Chapter: Leonard accepted the invitation to tea next Saturday. But he was right;
the visit proved a conspicuous failure.

"Sugar?" said Margaret.

"Cake?" said Helen. "The big cake or the little deadlies? I'm afraid
you thought my letter rather odd, but we'll explain--we aren't odd,
really--nor affected, really. We're over-expressive--that's all."

As a lady's lap-dog Leonard did not excel. He was not an Italian,
still less a Frenchman, in whose blood there runs the very spirit of
persiflage and of gracious repartee. His wit was the Cockney's; it
opened no doors into imagination, and Helen was drawn up short by "The
more a lady has to say, the better," administered waggishly.

"Oh yes," she said.

"Ladies brighten--"

"Yes, I know. The darlings are regular sunbeams. Let me give you a
plate."

"How do you like your work?" interposed Margaret.

He, too, was drawn up short. He would not have these women prying into
his work. They were Romance, and so was the room to which he had at last
penetrated, with the queer sketches of people bathing upon its walls,
and so were the very tea-cups, with their delicate borders of wild
strawberries. But he would not let romance interfere with his life.
There is the devil to pay then.

"Oh, well enough," he answered.

"Your company is the Porphyrion, isn't it?"

"Yes, that's so."--becoming rather offended. "It's funny how things get
round."

"Why funny?" asked Helen, who did not follow the workings of his mind.
"It was written as large as life on your card, and considering we wrote
to you there, and that you replied on the stamped paper--"

"Would you call the Porphyrion one of the big Insurance Companies?"
pursued Margaret.

"It depends on what you call big."

"I mean by big, a solid, well-established concern, that offers a
reasonably good career to its employes."

"I couldn't say--some would tell you one thing and others another," said
the employe uneasily. "For my own part"--he shook his head--"I only
believe half I hear. Not that even; it's safer. Those clever ones come
to the worse grief, I've often noticed. Ah, you can't be too careful."

He drank, and wiped his moustache, which was going to be one of those
moustaches that always droop into tea-cups--more bother than they're
worth, surely, and not fashionable either.

"I quite agree, and that's why I was curious to know; is it a solid,
well-established concern?"

Leonard had no idea. He understood his own corner of the machine,
but nothing beyond it. He desired to confess neither knowledge nor
ignorance, and under these circumstances, another motion of the head
seemed safest. To him, as to the British public, the Porphyrion was the
Porphyrion of the advertisement--a giant, in the classical style, but
draped sufficiently, who held in one hand a burning torch, and pointed
with the other to St. Paul's and Windsor Castle. A large sum of money
was inscribed below, and you drew your own conclusions. This giant
caused Leonard to do arithmetic and write letters, to explain the
regulations to new clients, and re-explain them to old ones. A giant
was of an impulsive morality--one knew that much. He would pay for
Mrs. Munt's hearthrug with ostentatious haste, a large claim he would
repudiate quietly, and fight court by court. But his true fighting
weight, his antecedents, his amours with other members of the commercial
Pantheon--all these were as uncertain to ordinary mortals as were the
escapades of Zeus. While the gods are powerful, we learn little about
them. It is only in the days of their decadence that a strong light
beats into heaven.

"We were told the Porphyrion's no go," blurted Helen. "We wanted to tell
you; that's why we wrote."

"A friend of ours did think that it is insufficiently reinsured," said
Margaret.

Now Leonard had his clue.

He must praise the Porphyrion. "You can tell your friend," he said,
"that he's quite wrong."

"Oh, good!"

The young man coloured a little. In his circle to be wrong was fatal.
The Miss Schlegels did not mind being wrong. They were genuinely glad
that they had been misinformed. To them nothing was fatal but evil.

"Wrong, so to speak," he added.

"How 'so to speak'?"

"I mean I wouldn't say he's right altogether."

But this was a blunder. "Then he is right partly," said the elder woman,
quick as lightning.

Leonard replied that every one was right partly, if it came to that.

"Mr. Bast, I don't understand business, and I dare say my questions are
stupid, but can you tell me what makes a concern 'right' or 'wrong'?"

Leonard sat back with a sigh.

"Our friend, who is also a business man, was so positive. He said before
Christmas--"

"And advised you to clear out of it," concluded Helen. "But I don't see
why he should know better than you do."

Leonard rubbed his hands. He was tempted to say that he knew nothing
about the thing at all. But a commercial training was too strong for
him. Nor could he say it was a bad thing, for this would be giving
it away; nor yet that it was good, for this would be giving it away
equally. He attempted to suggest that it was something between the two,
with vast possibilities in either direction, but broke down under the
gaze of four sincere eyes. And yet he scarcely distinguished between
the two sisters. One was more beautiful and more lively, but "the Miss
Schlegels" still remained a composite Indian god, whose waving arms and
contradictory speeches were the product of a single mind.

"One can but see," he remarked, adding, "as Ibsen says, 'things
happen.'" He was itching to talk about books and make the most of his
romantic hour. Minute after minute slipped away, while the ladies, with
imperfect skill, discussed the subject of reinsurance or praised their
anonymous friend. Leonard grew annoyed--perhaps rightly. He made vague
remarks about not being one of those who minded their affairs being
talked over by others, but they did not take the hint. Men might have
shown more tact. Women, however tactful elsewhere, are heavy-handed
here. They cannot see why we should shroud our incomes and our prospects
in a veil. "How much exactly have you, and how much do you expect to
have next June?" And these were women with a theory, who held that
reticence about money matters is absurd, and that life would be truer
if each would state the exact size of the golden island upon which he
stands, the exact stretch of warp over which he throws the woof that is
not money. How can we do justice to the pattern otherwise?

And the precious minutes slipped away, and Jacky and squalor came
nearer. At last he could bear it no longer, and broke in, reciting
the names of books feverishly. There was a moment of piercing joy when
Margaret said, "So YOU like Carlyle" and then the door opened, and "Mr.
Wilcox, Miss Wilcox" entered, preceded by two prancing puppies.

"Oh, the dears! Oh, Evie, how too impossibly sweet!" screamed Helen,
falling on her hands and knees.

"We brought the little fellows round," said Mr. Wilcox.

"I bred 'em myself."

"Oh, really! Mr. Bast, come and play with puppies."

"I've got to be going now," said Leonard sourly.

"But play with puppies a little first."

"This is Ahab, that's Jezebel," said Evie, who was one of those who name
animals after the less successful characters of Old Testament history.

"I've got to be going."

Helen was too much occupied with puppies to notice him.

"Mr. Wilcox, Mr. Ba---- Must you be really?

"Good-bye!"

"Come again," said Helen from the floor.

Then Leonard's gorge arose. Why should he come again? What was the good
of it? He said roundly: "No, I shan't; I knew it would be a failure."

Most people would have let him go. "A little mistake. We tried knowing
another class--impossible."

But the Schlegels had never played with life. They had attempted
friendship, and they would take the consequences. Helen retorted, "I
call that a very rude remark. What do you want to turn on me like that
for?" and suddenly the drawing-room re-echoed to a vulgar row.

"You ask me why I turn on you?"

"Yes."

"What do you want to have me here for?'

"To help you, you silly boy!" cried Helen. "And don't shout."

"I don't want your patronage. I don't want your tea. I was quite happy.
What do you want to unsettle me for?" He turned to Mr. Wilcox. "I put it
to this gentleman. I ask you, sir, am I to have my brain picked?"

Mr. Wilcox turned to Margaret with the air of humorous strength that he
could so well command. "Are we intruding, Miss Schlegel? Can we be of
any use, or shall we go?"

But Margaret ignored him.

"I'm connected with a leading insurance company, sir. I receive what I
take to be an invitation from these--ladies" (he drawled the word). "I
come, and it's to have my brain picked. I ask you, is it fair?"

"Highly unfair," said Mr. Wilcox, drawing a gasp from Evie, who knew
that her father was becoming dangerous.

"There, you hear that? Most unfair, the gentleman says. There! Not
content with"--pointing at Margaret--"you can't deny it." His voice
rose; he was falling into the rhythm of a scene with Jacky. "But as
soon as I'm useful it's a very different thing. 'Oh yes, send for him.
Cross-question him. Pick his brains.' Oh yes. Now, take me on the whole,
I'm a quiet fellow: I'm law-abiding, I don't wish any unpleasantness;
but I--I--"

"You," said Margaret--"you--you--"

Laughter from Evie as at a repartee.

"You are the man who tried to walk by the Pole Star."

More laughter.

"You saw the sunrise."

Laughter.

"You tried to get away from the fogs that are stifling us all--away past
books and houses to the truth. You were looking for a real home."

"I fail to see the connection," said Leonard, hot with stupid anger.

"So do I." There was a pause. "You were that last Sunday--you are this
to-day. Mr. Bast! I and my sister have talked you over. We wanted to
help you; we also supposed you might help us. We did not have you here
out of charity--which bores us--but because we hoped there would be a
connection between last Sunday and other days. What is the good of your
stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into
our daily lives? They have never entered into mine, but into yours,
we thought--Haven't we all to struggle against life's daily greyness,
against pettiness, against mechanical cheerfulness, against suspicion?
I struggle by remembering my friends; others I have known by remembering
some place--some beloved place or tree--we thought you one of these."

"Of course, if there's been any misunderstanding," mumbled Leonard, "all
I can do is to go. But I beg to state--" He paused. Ahab and Jezebel
danced at his boots and made him look ridiculous. "You were picking my
brain for official information--I can prove it--I--" He blew his nose
and left them.

"Can I help you now?" said Mr. Wilcox, turning to Margaret. "May I have
one quiet word with him in the hall?"

"Helen, go after him--do anything--anything--to make the noodle
understand."

Helen hesitated.

"But really--" said their visitor. "Ought she to?"

At once she went.

He resumed. "I would have chimed in, but I felt that you could polish
him off for yourselves--I didn't interfere. You were splendid, Miss
Schlegel--absolutely splendid. You can take my word for it, but there
are very few women who could have managed him."

"Oh yes," said Margaret distractedly.

"Bowling him over with those long sentences was what fetched me," cried
Evie.

"Yes, indeed," chuckled her father; "all that part about 'mechanical
cheerfulness'--oh, fine!"

"I'm very sorry," said Margaret, collecting herself. "He's a nice
creature really. I cannot think what set him off. It has been most
unpleasant for you."

"Oh, I didn't mind." Then he changed his mood. He asked if he might
speak as an old friend, and, permission given, said: "Oughtn't you
really to be more careful?"

Margaret laughed, though her thoughts still strayed after Helen. "Do you
realise that it's all your fault?" she said. "You're responsible."

"I?"

"This is the young man whom we were to warn against the Porphyrion. We
warn him, and--look!"

Mr. Wilcox was annoyed. "I hardly consider that a fair deduction," he
said.

"Obviously unfair," said Margaret. "I was only thinking how tangled
things are. It's our fault mostly--neither yours nor his."

"Not his?"

"No."

"Miss Schlegel, you are too kind."

"Yes, indeed," nodded Evie, a little contemptuously.

"You behave much too well to people, and then they impose on you. I know
the world and that type of man, and as soon as I entered the room I saw
you had not been treating him properly. You must keep that type at a
distance. Otherwise they forget themselves. Sad, but true. They aren't
our sort, and one must face the fact."

"Ye--es."

"Do admit that we should never have had the outburst if he was a
gentleman."

"I admit it willingly," said Margaret, who was pacing up and down the
room. "A gentleman would have kept his suspicions to himself."

Mr. Wilcox watched her with a vague uneasiness.

"What did he suspect you of?"

"Of wanting to make money out of him."

"Intolerable brute! But how were you to benefit?"

"Exactly. How indeed! Just horrible, corroding suspicion. One touch of
thought or of goodwill would have brushed it away. Just the senseless
fear that does make men intolerable brutes."

"I come back to my original point. You ought to be more careful, Miss
Schlegel. Your servants ought to have orders not to let such people in."

She turned to him frankly. "Let me explain exactly why we like this man,
and want to see him again."

"That's your clever way of talking. I shall never believe you like him."

"I do. Firstly, because he cares for physical adventure, just as you
do. Yes, you go motoring and shooting; he would like to go camping out.
Secondly, he cares for something special IN adventure. It is quickest to
call that special something poetry--"

"Oh, he's one of that writer sort."

"No--oh no! I mean he may be, but it would be loathsome stuff. His brain
is filled with the husks of books, culture--horrible; we want him to
wash out his brain and go to the real thing. We want to show him how
he may get upsides with life. As I said, either friends or the country,
some"--she hesitated--"either some very dear person or some very dear
place seems necessary to relieve life's daily grey, and to show that it
is grey. If possible, one should have both."

Some of her words ran past Mr. Wilcox. He let them run past. Others he
caught and criticised with admirable lucidity.

"Your mistake is this, and it is a very common mistake. This young
bounder has a life of his own. What right have you to conclude it is an
unsuccessful life, or, as you call it, 'grey'?"

"Because--"

"One minute. You know nothing about him. He probably has his own
joys and interests--wife, children, snug little home. That's where we
practical fellows" he smiled--"are more tolerant than you intellectuals.
We live and let live, and assume that things are jogging on fairly well
elsewhere, and that the ordinary plain man may be trusted to look after
his own affairs. I quite grant--I look at the faces of the clerks in my
own office, and observe them to be dull, but I don't know what's going
on beneath. So, by the way, with London. I have heard you rail against
London, Miss Schlegel, and it seems a funny thing to say but I was very
angry with you. What do you know about London? You only see civilisation
from the outside. I don't say in your case, but in too many cases that
attitude leads to morbidity, discontent, and Socialism."

She admitted the strength of his position, though it undermined
imagination. As he spoke, some outposts of poetry and perhaps of
sympathy fell ruining, and she retreated to what she called her "second
line"--to the special facts of the case.

"His wife is an old bore," she said simply. "He never came home last
Saturday night because he wanted to be alone, and she thought he was
with us."

"With YOU?"

"Yes." Evie tittered. "He hasn't got the cosy home that you assumed. He
needs outside interests."

"Naughty young man!" cried the girl.

"Naughty?" said Margaret, who hated naughtiness more than sin. "When
you're married Miss Wilcox, won't you want outside interests?"

"He has apparently got them," put in Mr. Wilcox slyly.

"Yes, indeed, father."

"He was tramping in Surrey, if you mean that," said Margaret, pacing
away rather crossly.

"Oh, I dare say!"

"Miss Wilcox, he was!"

"M--m--m--m!" from Mr. Wilcox, who thought the episode amusing, if
risque. With most ladies he would not have discussed it, but he was
trading on Margaret's reputation as an emancipated woman.

"He said so, and about such a thing he wouldn't lie."

They both began to laugh.

"That's where I differ from you. Men lie about their positions and
prospects, but not about a thing of that sort."

He shook his head. "Miss Schlegel, excuse me, but I know the type."

"I said before--he isn't a type. He cares about adventures rightly. He
's certain that our smug existence isn't all. He's vulgar and hysterical
and bookish, but don't think that sums him up. There's manhood in him as
well. Yes, that's what I'm trying to say. He's a real man."

As she spoke their eyes met, and it was as if Mr. Wilcox's defences
fell. She saw back to the real man in him. Unwittingly she had touched
his emotions.

A woman and two men--they had formed the magic triangle of sex, and
the male was thrilled to jealousy, in case the female was attracted by
another male. Love, say the ascetics, reveals our shameful kinship with
the beasts. Be it so: one can bear that; jealousy is the real shame. It
is jealousy, not love, that connects us with the farmyard intolerably,
and calls up visions of two angry cocks and a complacent hen. Margaret
crushed complacency down because she was civilised. Mr. Wilcox,
uncivilised, continued to feel anger long after he had rebuilt his
defences, and was again presenting a bastion to the world.

"Miss Schlegel, you're a pair of dear creatures, but you really MUST be
careful in this uncharitable world. What does your brother say?"

"I forget."

"Surely he has some opinion?"

"He laughs, if I remember correctly."

"He's very clever, isn't he?" said Evie, who had met and detested Tibby
at Oxford.

"Yes, pretty well--but I wonder what Helen's doing."

"She is very young to undertake this sort of thing," said Mr. Wilcox.

Margaret went out to the landing. She heard no sound, and Mr. Bast's
topper was missing from the hall.

"Helen!" she called.

"Yes!" replied a voice from the library.

"You in there?"

"Yes--he's gone some time."

Margaret went to her. "Why, you're all alone," she said.

"Yes--it's all right, Meg. Poor, poor creature--"

"Come back to the Wilcoxes and tell me later--Mr. W much concerned, and
slightly titillated."

"Oh, I've no patience with him. I hate him. Poor dear Mr. Bast! he
wanted to talk literature, and we would talk business. Such a muddle of
a man, and yet so worth pulling through. I like him extraordinarily."

"Well done," said Margaret, kissing her, "but come into the drawing-room
now, and don't talk about him to the Wilcoxes. Make light of the whole
thing."

Helen came and behaved with a cheerfulness that reassured their
visitor--this hen at all events was fancy-free.

"He's gone with my blessing," she cried, "and now for puppies."

As they drove away, Mr. Wilcox said to his daughter:

"I am really concerned at the way those girls go on. They are as clever
as you make 'em, but unpractical--God bless me! One of these days
they'll go too far. Girls like that oughtn't to live alone in London.
Until they marry, they ought to have some one to look after them. We
must look in more often--we're better than no one. You like them, don't
you, Evie?"

Evie replied: "Helen's right enough, but I can't stand the toothy one.
And I shouldn't have called either of them girls."

Evie had grown up handsome. Dark-eyed, with the glow of youth under
sunburn, built firmly and firm-lipped, she was the best the Wilcoxes
could do in the way of feminine beauty. For the present, puppies and
her father were the only things she loved, but the net of matrimony was
being prepared for her, and a few days later she was attracted to a Mr.
Percy Cahill, an uncle of Mrs. Charles's, and he was attracted to her.

 Leonard comes over for tea the next weekend, but it doesn't go well at all. Helen and Margaret start asking him questions about his job, and he gets suspicious immediately. The women keep pushing the issue, asking if the Porphyrion is a good company. Leonard gets irate. The fact of the matter is, he doesn't really know; to him, the company is like a giant, and he only does what the giant tells him to do. The sisters come right out and tell him that a friend has told them that the company is going to go bust. Leonard denies it - kind of. He gets flustered by the Schlegels and doesn't really say anything either way. Helen and Margaret continue to pursue the issue, and ask more and more questions. Leonard gets frustrated by the idea that they're wasting precious time talking about money, and he finally butts in with talk of books. Unfortunately, they're interrupted right away by Evie and Mr. Wilcox, who bustle in with two adorable puppies. Helen is captivated by the pups, which Evie bred and named Ahab and Jezebel. Leonard is not amused by this interruption, and makes to leave. Helen absently tells him to come again, and he can't stand this. He bluntly says no, he won't, since it would be a failure. This gets Helen's attention, and, insulted, she asks why he would say such a thing. Leonard and Helen yell at each other - he thinks they're patronizing him, and she thinks they just want to help. Leonard appeals to Mr. Wilcox, who agrees that it's not fair for him to show up to tea, only to have his "brain picked" by the Schlegels. Leonard thinks that the Schlegels only wanted to make use of him somehow to get inside information about the Porphyrion or something, and is highly insulted. Margaret enters into the fray now, and explains the impulse that she and her sister felt to help him - it has to do with the connection they felt with him last week, when he talked about his walk and his struggle against the dullness of life. Leonard responds huffily that they were pressing him for information and storms out. Helen goes to try and talk sense into him. Margaret is left with the Wilcoxes, who agree that she was splendid. She explains that he was the friend of theirs who works at the Porphyrion and jokingly blames Mr. Wilcox for the row, since it was his advice in the first place. Margaret blames herself and Helen for the fight, but the Wilcoxes think she's being too generous. They think Leonard is simply not of their "kind" - even Margaret agrees that he's not a gentleman, and that he suspected that they were taking advantage of him. She tries to make them understand what's interesting and likable about Leonard - his ambitions to escape humdrum everyday life. Mr. Wilcox, the voice of practical reason, gently shoots down all of Margaret's idealistic views. Mr. Wilcox and Evie assume that Leonard is cheating on his wife, and that he's fundamentally "naughty" and untruthful. Margaret holds out in her belief that he's honest in his desires to find something better, and that it makes him a "real man." Margaret goes to find out what Helen's doing; apparently, Leonard left a while ago. Margaret brings her sister back to the Wilcoxes, and they pretend that everything's OK. The puppies are a good distraction. As the Wilcoxes leave, Mr. Wilcox comments that he's worried about the Schlegels - they shouldn't be left on their own. Evie admits that she likes Helen, but not Margaret. She's clearly not a kindred spirit; she is healthy, athletic, and attractive, but not a very poetic soul. A few days later, she suddenly but unromantically gets engaged.

