"And the money?" asked Irene, in a low whisper. She had seated herself again, and was looking before her into the fireplace.
"He came for money; he had to have it if he was to go. Ashley asked me for it. I gave it him."
"As a loan? He sent it back."
"I didn't mean it as a loan. But, as you say, he's sent it back."
"Why?"
"Because he didn't want her to be indebted to me for it." His bitterness cropped out in his tone; he had desired a share in the work which Ashley would not give him. He must have forgotten his wife for the moment, or he would have kept that bitterness out of his voice; indeed for the moment he seemed to have forgotten her, as he leant his head on his hand and stared gloomily at the floor.
"So we gave him the money, and he went away again." She was silent. "You wouldn't wonder so much if you'd seen him."
"I don't wonder," she said. "I haven't seen him, but I don't wonder. And you never told her?"
"No, I never told her."
"Nor Ashley Mead?"
"No, he's never told her, either. And you mustn't." For an instant his tone was rigidly imperative.
In spite of the tone she seemed to pay no heed to the last words.
"You kept it all from her?" she asked again.
"Yes," he said. "Does that seem very wrong to you?"
"Oh, I don't know," she groaned.
"Or very strange?" he asked, turning his head and looking towards her.
She rose to her feet suddenly, walked to the mantel-piece, and stood there with her back towards him.
"No," she said, "not very strange. It's only what I knew before. It's not strange." She turned round and faced him; she was rather pale, but she smiled a little.
"I knew all the time that you were in love with her too," she said. "Of course you wouldn't let the man go near her!"
Bowdon raised his eyes to his wife's face. She turned away again.
"I knew it when I made you propose to me," she said.
It may safely be said that, had Bowdon's wife been such as Ora Pinsent, or Bowdon himself of the clay of which Ora was made, the foregoing conversation would not have stopped where it did, nor with the finality which in fact marked its close. It would have been lengthened, resumed, and elaborated; its dramatic possibilities in the way of tragedy and comedy (it was deficient in neither line) would have been developed; properly and artistically handled, it must have led to something. But ordinary folk, especially perhaps ordinary English folk, make of their lives one grand waste of dramatic possibilities, and as things fell out the talk seemed to lead to nothing. When Irene had made her remark about knowing that her husband was in love with Ora even when she induced him to propose to herself, she stood a moment longer by the mantel-piece and then went upstairs, as her custom was; he held the door open for her, as his custom was; sat down again, drank a small glass of cognac, and smoked a cigar, all as his custom was; in about half an hour he joined her in the drawing-room and they talked about the house they were going to take in Scotland for the autumn. Neither then nor in the days that followed was any reference made to this after-dinner conversation, nor to the startling way in which the hidden hadbecome open, the veil been for a moment lifted, and the thing which was between them declared and recognised. The dramatic possibilities were, in fact, absolutely neglected and thrown away; to all appearance the conversation might never have taken place, so little effect did it seem to have, so absolutely devoid of result it seemed to be. It was merely that for ever there it was, never to be forgotten, always to form part of their consciousness, to define permanently the origin of their relations to one another, to make it quite plain how it was that they came to be passing their lives together. That it did all these not unimportant things and yet never led to another acute situation or striking scene shews how completely the dramatic possibilities were thrown away.
It did not even alter Irene's resolve of going to see Ora Pinsent. To acquiesce in existing facts appeared the only thing left to do so far as she herself was concerned: but the facts might still be modified for others; this was what she told herself. Besides this feeling, she was impelled by an increased curiosity, a new desire to see again and to study the woman who had been the occasion of this conversation, who had united her husband and her friend in a plot and made them both sacrifice more than money because they would not have Jack Fenning come near her. We are curious when we are jealous; where lies the power, what is the secret of the strength which conquers us?
The scene in the little house at Chelsea was very much the same as Alice Muddock had once chanced on there. Sidney Hazlewood and Babba Flint were with Ora; after a swift embrace Ora resumed her talk with them. The talk was of tours, triumphs, and thousands; the masterpiece was finished; it bulged nobly in Babba's pocket, type-written, in brown covers, withpink ribbons to set off its virgin beauty. On the table lay a large foolscap sheet, fairly written; this was an agreement, ready for Ora's signature; when it had received that, it would be, as Hazlewood was reminding Ora, an agreement. Ora was struck anew with the unexpectedness of this result of merely writing one's name, and shewed a disinclination to take the decisive step. She preferred to consider tour, triumphs, and thousands as hypothetical delights; she got nearly as much enjoyment out of them and was bound to nothing. Babba smoked cigarettes with restless frequency and nervous haste; a horse and cart could almost have been driven along the wrinkle on Mr. Hazlewood's brow. He looked sixty, if he looked a day, that afternoon. Irene sat unnoticed, undisturbed, with the expression in her eyes which a woman wears when she is saying, "Yes, I suppose it would be so; I suppose men would. I don't feel it myself, but I understand how it would be." The expression is neither of liking nor of dislike; it is of unwilling acquiescence in a fact recognised but imperfectly comprehended. The presence of the power is admitted, the source but half discovered; the analysis of a drug need not be complete before we are able to discern its action.
"I won't sign to-day," said Ora. "I might change my mind."
"Good Lord, don't!" cried Babba, seizing another cigarette.
"That's just why we want you to sign to-day," said Hazlewood, passing his hand over his forehead in a vain effort to obliterate the wrinkle.
"Then you'd bring an action against me!" exclaimed Ora indignantly.
"Without a doubt—and win it," said Hazlewood.
"I hate agreements. I hate being committed to things. Oh, do give me a cigarette!"
After all, was it not strange that both the men should have done what they had for her? Was there not a touch of vulgarity in her? To the jealous eyes of a woman, perhaps. "But men don't see that," thought Irene Bowdon as she sat on the sofa; she was in that favourite seat of her hostess', by the little table, the portrait in its silver frame, and the flower-vase that once had hidden the letter from Bridgeport, Connecticut.
There was more in Ora's mood than her natural indecision, or her congenital dislike of being bound, or her ingrained dread of agreements which were agreements. The men did not see this; what do men see? But the observant woman on the sofa saw it. The power of the tour, the triumphs, and the thousands was fought by another power; the battle raged in the heart of the woman who would not sign, who chaffed and laughed and protested petulantly, who put off her persuaders by any art or device her beauty excused or her waywardness furnished, who would say neither yes nor no. The conflict declared itself in her nervous laughs, in her ridiculous puffings at an ill-used cigarette, in the air of attention which seemed to expect or hope for a new arrival, perhaps somebody to rescue her, to decide for her, to take the burden of choice from the shoulders that she shrugged so deprecatingly.
"It's awful to go wandering about over there for months," she said. "I hate you both, oh, how I hate you both!"
"The part—" began Babba.
"Do be quiet. I know it's a lovely part," cried Ora. Then she turned suddenly to Irene and began to laugh. "Don't tell anybody how silly I am, Irene,"she said, and she looked at the clock again with that expectant hopeful air.
"It's now or never," declared Mr. Hazlewood, with much solemnity.
"Oh, nonsense!" said Ora peevishly. "It's now or to-morrow; and to-morrow will do just as well."
Hazlewood and Babba exchanged glances. After all, to-morrow would be just in time; they had wrestled long with her to-day.
"If you'll take your Bible oath to settle one way or the other to-morrow—" Babba began.
"I will, I will, oh, of course I will," Ora interrupted, infinite joy and relief lighting up her face. "I shall know quite well by to-morrow. Do go now, there's good men. I'll settle it all in five minutes to-morrow."
"Mind you do," said Babba, looking round for his hat. Hazlewood had his and was staring at the crown of it; a coach and four might have hazarded passage along the wrinkle now.
"You'll be just the same to-morrow," he observed, hardly reproachfully, but with an air of sad knowledge.
"I shan't," said Ora indignantly. "If you think that of me, I wonder you have anything to do with me. Oh, but I suppose I'm useful! Nobody cares for me—only just for the use I am to them!"
Both men smiled broadly; greatly to her surprise and disgust Irene found herself exchanging what she was obliged to call a grin with Babba Flint; she had not expected to live to do that.
"That's just it, Miss Pinsent," said Babba. "You ain't clever, and you ain't pleasant, and you ain't pretty; but the fool of a public happens to like you, so we've all got to pretend you are; and we mean to work you to the last tanner, don't you know?"
Mr. Hazlewood smiled sardonically; he did not admire Babba's wit.
"This time to-morrow then," said Ora, ringing the bell. "Oh, and take your agreement with you; I won't have the odious thing here." She flung it at Babba, who caught it cleverly. "I couldn't live in the room with it," she said.
Ora waited till she heard the house door shut upon her visitors. "Thank goodness!" she cried then, as she sank into a chair opposite Irene. "How good of you to come and see me," she went on.
Irene was hard on her search; she did not allow herself to be turned aside by mere civilities, however charming might be the cordiality with which they were uttered.
"Are you really going to America?" she asked.
Ora's face grew plaintive again; she thought that she had got rid of that question till the next day.
"Oh, I suppose so. Yes. I don't know, I'm sure." She leant forward towards her friend. "I suppose you're awfully happy, aren't you, Irene?"
Irene smiled; she had no intention of casting doubts on her bliss in her present company.
"Then do be kind to me, because I'm awfully miserable. Now you're looking as if you were going to tell me it was my own fault. Please don't, dear. That doesn't do any good at all."
"Not the least I'm sure, to you," said Irene Bowdon.
Ora scanned her friend's face anxiously and timidly. She was speculating on the amount of sympathy to be expected; she knew that on occasion Irene could be almost as unjust as Alice Muddock. She was afraid that Irene would break out on her. Irene was in no such mood; coldly, critically, jealously observant, shewaited for this woman to throw new lights on herself, to exhibit the kind of creature she was, to betray her weakness and to explain her power.
"Can't you make up your mind whether to go or not?" she asked with a smile.
"If you only knew what going means to me!" cried Ora. Suddenly she rose and flung herself on her knees beside her friend. Irene had an impulse to push her away; but she sat quite still and suffered Ora to take her hand. "You see, he can't come with me," Ora went on, with a pathetic air which seemed to bemoan the wanton impossibility of what might, had it been so disposed, have been quite possible.
"Who can't go with you? Mr. Mead?"
"Yes, Ashley; who else could I mean?"
"Well, I don't suppose he can." Irene gave a short laugh.
"No," said Ora resentfully. "He can't, you see." She looked up in Irene's face. "At least I suppose he can't?" she said in a coaxing voice; then dreariness conquered and reigned in her whole air as she added mournfully, "Anyhow, I'm sure he won't."
"I hope to goodness he won't," said Irene Bowdon.
Ora drew a little away, as though surprised; then she nodded and smiled faintly.
"I knew you'd say that," she remarked.
"What in the world else should I say?" Irene demanded.
"Nothing, I suppose," sighed Ora. "It would be quite out of the question, wouldn't it?"
"Quite," said Irene, and shut her lips close as the one word left them. Her patience was failing. There were two possible things, to be respectable, and not to be respectable; but there was no such third course as Ora seemed to expect to have found for her.
"Of course if I give up the tour," said Ora, in a meditative tone, "things could go on as they are."
"Could they?" cried Irene. "Oh, I don't know how they are, and I don't want to ask. Well, then, I suppose I don't believe the worst or I shouldn't be here; but almost everybody does, and if you go on much longer quite everybody will."
"I don't mind a bit about that," remarked Ora. Her tone was simple and matter-of-fact; she was neither making a confession nor claiming a merit. "How can I be expected to? I lost all feeling of that sort when Jack didn't come. He was the person who ought to have cared, and he didn't care enough to come when I said he might."
The reference to Mr. Fenning touched Irene's wound, and it smarted again. But she was loyal to her husband's injunction and gave no hint which might disturb Ora's certainty that Jack Fenning had not come.
"I think you'd better go away before you've quite ruined Ashley Mead's life," she said in cold and deliberate tones; "and before you've ruined yourself too, if you care about that."
She expected to be met by one of Ora's old pitiful protests against harsh and unsympathetic judgments; the look in Ora's eyes a little while ago had foreshadowed such an appeal. But it did not come now. Ora regarded her with a faint smile and brows slightly raised.
"I don't see," she said, "how all sorts of different people can be expected all to behave in exactly the same way."
"What's that got to do with it?" asked Irene irritably.
"Well, that's what it comes to, if you listen to what people say."
"Do you mean if you listen to what I say?"
"Yes," said Ora, with a smile, "you and Miss Muddock and all the rest of them. And I suppose you've made Lord Bowdon as bad by now? I'm not going to think about it any more." She shook her head as though to clear away these mists of conventional propriety. "If people can be happy anyhow, why shouldn't they?" she added.
"I believe," said Irene, "that you really think you're coming to a new resolution. As if you'd ever thought of anything except what you liked!"
Ora shook her head again, this time in gentle denial; memories of infinite sacrifices to the Ideal rose before her; for example, there was the recalling of her husband. But she would not argue as to her own merits; she had ceased to expect justice or to hope for approbation.
"It's all no use," she said despondently. "I may say what I like, but he won't come." Again she spoke as though she would not give up the tour and would sign the agreement on the morrow, and would do this although she knew that Ashley would not come. Then they would separate! To her own sheer amazement and downright shame Irene Bowdon felt a sharp pang of sorrow; for Ora looked puzzled and forlorn, as though she did what she could not help and suffered keenly at the price she had to pay. Their eyes met, and Ora divined the newly born sympathy. "You are sorry for me, aren't you?" she murmured, stretching her hands out towards her friend.
"Yes," said Irene, with a laugh. "I actually am." She was beginning to understand the transaction which had sent Jack Fenning away richer by a thousand pounds.
"I know you'd help me if you could," Ora went on, "but nobody can; that's the worst of it." She paused for a moment, and then remarked with a mournful smile, "And suppose Babba's wrong and the play does no good after all!"
Irene's warmth of feeling was chilled; she did not understand the glamour of the play so well as she appreciated the pathos of the parting. The strength of the tie came home to her, the power which fought against it was beyond her experience or imagination.
"I wonder you can think about the play at all," she said.
"Oh, you've no idea what a part it is for me!" cried Ora. But her plea sounded weak, even flippant, to Irene; she condemned it as the fruit of vanity and the sign of shallowness. Ora caused in others changes of mood almost as quick as those she herself suffered.
"Well, if you go because you like the part, you can't expect me to be very sorry for you. It's a very good thing you should go; and your part will console you for—for what you leave behind."
Ora made no answer; her look of indecision and puzzle had returned; it was useless to try to make another understand what she herself failed to analyse. But as the business drew Alice Muddock, so the play drew her; and the business had helped to turn Alice's heart from Ashley Mead. He had not been able there to conquer what was in the blood and mingled its roots with the roots of life. No thought of a parallel came to Irene Bowdon; any point of likeness between the two women or their circumstances would have seemed to her impossible and the idea of it absurd; they were wide asunder as the poles. What she did dimly feel was the fashion in which Ashley seemed to stand midwaybetween them, within hearing of both and yet divided from each; she approached the conclusion that he was not really made for either, because he had points which likened him to both. But this was little more than a passing gleam of insight; she fell back on the simpler notion that after all Ashley and Ora could not be so very much in love with one another. If they were victims of the desperate passion she had supposed, one or other or both would give up everything else in the world. They were both shallow then; and probably they would do nothing very outrageous. Relief, disappointment, almost scorn, mingled together in her as she arrived at this conclusion.
"I'm sure you and Mr. Mead will end by being sensible," she said to Ora, with a smile which was less friendly than she wished it to appear. "You've been very foolish, but you both seem to see that it can't go on." She leant forward and looked keenly at Ora.
"Well?" said Ora, put on her defence by this scrutiny.
"Do you really care much about him? I wonder if you could really care much about anybody!" She was rather surprised to find herself speaking so openly about an attachment which her traditions taught her should be sternly ignored; but she was there to learn what the woman was like.
"I don't love people often, but I love Ashley," was Ora's answer; it was given with her own blend of intensity and innocence. To Irene Bowdon, even armoured as she was in prejudice, it carried conviction. "It'll almost kill me to go away from him."
"You'll forget all about him."
"Should I be any happier if I believed that? Should you be happier for thinking that you'd stop loving your husband?"
"If I had to lose him—" Irene began.
"No, no, no," insisted Ora; her eyes were full of tears. "Oh, you don't understand, how can you understand? I suppose you think it's Jack? I tell you it would be the same if Jack had never existed. No, I don't know. But anyhow it would be the same if he didn't exist now." She began to walk about the room, her hands clasped tight on one another.
As she spoke the door opened and Ashley came in. Irene started, but did not move: she had not wished to see them together; the sight of their meeting revived her disapprobation; the thing, being made palpable, became again offensive to her. But escape was impossible. Ora seemed entirely forgetful of the presence of any onlooker; she ran straight to Ashley, crying his name, and caught him by both his hands. He looked across at Irene, then raised Ora's hands in his and kissed each of them. He seemed tired.
"I'm late," he said. "I've had a busy day." He released Ora and came towards Irene. "They've actually taken to sending me briefs! How are you, Lady Bowdon?"
"And the briefs keep him from me," said Ora; she was standing now in the middle of the room.
"Yes," he said with a smile at her. "The world's a very selfish thing; it wants a big share." He paused a moment, and went on, "I smell much tobacco; who's been here?"
"Sidney Hazlewood and Babba," Ora answered. "They came about the play. They want me to sign the agreement to-morrow."
"Ah, yes," he said wearily. "They're very persistent gentlemen. Your husband all right, Lady Bowdon?"
"Quite, thanks." Irene rose. She had a desire to get away. She did not follow the lines of the play nor understand the point of the tragedy; but the sight of them together made her sure that there was a tragedy, and she did not wish to see it played. In the first place, that there should be a tragedy was all wrong, and her presence must not sanction it; in the second place, the tragedy looked as if it might be intolerably distressing and must be utterly hopeless. They would find no way out; his weariness declared that as plainly as the helplessness of Ora's puzzled distress. Irene decided to go home; she would be better there; for although she had her own little tragedy, she could keep it safely under lock and key. The secret purpose of her visit stood accomplished; if she had realised Ora in distress, she would have sorrowed to send Jack Fenning back to her. The difference between doing it with sorrow and refusing to do it altogether was no greater than might be expected between a woman and men in such a case. To have got thus far without having seen Mr. Fenning must stand for an achievement to Lady Bowdon's credit.
Ora let her go without resistance. At the last Irene was full of friendly feeling, but of feeling that here was the end of a friendship. By one way or another Ora was drifting from her; they would not see much more of one another. Perhaps it had never been natural that they should see much of one another; atoms from different worlds, they had met fortuitously; the chance union yielded now before the dissolving force of their permanent connexions. But even such meetings leave results, and Ora, passing out of her friend's life as a presence, would not be forgotten; she left behind her the effect that she had had, the difference that she had made. She could never be forgotten; she would onlybe unmentioned and ignored; there must be many minutes in which Irene would think of her and know that she was in Bowdon's thoughts also. The way of things seemed to be that people should come into one's life, do something to it, and then go away again; the coming was not their fault, what they did seemed hardly their own doing. She was no longer angry with Ora; she was sorry for Ora, and she was sorry for herself. Was there not some wantonness somewhere? Else why had Ora's raid on her little treasure-house come about? It had done harm to her, and no good to Ora. But she kissed Ora with fondness as she left her.
"I'm glad to find you here," said Ashley, as he escorted her downstairs. "It shews you don't believe the gossip about her—about her and me."
Irene turned to him, but made no comment.
"Oh, I don't know that there's any particular credit to anybody in the gossip not being true; still as a fact it isn't true. She hasn't got you here on false pretences."
Irene seemed now not to care whether the gossip were true or not. She did not get into her carriage, but detained Ashley on the doorstep.
"What are you going to do?" she asked.
"Haven't you talked about it to Ora?" he enquired.
"Yes, but Ora doesn't know what to do." She was possessed with a longing to tell him that she knew about Jack Fenning, but her loyalty to Bowdon still restrained her.
Ashley looked at her; his face struck her again as being very tired and fretted, but it wore his old friendly smile; he seemed to take her into his confidence and to appeal to a common knowledge as he answered her.
"Oh, you know, she'll go to America," he said. "It'll end in that."
"Does she want to go?" asked Irene.
His eyes dwelt steadily on hers and he nodded his head. "Yes, she wants to go," he said, smiling still. "She doesn't know it, poor dear, but she wants to go."
"She'd stop if you told her!" exclaimed Irene impulsively. How came she to make such a suggestion? She spent half the evening trying to discover.
"Yes, that's so too," he said.
"And—and of course you can't go with her?"
"I shan't go with her," said Ashley. "I can't, if you like to put it that way."
She pressed him; her curiosity would not be satisfied.
"You don't want to go?" she asked.
His answer was very slow in coming this time, but he faced the question at last.
"No," he said, "I don't want to go." He paused, glanced at her again, and again smiled. "So, you see, we shall both have what we really like, and there's no reason to pity us, is there, Lady Bowdon?"
Then she got into her carriage, and, as she shook hands with him, she said,
"Well, I don't know that you're worse off than a good many other people."
"I don't know that we are," said Ashley.
And, as she went home, she added that they had themselves to thank for their troubles, whereas the greater part of hers could not fairly be laid at her own door. "If that makes it any better, you know," she murmured, half aloud.
But perhaps one minded to deal with her as faithfully as she thought that Ora should be dealt with, might have observed that not to become Lady Bowdon had once been a thing in her power.
THE CONTRACT PUNCTILIOUSLY SIGNED BY ALL THE PARTIES, AND WITNESSED BY JANET THE MAID ... THEY HAD OPENED A BOTTLE OF CHAMPAGNE
The bargain was struck, the agreement made, the contract punctiliously signed by all the parties, and witnessed by Janet the maid. There were two copies; Mr. Hazlewood had one, Ora the other; Babba possessed himself of a memorandum. They had opened a bottle of champagne and drunk success to the enterprise; prospective triumphs, thousands, fame, bubbled out into the glasses. Babba was wildly hilarious, and vulgar with a profusion of debased phrases beyond even his wont. Mr. Hazlewood smoothed his brow provisionally; he knew that it must wrinkle again many times ere the tour was done and the thousands pocketed. Ora talked very fast, smoked two cigarettes, and darted to and fro about the room, restless as quicksilver, utterly refusing to take her seat on the sofa. The arrangements suspended during her days of indecision could now swiftly be put in working order; men waited for the word at the end of cables and telephones across the Atlantic. The announcements needed only the final touches of Babba's practised pen; the berths on the boat would be booked before to-morrow's sun rose. The thing was settled; beyond all other agreements, this agreement was an agreement; beyond all other undertakings, this undertaking bound them all. For they were launched on a great venture and none could now draw back. It hadended in Ora's consenting to go, as Ashley Mead had said it would.
Babba Flint and Sidney Hazlewood were gone; Janet, who also had drunk a glass of champagne, had withdrawn below again; it was very quiet in the drawing-room of the little house in Chelsea. Ora was in her seat now, by the small table, the portrait, and the vase of fresh roses which from day to day were never wanting. She lay back there, looking at the ceiling with wide-opened eyes; she did not move except when her fingers plucked fretfully at a trimming of lace on her gown; she was thinking what she had done, what it came to, what it would end in. She remembered her uncomfortable talk with Ashley the day before, after Irene had gone, when he would not say "Sign," nor yet, "For God's sake, darling, don't sign, don't go, don't leave me;" but would only smile and say, "You want to go, don't you, Ora?" She had been able to say neither, "Yes, I want to go," nor yet, "For all the world I wouldn't leave you;" but had been perverse and peevish, and at last had sent him away with a petulant dismissal. But all the time they both had known that she would sign and that she would go, because things were setting irresistibly in that direction and it was impossible to say No to fate. Fate does not take denials; its invitations are courteously but persistently renewed. So now she had signed and she was going.
Of course it meant much more than appeared on the surface; she had felt that even at the moment, in spite of Babba's jokes and Hazlewood's business-like attitude. When she was left alone, the feeling came on her in tenfold strength; the drama of her action started to light, its suppressed meaning became manifest, all its effects unrolled themselves before her. Yet how shortly allcould be put; she was going away from Ashley Mead; the sweet companionship was to be broken. Did such things come twice, could threads so dropped ever be picked up again? But all this happened by her own act. She faced the charge with a denial that there was more than the most superficial of truths in it. She had not been able to help her action; it was hers in a sense, no doubt, but it was the action of a self over which not she as she knew herself, but this mysterious irresistible bent of things, held control. And the control was very tyrannous. Ashley was bound too; for in all the uncomfortable talk there had been never a suggestion that he should come with her; for both of them that had become an impossibility not to be taken into account. As things would have it, he could not go and she could not stay. There assailed her such a storm of fear and horror as had beset her once before, when her fine scheme of renunciation and reformation was shattered by the little hard fact that the train drew near to the station and in ten minutes Ashley would be gone and Jack Fenning come. She caught Ashley's picture and kissed it passionately; then she laid her head down on the cushions and began to sob. She knew now what she had done; she had driven Ashley out of her life, and life without him was not worth having. How had she been so mad as to sign, to deliver herself bound hand and foot to these men who only wanted to make money out of her, to think that any triumph could console her for the loss of her love? Was it too late, would not a telegram undo all that had been done? She sat up with a sudden abrupt movement; should she write one? They might send her to prison, she supposed, or anyhow make her pay a lot of money. They would think she used them very badly. Oh, whatwas all that? They could get somebody else to play her part—
Why, so they could! Anybody would be glad to play that part; it might bring new treasure of glory to the great—sweet strange fame to one yet unknown. Ora's sobs were for a moment stayed; she sat looking straight in front of her.
Ah, how hard things were! How they harassed, how they tortured, how they tore one asunder! She lay back and sobbed again, now not so passionately, but more gently, yet despairingly. So tragic a guise may sometimes be assumed by such homely truths as that you cannot blow both hot and cold, that you can't eat your cake and have it, and that you must in the end decide whether you will go out by the door or by the window.
She had told Ashley to come to her again that day to hear her decision. It was the appointed hour, and she began to listen for his tread with fear. For he would think that she did not love him, and she did love him; he would say that she wanted to go, and she loathed going; he would tell her all her going meant, and she knew all it meant. It would be between them as it had been yesterday, and worse. Alas, that she should have to fear the sound of Ashley's foot! Ah, that she could throw herself into his arms, saying, "Ashley, I won't go!" Then the sweet companionship and days in the country could come again, all could be forgotten in joy, and the existence of to-morrow be blotted out.
And Mr. Hazlewood and Babba would get somebody else to play the part—the great, great part.
There was the tread. She heard and knew it, and sat up to listen to it, her lips parted and her eyes wide; marked it till it reached the very door, but didnot rise to meet it. She would sit there and listen to all that he said to her.
He came in smiling; that seemed strange; he walked up to her and greeted her cheerily; she glanced at him in frightened questioning.
"So you've arranged it?" he said, sitting down opposite to her.
"How do you know, Ashley?"
"Oh, I should know, anyhow," he answered, laughing; "but I met Babba singing a song in Piccadilly—rather loud it sounded—and he stopped to tell me."
"Oh," she murmured nervously. That he had come to know in this way seemed an anti-climax, a note which jarred the tragic harmony; she would have told him in a tempest of tears and self-reproach.
"You've done quite right," he went on. "It wasn't a chance to miss. I should have been a selfish brute if I'd wanted you to give it up. Besides—" He smiled and shrugged his shoulders. "Come, Ora," he went on, "don't look so sorrowful about it."
He was not as he had been the day before; the touch of mockery which she had seemed to see then was quite gone. He took her hand and caressed it gently.
"Poor dear," he said, "making up your mind always upsets you so terribly, doesn't it?"
"It's going away from you," she whispered, and her grasp fixed tightly on his hand.
"For a few months," he said.
"Don't you think that long?" she cried, her eyes growing reproachful; she had made up her mind that it was eternity.
"I don't mean to think it long, and you mustn't think it long," he said. "The time'll go like lightning. Get an almanac and ink out the days, as homesickboys do at school; it's quite consoling. And you'll have so much to do, so much to fill your thoughts."
"And you?"
"Oh, I shall jog along till you come back. I shall be there to meet you then. We'll come up to town together."
Was this really all? Was there no great, no final tragedy, after all? So it might seem from his quiet cheerful manner. Ora was bewildered, in a way disappointed, almost inclined to be resentful.
"It looks as if you didn't care so very much," she murmured; she tried to draw her hand away from his, but he held it fast. He shut his lips close for a moment, and then said, still very quietly,
"You mustn't think it means that, dear." On the last word his voice quivered, but he went on again. "It means a very long night; the sun won't rise again for ever so many months. But some day it will." She had turned her head away, and, as he made this confident declaration, a smile bent his lips for a moment, a smile not of amusement.
"Will it?" she asked, leaning towards him again, praying him to repeat his comforting words.
"Of course it will."
"And you won't forget me? Ashley, don't forget me!"
"Not likely, my dear," said he. "I think Miss Pinsent makes herself remembered."
"Because I shan't forget you, not for a moment," she said, fixing her eyes on his. "Oh, it's hard to leave you!"
She took up her handkerchief from the small table and dried her eyes. "Your picture will go with me everywhere," she said, lightly touching it. "But I shan't beable to have your roses, shall I? Would you like some tea, Ashley?"
"Very much indeed," said he.
After all, why not tea? There is nothing in tea necessarily inconsistent with tragedy; still her vague forecasts of this conversation had not included the taking of tea.
"Now show me your agreement," he said. "I must see that they've not done you."
As they had tea, they looked through the contract, clause by clause. On the whole Ashley was very well satisfied, although he suggested that one or two points might be modified in Ora's favour; she quite grasped what he put forward and thought that she would be able to obtain the concessions from her partners.
"I ought to make all I can, oughtn't I?" she asked. "I'm giving up so much to go."
"You ought to be as greedy as you possibly can," he assured her with a laugh. He wanted to prevent her from beginning to talk again of what she was giving up; what she would gain was a better topic; just as she must not think how long she would be away, but on the other hand how soon she would be back. We cannot control facts, but there is a limited choice of aspects in which we may regard them and present them for the consideration of our friends. In this little free field optimism and pessimism are allowed to play.
"You can always make me happy!" she sighed, leaning back.
"I know the way to do it, you see," he answered. He had decided that in this case the best way to do it was to let her go and play her part.
"Even when you're gone, I shan't be as miserable as I was before. You've made it all seem less—lessbig and less awful, you know. Every day will really be bringing me nearer to you again; even the first day! It'll begin directly, won't it? Oh, I shall cry, but now I shall be able to think of that too."
He was not deceiving her in anything like the grave manner in which he had deceived her concerning Jack Fenning, but he felt something of the same qualms. He did not yield an inch to them externally; he had made up his mind to cheat her into going happily; when once that was done, he thought she would soon grow happy; and if it were to be done, it should be done thoroughly. A few tears were inevitable, but they must be alleviated with smiles of hope.
"Directly you go away, you'll begin coming back, won't you? Really I almost wish you were gone already, Ora!"
She laughed at this whimsical idea, but agreed that the actual going would be the one irremediably black spot. Then she grew grave suddenly, as though an unwelcome thought had flashed into her mind.
"Ashley," she said, "suppose I—I meet Jack! He's over there, you know. What shall I do?"
"Oh, he won't bother you, I expect," Ashley assured her.
"But if he does? I shan't have you to take care of me, you know."
"If he does, you go straight to Hazlewood. He's a good fellow and knows his way about the world. He'll see you come to no harm and aren't victimised."
"Will he keep Jack away from me?"
"Yes, I think so. Take him into your confidence." Ashley smiled for a moment. "He'll know the sort of man Fenning is."
Ora seemed a good deal comforted.
"Yes, I like Sidney Hazlewood," she said. "He's awfully tiresome sometimes, but you feel that you can rely on him. He gives you an idea of strength, as if you could put yourself in his hands. Oh, but not so much as you do, of course! But then you won't be there."
"He'll look after you just as well as I should."
"Perhaps he will, as far as the actual thing goes," she admitted. Then she began to smile. "But—but I shan't like it so much from him."
"You never know that till you try," said Ashley, answering her smile with a cheerful smile.
"Oh, that's absurd," said Ora. "But I do think he'll stand by me." She leant forward and put her hand on his knee. "If I were in very, very great trouble and sent for you, would you come?"
"Yes," said Ashley, "I'd come then."
"Whatever you had to do? Whatever time it took? However far off I was?"
"Yes," he answered. "Anyhow I'd come. But you won't—" He hesitated for a moment. "You won't have any cause to send for me," he ended.
"Oh, but I should rather like one," she whispered, almost merrily.
He shook his head. "I shall come only if you're in very, very great trouble; otherwise you must depend on Hazlewood. But you won't be in trouble, and I don't think you'll have any bother about Fenning." For would not Mr. Fenning have the best of reasons for avoiding observation while Hazlewood was about? To Hazlewood he was Foster, and Miss Macpherson, by the dictates of politeness, Mrs. Foster.
It was in entire accord with the line of conduct which Ashley had laid down for himself that even now he saidno more of Jack Fenning, and nothing of what he had done about him or heard about him. He stood aside; he had determined not to take her life into his hands; he could not put his into hers; he would not, then, seek to shape events either for her or for himself; he would give her no information and urge on her no course. If she came across her husband, something would very likely happen; or again it was quite probable that nothing would occur except an unpleasant interview and the transference of some of Ora's earnings to Jack's pocket. Miss Macpherson might appear or she might not. Ashley had gone as far as he meant to go when he told Ora to look to Mr. Hazlewood if she were in any trouble. And if she should chance to want, or assent to, "nosings" being carried on, why, was not Babba Flint to be of the party? He dismissed all this from his mind, so far as he could. It was not part of Ora, but yet it hung about Ora; he hated it all because it hung about her, and would intrude sometimes into his thoughts of her. Why had such sordid things ever come near her? But they had, and they, as well as the play and the part, were a fence between her and him. The bitterness of this conclusion was nothing new; he had endured it before; he endured it again as he talked to her and coaxed her into going happily.
But amid all the complexities of reasons, of feelings, and of choices in which men live, there are moments when simplicity reasserts itself, and one thing swallows all others; joy or sorrow brings them. Then the meeting is everything; or again, there is nothing save the parting, and it matters nothing why we must part, or should part, or are parting. Not to be together overwhelms all the causes which forbid us to be together; the pain seems almost physical; people cannot sit stillwhen it is on them any more than when they have a toothache. Such a moment was not to be altogether evaded by any clever cheating of Ora into going happily. There were the inevitable tears from her; in him there was the fierce impulse after all to hold her, not to let her go, to do all that he was set not to do, by any and every means to keep her in hearing and sight and touch. For when she was gone what were touch and hearing and sight to do? They would all be useless and he, their owner, useless too. But of this in him she must see only so much as would assure her of his love and yet leave her to go happy. That she should go happy and still not doubt his love was the object at which he had to aim; the cost was present emptiness of his own life. But things have to be paid for, whether we are furnishing our own needs or making presents to our friends; the ultimate destination of the goods does not change a farthing in the bill.
His last hour with her seemed to set itself, whether in indulgence or in irony he could not decide, to focus and sum up all that she had been to him, to shew all the moods he knew, the ways he loved, the changes that he had traced with so many smiles. She wept, she laughed, she hummed a tune; she took offence and offered it; she flirted and she prayed for love; she held him at arm's length, only to fall an instant later into his arms; she said she should never see him again, and then decided at what restaurant they would dine together on the evening of reunion; she waxed enthusiastic about the part, and then cried that all parts were the same to her since he would not be in the theatre. To be never the same was to be most herself. Yet out of all this variety, in spite of her relapses into tragedy, the clear conclusion formed itself in his mind that shewas going happy, at least excited, interested, eager, and not frightened nor utterly desolate. Yet at the last she hung about him as though she could not go; and at the last—he had prayed that this might be avoided—there came back into her eyes the puzzled, alarmed, doubtful look, and with it the reproach which seemed to ask him what he was doing with her, to say that after all it was his act, that he was master, and that when she gave herself into his hands no profession of abdication could free him from his responsibility. If it were so, the burden must be borne; the delusion under which she went must not be impaired.
The last scene came on a misty morning at Waterloo Station; it had been decided that he should part from her there, should hand her over to the men who wanted to make money out of her, and so go his ways. The place was full of people; Babba chattered volubly in the intervals of rushing hither and thither after luggage, porters, friends, provisions, playing-cards, remembering all the things he had forgotten, finding that he had forgotten all that he meant to remember. Hazlewood, a seasoned traveller, smoked a cigar and read the morning paper, waiting patiently till his man should put him in the reserved corner of his reserved carriage; certainly he looked a calm man to whom one might trust in a crisis. Ora and Ashley got a few minutes together in the booking-office, while her maid looked to her trunks and Babba flew to buy her flowers. Nobody came near them. Then it was that it seemed as though the success of his pretence failed in some degree, as though she also felt something of the sense which pressed so remorselessly on him, the sense of an end, that thus they were now together, alone, all in all to one another, and that thus they would never be again.The tears ran down Ora's cheeks; she held both his wrists in her hands with the old grip that said, "You mustn't go." She could not speak to him, he found nothing to say to her; but her tears cried to him, "Are you right?" Their reproach was bitter indeed, their appeal might seem irresistible. What now beside them were parts and plays, lives and their lines, Hazlewoods, Babba Flints, aye, or Jack Fennings either? They pleaded for the parlour in the little inn, reminding him how there first she had thrown herself on his mercy, asking him whether now for the first time he meant in very truth to turn cruel and abuse the trust.
But days had passed, and months, since then; with love had come knowledge, and the knowledge had to be reckoned with, although it had not destroyed the love. Was that ungentle? The knowledge was of himself as well as of her; he dealt no blow that he did not suffer. The knowledge was, above all, of the way things were and must be. Therefore in all the stress of parting he could not, desire it as he might, doubt that he was right.
Hazlewood raised his voice and called from the platform, "Off in five minutes, Mead! Hadn't you better take Miss Pinsent to her carriage?"
"Come, Ora," he said, "you must get in now."
For a moment longer she held his arms.
"I don't believe I shall ever see you again," she said. Then she dried her eyes and walked with him on to the platform. Here stood Babba, here Hazlewood, here all the retinue. Ashley led her up to Hazlewood. "Here she is," he said; he seemed to be handing her over, resigning charge of her. The three turned and walked together to the train.
"You'd rather go down just with your maid, I daresay,"said Hazlewood. "It's time to get in, you know." He held out his hand to Ashley and then walked away.
"Now, dear," said Ashley Mead.
She gave him her hand. For long he remembered that last grasp and the clinging reluctance with which it left him.
"Good-bye, Ashley," she said.
"You're beginning to come back from this minute," he reminded her, forcing a smile. "As soon as ever the train moves you're on your way home!"
"Yes," she smiled. "Yes, Ashley." But the charm of that conceit was gone; the tone was doubtful, sad, with only a forced recognition of how he meant to cheer her. Her eyes were more eloquent and more sincere, more outspoken too in their reproach. "You're sending me away," they said.
So she went away, looking back out of the window so long as she could see him; not crying now, but with a curious, wistful, regretful, bewildered face, as though she did not yet know what he had done to her, what had happened, what change had befallen her. This was the last impression that he had of her as she went to encounter the world again without the aid to which he had let her grow so used, without the arm on which he had let her learn to lean.
But he seemed to know the meaning she sought for, to grasp the answer to the riddle that puzzled her. As he walked back through the empty town, back to the work that must be done and the day that must be lived through, it was all very clear to him, and seemed as inevitable as it was clear.
It was an end, that was what it was—an utter end.
For if it were anything but an end, he had done wrong. And he had no hope that he had done wrong.The chilling sense that he knew only too well the truth and the right of it was on him; and because he had known them, he was now alone. Would not blindness then have been better?
"No, no; it's best to see," said he.
Elisha wore worthily the mantle of Elijah; nay, there were fresh vigour and a new genius in the management of Muddock and Mead. The turn-over grew, the percentage of working expenses decreased, the profits swelled; the branches were reorganised and made thoroughly up to the needs of the times; the big block in Buckingham Palace Road advanced steadily in prestige. For all this the small, compact, trim man with the keen pale-blue eyes had to be thanked. He had found a big place vacant; he did not hesitate to jump up to it, and behold, he filled it! Moreover he knew that he filled it; the time of promotion was over, the time of command was come. His quieter bearing and a self-possession which no longer betrayed incompleteness by self-assertion marked the change. He did not now tell people that he made sovereigns while they were making shillings. He could not give himself grace or charm, he could not help being still a little hard, rather too brusque and decisive in his ways; he could not help people guessing pretty accurately what he was and whence he came; but the rough edges were filed and the sharpest points rounded. Even Bowdon, who was for a number of reasons most prejudiced, admitted that it was no longer out of the question to ask him to dinner.
The business was to be turned into a company; this step was desirable on many grounds, among them because it pleased Miss Minna Soames. She was to marry Bob Muddock, now Sir Robert, and although she liked Bob and Bob's money she did not care much about Bob's shop. Neither did Bob himself; he did not want to work very hard, now that his father's hand was over him no more, and he thought that a directorship would both give him less to do and mitigate a relationship to the shop hitherto too close for his taste. So the thing was settled, and Bertie Jewett, as Managing Director, found himself in the position of a despot under forms of constitutional government. For Bob did as he was told; and given that a certain event took place, Bertie would control the larger part of the ordinary shares in virtue of his own holding, his brother-in-law's, and his wife's. Preference shares only had been offered to the public.
The event would take place. Nobody in the circle of the Muddocks' acquaintance doubted that now, although perhaps it might not occur very soon. For it was not the sort of thing which came with a rush; it depended on no sudden tempest of feeling, it grew gradually into inevitability. Union of interest, the necessity of constant meetings, the tendency to lean one on the other, work slowly, but when they have reached a certain point of advance their power is great. Bertie Jewett had not spoken of marriage yet and not for some time would he; but he had already entered the transaction on the credit side of his life's ledger. Alice knew that he had; she did not run away. Here was proof enough.
"It's not the least use your saying you hope it won't happen. It will," Lady Bowdon remarked to her husband;and he found it impossible to argue that she was wrong. For there was no force to oppose the force of habit, of familiarity, of what her family wanted, of what the quiet keen little man wanted and meant to have. Alice was not likely to fall into a sudden, new, romantic passion; her temper was not of the kind that produces such things. She had no other wooers; men felt themselves warned off. Was she then to live unmarried? This was a very possible end of the matter, but under the circumstances not the more likely. Then she would marry Bertie Jewett, unless the past could be undone and Ashley Mead come again into her heart. But neither was her temper of the sort that lets the past be undone; the registers of her mind were written in an ink which did not fade. Besides he had no thought of coming back to her.
But there was now, after Ora had gone off with her play and her part, a revival of friendship between them, started by a chance encounter at the Bowdons' and confirmed by a talk they had together when Ashley called in Kensington Palace Gardens. He was not insensible, and thought that she was not, to an element of rather wry comedy which had crept into their relations. He was sorry for himself, as he had very good grounds for being; he perceived that she was sorry for herself and, in view of the dominance and imminence of Bertie Jewett, fully acknowledged the soundness of her reasons. The comic side of the matter appeared when he recognised that, side by side with this self-commiseration, there existed in each of them an even stronger pity for the other, a pity that could not claim to be altogether free from contempt, since it was directed towards what each of them had chosen, as well as towards what had chanced to befall them from outside. They hadboth been unfortunate, but there was no need to dwell on that; the more notable point was that whereas he had chosen to be of Ora Pinsent's party with all which that implied, she was choosing to be of Bertie Jewett's party with all which that implied. It was no slur on their own misfortunes that each would now refuse to take the others place or to come over to the others faction. The pity then which each had for the other was not merely for a state of circumstances accidental and susceptible of change, but for a habit of mind; they pitied one another as types even while they came again to like one another as individuals. For naturally they over-ran the mark of truth, he concluding that because she was drifting towards Bertie she was in all things like Bertie, she that because he had been carried off his feet by Ora Pinsent he was entirely such as Ora was. There was certainly something of the comic in this reciprocity of compassion; it made Ashley smile as he walked beside Alice in the garden.
"So Bob's going to cut Buckingham Palace Road?" he asked.
"Hardly that. Oh, well, it'll come to something like that. Minna has aristocratic instincts."
"I remember she had them about the theatre."
"She doesn't like the shop." Alice had been laughing, but grew grave now as she added, "Do you know, I get to like the shop more and more. I often go there and look on while they take stock or something of that kind. One's in touch with a real life there, there's something being done."
"I suppose there is," he admitted rather reluctantly. "I don't in the least object to other people doing it. However you said from the beginning that it wouldn't suit me."
"Yes, I know I did. I think so still." But whether her reasons were quite the same was more doubtful than ever. "But I'm quite sure it suits me admirably. I should like really to work at it."
"Sir James always relied on your opinion about it."
"I suppose he wasn't so wrong as he looked," she said with a little laugh. "It's in our blood, and I seem to have a larger share of it than Bob. Why should we try to get away from it? It's made us what we are."
"You didn't use to think that quite."
"No, and you didn't use to—"
"Be quite such a fool as I am? No, I don't think I did," said Ashley. "Still—"
"Still you can't conceive how I can interest myself so much in the business?"
"Something like that," he admitted. Her phrase went as near to candour as it was possible for them to go together. They walked on in silence for a little way, then Ashley smiled and remarked,
"I believe we get a lot of our opinions simply by disliking what we see of other people's; we select their opposites."
"Reaction?"
"Yes; and then we feed what we've picked up till it grows quite strong."
They fell into silence again. Friendliness could not banish the sense of distance between them; they could agree, more or less, as to how they had come to be so far apart, but the understanding brought them no nearer. Even agreeing to differ is still differing. Both were rather sad, yet both were smiling faintly, as they walked side by side; it was very absurd that they had ever thought of being so much to one another. Yet it was a rather sorrowful thing that in future they were to beso very little to one another. Beneath their differences they had just enough of kinship to make them regret that the differences were so great, and so imperative in the conditions they imposed. A sudden impulse made Alice turn to him and say,
"I know you think I'm narrow; I hope you don't think I've been unkind or unfriendly. I did try to put myself in your place as well as I could; I never thought unkindly about you."
"How were you to put yourself in my place?" he asked, smiling at her. "I know you tried. But you'd have had to put yourself in somebody else's place as well."
"I suppose so," said Alice with a shake of her head; she certainly could not put herself in Ora Pinsent's place.
"After all, people are best in their own places," he went on. He paused for a moment, and added, "Supposing they can find out where their places are. You've found yours?"
"Yes," she answered. "Mine is the shop."
He sighed and smiled, lifting his hands. "I wonder where mine is," he said a moment later. For if his were not the shop, it had not seemed to be by Ora Pinsent either. "Perhaps I haven't got one," he went on. "And after all I don't know that I want one. Isn't it possible to keep moving about, trying one after another, you know?" He spoke lightly, making a jest of his question; but she had fallen into seriousness.
"What are you going to do?" she asked.
"Work and labour truly to get mine own living. As for the rest, really I haven't thought about it."
She wanted to ask him whether he still loved Ora Pinsent, whether he were waiting for her to come back to him, and still made that the great thing in his life.But she could find no words for these questions and no right in herself to ask them. The unuttered thoughts served only to check her sympathy for him; even if he did not look to Ora as the great thing in his future life, yet she had been so great in his past as to leave him not caring about the rest. "I'm hard at work, though," he said an instant after; it sounded as if he were seeking to defend himself.
Alice said something rather commonplace about the advantages of hard work; Ashley gave it the perfunctory assent it seemed to demand. Then came silence, and to both of them a sense that there was no more to be said between them.
In spite of this, perhaps because she would not acknowledge it, Alice asked him to dinner the next night, to meet the Bowdons and Bertie Jewett; he accepted with an odd sort of desire to make one of the family circle once again. His interest was mainly in Bertie; they sat on either side of Alice. Ashley's contempt for Bertie was now entirely for the type, and even there not very severe, for power of any kind extorts respect; it was in the main supplanted by the curiosity with which we look on people who are doing what we might have done had we so chosen, or been allowed by nature so to choose. There was a moment's pang when he perceived that Alice was more at ease and more comfortable in talking to Bertie; he was resigned to the change, but it was not very pleasant to look on at it in full operation. Irene, on his other side, allowed none of its significance to escape him; her glances pointed the moral; why she did this he could not understand, not tracing how part of her grudge against Ora attached to the man who had been so near and so much to Ora, and now recalled her so vividly to memory. Bowdon was politeto Lady Muddock, but far from gay. Merriment, animation, sallies of wit or chaff, a certain amount of what a hostile critic might call noisiness, had become habitual to Ashley in the society which he had recently frequented; he found himself declaring this little party very dull, overdone with good sense and sobriety, wanting in irresponsibility of spirit. He hinted something of this feeling to Irene Bowdon.
"Oh, we don't go in for being brilliant," she said with a double touch of malice; she meant to hit at Ora and Ora's friends, and also perversely to include herself in his hinted depreciation of the company; this she liked to do because the depreciation came, as she knew, from a recollection of Ora and Ora's sort of society.
"Being brilliant isn't in itself a crime," pleaded Ashley; "even if it were, it's so rare that there's no need for an exemplary sentence."
"Why don't you talk to Alice?" she whispered.
"She prefers to talk to Mr. Jewett."
"I'm glad it annoys you."
"Are you? I'm rather surprised it does. I don't know why it should, you see."
Irene turned her shoulder on him with emphasised impatience. What right had he to find it dull? Did Bowdon also find it dull? Then came the worst irritation—the admission that it was dull. She turned back to Ashley with a sudden twist.
"What right have you to expect to be always amused?" she demanded.
"None; but I suppose I may mention it when I'm not," said he.
"Do you know what you remind me of? You'll be angry if I tell you."
"Then I couldn't deprive you of the pleasure of telling me, Lady Bowdon."
"You're like a drunkard put on lemonade," she said with a vicious little laugh.
Ashley made no immediate answer; he looked at her with lifted brows; then he also laughed.
"The metaphor's rather strong," said he, "but—if you like!"
"Well, you're very good-tempered," she conceded with a remorseful glance. "I should feel better if you'd hit me back."
"I've no weapon."
"Yes, you have." Her tone was marked and significant; he looked straight and attentively in her face; her eyes were not on his watching face but on her husband whose head was bent in courteous attention to Lady Muddock's doubtfully expounded platitudes.
"Look here, do you know anything?" he asked.
"Yes," said she without turning towards him.
He grew surer of his ground and hazarded his shot with confidence.
"About a thousand pounds?"
"Yes."
"Ah, married men, married men! It wasn't his secret. And why in heaven's name did he tell you?"
"He was right to tell me. I like the truth."
"Oh, don't talk about truth! I'm fresh from a surfeit of it. I shouldn't have thought it made you any more—" He paused, in difficulty how to say enough and not too much.
"Any happier to know?"
"Well—if you like," said Ashley, again accepting her phrase.
"No, it doesn't," she said briefly. Then she added, "I promised not to tell you; don't let him know I have."
"I'll try to prove a better confidant than he is," said Ashley. "And why did you tell me?"
"You half guessed. I didn't tell. But—don't you think we might sympathise a little?"
"We'll sympathise all we can," said Ashley with a laugh.
"We might almost all sympathise; she's made a difference to almost all of us."
"Who has?"
"She—she—she," said Irene Bowdon, as she rose in answer to her hostess' signal.
"Well, yes, she has," Ashley admitted, as he drew back the chairs. And while she was still in earshot he added, "But it's all over now."
"Indeed it isn't, it never will be," said Irene over her shoulder, as she swept away.