Bowdon

“ Ashley had long been aware of his companion's kindness for him, one of those partialities that arise without much apparent reason but are of unquestionable genuineness. But Bowdon was considered reserved, and this little outbreak of self-exposure was a surprise. It shewed that the man was at least playing with a new emotion; if the emotion grew strong the play might turn to earnest. Moreover Bowdon must know that his confidant was a frequent visitor at Lady Kilnorton's. Bowdon stopped suddenly, standing still on the pavement, and looking full in Ashley's face. ”

“ Bowdon had become anxious to be persuaded that the thing was right, or at least so excusable as to be near enough to the right, as to involve no indefensible breach of his code, no crying protest from his honour; if the sight of the man would convince him, he was ready and eager to see the man. Besides, he had a curiosity. Ora had married the man; this adventitious interest hung about Jack Fenning still. ”

“ The two men listened; the door was good thick oak, and the voices were dim. "I know that voice," said Ashley. "Who the deuce is it?"
"It's a man, anyhow," said Bowdon. He had entertained a wild fear that the visitor might be Ora herself; the scheme of things had a way of playing tricks such as that.
"Well, good-bye," said the voice, not Jack Fenning's. They heard Jack going upstairs; at the same moment came the shutting of his door and a knock at Ashley's. With a glance at Bowdon, warning him to be discreet, Ashley opened it. Mr. Sidney Hazlewood stood on the threshold. ”

“ While Franklin Welsh Bowdon was by no means unknown, and while his worth was not altogether unrecognized, who that knows him in retrospect today as one of the most matchless orators of southern history? Who knows of his clearness of demonstration in presenting the most tangled and abstruse of problems? Who today knows not alone of the power already alluded to, but who that knows that his ability before a jury has never been surpassed in the state, or that he was peerless as a popular speaker before a promiscuous audience? ”

“ Ora joined in his laugh; the world was no longer harsh; Lord Bowdon was nothing; there were no more reminiscences of the way Jack Fenning used to talk. There was frolic, there was a touch of adventure, a savour of mischief.
"It'll be rather fun," she mused softly, clasping her hands on her knee.
Behind the man's restrained bearing lay a sense of triumph. ”

“ It had been Ora's firm intention not to refer in the most distant manner to what had passed between Bowdon and herself. But our lips and eyes are traitors to our careful tongues; and there are people who draw out a joke from any hiding-place.
"He's done a very wise thing," said Ashley, looking straight into her eyes. ”

“ Having offered Ashley a lift to Piccadilly, she went off to get ready, and presently Bowdon, who had called to pick up Irene, strolled into the garden for a cigarette.
"Hullo, what are you doing here? You ought to be making your living," he cried good-humouredly.
"I've been throwing it away instead," said Ashley. "Should you like to be a partner in Muddock and Mead?"
"A sleeping one," said Bowdon with a meditative pull at his moustache. ”

“ Ashley felt that Bowdon's eyes were on him, but Bowdon took no share in the talk.
"Who looked after him then?" he asked.
"His wife," said Hazlewood. "She used to walk on, or get a small part, or sing at the low-class halls, or anything you like. Handsome girl in a coarse style. Daisy Macpherson, that's what they called her. She kept him more or less going; he always did what she told him." He paused, and added with a reflective smile, "I mean she said she was his wife, and liked to be called Mrs. Foster in private life." ”

“ The Commission drew near to its close; brief bred brief but slowly; and as long as he owed Bowdon a thousand pounds he seemed to himself more than criminal. But did he owe it? Yes, a thousand times. For if he did not, then Bowdon was something more to Ora Pinsent than a chance acquaintance or a friend's fiancé. He acknowledged the hearty good comradeship which had shewn itself in the loan ”

“ The history of others is perhaps more iridescent, because the drift of the currents into which they auspiciously fell bore them into fuller and more applausive view before the public eye, in which event it is the condition, and not the man who happens to be its representative, that deserves consideration. The force inherent in Frank Bowdon, [Pg 111] and his superior ability to wield the elements already named, really make him a prodigy among the men who have made famous the history of the state. ”

“ He looked at her wistfully; for a moment there came to him such a mood as had arrested Bowdon's steps and availed to turn his feet into a new path. But Ashley's temper was not the same. He did not say that because this path was the best it should be his, be the other ever so attractive; he admitted with a sigh that the other was more attractive, nay, was irresistible, and held on his way straight to it.
"You're one of the best people in the world, Alice," he said. And he added, smiling, "Don't believe all you hear. Everybody is behaving very properly." ”

“ Still it seemed possible to talk about Ora; that to Irene's present mood was something gained. Nobody turned round on her and said, "He'd rather have had Ora, really," a fantastic occurrence which had become conceivable to her.
"Your Muddocks have gone, haven't they?" she asked Ashley.
"Yes, my Muddocks have gone," said Ashley, laughing. "But why 'my' Muddocks? Am I responsible for them?"
"They ought to be your Muddocks. I try to get him to be sensible." The last sentence she addressed to Bowdon with a smile. "But men won't be."
"None of them?" asked Bowdon, returning her smile. ”

“ On the whole Irene Bowdon felt that she ought to thank heaven, not perhaps in any rapturous outpouring of tremulous joy, but in a sober give-and-take spirit which set possible evil against actual good, struck the balance, and made an entry of a reasonably large figure on the credit side of the sheet. Surely it was in this spirit that sensible people dealt with heaven? If once or twice in her life she had not been sensible, to repeat such aberrations would little become an experienced and twice-married woman. ”

“ Here was Bowdon restless and contemptuous of himself, Irene bitter and ashamed, Alice with no surer, no more honest, comfort than the precarious existence of Mr. Fenning, [Pg 109] Sir James Muddock (Ora was no doubt partly responsible here also) grievously disappointed and hurt; while the one person who might be considered to owe her something, Mr. Bertie Jewett, was as unconscious of his debt as she of his existence; both would have been surprised to learn that they had anything in the world to do with one another. But after all most of Ora's tears were for herself. ”

“ The eloquence of saints was on the lips of his wife that evening when they dined together, and Bowdon listened to it with complete intellectual assent. He could not deny the force of her strictures on Ashley Mead nor the justness of her analysis of Ora Pinsent. But he did not love her in this mood; we do not always love people best when they convince us most. Ashley was terribly foolish, Ora seemed utterly devoid of the instinct of morality, intimated Irene. ”

“ Alice remarked. Ashley was grateful, but still with reservations as to the judicial tone.
Irene Kilnorton, engaged in her secret task of justifying herself and taking a rosy view of Bowdon's feelings, talked more for her own ends than for those of the company.
"That sort of people suit one another very well," she went on. "They know what to expect of each other. Harm comes only when people of a different sort get entangled with them." ”

“ He hinted something of this feeling to Irene Bowdon.
"Oh, we don't go in for being brilliant," she said with a double touch of malice; she meant to hit at Ora and Ora's friends, and also perversely to include herself in his hinted depreciation of the company; this she liked to do because the depreciation came, as she knew, from a recollection of Ora and Ora's sort of society.
"Being brilliant isn't in itself a crime," pleaded Ashley; "even if it were, it's so rare that there's no need for an exemplary sentence."
"Why don't you talk to Alice?" ”

“ Hazlewood's dresser was ready with a telegraph-form and Babba, in the wantonness of exuberant triumph, sent a message to Bowdon's house asserting positively that Mr. Fenning had not come. That evening Bowdon dined with Irene, and the telegram, forwarded by messenger, reached him there. After dinner Alice ran in to give news of a rather better character concerning her father. She also heard the contents of Babba Flint's message. Ora's underlying desire for a sensation would have been satisfied. They were all amazed. ”

“ Hazlewood? Hazlewood was a good fellow, but he would not be squeamish about the nosings. So far there was no improbability. But Ora? Was she party to the scheme? Well, she would gladly—great heavens, how gladly!—be rid of this creature; and the other thing would be held in reserve; it would not be pressed on her too soon. The same mixture of truth and pretence which had marked his talk with Irene Bowdon displayed itself in his answer to Jack Fenning.
"The most natural thing in the world," he said, with a shrug of his shoulders. ”

“ To be a danger and to know yourself to be a danger, to be aware of your perilousness in a matter-of-fact way, without either exultation or remorse, was a thing quite outside Alice's experience. On the whole to expect men to fall in love with you and to be justified in this anticipation by events would create a life so alien from hers that she could not realise its incidents or the state of mind it would create.
"I like Lord Bowdon," said Ora. "But—" she paused and went on, laughing, "He's rather too sensible for me. He'll just suit Irene Kilnorton. ”

“ In recording her interview with Ora, Irene had somewhat exaggerated her brutality, just as in her reflexions about her friend she exaggerated her own common-sense. Ora drove her into protective measures; she found them in declaring herself as unlike to Ora as possible. In reality common-sense held no disproportionate or disagreeable sway in her soul; if it had, she would have been entirely content with the position which now existed, and with her relations towards Bowdon. ”

“ I hate being committed to things. Oh, do give me a cigarette!"
After all, was it not strange that both the men should have done what they had for her? Was there not a touch of vulgarity in her? To the jealous eyes of a woman, perhaps. "But men don't see that," thought Irene Bowdon as she sat on the sofa; she was in that favourite seat of her hostess', by the little table, the portrait in its silver frame, and the flower-vase that once had hidden the letter from Bridgeport, Connecticut. ”

“ Common danger breeds candour; common good fortune breeds candour; finally, a tête-à-tête dinner breeds candour. By the time they reached the sweets Irene Kilnorton, in the course of a demonstration that Ashley must and would get over his infatuation, that such nonsense never lasted, and that Mr. Fenning's return would put a summary end to anything of the sort, had confided to her friend that just for a little while Lord Bowdon had shewn signs of an inclination to hover round the same perilous flame. ”

“ She leant forward and looked keenly at Ora.
"Well?" said Ora, put on her defence by this scrutiny.
"Do you really care much about him? I wonder if you could really care much about anybody!" She was rather surprised to find herself speaking so openly about an attachment which her traditions taught her should be sternly ignored; but she was there to learn what the woman was like.
"I don't love people often, but I love Ashley," was Ora's answer; it was given with her own blend of intensity and innocence. To Irene Bowdon, even armoured as she was in prejudice, it carried conviction. ”

“ She had never quite reconciled herself to Bertie Jewett; her old dislike of the ribbon-selling man and the ribbon-selling atmosphere so far persisted that she had accepted, rather than welcomed, the prospect of Bertie. She wrote and begged Alice Muddock to come across to tea. She and Bowdon were in her house in Queen's Gate, his not being yet prepared to receive her. She fancied that she saw her way to putting everything right, to restoring the status quo ante, and to obliterating altogether the effect of Ora Pinsent's incursion; she still felt a responsibility for the incursion. ”

“ Ashley, however, covertly regarded his friend's trim figure and pretty, small features. He often felt rather surprised that he had no inclination to fall in love with, or even to make love to, Irene Kilnorton. Many men had such an inclination, he knew; among them he ranked this same Lord Bowdon who had driven Miss Pinsent to her house. Lady Kilnorton was young, she was pretty, she had, if not wit, at least the readiness of reply which is the common substitute provided by the habit of conversing with wideawake people. ”

“ Ashley was surprised to find in his own soul an indefinite but not weak opposition to it. The instinct of exclusive possession was stirring in him, that resentment of intrusion which is the forerunner of a claim to property. Well, he was not forty-three but just thirty. His theory of life did not forbid a certain amount of making a fool of himself; his practice had included a rather larger quantity. Perturbation had been the ruling factor in Bowdon, in Ashley a pleasurable anticipation was predominant. ”