Rodens Corner | Page 6

your left shoulder one day, and no flowers at all the week after." Cornish spoke with a gravity befitting the subject. He was, it seemed a student of human nature in his way. "Of course," he added, laying an impressive forefinger on White's gold-laced cuff, "it would never do if the world remained stationary."
"Never," said the major, darkly. "Never."
They were talking to pass the time. Joan Ferriby had come between them, as a woman is bound to come between two men sooner or later. Neither knew what the other thought of Joan Ferriby, or if he thought of her at all. Women, it is to be believed, have a pleasant way of mentioning the name of a man with such significance that one of their party changes colour. When next she meets that man she does it again, and perhaps he sees it, and perhaps his vanity, always on the alert, magnifies that unfortunate blush. And they are married, and live unhappily ever afterwards. And--let us hope there is a hell for gossips. But men are different in their procedure. They are awkward and gauche. They talk of newspaper matters, and on the whole there is less harm done.
The hansom cab containing these two men pulled up jerkily at the door of No. 9, Cambridge Terrace. Tony Cornish hurried to the door, and rang the bell as if he knew it well. Major White followed him stiffly. They were ushered into a library on the ground floor, and were there received by a young lady, who, pen in hand, sat at a large table littered with newspaper wrappers.
"I am addressing the Haberdashers' Assistants," she said, "but I am very glad to see you."
Miss Joan Ferriby was one of those happy persons who never know a doubt. One must, it seems, be young to enjoy this nineteenth-century immunity. One must be pretty--it is, at all events, better to be pretty--and one must dress well. A little knowledge of the world, a decisive way of stating what pass at the moment for facts, a quick manner of speaking--and the rest comes tout seul. This cocksureness is in the atmosphere of the day, just as fainting and curls and an appealing helplessness were in the atmosphere of an earlier Victorian period.
Miss Ferriby stood, pen in hand, and laughed at the confusion on the table in front of her. She was eminently practical, and quite without that self-consciousness which in a bygone day took the irritating form of coyness. Major White, with whom she shook hands en camarade, gazed at her solemnly.
"Who are the Haberdashers' Assistants?" he asked.
Miss Ferriby sat down with a grave face. "Oh, it is a splendid charity," she answered. "Tony will tell you all about it. It is an association of which the object is to induce people to give up riding on Saturday afternoons, and to lend their bicycles to haberdashers' assistants who cannot afford to buy them for themselves. Papa is patron."
Cornish looked quickly from one to the other. He had always felt that Major White was not quite of the world in which Joan and be moved. The major came into it at times, looked around him, and then moved away again into another world, less energetic, less advanced, less rapid in its changes. Cornish had never sought to interest his friend in sundry good works in which Joan, for instance, was interested, and which formed a delightful topic for conversation at teatime.
"It is so splendid," said Joan, gathering up her papers, "to feel that one is really doing something."
And she looked up into White's face with an air of grave enthusiasm which made him drop his eye-glass.
"Oh yes," he answered, rather vaguely.
Cornish had already seated himself at the table, and was folding the addressed newspaper wrappers over circulars printed on thick note-paper. This seemed a busy world into which White had stepped. He looked rather longingly at the newspaper wrappers and the circulars, and then lapsed into the contemplation of Joan's neat fingers as she too fell to the work.
"We saw all about you," said the girl, in her bright, decisive way, "in the newspapers. Papa read it aloud. He is always reading things aloud now, out of the Times. He thinks it is good practice for the platform, I am sure. We were all"--she paused and banged her energetic fist down upon a pile of folded circulars which seemed to require further pressure--"very proud, you know, to know you."
"Good Lord!" ejaculated White, fervently.
"Well, why not?" asked Miss Ferriby, looking up. She had expressive eyes, and they now flashed almost angrily. "All English people----" she began, and broke off suddenly, throwing aside the papers and rising quickly to her feet. Her eyes were fixed on White's tunic. "Is that a medal?" she asked, hurrying towards him.