The Pest 10

The Pest 10

“If you pull my hair like that I shall kiss you, and you know how that

disgusts Alice. I _should_ like to see her in love with some emotional

young man like me——”

 

“Young!” exclaimed Mrs. West, with a merry laugh. “Young! Dark, thin and

forty, you mean!”

 

“Like myself,” he continued, ignoring the interruption. “I wonder

whether he would thaw her or she freeze him?”

 

“Don’t mind him, Alice.”

 

“I don’t. He’ll grow up some day.”

 

“There, Mrs. West,” he said, striking an attitude of triumph; “you see,

this sensible young woman realizes that I am young. Profit by her

example.”

 

Darkness was closing in, but Mrs. West protested that it would be far

more pleasant to sit, chat and drink tea by the firelight than to have

the lamp brought in.

 

“What a quaint quartette we are!” said West. “I, sedate and elderly;

Alice, sedate and quite young; Agatha, the child; and Fred—well, all

cynics are old.”

 

“_Are_ you a cynic?” asked Mrs. West, handing him his cup.

 

“What do you mean by a cynic?”

 

“I always think cynics are—disagreeable and——”

 

“_And_ you ask me if I am one!”

 

“Had you then, Aggie!” laughed her husband.

 

“I don’t care a bit. Mr. Mortimer knows I didn’t mean anything nasty.

I’m always saying shocking things, and no one minds a bit.”

 

“Any more than when a kitten scratches,” said West.

 

“A kitten’s scratches hurt, and mine don’t. It’s mean of you to sit the

other side of Alice, so that I can’t pull your hair. We have her here,

Mr. Mortimer, to keep us good, and to make her better.”

 

“Aggie trying to make epigrams! What next! Heaven defend the poor man

whose wife makes epigrams.”

 

Quite mistakenly, Mortimer counted himself an onlooker at life,

delighting to sound the characters of his friends and when possible, to

understand their doings. This night, as he lay awake, his thoughts dwelt

upon the company of three with whom he had passed the evening. He had

known Philip West for years, and considered him a strong, determined,

pushing man. From small beginnings inherited from an uncle he had built

up vast Stores known over London, indeed all the world over, thanks to

skillful and persistent advertising. He was a man of considerable

culture and refinement, one who, so Mortimer believed, would look for

much in his wife, for much more, at any rate, than he would obtain from

any pretty, overgrown schoolgirl. Agatha certainly was beautiful and her

baby ways charming, but were they not likely soon to pall upon such a

man as West? There was a further point: was she not simply a

fair-weather mate? Would he not find her hopelessly wanting in any time

of stress and storm? Could she shake herself free from her love of

dress, luxury and excitement? Mortimer felt sorry for her; she was

lovable, but helpless. To see her suffer would be as bad as to watch the

pain of a pretty pet animal.

 

The third of the trio—Alice Lane? Mortimer tried to set aside his

innate distaste for her and his suspicion that she despised him as a

trifler, endeavoring to judge her justly. He had watched her closely,

and had discovered that she in turn was closely watching West and his

wife. She was obviously on intimate terms with Philip and apparently was

entirely trusted by Agatha, but Mortimer had learned to mistrust the

continued harmony of such a trio. A wrong note was sure to be sounded

sooner or later. If Agatha failed or palled upon him, West would

certainly turn to some other woman. If he held out his hand to Alice

Lane, would she take it? Mortimer thought not, for he recognized that

there was a great deal that was noble in her. But, then, she might hold

that it was a noble part to help, in defiance of the world’s opinion,

the man she loved. That she did love West he had so far seen no cause to

believe, but he fancied that more than once when Agatha and her husband

had indulged in open display of their affection she had shrunk back with

some stronger emotion than mere distaste.

 

To Mortimer this openly displayed fondness was amusing and even

grateful; it pleased him to meet a couple in their position whose

refinement had not blunted their impulses. He felt himself old beside

them, sighing as he thought that such innocuous sweets were insipid to

him.

 

With that sigh he closed his eyes and fell asleep, leaving the future to

expound itself.

 

Billiards and conversation helped the Sunday hours to pass rapidly,

until at length Mortimer found himself late at night sitting alone with

West.

 

“One more cigar and one more whisky,” said the latter, suiting the

action to the word.

 

“Oh, yes, I know what that means. I grant you’ll probably be content

with the one drink—but—several cigars. How do you manage it?”

 

“Manage what?”

 

“To burn the candle at both ends without burning out?”

 

“I don’t do it. I’ve several candles and I burn each at one end only.

Work all day and rest down here.”

 

“Rest! You’d go mad if you ever tried to do it. You’re always at

something, and as for sleep, it doesn’t seem to matter how little you

have of it. You eat and drink everything you shouldn’t——”

 

“But I don’t worry. That’s my secret. I never let anything or anybody

worry me. I sacked one of my head men the other day because he was

developing a habit of trying to worry me.”

 

“Never worry! Lucky devil!”

 

“I’ve never done so. I’ve just worked straight ahead for what I wanted.

I never stopped to consider whether I was a saint or a sinner, a beauty

or a beast. What’s the good? We _are_ what we _are_, that’s all.

And—I’ll have what I want if I can get it, but I shan’t worry if I

don’t get it—that’s all.”

 

“Again, lucky man.”

 

“You, Fred, you—your delight in life is to weigh in delicate scales one

thing against another, and then choose by applying certain rules which

you fancy you obey. But you don’t obey them, not you. No man could.

We’re all creatures of impulse. Reason is only useful for getting us out

of scrapes which are the result of our own or others’ mistakes. Why

should I _worry_? I’ve got everything I want; money, power, a

comfortable house, a pretty wife. Good Lord, what would be the use of

deliberately shoving a fly into my own honey?”

 

“Yours is a fair-weather philosophy.”

 

“It’s brought me through a good many hours of foul weather. You know

something about business, though your father—luckily for you—knows

more. You know I’ve not built up my business without nearly running on

rocks sometimes. Last year it was almost a toss-up whether I came a

colossal smash or not.”

 

“Last year!”

 

“Last year.”

 

“But last year——”

 

“Oh, yes,” West broke in, “I know what you’re going to say. Last year I

gave ten thousand pounds to a Royal charity fund. People said I did it

to buy a knighthood. I did it to set my credit above suspicion. It saved

me.”

 

“I’ve never heard you talk about business before.”

 

“Very likely not. I don’t often talk ‘shop.’ Does it bore you?”

 

“No, I like hearing men talk shop.”

 

“I wish I had been married then,” West said, lying back on the sofa and

watching the smoke from his cigar as it drifted across to the fire. “A

business man ought to have a home that keeps him—so to speak—out of

his office.”

 

“And a wife to share his anxieties?”

 

“H’m—I don’t know that. Perhaps it would help.”

 

He knocked the ash off his cigar, got up and began pacing slowly up and

down the long room.

 

“That’s just the difference between us, Fred. You’d weigh the woman you

thought of marrying in those silly scales of yours, and if you found her

short weight in any particular would fight shy. I’ve human impulses and

follow them. When they get me into a mess I get out of it as well as I

can. You spend so much of time in avoiding messes that you’ll never get

into anything else.”

 

“I don’t seem to have many impulses left.”

 

“Rats! You don’t know anything about yourself—you analytical gents

never do. Or else, which I suspect is more true, you don’t want anyone

else to know you have just ordinary, human impulses. I believe you’re a sentimental old humbug. Come to bed.”