The Death of the Lion | Page 6

say that I
had made her genius more comprehensible even to herself."
Neil Paraday had dropped on the garden-bench and sat there at once
detached and confounded; he looked hard at a bare spot in the lawn, as
if with an anxiety that had suddenly made him grave. His movement
had been interpreted by his visitor as an invitation to sink
sympathetically into a wicker chair that stood hard by, and while Mr.
Morrow so settled himself I felt he had taken official possession and
that there was no undoing it. One had heard of unfortunate people's
having "a man in the house," and this was just what we had. There was
a silence of a moment, during which we seemed to acknowledge in the
only way that was possible the presence of universal fate; the sunny
stillness took no pity, and my thought, as I was sure Paraday's was
doing, performed within the minute a great distant revolution. I saw
just how emphatic I should make my rejoinder to Mr. Pinhorn, and that
having come, like Mr. Morrow, to betray, I must remain as long as
possible to save. Not because I had brought my mind back, but because
our visitors last words were in my ear, I presently enquired with
gloomy irrelevance if Guy Walsingham were a woman.
"Oh yes, a mere pseudonym--rather pretty, isn't it?--and convenient,
you know, for a lady who goes in for the larger latitude. 'Obsessions, by
Miss So-and-so,' would look a little odd, but men are more naturally
indelicate. Have you peeped into 'Obsessions'?" Mr. Morrow continued
sociably to our companion.
Paraday, still absent, remote, made no answer, as if he hadn't heard the
question: a form of intercourse that appeared to suit the cheerful Mr.
Morrow as well as any other. Imperturbably bland, he was a man of
resources--he only needed to be on the spot. He had pocketed the whole
poor place while Paraday and I were wool- gathering, and I could
imagine that he had already got his "heads." His system, at any rate,
was justified by the inevitability with which I replied, to save my friend
the trouble: "Dear no--he hasn't read it. He doesn't read such things!" I

unwarily added.
"Things that are TOO far over the fence, eh?" I was indeed a godsend
to Mr. Morrow. It was the psychological moment; it determined the
appearance of his note-book, which, however, he at first kept slightly
behind him, even as the dentist approaching his victim keeps the
horrible forceps. "Mr. Paraday holds with the good old proprieties--I
see!" And thinking of the thirty-seven influential journals, I found
myself, as I found poor Paraday, helplessly assisting at the
promulgation of this ineptitude. "There's no point on which
distinguished views are so acceptable as on this question--raised
perhaps more strikingly than ever by Guy Walsingham--of the
permissibility of the larger latitude. I've an appointment, precisely in
connexion with it, next week, with Dora Forbes, author of 'The Other
Way Round,' which everybody's talking about. Has Mr. Paraday
glanced at 'The Other Way Round'?" Mr. Morrow now frankly
appealed to me. I took on myself to repudiate the supposition, while our
companion, still silent, got up nervously and walked away. His visitor
paid no heed to his withdrawal; but opened out the note-book with a
more fatherly pat. "Dora Forbes, I gather, takes the ground, the same as
Guy Walsingham's, that the larger latitude has simply got to come. He
holds that it has got to be squarely faced. Of course his sex makes him
a less prejudiced witness. But an authoritative word from Mr.
Paraday--from the point of view of HIS sex, you know-- would go right
round the globe. He takes the line that we HAVEN'T got to face it?"
I was bewildered: it sounded somehow as if there were three sexes. My
interlocutor's pencil was poised, my private responsibility great. I
simply sat staring, none the less, and only found presence of mind to
say: "Is this Miss Forbes a gentleman?"
Mr. Morrow had a subtle smile. "It wouldn't be 'Miss'--there's a wife!"
"I mean is she a man?"
"The wife?"--Mr. Morrow was for a moment as confused as myself.
But when I explained that I alluded to Dora Forbes in person he
informed me, with visible amusement at my being so out of it, that this
was the "pen-name" of an indubitable male--he had a big red
moustache. "He goes in for the slight mystification because the ladies
are such popular favourites. A great deal of interest is felt in his acting
on that idea--which IS clever, isn't it?--and there's every prospect of its

being widely imitated." Our host at this moment joined us again, and
Mr. Morrow remarked invitingly that he should be happy to make a
note