Coquette

He was loud in protest against her modesty. "Well, Imean, I've never--well, hardly ever--had any lessons. No, nor my voice.It's just ear. Mrs. P---- a friend of maine says I've got a very quickear." Every now and then Sally was betrayed into Nosey-like refinement.She fought against it from an instinctive feeling that it wasmeretricious. But at the same time she was speaking with instinctivecare, so as to avoid Cockney phrases, and pronunciations, and tones. Shewanted him to think her--something that she called "nice." They walkedthe length of Regent Street, chatting thus; and at last reached thegilded Rezzonico, where there were liveried men who seized Gaga's hatand stick, and maitres d'hotel who hurried them this way and that insearch of a table in the crowded, din-filled room. The walls werecovered with enormous mirrors which were surrounded by gaudy mouldings.Tables were everywhere, and all appeared to be occupied. Men and womenin evening dress, men and women in morning clothes, some of the womenpainted, others ordinary respectable members of the bourgeoisie, weresitting and dining and smoking and chattering loudly. Glasses,cigarettes, bottles, all sorts of dishes, strewn upon the tables, caughtSally's bewildered eye. Above all, a scratching orchestra rasped out aselection from one of Verdi's operas. A huge unmanageable noise of talkand laughter swelled the torrent of sound. Deafened, her nervedestroyed, Sally timidly followed the apparently aimless wanderingsof Gaga and the maitres d'hotel, her shoulders stiff withself-consciousness in face of so many staring eyes and well-fed,well-dressed creatures; and at last they found a table. It was a badtable, in the middle of the room, near the band and the cash desk and asort of sideboard into which bottles were ceaselessly dumped. A very oldwaiter, with white side whiskers like those of the late Emperor FranzJosef, very foreign and therefore particularly liable to misconstrueGaga's stammered orders, served them with hors d'oeuvres, slashing downupon Sally's plate inconceivable mixtures of white and red and greenfragments; and then hurried away as fast as his bunions allowed. Gagawas left to choose the wine, which he managed to do after manyconsultations with Sally and the waiter, and many changes of mind uponhis own account. Sally riddled all his uncertainties with a mercilesseye. He apparently knew a wine-list when he saw one; but his nervousnesswas so palpable that she was inclined even to suspect his knowledge. Itwas an injustice. She soon realised that the band was too noisy fortalk, and the sideboard too shattering even for coherent thought. Sheknew, in fact, at the first encounter, that this was a bad table, andthat bad tables were to be avoided by any expert eye. She knew thewaiter was a bad waiter, and that Gaga was a bad host. She had her firstlesson in the art of dining out at a restaurant.

  But she dined! She drank more wine than she had intended to do, and itwent to her head. She laughed, and became talkative, forgetting herrefined accent, and thereby enjoying herself very much more than shewould otherwise have done, and becoming a good and lively companion forthe meal. Gaga could not respond to her talk, because it quickly becameevident that, with all the good will in the world, he could not talk;but as the wine reached his head also he began to laugh at her remarks,and to look at her with such an expression of adoration in his chocolateeyes that Sally grew more and more at ease and more and more familiarwith the passing of each minute, and the increasing effect of the wineshe had taken. She sparkled, less in her speech than in her exhilaratedand exhilarating manner. She was all nerves, all dancing coquettry.

  "_Don't_ look at me like that!" she pleaded, archly. Gaga's eyesglowed, and his mouth was stretched with laughing. "Make me feel asif...."

  "How do I look at you? How does it make you feel?" asked Gaga with thatkind of persistent seriousness with which a man talks to a pretty girlwhen he has drunk enough wine. "Tell me, Sally, how does it make youfeel, Sally?" He reached his hand across the table, and laid it uponhers. "I mean, Sally.... I mean, if it makes you feel.... I'm sorry,d'you see? I look at you as I feel. I don't know how I look at you. Ilook at you...."

  Gaga was not at all drunk; he was merely sententious and sentimental.Sally darted a roguish eye, first round her, and then at Gaga, enjoyingvery specially this stage of the meal. It was all fun to her, allflattering to her vanity, all a part of the noise and excitement andwell-being that was making her spirits mount. She allowed her hand toremain under his for a moment; then tried to draw it away; then pinchedhis thumb gently and recovered her liberty. Gaga was unlike Toby. He hadnot the assurance of the physically vigorous. He was gentle, mild,stammering, and ineffective. But he was giving Sally a gloriousevening's entertainment. At one step they had overleapt all thatseparated them, and were friends. He began to tell her, unasked, abouthis business, about his mother, about everything.

  "My mother's a wonderful woman," he said. "Wonderful! She's made thatbusiness with her own hands. She began in a small way, and the businessis almost out of her control. Not quite; but.... She's done it allherself. All herself. Wonderful woman. And yet, you know, Sally; she'shard. I wonder if you understand what I mean? She's always been a goodmother to me. I wish I could _tell_ you how good. There's the businessI'm in, for example. But Sally.... I'm not a business man.... If I hadsomebody to do the business side, I've got.... I can design dresses.That's what I'm good at. She knows. She lets me design them, sometimes.I've got a touch, d'you see? But she's hard. She's so afraid of anybodymeddling. She's made that business herself, and she won't let anybodyelse touch it. She has me to help her with the accounts; but, as I say,I'm not a business man. She thinks I'm a fool. _You_ don't think I'm afool, do you, Sally?"

  "Me? You?" cried Sally, looking at him guilelessly. "Mr. Bertram!"

  "She's very ill, Sally. Very ill indeed. I can see it. You know, you_feel_ something. You see her keeping on and keeping on. Something'sbound to go, sooner or later. It worries me, Sally. It worries me." Fromhis long and unusually consecutive speech, Gaga fell into a silence.Meaninglessly, he repeated: "It worries me. That's one reason I askedyou to come out to-night, Sally. I'm worried."

  "Poor man!" murmured Sally.

  "You know, you're kind, Sally. I can see your little bright eyesshining; and they make me ... they make me...." He was once again theold, incoherent Gaga, fingering his unused cheese knife and looking ather with an expression of pathetic helplessness that made Sally warylest she should betray amusement. "I feel you understand. You're notvery old, Sally; but I feel you understand. And.... I've always feltthat. You're such a wonderful little girl. I mean...." He broke off witha gesture of vague despair of his power to say what he actually didmean. "I feel you can help me."

  "Can I?" asked Sally, swiftly. "I'd love to."

  "Would you really?" Gaga's tone was a fresh one, one of hope and light.

  "Course I would," responded Sally. Already she was aware of practicaladvantages. Her heightened spirits were sobered immediately. But herface did not betray this. Her face continued the demure face of a younggirl, not from any artfulness, but because she was in fact a demureyoung girl, and her hidden mental calculations did not yet show in herhabitual expression.

  "You'll be friends with me?" Gaga said, as though he asked a greatfavour.

  "If you'll let me," answered Sally, as though she conferred one.

  The movement of hands was almost simultaneous, but it began with Sally.Gaga clasped her left one in his right. Only for a minute. Then Sallycould not resist a giggle, and the compact was unsignalised. They talkedfurther, Sally once again in a state of delight, and Gaga inclined to berepetitious. And then, as it was nine o'clock, Sally said she must go.He saw her to her omnibus, and they parted as friends. From her seatinside, as the bus moved off, Sally waved to him; and afterwards settleddown to the journey, full of memories and reflections of a curious andenchanting character. Not of Gaga were these reflections, save with anoccasionally frowning brow of doubt; but of the remarkable vista whichhad been opened by his demand for friendship and help. An excitedrecollection of the lights and the mirrors and the overwhelming noise ofthe restaurant intoxicated her afresh. Her whole face was shining withexcitement. She smiled to herself, occupied with such a mixture ofsensations and im
aginings that at one moment she wondered whether shewas Sally Minto at all, and whether some magician had not changed thatSally for a new creature born to spend her days in gaudy restaurants andamong all the noise and luxury of such a life as she had led thisevening for an hour and a half.

  One moment at home was enough to convince Sally that no magician hadbeen at work. It was the same squalid house, and the same squalid roomthat she reached after the splendour of her dinner. And it was the samefretful mother who complained of her lateness and chided her for thedangers she ran in being