favourite statements; but the lack of
knowledge can only have been caused by defective listening; the
amount of information available on the subject would have supplied
material for a monograph.

Evidently Lady Anne was not feeling unwell.
Egbert began to think he was being unreasonably dealt with; naturally
he began to make concessions.
"I dare say," he observed, taking as central a position on the hearth-rug
as Don Tarquinio could be persuaded to concede him, "I may have
been to blame. I am willing, if I can thereby restore things to a happier
standpoint, to undertake to lead a better life."
He wondered vaguely how it would be possible. Temptations came to
him, in middle age, tentatively and without insistence, like a neglected
butcher-boy who asks for a Christmas box in February for no more
hopeful reason that than he didn't get one in December. He had no more
idea of succumbing to them than he had of purchasing the fish-knives
and fur boas that ladies are impelled to sacrifice through the medium of
advertisement columns during twelve months of the year. Still, there
was something impressive in this unasked-for renunciation of possibly
latent enormities.
Lady Anne showed no sign of being impressed.
Egbert looked at her nervously through his glasses. To get the worst of
an argument with her was no new experience. To get the worst of a
monologue was a humiliating novelty.
"I shall go and dress for diner," he announced in a voice into which he
intended some shade of sternness to creep.
At the door a final access of weakness impelled him to make a further
appeal.
"Aren't we being very silly?"
"A fool" was Don Tarquinio's mental