CHAPTER XV
ONE day early in April, Kingslake, who was walking towards the district station at Victoria, was stopped by a man he knew slightly and would like to have known better; a man justly celebrated in the world of science and letters.
“How are you, Kingslake?” he said.
“Where are you going? I’m just on my way to you.”
Robert shook hands cordially, but looked mystified.
“On your way to me?” he began.
“Calling on your wife. Bless the man, he doesn’t know his wife’s at-home day, I believe!” Powis laughed good-temperedly as he spoke. “I expect you hate that kind of thing. Well, so do I, as a rule. It takes as charming a woman as Mrs. Kingslake to get an old fellow like me out calling nowadays, I can tell you.”
Robert smiled. He had no idea that Cecily knew Powis at all.
“I see her book’s coming out on Monday,” the elder man went on. “Great excitement for you both, eh? Well, I hope it’ll be a great success. She deserves it. Clever girl! I always thought, even when she was a little thing at home, she’d astonish us all some day. You kept her in the country too long, Kingslake. We’re all glad to see her back.”
Robert murmured a fairly appropriate reply. He felt rather dazed and confused.
“When are we to have your new novel?” was the next question. “Mustn’t lag behind your wife, you know. Why don’t you collaborate? But I expect you do. Well, we’re impeding the traffic here. Sorry I sha’n’t see you at the flat this afternoon. Good-bye.” He hurried off, leaving Robert to ponder his voluble words.
Cecily’s book out on Monday? He didn’t even know she was writing a book. He walked on to the station, and mechanically took a ticket for South Kensington. “Great excitement for you both.” The genial words fell again on his ear with ironical effect, while he was at the same moment conscious of one more stab to his vanity—an important personal equipment, which, of late, had been wounded more than a little. His own newbook had been out quite six weeks, and it had fallen absolutely flat. This fact, a not uncommon check to the rising novelist, had depressed him considerably. Cecily had been very sympathetic about it. He remembered this still, with gratitude. Cecily, he reflected, was one of the few people who could be sorry for one without wounding.
So she had been writing a book! It seemed strange to think of it. He remembered how, in the early years of their marriage, he had sometimes found her “scribbling.” He remembered how he had at first laughed and teased her, and afterwards, when she had shown symptoms of “taking it seriously,” how he had shown his disapproval. He thought of this now, and it seemed to him rather a contemptible attitude to have adopted. He felt vaguely ashamed. But he had been jealous, really jealous; he recalled the sensation now with a curious stirring of a forgotten emotion with regard to his wife—jealous that she should be absorbed in anything that did not concern him. How long ago it all seemed! And now she had written a novel, and he did not even know who was her publisher. He supposed she had placed it the more easily because of his name, which was also hers. Therewas comfort in that reflection. He was glad to have been of use to her. He hoped she would get some encouragement; he hoped——
And then he shook himself impatiently, conscious that he was not really thinking any of these things. All that was vividly present in his mind was a touch of resentment, a curious sense of bitterness that he knew so little about her; that he did not even know the men who went to the house. Except Mayne. He frowned involuntarily. Mayne was there a good deal. Well, he himself had often impressively invited him. With some haste he dismissed this reflection. At the moment it was one he did not feel disposed to investigate. It was unfortunate that he could not feel cordial towards Mayne. But after all, one’s likes and dislikes were not within one’s control, and Mayne was Cecily’s friend, and so—— He banished the subject with an impatient shrug.
On emerging from the station at South Kensington, he heard his name uttered somewhat piercingly, and in response to a peremptory order, a motor-car drew up smoothly beside the curb.
“How are you, Robin?” Lady Wilmot exclaimed, extending a hand. “And why areyou in this direction on your wife’s at-home day? I’m on my way to her. How is she? As pretty as ever? I met her at the Duquesne’s last week, and thought her looking charming. The country and your exclusive society, my dear, evidently disagreed with her.”
“You are always kind,” returned Robert.
“And what is this I hear about a book of hers?” she pursued.
“It’s coming out on Monday,” said Robert, thankful to be able to supply the information.
“You’ll have a rival near home!” chuckled his companion. “That last book of yours isn’t doing much, is it? Knights and castles and things are off for the moment, I think. Why don’t you write a society novel? They always take, if you make the women spiteful enough; but I admit the difficulty of that. Well, I must be off. Your wife’s a good hostess. I never miss her parties. Good-bye, my dear. When will you come and dine?” The last question was put in a shrill voice over her shoulder, as the car glided off.
Robert walked on. The little interview had not raised his spirits, and as he turned into the quiet, rather shabby little road which contained Philippa’s studio, it was with a shock thereverse of pleasant that he saw Nevern coming down the steps of her house. He knew the young man slightly, and nodded to him as he passed. Before the door opened, he noticed that Nevern turned and watched his admittance with what his imagination, at least, construed into an angry frown.
Philippa opened the door—she kept no servant—and he followed her upstairs without speaking.
When the studio door closed she turned round and looked at him, inquiry in her eyes.
“Well?” she said, tenderly, in her deepest voice as she held out both hands.
Robert ignored them, and walked moodily towards the fire.
“Robert!” murmured Philippa.
He was silent.
Philippa hesitated a moment, then, as though taking a sudden determination, she followed him to the fire, and resting one elbow on the mantelpiece, looked at him haughtily.
“Will you explain?” she demanded.
“What was Nevern doing here?” asked Robert, abruptly.
Philippa raised her eyebrows.
“He was calling on me.”
“Does he often call? Do you often havemen here—to see you?” He spoke in a voice of suppressed anger.
“Quite often,” returned Philippa, firmly; “why not?”
Robert was silent. Presently he turned sharply towards the window, and stood looking out upon the roof-tops opposite.
Philippa remained standing by the mantelpiece. There was impatience in her face, and a certain indecision. Once she opened her lips to speak, and refrained. Finally, with a shrug of the shoulders, she went to him and laid her hand gently on his arm.
“Surely this is not jealousy, Robert?” she said, plaintively. “After all our talks? After our mutual agreement upon that subject?”
“It’s all very well!” exclaimed Robert; “but if, under—our circumstances, a woman doesn’t know what is due to the man she professes to love, would you have him say nothing?”
“I would have him so trust the woman he professes to love that he should feel jealousy an insult to her,” she returned, with lowered eyelids.
Robert did not answer for a moment; when he spoke his voice was husky.
“You don’t understand,” he began, “how a man feels when——”
“When a woman spends half an hour in giving good advice to a boy?” smiled Philippa. “Oh, Robert, don’t let us profane our love. Do let us keep vulgar jealousy out of it. I want so much to make it a real inspiration, an ennobling influence in our lives. Come, Robert! Be good.”
The last words were uttered pleadingly, and he turned. She looked very beautiful, with her face upraised to his, and moved by a sudden gust of passion, Robert flung his arms round her and kissed her white throat.
An hour later, however, in spite of their reconciliation, Robert was again moody and depressed. He pushed his tea-cup away from him, and began to wander restlessly about the room, a sure sign with him of mental perturbation. Philippa lay back in her low chair, and watched him furtively. There was a certain exasperation in her face which, if he had not been too preoccupied, Robert would have found easily discernible.
“I don’t know what’s the matter with my work,” he was saying, irritably. “The book’s not going a bit.”
“Not a bit,” agreed Philippa, with somewhat exasperating calm.
“What’s the reason?” demanded Robert, coming to an abrupt pause before her chair.
She shrugged her shoulders. “Your dear public’s tired of that particular mild blend, I suppose. You must mix something else. Give it them stronger.”
Robert glanced at her. It struck him that her tone was not quite sympathetic. Philippa had an occasional odd trick of dropping the mystic for the pronouncedly colloquial turn of speech. “You speak as though I were a tea merchant or a tobacconist,” he exclaimed.
“Don’t you wish you were?” she asked, stretching out her hand for a cigarette.
“No,” returned Robert, shortly.
At times, also, Philippa was quite disconcertingly materialistic. He never quite knew what to make of her at such moments. It was such a curious lapse from her usual lofty standpoint. She saw his bewilderment, and after a moment put out her hand to him.
“Dear, I know how it frets you as an artist, but, after all, even artists must live. And to do that they must condescend to the stupid multitude. Why not write a society novel, Robert?” She sat upright in her chair. “With lots of titles, you know——”
“And the women spiteful enough,” put inRobert, with a short laugh. “I’ve had that advice once to-day—from Lady Wilmot. I scarcely expected it from you, Philippa.”
She rose, and began to put the tea-things together.
“You are unreasonable,” she began, coldly, after a slight pause. “First you grumble because your book doesn’t suit the public, and then when I suggest something that probably will, you turn upon me.”
He did not immediately reply, and when he spoke, Philippa recognized with a flash of anger that he had not been attending to her words.
“Do you know that Cecily’s been writing a book?” he asked, suddenly. “It’s to be out to-morrow.”
“Oh?” she returned, coldly. “What a lot of scribblers there are in the world, to be sure.”
Robert felt annoyed. He parted coldly from Philippa, and taking a hansom in the Brompton road, drove to his club. On the stairs he met Travers, a friend of his. Travers looked perturbed and angry.
“Women are the very deuce!” he exclaimed, in reply to an interrogation.
“I agree,” said Robert, with fervor.