Reginald at the Carlton

by H.H. Munro (SAKI)

　　

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"A most variable climate," said the Duchess; "and howunfortunate that we should have had that very cold weather ata time when coal was so dear! So distressing for the poor.""Someone has observed that Providence is always on the sideof the big dividends," remarked Reginald.The Duchess ate an anchovy in a shocked manner; she wassufficiently old-fashioned to dislike irreverence towardsdividends.Reginald had left the selection of a feeding-ground to herwomanly intuition, but he chose the wine himself, knowingthat womanly intuition stops short at claret. A woman willcheerfully choose husbands for her less attractive friends,or take sides in a political controversy without the leastknowledge of the issues involved--but no woman evercheerfully chose a claret."Hors d'oeuvres have always a pathetic interest for me," saidReginald: "they remind me of one's childhood that one goesthrough, wondering what the next course is going to be like--and during the rest of the menu one wishes one had eaten moreof the hors d'oeuvres. Don't you love watching the differentways people have of entering a restaurant? There is thewoman who races in as though her whole scheme of life wereheld together by a one-pin despotism which might abdicate itsfunctions at any moment; it's really a relief to see herreach her chair in safety. Then there are the people whotroop in with an-unpleasant-duty-to-perform air, as if theywere angels of Death entering a plague city. You see thattype of Briton very much in hotels abroad. And nowadaysthere are always the Johannesbourgeois, who bring a Cape-to-Cairo atmosphere with them--what may be called the RandManner, I suppose.""Talking about hotels abroad," said the Duchess, "I ampreparing notes for a lecture at the Club on the educationaleffects of modern travel, dealing chiefly with the moral sideof the question. I was talking to Lady Beauwhistle's auntthe other day--she's just come back from Paris, you know.Such a sweet woman" -"And so silly. In these days of the over-education of womenshe's quite refreshing. They say some people went throughthe siege of Paris without knowing that France and Germanywere at war; but the Beauwhistle aunt is credited with havingpassed the whole winter in Paris under the impression thatthe Humberts were a kind of bicycle . . . Isn't there abishop or somebody who believes we shall meet all the animalswe have known on earth in another world? How frightfullyembarrassing to meet a whole shoal of whitebait you had lastknown at Prince's! I'm sure in my nervousness I should talkof nothing but lemons. Still, I daresay they would be quiteas offended if one hadn't eaten them. I know if I wereserved up at a cannibal feast I should be dreadfully annoyedif anyone found fault with me for not being tender enough, orhaving been kept too long.""My idea about the lecture," resumed the Duchess hurriedly,"is to inquire whether promiscuous Continental travel doesn'ttend to weaken the moral fibre of the social conscience.There are people one knows, quite nice people when they arein England, who are so different when they are anywhere theother side of the Channel.""The people with what I call Tauchnitz morals," observedReginald. "On the whole, I think they get the best of twovery desirable worlds. And, after all, they charge so muchfor excess luggage on some of those foreign lines that it'sreally an economy to leave one's reputation behind oneoccasionally.""A scandal, my dear Reginald, is as much to be avoided atMonaco or any of those places as at Exeter, let us say.""Scandal, my dear Irene--I may call you Irene, mayn't I?""I don't know that you have known me long enough for that.""I've known you longer than your god-parents had when theytook the liberty of calling you that name. Scandal is merelythe compassionate allowance which the gay make to thehumdrum. Think how many blameless lives are brightened bythe blazing indiscretions of other people. Tell me, who isthe woman with the old lace at the table on our left? Oh,that doesn't matter; it's quite the thing nowadays to stareat people as if they were yearlings at Tattersall's.""Mrs. Spelvexit? Quite a charming woman; separated from herhusband" -"Incompatibility of income?""Oh, nothing of that sort. By miles of frozen ocean, I wasgoing to say. He explores ice-floes and studies themovements of herrings, and has written a most interestingbook on the home-life of the Esquimaux; but naturally he hasvery little home-life of his own.""A husband who comes home with the Gulf Stream would berather a tied-up asset.""His wife is exceedingly sensible about it. She collectspostage-stamps. Such a resource. Those people with her arethe Whimples, very old acquaintances of mine; they're alwayshaving trouble, poor things.""Trouble is not one of those fancies you can take up and dropat any moment; it's like a grouse-moor or the opium-habit--once you start it you've got to keep it up.""Their eldest son was such a disappointment to them; theywanted him to be a linguist, and spent no end of money onhaving him taught to speak--oh, dozens of languages!--andthen he became a Trappist monk. And the youngest, who wasintended for the American marriage market, has developedpolitical tendencies, and writes pamphlets about the housingof the poor. Of course it's a most important question, and Idevote a good deal of time to it myself in the mornings; but,as Laura Whimple says, it's as well to have an establishmentof one's own before agitating about other people's. Shefeels it very keenly, but she always maintains a cheerfulappetite, which I think is so unselfish of her.""There are different ways of taking disappointment. Therewas a girl I knew who nursed a wealthy uncle through a longillness, borne by her with Christian fortitude, and then hedied and left his money to a swine-fever hospital. She foundshe'd about cleared stock in fortitude by that time, and nowshe gives drawing-room recitations. That's what I call beingvindictive.""Life is full of its disappointments," observed the Duchess,"and I suppose the art of being happy is to disguise them asillusions. But that, my dear Reginald, becomes moredifficult as one grows older.""I think it's more generally practised than you imagine. Theyoung have aspirations that never come to pass, the old havereminiscences of what never happened. It's only the middle-aged who are really conscious of their limitations--that iswhy one should be so patient with them. But one never is.""After all," said the Duchess, "the disillusions of life maydepend on our way of assessing it. In the minds of those whocome after us we may be remembered for qualities andsuccesses which we quite left out of the reckoning.""It's not always safe to depend on the commemorativetendencies of those who come after us. There may have beendisillusionments in the lives of the mediaeval saints, butthey would scarcely have been better pleased if they couldhave foreseen that their names would be associated nowadayschiefly with racehorses and the cheaper clarets. And now, ifyou can tear yourself away from the salted almonds, we'll goand have coffee under the palms that are so necessary for ourdiscomfort."

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