"No," Iglesias said.

"And you will come again? You make me feel all smooth and good. You promise you'll come?"

"Yes," Iglesias said.

In the narrow pa.s.sage a tall, eminently well-dressed middle-aged gentleman stood aside to let him pa.s.s. Dominic Iglesias received the impression of a very handsome person, whose possible insolence of bearing received agreeable modification, thanks to the expression of kindly humorous eyes and a notably beautiful mouth.

Upon the centre table of the square first-floor sitting-room at Cedar Lodge a note awaited Mr. Iglesias, addressed in George Lovegrove's neat business hand.

"Dear old friend," it ran--"the wife asks you to take supper with us to- morrow night. Step across as early as you like. My cousin, Miss Serena Lovegrove, is paying us a visit. Yours faithfully, G. L.--N. B. Come as you are: no ceremony. G. L."

CHAPTER XI

"Hullo, girlie," called the red and green parrot, as it helped itself up the side of its zinc cage with beak as well as claws.

Serena Lovegrove had opened the door suddenly. Then, seeing that Mr.

Iglesias alone occupied the room, neither her host nor hostess being present, she paused in the doorway, a large floppy yellow silk work-bag in her hands, undecided whether to retreat or to proceed. And it was thus that the bird, discovering her advent, announced it, while the pupils of his hard, round yellowish grey eyes dilated and contracted--"snapped," as Serena would have said--maliciously.

Serena was a tall, elegant, faded woman, dressed in black, her little upright head balanced upon a long thin stalk of neck. Though undeniably faded, there was, as now seen in the quiet evening light, a suggestion of youthfulness about her. He brown eyes, pretty though rather small, snapped even as did those of the parrot. Excitement--to-night she was very much excited--invariably produced in Serena an effect of clutching at her long-departed girlhood, an effect sufficiently pathetic in the case of a woman well on in the forties. And it was precisely this ineffectual throw-back to a Serena of seventeen or eighteen which lent a sharp edge of irony to the strident salutations of the parrot, as it called out again:

"Hullo, girlie! Polly's own pet girlie," then with a prolonged and ear- piercing whistle:--"Hi, four-wheeler! girlie's going out." And hoa.r.s.ely, with a growl in its throat: "Move on there, stoopid, can't yer? Shut the door."

During the delivery of these final admonitions Mr. Iglesias had recognised the shadowy figure standing on the threshold and advanced.

This decided Serena. Still twisting the ribbons of the yellow work-bag round her thin fingers, she drifted into the room.

"I think I have had the pleasure of meeting you once or twice before, Miss Lovegrove," Dominic said. His manner was specially gentle and courtly, for he could not but feel the poor lady was at a disadvantage, owing to the very articulate indiscretions of the parrot.

"Oh! yes," Serena answered. "Certainly we have met. But you are wrong as to the number of times. It is more than once or twice. Five times, I think; or it may have been six. No, it is five, because I remember you were expected, in the evening, the day before I went home the winter before last; and at the last moment you were unable to come. That would have made six. Now it is only five."

"You have an excellent memory," Iglesias said. "It is kind of you to remember so clearly."

"I wonder if it is--I mean, I wonder whether it is kind," Serena rejoined.

She was quite innocent of any intention of sarcasm. But her mind, like those of so many unoccupied, and consequently self-occupied persons, was addicted to speculation of a minor and vacuous sort. She was also liable --as such persons often are--to mistake cavilling for spirit and wit--a most tedious error!

"Still you are right in saying I have a good memory," she added. "People generally observe that. But then I was always taught it was rude to forget. Forgetfulness is the result of inattention. At school I never had any difficulty in learning by heart."

"You must have found that both a useful and pleasant talent."

"Perhaps," Serena replied negligently. She was determined not to commit herself, having arrived at the conclusion that Mr. Iglesias' address was too civil. "It was bad manners of him not to remember how often we had met," she said to herself, "and now he is trying to pa.s.s it off. But that won't do!" Serena had many and distinct views on the subject of manner and manners. She was never certain that civility did not argue a defect of sincerity. She agreed with herself to think that over again later.

Meanwhile she would carefully remark Mr. Iglesias. "If he is insincere, as I fear he is, he is sure to betray it in other ways. Then I shall be on my guard." Forewarned is, of course, forarmed, and Serena felt very acute. Though against exactly what she was taking such elaborate precautions, it would have been difficult for her, or for anyone else, to have stated. However, just now it was inc.u.mbent upon her to make conversation. As is the way with persons not very fertile in ideas, she had recourse to the simple expedient of asking a leading question.

"Are you fond of animals?" she inquired.

"I am afraid I have very little knowledge of animals," Iglesias replied.

Serena laughed dryly. This was so transparent a subterfuge.

"What a very odd answer!" she said. "Because everybody must really know whether they like animals or not."

"I am afraid I stand by myself then, a solitary exception. I have had little or nothing to do with animals, and have therefore had no opportunity of discovering whether they attract me or not."

"How very odd!" Serena repeated.

She moved across to the centre-table where Mr. Lovegrove's books of picture postcards, the miscellaneous consequences of many charity bazaars, and kindred aesthetic treasures reposed, and deposited her work- bag in their company. Her movement revived the attention of the parrot, who had been nodding on its perch.

"Poor old girlie, take a brandy and soda? Kiss and be friends. Good- night, all," it murmured hoa.r.s.ely, half asleep.

"If your question bore reference to that particular animal, I stand in no doubt as to my sentiments," Dominic remarked. "I am anything but fond of it. I think it an odious bird."

"Ah! you see you do know," Serena exclaimed. "I was sure you did." She felt justified in her suspicion of his sincerity. "But n.o.body would agree with you, Mr. Iglesias, because of course it is really a very clever parrot. They very seldom learn to say so many things."

"How fortunate!" Dominic permitted himself to e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e.

"I don't see why you should say it is fortunate."

"Do not its remarks strike you as somewhat impertinent and intrusive?"

"I wonder if an animal can be impertinent," Serena said reflectively.

But here to her vexation, for it appeared to her that she had just started a really interesting subject of discussion, Mrs. Lovegrove bustled into the room.

"Well, Mr. Iglesias," she began, "I am sure I am very delighted to see you, and so will Georgie be. He was remarking only yesterday we don't seem to see so much of you as we used to do. He's just a little behind time, is Georgie, having been kept by the dear vicar at a meeting about the Church Workers' Social Evenings Guild at the Mission Room in Little Bethesda Street. You wouldn't know where that is, Mr. Iglesias--though I can't help hoping you will some day--but Serena knows, don't you, Serena? It's where Susan--her elder sister, Miss Lovegrove"--this aside to Dominic--"gave an address once to the members of the Society for the Conversion of the Jews."

"No doubt I remember; but Susan is always giving addresses somewhere,"

Serena said loftily.

"And very good and kind of her it is to give addresses," Mrs. Lovegrove rejoined. "Even the dear vicar says what a remarkable gift she has as a speaker, and there's no question as to the worth of his praise."

"I wonder if it is--I mean I wonder if it is good and kind of Susan to give addresses," Serena remarked. "Because of course she enjoys giving them. Susan likes to have a number of people listening to her."

"But if the object is a n.o.ble one?"--this from Mrs. Lovegrove, a little nonplussed and put about.

"Still, if you enjoy doing anything, how can it be good and kind to do it?" Serena said argumentatively. "Susan is very fond of publicity. I think people very often deceive themselves about their own motives."

She looked meaningly at Dominic Iglesias as she spoke. And he looked back at her gravely and kindly, though with a slightly amused smile. His thoughts had travelled away--they had done so pretty frequently during the last twenty-four hours--to the smirking self-conscious little house on the verge of Barnes Common. Unpromising though it had appeared outwardly, yet within it he believed he had found a friend--a friend who was also an enigma. Perhaps, as he now reflected, all women are enigmas.

Certainly they are amazingly different. He thought of Poppy. He looked at Serena. Yes, doubtless they all are enigmas; only--might Heaven forgive him the discourtesy--all are not enigmas equally well worth finding out.

George Lovegrove arrived. Supper, a somewhat heavy and hybrid meal, followed--"all comfortable and friendly," as Mrs. Lovegrove described it, "no ceremony and fal-lals, but everything put down on the table so that you could see it and please yourself."

Serena, however, was difficult to please. She picked daintily at the food on her plate. Her host observed her with solicitude.

"Do take a little more," he said, in an anxious aside, Mrs. Lovegrove being safely engaged in conversation with Mr. Iglesias, "or I shall begin to be nervous lest we aren't offering you quite what you like."

But Serena was obdurate.