THE COLLECTED WORKS OF E. F. BENSON (Illustrated Edition). E. F. Benson
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going to get a quantity of illusions," said Miss Grantham. "In any case, what did you find to say about them?"
"Jack said it was a bad thing to keep an illusion up," said Dodo, broadly.
Miss Grantham was staring pensively at the fire.
"I saw two boys sitting on a gate yesterday," she said, "and they pushed each other off, and each time they both roared with laughter. I'm sure it was an illusion that they were amused. I would go and sit on a gate with pleasure and get my maid to push me off, if I thought it would amuse either of us. Mr. Broxton, would you like me to push you off a gate?"
"Oh, I'm certain that the people with many illusions are the happiest," said Dodo. "Consequently, I wouldn't willingly destroy any illusion anyone held about anything."
"What a lot of anys," said Miss Grantham.
Lord Ledgers was leaning back in his chair with a sense of pleased proprietorship. It really was a very intelligent animal. Jack almost expected him to take a small whip from his pocket and crack it at her. But his next remark, Jack felt, was a good substitute; at any rate, he demanded another performance.
"What about delusions, Miss Grantham?" he said.
"Oh, delusions are chiefly unpleasant illusions," she said. "Madmen have delusions that somebody wants to kill them, or they want to kill somebody, or that King Charles's head isn't really cut off, which would be very unsettling now."
"Grantie, I believe you're talking sheer, arrant nonsense," said Dodo. "It's all your fault, Tommy. When one is asked a question, one has to answer it somehow or other in self-defence. If you asked me about the habits of giraffes I should say something. Edith is the only really honest person I know. She would tell you she hadn't any idea what a giraffe was, so would Chesterford, and you would find him looking up giraffes in the Encyclopædia afterwards."
Lord Ledgers laughed a low, unpleasant laugh.
"A very palpable hit," he murmured.
The remark was inaudible to all but Jack. He felt quite unreasonably angry with him, and got up from his chair.
Dodo saw something had happened, and looked at him inquiringly. Jack did not meet her eye, but whistled to the collie, who flopped down at his feet.
"I really don't know where I should begin if I was going to turn honest," said Miss Grantham. "I don't think I like honest people. They are like little cottages, which children draw, with a door in the middle, and a window at each side, and a chimney in the roof with smoke coming out. Long before you know them well, you are perfectly certain of all that you will find inside them. They haven't got any little surprises, or dark passages, or queer little cupboards under the stairs."
"Do you know the plant called honesty, Grantie?" asked Dodo. "It's a very bright purple, and you can see it a long way off, and it isn't at all nicer when you get close than it looks from a distance."
"Oh, if you speak of someone as an honest man," said Miss Grantham, "it implies that he's nothing particular besides. I don't mind a little mild honesty, but it should be kept in the background."
"I've got a large piece of honesty somewhere about me," said Jack. "I can't always lay my hand on it, but every now and then I feel it like a great lump inside me."
"Yes," said Dodo, "I believe you are fundamentally honest, Jack. I've always thought that."
"Does that mean that he is not honest in ordinary matters?" asked Miss Grantham. "I've noticed that people who are fundamentally truthful, seldom tell the truth."
"In a way it does," said Dodo. "But I'm sure Jack would be honest in any case where it really mattered."
"Oh, I sha'n't steal your spoons, you know," said Miss Grantham.
"That's only because you don't really want them," remarked Dodo. "I can conceive you stealing anything you wanted."
"Trample on me," said Miss Grantham serenely. "Tell us what I should steal."
"Oh, you'd steal lots of things," said Dodo. "You'd steal anyone's self-respect if you could manage to, and you couldn't get what you wanted any other way. Oh, yes, you'd steal anything important. Jack wouldn't. He'd stop just short of that; he would never be really disloyal. He'd finger things to any extent, but I am pretty sure that he would drop them at the last minute."
"How dreadfully unpleasant I am really," said Miss Grantham meditatively. "A kind of Eugene Aram."
Jack was acutely uncomfortable, but he had the satisfaction of believing that what Dodo said about him was true. He had come to the same conclusion himself two nights ago. He believed that he would stop short of any act of disloyalty, but he did not care about hearing Dodo give him so gratuitous a testimonial before Miss Grantham and the gentleman whom he mentally referred to as "that ass of a showman."
The front door opened, and a blast of cold wind came blustering round into the inner hall where they were sitting, making the thick tapestry portière belly and fill like a ship's sail, when the wind first catches it. The collie pricked his ears, and thumped his tail on the floor with vague welcome.
Mrs. Vivian entered, followed by Lord Chesterford. He looked absurdly healthy and happy.
"It's a perfectly beastly day," he said cheerfully, advancing to the fireplace. "Mrs. Vivian, let Dodo send you some tea up to your room. You must be wet through. Surely it is tea-time, Dodo."
"I told you so," said Dodo to Jack.
"Has Jack been saying it isn't tea-time?" asked Chesterford.
"No," said Dodo. "I only said that your virtue in going to see almshouses would find its immediate reward in an appetite for tea."
Mrs. Vivian laughed.
"You mustn't reduce our virtues to the lowest terms, as if we were two vulgar fractions."
"Do you suppose a vulgar fraction knows how vulgar it is?" asked Miss Grantham.
"Vulgar without being funny," said. Jack, with the air of helping her out of a difficulty.
"I never saw anything funny in vulgar fractions," remarked Lord Ledgers. "Chesterford and I used to look up the answers at the end of the book, and try to make them correspond with the questions."
Dodo groaned.
"Oh, Chesterford, don't tell me you're not honest either."
"What do you think about honesty, Mrs. Vivian?" asked Miss Grantham.
Mrs. Vivian considered.
"Honesty is much maligned by being called the best policy," she said; "it' isn't purely commercial. Honesty is rather fine sometimes."
"Oh, I'm sure Mrs. Vivian's honest," murmured Miss Grantham. "She thinks before, she tells you her opinion. I always give my opinion first, and think about it afterwards."
"I've been wanting to stick up for honesty all the afternoon," said Dodo to Mrs. Vivian, "only I haven't dared. Everyone has been saying that it is dull and obtrusive, and like labourers' cottages. I believe we are all a little honest, really. No one has got any right to call it the best policy. It makes you feel as if you were either a kind of life assurance, or else a thief."
Chesterford looked a trifle puzzled.
Dodo turned to him.
"Poor old man," she said, "did they call him names? Never mind. We'll go and be labelled 'Best policy. No others need apply.'"
She got up from her chair, and pulled Chesterford's moustache.
"You look so abominably healthy, Chesterford," she said. "How's Charlie getting on? Tell him if he beats his wife anymore, I shall; beat you. You wouldn't like that, you know. Will you ring for tea, dear? Mrs. Vivian, I command you to go to your room. I had your fire lit, and I'll send tea up. You're a dripping sop."
Mrs. Vivian pleaded guilty, and vanished. Sounds of music still came from the drawing-room. "It's no use telling Edith to come to tea," remarked