Page:The Soft Side (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1900).djvu/294

286 crazy about him. I didn't say this—I was careful to say little; which didn't prevent his presently asking if he mightn't then bring them to me. 'If not, why not?' he laughed. He laughed about everything.

'Why not? Because it strikes me that your surrender doesn't require any backing. Since you've done it you must take care of yourself.'

'Oh, but they're as safe,' he returned, 'as the Bank of England. They're wonderful—for respectability and goodness.'

'Those are precisely qualities to which my poor intercourse can contribute nothing.' He hadn't, I observed, gone so far as to tell me they would be 'fun,' and he had, on the other hand, promptly mentioned that they lived in Westbourne Terrace. They were not forty—they were forty-five; but Mr. Dedrick had already, on considerable gains, retired from some primitive profession. They were the simplest, kindest, yet most original and unusual people, and nothing could exceed, frankly, the fancy they had taken to him. Marmaduke spoke of it with a placidity of resignation that was almost irritating. I suppose I should have despised him if, after benefits accepted, he had said they bored him; yet their not boring him vexed me even more than it puzzled. 'Whom do they know?'

'No one but me. There are people in London like that.'

'Who know no one but you?'

'No—I mean no one at all. There are extraordinary people in London, and awfully nice. You haven't an idea. You people don't know every one. They lead their lives—they go their way. One finds—what do you call it?—refinement, books, cleverness, don't you know, and music, and pictures, and religion, and an excellent table—all sorts of pleasant things. You only come across them by chance; but it's all perpetually going on.'

I assented to this: the world was very wonderful, and one must certainly see what one could. In my own quarter too I found wonders enough. 'But are you,' I asked, 'as fond of them'