On the following afternoon Craven called on Lady Sellingworth about five
o’clock and was told by the new footman in a rather determined manner
that she was “not at home.”
“I hope her ladyship is quite well?” he said.
“I believe so, sir,” replied the man. “Her ladyship has been out driving
to-day.”
“Please give her that card. Wait one moment.”
He pencilled on the card, “I hope you are better,--A.C.,” gave it to
the man, and walked away, feeling sure that Lady Sellingworth was in the
house but did not choose to see him.
In the evening he received the following note from her:
18A, BERKELEY SQUARE,
Thursday.
DEAR MR. CRAVEN,--How kind of you to call and to write that little
message. I am sorry I could not see you. I’m not at all ill, and have
been out driving. But, between you and me--for I hate to make a fuss
about trifling matters of health--I feel rather played out. Perhaps it’s
partly old age! You know nothing about that. Any variation in my quiet
life seems to act as a disturbing influence. And the restaurant the
other night really was terribly hot. I mustn’t go there again, though
it is great fun. I suppose you didn’t see Beryl? She has been to see me,
but said nothing about it. Be nice to her. I don’t think she has many
real friends in London.--Yours very sincerely,
ADELA SELLINGWORTH.
“What is it? What has happened?” Craven thought, as he put down the
letter.
He felt that some drama had been played out, or partially played out,
within the last days which he did not understand, which he was not
allowed to understand. Lady Sellingworth chose to keep him in the
dark. Well, she had the right to do that. As he thought over things he
realized that the heat in the restaurant could certainly not have been
the sole reason of her strange conduct on the night when they had dined
together. Something had upset her mentally. A physical reason only could
not account for her behaviour. And again he thought of Arabian.
Instinctively he hated the man. Who was he? Where did he come from?
Craven could not place him. Beyond feeling sure that he was a “wrong
‘un” Craven had no very definite opinion about him. He was well dressed,
good looking--too good looking--and no doubt knew how to behave. He
might even possibly be a gentleman of sorts, come to England from some
exotic land where the breed of gentleman was quite different from that
which prevailed in England. But he was surely a beast. Craven detested
his good looks, loathed his large and lustrous brown eyes. He was the
sort of beast who did nothing but make up to women. Something inherently
clean in Craven rejected the fellow, wished to drive him into outer
darkness.
Could Lady Sellingworth know such a man?
That seemed quite impossible. Nevertheless, certain things persistently
suggested to Craven that at least she had some knowledge of Arabian
which she was deliberately concealing from him. The most salient of
these things was her reiterated attempt to push him into the company of
Beryl Van Tuyn. It was impossible not to think that Lady Sellingworth
wished him to interfere between Beryl Van Tuyn and Arabian. On the night
of the dinner in Soho she had attempted to persuade him to go back to
the restaurant and to see Beryl home. And now here in this letter she
returned to the matter.
“Be nice to her. I don’t think she has many real friends in London.”
“Go to see Beryl; don’t come to see me.”
Between the lines of Lady Sellingworth’s letter Craven read those words
and wondered at the ways of women. But he did not mean to obey the
unwritten command. And he felt angry with Lady Sellingworth for giving
it by implication. She might have what she considered a good reason for
her extraordinary behaviour. But as she did not allow him to understand
it, as she chose to keep him entirely in the dark, he would be passive.
It was not his business to run after Beryl Van Tuyn, to interfere almost
forcibly between her and another man, even if that man were a scoundrel.
Miss Van Tuyn was a free agent. She had the right to choose her own
friends, her own lovers. Once he had decided that he would not give up
his intimacy with her in favour of another man without a struggle, the
sort of polite, and perhaps subtle, struggle which is suitable to the
twentieth century, when man must only be barbarous in battle. But since
the encounter in Glebe Place he had changed his mind. Disgust had
seized him that day. What could he think but that Beryl Van Tuyn had
deliberately induced him to come to Glebe Place, in order that he might
see not only her absolute indifference to him but also her intimacy
with Arabian? Her reason for such a crude exposure of her lightness of
conduct escaped Craven. He could not conceive what she was up to, unless
her design was to arouse in him violent jealousy. He did feel jealous,
but he was certainly not going to show it. Besides, the delicacy
that was natural in him was disquieted by what he thought of as the
coarseness of her behaviour.
As once more he looked at Lady Sellingworth’s letter he was struck by
something final in the wording of it. There was nothing explicit in it.
On the contrary, that seemed to be carefully avoided. But the allusions
to old age, to disturbing influences, the decision not to go again to
the _Bella Napoli_--these seemed to hint an intention to return to a
former state of being, to abandon a new path of life. And he remembered
a conversation with Francis Braybrooke at the club, the interest it had
roused in him. Some slumbering feeling for romance had been stirred in
him, he now thought, by that conversation, by the information he had
received about the distinguished recluse who had lived a great life and
then suddenly plunged into old age and complete retirement.
Now he seemed to hear a door shutting, and he was outside it. She had
allowed him to enter her life for a short time, to enter it almost
intimately. But she was surely repenting of that intimacy. He did not
know why. Did he ever know why a woman did this or that? There was no
suggestion in the letter that he should ever call again, no hint of a
desire to see him. She was only sorry, politely sorry, that she had
not been able to see him that day. But no reason was given for the
inability. She had not considered it necessary to give him a reason.
When she had gone abroad without letting him know he had said to himself
that his brief friendship with her had come to an end. He felt that more
acutely now. For she had come back from abroad. She was close to him
in London. She had tried him again. Evidently she must have found him
wanting. For once more she was giving him up. Perhaps he was too young.
Perhaps he bored her. He did not know.
“I don’t suppose I shall ever know.”
To that conclusion he came at last. And the sense of finality grew in
him, cold and inexorable. She was a mystery to him. He did not love
her. He had never thought of her as she had thought of him. He had never
known or suspected what her feelings for him had been. But he felt that
something which might have meant a good deal, even perhaps a great deal,
to him was being withdrawn from his life. And this withdrawal hurt him
and saddened him.
He locked up her letter in his dispatch box. It would be a souvenir of a
friendship which had seemed to promise much and which had ended abruptly
in mystery. He did not answer it. Perhaps, probably, he would have done
so but for the last two sentences in it.