into a club? Fisher in our room belongs to a club.”
“That’s only a chess-club. I mean a regular club.”
“One of the swell ones at the West End?” said Cradell, almost lost in admiration at the ambition of his friend.
“I shouldn’t want it to be particularly swell. If a man isn’t a swell, I don’t see what he gets by going among those who are. But it is so uncommon slow at Mother Roper’s.” Now Mrs Roper was a respectable lady, who kept a boarding-house in Burton Crescent, and to whom Mrs Eames had been strongly recommended when she was desirous of finding a specially safe domicile for her son. For the first year of his life in London John Eames had lived alone in lodgings; but that had resulted in discomfort, solitude, and, alas! in some amount of debt, which had come heavily on the poor widow. Now, for the second year, some safer mode of life was necessary. She had learned that Mrs Cradell, the widow of a barrister, who had also succeeded in getting her son into the Income-tax Office, had placed him in charge of Mrs Roper; and she, with many injunctions to that motherly woman, submitted her own boy to the same custody.
“And about going to church?” Mrs Eames had said to Mrs Roper.
“I don’t suppose I can look after that, ma’am,” Mrs Roper had answered, conscientiously. “Young gentlemen choose mostly their own churches.”
“But they do go?” asked the mother, very anxious in her heart as to this new life in which her boy was to be left to follow in so many things the guidance of his own lights.
“They who have been brought up steady do so, mostly.”
“He has been brought up steady, Mrs Roper. He has, indeed. And you won’t give him a latchkey?”
“Well, they always do ask for it.”
“But he won’t insist, if you tell him that I had rather that he shouldn’t have one.”
Mrs Roper promised accordingly, and Johnny Eames was left under her charge. He did ask for the latchkey, and Mrs Roper answered as she was bidden. But he asked again, having been sophisticated by the philosophy of Cradell, and then Mrs Roper handed him the key. She was a woman who plumed herself on being as good as her word, not understanding that any one could justly demand from her more than that. She gave Johnny Eames the key, as doubtless she had intended to do; for Mrs Roper knew the world, and understood that young men without latchkeys would not remain with her.
“I thought you didn’t seem to find it so dull since Amelia came home,” said Cradell.
“Amelia! What’s Amelia to me? I have told you everything, Cradell, and yet you can talk to me about Amelia Roper!”
“Come now, Johnny—.” He had always been called Johnny, and the name had gone with him to his office. Even Amelia Roper had called him Johnny on more than one occasion before this. “You were as sweet to her the other night as though there were no such person as L. D. in existence.” John Eames turned away and shook his head. Nevertheless, the words of his friend were grateful to him. The character of a Don Juan was not unpleasant to his imagination, and he liked to think that he might amuse Amelia Roper with a passing word, though his heart was true to Lilian Dale. In truth, however, many more of the passing words had been spoken by the fair Amelia than by him.
Mrs Roper had been quite as good as her word when she told Mrs Eames that her household was composed of herself, of a son who was in an attorney’s office, of an ancient maiden cousin, named Miss Spruce, who lodged with her, and of Mr Cradell. The divine Amelia had not then been living with her, and the nature of the statement which she was making by no means compelled her to inform Mrs Eames that the young lady would probably return home in the following winter. A Mr and Mrs Lupex had also joined the family lately, and Mrs Roper’s house was now supposed to be full.
And it must be acknowledged that Johnny Eames had, in certain unguarded moments, confided to Cradell the secret of a second weaker passion for Amelia. “She is a fine girl,—a deuced fine girl!” Johnny Eames had said, using a style of language which he had learned since he left Guestwick and Allington. Mr Cradell, also, was an admirer of the fair sex; and, alas! that I should say so, Mrs Lupex, at the present moment, was the object of his admiration. Not that he entertained the slightest idea of wronging Mr Lupex,—a man who was a scene-painter, and knew the world. Mr Cradell admired Mrs Lupex as a connoisseur, not simply as a man. “By heavens! Johnny, what a figure that woman has!” he said, one morning, as they were walking to their office.
“Yes; she stands well on her pins.”
“I should think she did. If I understand anything of form,” said Cradell, “that woman is nearly perfect. What a torso she has!”
From which expression, and from the fact that Mrs Lupex depended greatly upon her stays and crinoline for such figure as she succeeded in displaying, it may, perhaps, be understood that Mr Cradell did not understand much about form.
“It seems to me that her nose isn’t quite straight,” said Johnny Eames. Now, it undoubtedly was the fact that the nose on Mrs Lupex’s face was a little awry. It was a long, thin nose, which, as it progressed forward into the air, certainly had a preponderating bias towards the left side.
“I care more for figure than face,” said Cradell. “But Mrs Lupex has fine eyes—very fine eyes.”
“And knows how to use them, too,” said Johnny.
“Why shouldn’t she? And then she has lovely hair.”
“Only she never brushes it in the morning.”
“Do you know, I like that kind of deshabille,” said Cradell. “Too much care always betrays itself.”
“But a woman should be tidy.”
“What a word to apply to such a creature as Mrs Lupex! I call her a splendid woman. And how well she was got up last night. Do you know, I’ve an idea that Lupex treats her very badly. She said a word or two to me yesterday that—,” and then he paused. There are some confidences which a man does not share even with his dearest friend.
“I rather fancy it’s quite the other way,” said Eames.
“How the other way?”
“That Lupex has quite as much as he likes of Mrs L. The sound of her voice sometimes makes me shake in my shoes, I know.”
“I like a woman with spirit,” said Cradell.
“Oh, so do I. But one may have too much of a good thing. Amelia did tell me;—only you won’t mention it.”
“Of course, I won’t.”
“She told me that Lupex sometimes was obliged to run away from her. He goes down to the theatre, and remains there two or three days at a time. Then she goes to fetch him, and there is no end of a row in the house.”
“The fact is, he drinks,” said Cradell. “By George, I pity a woman whose husband drinks—and such a woman as that, too!”
“Take care, old fellow, or you’ll find yourself in a scrape.”
“I know what I’m at. Lord bless you, I’m not going to lose my head because I see a fine woman.”
“Or
