The Parts Men Play | Page 3

dull?
Undiscouraged, they still maintained their perfectly innocent friendship, and, like kittens playing with a spool, invested it with all the appearances of an intrigue.
Dismissing his depressing thoughts, H. Stackton Dunckley noticed that his cigarette was out, and closing his eyes, fell asleep once more.
III.
Madame Carlotti, clothed in a kimono of emphatic shade, sat by the fire in her rooms in Knightsbridge and read her mail while sipping coffee. She was the wife of an Italian diplomat, a sort of wandering plenipotentiary who did business in every part of the world but London, and with every Government but that of Britain. It was the signora's somewhat incomprehensible complaint that her husband's duties forced her to live in that fog-bound metropolis, and having thus achieved the pedestal of a martyr, she poured abuse on everything English from climate to customs. Possessed of a certain social dexterity and the ability to make the most ordinary conversation seem to concern a forbidden topic, Madame Carlotti was in great demand as a guest, and abused more English habits and attended more dinner-parties than any other woman in London.
From beneath seven tradesmen's letters she extracted one from Lady Durwent.
'8 CHELMSFORD GARDENS,
'DEAREST LUCIA,--I am counting on you for next Friday. A young American author studying England--I suppose like that Count Something-or-other in _Pickwick Papers_--is coming to dinner. I understand he drinks very little, so I am relying on you to thaw him.
'Stackton Dunckley insists upon coming, though I tell him that it is dangerous; and of course people are saying dreadful things, I know. He is so persistent. There will be just half-a-dozen unusual people there, my dear, so don't fail me. Dinner will be at 8.30.--So sincerely, SYBIL DERWENT.
'P.S.--Don't you think you could make Stackton interested in you? Your husband is away so much.'
Madame Carlotti smiled with her teeth and drank some very strong coffee.
'It ees deefficult,' she said, with that seductive formation of the lips used by her countrywomen when speaking English, 'for a magnet to attract putty. Still--there ees the American. At least I shall not be altogether bored.'
IV.
That noon, in a restaurant of Chelsea, the district of Pensioners and Bohemians, two young gentlemen, considerably in need of renovation by both tailor and barber, met at a table and nodded gloomily. One was Johnston Smyth, an artist, who, finding himself possessed neither of a technique nor of the industry to acquire one, had evolved a super-futurist style that had made him famous in a night. He was spoken of as 'a new force;' it was prophesied that English Art would date from him. Unfortunately his friends neglected to buy his paintings, and as his art was a vivid one, consisting of vast quantities of colour splashed indiscriminately on the canvas, it took more than his available funds to purchase the accessories of his calling. He was tall, with expressive arms that were too long for his sleeves, and a nose that would have done credit to a field-marshal.
The other was Norton Pyford, the modernist composer, who had developed the study of discord to such a point that his very features seemed to lack proportion, and when he smiled his face presented a lop-sided appearance. He had given a recital which set every one who is any one in London talking. There was but one drawback--they talked so much that he could persuade no one to listen, and he carried his discords about with him, like a bad half-crown, unable to rid himself of them. He was short, with a retreating forehead and an overhanging wealth of black, thread-like hair, gamely covering the retreat as best it could.
'Hello, Smyth!' drawled the composer, who affected a manner of speech usually confined to footmen in the best families. 'Hah d' do?'
'Topping, Pyford. How's things?'
'Rotten.'
'Same here.'
'I say, you couldn't'----
'Just what I was going to ask you.'
The composer sighed; the artist echoed the sigh.
'Have you seen Shaw's show?'
'Awful, isn't it?'
'Putrid--but the English don't'----
'Ah! What a race!'
'Just so. I say, are you going to Lady Durwent's on Friday?'
'Yes, rather.'
'Look here, old fellow--don't dress, eh?'
'Right. Let's be natural--what? Just Bohemians.'
'The very thing. By-the-by, you don't know a laundry that gives'----
'No, I can't say I do.'
'Well, so long.'
'Good-bye.'
'See you Friday.'
'Right.'
V.
Mrs. Le Roy Jennings looked up from her task of drafting the new Resolution to be presented to Parliament by the League of Equal Sex Rights and Complete Emancipation for Women, as a diminutive, half-starved servant brought in a letter on a tray.
Mrs. Jennings took the missive, and frowning threateningly at the girl, who withdrew to the dark recesses of the servants' quarters, opened it by slitting its throat with a terrific paper-knife.
'8 CHELMSFORD GARDENS.
'DEAR MRS LE ROY JENNINGS,--An American author is coming to dinner next Friday. There will just be a few unusual people, and I have asked them for 8.30. I