Page:Kangaroo, 1923.pdf/46

 a gentleman has nothing to open towards a man of the people. He can only talk, and the working man can only listen across a distance. But seeing that this little fellow was both a gentleman and not a gentleman; seeing he was just like one of yourselves, and yet had all the other qualities of a gentleman: why, you might just as well get the secret out of him.

Somers knew the attitude, and was not going to be drawn. He talked freely and pleasantly enough—but never as Jack wanted. He knew well enough what Jack wanted: which was that they should talk together as man to man—as pals, you know, with a little difference. But Somers would never be pals with any man. It wasn't in his nature. He talked pleasantly and familiarly—fascinating to Victoria, who sat with her brown eyes watching him, while she clung to Jack's arm on the sofa. When Somers was talking and telling, it was fascinating, and his quick, mobile face changed and seemed full of magic. Perhaps it was difficult to locate any definite Somers, any one individual in all this ripple of animation and communication. The man himself seemed lost in the bright aura of his rapid consciousness. This fascinated Victoria: she of course imagined some sort of God in the fiery bush. But Jack was mistrustful. He mistrusted all this bright quickness. If there was an individual inside the brightly-burning bush of consciousness, let him come out, man to man. Even if it was a sort of God in the bush, let him come out, man to man. Otherwise let him be considered a sort of mountebank, a show-man, too clever by half.

Somers knew pretty well Jack's estimation of him. Jack, sitting there smoking his little short pipe, with his lovely wife in her pink georgette frock hanging on to his side, and the watchful look on his face, was the manly man, the consciously manly man. And he had just a bit of contempt for the brilliant little fellow opposite, and he felt just a bit uneasy because the same little fellow laughed at his "manliness," knowing it didn't go right through. It takes more than "manliness" to make a man.

Somers' very brilliance had an overtone of contempt in it, for the other man. The women, of course, not demanding any orthodox "manliness," didn't mind the knock at Jack's particular sort. And to them Somers' chief fascina-