Part 16

The discussion went on. Luncheon was at an end. Coffee had been served. Cigarettes were being lighted. Again and again he was referred to. Did he think this and didn't he agree to that? Wasn't this true of the way in which men regarded women? Their differences of opinion seemed so trivial. Their views so immature and amateurish. He watched them with curious, brooding attention. They were so nobly tender in their outward forms. He appreciated the grace of their gestures, the fine-boned smallness of their bodies, the delicacy of their molding, the tendril thinness of their fingers, the sagacity of their tiny aristocratic heads, the seduction of their soft red mouths, the poetry of the fringe of golden lashes in which the pathos of their eyes hung enmeshed--their intrusive, penetrating frailty, which supplicated, denounced and astounded. They were so weak and yet so strong. A man could crush them with one arm. But they could slay a man's soul with their sweetness. They were equipped in every detail by their pale perfection to quicken and to disappoint. To disappoint! That was what they had been trying to persuade him for the past half-hour--that they were Nature's traps, cunningly contrived and baited. _The Philistines be upon thee, Samson!_ Their self-traductions were undermining his faith in all sacredness.

In the silence of his brain he fought--fought against disillusion, claiming exemption for at least one woman from these sweeping denunciations--the woman in the portrait.

A man had been passing and repassing the windows, cut into triangles by the looped back, marigold-tinted curtains. At first he had mistaken him for a different man each time he had passed. Then the lazy certainty had grown up within him that it was always the same man. A man who wanted something--wanted something that was in that house. It wasn't possible to make out his features. He wore a morning-coat and was top-hatted. The swing of his carriage was indefinitely familiar.

And now he had vanished--lost courage, lost patience, given up his quest, perhaps. Through the triangular gaps in the panes the village-green showed untraversed, sunlit, tranquil, garnished.

Without knocking Porter entered, looking worried.

Maisie broke off from her conversation long enough to say, "A little later, Porter. We're not finished."

She was resuming, when Porter again interrupted. "It isn't that, Madam. It isn't----"

"Then what is it?"

With an elaborate air of caution Porter closed the door and set her back against it. "I've told him that it's no good. That you won't see him, Madam."

"Of course not. That's quite right." Maisie bestowed her approval with rapid tolerance. "I can't see any one at present." Then, as an after-thought, "By the way, who is it?"

It was then that Porter let fall her bomb. "It's no good my telling him. He won't go away." Her firmness crumbled. She bleated in a dramatic surrender to distress. The three who heard her caught the commotion of her alarm and waited breathless. Her explanation came at last. "It's Mr. Easterday." The moment she had said it, she turned and fled.

The door had scarcely closed, when Maisie rose from her chair and stood swaying. She sank back, closing her eyes and pressing her hands against her breast. The mask of placidity had been wrenched from her face, leaving it blanched with the conflict between yearning, temptation and loneliness.

"Adair!" she moaned. "My God, I daren't trust myself!"

Unclosing her eyes, she gazed burningly at Tabs.

"I was honest in what I promised. I do want to live as though Reggie weren't dead. How did you put it? As though he were round the corner. As though he were truly coming back."

In the silence that followed she stifled a sob, realizing that it wasn't Tabs who was the obstacle. Turning hysterically to Terry, she laid hold of both her hands. "I can't do it--_can't, can't_ by myself. I can only do it if you'll tell Lord Taborley to help me."

IV

At a nod from Terry he left the table. In the hall he found an odd sight waiting for him. He had to look twice to make certain that this was the Adair Easterday whom he had known, and not a strayed and beflustered wedding-guest.

The man before him was worried to distraction. He had the unhappy, panic-stricken eyes of an over-driven bullock that scents the slaughterhouse. And yet his dress was immaculate; he was tailored and laundered as though for an occasion of joy. Everything that he wore was discreetly festive, from the lavender gloves and shiny topper to the striped trousers and canvas spats. One would have said that he was a caricature of George Grossmith on his way to a garden-party.

But he was hot--terribly hot; far more hot than he had any excuse for being in brisk spring weather. There were beads of perspiration on his forehead; his face was congested with excitement. To lend the touch of humor, which always lurks behind other people's tragedies, he held his top-hat by the brim in his right hand, as though he were taking a collection, while from his left, like a feather-duster, trailed an enormous bunch of roses. He was a short man in the late thirties, red-headed and inclined to be podgy. He was not built to express poetic passions--how many of us are, if it comes to that?--or to sustain their onslaught with dignity. Emotion seemed to have bloated him with unshed tears. There was nothing noble in his distress--only a farcical appearance of wretchedness.

As Tabs crossed the hall to the front-door, just inside of which Adair was standing, he felt an undeserved compassion for him--the kind of compassion one feels for a clumsy dog, which is always getting under people's feet. At the same time he couldn't help marveling that there should be two women at the same time in the world who were willing to compete for such a man's affections.

"I happened to be lunching here," Tabs commenced conventionally. But he altered his tactics promptly. In the presence of his friend's self-advertised misery nothing but the briefest truth seemed adequate.

"Old man, it's no good. She won't see you. She doesn't want you." Forgetting his sense of justice, he placed his hand affectionately on Adair's shoulder.

Adair stared in a full-blown way and nodded. "She never did want me."

He passed no comment on this unforeseen meeting in the little house with the marigold-tinted curtains. He manifested no resentment against this familiar angel who had been deputed to bar the gates of Eden to his approaches. He was incapable of surprise. He was obsessed by the solitary idea of his own forlornness. "I knew it. She never did want me." And then, in a rush of self-pity, "No one ever wanted me."

"Except Phyllis," Tabs suggested.

Adair appeared not to have heard. He stood like a living statue, his top-hat extended, his bunch of roses dangling--the picture of idiotic futility. Genuine emotion, however mean its origin, always has its grand moments. Tabs forgot the silly beginnings of this upset and the endless troubles it had caused. All he saw was a typical ragamuffin of humanity in the grip of the policeman, Nemesis. Adair had been caught trying to do what thousands of other ragamuffins achieved daily with success. He had been arrested red-handed in the act of stealing forbidden happiness. It was his first offense. He was inexpert and had bungled. He had bungled because, while assuming the rôle of roguery, he had remained at heart an honest man. Now that he was caught, he took the exposure of his dishonesty too seriously.

Tabs had almost forgotten that he had been the last to speak, when Adair repeated his exact words, "Except Phyllis!" And then, "Poor kid! She, too, is unhappy."

Through the marshy obscurities of his humiliation his conscience was building a path. With his two hands he crushed his topper back onto his head. The act had the vehemence of decision. In the doing of it he dropped the roses to the floor. There they lay forgotten--so forgotten that he placed his foot on them without noticing.

"Home! Best be going home," he muttered.

Without further explanation, he drew back the latch and let himself out into the sunlit Court. Delaying long enough to pick up his hat and cane, Tabs followed.

Adair gave no sign of recognition as he caught up with him. Failing to hail a taxi, they boarded a bus. Tabs paid the fares. Adair sat like Napoleon after Waterloo, taking no notice of anything. It was the intensity of his thoughts that kept him silent--not moroseness.

They had reached Clapham Common and had come to his garden-gate, before he acknowledged Tabs' presence.

"I was a fool. I deserved it," he said sadly. "It's ended in exactly the way that any sane man would have expected."

Kicking the gate open, he passed up the path. From the Common Tabs watched him, till he was safely within the house and the door had shut.

As he turned away, he scarcely knew whether to laugh or feel vexed. The misfortunes of others can always be traced to folly; it is only our own misfortunes that are never deserved and never anything less than august. If Adair's love-affair had appeared ridiculous in his eyes, probably his own would afford materials for jest to some one else.

He couldn't forget the top-hat and the trampled roses. The ineffectualness of all passion loomed large. It might have its value as an educative process, but what a waste of energy! For the moment he drew no distinction between Adair's guilty hankering after something which was forbidden and his own honorable love for Terry. The end of all passion was futility.

Then he laughed, for in imagination he saw the world as a crestfallen caricature of George Grossmith, top-hatted and bespatted, wending its unfestive way through the centuries to an eternal garden-party, from which Adam and his lineage were forever debarred.

V

His exit from Mulberry Tree Court had been so hurried that he had had no time to make arrangements with Terry.

He had no sooner knocked than the door was opened by Maisie. He was slightly embarrassed at being brought face to face with her thus suddenly after the last scene that they had shared. He entered in a tentative manner, only just crossing the threshold, as though he had not much time to spare.

"I called in," he apologized, "because I thought you'd like to know what happened--and to fetch Terry."

"Of course." She spoke with a cheerfulness that astonished him. "I was expecting you." With that she led the way across the hall to the drawing-room.

Carrying his hat, he followed. He clung to his hat purposely; it would serve as a reminder that he had not come to stay long. She was on the point of seating herself, when she spotted it. "Oh, how rude of me!" In the twinkling of an eye she had deprived him of it and vanished. "Captured once more!" he thought.

During the few seconds that she was gone, he looked about him. Everything was as it had been yesterday. A companionable fire glowed in the grate. On a table beside the couch tea was spread. Even as yesterday, the nearest chair to the couch was at least six feet away, making it necessary for any one who did not wish to appear boorish to share the couch with her. There was something else that he had noticed on entering: while he had been away she had made a complete change of toilet. She was now dressed in a filmy gown of emerald green, with shoes, stockings and buckles to match. It was a gown so _chic_ that, had he been a woman, he would have guessed at once that it was the latest from Paquin's. Inasmuch as he was a man, his sole comment was, "Plucky little thorough-bred! You don't catch her owning that she's down." The emerald shade brought out all the values of her coloring, the faint rose of her complexion, the daffodil gold of her flaxen hair. He had expected to be bored by a Magdalene repentant; instead he had found himself confronted by a challenging young Diana. His admiration went out to her for her courage.

Having come back and resettled herself on the couch, she smiled up at him through flickering lashes. "A nice frock, don't you think? Nothing like a new frock after a knock-out for restoring your self-respect."

"It's a charming frock. Where's Terry?"

She clasped her small hands about her knees, leaning her head far back so that her eyes glinted up at his languidly. Perhaps it was necessary to do that in order to see him properly. He was still standing. And yet her attitude served another purpose; it called attention to the firm young lines of her bust and throat, and to the voluptuous curve of her lips, parted in patient expectancy.

"Terry!" Her voice sounded drowsy. "I forgot. I ought to have given you her message. She couldn't stop. She had another engagement."

"An engagement!" He was dumbfounded. "That's strange! She never said anything---- Are you sure she didn't invent it?"

"Certain." Maisie sat up fully awake now. "Quite positive. But she had made up her mind not to keep it till, through no fault of yours, you gave her the chance. You don't want to believe that; it sounds as though she had cheated. You don't know much about women, Lord Taborley. You don't know because you refuse to learn. You're determined, in the face of every proof to the contrary, to live and die in the faith that we're angels." She shook her finger at him. He was amused to discover that he was being scolded. "Angels! We're far from it. We're very much like you men, with this difference, that we're cowards. What you need--this may sound entirely wrong--is a good sensible woman to take you in hand, and give you a run for your money, and teach you your own value. Why, with your position and charm----"

"You must excuse my interrupting. Of course it all depends on what you mean by a run for my money. But are there many good and sensible women who are game for an adventure of that sort?"

"Heaps of them," she assured him, imitating his mock seriousness. "The more outwardly good and sensible, the more inwardly they're willing."

"Humph!" He pretended to be pondering this gem of information. And then, "But you have to own, Mrs. Lockwood, that Terry's not----"

She blocked his protest with a gay little laugh. "I make no exceptions. Terry's exactly like the rest of us--younger and more innocent looking, no doubt, but just as imperfect. As regards this engagement of hers, she breathed no word of it until you had gone. Then she began to flirt with the idea that she might be able to keep it. At last she couldn't resist the temptation any longer. Out she came with it, that she must be going. I'd lay a wager I could name the person with whom----"

"You'd lose your wager."

"I think not." She met the threatened tempest in his eyes with calmness.

"Would you give a name to this person?"

"Where's the good?" She shrugged her dainty shoulders. "We both know it? Steely Jack. Isn't that what you call him?"

Instantly she leant forward. Her whole instinct was to touch him. She hadn't intended to hurt him like that. He looked so defiant, and gaunt and deserted--such a huge, scarred boy of a man. He reminded her of one of those early war-posters, in which a solitary figure was depicted, knee-deep in barbed wire, head bandaged, hurling the last of his bombs.

"Please don't be angry," she pleaded. "I was clumsy; but I was trying to help. When you helped me yesterday, you too were clumsy. You can't put on a new frock, worse luck, the way I've done, to restore your self-respect. But I do wish you'd buy a new something--a new race-horse or a new car--I don't care what as long as it would make you swank. A little swanking would do you all the good in the world; it would keep Terry from knowing how much you care. Terry's not half good enough for you; one day you'll acknowledge it. Still, if you really do think you want her, you can bring her to heel any moment by putting on an indifferent air. Look how jealously she flared up at me at lunch. It makes a woman furious to see her rejections picked up as treasures by another woman. The only reason why Terry brought you here to-day was to see for herself just how deep an impression we'd made on each other."

At last she mustered the courage to touch him. Reaching out, she took his hand and drew him to her. He stood against her knees, looking down.

Her voice was tender. "Some one had to say these things to you, just as you had to say things to me that weren't altogether pleasant. So why shouldn't I to you? After all, we're both in the same box, and the box is labeled NOT WANTED. It pains me to see a man like you, wasting himself on a girl who hasn't the sense to appreciate what he's offering." She raised her eyes to his with a slow smile. "Don't mistake me, Lord Taborley, I'm not trying to secure what you're offering for myself."

He began to see the drift of her argument. Before he could formulate it, she herself had put it into words. "Can't we do a little missionary work, you and I, by appreciating each other just a little?"

Flinging prejudices to the winds, he took a place beside her on the couch. Why shouldn't he? Why should he go on conserving himself so scrupulously for a girl who didn't value his loyalty?

"I should consider it a privilege to be appreciated by you," he said gravely. "But let's start properly. How about dinner at the Berkeley? After that, if you felt like it, we could do a theatre. Would that suit you?"

* * * * *

It was close on midnight when they returned to Mulberry Tree Court. Not until he was handing her out of the taxi and Porter was standing framed in the open doorway, did he remember that he'd imparted none of his important news concerning Adair.

"About Adair----" he commenced. "Or shall I put him off till to-morrow?"

"Till forever." As her feet touched the pavement, she swung around on him with laughter. They had been very happy in the last six hours. She pressed close against him. He caught the sparkle of her eyes as he stooped above her and the faint, sweet fragrance of her hair. She rested an ungloved hand on his arm. It looked dim like a large white moth that had settled there.

"I have few principles to guide me," she whispered, "but the few that I have I observe. I never dig up my dead and I never botanize on the graves of the past. Good-night. Merry dreams to you, Lord Taborley."

With the suddenness of a phantom she went from him. There were a brief few seconds while he heard the ripple of her laughter and the rustling of her dress. Then the door closed. Save for the lamps of the waiting taxi night was again eventless and dark.

VI

That evening was the first of many such adventures. His tall limping figure became a familiar sight in Mulberry Tree Court.

Very early in their friendship he took her advice and delighted her by purchasing a smart two-seater runabout which he drove himself. Sometimes it was at her door shortly after breakfast to transport her to where saddle-horses were waiting in the Park. Sometimes it would turn up about lunch-time and stand impatiently chugging while she changed into sport's clothes, after which it would dash away with her, humming contentedly, into the depths of the country. It was the magic-carpet which obeyed all her desires. After war-days, with their petrol shortages and restricted travel, it seemed more than ordinarily magic. It made emphatic as nothing else could have done, the freedom and serenity which peace had restored. The very fleetness of its obedience prompted her to urge Tabs to take her farther and ever farther afield. There were evenings when they dined within sight of the sea beneath the red roofs of Rye and started back for London across the Sussex downs, driving straight into the eye of the sunset. There were afternoons when they drifted over the Chiltern hills to where the spires and domes of Oxford rise, placid as masts of a sunken ship in an encroaching sea of greenness.

But it was most frequently nearing midnight when the quiet of the secluded Court was wakened by the merry buzzing of the engine. At first it would come from far away, drowsily like the song of a belated bee. Then it would gather in volume and grow more lively, till it panted round the little village-green and quavered into silence in front of Maisie's door. Porter, with the gold light of the hall behind her, would always be there on the threshold to receive her mistress. It was difficult to guess what Porter thought. There were impromptu jaunts to theaters and dances. Porter had seen many gay beginnings and tearful endings. Her face was immobile and respectful at whatever hour he called.

It was a curious friendship that had developed between them--a friendship which lived from hand to mouth, which had the appearance of being more than a friendship, in which nothing was premeditated. Nothing could be premeditated so far as he was concerned. Terry had first call on all his leisure--not that she availed herself of it very often; nevertheless, he held himself in readiness to break every engagement for her. Maisie was his consolation prize when Terry had failed. Maisie was not deceived as to the spare-man place that she held in his affections. She was painfully aware that at any moment their friendship might end as abruptly as it had started. On either side it was based on a common need for kindness, a common tenderness and a common desire for protection from loneliness. In a sense they were each a substitute for something postponed and more satisfying. While he was making up to her for the loss of Adair, she was trying to save him from the rashness of committing himself too fatally to Terry. They were altruists, actuated by self-interested motives.