Vivien and Isobel were alone at Nutley. It had been Wellgood's custom to go every summer to Norway by himself, leaving his daughter at school, to the care of her governess, or, for the last year or two, of her companion. He saw no reason against following his practice this year; indeed he was glad to go. The interval before the wedding dragged for him, as perhaps it did for others. He had carried matters with Isobel as far as he well could, unless he meant to carry them to the end—and it was not his intention to do that just yet. A last bachelor excursion—he told himself confidently that it was to be his last—had its attraction. Early in July he packed his portmanteau and went, leaving instructions with Isobel that her chaperonage was to be vigilant and strict. "Err on the safe side," he said. "No harm in that."
"I shall bore them very much," Isobel suggested.
"That's what you're here for." He added, with his hard confident smile, "Later on we'll try to give you a change from it."
She knew well what he meant, and was glad to see the last of him for a while; nay, in her heart would have been glad to see the last of him for ever. She clung to what his words and acts promised, from no affection for him, but because it saved her from the common fate which her pride despised—being dismissed, turned off, now that she was to become superfluous. She had been in effect Vivien's governess, her schoolmistress, invested with power and authority. She hated to step down; it was open to her to step up. (A case not unlike Andy's.) Here was the secret which maintained her pride. In the strength of it she still ruled her charge with no lessening of prestige. It was no more in Vivien's nature than in her position to wonder at that; her eyes were set on a near sure liberty. Temporary restraint, though it might be irksome, seemed no more than a natural passing incident. Harry noticed and was amused. He thought that Wellgood must have said a word to Isobel; hinted perhaps that Vivien was wax in her lover's hands, and that her lover was impetuous. That Wellgood, or Isobel herself, or anybody else, should harbour that idea did not displease Harry Belfield; not to be ableto resist him would be a venial sin, even in Vivien.
It was an empty season in the little circle of Meriton society. Harry's father and mother were away, gone to Switzerland. Andy came down for week-ends generally; all the working days his nose was close to the grindstone in the office of Messrs. Gilbert Foot and Co. He was learning the business, delighting in his new activity. Harry would not have been in Meriton either, had he not been in love in Meriton. As it was, he had his early ride, then read his books, then went over to Nutley for lunch, and spent all the rest of the day there. Often the curate would come in and make a four at tennis, but he did not stay to dinner. Almost every evening the three were alone, in the house or on the terrace by the water. One night in the week Harry might be in town, one night perhaps he would bring Andy. Four or five nights those three would be together; and the question for Isobel was how often, for how long, how completely she was to leave the engaged couple to themselves. To put it more brutally—how much of a bore was she to make herself?
To be a spy, a hindrance, a clog, to know that joy waited on the closing of the door behind her back, to listen to allusions half-intelligible, to turn a blind ear to words too tender, not to notice afurtive caress, to play the dragon of convention, the old-maid duenna—that was her function in Vivien's eyes. And the same in Harry's? Oh yes! the same in Harry Belfield's handsome, mischievous, deriding eyes! He laughed at her for what she did—for what she did in the discharge of her duty, earning her bread-and-butter. Earning more than he thought, though! Because of the derision in Harry's eyes, again she would not let Wellgood go. Vivien should awake to realize that she was more than a chaperon, tiresome for the moment, soon to be dismissed; Harry should understand that to one man she was no old-maid duenna, but the woman he wanted for wife. While she played chaperon at Nutley she wrote letters to Wellgood—letters keeping his passion alive, playing with his confidence, transparently feigning to ignore, hardly pretending to deny. They were letters a lover successful in the end would laugh at. If in the issue the man found himself jockeyed, they would furnish matter for fury as a great deceit.
Harry Belfield was still looking forward to his marriage with ardour; it would not be fair even to say that he was getting tired of his engagement. But he would have been wise to imitate Wellgood—take a last bachelor holiday, and so come back again hungry for Vivien's society. Much as heliked the fare, he could not be said to hunger for it now, it came to him so easily and so constantly. The absence of his parents, the emptiness of the town, his own want of anything particular to do, prevented even the small hindrances and interruptions that might have whetted appetite by thwarting or delaying its satisfaction. Love-making became the business of his days, when it ought to have been the diversion. Harry must always have a diversion—by preference one with something of audacity, venture, or breaking of bounds in it. His relations with Vivien, legitimate though romantic, secure yet delightful, did not satisfy this requirement. His career might have served, and would serve in the future (so it was to be hoped), but the career was at a temporary halt till the autumn campaign began. He took the diversion which lay nearest to hand; that also was his way. Isobel Vintry possessed attractions; she had a temper too, as he knew very well. He found his amusement in teasing, chaffing, and challenging her, in forcing her to play duenna more and more conspicuously, and in laughing at her when she did it; in letting his handsome eyes rest on her in admiration for a second before he hastily turned them back to a renewed contemplation of their proper shrine; in seeming half-vexed when she left him alone with Vivien, not altogethersorry when she came back. He was up to a dozen such tricks; they were his diversion; they flavoured the sweetness of his love-making with the spice of mischief.
He saw that Isobel felt, that she understood. Vivien noticed nothing, understood nothing. There was a secret set up between Isobel and himself; Vivien was a stranger to it. Harry enlarged his interests! His relations with Vivien were delightful, with Isobel they had a piquant flavour. Well, was not this a more agreeable state of things than that Isobel should be simply a bore to him, and he simply a bore to Isobel? The fact of being an engaged man did not reconcile Harry Belfield to being simply a bore to a handsome woman.
Among Wellgood's orders there was one that Vivien should go to bed at ten o'clock sharp, and Harry depart at the same hour. Wherever they were, in house or garden, the lovers had to be found and parted—Vivien ordered upstairs, Harry sent about his business. Isobel's duty was to enforce this rule. Harry found a handle in it; his malice laid hold of it.
"Here comes the strict governess!" he cried. Or, "Here's nurse! Bedtime! Won't you really let us have ten minutes more? I believe you sit with your watch in your hand."
Vivien rebuked him. "It's not poor Isobel's fault, Harry. She's got to."
"No, she likes doing it. She's a born martinet! She positively loves to separate us. You've no sympathy with the soft emotions, Miss Vintry. You're just a born dragon."
"Please come, Vivien," Isobel said, flushing a little. "It's not my fault, you know."
"Do you never break rules, Miss Vintry? It's what they're made for, you know."
"We've not been taught to think that in this house, have we, Vivien?"
"No, indeed," said Vivien with marked emphasis.
Harry laughed. "A pattern child and a pattern governess! Well, we must kiss good-night. You and I, I mean, of course, Vivien. And I'm sent home too, as usual?"
"You don't want to stay here alone, do you?" asked Isobel.
"Well, no, that wouldn't be very lively." His eyes rested on her a moment, possibly—just possibly—hinting that, though Vivien left him, yet he need not be alone.
One evening, a very fine one—when it seemed more absurd than usual to be ordered to bed or to be sent home so early—Harry chaffed Isobel in this fashion, yet with a touch of real contempt. He did feel a genuine contempt for people whokept rules just because they were rules. Vivien again interceded. "Isobel can't help it, Harry. It's father's orders."
"Surely some discretion is left to the trusty guardian?"
"It's no pleasure to me to be a nuisance, I assure you," said Isobel rather hotly. "Please come in, Vivien; it's well past ten o'clock."
Vivien rose directly.
"You've hurt Isobel, I think," she whispered to Harry. "Say something kind to her. Good-night, dear Harry!"
She ran off, ahead of Isobel, who was about to follow, with no word to Harry.
"Oh, wait a minute, please, Miss Vintry! I say, you know, I was only joking. Of course I know it's not your fault. I'm awfully sorry if I sounded rude. I thought you wouldn't mind a bit of chaff."
She stood looking at him with a hostile air.
"Why does it amuse you?" she asked.
The square question puzzled Harry, but he was apt at an encounter. He found a good answer. "I suppose because what you do—what you have to do—seems somehow so incongruous, coming from you. I won't do it again, if you don't like it. Please forgive me—and walk with me to the gate to prove it. There's no rule against that!"
For half a minute she stood, still looking at him. The moonlight was amply bright enough to let them see one another's faces.
"Very well," she said. "Come along."
Harry followed her with a pleasant feeling of curiosity. It was some little while before she spoke again. They had already reached the drive.
"Why do you say that it's incongruous, coming from me?" she asked.
"I'm afraid I can't answer that without being impertinent again," laughed Harry.
She turned to him with a slight smile. "Risk that!"
It was many days since he had been alone with her—so devoted had he been to Vivien. Now again he felt her power; again he did not know whether she put it forth consciously.
"Well, then, you playing sheep-dog when you ought to be—" He broke off, leaving his eyes to finish for him.
"So your teasing is to be considered as a compliment?"
"I'll go on with it, if you'll take it like that."
"Does Vivien take it like that, do you think?"
"I don't believe she thinks anything about it—one way or the other. She's partial to my small efforts to be amusing, that's all."
"Well, if it's a compliment, I don't want anymore of it. I think you'd better, under the circumstances, keep all your compliments for Vivien—till you're married, at all events!"
Harry lifted his brows.
"Rules! Oh, those rules!" he said with mock ruefulness.
"Is there any good in breaking them—for nothing?"
He turned quickly towards her. She was smiling at him. "For nothing?"
"Yes. Here we are at the gate. Good-night, Mr. Harry."
"What do you mean by—?"
"I really can't stay any longer." She was doing the mockery now; his eagerness had given her the advantage. "You can think over my meaning—if you like. Good-night!"
Harry said good-night. When he had gone fifty yards he looked back. She was still there, holding the gate half open with her hand, looking along the road. After him? As he went on, his thoughts were not all of Vivien. Isobel Vintry was a puzzling girl!
The next evening he brought Vivien into the drawing-room punctually at ten.
"We're good children to-night!" he said gaily. "We've even said good-night to one another already, and Vivien's ready to run up to bed."
"There, Isobel, aren't we good?" cried Vivien, with her good-night kiss to Isobel.
"Any reward?" asked Harry, as the door closed behind hisfiancée.
"What do you ask?"
"A walk to the gate. And—perhaps—an explanation."
"Certainly no explanation. I don't mind five minutes' walk to the gate."
This time very little was said on the way to the gate. A constraint seemed to fall on both of them. The night felt very silent, very still; the lake stretched silent and still too, mysteriously tranquil.
At last Harry spoke. "You've forgiven me—quite?"
"Oh yes. Naturally you didn't think how—how it seemed to me. It isn't always easy to—" She paused for a moment, looking over the water. "But it's my place in life—for the present, at all events."
"It won't be for long. It can't be." He laughed. "But I must take care—compliments barred!"
"From you to me—yes."
Again her words—or the way she said them—stirred him to an eager curiosity. She half said things, or said things with half-meanings. Was that art or accident? She did not say "from an engaged man to hisfiancée'scompanion," but "fromyou to me." Was the concrete—the personal—form significant?
No more passed, save only, at the gate, "Good-night." But with the word she gave him her hand and smiled at him—and ever so slightly shook her head.
The next day, and the next, and the next, she left Vivien and him entirely to themselves, save when meals forced her to appear; and on none of the three nights would she walk with him to the gate, though he asked twice in words and the third time with his eyes. Was that what the little shake of her head had meant? But the two walks had left their mark. Harry chaffed and teased no more.
Vivien praised his forbearance, adding, "I really think you hurt her feelings a little, Harry. But it was being rather absurdly touchy, wasn't it?"
"She seems to be sensitive about her position."
Vivien made a little grimace. She was thinking that Isobel's position in the house had been at least as pleasant as her own—till Harry came to woo.
"Oh, confound this political business!" Harry suddenly broke out. "But for that we could get married in the middle of August—as soon as your father and my people are back. I hate this waiting till October, don't you? Now you know you do, Vivien!"
She put her hand on his and pressed it gently. "Yes, but it's pleasant as it is. I'm not so very impatient—so long as I see you every day."
But Harry was impatient now, and rather restless. The days had ceased to glide by so easily, almost imperceptibly, in the company of his lover. There was a feeling in him which did not make for peace—a recrudescence of those impulses of old days which his engagement was utterly to have banished. Marriage was invoked to banish them utterly now. The sooner marriage came, the better! Harry was ardent in his love-making that afternoon, and Vivien in a heaven of delight. If there was no chaff, there was no appeal to Isobel for a walk to the gate either.
"I wish she wasn't there," he said to himself as he walked down, alone, to the gate at a punctual ten o'clock. Somehow his delight in his love for Vivien, and in hers for him, was being marred. Ever so little, ever so faintly, yet still a little, his romance was turning to duty. A delightful duty, of course, one in which his whole heart was engaged, but still no longer just the one thing—the spontaneous voluntary thing—which filled his life. It had now an opposite. Besides all else that it was, it had also—even now, even before that marriage so slow in coming—taken on the aspect of the right thing. In the remote corners of his mind—banishedto those—hovered the shadowy image of its opposite. Quite impossible that the image should put on bones and flesh—should take life! Yes, Harry was sure of that. But even its phantom presence was disturbing.
"I thought I'd got rid of all that!" Some such protest, yet even vaguer and less formulated, stirred in his thoughts. He conceived that he had become superior to temptation. Had he? For he was objecting to being tempted. Who tempted him? Did she—or only he himself, the man he was? The question hung doubtful, and thereby pressed him the closer. He flattered himself that he knew women. What else had he to show for a good deal of time—to say nothing of wear and tear of the emotions? Here was a woman whose meaning, whose feeling towards himself, he did not know.
Andy Hayes was free the next afternoon—his half-holiday. Harry picked him up at his lodgings and carried him with him to Nutley. Harry was glad to have him, glad to hear all about Gilbert Foot and Co., even more glad to see his own position through Andy's eyes. Andy's vision was always so normal, so sane, so simple; his assumptions were always so right. A man really had only to live up to Andy's assumptions to be perfectly right. He assumed that a man was honest, straight,single-minded—unreservedly and exclusively in love with the girl he was going to marry. Why, of course a man was! Or why marry her? Even foolishly in love with her? Rather spoonily, as some might think? Andy, perhaps, went so far as to assume that. Well, it was a most healthy assumption—eminently right on the practical side; primitive perhaps, but tremendously right.
"I'll take Miss Vintry off your hands. Don't be afraid about that!" laughed Andy.
"I don't know that you'll be allowed to. You're no end of a favourite of Vivien's. She often talks about you. In fact I think I'm a bit jealous, Andy!"
Andy's presence seemed to restore his balance, which had seemed shaken—even if very slightly. He found himself again dwelling on the charms of Vivien, recalling her pretty ways and the shy touches of humour that sometimes ornamented her timidity.
"I asked her the other day—I was playing the fool, you know—what she would do if I forsook her. What do think she said?"
Andy was prepared for anything brilliant, but, naturally, unable to suggest it.
"She said, 'Drown myself in the lake, Harry—or else send for Andy Hayes.'"
"Did she say that?" cried Andy, hugely delighted,blushing as red as he had when the Nun told him that he was attractive.
If Andy's simplicity and ready enthusiasm were congenial to some minds and some moods, to others they could be very exasperating. To have it assumed that you are feeling just what you ought to feel—or even rather more than could in strictness be expected from you—may be a strain on your patience. Harry had welcomed in Andy an assumption of this order; at the moment it helped him. Isobel gave a similar assumption about her feelings a much less hearty welcome. While Harry and Vivien took a stroll by themselves after lunch, Andy sat by her and was enthusiastic about them; he had forgotten the Nun's unjust hints.
Isobel chafed. "Oh, yes, it's all very ideal, I daresay, Mr. Hayes. Let's hope it'll last! But Mr. Harry's been in love before, hasn't he?"
"Most people have had a fancy or two." (Even he himself had indulged in one.) "This is quite different to him, I know. And how could anybody help being fond of her?"
"At any rate she's pretty free from the dangers of competition down here." She looked at Andy with a curious smile.
He laughed heartily. "Yes, that's all right,anyhow! Not that it would make any difference, I'm sure."
"If it were only to show this simpleton—" The angry thought was in her heart. But there was more. Harry's devotion was seeming very whole-hearted that day. Had she lost her power to disturb it? Was Andy in the end right in leaving her utterly out of consideration? Every day now and every hour it hurt her more to see Harry's handsome head ever bowed to Vivien, his eyes asking her love and receiving the loving answer. A wave of jealousy and of defiance swept over her. Andy need not know—she could afford to leave him in his folly. Vivien must not know—that would be too inconvenient. But Harry himself—was he quite to forget those two walks to the gate? She burned to use her power. A letter from Wellgood had reached her that morning; it was not a proposal of marriage, but by his talk of future plans—of what was to happen after Vivien left them—it assumed that she was still to be at Nutley. The implication was definite; matters only awaited his return.
"I haven't had a single word with you—by ourselves—all day," said Vivien to Andy after dinner. "You'll walk with me, won't you?"
"For my part I don't think I want to walk at all," said Harry. "It's rather chilly. Will youkeep me company indoors, and forgive my cigar, Miss Vintry?"
Isobel assented rather coldly, but her heart beat quicker. Now that the chance came—by no contrivance of hers and unexpectedly—she was suddenly afraid of it, and afraid of what seemed a sudden revelation of the strength of her feeling for Harry. She had meant to play with him, to show him that, if she was to be left out of the reckoning, it was by her own choice; to make him see her power fully for once before she hid it for ever. Could she carry out her dangerous programme? Harry had been at his gayest that night, just in the mood which had carried him to most of his conquests—gaily daring, skirting topics of gallantry with defiant ease, provoking, yet never offending. If his eyes spoke true, he was in the mood still.
"Only a week more!" he said. "Then papa-in-law comes back, and I go electioneering. Well, I suppose we've had enough of what they call dalliance." He sank into an armchair by the fireplace, sighing in pleasant indolence, lolling gracefully.
The long windows were open to the terrace; the evening air came in cool and sweet. She looked out on the terrace; Vivien and Andy had wandered away; they were not in sight. Vivien's wrap lay on a chair close to the window.
"Vivien ought to have taken her wrap," said Isobel absently, as she came back and stood by the mantelpiece opposite Harry. Her cheeks were a little flushed and her eyes bright to-night; she responded to Harry's gaiety, his mood acted on hers.
"What are you going to do after we're—after the break-up here?" he asked suddenly.
She smiled down at him, pausing a moment before she answered. "You seem quite sure that there will be a complete break-up," she said.
He looked hard at her; she smiled steadily. "Well, I know that Vivien won't be here," he said.
"Oh, I know that much too, Mr. Harry. But I suppose her father will."
"I suppose that too. Which leaves only one of the party unaccounted for."
"Yes, only one of us unaccounted for."
"One that may be Miss Wellgood's companion, but could hardly be Mr. Wellgood's. He can scarcely claim the privileges of old age yet."
"You think I ought to be looking out for another situation? But supposing—merely supposing—Mr. Wellgood didn't agree?"
Harry flung his cigar into the grate. "Do you mean—?" he said slowly. She gave a little laugh.He laughed too, rather uneasily. "I say, you can't mean—?"
"Can't I? Well, I only said 'supposing.' And I think you chaffed me about it yourself once. You forget what you say to women, Mr. Harry."
"Should you like it?"
"Beggars mustn't be choosers. We can't all be as lucky as Vivien!"
"Was I serious? No—I mean—are you? Wellgood!"
"Why shouldn't I be? Or why shouldn't Mr. Wellgood? It seems absurd?"
"Not in Wellgood, anyhow."
"Beggars mustn't be choosers."
"You a beggar! Why, you're—"
"What am I?"
"Shall I break the rules?"
She gave him a long look before answering. "No, don't." Her voice shook a little, her composure was less perfect.
Harry was no novice; the break in the voice did not escape him. He marked it with a thrill of triumph; it told him that she was not merely playing with him; he was holding his own, he had his power. The fight was equal. He rose to his feet and stood facing her, both of them by the mantelpiece.
"I don't want you to say anything about this toVivien, because it's not definite yet. If the opportunity were offered to me, don't you think I should be wise to accept?"
"Are you in love with him?" He looked in her eyes. "No, you can't be!"
"Your standard of romance is so high. I like him—and perhaps I don't like looking out for another situation." Her tone was lighter; she seemed mistress of herself again. But Harry had not forgotten the break in her voice.
"Have you considered that this arrangement—"
"Which we have supposed—"
"Would make you my mother-in-law?"
"Well, your stepmother-in-law. That doesn't sound quite so oppressive, I hope?"
"They both sound to me considerably absurd."
"I really can't see why they should."
Their eyes met in confidence, mirthful and defiant. They fought their duel now, forgetful of everybody except themselves. His old spirit had seized on Harry; it carried him away. She gave herself up to the delight of her triumph and to the pleasure that his challenge gave her. Out of sight, out of mind, were Vivien and Andy.
"But relationship has its consolations, its privileges," said Harry, leaning towards her, his face alight with mischievous merriment. He offeredher his hand. "At all events, accept my congratulations."
She gave him her hand. "You're premature, both with congratulations and with relationship."
"Oh, I'm always in a hurry about things," laughed Harry, holding her hand. He leant closer yet; his face was very near hers now—his comely face with its laughing luring eyes. She did not retreat. Harry saw in her eyes, in her flushed cheeks and quickened breath, in her motionlessness, the permission that he sought. Bending, he kissed her cheek.
She gave a little laugh, triumphant, yet deprecatory and nervous. Her face was all aflame. Harry's gaze was on her; slowly he released her hand. She stood an instant longer, then, with a shrug of her shoulders, walked across the room towards the windows. Harry stood watching her, exultant and merry still.
Suddenly she came to a stand. She spoke without looking round. "Vivien's shawl was on that chair."
The words hardly reached his preoccupied brain. "What? Whose shawl?"
She turned round slowly. "Vivien's shawl was on that chair, and it's gone," she said.
Harry darted past her to the window, and looked out. He came back to her on tiptoe andwhispered, "Andy! He's about two-thirds of the way across the terrace with the thing now."
"He must have come in just a moment ago," she whispered in return.
Harry nodded. "Yes—just a moment ago. I wonder—!" He pursed up his lips, but still there was a laughing devil in his eye. "Lucky she didn't come for it herself!" he said. "But—well, I wonder!"
She laid her finger on her lips. They heard steps approaching, and Vivien's merry voice. Harry made a queer, half-puzzled, half-amused grimace. Isobel walked quickly on to the terrace. Inside the light fell too mercilessly on her cheeks; she would meet them beneath the friendly cover of the night.
A stolen kiss may mean very different things—almost nothing (not quite nothing, or why steal it?), something yet not too much, or well-nigh everything. The two parties need not give it the same value; a witness of it is not, of necessity, bound by the valuation of either of them. It may be merely a jest, of such taste as charity can allow in the circumstances; it may be the crown and end of a slight and passing flirtation; it may be the first visible mark of a passion destined to grow to fierce intensity. Or it may seem utterly evasive in its significance at the moment, as it were indecipherable and imponderable, waiting to receive from the future its meaning and its weight.
The last man to find his way through a maze of emotional analysis was Andy Hayes; his mind held no thread of experience whereby to track the path, his temperament no instinct to divine it. He could not assign a value—or values—to theincident of which chance had made him a witness; what Harry's impulse, Isobel's obvious acceptance of it, the intensity and absorption that marked the bearing of the two in the brief moment in which he saw them as he lifted Vivien's shawl, stood looking for a flash of time, and quickly turned away—what these things meant or amounted to he could not tell. But there was no uncertainty about his feelings; he was filled with deep distaste. He was not a man of impracticable ideals—his mind walked always in the mean—but he was naturally averse from intrigue, from underhand doings, from the playing of double parts. They were traitors in this thing; let it mean the least it could, even to mere levity or unbecoming jocularity (their faces rose in his mind to contradict this view even as he put it), still they were so far traitors. The first brunt of his censure fell on Isobel, but his allegiance to Harry was also so sorely shaken that it seemed as though it could never be the same again. The engagement had been to Andy a sacrosanct thing; it was now sacrilegiously defaced by the hands of the two most bound to guard it. "Very low-down!" was Andy's humble phrase of condemnation—at least very low-down; how much more he knew not but that in the best view of the case. At the moment his heart had gone out to Vivien in agreat pang of compassion; it seemed such a shame to tamper with, even if not actually to betray, a trust like hers. His face, like Isobel's, had been red—but red with anger—under the cover of the night. He was echoing the Nun's "Poor girl!" which in loyalty to his friend he had before resented.
His first impulse had been to shield Vivien from any suspicion; it taught him a new cunning, an hypocrisy not his own. If Isobel delayed their return to the brightly lighted room, he did not hurry it—let all the faces have time to recover! But his voice was calm and unmoved; for him he was even talkative and exuberant. When they went in, he met Harry with an unembarrassed air. Relief rose in Isobel; yet Harry doubted. So far as Harry could reason, he must have all but seen, probably had actually seen. And in one thing there was significance. He went on devoting himself to Vivien; he did not efface himself in Harry's favour, as his wont was. He seemed to make his presence a fence round her, forbidding her lover's approach. Harry, now talking trifles to Isobel, watched him keenly, hardly doubting, hardly venturing to hope.
"Till lunch to-morrow, Harry," said Vivien gaily, when the time for good-night came. "You'll come too, won't you, Mr. Hayes?"
"Thanks awfully, but I'm off for a big tramp."
"To dinner then?" asked Isobel very graciously.
"Thanks awfully, but I—I really must sup with old Jack."
The quickest glance ran from Harry to Isobel.
What was to be done? Take the chance—the bare chance—that he had not seen anything, or not seen all? Or confess the indiscretion and plead its triviality—with a vow of penitence, serious if Andy must be serious over such a trifle, light if he proved man of the world enough to join in laughing it off? No, Harry would take the chance, poor as it was. Even if Andy had seen, how could he interfere? To confess, however lightly, would be to give him a standing in the case, a right to put his oar in. It would be silly to do that; as matters stood now, his title could be denied if he sought to meddle. He knew Andy well enough to be sure that he would do nothing against him without fair warning. If he meant to tell tales to Vivien or to Wellgood, he would warn Harry first. Time enough to wrestle with him then! Meanwhile they—he was coupling Isobel with himself—would stand on the defensive; nothing should be admitted, everything should be ignored.
So much for Andy! He was assessed—a possible danger, a certain cause for vigilance, also, it must be confessed, rather an uncomfortablepresence, an embarrassing witness of his friend's orthodox love-making, as he had been an unwilling one of his heterodox. Meanwhile Harry's tact was equal to the walk back to Meriton, Andy proving inclined to silence but not unfriendly or morose, still less actively aggressive or reproachful. And he would not be at Meriton to-morrow. The word could be passed to Isobel—be careful but say nothing! Very careful in Andy's presence—but no admissions to be made!
Aye, so much for Andy! But besides the witness there are the parties. Besides the person who catches you kissing, there is the person you kiss. There is also you, who kiss. All questions of value are not decided by the impression you chance to make on the witness. The bystander may see most of the game; the players settle the stakes.
"Perverse!" was Harry's verdict on the whole affair, given from his own point of view; not only perverse that he should have been caught—if he had been—but no less perverse that he should have done the thing, that he should have wanted to do it, and that he should feel as he now did about it. Perhaps the last element was really the most perverse of all, because it set up in his mind an opposition to what was plainly the only course open to him from Isobel's point of view. (Herethe question of the third value came in.) That was surely open and avowed penitence—a sincere apology, as serious or as light as was demanded or would be accepted. She could not pretend that she felt outraged. In truth they had shared in the indiscretion and been partners in the peccadillo. An apology not too abject, a hint at the temptation, gracefully put, to serve for excuse, a return to the safe ground of friendship—and a total oblivion of the incident! Or, if they must think of it at all, it would be without words—with a smile, maybe, in a few days' time; that is how we feel about some not serious, by no means unpleasant, little scrape that is well over. Harry had been in a good many such—perverse but not fatal, annoying at the time, not necessarily things on which the memory dwelt with pain in after days; far from it sometimes, in fact.
That was the right thing to do, and the right way to regard the episode. But Harry was conscious of a complication—in the circumstances and in his own feelings. Owing to his engagement with Vivien he must go on frequenting Isobel's society; owing to the memory of his kiss the necessity was not distasteful. Well, these little complications must be unravelled; the first difficulty faced, the second ignored or overcome. He arrived at so clear, sound, and prudent a resolutionthus to minimise the effects of his indiscretion that he felt almost more virtuous than if he had been discreet.
So the parties, as well as the witness, were assessed. But who had put into his hand the standard whereby to assess Isobel? She might measure by another rule.
The confession—and absolution—thus virtuously and comfortably planned did not take place the next day, for the simple reason that Miss Vintry afforded no opportunity for them; she was ill and invisible. On the following day she was on a sofa. Immediately on his appearance, Harry was sent home again, Vivien declaring that she must be in unremitting attendance on her friend. The third day matters seemed back on their usual footing; but still he got no private word with Isobel. Once or twice he caught her looking at him in what seemed a thoughtful way; when observed, she averted her glance, but without embarrassment. Perhaps this avoidance of all chance of private talk—of all possibility of referring to the incident—was her way of treating it; perhaps she meant to dispense with apology and go straight to oblivion. If that were her intention, she misjudged Harry's feelings. He felt baulked of his scheme of confession and absolution—baulked and tantalized. He felt almost insulted—did she not think himgentleman enough to apologise? He felt curious—did she not feel the desire for an apology herself? He felt amazed—had she no anxiety about Andy? The net result was that he could think of little else than of her and of the incident. And under these circumstances he had to carry on his orthodox love-making! The way of trangressors is said to be hard; at moments Harry felt his worse than that; it had a tendency to become ridiculous.
Against this abhorred peril he struck back vigorously and instinctively on effective lines. He could hold his own in a duel of the sexes. His court of Vivien not only seemed but became more ardent—in these matters the distinction between being and seeming runs very thin, since the acting excites the reality. If one woman teased him, occupying his thoughts without satisfying his desire, he turned to the adoration of another, and gave her of his own that hers might be more complete. Adoring Vivien found herself adored; Harry's worship would break out even in Isobel's presence! He who had been rather too content to accept now asked; she could not do enough to witness her love. Half-unconsciously fighting for a victory he less than consciously desired, he struck at Isobel through Vivien—and made Vivien supremely happy. Happiness gave her confidence; confidence gave her new charm, a new vivacity, adaring to speak her gay and loving thoughts. Who should not listen if Harry loved to hear? Her growth in power to allure made Harry wonder that he could not love single-heartedly, why his recollection of the incident remained so fresh and so ever-present. If Isobel would give him a chance to wind it up! It was troublesome now only because it hung in a mystery created by her silence, because the memory of it was irritated by a curiosity which her evasion of him maintained. Did she think it nothing? Or could she not bear to speak of it, because it was so much more? At any rate she should see how he loved Vivien!
The three had this week to themselves—Andy engulfed in town and Gilbert Foot and Co., Wellgood not due back till the Saturday. So they passed it—Vivien in a new ecstasy; Harry ardent, troubled, wondering; Isobel apart, thoughtful, impossible to read. Thus they came to the Friday. To-morrow Wellgood would be back. Harry, thinking on this, thought suddenly of what had led up to the incident—what had been the excuse, the avenue, for his venture. It had been absorbed in the incident itself. Wellgood's coming gave it back to independent life. If what Isobel had said were true, another lover entered on the scene—Isobel's!
That night—when Harry had gone—Viviencame to Isobel and kissed her, saying, "It's wonderful, but to-night I'm sure!"
Isobel was looking at an illustrated paper. She let her hand rest in Vivien's, but she did not raise her eyes from the pictures. "Silly child, you've been sure all along!"
"Not as I am to-night. I've been sure I pleased him, that he liked me, that he liked my love. I've never been sure that he really wanted it till the last two or three days." She paused a moment, and added softly, "Never sure he must have it, as much as I must have his!"
Isobel's paper slipped from her knees on to the floor, but still she did not look at Vivien.
"It's a wonderful feeling that," the girl went on; "to feel he must have it—that he must have my love as I must have his. Before he seemed to be doing all the giving—and I could hardly believe! Now I'm giving too—we're sharing. Somehow it makes a woman of me." She playfully caressed Isobel's hand, running fingers lightly over fingers. "I don't believe I'm afraid even of you any more!" Her tone was gay, affectionately bantering.
Now Isobel looked up at her as she leant over her shoulder. "It makes you look very pretty."
"It makes me feel prettier still," laughed Vivien. She put her face close to her friend's andwhispered, blushing, "He kisses me differently now."
Isobel Vintry sharply drew her hand away. Vivien's blush grew painfully bright.
"Oh, I—I oughtn't to have said that. You're right, Isobel. It's—it's too sacred. But I was so happy in it. Do forgive me, dear. I've got no mother to talk to, Isobel. Not even a sister! I know what you felt, but you must forgive me."
"There's nothing to forgive, child. I meant nothing when I took my hand away. I was going to pick up the paper."
"Then kiss me, Isobel."
Isobel slowly turned her head and kissed the girl's cheek. "I know what you mean, Vivien," she said with a smile that to the girl seemed wistful, almost bitter.
"You dear!" she whispered. "Some day you must be very happy too." Her voice carolled in song as she sped upstairs.
"The good which I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do." That—and possibly one other—reminiscence of the Scriptures came back to Isobel Vintry when, with a kiss, she had dismissed Vivien to her happy rest. There was another law, warring against the law of her mind—the law of the Restless and Savage Master. He broke friendship's power and blurred the mirrorof loyalty. He drove her whither she would not go, commanded her to set her hand to what she would not touch, forced love to mate with loathing. "The child is so beautifully happy," her spirit cried. "Aye, in Harry Belfield's kisses," came the Master's answer. "Wouldn't she be? You've tasted them. You know." She knew. They were different now! From those he had given Vivien before? Yes. From the one he had given her? Or like that one? Her jealousy caught fresh flame from Vivien's shy revelation—fresh flame and new shame. Harry was repenting—with smiles of memory. She was sinning still, with groans, with all her cunning, and with all her might. Pass the theory that it is each man for himself in this fight, and each woman for her own hand. No doubt; but should not the fight be fair? The girl did not so much as know there was a fight, and should not and must not, unless and until it had gone irrevocably against her. "All's fair in love—and war." Yet traitors suffer death from their own side and the enemy's contempt.
His kisses were different now—that set her aflame. Aye, and to mark how under their new charm Vivien opened into new power and took hold on new weapons! The new kisses somehow made a woman of her! It might be tolerable to see him make his marriage of convenience,doing no more than somewhat indolently allowing himself to be adored. But to see him adoring this other—that was to be worsted on the merits—not merely to be impossible, but to be undesired. Was that coming about? Had it come about—so soon after the stolen kiss? Then the kiss had been all failure, all shame; he had mocked while he kissed. She was cheapened, yet not aided. The cunning of the last six days had been bent to prove that she had been aided—her value not cheapened but enhanced.
Looking again out of the window whence she had watched the pair at their love-making, looking over the terrace, now empty, across the water (water seems ever to answer to the onlooker's mood), she exclaimed against the absence of safeguards. Were she a wife—or were Vivien! That would be a fence, making for protection—a sturdy fence, which to break down or to leap over would be plain trespassing, a profanation, open offence. Were she—or were Vivien—a mother! The Savage Master himself must own a worthy foe in motherhood—one that gave him trouble, one that he vanquished only after hard fighting, and then saw his victory bitterly grudged, piteously wept over, deplored in a heart-rending fashion; you could see that in the morning's paper. She chanced to have read such a case a day or two before. The letterof confession was signed "Mother the outcast." To have to sign like that—if you let the Master beat you—was a deterrent, a safeguard, a shield. Such defences she had not. Vivien was neither wife nor mother; no more was she. The engagement seemed but victory in the first bout; was it forbidden to try the best of three? Nothing was irrevocable yet—on either side. "At lovers' vows—!" Or a stolen kiss! Or a stolen victory?
Suddenly she remembered, and with the same quality of smile as Vivien had marked, that she had been an exemplary child, ever extolled, never punished; a pattern schoolgirl, with the highest marks, Queen on May-day (a throne not to be achieved without the Principal'scongé d'élire!), a model student at Cambridge. Hence the unexceptionable credentials which had introduced her to Nutley, had made her Vivien's preceptress, Vivien's bulwark against fear and weakness, Vivien's shield—and destined to be a shield to successive young ladies after Vivien. Who first had undermined that accepted view of destiny, had disordered that well-schooled, almost Sunday-schooled, scheme of her life? Vivien's father, who came back to-morrow. At whose challenge was the shaken fortress like to fall? Vivien's lover, who came yesterday and the day before,to-morrow and the day after, every day till he went out of life with Vivien.
As with minds greatly preoccupied, the ordinary traffic of the hours passed unnoticed; bed, sleep, breakfast, were a moment. She found herself greeting Wellgood, newly arrived, ruddy and robust, confident, self-satisfied—as she saw in a moment, eager. His kiss to his daughter was carelessly kind, and with it he let her go, she not unwilling; Harry was due at the gate. Wellgood's real greeting was for the woman whom to see was his home-coming. He led her with him into his study; he laid his hand on her arm as he made her sit down near him.
"Well, have the lovers bored you to death with their spooning since I've been away?"
"There's been a good deal of it, and not much relief. Only Andy Hayes now and then."
"Rather tiresome to be the onlooker all the time. Wouldn't you like a little on your own account?"
"I'm in no hurry." She looked him straight in the face, rather defiantly.
"I've made up my mind since I've been away. I'm not a good hand at speeches or at spooning, but I'm fond of you, Isobel. I'll make you a good husband—and it's for you to consider whether you'll ever get a better chance."
"I should like more time to think it over."
"Oh, come, don't tell me you haven't been thinking it over for weeks past. What's the difficulty?"
"I'm not in love with you—that's all."
"I don't expect to inspire a romantic passion, like young Harry."
"Can't you leave Harry Belfield out of it?" she asked irritably.
"I see he has bored you," chuckled Wellgood. "But you like me? We get on together?"
"Yes, I like you, and we get on together. But I don't want to marry yet."
"No more do I—just yet!" He rose and went to the mantelpiece to choose a pipe. "Have you got any friends you could stay a month with?"
His back was to her; he was busy filling the pipe. He saw neither the sudden stiffening of her figure nor the fear in her eyes. Was he going to send her away—now? But she answered coolly, "Yes, I think I could arrange it, if you wish."
"Somehow a man feels rather a fool, being engaged himself while his girl's getting married. We should have all the idiots in the neighbourhood buzzing about with their jokes and congratulations. I've made a plan to avoid all that. We keep it quite dark till Vivien's wedding; then you go off, ostensibly for good. I stay here and give the place an overhauling; then I'll join youin town, we'll be married there, and go for a jaunt. By the time we come back they'll have cooled down—and they'll be jolly glad to have shirked their wedding presents." By now he had turned round; the strain and the fear had passed from Isobel; the month's visit to friends was not to come now. "How do you like the scheme?" he asked.
"I like the scheme very much, and I'm all for keeping it quiet till Vivien is disposed of."
He stood before her, smoking his pipe, his hands in his pockets. "Shall we call it settled?"
"I don't want to call it settled yet."
He put down his pipe. "Look here, Isobel, because I can't make pretty speeches, don't you think I don't feel this thing. I want you, and I want the thing settled. You ought to know your mind by now. If you want to say no, you can say it now, but I don't believe you do. Then why can't you say yes? It's devilishly uncomfortable to go on living in the house with you while the thing's unsettled."
Would the visit come into play after all, unless she consented? Isobel sat in thought.
"Just understood between ourselves—that's what I mean. I shan't bother you with much love-making, as I daresay you can guess."
She had cried out for a fence, a protection. Did not one offer itself now? It might proveof service. She saw that the man loved her in his rough way; his love might help her. For the time, at least, his honest sincerity of affection touched her heart. His "I want you" was grateful to her. That other thing—the thing to which the stolen kiss belonged—was madness. Surely she had resolution to withstand it and to do what was wise? Surely she could be honest? If only because, in all likelihood, dishonesty led nowhere.
"Suppose I said yes—and changed my mind?" She was trying to be honest—or perhaps to put herself in a position to maintain that she had been honest, if need arose.
"I must take my chance of that, like other men," laughed Wellgood. "But, like other men too, I don't suppose I should be very pleasant about it. Especially not if there was another fellow!"
"No, I don't suppose you would." She smiled at him for a moment; he showed there a side of him that she liked—his courage, his self-confidence, his power to stand up for himself.
"You leave it to me to keep you when once I've got you," he went on, smiling grimly. "That's my affair; you'll find I shall look after it."
She smiled back at him—defiance in return for his grimness. "Very well, I'll leave it to you to keep me. After all, there's no reason to expect competition."
"Not in Meriton, perhaps! But what of London, Miss Isobel? I must keep an eye on you there!" He took hold of her hands and pulled her to her feet. "It's a promise?"
"In the way I've told you—yes."
"Oh, that's good enough for me!" He drew her to him and kissed her. "We shan't have many chances of kissing—or we should give the thing away. But give me one now, Isobel!"
She did as she was bid in a very friendly fashion. His kiss had been hearty but not passionate, and hers was an adequate response. It left Wellgood entirely content.
"That's all right! Gad, I feel ten years younger! You shan't repent it. I'll look after you well—while I'm alive and after I'm gone too. Don't be afraid about that. Perhaps there'll be somebody else to look after you, by the time I get notice to quit. I'd like to leave a Wellgood of Nutley behind me."
"Do you know, that's sentimental?" said Isobel. "Mere sentiment!"
"Not a bit of it, miss. It's a sound natural instinct, and I'm proud of it." He kissed her again. "Now be off, there's a good girl. I've got a thousand things to do, and probably everything's been going to the devil while I've been away."
"I rather pity everybody now you've come back!"
"Don't you worry. I know I shall find your department in good order. Be off!" He took her by the shoulders in a rough playfulness and turned her towards the door. She left him chuckling to himself. He was very content with the issue of his suit.
Was her department in good order? Her lips twisted in a wry smile.
As she approached the drawing-room door, Harry Belfield came out of it. He started a little to see her—not that it was strange she should be there, but because he had not seen her alone since the night of the stolen kiss. He closed the door behind him and came to her.
"Vivien"—a jerk of his head told that Vivien was in the drawing-room—"has sent me to say 'How do you do?' to Mr. Wellgood."
"He's in his study, Mr. Harry. Don't stay long. He's very busy." She drew aside, to let him pass, but Harry stood still.
"Are you never going to give me an opportunity?" he asked in a low voice.
"An opportunity for what?"
Harry jumped at the chance of his confession and absolution. "Why, of saying how awfully sorry and—and ashamed I am that I yielded—"
"What's the use of saying anything about it? It's best forgotten."
"Now Wellgood's back?" he whispered, with a flash of his eyes.
"Certainly best forgotten, now that Vivien's father is back."
He shook his head at her with a smile, owning her skilful parry. "You won't give me one chance?"
"Does the dashing Mr. Harry Belfield need to have chances given him? I thought he made them for himself."
Harry's eyes gleamed. "I'll take you at your word in that!"
"You've been in no hurry about it up to now—and you seem in none to say 'How do you do?' to Mr. Wellgood." She motioned him to go on, adding, "It was very silly, but no harm's done. We'll forget."
Harry gave her a long look. She met it with a steady smile. He held out his hand.
"Thank you. We'll forget. There's my hand on it."
She gave a little laugh, shook her head, and put her hands behind her back.
"I seem to remember it began that way before," she said, and darted past him swiftly.
That was how they set about forgetting the stolen kiss.
It speedily appeared that Gilly Foot had other than pecuniary reasons for wanting a partner; he wanted a pair of hands to work for him. He was lazy, at times even lethargic; nothing could make him hurry. He hated details, and, above all other details, figures. His work was to hatch ideas; somebody else had to bring up the chickens. Andy could hardly have allowed the cool shuffling-off of all the practical business work on to his shoulders—which was what happened as soon as he had learnt even the rudiments of it—had it not been that the ideas were good. The indolent young man would sit all the morning—not that his morning began very early—apparently doing nothing, then spend two hours at lunch at the restaurant, come back smoking a large cigar, and after another hour's rumination be delivered of an idea. The budding business—Andy wondered how it had even budded under a gardener who nodoubt planted but never watered—lay mainly with educational works; and here Gilly's ingenuity came in. He was marvellously good at guessing what would appeal to a schoolmaster; how or whence he got this instinct it was impossible to say; it seemed just a freak of genius. The prospectus of a new "series," or the "syllabus" of a new course of study (contained in Messrs. Gilbert Foot and Co.'s primers) became in his hands a most skilful bait. And if he hooked one schoolmaster, as he pointed out to Andy, it was equivalent to hooking scores, perhaps hundreds, conceivably thousands, of boys. Girls too perhaps! Gilly was all for the higher education of girls. Generations of the youth of both sexes rose before his prophetically sanguine eye, all brought up on Gilbert Foot and Co.'s primers.
"A single really good idea for a series may mean a small fortune, Andy," he would say impressively. "And now I think I may as well go to lunch."
Andy accepted the situation and did the hard work. He also provided his partner with a note-book, urging him to put down (or, failing that, to get somebody else to put down) any brilliant idea which occurred to him at lunch. For himself he made a rule—lunch at the restaurant not more than once a week. Only ideas justified lunch thereevery day. Lunch there might be good for ideas; it was not good for figures.
So Andy was working hard, no less hard than when he was trying to drag his poor timber business out of the mud, but with far more heart, hope, and zest. He buckled to the figures; he bargained with the gentlemen who wrote the primers, with the printers, and the binders, and the advertisement canvassers; he tracked shy discounts to their lairs, and bagged them; his eye on office expenses was the eye of a lynx. The chickens hatched by Gilly found a loving and assiduous foster-mother. And in September, after the new primers had been packed off to meet the boys going back to school, Andy was to have a holiday; he was looking forward to it intensely. He meant to spend it in attending Harry Belfield on his autumn campaign in the Meriton Division—an odd idea of a holiday to most men's thinking, but Harry was still Harry, and Andy's appetite for new experiences had lost none of its voracity. Meanwhile, for recreation, there was Sunday with its old programme of church, a tramp, and supper with Jack Rock; there was lunch on Friday at the restaurant with the Nun—she never missed Andy's day—and other friends; and on both the Saturdays which followed the Belfields' return home he was bidden to dine at Halton.
That the Nun had taken a fancy to him he had been informed by that candid young woman herself; her assurance that he was "attractive" held good as regarded Belfield at least; even Andy's modesty could not deny that. Belfield singled him out for especial attention, drew him out, listened to him, advised him. It was at the first of the two evenings at Halton that he kept Andy with him after dinner, while the rest went into the garden—Wellgood and Vivien were there, but not Isobel, who had pleaded a cold—and insisted on hearing all about his business, listening with evident interest to Andy's description of it and of his partner, Gilly Foot.
"And in your holiday you're going to help Harry, I hear?"
"Help him!" laughed Andy. "I'm going to listen to him."
"I recommend you to try your own hand too. You couldn't have a better opportunity of learning the job than at these village meetings."
"I could never do it. It never entered my head. Why, I know nothing!"
"More than your audience; that's enough. If you do break down at first, it doesn't matter. After a month of it you wouldn't mind Trafalgar Square."
"The—the idea's absolutely new to me."
"So have a lot of things been lately, haven't they? And they're turning out well."
A slow smile spread over Andy's face. "I should look a fool," he reflected.
"Try it," said Belfield, quite content with the reception of his suggestion. He saw that Andy would turn it over in his mind, would give it full, careful, impartial consideration. He was coming to have no small idea of Andy's mind. He passed to another topic.
"You were at Nutley two or three times when we were away, Harry tells me. Everything seems going on very pleasantly?"
Andy recalled himself with a start from his rumination over a possible speech.
"Oh, yes—er—it looks like it, Mr. Belfield."
"And Harry's not been to town more than once or twice!" He smiled. "He really seems to have said farewell to the temptations of London. An exemplary swain!"
"I think it's going on all right, sir," said Andy.
Belfield was a little puzzled at his lack of enthusiasm. Andy showed no actual signs of embarrassment, but his tone was cold, and his interest seemed perfunctory.
"I daresay you've been too busy to pay much attention to such frivolous affairs," he said; butto Andy's ears his voice sounded the least bit resentful.
"No; I—I assure you I take the keenest interest in it. I'd give anything to have it go all right."
Belfield's eyes were on him with a shrewd kindness. "No reason to suppose it won't, is there?"
"None that I know of." Now Andy was frowning a little and smoking rather fast.
Belfield said no more. He could not cross-examine Andy; indeed he had no materials, even if he had the right. But Andy's manner left him with a feeling of uneasiness.
"Ah, well, there's only six weeks to wait for the wedding!"
The next Saturday found him again at Halton. One of the six weeks had passed; a week of happy work, yet somewhat shadowed by the recollection of Belfield's questions and his own poor answers. Had he halted midway between honest truth and useful lying? In fact he knew nothing of what had been happening of late. He had not visited Nutley again—since that night. Suddenly it struck him that he had not been invited. Then—did they suspect? How could they have timed his entrance so exactly as to suspect? He did not know that Harry had seen his retreating figure. Still it would seem to them possible that he mighthave seen—possible, if unlikely. That might be enough to make him a less desired guest.
The great campaign was to begin on the following Monday, though Andy would not be at leisure to devote himself to it till a week later. The talk ran on it. Wellgood, who seemed in excellent spirits, displayed keen interest in the line Harry meant to take, and was ready to be chairman whenever desired. Even Mrs. Belfield herself showed some mild excitement, and promised to attend one meeting. The girls were to go to as many as possible, Vivien being full of tremulous anticipation of Harry's triumph, Isobel almost as enthusiastic a partisan. She had met Andy with a perfection of composure which drove out of his head any idea that she suspected him of secret knowledge.
"I'm afraid Harry's been overworking himself over it, poor boy," said Mrs. Belfield. "Don't you think he looks pale, Mr. Wellgood?"
"I don't know where he's found the time to overwork," Wellgood answered, with a gruff laugh. "We can account for most of his time at Nutley."
Harry burst into a laugh, and gulped down his wine. He was drinking a good deal of champagne.
"I sigh as a lover, mother," he explained.
"That's what makes me pale—if I am pale." His tone turned to sudden irritation. "Don't all look at me. There's nothing the matter." He laughed again; he seemed full of changes of mood to-night. "The speeches won't give me much trouble."
"I'm sure you need have no other trouble, dear," said Mrs. Belfield, with an affectionate glance at Vivien.
"He'll have much more trouble with me, won't he?" Vivien laughed.
Andy stole a look at Isobel. He was filled with admiration; a smile of just the right degree of sympathy ornamented her lips. A profane idea that she must be in the habit of being kissed crossed his mind. It was difficult to see how she could be, though—at Nutley. Kissing takes two. He did not suspect Wellgood, and he was innocent himself.
Another eye was watching—shrewder and more experienced than Andy's—watching Harry, watching Isobel, watching while Andy stole his glance at Isobel. It was easy to keep bluff Wellgood in the dark; his own self-confidence hoodwinked him. Belfield was harder to blind; for those who had anything to conceal, it was lucky that he did not live at Nutley.
"Well, waiting for a wedding's tiresome workfor all concerned, isn't it?" he said to Isobel, who sat next him.
"Yes, even waiting for other people's. It's such a provisional sort of time, Mr. Belfield."
"You've forsworn one set of pleasures, and haven't got the other yet. You've ceased to be a rover, and you haven't got a home."
"You don't seem to consider being engaged a very joyful period?" she smiled.
"On the whole, I don't, Miss Vintry, though Vivien there looks pretty happy. But it's telling on Harry, I'm sure."
She looked across at Harry. "Yes, I think it is a little," came apparently as the result of a scrutiny suggested by Belfield's words. "I hadn't noticed it, but I'm afraid you're right."
"If there's anything up, she's a cool hand," thought Belfield. "You must try to distract his thoughts," he told her.
"I try to let them see as little of me as possible."
"Too complete a realization of matrimonial solitudeà deuxbefore marriage—Is that advisable?"
"You put too difficult questions for a poor spinster to answer, Mr. Belfield."
He got nothing out of her, but from the corner of his eye he saw Harry watching him as he talkedto Isobel. Turning his head sharply, he met his son's glance full and straight. Harry dropped his eyes suddenly, and again drank off his champagne. Belfield looked sideways at the composed lady on his right, and pursed up his lips a little.
Wellgood stayed with him to-night after dinner, the young men joining the ladies in the garden for coffee.
"Our friend Miss Vintry's in great good looks to-night, Wellgood. Remarkably handsome girl!"
"That dress suits her very well. I thought so myself," Wellgood agreed, well-pleased to have his secret choice thus endorsed.
Belfield knew nothing of his secret, nothing of his plans. He was only trying to find out whether Vivien's father were fully at his ease; of Isobel's lover and his ease he took no account.
"Upon my word," he laughed, "if I were engaged, even to a girl as charming as your Vivien, I should almost feel it an injury to have another as attractive about all day. 'How happy could I be with either—!' you know. The unregenerate man in one would feel that good material was being wasted; and my boy used to be rather unregenerate, I'm afraid."
Wellgood smiled in a satisfied fashion. "Even if Master Harry was disposed to play tricks, I don't think he'd get much encouragement from—"
"'T'other dear charmer?' Of course you've perfect confidence in her, or she wouldn't be where she is."
"No, nor where she's going to be," thought Wellgood, enjoying his secret.
"My licentious fancy has wronged my son. I must have felt a touch of the old Adam myself, Wellgood. Don't tell my wife."
"You wouldn't tell me, if you knew a bit more," thought triumphant Wellgood.
"I think Harry's constancy has stood a good trial. Oh, you'll think I don't appreciate Vivien! I do; but I know Harry."
Wellgood answered him in kind, with a bludgeon-like wit. "You'll think I don't appreciate Harry. I do; but I know Miss Vintry, and she doesn't care a button about him."
"We proud parents put one another in our places!" laughed Belfield.
Wellgood saw no danger, and he had been home a fortnight! True, he had, before that, been away six weeks. But such mischief, if it existed, would have grown. If it had been there during the six weeks, it would have been there, in fuller growth, during the fortnight. Belfield felt reassured. He had found out what he wanted, and yet had given no hint to Vivien's father. But one or two of his remarks abode in the mindof Isobel's lover, to whom he did not know that he was speaking. Wellgood's secret position towards Isobel at once made Belfield's fears, if the fears were more than a humorous fancy, absurd, and made them, even though no more than a fancy, stick. He recked nothing of them as a father; he remembered them as a lover, yet remembered only to laugh in his robust security. He thought it would be a good joke to tell to Isobel, not realizing that it is never a good joke to tell a woman that she has been, without cause and ridiculously, considered a source of danger to legitimate affections. She may feel this or that about the charge; she will not feel its absurdity. She is generally right. Few women pass through the world without stirring in somebody once or twice an unruly impulse—a fact which should incline them all to circumspection in themselves, and to charity towards one another, if possible, and at any rate towards us.