It Never Can Happen Again. William De Morgan

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СКАЧАТЬ The letter is read by now, being short, and Sibyl has come out into the world to hear the answer to her question.

      But Judith is deep in half-a-quire of illegibility, after an episode of a fork-point, and some impatience. "It's an old dress," she says, and then ignores Sibyl altogether for a term, in favour of the letter. Her eyebrows had moved in connection with the cab-inquiry, up to the point of detection by a sharp younger sister. "I had no cab, dear," she says at last. "I came in Mr. Challis's cab." This is quite a long time after.

      "Has Mr. Challis a cab?"

      "You know perfectly well what I mean, Sib."

      Sibyl knows, but has become absorbed in a second letter. So she leaves her tongue, as her representative, to say fragmentarily, "Hansom-cab off the rank," and then retires altogether into the letter for a moment. However, she comes out presently to say, "The question is, was it Mr. Challis? I suppose it was, though, or it couldn't have been Mr. Challis's cab ... oh no!—I'm not finding fault. It's all perfectly right as far as I'm concerned."

      The respectable domestics have been in momentary abeyance, and the conversation has been more suggestive than it would have been in their presence. The reappearance of Mr. Elphinstone, with the gist of two breakfasts, causes an automatic adjournment of the subject. The day's appointments make up the talk, during his presence.

      But so late was the quorum of the total breakfast—in fact, it was doubtful whether two of the constituent cujusses would appear at all—that Sibyl got ample opportunity for resuming the conversation exactly where it left off, at least a quarter-of-an-hour having elapsed.

      "It's all perfectly right as far as I'm concerned," she repeated. "As long as Marianne doesn't mind!" The Christian name may have been an intentional impertinence.

      "There is nothing for Marianne to mind, Sibyl."

      Sibyl changes her ground unscrupulously. "It doesn't matter to me as long as I'm not his wife. But a hansom-cab is a hansom-cab, and you know it as well as I do."

      "I know it, dear." Judith speaks serenely. The attack is too puerile to call for resentment. "They try one's nerves and destroy one's skirts, getting in and out."

      Sibyl's style has not been worthy of her Square, or Mr. Elphinstone. There was too much of the lowlier air of Seven Dials in the suggestion that a hansom-cab would promote an irregular flirtation to do more than provoke a smile. Charlotte Eldridge, even, would have condemned it as the bald scoff of inexperience.

      But there was more maturity and force in Sibyl's next speech. "I want to know, are you going to tell the madre about it or not?" Judith flushed angrily as she answered her with: "I have told you, Sibyl, that as soon as there is something to tell, I will tell it at once to anyone it concerns. Mamma certainly!"

      "How far has it gone?—that's what I want to find out."

      "How far has what gone?"

      "You needn't look so furious, Ju. Do let's talk quietly. You know perfectly well what I mean. This talk about a trial-performance." The imputation that Judith looked furious was a sporting venture. No doubt she felt furious, thought Sibyl; and how was she to know she didn't show it?

      "I told you days ago there was no talk of a trial-performance."

      Sibyl restrained herself visibly—too visibly for the prospects of peace. After some thirty seconds of self-command, she reworded her question mechanically. "The talk about something that was not to be a trial-performance." The forms of the court were complied with, without admission of previous lack of clearness. This was shown in a parti pris of facial immobility. A licked lip, a scratched nose, an eye-blink, would have marred its dramatic force.

      "You needn't look so stony over it, Sib. There's no mystery of any sort, and I can tell you about it in three words. Alfred Challis is anxious ... what?"

      "Nothing—go on!"

      "Mr. Challis is anxious that I should get up enough of Aminta Torrington's part to give Mr. Magnus an idea.... No!—Sibyl. Mr. Magnus is not vulgar, and I think him picturesque. He smokes too many very large cigars perhaps, and they don't improve his complexion. But what objection there can possibly be to diamond shirt-studs...."

      Sibyl interrupted. "You may just as well tell it all out, Ju. What do you mean by 'enough'?"

      "What do I mean by enough? Do be intelligible, Dandelion dear!" Judith is patronizing.

      "I wish you wouldn't call me by that hatefully foolish name. Yes—what do you mean by 'enough'? Does it mean that what Mr. Magnus has heard of what you can do isn't enough? That doesn't mean that he's heard nothing. And you know he hasn't."

      Sibyl is really no match for her sister in the long run, and perhaps this is a sample of it—of a run long enough for her to get ruffled in. Judith's forbearance becomes exemplary. "Listen while tell I you," she says, imputing impatience, "what Mr. Magnus has heard; and then you can talk about it."

      "Very well, go on!" snappishly.

      "The suggestion came from Mr. Magnus. Alfred Challis ... certainly!—it's his name. Don't be absurd.... Alfred Challis may have talked to him—no doubt has—of my fitness for the part. And yesterday between the acts he asked us into his room, and made us read one of the scenes. Of course I was Aminta, and Alfred Challis was Moorsom. It was where they meet for the first time at the oculist's at Vienna, in the waiting-room...."

      "Is that the kissing scene?"

      "The kissing scene! Sibyl!—I'm sorry you read that manuscript...."

      "You shouldn't have left it lying about."

      "It was in my bedroom, child.... Well!—it certainly wasn't what you choose to call the kissing scene ... but it doesn't matter. I don't believe I should ever be able to make you understand how purely professional it all was. Mr. Magnus sat on the arm of a chair smoking, with his thumbs in his waistcoat, and said that sort of thing wouldn't go down with the public." Judith omitted Mr. Magnus's reason, which was that it wasn't half "schick" enough, thick enough; for it wasn't clear which he said, as his tongue interfered with his articulation.

      Sibyl listened, chafing. When no more seemed to be coming, she elected to treat the communication as a confession forced from reluctant lips. "You see I was right, after all," she said. "And it was Mr. Challis in the cab." The discontinuity of semi-accusation was bewildering, and refutation hung fire for a moment. She ran on, giving her sister no chance. "I really must say, Judith, that I do not understand you at all. But you must go your own way. Do you suppose—can you suppose—that any member of your family would approve of what is going on, if they knew it?"

      At this point the fact that Judith is really much the cooler of the two tells. "I don't know whom you mean, Sib," she says temperately, "by they. No member of my family is plural, that I know of ... well!—it isn't grammar, according to me. However, if you mean the madre, we shall very soon see; that is, if the thing doesn't turn out a flash in the pan. I shall tell her all about it at the proper time...."

      "Meanwhile, hold my tongue, you mean? I'm not at all sure, Judith, that any other sister in my place wouldn't at once tell her mother all she knew about such goings on...."

      "What are the goings on? I know of no goings on."

      "I do. This visit to the back СКАЧАТЬ