Page 15 of Crome Yellow


  CHAPTER XV.

  "In the time of the amiable Brantome," Mr. Scogan was saying, "everydebutante at the French Court was invited to dine at the King's table,where she was served with wine in a handsome silver cup of Italianworkmanship. It was no ordinary cup, this goblet of the debutantes;for, inside, it had been most curiously and ingeniously engraved with aseries of very lively amorous scenes. With each draught that the younglady swallowed these engravings became increasingly visible, and theCourt looked on with interest, every time she put her nose in the cup,to see whether she blushed at what the ebbing wine revealed. If thedebutante blushed, they laughed at her for her innocence; if she didnot, she was laughed at for being too knowing."

  "Do you propose," asked Anne, "that the custom should be revived atBuckingham Palace?"

  "I do not," said Mr. Scogan. "I merely quoted the anecdote as anillustration of the customs, so genially frank, of the sixteenthcentury. I might have quoted other anecdotes to show that the customsof the seventeenth and eighteenth, of the fifteenth and fourteenthcenturies, and indeed of every other century, from the time of Hammurabionward, were equally genial and equally frank. The only century in whichcustoms were not characterised by the same cheerful openness was thenineteenth, of blessed memory. It was the astonishing exception. Andyet, with what one must suppose was a deliberate disregard of history,it looked upon its horribly pregnant silences as normal and natural andright; the frankness of the previous fifteen or twenty thousand yearswas considered abnormal and perverse. It was a curious phenomenon."

  "I entirely agree." Mary panted with excitement in her effort to bringout what she had to say. "Havelock Ellis says..."

  Mr. Scogan, like a policeman arresting the flow of traffic, held up hishand. "He does; I know. And that brings me to my next point: the natureof the reaction."

  "Havelock Ellis..."

  "The reaction, when it came--and we may say roughly that it set ina little before the beginning of this century--the reaction was toopenness, but not to the same openness as had reigned in the earlierages. It was to a scientific openness, not to the jovial franknessof the past, that we returned. The whole question of Amour became aterribly serious one. Earnest young men wrote in the public prints thatfrom this time forth it would be impossible ever again to make a jokeof any sexual matter. Professors wrote thick books in which sex wassterilised and dissected. It has become customary for serious youngwomen, like Mary, to discuss, with philosophic calm, matters of whichthe merest hint would have sufficed to throw the youth of the sixtiesinto a delirium of amorous excitement. It is all very estimable, nodoubt. But still"--Mr. Scogan sighed.--"I for one should like to see,mingled with this scientific ardour, a little more of the jovial spiritof Rabelais and Chaucer."

  "I entirely disagree with you," said Mary. "Sex isn't a laughing matter;it's serious."

  "Perhaps," answered Mr. Scogan, "perhaps I'm an obscene old man. For Imust confess that I cannot always regard it as wholly serious."

  "But I tell you..." began Mary furiously. Her face had flushed withexcitement. Her cheeks were the cheeks of a great ripe peach.

  "Indeed," Mr. Scogan continued, "it seems to me one of few permanentlyand everlastingly amusing subjects that exist. Amour is the one humanactivity of any importance in which laughter and pleasure preponderate,if ever so slightly, over misery and pain."

  "I entirely disagree," said Mary. There was a silence.

  Anne looked at her watch. "Nearly a quarter to eight," she said. "Iwonder when Ivor will turn up." She got up from her deck-chair and,leaning her elbows on the balustrade of the terrace, looked out over thevalley and towards the farther hills. Under the level evening light thearchitecture of the land revealed itself. The deep shadows, the brightcontrasting lights gave the hills a new solidity. Irregularities of thesurface, unsuspected before, were picked out with light and shade.The grass, the corn, the foliage of trees were stippled with intricateshadows. The surface of things had taken on a marvellous enrichment.

  "Look!" said Anne suddenly, and pointed. On the opposite side of thevalley, at the crest of the ridge, a cloud of dust flushed by thesunlight to rosy gold was moving rapidly along the sky-line. "It's Ivor.One can tell by the speed."

  The dust cloud descended into the valley and was lost. A horn with thevoice of a sea-lion made itself heard, approaching. A minute later Ivorcame leaping round the corner of the house. His hair waved in the windof his own speed; he laughed as he saw them.

  "Anne, darling," he cried, and embraced her, embraced Mary, very nearlyembraced Mr. Scogan. "Well, here I am. I've come with incredulousspeed." Ivor's vocabulary was rich, but a little erratic. "I'm not latefor dinner, am I?" He hoisted himself up on to the balustrade, andsat there, kicking his heels. With one arm he embraced a large stoneflower-pot, leaning his head sideways against its hard and lichenousflanks in an attitude of trustful affection. He had brown, wavy hair,and his eyes were of a very brilliant, pale, improbable blue. His headwas narrow, his face thin and rather long, his nose aquiline. In oldage--though it was difficult to imagine Ivor old--he might grow to havean Iron Ducal grimness. But now, at twenty-six, it was not the structureof his face that impressed one; it was its expression. That was charmingand vivacious, and his smile was an irradiation. He was forever moving,restlessly and rapidly, but with an engaging gracefulness. His frail andslender body seemed to be fed by a spring of inexhaustible energy.

  "No, you're not late."

  "You're in time to answer a question," said Mr. Scogan. "We were arguingwhether Amour were a serious matter or no. What do you think? Is itserious?"

  "Serious?" echoed Ivor. "Most certainly."

  "I told you so," cried Mary triumphantly.

  "But in what sense serious?" Mr. Scogan asked.

  "I mean as an occupation. One can go on with it without ever gettingbored."

  "I see," said Mr. Scogan. "Perfectly."

  "One can occupy oneself with it," Ivor continued, "always andeverywhere. Women are always wonderfully the same. Shapes vary a little,that's all. In Spain"--with his free hand he described a series of amplecurves--"one can't pass them on the stairs. In England"--he put the tipof his forefinger against the tip of his thumb and, lowering his hand,drew out this circle into an imaginary cylinder--"In England they'retubular. But their sentiments are always the same. At least, I've alwaysfound it so."

  "I'm delighted to hear it," said Mr. Scogan.