excellent temper, Reginald walked into the dining-room and sat down before a pile of letters, a copy of the Times, and a little covered dish. He glanced at the letters and then at his breakfast. There were two thin slices of bacon and one egg.
“Don’t you want any bacon?” he asked.
“No, I prefer a cold baked apple. I don’t feel the need of bacon every morning.”
Now, did she mean that there was no need for him to have bacon every morning, either, and that she grudged having to cook it for him?
“If you don’t want to cook the breakfast,” said he, “why don’t you keep a servant? You know we can afford one, and you know how I loathe to see my wife doing the work. Simply because all the women we have had in the past have been failures and utterly upset my regime, and made it almost impossible for me to have any pupils here, you’ve given up trying to find a decent woman. It’s not impossible to train a servant—is it? I mean, it doesn’t require genius?”
“But I prefer to do the work myself; it makes life so much more peaceful.… Run along, Adrian darling, and get ready for school.”
“Oh no, that’s not it!” Reginald pretended to smile. “You do the work yourself, because, for some extraordinary reason, you love to humiliate me. Objectively, you may not know that, but, subjectively, it’s the case.” This last remark so delighted him that he cut open an envelope as gracefully as if he had been on the stage.…
“DEAR MR. PEACOCK,
I feel I cannot go to sleep until I have thanked you again for the wonderful joy your singing gave me this evening. Quite unforgettable. You make me wonder, as I have not wondered since I was a girl, if this is all. I mean, if this ordinary world is all. If there is not, perhaps, for those of us who understand, divine beauty and richness awaiting us if we only have the courage to see it. And to make it ours.… The house is so quiet. I wish you were here now that I might thank you in person. You are doing a great thing. You are teaching the world to escape from life!
Yours, most sincerely,
ÆNONE FELL.
P.S.—I am in every afternoon this week.… ”
The letter was scrawled in violet ink on thick, handmade paper. Vanity, that bright bird, lifted its wings again, lifted them until he felt his breast would break.
“Oh well, don’t let us quarrel,” said he, and actually flung out a hand to his wife.
But she was not great enough to respond.
“I must hurry and take Adrian to school,” said she. “Your room is quite ready for you.”
Very well—very well—let there be open war between them! But he was hanged if he’d be the first to make it up again!
He walked up and down his room, and was not calm again until he heard the outer door close upon Adrian and his wife. Of course, if this went on, he would have to make some other arrangement. That was obvious. Tied and bound like this, how could he help the world to escape from life? He opened the piano and looked up his pupils for the morning. Miss Betty Brittle, the Countess Wilkowska and Miss Marian Morrow. They were charming, all three.
Punctually at half-past ten the door-bell rang. He went to the door. Miss Betty Brittle was there, dressed in white, with her music in a blue silk case.
“I’m afraid I’m early,” she said, blushing and shy, and she opened her big blue eyes very wide. “Am I?”
“Not at all, dear lady. I am only too charmed,” said Reginald. “Won’t you come in?”
“It’s such a heavenly morning,” said Miss Brittle. “I walked across the Park. The flowers were too marvellous.”
“Well, think about them while you sing your exercises,” said Reginald, sitting down at the piano. “It will give your voice colour and warmth.”
Oh, what an enchanting idea! What a genius Mr. Peacock was. She parted her pretty lips, and began to sing like a pansy.
“Very good, very good, indeed,” said Reginald, playing chords that would waft a hardened criminal to heaven. “Make the notes round. Don’t be afraid. Linger over them, breathe them like a perfume.”
How pretty she looked, standing there in her white frock, her little blonde head tilted, showing her milky throat.
“Do you ever practise before a glass?” asked Reginald. “You ought to, you know; it makes the lips more flexible. Come over here.”
They went over to the mirror and stood side by side.
“Now sing—moo-e-koo-e-oo-e-a!”
But she broke down, and blushed more brightly than ever.
“Oh,” she cried, “I can’t. It makes me feel so silly. It makes me want to laugh. I do look so absurd!”
“No, you don’t. Don’t be afraid,” said Reginald, but laughed, too, very kindly. “Now, try again!”
The lesson simply flew, and Betty Brittle quite got over her shyness.
“When can I come again?” she asked, tying the music up again in the blue silk case. “I want to take as many lessons as I can just now. Oh, Mr. Peacock, I do enjoy them so much. May I come the day after tomorrow?”
“Dear lady, I shall be only too charmed,” said Reginald, bowing her out.
Glorious girl! And when they had stood in front of the mirror, her white sleeve had just touched his black one. He could feel—yes, he could actually feel a warm glowing spot, and he stroked it. She loved her lessons. His wife came in.
“Reginald, can you let me have some money? I must pay the dairy. And will you be in for dinner tonight?”
“Yes, you know I’m singing at Lord Timbuck’s at half-past nine. Can you make me some clear soup, with an egg in it?”
“Yes. And the money, Reginald. It’s eight and sixpence.”
“Surely that’s very heavy—isn’t it?”
“No, it’s just what it ought to be. And Adrian must have milk.”
There she was—off again. Now she was standing up for Adrian against him.
“I have not the slightest desire to deny my child a proper amount of milk,” said he. “Here is ten shillings.”
The door-bell rang. He went to the door.
“Oh,” said the Countess Wilkowska, “the stairs. I have not a breath.” And she put her hand over her heart as she followed him into the music-room. She was all in black, with a little black hat with a floating veil—violets in her bosom.
“Do not make me sing exercises, today,” she cried, throwing out her hands in her delightful foreign way. “No, today, I want only to sing songs.… And may I take off my violets? They fade so soon.”
“They fade so soon—they fade
