‘Pauline!’ he said, sorrowfully.
‘Algie!’ said Lady Wetherby, tensely. ‘I don’t know what you’ve come here for, and I don’t remember asking you to sit down and put your elbows on that table, but I want to begin by saying that I will not be called Pauline. My name’s Polly. You’ve got a way of saying Pauline, as if it were a gentlemanly cuss-word, that makes me want to scream. And while you’re about it, why don’t you say how-d’you-do to Claire? You ought to remember her, she was my bridesmaid.’
‘How do you do, Miss Fenwick. Of course, I remember you perfectly. I’m glad to see you again.’
‘And now, Algie, what is it? Why have you come here?’ Lord Wetherby looked doubtfully at Claire. ‘Oh, that’s all right,’ said Lady Wetherby. ‘Claire knows all about it–I told her.’
‘Then I appeal to Miss Fenwick, if, as you say, she knows all the facts of the case, to say whether it is reasonable to expect a man of my temperament, a nervous, highly-strung artist, to welcome the presence of snakes at the breakfast-table. I trust that I am not an unreasonable man, but I decline to admit that a long, green snake is a proper thing to keep about the house.’
‘You had no right to strike the poor thing.’
‘In that one respect I was perhaps a little hasty. I happened to be stirring my tea at the moment his head rose above the edge of the table. I was not entirely myself that morning. My nerves were somewhat disordered. I had lain awake much of the night planning a canvas.’
‘Planning a what?’
‘A canvas–a picture.’
Lady Wetherby turned to Claire.
‘I want you to listen to Algie, Claire. A year ago he did not know one end of a paint-brush from the other. He didn’t know he had any nerves. If you had brought him the artistic temperament on a plate with a bit of watercress round it, he wouldn’t have recognized it. And now, just because he’s got a studio, he thinks he has a right to go up in the air if you speak to him suddenly and run about the place hitting snakes with teaspoons as if he were Michelangelo!’
‘You do me an injustice. It is true that as an artist I developed late–But why should we quarrel? If it will help to pave the way to a renewed understanding between us, I am prepared to apologize for striking Clarence. That is conciliatory, I think, Miss Fenwick?’
‘Very.’
‘Miss Fenwick considers my attitude conciliatory.’
‘It’s something,’ admitted Lady Wetherby, grudgingly.
Lord Wetherby drained the whisky-and-soda which Dudley Pickering had left behind him, and seemed to draw strength from it, for he now struck a firmer note.
‘But, though expressing regret for my momentary loss of self-control, I cannot recede from the position I have taken up as regards the essential unfitness of Clarence’s presence in the home.’
Lady Wetherby looked despairingly at Claire.
‘The very first words I heard Algie speak, Claire, were at Newmarket during the three o’clock race one May afternoon. He was hanging over the rail, yelling like an Indian, and what he was yelling was, “Come on, you blighter, come on! By the living jingo, Brickbat wins in a walk!” And now he’s talking about receding from essential positions! Oh, well, he wasn’t an artist then!’
‘My dear Pau–Polly. I am purposely picking my words on the present occasion in order to prevent the possibility of further misunderstandings. I consider myself an ambassador.’
‘You would be shocked if you knew what I consider you!’
‘I am endeavouring to the best of my ability–‘
‘Algie, listen to me! I am quite calm at present, but there’s no knowing how soon I may hit you with a chair if you don’t come to earth quick and talk like an ordinary human being. What is it that you are driving at?’
‘Very well, it’s this: I’ll come home if you get rid of that snake.’
‘Never!’
‘It’s surely not much to ask of you, Polly?’
‘I won’t!’
Lord Wetherby sighed.
‘When I led you to the altar,’ he said, reproachfully, ‘you promised to love, honour, and obey me. I thought at the time it was a bit of swank!’