Читать книгу The Three Lovers - Frank Swinnerton - Страница 26

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Upon Monty's side there was a considerable increase of interest in Patricia. It was as though he addressed to himself an appreciative "Ah!" at the sight of a young woman less simple than she appeared. The ideal sport, for him, was to be obtained from freshness that had savoir faire behind it. He began to relish this girl. As he scrutinised her his lids were low, and he watched for some betraying gesture of crude sophistication as only an expert could watch. None came. He was the more intrigued. His companion was less passive.

"Well, you two," cried Amy. "Jack's the perfect philistine, of course." She came to the fire, resting her hand upon the mantelpiece, and holding a cigarette forward in her lips for Monty to light. She spoke thereafter with the cigarette in the corner of her mouth and the smoke drifting up into her eyes. "You can explain a thing to him in words of one syllable for hours on end, and at the end he just says, 'Well, I know what I like!' Doesn't turn a hair. Not a swerve. Isn't it marvellous?"

"Why pretend?" suavely demanded Monty. "A great deal of talk about the arts is humbug. It's created by the apparent necessity for saying something."

"I agree with you," snorted Jack, who was still ruffled by the recent exploration of his inexhaustible troubles, and who therefore was in danger of being rather less than polite.

"I felt sure you would, my dear Penton," lazily responded Monty. "What we need is standardised criticism. Unfortunately, people are so perverse. They insist on having their own views."

"It's only a pretence," said Jack. "They're all other people's. Unless they're made up for the occasion, in which case they're nobody's."

"When you say one thing, and somebody else says the opposite, what happens?" asked Patricia, directly interrogating Monty, and feeling bold in the action.

"I? Oh, the other person's wrong, of course," rejoined Monty, easily.

"Is there no argument?"

"Oh, no!" Monty's "Oh" was merely a quick intaking of the breath.

"It's ill-bred," sneered Jack. "In the æsthetic world there's no argument at all. One just slangs everybody else behind their backs."

"Are you quite well, Penton?" archly inquired Monty. His question made Jack grin, but not altogether with amiability. "I thought you might be ailing."

"Why is it that anybody who speaks the truth is always suspect?" asked Jack, vigorously. "It's extraordinary to me."

"It's because you live in the material world of unreality, my dear Penton. Once you realise that art is the fundamental principle of life, you'll take yourself less seriously."

Patricia thought: one for Master Jack. Is it that he does that? Does he take himself—everything—too seriously? I think so. And what is the material world of unreality? That was the question which Jack was asking aloud.

"The world of phenomena," explained Monty, "is the unreal world."

"The world of seeing and hearing? Well, in that case what tests have we left to us?" Jack was puzzled.

"Nothing," whispered Monty, and began good-naturedly to laugh. "None of these set measures. Only the intrinsic value of everything will stand revealed."

"Pooh!" said Jack. "I wonder what your intrinsic value is, or mine."

"It lies in terms of character, dear boy."

Patricia saw upon Monty's lips the shadow of contempt. She saw that, imitatively, Amy was reflecting just such an expression. She sighed. In terms of character! Well, why should Monty be so confident that the superiority lay with him? And why Amy? She almost laughed in their faces—not as a token of amusement, but as a protest. The word "booh!"—with its immediate implications—would have expressed her feeling. They were only complacent because they had quicker brains than Jack. As though quickness of brain mattered! She had it herself, by starts, and was quite abreast of their comments.

"What's character?" demanded Patricia.

"My dear child!" expostulated Amy, screwing her face under the smarting onset of cigarette smoke.

"Well, what is it?" This time it was Jack, dangerously bellicose.

"It's what everybody thinks they've got," said Patricia.

"When they haven't got it," added Jack.

"Oh, not nowadays," urged Monty, correcting that assumption with a quite lordly indifference. "We're all so self-conscious."

"I mean...." Jack was at a loss. Patricia's brain supplemented his deficiency; but she had not the courage to say her thoughts aloud. He meant that it was not of character that people were vain. It was of accomplishments; of quickness, skill, beauty. And yet....

"It all goes much deeper than you think," she announced; and by provoking sharp laughter from them all by this profundity, Patricia saved the argument about reality from becoming a real argument. It was a lively contribution to the evening.

"A philosopher!" cried Monty, in his slow, rather jeering way, very easily and as if all views were one to him.

"Very well: we'll see," thought Patricia. Rebelliously, she was aware of power within herself transcending all quickness and all agility. It was the power in virtue of which she was peculiarly Patricia. She had not caught more than the faintest glimpse of the fact that Monty had been playing with them all, and that his interest during the whole of the discussion had been concentrated upon the changes of expression to be noted in rapid progress across Patricia's very readable face.