The Way of Ambition. Robert Hichens

The blend had resulted in the two girls, who were certainly anything rather than ordinary. They were half Blensovers and half Drakes: delicate, languid, hot-house plants; shrewd, almost coarse, and pushing growths, hardy and bold, and inclined to be impudent. In appearance they resembled their mother, and they had often much of her enervated and almost decaying manner. Her beauty was of the dropping-to-pieces type, bound together by wonderful clothes of a fashion peculiar to herself and very effective. But they had the energy, the ruthlessness, and the indifference to opinion of their father, and loved to startle the world he had won for himself. They were shameless, ultra-smart, with a sort of half-condescending passion for upper Bohemia. And as neither their mother nor they cared about anybody's private life or morals, provided the sinner was celebrated, lovely, or amusing, they knew intimately, even to calling by Christian names, all sorts of singers, actresses, dancers, sculptors, writers, and painters, who were never received in any sort of good society on the Continent or in America. London's notorious carelessness in such matters was led gaily by their mother and by them. Their house in Park Lane was popularly known as "the ragbag," and they were perpetually under the spell of some rage of the moment. Now they were twin Bacchantes, influenced by a Siberian dancer at the Palace; now curiously Eastern, captured by a Nautch girl whom they had come to know in Paris. For a time they were Japanese, when the Criterion opened its doors to a passionate doll from Yokohama, who became their bosom friend. Italy touched them with the lovely hands of La Divina Carlotta, our lady of tears from a slum of Naples. The Sicilians turned them to fire and the Swedish singers to snow. At this moment Margot was inclined to be classic, caught by a plastic poseuse from Athens, who, attired solely in gold-leaf, was giving exhibitions at the Hippodrome to the despair of Mrs. Grundy. And Kit was waiting for a new lead and marking time in the newest creations from Paris.

      "Charmian, come and sit down for just a moment! Run away and play, Lord Mark!"

      "With whom?" said a handsome boy plaintively.

      "With Jenny Smythe, with Lady Dolly, anyone who can play pretty. Come back in ten minutes and I'll be bothered with you again—perhaps. Let's sit here, Charmian. Wasn't the Fille too perfect? But the Bach was like the hewing of wood and the drawing of water. Max shouldn't have allowed it. What do you think of my gold gown?"

      "It's lovely!"

      "The Greeks knew everything and we know nothing. This dress hangs in such a calm way that one can't be anything but classic in it. Since I've known the Persephone I've learnt how to live. You must go to the Hippodrome. But what's all this about your going yachting with the Adelaide and an extraordinary Cornish genius? What's the matter?"

      The last words came out in a suddenly business-like and almost self-made voice, and Margot's deep eyes, full hitherto of a conscious calm, supposed to be Greek, abruptly darted questioning fires which might have sprung from a modern hussy.

      "D'you like him so much?" continued Margot, before Charmian had time to answer.

      "You're making a great mistake," said Charmian, with airy dignity. "I was only surprised to hear that Claude Heath was coming. I didn't know it. I understood he had refused to come. He always refuses everything. How did you hear of him?"

      "The Adelaide has been talking about him. She says he's a genius who hates the evil world, and will only know her and your mother, and that he's going with her and you and Max Elliot to the Greek Isles on one condition—that nobody else is to be asked and that he is to be introduced to no one. If it's really the Greek Isles, I think I ought to be taken. I told the Adelaide so, but she said Claude Heath would rather die than have a girl like me with him on the yacht."

      "So he really has accepted?"

      "Evidently. Now you don't look pleased."

      "Mr. Heath's Madretta's friend, not mine," said Charmian.

      "Really? Then your mother should go to Greece. Why did the Adelaide ask you?"

      "I can't imagine."

      "Now, Charmian!"

      "I assure you, Margot, I was amazed at being asked."

      "But you accepted."

      "I wanted to get out of this weather."

      "With a Cornish genius?"

      "Mr. Heath only looks at middle-aged married women," said Charmian. "I think he has a horror of girls. He and I don't get on at all."

      "What is he like?"

      "Plain and gaunt."

      "Is his music really so wonderful?"

      "I've never heard a note of it."

      "Hasn't your mother?"

      With difficulty Charmian kept a displeased look out of her face as she answered sweetly:

      "Once, I think. But she has said very little about it."

      At this moment the tragic mask of Miss Deans was seen in a doorway, and Margot got up quickly.

      "There's that darling Millie from Paris!"

      "Who? Where?"

      "Millie Deans, the only real actress on the operatic stage. Until you've seen her in Crêpe de Chine you've never seen opera as it ought to be. Millie! Millie!"

      She went rather aggressively toward Miss Deans, forgetting her calm gown for the moment.

      So Claude Heath had accepted. Charmian concluded this from Margot Drake's remarks. No doubt Mrs. Shiffney had received his answer that day. She loved giving people the impression that she was adventurous and knew strange and wonderful beings who wouldn't know anyone else. So she had not been able to keep silence about Claude Heath and the Greek Isles. Charmian's heart bounded. The peculiar singing of Ferdinand Rades, which had upon hearers much of the effect made upon readers by the books of Pierre Loti, had excited and quickened her imagination. Secretly Charmian was romantic, though she seldom seemed so. She longed after wonders, and was dissatisfied with the usual. Yet she was capable of expecting wonders to conform to a standard to which she was accustomed. There was much conventionality in her, though she did not know it. "The Brighton tradition" was not a mere phrase in her mother's mouth. Laughingly said it contained, nevertheless, particles of truth. But at this moment it seemed far away from Charmian, quite foreign to her. The Greek Isles and—

      Millie Deans had stepped upon the dais, accompanied by a very thin, hectic French boy, who sat down at the piano. But she did not seem inclined to sing. She looked round, glanced at the hectic boy, folded her hands in front of her, and waited. Max Elliot approached with his genial air and spoke to her. She answered, putting her dead-white face close to his. He also looked round the room, then hurried out. There was a pause.

      "What is it?" people murmured, turning their heads.

      Paul Lane bent down and said to the dégagée Duchess:

      "She won't sing till Mr. Brett, of the opera, comes."

      His lips curled in a sarcastic smile.

      "What a fuss they all make about themselves!" returned the Duchess. "It's a hard face."

      "Millie's? She's in a violent temper. You'll see; until Mr. Brett comes she won't open her mouth."

      Miss Deans stood rigid, with her hands always crossed in front of her and her eyes watching the door. The boy at the piano moved his hands over the keys without producing any sound. There was the ripple of a laugh, and Mrs. Shiffney came carelessly in with Rades, followed by a small, stout man, Mr. Brett, and Max Elliot. When he saw Miss Deans the stout man looked humorously sarcastic. Max Elliot wanted Mrs. Shiffney to come near to the dais, but she refused, and sat down by the door. Rades whispered to her and she laughed again. Max Elliot went close to Millie Deans. She frowned at her accompanist, who began to play, looking sensitive. Mr. Brett leaned against the wall looking critical.

      Charmian was in one of the balconies now with a young man. She saw her mother opposite to her with Sir Hilary Burnington, looking down on the singer and the crowd, and she thought her mother must have heard something very