"'What are the laws of nature, not to bendIf the Church bid them?'"
"'What are the laws of nature, not to bendIf the Church bid them?'"
"'What are the laws of nature, not to bendIf the Church bid them?'"
"'What are the laws of nature, not to bend
If the Church bid them?'"
murmured Barbara.
"You believe that?"
"It was a quotation. I'm sorry."
"It's a logical point of view. With us you pick and choose. In the marriage service it's becoming the fashion for a girl to say she'll 'love and honour' her husband. Now, the Prayer Book says, 'love, honour andobey.' If I were a parson, I'd refuse to go on with the service until she'd said 'obey.'"
"But if she doesn't mean to?" asked Barbara. "I think it's degrading."
"If it comes to a tussle, the woman has to give in; so why is she degraded by recognizing it and promising beforehand?"
"She doesn't have to. You couldn't make me—even with a dog-whip."
Though he affected a laugh, Jack had many times regretted the phrase. Barbara kept it in the forefront of her memory and persistently threw it down as a challenge to herself, when her natural independence flagged.
"You'd obey me without that. You can't have two captains on one ship. I don't suppose that any modern husband goes about saying, 'I order you to do this'; he tries to dovetail their two lives into one——"
"Then there wouldn't be much obedience, if I always got my own way."
"That you certainly wouldn't do!" he laughed.
"What d'you mean?"
Jack looked down the long drawing-room and reflected before answering. It was the last night of his visit to Crawleigh Abbey, and he was hardly prepared for a declaration. Though he had conscientiously put Barbara in possession of all material information, she had received it without comment. In four days he had not brought her any nearer; sometimes it seemed as if she were not trying to help him, and all that he had achieved was to fall four days more in love with her. Instinctively he felt that this was not the most favourable time for a parade of authority; but he had defined his attitude towards every other relevant issue, and it was tidier not to leave his task unfinished. Before marriage or immediately after, he would have to indicate certain people whom he did not care for her to meet, certain things that he did not care for her to do. The theatrical connection, for instance, would have to be cut; Colonel Waring often said that, thirty years ago, an actress was never received at the big houses. Now there was a considerable group, ranging from Manders at the top to quarter-bred anonymities at the bottom, who regarded her as belonging to their world.
"If you were married to me, I should change your mode of life—drastically," he answered.
"What do you find so very unsatisfactory in it?"
Her tone was in itself a warning; but, if she challenged him to make out his case, Jack could not refuse the challenge.
"You're too big for your company," he began from the familiar text. "Take me as a typical case. I knew of you years before I knew you; and I—on accountofyour friends, you know—I'd have gone miles to avoid meeting you. Tome—and the world at large—you were simply a girl who forced yourself into the limelight and got up to mischief with people that you simply ought never to have known. Since I've got to know you and like you, by Jove, I'd give ten years of my life to getunsaid the sort of things I used to hear about you. I remember thinking, before I met you, 'If she were mysister....'"
"What kind of things did you hear?" asked Barbara quietly.
"I needn't particularize," he answered.
Barbara shrugged her shoulders and relaxed her attention, only to concentrate it again as she found him particularizing in merciless detail. There were crimes, misdemeanours and sins of the spirit. The stolen car, the mangled chauffeur and the endless, unforgettable inquest were dragged to the light; Jack spared her the coroner's rasping comments, but he could not resist another allusion to the Surinam cable. There was a raided roulette-party, when Summertown had helped her into safety by the fire-escape. (She found time to wonder how he had heard of it; either Val Arden or Summertown was running up a bill against himself.) There was an embarrassing encounter at a night club, where she had gone with Sir Adolf Erckmann's party: all would have been well, if Sonia Dainton had not come with Webster and if Webster had not been drunk. As it was, there had been the makings of unpleasantness. George Oakleigh had taken Sonia home, Webster had become quite helpless; and, in trying to dispose of him, they had all attracted a good deal of notice. Then there was the episode of Madame Hilary. So much for the crimes.
"You take a great interest in the movements of some one you despise," commented Barbara. She wondered why she consented to listen to him, but she was unequal to the self-denial of going away while she was being discussed.
"My dear girl, these things fly from one end of London to the other almost before you've done them. Youwon'trecognize how well known you are! D'you appreciate that I should let myself in for a first-class row with my people, if I told them that we were friends? All rot, of course; but there you are."
After the crimes, the misdemeanours—the innocent things which she was "too big" to do. The one tiresome phrase was reinforced by others as insistent and tiresome. Some one—probably his stiff little sister—had taught him the word "grisette." "That may be all very well for a grisette, but you...." Some one—probably his mother—had divided a girl's behaviour into what was "hoydenish" and what was not; Barbara felt that she had all the markings of a pedigree hoyden. He contributed a few phrases of his own, assuring her gravely that this or that was "simply not done, you know;" and, as other men drew breath before embarking on a new sentence, he introduced every new count in the indictment with an apology that was but a veiled further reproach. "I expect you think I'm an awful prude.... I may be old-fashioned, but I've always been brought up to believe...."
After the misdemeanours, the sins of the spirit.
"You admit that you're frightfully vain and spoiled," he began pleasantly. "You admit that you expect every one to do exactly what you want without even being asked...." He traced the deleterious effect of such vanity on her character. Whatever was going on—from a pageant to a sale of work—she must be in it; her photograph must be in every paper. And, when there was no opportunity for public display, she made it, forced it. Hence this chain of escapades; it was self-advertisement, and, God knew, she was too big for that sort of thing.
At first Barbara listened in amazement; then she became so angry that her attention wandered, as she debatedwhether to stalk out of the room or to turn on him with all her resources of invective. But to run away was to spare him his punishment. He should apologize for each word, on his knees. And when he had made recantation, he could go.
"If you were my wife, I should have to change all that," he ended.
Barbara touched her cheeks and was surprised to find them cool.
"You've—rather made mincemeat of me," she sighed, because a sigh loosed some of her pent anger, and she could not be sure of her speaking voice. "Jack, in addition to the vanity, do you think I've got any pride?... Let's go and see how the others are getting on. It's such a pity you don't play bridge."
As he got up, Jack touched her hand.
"I say, have I said anything to offend you?"
"A fly isn't 'offended' when some boy pulls its legs out one by one.Pleaselet go my hand, Jack! You must admit I've listened patiently; I've not said a word in my defence—I suppose you think there's nothingtobe said;—but I don't feel I can stand any more.... Or do you want to make me cry again?"
Her eyes opened and shut quickly; and, by the time that she turned to him, they were filled with tears.
"Barbara! It had to be said some time! But I honestly didn't mean to hurt you. Listen——"
"Not in my own house! Idocount for something here! Don't make me cry! Don't humiliate me before all of them! It's only to-night. You need never see me again."
Her sudden abasement inflamed him as though he had struck her and she were begging for mercy.
"Barbara! forgive me! I want to say something to you." Though both were speaking almost in whispers, there was a change in his voice. Barbara looked at him mistilythrough a film of tears and saw that he was going to ask her to marry him before she was ready. When the time came, it should be of her choosing; and they would not be at one end of a room with three bridge-tables at the other.
"No! I want to talk to you. May I? It's my turn, Jack." As she smiled at him, a tear trickled down her cheek, and she brushed it away with her hand. He stared at her without understanding, for, though she could be regal or pathetic, she seemed incapable of ill-temper or resentment. "Don't you see that, with father, I was brought up in the limelight since I was a child? Try to imagine how much I've always done and then tell me if I'm likely to be content with—well, the very domestic life you say your sister leads. Remember, too, that I've a passion for some things, which you could never understand. You don't like Sir Adolf, no more do I, but I'd go anywhere for good music. And, more than that, I'd be friends with any one, if he had temperament and interested me. I want thewholeof life.... If a thing's notwrong, I don't care whether it's unconventional: if there's nothing wrong in roulette, if I play it under my father's eyes at Monte Carlo, I'll play it in London; and, if there's a silly law to drive an innocent thing under ground, I'll play it under ground. 'Publish and be damned. Your affectionate Wellington.' I admire people who are too big to mind what's said in the servants' hall.... But don't let's wrangle on our last night! I'm sorry if I've disappointed you."
As she took a step towards the bridge-tables, Jack felt that he was losing her; yet he would only stultify himself by an apology.
"I'm afraid I don't put things very happily," he compromised.
"No more than that?"
"Well, it's your turn now."
"I could never criticize one of my guests."
She gave him time to see that no reply was possible, then took another step towards the bridge players. More strongly than ever he felt that he was losing her.
"I hope I shall be one of your guests again, Barbara."
She shook her head and smiled with tired gentleness. Jack discovered that she was capable, in her quiet passages, of great dignity, which contributed to his general conception of her as "big" and punished him more completely than if she had lost her temper and made a scene.
"But you can't like hurting me.... And I've tried to be so sweet to you. You don't want to come again?"
"But I do."
He hoped to hear her say "Why?" so that he could recover ground and secure a good jumping-off place for their next meeting.
"Then I'll ask you. I told you at Croxton that I loved doing what people asked. We shall be coming up to London next week. But I shall never make you see my point of view."
"I think I've made you see mine."
Barbara turned away without answering, and Jack interpreted her silence as surrender. She whispered good-night to her mother and went to her room for fear of insulting him in public. Everything could be forgiven except this last blatant, avowed assumption that he had bullied her into submission. His punishment became a matter of duty.
"But what will not ambition and revengeDescend to? Who aspires, must down as lowAs high he soar'd, obnoxious, first or last,To basest things. Revenge, at first though sweetBitter ere long, back on itself recoils...."Milton: "Paradise Lost."
"But what will not ambition and revengeDescend to? Who aspires, must down as lowAs high he soar'd, obnoxious, first or last,To basest things. Revenge, at first though sweetBitter ere long, back on itself recoils...."Milton: "Paradise Lost."
"But what will not ambition and revengeDescend to? Who aspires, must down as lowAs high he soar'd, obnoxious, first or last,To basest things. Revenge, at first though sweetBitter ere long, back on itself recoils...."Milton: "Paradise Lost."
"But what will not ambition and revengeDescend to? Who aspires, must down as lowAs high he soar'd, obnoxious, first or last,To basest things. Revenge, at first though sweetBitter ere long, back on itself recoils...."
"But what will not ambition and revenge
Descend to? Who aspires, must down as low
As high he soar'd, obnoxious, first or last,
To basest things. Revenge, at first though sweet
Bitter ere long, back on itself recoils...."
Milton: "Paradise Lost."
Milton: "Paradise Lost."
"My Dear Barbara,"I have seen so little of you lately that I don't know what your movements are. Are you expecting me at the Abbey next week-end? And shall I find you at Ross House on Friday? I particularly want to talk to you."Ever yours,"Jack Waring."
"My Dear Barbara,
"I have seen so little of you lately that I don't know what your movements are. Are you expecting me at the Abbey next week-end? And shall I find you at Ross House on Friday? I particularly want to talk to you.
"Ever yours,"Jack Waring."
The letter, written nearly a month after Barbara's Easter party, was Jack's first documentary admission that a state of war had been proclaimed and that he was tardily conscious of it. On returning to London, Barbara invited him to dine, as she had promised; but she invited so many other people at the same time that he had little opportunity of talking to her. In the excitement and rush of the early season, as she darted from dinner to play and from play to ball, it was impossible to catch her in a serious mood. Jack followed at a non-committal distance and tried to get her to himself occasionally for a moment at supper; but, after he had made two of these abortive attempts, she explained with gentle reproof that it was hardly fair to expect her to give up dancing because he himself refused tolearn; if he wanted to see her, he could wait and take her home; she would not be later than three or perhaps four.... After two experiments, Jack changed his tactics; he could not stay up all night, if he had to be in court next day at ten o'clock, and there was little intimacy or romance in driving home with a girl who either dropped asleep or treated the taxi as an omnibus for distributing her friends about London.
When they met, her good-humour and friendliness reassured him, but they met so seldom that he made no progress. Letters were unsatisfactory, for he was afraid of saying too much and always wanted to write "without prejudice" at the head of the sheet. She never answered more than one in three; and, though he wrote about himself and his work, she hardly responded to his suggestion that she had a right to know what he was doing and that he had no less a right to expect her to be interested in it. This, he decided, was the fruit of twenty years' spoiling; the effort—if need be, the abasement—must come on his side.
After a week in which he did not meet her at all, Jack convinced himself that love could not be conducted on a limited liability basis; no man achieved passion and saved his face at the same time. It would have been easier to treat marriage like a casual invitation to dinner and to say "Will you marry me? No? Well, it does not matter; I thought I'd just ask you ..."; but a woman was not to be won until she saw that it mattered more than anything else. After deep thought and with momentarily increasing reluctance, he went to an address which he had found in theMorning Post, paid three guineas and for a conscientious hour at a time practised steps and pranced round a studio off the King's Road with two fluffy sisters who taught him a little of dancing and much of humility. From the first they despised his clumsiness and resented his loftyrefusal to talk, smoke, drink tea or take them out to dinner; but their dislike and contempt were nothing to his own sense of shame. Once back in the County Club, a man among men, deferentially—as became a young member—asking the chairman of the Wine Committee whether they had enough of the '84 Dow to sell it by the glass, he wondered what Mr. Justice Maitland or old Bertrand Oakleigh would think if they dreamed that he was lately escaped from an abomination called Effie, who revolved in a sticky fog of cheap chocolates, and a vulgarity named Dot, who called him "old boy." If Summertown or Gerry Deganway caught him slinking away from chambers to be told that his knees were too stiff or that he must hold his partner more tightly.... Jack blushed hotly and wondered why he had not been taught to dance as a child.
And for all his pains he got little credit. At his next meeting with Barbara, he chose one of her favourite waltzes and suggested that she might "risk it" with him. In the infinitely small chatter of the tired woman round the walls it was remarked for a week that Jack Waring, who did not usually dance, might very often be seen dancing with Babs Neave. Val Arden accosted him with surprise and congratulated Barbara in his presence on having humanized him.
"ButIhaven't done anything," she answered.
"You said it was rather pointless for a man to come to a ball, if he didn't dance," Jack pointed out.
"And you did this to please me," she laughed. "How long did it take? Only a fortnight? I wonder how long it would take you to learn bridge. There's such a mob of people everywhere that I've made it a rule never to dance till after supper. George Oakleigh's collecting a table now."
As so often lately, this was not the moment for a man to advance his suit, but Jack could not decide whetherBarbara, like all the girls in these restless, neurotic months, was too much excited to be serious or whether she was deliberately tantalizing him and deferring surrender to set a higher value on herself. As secretly as he had learned dancing, he set himself to master the leads and returns of bridge. Starting with "Auction for Beginners," he proceeded painfully to "Advanced Auction Bridge," and challenged his parents and sister to an experimental game during his next week-end at Red Roofs. The experiment was not repeated; Colonel Waring, who carried into bridge the formalism and irritability of a whist-racked youth, told him that he did not seem to have a "card head," and, after a night of helpless anger against the unreasonableness of women, Jack launched his ultimatum to Barbara with an indignant resolve that she should not trifle with him any longer.
There was little enough of the love-letter in his few words and colourless phrasing, but Barbara felt a tremor as she read them. The letter awaited her, with others, when she came home after a party; she read it first, then poured herself a cup of cocoa, then read the others and came back to it. This, then, was his capitulation to a woman of such ill-repute that he dared not confess to his own parents that he even knew her.
"My dear Jack," she wrote in reply. "Yes, I shall be there on Friday and look forward to seeing you."
It read naturally, but gave her hypercritical mind the sense that she was meeting him half-way; she would not let him say that his broadest hint had been a warning.
"My dear Jack," she tried again. "I've promised faithfully to go to the Marlings on Friday; there's rather a panic there, because poor dear Lady M. thinks that every one will desert her for Ross House—it's her own fault for choosing that night. If I can possibly get away, I shall look in for a few minutes. If not, we shall meet at theAbbey next day. Of course, we're expecting you then."
Though this read even more naturally, Barbara was not wholly satisfied. She left the letter in the hall, then retrieved and carried it into her bedroom to see how it looked by morning light. As she undressed, she saw with surprise that there was an unaccustomed flush on either cheek and that her lips were tightly compressed. Jack had hurt her even more than she appreciated; and he was now going to be taught his lesson. The "haggard Venus".... The sight of her thin face and deep-set, glowing eyes made her feel a tragic actress in spite of herself. She was word-perfect in the scene, for she had rehearsed it every time that his bluff, sweeping condemnation had touched her vanity. No doubt he would still try to be bluff and off-hand, but she was resolved to make him plead humbly and to take back every reproach, one by one.
Barbara sat down before an open window in her bedroom; outside, the silent night was like a hushed and darkened auditorium for her speech.
"But we've nothing in common! You know you hate the life I had. I'm afraid I can't alter it, Jack. You'd take away all my friends, but they interest me; I've got music and books and pictures in common with them. Even if you got over your dislike, you'd hate to sit in a corner while we talked about the things that do mean everything to me. And I'm afraid I should always be shocking you. I'vetoldyou that Imusthave every new experience; I'd sooner be dead than live a sort of half-life,afraidto do this,afraidto do that—just because no one had done it before. I've got too much vitality.... Jack, you've seen eagles in captivity? Well! That's what would happen to me if I couldn't spread my wings and soar, soar, soar.... If I married any one who didn't soar with me. You wouldn't like to hear people say, 'She's grown so old and lifeless since she married.'
"I can't make out how you ever came to fall in love with me, thinking of me as you do. There are hundreds of girls just as pretty—much prettier, in fact. Sally Farwell. Sonia Dainton. I'm vain and I'm not going to pretend that I don't think myself much higher thanthem, but it's the things which put me higher that you'll never appreciate—never, never, never! You think they're wrong or cheap or vulgar.... Jack, you're in love at present, you're not seeing clearly; but you know in the bottom of your heart that you'll never change me. Well! Do you want to spend the rest of your life with a woman you despise, do you want to despise the mother of your children?... Yes, you actually used the word—it hurt me so much that I'm not likely to forget it—but, if you like, I'll try to forget it, I'llsayI forget it.... Of course, Iforgive! My dear, this is much too important for us both to have any silly little personal feeling.... And, whenever you say I'm 'big,' I hope it means that I've got a big soul, that I'm generous.... Dear, I'm not asking you to apologize, but you admit you said that I was vulgar? And now you say it's untrue? Well,Ihaven't changed? It's love.... But love doesn't last for ever. To be happily married, you want common sympathies, common tastes—something that will last for ever, when love's burnt out.
"I suppose I ought to be—flattered that you think well enough of me to want to marry me.... Sometimes you were a little hard on me.... But flattery ... one's ownamour propreis so small.... I can't marry you, Jack. No! Nothing you could ever say or do.... How you ever fell in love with me, thinking as you do.... Ordid, rather. You don't think quite so badly of me now. But our happiness—for all our lives—No, please, Jack; don't say anything! You must never speak of this again, of course; I think it would be better for us not to meet. It's bound to be difficult, you know ... difficult and painful.I don't mean that you're to cut me in the street, but if we allowed ourselves to driftgraduallyapart.... And now don't think I'm heartless, if I tell you that you'll get over this. Time heals all things, Jack. You're hurt now; it's as if I'd hit your head and the blood were running into your eyes. But in time.... We'll say good-bye now. You may kiss me, if you like, Jack, but—I think you'd better not. The best thing you can do is to forget all about me."
As she sat in a carved chair, whispering the words to herself, the drama of the scene swept Barbara off her balance and left her breathless. The flush had died out of her cheeks, and all emotion was concentrated in the trembling whisper of her voice and in her eyes, tragic, tortured and black, staring through the window into the silent auditorium of the night.
And Jack, who called her theatrical, never admitted that she could act....
The wind set her shivering, and she pulled the curtains together. The rehearsal had excited her, and, when she got into bed, there were gestures, which she felt she could improve, and phrases, which stood in need of polish. Jack would not appreciate the subtilty of the scene; he would go away—perhaps not quite so well satisfied with himself, but vaguely grateful for her gentleness in blunting the edge of disappointment. He would feel sure that she had been very wise, very maternal; and, if any one questioned him out of curiosity or a desire to be sympathetic, her bitterest critic would become her staunchest champion. "It was rather a wipe in the eye for me," she could imagine his saying, "because I was very hard hit; I am still. After all, there's no one to compare with her.... But I thought she behaved awfully well; and it couldn't have been easy for her; I'm not really sure that she didn't feel it more than I did—I mean, she saw I wasn't enjoying myselfmuch and she did everything she could.... I was conscious at the time that I'd never loved her so much, I'd never appreciated what I was losing until I lost her. Of course, I always knew that she wasbig...."
Many men had proposed to her, but none had done justice to his opportunity. She wondered how Jack would begin.... Men never troubled about a setting—or a time; they procrastinated and procrastinated until the car was at the door or the train was starting. If she were in his place, there would be splendour of setting and superb eloquence of rolling, romantic phrases. There was colour in the world when Cyrano de Bergerac swung down the street, quarrelling and making love, or when he stood dying and already preparing his bow to the Court of Heaven. But nowadays all emotion was starved; men were ashamed even of emotion's gestures, the bloom and the beauty of language. Barbara picked up a volume of Shakespeare and read where the book opened of its own accord. "Put off your maiden blushes; avouch the thoughts of your heart with the looks of an empress; take me by the hand, and say 'Harry of England, I am thine': which word thou shalt no sooner bless mine ear withal, but I will tell thee aloud 'England is thine, Ireland is thine, France is thine, and Henry Plantagenet is thine; who, though I speak it before his face, if he be no fellow with the best king, thou shalt find the best king of good fellows.' Come, your answer in broken music.... You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate: there is more eloquence in a sugar touch of them than in the tongues of the French council."
Barbara sat up in bed, clasping her hands round her knees and thinking of days when colour still shone in the world and when she made a part of it. India still lived gorgeously. She could still conjure up her triumphant arrival at Bombay, the roll of the saluting guns, the guardof honour, the lined streets and majestic progress of the new viceroy....
On the evening of the ball she was careful to dress in such fashion that she should not seem to have taken any extra care, but her maid looked at her with undisguised admiration, and at dinner Lady Crawleigh woke to articulate enthusiasm. Barbara smiled to herself, as she put on her cloak and fastened a spray of orchids in her dress. Every one seemed eager and excited: her mother had more than once brought Jack's name into conversation without venturing farther: and, of course, all the world loved a lover. From Phyllis Knightrider she knew that her aunts looked with hope and relief on the determined, steady young man who had at last been found to keep her in order. She wondered what they would say when he disappeared without explanation.... She wondered how Jack would begin and whether he would come first to Lady Marling's to make sure of not missing her. Catching sight of herself in a mirror, she smiled again, though she was beginning to feel a little nervous. She wondered how Jack had been spending the first part of the evening....
At half-past eleven he arrived to find her surrounded by four men of whom each claimed that she had promised him the next dance.
"I came to see if you were thinking of starting for Ross House," Jack explained. "Have you got your car here?"
"Mother's taken it on," she answered. "But Sir Deryk—you know Sir Deryk Lancing, don't you? Mr. Waring—Sir Deryk's offered me his. We'll give you a lift."
Jack hid his disappointment under an adequate bow and accompanied her downstairs. Young Lancing's presence disquieted him. Though numberless men made rival calls on her, there had so far been no serious cause for jealousy; but Lancing had so much in his favour that Jack felt an insane desire to establish something discreditable againsthim. He was young, healthy, good-looking and highly gifted; Barbara had more than once quoted him as an authority on music; he was something of an archæologist; and his black-figure pottery at Aston Ripley was no less famous than his collection of eighteenth-century miniatures. He was worth between twenty and twenty-five million pounds, he was a baronet; and he was unmarried. Their tastes harmonized; every one would say that it was a most suitable alliance. And some would whisper that she had come very near to throwing herself away on Jack Waring. People ought not to be allowed to be so rich....
He strode bare-headed on to the pavement, feeling helpless and trying to persuade himself that he was only nervous. As they drove to Ross House, he watched and listened to Lancing and Barbara, envying them their ease and wondering whether it was fair for two people to exclude the third from conversation by choosing an impossible subject. Rimski-Korsakoff ... Ivan le Terrible ... Chaliapin.... While Barbara got rid of her cloak, he consciously tried to make friends with Lancing; they had apparently been at Eton together and had overlapped at Oxford. There was no harm in the fellow; though he was unutterably bored and made no attempt to hide it, he could not be dismissed as a conceited ass.... Barbara took an unconscionable time to shed one cloak.... And, when she returned to the hall, a newly arriving horde was already engulfing her.
"The first one's mine, isn't it?" Jack called out anxiously. "You promised it me in the car."
The anxiety was almost hysterical, and other people must be noticing it.
"Yes. And then Sir Deryk," answered Barbara. "Then Jack Summertown. Then Gerry. George?" She gave Oakleigh a quick smile over an undulating sea of heads and held up four fingers. "No,missingfour! Jim?Missing five! What anappallingcrowd! I don't see any prospect of supper."
"May I have that with you—after Jim Loring?" asked Jack. Then he lowered his voice. "I don't see much prospect of that talk with you."
The voice was peevish, and other people must be noticing that, too.
"My dear, you'll have enough of me this week-end. Take me upstairs before I'm trampled to death."
As they pressed forward to the door of the ball-room, Jack gripped the banisters to make sure that he was awake. At one moment he was staring at the broad shoulders of the man in front of him, the next down his collar; fluttering hands tidied away vagrant wisps of hair and buttoned gloves. Waves of scent met and blended with the dominant sweetness of the carnations which wound in clustering chains about the banisters. Above and before them boomed a far-away voice, announcing names; and between the shrill clatter of surprised recognitions came the strangulated music of a frantic band.
"You'll certainly be trampled to death, if you try to get inside," said Jack. "Let's sit it out somewhere."
She nodded, but, when he had shaken hands with the Duchess of Ross and was trying to cleave a passage, Barbara was deep in conversation with a pale, underhung youth; and he felt a second twinge of jealousy. She talked until the music stopped, while Jack fingered his tie and strove vainly to keep out of other people's way.
"You know him, don't you?" Barbara asked, when at last the rapt conversation came to an end. "My cousin, Johnnie Carstairs. He's been out in Rome for the last three years, but now he's being transferred to the Foreign Office."
Jack nodded without speaking and continued to look for standing-room. After his letter it was almost inconceivablethat she should not know what he wanted to tell her; yet she light-heartedly abandoned him for a cousin whom she could see at any time, talking as though the fellow were on his way to the scaffold; and their promised moment together was relegated to the end of the evening; and in this hurly-burly it was almost too much to expect that they could find an inch of space or a minute of uninterrupted conversation.
"I can seeonechair at the far end, if we can get through to it," he said.
"The music's starting," she answered doubtfully. "We'd better get back, I think."
"No, they're playing the same thing. It's only anencore."
"Oh, then do let me have it with Johnnie! I haven't seen him for such ages. You don't mind?"
She had spied a thinning in the crowd and was half-way to the ball-room door before he had an answer ready. Noting the number of the dance, Jack went downstairs and tried to be philosophical over a cigar; but his nerves were unsteady, and, though there was an endless hour and a half to wait, he had to hurry back every few minutes to make sure that he was not missing the promise of supper with Barbara. It was irritating to be so restless—and doubly irritating to feel that others were noticing it. Jim Loring came into the smoking-room and settled himself for a comfortable talk, only to find that his companion had run away unceremoniously in mid-sentence. These people had no sense of the important; life to them was powder and patches and dance music—less than that, for they stayed up half the night to smoke furtive cigars and ostentatiously shut their ears to the dance music. And Barbara was flitting from one man to another, when their two lives were in the balance.
In one of his wanderings to and from the ball-room Jack found Deryk Lancing, ticket in hand, by the cloak-room.
"You off?" he asked with secret relief.
"Yes, this sort of thing bores me stiff. Can I drop you anywhere?"
"Well, I'm booked for supper with Lady Barbara."
"Oh, you might remind her that she cut me."
He moved away, whistling drearily to himself and leaving Jack grateful for his absence. There was no rivalry to fear from Lancing. Gerald Deganway came up, swinging his eye-glass distractedly and calling for his hat.
"My dear, this sort of thing's killing me, positively killing me!" he simpered. "This is my third ball to-night, and I've got to go to two more. The Marlings, the Tavitons, this place, the Fenwicks—Oh, no! I've been to the Fenwicks; I'm almost sure I started there. I shall be such a wreck to-morrow, a mere bundle of nerves! But Helen Crossleigh will never forgive me, if I disappoint her.Youdon't look as if you were enjoying yourself much. I believe some one who shall be nameless hascutyou! Ibelievethat's it."
He laughed shrilly and dug Jack roguishly in the ribs with the gold knob of his cane; then set a resplendent hat at a jaunty angle and fluttered through the hall, murmuring, "Taxi! Oh, some one must get me a taxi! I shall break down and cry, if I don't get a taxi."
Jack watched him smilingly but with cold rage in his heart. If he had to wait hour after hour, fretting with nervousness and fuming with impatience, he might at least have been spared the inane facetiousness of Deganway.
"A little more of this, and something will happen to my brain," he growled to Val Arden.
"It is the chatter of the Bandar-Log, aimless, restless, incomplete," was the answer.
"'Here we sit in a branchy row,Thinking of beautiful things we know;Dreaming of deeds that we mean to do,All complete, in a minute or two—Something noble and grand and good,Won by merely wishing we could.Now we're going to—never mind,Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!'"
"'Here we sit in a branchy row,Thinking of beautiful things we know;Dreaming of deeds that we mean to do,All complete, in a minute or two—Something noble and grand and good,Won by merely wishing we could.Now we're going to—never mind,Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!'"
"'Here we sit in a branchy row,Thinking of beautiful things we know;Dreaming of deeds that we mean to do,All complete, in a minute or two—Something noble and grand and good,Won by merely wishing we could.Now we're going to—never mind,Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!'"
"'Here we sit in a branchy row,
Thinking of beautiful things we know;
Dreaming of deeds that we mean to do,
All complete, in a minute or two—
Something noble and grand and good,
Won by merely wishing we could.
Now we're going to—never mind,
Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!'"
Jack nodded and tried to smile; but it was no matter for jest when he remembered that he had himself chosen this time and place for asking Barbara to marry him.
"One is reminded of our good Lewis Carroll's White Rabbit," Arden observed, as he watched Deganway's flurried exit. "You play piquet? No? One would have challenged you to a game. As against bridge, the absence of vulgar abuse is noteworthy and welcome.... One likes to see the young people enjoying themselves, but these entertainments are only moderately amusing. One looked to Lady Lilith in old days to create a diversion, but your dire friendship has sobered her. Of course, one has one's bed...."
He sighed and tossed down the ticket for his hat. So many people were leaving that Jack looked apprehensively at his watch and hurried upstairs. Only one dance separated him from supper with Barbara; but, when the music began, she had forgotten her promise, and he had to stand for a quarter of an hour while she waltzed with Charles Framlingham. As he went forward to claim her at the end, Summertown advanced from another corner and forestalled him. There was nothing new in such behaviour, and Jack realized that he would only look ridiculous, if he shewed impatience or jealousy; but he felt that he was losing his temper and that she saw it. The heat of the house tired him, and he was hungry.
"Waitonemore, Jack, and then you may take me home," she called out, as she swept past him.
"Aren't you going to have any supper?"
"Oh, I'd quite forgotten about that."
She passed out of earshot, breathlessly and with shining eyes. If she remembered that he wanted to talk with her alone, if she guessed what he was going to say, he could not understand her behaviour; it was very feminine, but it was also rude and extraordinarily inconsiderate, exasperating him without in any way intensifying his love; if she thought that he wanted simply to compete with Deganway in vapidness or Arden in affectation, well, she was a fool; he had given her the broadest hints. He caught sight of himself in a strip of looking-glass and found that he was frowning; without that signal he knew that he had lost his temper.
"I forget everything, when I'm dancing," was Barbara's nearest approach to an apology on her return. "I promised to have supper with this child, too; let's all go down together."
She went on ahead of them before he could say anything; and, as Summertown shewed no sign of yielding to a prior claimant, Jack pulled off his gloves with careful deliberation and followed her into the dining-room. Though he tried to overcome his ill-humour, their minds were not in tune with his. Barbara prattled unceasingly, Summertown kept up a monologue of his own, and, when they tried to infect him with their own lightness of heart, he could only nod or shake his head or smile in dumb fury that she could play with him in the presence of a spectator. Women, he decided, must be innately cruel, for, though she was clearly trying to anger him, it was not mere mischievousness.
"I must have one more dance with this child," she cried at the end of supper, with a glance of invitation at Summertown.
"Then I don't think I shall wait," said Jack.
The tempo of her dialogue was retarded for half a beat but her expression was unchanged.
"Oh, but didn't you say you'd got a message for me or something?"
"I can give it you at the Abbey to-morrow."
She looked at him with amused surprise.
"Jack, you're not grumpy with me because I cut your dance—or, at least, you say so? You may have another, and this child can come later. Let's go somewhere where it's cooler and where I can have a cigarette."
It was a trifling encounter, but, inasmuch as she saw that he had lost his temper, Jack felt worsted. He swore that he would keep control of himself, however much she exasperated him. He was less tired and more certain of himself than before supper, and for some reason his nervousness had transferred itself to her. The change was apparent from the moment that they were quit of Summertown. She became tense in manner and a little frightened, no longer laughing; and he ceased to fancy that his hints could have been wasted on her.
"Where are we likely to be undisturbed?" he asked, as they hurried purposefully up the stairs. "You know this house better than I do."
"Oh—anywhere," she answered rather breathlessly.
"The King hailed his keeper, an ArabAs glossy and black as a scarab,And bade him make sport and at once stirUp and out of his den the old monster....One's whole blood grew curdling and creepyTo see the black mane, vast and heapy,The tail in the air stiff and straining,The wide eyes, nor waxing nor waning....'How he stands!,' quoth the King....'We exercise wholesome discretion'In keeping aloof from his threshold....'But who's he would prove so fool-hardy?'Not the best man of Marignan, pardie!'The sentence no sooner was utteredThan over the rails a glove fluttered,Fell close to the lion, and rested:The dame 'twas, who flung it and jestedWith life so, De Lorge had been wooingFor months past; he sat there pursuingHis suit, weighing out with nonchalanceFine speeches like gold from a balance.Sound the trumpet, no true knight's a tarrier!De Lorge made one leap at the barrier,Walked straight to the glove,—while the lionNe'er moved, kept his far-reaching eye onThe palm-tree-edged desert-spring's sapphire,And the musky oiled skin of the Kaffir,—Picked it up, and...."Robert Browning: "The Glove."
"The King hailed his keeper, an ArabAs glossy and black as a scarab,And bade him make sport and at once stirUp and out of his den the old monster....One's whole blood grew curdling and creepyTo see the black mane, vast and heapy,The tail in the air stiff and straining,The wide eyes, nor waxing nor waning....'How he stands!,' quoth the King....'We exercise wholesome discretion'In keeping aloof from his threshold....'But who's he would prove so fool-hardy?'Not the best man of Marignan, pardie!'The sentence no sooner was utteredThan over the rails a glove fluttered,Fell close to the lion, and rested:The dame 'twas, who flung it and jestedWith life so, De Lorge had been wooingFor months past; he sat there pursuingHis suit, weighing out with nonchalanceFine speeches like gold from a balance.Sound the trumpet, no true knight's a tarrier!De Lorge made one leap at the barrier,Walked straight to the glove,—while the lionNe'er moved, kept his far-reaching eye onThe palm-tree-edged desert-spring's sapphire,And the musky oiled skin of the Kaffir,—Picked it up, and...."Robert Browning: "The Glove."
"The King hailed his keeper, an ArabAs glossy and black as a scarab,And bade him make sport and at once stirUp and out of his den the old monster....One's whole blood grew curdling and creepyTo see the black mane, vast and heapy,The tail in the air stiff and straining,The wide eyes, nor waxing nor waning....'How he stands!,' quoth the King....'We exercise wholesome discretion'In keeping aloof from his threshold....'But who's he would prove so fool-hardy?'Not the best man of Marignan, pardie!'The sentence no sooner was utteredThan over the rails a glove fluttered,Fell close to the lion, and rested:The dame 'twas, who flung it and jestedWith life so, De Lorge had been wooingFor months past; he sat there pursuingHis suit, weighing out with nonchalanceFine speeches like gold from a balance.Sound the trumpet, no true knight's a tarrier!De Lorge made one leap at the barrier,Walked straight to the glove,—while the lionNe'er moved, kept his far-reaching eye onThe palm-tree-edged desert-spring's sapphire,And the musky oiled skin of the Kaffir,—Picked it up, and...."Robert Browning: "The Glove."
"The King hailed his keeper, an ArabAs glossy and black as a scarab,And bade him make sport and at once stirUp and out of his den the old monster....
"The King hailed his keeper, an Arab
As glossy and black as a scarab,
And bade him make sport and at once stir
Up and out of his den the old monster....
One's whole blood grew curdling and creepyTo see the black mane, vast and heapy,The tail in the air stiff and straining,The wide eyes, nor waxing nor waning....
One's whole blood grew curdling and creepy
To see the black mane, vast and heapy,
The tail in the air stiff and straining,
The wide eyes, nor waxing nor waning....
'How he stands!,' quoth the King....'We exercise wholesome discretion'In keeping aloof from his threshold....'But who's he would prove so fool-hardy?'Not the best man of Marignan, pardie!'
'How he stands!,' quoth the King....
'We exercise wholesome discretion
'In keeping aloof from his threshold....
'But who's he would prove so fool-hardy?
'Not the best man of Marignan, pardie!'
The sentence no sooner was utteredThan over the rails a glove fluttered,Fell close to the lion, and rested:The dame 'twas, who flung it and jestedWith life so, De Lorge had been wooingFor months past; he sat there pursuingHis suit, weighing out with nonchalanceFine speeches like gold from a balance.
The sentence no sooner was uttered
Than over the rails a glove fluttered,
Fell close to the lion, and rested:
The dame 'twas, who flung it and jested
With life so, De Lorge had been wooing
For months past; he sat there pursuing
His suit, weighing out with nonchalance
Fine speeches like gold from a balance.
Sound the trumpet, no true knight's a tarrier!De Lorge made one leap at the barrier,Walked straight to the glove,—while the lionNe'er moved, kept his far-reaching eye onThe palm-tree-edged desert-spring's sapphire,And the musky oiled skin of the Kaffir,—Picked it up, and...."
Sound the trumpet, no true knight's a tarrier!
De Lorge made one leap at the barrier,
Walked straight to the glove,—while the lion
Ne'er moved, kept his far-reaching eye on
The palm-tree-edged desert-spring's sapphire,
And the musky oiled skin of the Kaffir,—
Picked it up, and...."
Robert Browning: "The Glove."
Robert Browning: "The Glove."
Though he seemed to be leading the way, Barbara urged Jack by suggestion up a side-staircase and through a billiard-room to a broadloggiaoverlooking Greenhill Gardens. There were two chairs and a table with cigarettes and champagne cup; the night air blew chillingly with a scent ofspring leaves, and the music reached them as a reverberation mingling with the distant traffic of Piccadilly.
"I say, you won't catch cold, will you?" Jack asked.
Barbara smiled to herself. He would never have thought of the wind or of her, if his match had not been blown out.
"Oh, we shan't be here long enough for that."
Jack lighted the cigarettes and settled himself elaborately in his chair, with one leg thrown over the other.
"I wanted to talk to you. I think you know what it's about."
She had intended to be thrown off her balance with surprise, but the bluntness of his opening did not invite ingenuousness.
"I hope I'm not in disgrace," she answered meekly. "You—rather frighten me, when you're so mysterious. You're not going to say anything unpleasant?"
"I hope you won't find it unpleasant. Look here, the best thing will be for me to say what I've got to say, ... and then you.... I mean, if you interrupt, you'll throw me out of my stride. Barbara, I've told you what I'm earning; and one naturally hopes that it will increase almost automatically year by year. As you know, I'mnota Catholic——"
"Jack——"
He flapped one hand at her with nervous impatience, drew furiously at his cigarette and looked away over the garden and house-tops to the shadowy Park.
"You mustn't put me off my stroke, Barbara.... These are the two big obstacles that all the world will see. Well, I can assure you that I shouldn't be talking to you like this, if you hadn't—in a way—given me the right to.... At first I couldn't stand you at any price whatsoever. Then there was a night when I said to myself that I should have to be careful. It was when you rang me up and invited me to dine with you alone—after that business in Webster'srooms. At first I was perfectly furious; you seemed to be taking that luckless girl's death so calmly and thinking only of the holeyouwere in. And then—I don't know; something changed. I began to feel sorry for you, I felt extraordinarily fond of you; I told myself that I should have to watch out. Then—something you said—it was when you invited me to one of your own special parties at the Abbey; I got the feeling that you liked me, rather. Was I right?"
The question came so suddenly in the middle of his halting narrative that Barbara started. So far the scene was not developing at all as she had expected. She could interrupt, confuse, stop him; but there was no way of bringing in the open-eyed amazement which she had planned; he seemed to be putting the responsibility on her. And, when he brusquely told her not to interrupt, she felt strangely disposed to obey him.
"Was I right?" he repeated, turning to look at her.
The customary self-satisfied smile had disappeared, and he was frowning. Barbara chose to fancy that he must take on the same expression with a fighting case in court.
"Yes, I quite liked you," she answered. "I always liked you, when you're not trying to shew me that everything I say and do——"
He cut her short with a quick uplift of one finger.
"Good! Well, when you shewed me that, I took stock and began to look at things from another point of view. I suggested to you—as fairly and fully as I could—the chief obstacles; money ... and so forth. If you—or your people, through you—had thought that insuperable, then there was nothing more to be said. I felt I must give you the opportunity of entering acaveat. I need hardly say that, knowing you as I did.... I mean, if you wanted to marry a man, you wouldn't mind if he were a beggar. Would you?"
The new question again startled her by its abruptness.She had a misgiving that he was pressing her into a corner.
"Would you?" he repeated; and she half expected to hear him browbeating her. "It's a simple question.... Yes or no.... I want you to tell the jury.... Remember you are on your oath. Come now ... yes or no...."
"Of course not. But, Jack——"
He stopped her with another jerk, as she had foreseen.
"I knew that. The next thing was—I suppose 'suitability' is the best word. I mean we lead different lives, our outlook's different in some ways. I had to consider what chance of success we should have together. Well, you sometimes say that I find fault with everything you do; I think you see now that I've never said a word that your father hasn't said to you a hundred times. It's what everybody was saying, and I think everybody's glad to see that you've come round to their point of view. We all felt that you were toobig, you know...."
He hesitated and looked away, frowning again as he tried to remember the sequence of his argument. Barbara shivered instinctively at his hackneyed, hated phrase, but she was struck silent by the sheer audacity of his patronizing assumptions.
"Jack——" she began, but he again held up his hand.
"I don't know whether I ought to have gone to your father," he resumed. "It seemed rather getting hold of the wrong end of the stick to talk to a woman's father before you've talked to the woman herself. Of course, one naturally goes to him for hisassent. I happen to know that your people, like you, saw what was in the wind, and, as they were good enoughnotto pitch me into the street...."
"Jack! Please!"
Barbara leaned to him with her hands appealingly outstretched. In a little while he would rob her of her last cue. By no abuse of language could such pleading be associated with passion, but he was quoting her against herself untilit seemed as if she had almost begged him to marry her.
"I've nearly done," he said, smiling for the first time; then he paused to collect himself for a concise summary, and she could have laughed hysterically at the spectacle of a plodding young barrister trying to argue her into marriage. His voice had never changed in timbre; and, if he had occasionally hesitated over a word, he had never lost the train of thought. His chair was as discreetly remote as when he first sat down, one leg thrown comfortably over the other; and he had not thought fit to use one whisper of endearment.
"I don't want to hear any more!"
"You must."
"But, Jack, you're not in love with me!"
He laughed good-naturedly, as though he were humouring a child.
"I expect I'm the best judge of that. Well, you admit that I'm not wholly repellent to you; the difference in religion can be accommodated; I'm not altogether penniless. I want you to marry me, Babs."
"I can't."
She flung out the words as soon as he gave her a chance of speaking. With his dogged, relentless attack, it was surprising that he left her an opportunity of answering; she would hardly have been astonished if he had taken her firmly by the arm and led her home to announce their engagement.
"That means youdon'tcare for me?"
There was no sign of perturbation; but he was watching her closely. One careless word would enable him to demonstrate that she had coquetted with him for her vanity's sake; his memory was relentless, and she could not pretend to convince herself that she had behaved merely as if she "quite liked" him, when a hundred people were gossiping about them.... And he had a passion for demonstratingthings; he seemed to be addressing an invisible jury beyond the pillars of theloggia.
"My dear Jack, how could you everdreamof marrying me—thinking of me, as you do?" she demanded with a breathless attempt to start her speech and to overwhelm his massive arguments with rhetoric and drama.
"Let's stick to facts. I do dream of it. I want to."
"But you disapprove of everything I do, you think I'm vulgar, cheap. Oh, you've said it, Jack; you've used those words. They hurt much too much for me to forget them easily."
"I'm sorry to have hurt you," he interrupted. "But I think youhavecome round to my way of thinking."
"I'll forget them—I'll try to," she went on, gabbling her speech murderously. "This is much too important for us to think about our own wretched littleamour propre; and, when you say I'm "big," I always hope it means that I'm generous, forgiving. But, Jack, you despise me—or youdid—the woman that you want to be the mother of your children——"
"Youhavechanged. Otherwise I shouldn't want to marry you."
Barbara walked to the edge of theloggiaand stood with her hands on the stone parapet, looking down on to the shadowy foliage of the gardens. She could no longer force into service the speech that she had rehearsed and at any moment she might expect to hear him say—in his horrible jury voice—"Then am I to understand that you never meant anything seriously, that this was all an elaborate trick? Was that your means of vindicating yourself? And do you feel that it has been successful?" He shewed a disconcerting mastery and a no less disconcerting restraint; she was not allowed to interrupt, and, when he had posed a question, he held her to it, waiting silently for an answer and blocking the loop-holes of irrelevancy.
"Why do you say you can't marry me?"
She turned to find that he was still by the table; he had risen as she rose, but without following her, without disturbing his deadly, businesslike composure.
"We should be miserable."
"D'you mean I'm wrong?Don'tyou care for me?"
"'Care'?I'm thinking aboutlove! You don't know what loveis! All the time you've been talking.... So cold and collected.... If you were in love with me, you'd want to take me in your arms, you'd be transfigured, there'd be radiance, glory in your eyes, you'd hold me as if you never meant to let me go!... You—you talked like a leading article; you never even said you loved me."
"I thought we might take that as read."
"But look at you now! If you loved me, you wouldn't want to keep away; you wouldn't be able to."
"I've got a certain amount of self-control."
"To resist something that's not a temptation?"
She came slowly back to him and stood gazing up into his face. As on the night when she had darted from him at the Croxton Ball, her cheeks were white and hollow, her eyes were nearly black; it was the morbid, feverish beauty of a consumptive kept alive by force of will. The spray of orchids rose and fell with her breathing, and he could have caught and encircled her slender, boyish figure with one arm.
"You're lookingdivineto-night," he murmured.
"Isthatall you've got to say?"
"No! I'm responsible for you at this moment. And, if I were you, I should think twice before you blaspheme against the Holy Ghost again. You don't doubt that I love you."
Barbara pressed her hands against her cheeks, throwing her head back and closing her eyes.
"I wish I could," she whispered. "I was trying to,trying to make you doubt it so that you wouldn't mind so much. If I could have made you think that we were just friends.... Jack, youmust—before it's too late. You've made a mistake, you're exaggerating everything! Just because you've hardly met a girl before, you think you're in love with me. Because I'm pretty, because I amuse you ... I'll be ever so humble! I'm nothing—nothing but a great friend. If you go away, you'll see it like that; when you come back, we shall still be friends, but you'll wonder how you ever imagined you were in love with me. You're not, Jack! You must tell yourself you're not."
"I don't understand, Barbara."
"I'm trying to help you. I can never marry you; and I want you to see that you're not losing anything. You don'treallywant me. Oh, youdon't, Jack!"
"Why do you say you can never marry me?Don'tyou love me?"
Barbara had expected the question for so long that it had lost half its force before reaching her. Her mind moved quickly, as it had done all the evening, and she could anticipate Jack's slow change of expression, his dawning realization and then her punishment. There was no give-and-take, when he lectured or attacked; no neatness of phrase, no delicacy of sarcasm or irony, no intellectual joy of battle. He dealt the bludgeon blows of one who seemed to boast that he was not clever but tried to be honest. She felt suddenly frightened for her pride and for herself; and she knew that he would beat her as conscientiously as he had tried to win her.
"Love isn't everything," she answered.
"I'm waiting to be told what the obstacle is."
In another moment he would have summarized for the third time all possible objections to the marriage and his own complacent disposal of them. She could not bear that again.
"Jack, you're not a Catholic," she cried.
"I know. I told you that from the first. But we can arrange that; I'll do whatever is necessary. It's a nuisance, because I expect your people loathe the idea of your marrying a heretic as much as mine loathe the idea of my marrying a Catholic. Fortunately, we can ignore them."
"I could never marry a man who wasn't a Catholic."
She clutched wildly at the promise of escape, and Jack betrayed emotion for the first time in a gape of astonishment.
"But your own church—if you still call yourself a Catholic—doesn't go as far as that."
"I don't care. Itshould. It's lying to your soul, if you believe one thing and let children believe something else that youknowto be false. There's no sympathy of spirit when each thinks the other wrong and sneers privately.... Ican'ttalk about this, but youseenow why I tried to stop you.... Jack, do take me home! I feel as if I couldn't stand any more!"
She turned convulsively and hurried back to the parapet of theloggia. Jack picked up a cigarette, which he regarded absently, frowning again.
"You could never marry a man who wasn't a Catholic?" he repeated.
"No. Jack, don't let's talk about this any more! If I'm to blame for making you unhappy.... Oh, try to forgive me! If you let me think I'd spoiled your life—— Please take me home."
He roused himself from contemplation of the gilt name and address on the cigarette and walked with her into the house.
"Is your car coming back for you?" he asked with a detachment that she admired.
"Yes. You can take it on, if you like. Or perhaps you'drathernotcome with me.... I suppose you won't be coming to the Abbey to-morrow?"
"I intended to."
"Jack, it can't do any good!"
"Do you withdraw the invitation?"
"I'd rather you didn't come. Later on we may be able to meet.... You won't believe me now, but time is a wonderful healer——"
He interrupted her with a laugh of grating boisterousness.
"Is there anything to heal?"
It was after four o'clock when Barbara returned home alone from Ross House; but, though she went quietly to bed, Lady Crawleigh interrupted her undressing. The Duchess of Ross was the latest busybody to wonder audibly whether young Waring was serious, and it was high time for the girl to know that people were talking about her.
"There was such a mob that, when Jack and I had got away from it, we didn't go back," sighed Barbara wearily, to explain her lateness. "I wish Eleanor Ross didn't know quite so many people. Oh, mother, Jack can't come to the Abbey this week-end. He's writing to you, but he asked me to give you that message."
Lady Crawleigh picked up a pendant, head-band and bracelet of fire-opals from their scattered hiding-places on the floor, trying not to seem either too much surprised or too indifferent. Then she knelt, with a cracking of knee-joints, to search for the missing half of a pair of ear-rings. Barbara, she reflected, had evidently done one thing—or perhaps the other—or even neither; mercifully she could not do both.
"He's really no business to chop and change like that at the last moment," she complained. "What's happened?"
"He's kept in London," Barbara answered. "Don't bother to look for those things, mother; Merton will be sodisappointed, if there's nothing for her to tidy. She always waits till I'm fast asleep,reallytired, and then throws tepid tea at me with one hand and knocks over all the furniture with the other.... I can hardly keep my eyes open. You'll let me go to sleep, won't you?"
Lady Crawleigh scrambled to her feet and came to the side of the bed, an undignified, shrunken figure in a bluepeignoirand satin slippers, with grey-black hair secured in thick short plaits.
"My child, is anything the matter?"
Barbara was lying with one bare arm over her eyes, as though the light hurt her. She had not waited to brush her hair, and the room was littered with furiously scattered clothes.
"I'm only tired," she said. "I've never known anything so hot as that place."
"Well, go to sleep." Lady Crawleigh shewed no sign of leaving the bedside. "On the whole perhaps it's just as well that heisn'tcoming to the Abbey. Some one was saying to-night——"
"Mother, I'm not going to marry Jack!"
Lady Crawleigh's eyes opened with innocent surprise.
"My darling, who ever said anything about it?"
Barbara laughed hardly.
"You were going to, weren't you? I thought I'd save time. Jack.... I've had a—remarkable evening, but I don't think I want to talk about it."
Lady Crawleigh changed the lights, but she continued to hover between the bed and the door, picking up a glove here and a stocking there, glancing stealthily at Barbara and flogging her imagination to guess what had taken place. The girl was a little exacting with men, and there might have been a quarrel; but it was rather drastic for Jack to default from the Abbey at the last moment. He had possiblyreceived an unexpected rebuff; but then the rebuff was unexpected by every one, for Barbara had shewn him all the encouragement that a woman could give. Possibly she had encouraged him too much and received a rebuff herself....
"Darling——"
"I'msotired, mother."
She seemed without resistance or power to assert herself, as though she had been bullied and beaten. Lady Crawleigh felt a need to protect her, as she had not felt it for ten years; Barbara was usually stoical with bodily pains, and a wound to her pride or an ache at her heart was shared with no one.
"Yes, darling, I won't keep you awake, but has there been any unpleasantness? I mean, I have to think about the future—about inviting him here."
"Oh, there's no reason why you shouldn't invite him. He can please himself whether he comes or not."
Lady Crawleigh hesitated a moment longer, then tip-toed to the door and turned off the lights. Nothing was to be learned from Barbara at present.
No elucidation came from the letter of apology which she received from Jack next day. He was unexpectedly detained in London, but hoped that he might be forgiven and invited again some time later in the summer. It was a question of private business, which would keep him very fully occupied for some weeks. He would have given longer warning, if possible, but the business had only come to him in the middle of the night, as it were.... Lady Crawleigh tore up the letter impatiently, then pieced it together and read it with perplexed attention. If there had been no quarrel, no rebuff, no unpleasantness, he would not underline this private business and hint that he did not want to be invited to the house for the present; if there had been a quarrel, it was incomprehensible that he should ask to be given another chance later in the summer.
But for the phrase, "I've had a remarkable evening, but I don't think I want to talk about it," Barbara might simply be tired. Certainly, she was in excellent spirits next day, and the whole party at the Abbey revolved round her and shone with her radiance. On their return to London she threw herself as insatiably as ever into all that was going on. The only difference now was that she never danced with Jack, because he had disappeared; and she never mentioned his name. Others also remarked his disappearance, and, though the excuse of private business was bravely presented, they at least were not satisfied. Lady Crawleigh suggested inviting him to a musical party, from which it might have been noticeable to exclude him; Barbara raised no objection, but Jack replied from his chambers that he was unfortunately compelled to refuse all invitations at present.
It was mysterious and annoying, for an absurd amount of gossip was swirling and eddying among the weary, chilled women who sat night after night round ball-room walls. Deganway professed to have seen an impertinent paragraph in the column ofThe Sphinxheaded "Riddles for Our Readers"; and, for every one who enquired what had happened to Jack, Lady Crawleigh knew that a dozen must be asking themselves why Barbara had made so public an exhibition of herself, if she did not mean to let anything come of it. And there was an added mystery and vexation when Jim Loring said: "I've the best reason for knowing there's nothing to worry about," in a tone which shewed that he was himself deeply worried.
He met his aunt on the morrow of a confession which lasted from ten o'clock until two next morning. Jack had invited himself to dinner at Loring House, stipulated that no one else should be present and pledged his host to secrecy.
"I can't quite trust my own judgement," he drawled, whenthey were alone after dinner. "A new factor, you know.... I haven't quite adjusted myself to it.... I don't suppose it's any news to you that I want to marry your cousin Barbara? Well, I've every reason to think she would marry me to-morrow but for the unfortunate circumstance that she's a Catholic and I'm not."
Loring involuntarily winced and looked away, recalling his own shipwreck on a similar rock, the months of dull agony and the empty years of wandering, which had but lately come to an end. It was the first time that they had met alone, and Jim was more than three years older; new lines were visible at the corners of his eyes, his face and body were heavier and more inelastic. A note of bitterness broke over-often through the habitual irony of his voice, as though his spirit were still raw under its dressing of tolerant boredom.
"If any one knows anything on that subject," he murmured, "you've come to the right man. Have you—actually put it to her?"
"Oh, yes. We're hung up on that. Barbara says that she could never marry a man who wasn't a Catholic."
"But that's absurd! The Church itself——"
"So I told her, but she goes one better than her Church. Jim, I feel that there's the makings of a first-class tragedy, if we're not very careful ... and very clever. I want to marry her more than anything in the world. There's nothing—I think there's literally nothing I wouldn't do to bring it off. She—well, we went into it pretty thoroughly the other night. I could see she was torn in two.... I—didn't press it. I knew that, if she felt as strongly as that—in her bones—, I shouldn't sweep her off her feet, however much she seemed to be convinced at the moment. It didn't look like being permanent. I had to find some other way out."
He paused and relit his cigar. The door was ajar, and Loring got up to close it; then, instead of going back to hischair, he took a turn up and down the library, with his chin on his chest and his hands thrust deep into his pockets. Three years ago he had come back to that room from his last farewell with Sonia Dainton; he has distractedly summoned George Oakleigh to advise him and had paced up and down, up and down, flinging half-smoked cigarettes into the fire-place. And Oakleigh, whom he had invoked for help, would only tell him brutally that love was over and that he must set his teeth and face it.... Now again no other advice was possible.