THE COLLECTED WORKS OF E. F. BENSON (Illustrated Edition). E. F. Benson
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next day with Miss Grantham, talking about nothing particular very rapidly.
"Of course, one must be good to begin with," she was saying; "one takes that for granted. The idea of being wicked never comes into my reckoning at all. I should do lots of things if I didn't care what I did, that I shouldn't think of doing at all now. I've got an admirable conscience. It is quite good, without being at all priggish. It isn't exactly what you might call in holy orders, but it is an ecclesiastical layman, and has great sympathy with the Church. A sort of lay-reader, you know."
"I haven't got any conscience at all," said Miss Grantham. "I believe I am fastidious in a way, though, which prevents me doing conspicuously beastly things."
"Oh, get a conscience, Grantie," said Dodo fervently, "it is such a convenience. It's like having someone to make up your mind for you. I like making up other people's minds, but I cannot make up my own; however, my conscience does that for me. It isn't me a bit. I just give it a handful of questions which I want an answer upon, and it gives me them back, neatly docketed, with 'Yes' or 'No' upon them."
"That's no use," said Miss Grantham. "I know the obvious 'Yeses' and 'Noes' myself. What I don't know are the host of things that don't matter much in themselves, which you can't put down either right or wrong."
"Oh, I do all those," said Dodo serenely, "if I want to, and if I don't, I have an excellent reason for not doing them, because I am not sure whether they are right. When I set up my general advice office, which I shall do before I die, I shall make a special point of that for other people. I shall give decided answers in most cases, but I shall reserve a class of things indifferent, which are simply to be settled by inclination."
"What do you call indifferent things?" asked Miss Grantham, pursuing the Socratic method.
"Oh, whether you are to play lawn tennis on Sunday afternoon," said Dodo, "or wear mourning for second cousins, or sing alto in church for the sake of the choir; all that sort of thing."
"Your conscience evidently hasn't taken orders," remarked Miss Grantham.
"That's got nothing to do with my conscience," said Dodo. "My conscience doesn't touch those things at all. It only concerns itself with right and wrong."
"You're very moral this morning," said Miss Grantham. "Edith," she went on, as Miss Staines entered in a howling wilderness of dogs, "Dodo has discovered a conscience."
"Whose?" asked Edith.
"Why, my own, of course," said Dodo; "but it's no discovery. I always knew I had one."
"There's someone waiting to see you," said Edith. "I brought his card in."
She handed Dodo a card.
"Prince Waldenech," she said quietly to herself, "let him come in here, Edith. You need not go away."
Dodo got up and stood by the mantelpiece, and displayed an elaborate attention to one of Edith's dogs. She was angry with herself for needing this minute of preparation, but she certainly used it to the best advantage; and when the Prince entered she greeted him with an entirely natural smile of welcome.
"Ah, this is charming," she said, advancing to him. "How clever of you to find out my address."
"I am staying at a house down here," said the Prince, lying with conscious satisfaction as he could not be contradicted, "and I could not resist the pleasure."
Dodo introduced him to Edith and Miss Grantham, and sat down again.
"I sent no address, as I really did not know where I might be going," she said, following the Prince's lead. "That I was not in London was all my message meant. I did not know you would be down here."
"Lord Chesterford is in England?" asked the Prince.
"Oh, yes, Jack came with me as far as Dover, and then he left me for the superior attractions of partridge-shooting. Wasn't it rude of him?"
"He deserves not to be forgiven," said the Prince.
"I think I shall send you to call him out for insulting me," said Dodo lightly; "and you can kill each other comfortably while I look on. Dear old Jack."
"I should feel great pleasure in fighting Lord Chesterford if you told me to," said the Prince, "or if you told him to, I'm sure he would feel equal pleasure in killing me."
Dodo laughed.
"Duelling has quite gone out," she said. "I sha'n't require you ever to do anything of that kind."
"I am at your service," he said.
"I wish you'd open that window then," said Dodo; "it is dreadfully stuffy. Edith, you really have too many flowers in the room."
"Why do you say that duelling has done out?" he asked. "You might as well say that devotion has gone out."
"No one fights duels now," said Dodo; "except in Prance, and no one, even there, is ever hurt, unless they catch cold in the morning air, like Mark Twain."
"Certainly no one goes out with a pistol-case, and a second, and a doctor," said the Prince; "that was an absurd way of duelling. It is no satisfaction to know that you are a better shot than your antagonist."
"Still less to know that he is a better shot than you," remarked Miss Grantham.
"Charming," said the Prince; "that is worthy of Lady Chesterford. And higher praise—"
"Go on about duelling," said Dodo, unceremoniously.
"The old system was no satisfaction, because the quarrel was not about who was the better shot. Duelling is now strictly decided by merit. Two men quarrel about a woman. They both make love to her; in other words, they both try to cut each other's throats, and one succeeds. It is far more sensible. Pistols are stupid bull-headed weapons. Words are much finer. They are exquisite sharp daggers. There is no unnecessary noise or smoke, and they are quite orderly."
"Are those the weapons you would fight Lord Chesterford with, if Dodo told you to?" asked Edith, who was growing uneasy.
The Prince, as Dodo once said, never made a fool of himself. It was a position in which it was extremely easy for a stupid man to say something very awkward. Lady Grantham, with all her talent for asking inconvenient questions, could not have formed a more unpleasant one. He looked across at Dodo a moment, and said, without a perceptible pause,—
"If I ever was the challenger of Lady Chesterford's husband, the receiver of the challenge has the right to choose the weapons."
The words startled Dodo somehow. She looked up and met his eye.
"Your system is no better than the old one," she said. "Words become the weapons instead of pistols, and the man who is most skilful with words has the same advantage as the good shot. You are not quarrelling about words, but about a woman."
"But words are the expression of what a man is," said the Prince. "You are pitting merit against merit."
Dodo rose and began to laugh.
"Don't quarrel with Jack, then," she said. "He would tell the footman to show you the door. You would have to fight the footman. Jack would not speak to you."
Dodo felt strongly the necessity of putting an end to this conversation, which was effectually done by this somewhat uncourteous speech. The fencing had become rather too serious to please her, and she did not wish to be serious. But she felt oppressively conscious of this man's personality, and saw that he was stronger than she was herself. She decided to retreat, and made a desperate effort to be entirely flippant.
"I hope the Princess has profited by the advice I gave her," she said. "I told her how to be happy though married, and how not to be bored though a Russian. But she's a very bad case."
"She said to me dreamily as I left," said the Prince, "'You'll hear of my death on the Matterhorn. Tell Lady Chesterford it was her fault.'"
Dodo laughed.
"Poor dear thing," she said, "I really am sorry for her. It's a great pity she didn't marry a day labourer and have to cook the