HILE it is difficult to defend Cunningham Black, his conduct needs no explanation. That diablerie which spices all his writing is characteristic of the man himself; there is more than a hint of the satyr about him. The two waves of hair on each side of his forehead inevitably suggest horns, and the set of his eyes, the half-whimsical cynicism of his expression, are all in keeping with the popular conception of the hoofed devil. Lastly, his extraordinary thinness, which is emphasized by his prim, neat dress; his narrow, bony hands and feet, the curious squareness of his little shoulders, all heighten the impish effect of him.
As to the origin of the long campaign—that, too, is easily explained. Cunningham Black was the son of a book-seller, and although he had made himself acceptable to society by his cleverness and his wonderful adaptability, he was always a little over-assertive. He had not forgotten the bookseller's shop, and he continually persuaded himself into a contempt for those who moved so easily in ways which he had studied with long effort. Doubtless he tried very earnestly to despise these people with whom he loved to be seen.
Every one now knows the other protagonist. The unhappy Valetta, Duchess of Tottenham, has attained a celebrity she neither desired nor deserved. Her very tricks of manner and speech are familiar to the general public. Unhappy she certainly is, and for no fault of her own. There were no less than three Duchesses of Tottenham when the trouble began, and she was the younger of the two dowagers. She was, in fact, quite terribly poor for her position, and she cannot be blamed for staying with the Davidsons, or with any other people in whose houses she could really economize. Meanness in the matter of tipping the servants was excusable in a duchess.
Black was not in an unusually bad temper when the incident happened. He had lunched on the corridor-train, not to his complete satisfaction, but still sufficiently, and when he had found a first-class smoking-carriage on the branch line and settled himself down to a very decent cigar, he was probably in a fairly comfortable humor. Then, just as the train was starting, Valetta was ushered with some ceremony into his empty compartment.
Black did not know that it was the Duchess; he did not know that the Duchess was going to the Davidsons. He only knew that a thin, middle-aged, rather expensively dressed woman in a pince-nez had been thrust upon him, and he resented it. He realized, too, the fact that she was treated with much deference by the attendant guard. There was an innate radicalism in Black which was always up in arms against this show of deference to the upper classes.
He had put up his long, thin feet on the cushion of the opposite seat, and he withdrew them very deliberately when he found that the intruding woman intended to enter that compartment and no other.
The train started immediately; the Duchess, already affronted, took her seat in the corner by the farther door, and Black put his feet up again and continued his cigar.
The Duchess coughed and let down the window. She had her back to the engine: Black was facing it, and he was immediately conscious of a draught. He scowled at his companion and turned up the collar of his overcoat.
The Duchess coughed again—a cough which perfectly expressed her dislike of the cigar and the smoker of it.
Black was exasperated. "Why travel in a smoking-carriage, madam, if you object to the smell of smoke?" he asked, acidly. "The train is not full."
"I did not notice," said Valetta, and put her head a little back to stare at this impossible fellow-traveler of hers. It was a trick of hers; she had put her head back in precisely the same way when she was a spectacled school-girl of fourteen, long before she had any hope of becoming a duchess.
Black put her pose down to aristocratic intolerance. He shrugged his shoulders, looked at the ground-glass legend on the window and then at his cigar.
"You can change at the next station," he said.
"Insufferable!" said Valetta, addressing the window on her own side of the carriage. She was quite cool, and she spoke with perfect distinctness.
That word roused all that was worst in Black, but it immediately cooled his temper. This was a declaration of war, and he was far too clever to fight when he was angry.
He opened the window beside him and threw away his less than half-smoked cigar, put down his feet, tossed his hat onto the rack, and so prepared the ground to give battle on even terms.
"Under these new conditions," he said, "may I be allowed to close that window?"