The Relentless City. Benson Edward Frederic

florist to supply her with large quantities of fresh flowers every day, and send the account to Bilton.

      The room in which she digested her chop especially pleased her. Carpet, curtains, and upholstery were rose-coloured, the walls were green satin, with half a dozen excellent prints on them, and by the window was an immense Louis XV. couch covered in brocade, with a mass of pillows on it. Here, the morning after her opening night in New York, she was lying and basking like a cat in the heat, smoking tiny rose-scented Russian cigarettes, and expecting with some anticipation of amusement the arrival of Bertie Keynes. Round her lay piles of press notices, which stripped the American variety of the English language bare of epithets. She was deeply absorbed in these, and immense smiles of amusement from time to time crossed her face. On the floor lay her huge mastiff, which, with the true time-serving spirit, rightly calculated to be thoroughly popular, she had rechristened Teddy Roosevelt. Her great coils of auburn hair were loosely done up, and her face, a full, sensuous oval, was of that brilliant warm-blooded colouring which testified to the authenticity of the smouldering gold of her hair. Lying there in the hot room, brilliant with colour and fragrant with the scent of innumerable flowers (the account for which was sent in to Mr. Bilton), she seemed the embodiment of vitality and serene Paganism. Not even her friends – and they were many – ever accused her of morality, but, on the other hand, all children adored her. That is an item not to be disregarded when the moralist adds up the balance-sheet.

      In spite of his excuse of the night before, Bertie Keynes had taken Bilton's advice, and before long he was announced.

      'Bertie, Bertie!' she cried as he came in, 'I wake up to find myself famous. I am magnetic, it appears, beyond all powers of comprehension. I am vimmy – am I really vimmy, do you think, and what does it mean? I am a soulful incarnation of adorable – Oh no; it's Teddy Roosevelt who is the adorable incarnation. Yes, that dear angel lying there is Teddy Roosevelt and an adorable incarnation, which would never have happened if we hadn't come to America, would it, darling? Not you, Bertie. I christened him on the way over, and you shall be godfather, because he wants a new collar. Let me see, where was I? Bertie, I was a success last night. Enormous. I knew I should be. Now sit down, and try to get a word in edge-ways, if you can.'

      'I congratulate you, Dorothy,' he said – 'I congratulate you most heartily.'

      'Thanks. I say, Teddy Roosevelt, the kind young gentleman congratulates us. Now, what are you doing on these opulent shores? Looking out for opulence, I guess. Going to be married, are we? Well, Teddy is too, if we can find a suitable young lady; and so am I. Oh, such fun! and we'll tear up all our past histories, and put them in the fire.'

      She sat half up on her couch, and looked at him.

      'It's two years since we met last, Bertie,' she said; 'and you – why, you've become a man. You always were a pretty boy, and you don't make a bad-looking man. And I'm vimmy. I used not to be vimmy, did I? But we are all changing as time goes on. Really, I'm very glad to see you again.'

      Bertie felt unaccountably relieved at her manner. His relief was of short duration. Dorothy Emsworth arranged her pillows more comfortably, and lit another cigarette.

      'I wanted to see you before you left New York,' she said, 'because I am coming down to stay with Mrs. Palmer next Saturday, and we had better know how we stand. So, what are you over here for? Did you come here to get married? And if so, why not?'

      She lay back as she spoke, stretching her arms out with a gesture that somehow reminded him of a cat stretching its forelegs and unsheathing the claws of its silent, padded feet. His feeling of relief was ebbing a little.

      'Why not, indeed?' he said.

      'Dear Bertie, echo-conversation is so tedious,' she said.

      'You always used to be rather given to it. So you have come out to get married. That is settled, then. Do ask me to the wedding. The "Voice that Breathed"; wedding march from "Lohengrin"; ring dropping and running down the aisle like a hoop; orange-flowers; tears; sudden unexplained hysterics of the notorious Mrs. Emsworth; deportment of the bride; wedding-cake; puff-puff. And the curtain drops with extreme rapidity. O lor', Teddy R.! what devils we all are, to be sure!'

      Bertie's feeling of relief had quite gone, but his nervousness had gone also. He felt he knew the facts now.

      'I see,' he said: 'you propose to make trouble. I'm glad you told me.'

      'I told you?' she asked, laughing lazily. 'Little vimmy me? I say, I'm brainy too.'

      'What do you propose to do?' he asked.

      'Well, wait first of all till you are engaged. I say, Bertie, I like teasing you. When you wrinkle your forehead as you are doing now, you look adorable. I don't mean a word I say, you know, any more than you meant a word of that very, very funny letter you once wrote me, which is now,' she said with histrionic utterance, 'one of my most cherished possessions.'

      'You told me you had burned it,' said he.

      'I know; I meant to burn it, but I couldn't. When I told you I had burnt it, I really meant to have burnt it, and so I didn't tell you a lie, because for all practical purposes it was burned. But then I found I couldn't; it was too funny for words. Really, there are so few humorous things in the world that it would be murder to destroy it. Of course, you didn't mean it. But I can't burn it. It is here somewhere.'

      Bertie did not smile. He sat up straight in his chair, and put the tips of his fingers together.

      'And don't look like Gallio,' remarked Mrs. Emsworth.

      'Look here, Dorothy,' he said, 'you can make things rather unpleasant for me, if you choose. Now, why do you choose? You know perfectly well that at one time the world said things about you and me; you also know perfectly well that – well, that there was no truth in them. You encouraged me to fall madly in love with you because – I don't know why. I thought you liked me, anyhow. Then there appeared somebody else. I wrote you a letter expressing my illimitable adoration. That was all – all. You have got that letter. Is not what I have said true?'

      'Yes – slightly edited. You see, I am a very improper person.'

      'What do you mean?'

      'Well, if you choose to write a very fervent letter to a very improper person, people will say – it is no use denying it – they will say What a fine day it is, but hot.'

      Bertie got up.

      'That is all I have to say,' he said.

      'People are so ill-natured,' said Mrs. Emsworth.

      The catlike laziness had left her, though her attitude was the same; instead of looking sensuously lazy, she looked very alert.

      'Good-bye, then,' said Bertie; 'we meet next week at Long Island.'

      'Yes; it will be very pleasant,' said she.

      He left the room without more words, and for five minutes she remained where she was. But slowly, as she lay there, the enjoyment and the purring content faded completely out of her face. Then it grew hard and sad; eventually, with a long-drawn sigh, half sob, she got up and called to her dog. He rose limb by massive limb, and laid his head on her lap.

      'Teddy R.,' she said, 'we are devils. But there are two worse devils than you and I. One has just gone away; one is just coming. Worse-devil one is worse because he thinks – he thinks that of me. Worse-devil two is worse because he – he did that to me. So – so you and I will think nothing more about it at all, but keep our spirits up.'

      She fondled the great dog's head a moment, then got up suddenly, and drew the blind down to shut out the glare of the sun, which was beginning to lay a hot yellow patch on the floor.

      'He thought that,' she said to herself – 'he really thought that.'

      She walked up and down the room for a moment or two, then went to a table on which stood her despatch-box, opened it, and looked through a pile of letters that lay inside. One of these she took out and read through. At moments it seemed to amuse her, at moments her smile was struck from her face. When she had finished reading it, she paused a few seconds with it in her hands, as if weighing it. Then, with a sudden gesture of impatience, she tore it in half, and threw the pieces into the grate. Then, with the quick relief of a