The White Monkey

They had come, however, to a policeman holding up his hand against the nose of a van horse, so that everything marked time. The engines of the cars whirred idly, their drivers’ faces set towards the space withheld from them; a girl on a bicycle looked vacantly about her, grasping the back of the van, where a youth sat sideways with his legs stretched out towards her. Sir Lawrence glanced again at young Desert. A thin, pale-dark face, good-looking, but a hitch in it, as if not properly timed; nothing outre in dress or ma

“You were in the war, Mr. Desert?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Air service?”

“And line. Bit of both.”

“Hard on a poet.”

“Not at all. Poetry’s only possible when you may be blown up at any moment, or when you live in Putney.”

Sir Lawrence’s eyebrow rose. “Yes?”

“Te

“Is there not a third condition favourable?”

“And that, sir?”

“How shall I express it—a certain cerebral agitation in co

Desert’s face twitched, and seemed to darken.

Michael put his latchkey into the lock of his front door.

Chapter II.

HOME

The house in South Square, Westminster, to which the young Monts had come after their Spanish honeymoon two years before, might have been called ‘emancipated.’ It was the work of an architect whose dream was a new house perfectly old, and an old house perfectly new. It followed, therefore, no recognised style or tradition, and was devoid of structural prejudice; but it soaked up the smuts of the metropolis with such special rapidity that its stone already respectably resembled that of Wren. Its windows and doors had gently rounded tops. The high-sloping roof, of a fine sooty pink, was almost Danish, and two ‘ducky little windows’ looked out of it, giving an impression that very tall servants lived up there. There were rooms on each side of the front door, which was wide and set off by bay trees in black and gold bindings. The house was thick through, and the staircase, of a broad chastity, began at the far end of a hall which had room for quite a number of hats and coats and cards. There were four bathrooms; and not even a cellar underneath. The Forsyte instinct for a house had co-operated in its acquisition. Soames had picked it up for his daughter, undecorated, at that psychological moment when the bubble of inflation was pricked, and the air escaping from the balloon of the world’s trade. Fleur, however, had established immediate contact with the architect—an element which Soames himself had never quite got over—and decided not to have more than three styles in her house: Chinese, Spanish, and her own. The room to the left of the front door, ru

When those three came in she was sitting before a red lacquer tea-table, finishing a very good tea. She always had tea brought in rather early, so that she could have a good quiet preliminary ‘tuck-in’ all by herself, because she was not quite twenty-one, and this was her hour for remembering her youth. By her side Ting-a-ling was standing on his hind feet, his tawny forepaws on a Chinese footstool, his snubbed black and tawny muzzle turned up towards the fruits of his philosophy.

“That’ll do, Ting. No more, ducky! NO MORE!”

The expression of Ting-a-ling answered:

‘Well, then, stop, too! Don’t subject me to torture!’

A year and three months old, he had been bought by Michael out of a Bond Street shop window on Fleur’s twentieth birthday, eleven months ago.

Two years of married life had not lengthened her short dark chestnut hair; had added a little more decision to her quick lips, a little more allurement to her white-lidded, dark-lashed hazel eyes, a little more poise and swing to her carriage, a little more chest and hip measurement; had taken a little from waist and calf measurement, a little colour from cheeks a little less round, and a little sweetness from a voice a little more caressing.

She stood up behind the tray, holding out her white round arm without a word. She avoided u

With circular movement of her squeezed hand, she said:

“Draw up. Cream, sir? Sugar, Wilfrid? Ting has had too much—don’t feed him! Hand things, Michael. I’ve heard all about the meeting at ‘Snooks.’ You’re not going to canvass for Labour, Michael—canvassing’s so silly. If any one canvassed me, I should vote the other way at once.”

“Yes, darling; but you’re not the average elector.”

Fleur looked at him. Very sweetly put! Conscious of Wilfrid biting his lips, of Sir Lawrence taking that in, of the amount of silk leg she was showing, of her black and cream teacups, she adjusted these matters. A flutter of her white lids—Desert ceased to bite his lips; a movement of her silk legs—Sir Lawrence ceased to look at him. Holding out her cups, she said:

“I suppose I’m not modern enough?”

Desert, moving a bright little spoon round in his magpie cup, said without looking up:

“As much more modern than the moderns, as you are more ancient.”

“‘Ware poetry!” said Michael.

But when he had taken his father to see the new cartoons by Aubrey Greene, she said:

“Kindly tell me what you meant, Wilfrid.”

Desert’s voice seemed to leap from restraint.

“What does it matter? I don’t want to waste time with that.”

“But I want to know. It sounded like a sneer.”

“A sneer? From me? Fleur!”

“Then tell me.”

“I meant that you have all their restlessness and practical get-thereness; but you have what they haven’t, Fleur—power to turn one’s head. And mine is turned. You know it.”

“How would Michael like that—from YOU, his best man?”

Desert moved quickly to the windows.

Fleur took Ting-a-ling on her lap. Such things had been said to her before; but from Wilfrid it was serious. Nice to think she had his heart, of course! Only, where on earth could she put it, where it wouldn’t be seen except by her? He was incalculable—did strange things! She was a little afraid—not of him, but of that quality in him. He came back to the hearth, and said:

“Ugly, isn’t it? Put that dam’ dog down, Fleur; I can’t see your face. If you were really fond of Michael—I swear I wouldn’t; but you’re not, you know.”