XLVIII
AFTER a painful hour they parted and went their ways. Bill, in dudgeon, back to barracks; Mame with a heartache to Half Moon Street. All the way up Piccadilly she was accompanied by two voices. Mame Durrance you are a blame fool, said one. Stick it, girl, said the other. You are throwing away the chance of your life, said the Go-getter. If you really care for the boy, you just can’t marry him, said the Idealist.
Never had she felt so miserable as when she let herself into the flat. Luckily Violet was not there. She was able to relieve her overwrought feelings with a little private howl. Then she felt better. In fact she was able to sit down and compose a few halting lines to Bill embodying her final decision and giving her reasons for it. That achieved, she went to her bedroom and fetched the engagement ring which ten days ago had given her such joy.
I must have been cuckoo to have accepted it
Not half so cuckoo as you are now, you silly elf.
Miserably she packed it in its neat box and was in the act of enclosing the farewell letter when Violet came in. She had been taking the air.
One glance Violet gave to the red and swollen lidsand the face of tragedy. “Why, my dear, dear child!” The vein of kindness in her was deep and true. Those piteous eyes, that piteous mouth very surely roused it. “Do tell me.” A naughty, dangerous little witch, but she was genuinely distressed to see Mame suffer. Something must have hurt her rather horribly. “Tell me, what is it?”
“I’ve let some of you folks put one over on me.” Mame fiercely brushed aside new tears.
It was not a moment for a smile. Yet it was hard to resist one at that whimsical and quaint defiance. Even in the hour of desolation the minx was like no one else. She had an odd power of attraction. It was by no means easy to dislike her. After all she had only acted in strict accordance with her nature.
“What is it? Tell me.”
Mame suddenly handed Celimene the letter she had written.
“You—you are sending back the ring?” There was a note in the voice of Bill’s sister which suggested that it feared to be other than incredulous. “You—you are breaking off the engagement?”
“I’ll say yes.”
Perhaps for the first time in their intercourse real emotion flooded the face of the more accomplished woman of the world. “Dear child!” she said softly. And then abruptly turning aside as the bleak face of Mame became more than she could bear, “You—you make one feel indescribably mean.”
It was perfectly true. She undoubtedly did, the littlego-getter. Under all the surface crudity, which month by month was ceasing to be anything like as crude as it had been, was something big, vital, true.
Lady Violet was not given to self-depreciation. She knew her power of displacement only too well, even in the queer muss of a modern world. She might have been tempted to laugh at this rather pathetic thing; she might have played her off successfully against certain pretentious people, yet somehow the minx was riding off with all the honours. Mame already had taught her a pretty sharp lesson. It was one she would never forget. Lady Violet for the future would always remember that the player of unlawful games must keep an eye on the policeman. And now Mame was teaching her something else.
Seldom had this woman of the world found herself quite so much at a loss. Face to face with Mame’s heroism, for her self-sacrifice amounted to that, mere words became an impertinence. The thing to strike her about this good child when she set eyes on her first was the extraordinary grit that was in her; and it was that quality which spoke to her now.
Abruptly she forced a laugh to keep herself from tears. “My dear, you make one feel like thirty cents.”
It was one of the choicest phrases of the little go-getter, one among the many that had appealed to her friend. Somehow that phrase seemed to save the situation. Yet not altogether.
“I guess you don’t, honey.” Mame spoke bitterly. “And I guess you never will. You and your Mommerand the friends and neighbours and that old house will see to that. I’m the one to feel like thirty cents.”
The voice was so desolate that even Lady Violet, who did not care much for the practice, could not forbear from giving her a kiss. “I remember your saying that you had come over to pull the big stuff. Well, I rather think you’ve pulled it.” And her friend laughed again to keep her courage up.
“I didn’t come to pull this sort of stuff.” Mame snorted as she brushed her eyes fiercely. “I’ve gone cuckoo. And to-morrow I’ll think so.”
“One has to go cuckoo, as you call it, hasn’t one, to do the things worth doing? I could no more have let go that foolish bird, had I been you, than I could have jumped over the moon.”
“No, I guess not. And even now, if you don’t want to lose him you had better watch the cage.”
“How can we help you to keep your little paws off the foolish creature?”
“By not letting me see him again.” Mame was stoical. As she spoke she wrapped up the box containing the ring and the letter she had written in a piece of brown paper; and then applied red sealing wax. “And if you are wise you’ll just see that he gets married pretty soon to—to—” Even her bravery was not quite equal to the task of pronouncing the hated name. “I think I’ll go to the post office and send this back in a registered parcel.”
She quitted the room abruptly, leaving her friend to some very sharp-edged thoughts.