Merry Go Round Read Free Page B

nice?'
    'They're not positively disagreeable. Mrs Barlow-Bassett is bringing her son, who pleases me because he's so beautiful. Basil Kent is coming, a barrister; I like him because he has the face of a knight in an early Italian picture.'
    'You always had a weakness for good-looking men, Mary,' answered Miss Langton, smiling.
    'Beauty is quite the most important thing in the world, my dear. People say that the masculine appearance is immaterial, but that is because they are foolish. I know men who have gained all the honour and glory of the earth merely through a fine pair of eyes or a well-shaped mouth.... Then I have asked Mr and Mrs Castillyon; he is a member of Parliament and very dull and pompous, but just the sort of creature who would amuse you.'
    While Miss Ley spoke a note was brought in.
    'How tiresome!' she cried, having read. 'Mr Castillyon writes to say he cannot leave the House tonight till late, I wish they
wouldn't have autumn sessions. It's just like him to think such a nonentity as himself is indispensable. Now I must ask someone to take his place.'
    She sat down and hurriedly wrote a few words.
    M Y DEAR F RANK,
    I beseech you to come to dinner tonight at eight, and since when you arrive your keen intelligence will probably suggest to you that I have not asked nine people on the spur of the moment, I will confess that I invite you merely because Mr Castillyon has put me off at the last minute. But if you don't come I will never speak to you again.
    Yours ever,
M ARY L EY
    She rang the bell, and told a servant to take the letter immediately to Harley Street.
    'I've asked Frank Hurrell,' she explained to Miss Langton. 'He's a nice boy – people remain boys till they're forty now, and he's ten years less than that. He's a doctor, and by way of being rather distinguished; they've lately made him assistant-physician at St Luke's Hospital, and he's set up in Harley Street waiting for patients.'
    'Is he handsome?' asked Miss Langton, smiling.
    'Not at all, but he's one of the few persons I know who really amuses me. You'll think him very disagreeable, and you'll probably bore him to extinction.'
    With this remark, calculated to put the younger woman entirely at her ease, Miss Ley sat down again at the window. The day was warm and sunny, but the trees, yellow and red with the first autumnal glow, were heavy still with the rain that had fallen in the night. There was a grave, sensuous passion about St James's Park, with its cool, smooth water just seen among the heavy foliage, and its well-tended lawns; and Miss Ley observed it in silence, with a vague feeling of self-satisfaction, for prosperity was a comfortable thing.
    'What would be a suitable present for a poet?' asked Miss Langton suddenly.
    'Surely a rhyming dictionary,' answered her friend, smiling. 'Or a Bradshaw's Guide to indicate the aesthetic value of common-sense.'
    'Don't be absurd, Mary. I really want your advice. I know a young man in Tercanbury who writes poetry.'
    'I never knew a young man who didn't. You're not in love with a pale, passionate curate, Bella?'
    'I'm in love with no one,' answered Miss Langton, with the shadow of a blush. 'At my age it would be ridiculous. But I should like to tell you about this boy. He's only twenty, and he's a clerk in the bank there.'
    'Bella!' cried Miss Ley, with mock horror. 'Don't tell me you're philandering with a person who isn't county. What would the Dean say? And for heaven's sake take care of poetical boys; at your age a woman should offer daily prayers to her Maker to prevent her from falling in love with a man twenty years younger than herself. That is one of the most prevalent diseases of the day.'
    'His father was a linen-draper at Blackstable, who sent him to Regis School, Tercanbury. And there he took every possible scholarship. He was going to Cambridge, but his people died, and to earn his living he was obliged to go into the bank. He's had a very hard time.'
    'But how on earth did you make