Flamby

“ I don't see why we should go about inviting the world to weep. Our sorrows are our own affairs, after all, like our joys. We might quite as reasonably dress in white when a son and heir is born to us."
"Oh, I'm so glad you think so," said Flamby, and her voice was rather tremulous. "I loved mother more than anything in the world, but I hate to be reminded that she is dead by everybody who looks at me."95
Don grasped her hand and tucked it confidently under his arm. "Your father was a wise man. Never be ashamed of following his advice, Flamby. May I call you Flamby? ”

“ Flamby jumped up, took the match and threw it in the hearth, then returned slowly to her place. Her hands were rather unsteady, and she tucked them away behind her, squeezing up closely against the cushions. "We are friends," she said. "You have always been my friend."
"I don't want you to feel alone in the world, as though nobody cared for you. When Don is home I have no fear, but when he is away there is really no one to study your interests, and, after all, Flamby, you are only a girl."
"There is Mrs. Chumley and Mr. Hammett and Claude Chauvin." ”

“ Nobody ever calls me Miss Duveen, except people who don't like me."
"They must be very few."
"Not so few," said Flamby thoughtfully. "I think it's my hair that does it."
"That makes people dislike you?"
"Yes. Other women hate my hair."
"That is a compliment, Flamby."
"But isn't it horrible? Women are nasty. I wish I were a man."
Don laughed loudly, squeezing Flamby's hand more firmly under his arm. "You would have made a deuce of a boy," he said. "I wonder if we should have been friends."
"I don't think so," replied Flamby pensively. ”

“ She met Paul's gaze for a moment and tried to withdraw her hands, but he held them fast, and presently Flamby looked down again at the carpet.
"Whoever told me," said Paul, "it is the truth. Do you write often to Don?"
"Yes—sometimes."
"Then write and ask him if he thinks you should be seen about with Orlando James and I shall be content if you will promise to abide by his reply. Will you do that, Flamby? Please don't be angry with me because I try to help you. I have lived longer than you and I have learned that if we scorn the world's opinion the world will have its revenge. ”

“ But Flamby was afraid. Paul's theory that the arts had taken the place of the sibyls, that man was only an instrument of higher powers which shaped the Universe, dismayed her; for upon seeking to analyse the emotions which The Gates aroused she thought that she could discern the origin of this fear in an unfamiliar note which now and again intruded, a voice unlike the voice of Paul Mario. ”

“ One evening early in the following week Flamby and Mrs. Chumley stood upon a platform of Victoria Station looking after a train from which protruded a forest of waving hands. Somewhere amongst them was the hand of Don, but because of that uncomfortable mistiness which troubled her sight at times, Flamby was quite unable to distinguish anything clearly. "Damn the German pigs," she said under her breath.142
"Did I hear you swearing, dear?" asked Mrs. Chumley tearfully. "So many girls seem to be able to swear nowadays. No doubt they find it a great relief." ”

“ Thus, for human life is a paradox, this knowledge comes when it is no longer of any use, since every woman is not a Ninon de Lenclos.
Of such-like matters were Flamby's thoughts as she sat squeezed up into the smallest possible compass upon her settee, arms embracing knees; and, as was so often the case, they led her back to Paul Mario. It was wonderful how all paths seemed to lead to Paul Mario. ”

“ Strange how ugliness is the mother of beauty, and the sacred fairy-winged scarab of Art comes forth from dirt.
One day Paul came to The Hostel. Flamby was engaged in hanging pictures when she heard his voice in the courtyard below. She was standing on a chair, but her heart began to beat so ridiculously that she was compelled to sit down. She swore with a fluency and resource worthy of her father, then in feverish haste attempted to strip off her overall and wash her hands and adjust her unruly hair at one and the same time. ”

“ It does not follow that he shall lack genius for love and friendship, but merely that he cannot distract his mind in seeking out individual sorrows. The physician tends the hurts of the body, the priest ministers to the ills of the spirit; Paul Mario yearned to heal the wounds of a stricken world.
But Flamby interested him keenly, and therefore he draped her in a mantle of poesy, obscuring those shades displeasing to his sensibilities ”

“ And clearly before him—so clearly as almost to constitute hallucination—arose a vision of Flamby Duveen as she appeared in the secret photographs.
"You have definitely set your hand to the plough?"
"Definitely."
Jules Thessaly advanced, leaning forward across the table. He stared fixedly at Paul. "To-night," he said, "a new Star is born in the West and an hour will come when the eyes of all men must be raised to it." ”

“ Ah! there is a taxi on the rank."
"Oh," cried Flamby quickly—"please don't get another cab for me."
"Eh? No cab?"
"I cannot afford it and I could not think of allowing you to pay for everything."
"Now let us have a thorough understanding, Flamby," said Don, standing facing her, that sunny rejuvenating smile making his tanned face look almost boyish. "You remember what I said on the subject of misunderstanding? Listen, then: I am on leave and my money is burning a hole in my pocket; money always does. ”

“ However happy one may be, London Bridge Station possesses the qualities of a sovereign joy-killer, and would have inclined the thoughts of Mark Tapley toward the darker things of life; but to Flamby, alone in a world which she did not expect to find sympathetic, it seemed a particularly hopeless place. She was dressed in black, and black did not suit her, and all the wisdom of your old philosophers must fail to solace a woman who knows that she is not looking her best. ”

“ It makes me go all goosey to think of some of the awful things I have said to people."
"You have said one thing, Flamby, which I must request you to explain," said Don gravely. "Paul is utterly incapable of harbouring an evil thought about anyone, and equally incapable of misjudging character." ”

“ He had finished the sugar. "Damn bad."
"What!" cried Don—"have you got old Crozier's Lorenzo down here? Hullo! let us see how you have 'percepted' him." He crossed to the easel, surveying Flamby's painting critically. "Does Hammett still talk about 'percepting the subject' and 'emerging the high-lights' and 'profunding the shadows'?"
"He does. You're mean not to tell me."
"What do you want me to tell you, Flamby?184—that the drawing is magnificent and the painting brilliant except for the treatment of the bill, which is too brilliant." He turned and met her reproachful gaze. ”

“ Chumley will be expecting us."
"Ah!" cried Don gratefully, glancing at his watch. "Of course she will. Where is the waiter?"
"You don't like James, do you?" said Flamby, as the car approached The Hostel.
"No. Vanity in a man is ridiculous, and I always endeavour to avoid ridiculous people. James is a clever painter, but a very stupid fellow. Seeing him to-day reminds me of something I had meant to ask you, Flamby. Just before I last came on leave you wrote at Paul's request to enquire if I considered it wise that you should go about with James and we discussed the point whilst I was home. ”

“ Why don't you go and fight like he did?"
Fawkes—for this was indeed the keeper's name—sprang at her clumsily; his knee was badly bruised. But Flamby eluded him with ease, gliding behind the trunk of a friendly oak and peering out at the enraged man elfishly.
"When are they going to burn you?" she inquired.
Fawkes laid his gun upon the ground, without removing his gaze from the flushed mocking face, and began cautiously to advance. He was a man for13 whom Flamby in the ordinary way entertained a profound contempt, but there was that in his slinking foxy manner which vaguely disturbed her. ”

“ Flamby leapt from him, panting. "You couldn't!" she taunted. "All you can kill is rabbits!"
Through an opening in the dense greenwood a ray14 of sunlight spilled its gold upon the carpet of Bluebell Hollow, and Flamby stood, defiant, head thrown back, where the edge of the ray touched her wonderful, disordered hair and magically turned it to sombre fire. Venomous yet, but doubtful, Fawkes confronted her, now holding his handkerchief to his ear. And so the pair were posed when Paul Mario and Donald Courtier came down the steep path skirting the dell. Don grasped Paul by the arm. ”

“ M. Sapin was summoned to the dining-room and toasted by the epicures there gathered. This was his final triumph. He died a few weeks later. But of such dream stuff was the wonder-dish to whose mystery Regali had admitted Flamby with the words "Ragout Regali is on to-day."
Another morning they went to Guilder's, the art school of which Don had said, "They teach you everything except how to sell your pictures," and Flamby made the acquaintance of Hammett, famous as a painter of dogs, velvet and lace, under whom she was to work. The school surprised her. ”

“ Are you sure, Mr. Mario, that you can recognise them when they pass you by? Remember that the Devil is a philosopher. If we may learn anything from the ancient creeds surely it is that the secret of governing humanity is never to tell humanity the truth."
VII
Some days later Flamby was taking tea by appointment in Orlando James's studio. Don had written from France urging her to divulge the nature of her misgivings respecting Paul and their connection with James, and Flamby, greatly daring, had determined to obtain confirmation of the doubts which troubled her. ”

“ Chumley was far from tall, the criterion was peculiar, but Flamby accepted it without demur. "I'm wearing high heels," she said. "I am no taller than you, really."
"I should have thought you were, dear. I am glad you wear high heels. They are so smart. It's a mistake to wear low heels. Men hate them. Don't you think men hate them, Don?"
"The consensus of modern masculine opinion probably admits distaste for flat-heeled womanhood, in spite of classic tradition."
"Dear me, that might be Paul Mario. Do you like Paul Mario, dear?"—turning again to Flamby and repeating the little hug. ”

“ I did not write that book."
"Oh," whispered Flamby.
"Yes—again you saw clearly, little wonder-girl. Don has told me how you traced the black thread running through the woof of The Gates, and that black thread was truth. It is truth that slays and truth that damns. Not for a million ages can men be sufficiently advanced to know and to live. Hypocrisy triumphs; for the few is the fruit of knowledge—for the multitude, the husk. I have248 seen the Light of the World, but I stand in the shadow. ”

“ The Pipes of Pan were calling, and up in the aisles of the hills moonbeams slyly sought and found bare-limbed dryads darting from the eagerness of wooing fauns. Progress has banished those Pandean spirits from the woodlands, but the moon is the mother of magic, and her children steal out, furtive, half fearful, when she raises her lamp as of old.
Between prescience and imagination the borderline is ill defined. Although Dovelands Cottage was seemingly sleeping, or deserted, Paul pictured Flamby standing by the stile beyond, where the orchard path began. ”

“ She had been wondering what Devonshire was like, for Paul was in Devonshire. Now as Don took both her hands and smiled in the old joyous way she thought that he looked ill, almost cadaverous, in spite of the tan which clung to his skin.
"Craft, Flamby, guile and the subtlety of the serpent. The best men get the worst leave." ”

“ She detested James, but it had been very gratifying to be noticed by a man actually in the company of the dazzling Yvonne Mario. Flamby had profound faith in her ability to take care of herself and not without sound reason, for she was experienced and wise beyond her years, and James's pride in his new conquest amused her vastly because she knew it to be no conquest at all. Only with age do women learn that the foolish world judges beauty harshly and that the judgment of the foolish world may not be wholly neglected. ”

“ I live and move and have my being in it. But please don't misunderstand. Anything within my power to do for Flamby I will do gladly. I only learned to-day of her second bereavement. Don, we must protect her from the fate which so often befalls girls in such circumstances."
"My dear Paul, in accusing me of misjudging you, you are misjudging me. If I don't understand you nobody does. My offer to release you from the bargain is not to be understood as a reproach; it is a confession. I am a man utterly devoid of common sense, one to whom reason is a stranger and moderation an enemy. ”

“ She no longer expected any man who had seen Yvonne Mario to display the slightest interest152 in little insignificant Flamby Duveen; for Yvonne possessed the type of beauty which women count irresistible, but which oddly enough rarely enchains the love of men, which inflames the imagination without kindling the heart. ”

“ Miss Kingsbury, of High Fielding, the local Lady Butler, hearing of Sir Jacques' protégée, as she heard of everything else in the county, sent a message of honeyed sweetness to Flamby, desiring her to call and bring some of her work. Flamby had never forgotten the visit. The honey of Miss Kingsbury was honey of Trebizond, and it poisoned poor Flamby's happiness for many a day. Strange is the51 paradox of a woman's heart ”