THE NEW MACHIAVELLI

5

Altiora, I remember, preluded Margaret's reappearance by announcing

her as a "new type."

I was accustomed to go early to the Baileys' dinners in those days,

for a preliminary gossip with Altiora in front of her drawing-room

fire. One got her alone, and that early arrival was a little sign

of appreciation she valued. She had every woman's need of followers

and servants.

"I'm going to send you down to-night," she said, "with a very

interesting type indeed-one of the new generation of serious gals.

Middle-class origin-and quite well off. Rich in fact. Her step-

father was a solicitor and something of an ENTREPRENEUR towards the

end, I fancy-in the Black Country. There was a little brother

died, and she's lost her mother quite recently. Quite on her own,

so to speak. She's never been out into society very much, and

doesn't seem really very anxious to go… Not exactly an

intellectual person, you know, but quiet, and great force of

character. Came up to London on her own and came to us-someone had

told her we were the sort of people to advise her-to ask what to

do. I'm sure she'll interest you."

"What CAN people of that sort do?" I asked. "Is she capable of

investigation?"

Altiora compressed her lips and shook her head. She always did

shake her head when you asked that of anyone.

"Of course what she ought to do," said Altiora, with her silk dress

pulled back from her knee before the fire, and with a lift of her

voice towards a chuckle at her daring way of putting things, "is to

marry a member of Parliament and see he does his work…

Perhaps she will. It's a very exceptional gal who can do anything

by herself-quite exceptional. The more serious they are-without

being exceptional-the more we want them to marry."

Her exposition was truncated by the entry of the type in question.

"Well!" cried Altiora turning, and with a high note of welcome,

"HERE you are!"

Margaret had gained in dignity and prettiness by the lapse of five

years, and she was now very beautifully and richly and simply

dressed. Her fair hair had been done in some way that made it seem

softer and more abundant than it was in my memory, and a gleam of

purple velvet-set diamonds showed amidst its mist of little golden

and brown lines. Her dress was of white and violet, the last trace

of mourning for her mother, and confessed the gracious droop of her

tall and slender body. She did not suggest Staffordshire at all,

and I was puzzled for a moment to think where I had met her. Her

sweetly shaped mouth with the slight obliquity of the lip and the

little kink in her brow were extraordinarily familiar to me. But

she had either been prepared by Altiora or she remembered my name.

"We met," she said, "while my step-father was alive-at Misterton.

You came to see us"; and instantly I recalled the sunshine between

the apple blossom and a slender pale blue girlish shape among the

daffodils, like something that had sprung from a bulb itself. I

recalled at once that I had found her very interesting, though I did

not clearly remember how it was she had interested me.

Other guests arrived-it was one of Altiora's boldly blended

mixtures of people with ideas and people with influence or money who

might perhaps be expected to resonate to them. Bailey came down

late with an air of hurry, and was introduced to Margaret and said

absolutely nothing to her-there being no information either to

receive or impart and nothing to do-but stood snatching his left

cheek until I rescued him and her, and left him free to congratulate

the new Lady Snape on her husband's K. C. B.

I took Margaret down. We achieved no feats of mutual expression,

except that it was abundantly clear we were both very pleased and

interested to meet again, and that we had both kept memories of each

other. We made that Misterton tea-party and the subsequent

marriages of my cousins and the world of Burslem generally, matter

for quite an agreeable conversation until at last Altiora, following

her invariable custom, called me by name imperatively out of our

duologue. "Mr. Remington," she said, "we want your opinion-" in

her entirely characteristic effort to get all the threads of

conversation into her own hands for the climax that always wound up

her dinners. How the other women used to hate those concluding

raids of hers! I forget most of the other people at that dinner,

nor can I recall what the crowning rally was about. It didn't in

any way join on to my impression of Margaret.

In the drawing-room of the matting floor I rejoined her, with

Altiora's manifest connivance, and in the interval I had been

thinking of our former meeting.

"Do you find London," I asked, "give you more opportunity for doing

things and learning things than Burslem?"

She showed at once she appreciated my allusion to her former

confidences. "I was very discontented then," she said and paused.

"I've really only been in London for a few months. It's so

different. In Burslem, life seems all business and getting-without

any reason. One went on and it didn't seem to mean anything. At

least anything that mattered… London seems to be so full of

meanings-all mixed up together."

She knitted her brows over her words and smiled appealingly at the

end as if for consideration for her inadequate expression,

appealingly and almost humorously.

I looked understandingly at her. "We have all," I agreed, "to come

to London."

"One sees so much distress," she added, as if she felt she had

completely omitted something, and needed a codicil.

"What are you doing in London?"

"I'mthinking of studying. Some social question. I thought perhaps

I might go and study social conditions as Mrs. Bailey did, go

perhaps as a work-girl or see the reality of living in, but Mrs.

Bailey thought perhaps it wasn't quite my work."

"Are you studying?"

"I'm going to a good many lectures, and perhaps I shall take up a

regular course at the Westminster School of Politics and Sociology.

But Mrs. Bailey doesn't seem to believe very much in that either."

Her faintly whimsical smile returned. "I seem rather indefinite,"

she apologised, "but one does not want to get entangled in things

one can't do. One-one has so many advantages, one's life seems to

be such a trust and such a responsibility-"

She stopped.

"A man gets driven into work," I said.

"It must be splendid to be Mrs. Bailey," she replied with a glance

of envious admiration across the room.

"SHE has no doubts, anyhow," I remarked.

"She HAD," said Margaret with the pride of one who has received

great confidences.