most obvious and comfortable arrangement for both. As she hesitated to
accept it, Eric became suddenly suspicious that she wanted to get rid
of him and to be alone. The sight of Gaymer with another woman had hurt
her until she had to cry—and to cry where no one would see her. As she
stood with set face and eyes averted, against the immense gloomy
background of the palace, with the wind blowing through her hair and
snatching at her cloak, she seemed even more fragile and forlorn than
on the night when she had begged him to come home with her from the
theatre.
“Won’t you let me stay with you for another two minutes?,” he begged
her gently. “I promised Lady Maitland to see you home.”
“She only asked you to find me a taxi.”
“But you’re condemning me to walk the whole way from here to Ryder
Street!” he protested.
“Won’t you find a taxi at Victoria? Or you can have this one, and I’ll
walk; I’m nearly home now.”
To press his company on her any further would have been persecution.
“You have your latch-key?,” he asked. “And d’you want any money?”
“I’ve plenty, thanks. Good-night.”
He slammed the door to and turned back towards the Park. As he paused
to light a cigarette, the noise of the taxi grew fainter and died
almost away; then it seemed to become unaccountably clearer, and he
looked up with surprise. The taxi was returning, and, though he could
not see any one inside, the flag was down, and he recognized the
driver. In another moment it had passed him and swept away to the right
down Buckingham Gate. Eric started in pursuit. If his suspicions were
anything but the fruit of a disordered imagination, Ivy Maitland was
preparing to fight the unknown woman for possession of Gaymer.
His pace slackened, as he tried to think how he should explain or
justify himself to Gaymer. He came to a standstill, as he remembered
that he did not know Gaymer’s address.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER FIVE
THE PRICE OF SYMPATHY
“Novelty is to love like bloom to fruit; it gives a lustre, which is
easily effaced, but never returns.”
DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD: “MAXIMS.”
Half-past twelve was striking, as Eric entered his flat. A pile of
letters awaited him, but he went into his bedroom without looking at
them and began to undress. His unexpected walk had tired him, and he
wanted to go to sleep before his brain woke up to puzzle itself over
Ivy Maitland or to reconstruct his meeting with Barbara and imagine
ways in which he could have carried it off with greater dignity or
triumph. Until twenty minutes ago he fancied that he understood the few
elements of Ivy’s simple character; but, if she were forcing her way
into Gaymer’s flat to evict another woman, she had more passion and
determination than her record of short-lived impulses warranted his
expecting....
The telephone-bell by his bed mercilessly violated the silence of the
room; and he spun around to face it, dropping his watch. No one but
Barbara had ever telephoned to him at such an hour; at such an hour she
had hardly missed one night in fifteen months, when they were both in
London; when last she telephoned to him at such an hour, two and a half
years before, he had returned home after saying good-bye to her; next
day he was leaving for America; and he had let the bell ring on
unanswered, muffling it with his handkerchief, when he could bear the
noise no longer and trying to face his new conception of Barbara as a
woman for whom honour and love had no meaning. For two and a half years
he had wondered what would have happened if he had listened to her
pleading... He took a step towards the bed and then retraced it.
As he picked up his watch and continued to wind it, the bell rang
again. This time he advanced to the telephone unhesitatingly, but with
the dread of a man compelled to draw back the sheet from a corpse’s
face.
“Hullo?”
“Is that Mr. Lane? It’s Lady Maitland speaking. I hope you weren’t
asleep?”
He sat heavily on the bed, limp for the moment with relief.
“Oh, I’m not undressed yet, thanks.”
“I rang you up to find out what had happened to Ivy. She’s not come in
yet; and she’s such a little harum-scarum... Did you bring her home?”
Eric wanted to think over the answer and knew that he had no time.
“I put her into a taxi,” he said promptly.
“Oh... Then she _ought_ to be home by now... She didn’t say she was
going on to a party, did she?”
“No... I hope there’s nothing wrong, Lady Maitland. If _I_ can do
anything... Search-parties or anything of that kind?”
“Oh _no_! She _must_ be in soon. I thought I’d just find out...
Good-night!”
Eric lighted a cigarette and threw himself, half-undressed, on the bed.
He could have done no good by handing on insubstantial suspicions...
Half-an-hour later he went to bed with an unresolved riddle on his mind
and found himself, in his dreams, counselling Ivy or tracking Gaymer.
The riddle kept him company at breakfast, and, as he came to the end of
his letters, he was wondering whether to call for an explanation, when
Ivy herself was announced.
She shook hands and looked round the room with a show of interest, as
his secretary collected her papers and withdrew.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you?,” she asked.
“I think I was expecting you. Won’t you sit down?”
She arranged herself with her back to the light, a moment too late to
keep Eric from seeing that her face was colourless but for blue-grey
shadows under her eyes; a black hat and black dress with transparent
sleeves from shoulder to wrist accentuated her pallor.
“I won’t keep you a minute; it’s about last night,” she began
breathlessly. “You must have thought it very funny of me to ask you not
to see me home, making you walk home yourself—”
“It was fair to assume that you weren’t going straight home,” Eric
laughed.
Ivy’s strangulated voice and expression of tragedy warned him not to
laugh again.
“I—went out to supper,” she explained. “Aunt Connie told me she rang
you up to know what had happened to me. So, if she says anything about
it—”
She stopped in embarrassment at Eric’s look of surprise.
“I suspect you of trying to involve me in a conspiracy, Miss Maitland,”
he said.
“Conspiracy?... Aunt Connie said that you were anxious and that you’d
kindly offered to send out search-parties or something—”
“So you came in person to set my mind at rest instead of writing or
telephoning! Your aunt was very anxious, I thought.”
“I’m afraid she was. You see, I hadn’t told her beforehand.”
Ivy tried to look him frankly in the face, then lowered her eyes and
pretended to inspect the furniture and pictures. Eric turned away and
lighted a cigarette.
“Did you know anything about it, yourself, beforehand?” He gave her
time to decide whether it was worth while to speak the truth. “I don’t
say I _will_ be your accomplice, but, if you want me to be, you must
tell me everything.”
“My accomplice in what?”
Eric turned with a smile and offered her a cigarette:
“To put it quite brutally, in concealing from your aunt what happened
last night.”
“And what did happen?,” she demanded.
Eric found her effort to put him out of countenance by attempted
haughtiness of tone pathetically unsuccessful.
“You went to Gaymer’s flat in Buckingham Gate. I don’t say there
_wasn’t_ any supper; I don’t even say there wasn’t a party, if three
constitute a party. It was informal, however, and as much of a surprise
to the host as to his guests.”
Ivy jumped up indignantly and subsided slowly in defeat.
“I don’t know what you mean!,” she cried with a last rally.
“Am I right so far?”
“How did you find out?,” she asked limply.
“Intuition, if you like. You went there on the spur of the moment,
because you’d seen him driving home with another woman. You went there
to make a scene with the other woman.”
“No, I wanted to talk to him about something.”
“Doesn’t it come to the same thing?”
“I never even saw her. I don’t know who she was.”
There was a long pause. Eric changed his chair so that he should not
seem to be watching her face.
“Well, so far my intuition has been fairly good,” he said. “Isn’t it
your turn now?” There was no answer. “I’m hardly adding anything, if I
say that you’re in love with Gaymer and jealous of the other woman.”
“She’d no right to be there!”
“Oh, come! I’m afraid neither Gaymer nor any other man would allow you
to dictate who may go to his flat.”
“But he’s engaged to _me_!”
Her left hand was bare and carried no ring; Eric seemed to remember her
telling him overnight that she had not seen Gaymer for some time; and,
when he went into her rooms off the Adelphi, she had confessed to at
least a disagreement. The engagement seemed unstable.
“Ah, _that_ I didn’t know, of course,” he said.
There was another pause, and the girl turned her head quickly so that
even her profile was hidden from him. Eric saw the flash of a
handkerchief and heard a sob half-choked down. Throwing away his
cigarette, he seated himself on the arm of the chair and laid his hand
on her shoulder. Nearly three years ago Barbara had swept into that
room like a whirlwind and collapsed as suddenly. Since then he ought to
have learned the price of sympathy....
“Wouldn’t it help you to tell me all about it?,” he asked her gently.
Ivy dabbed at her eyes and felt for his hand. Then she turned and
pressed herself against him until he could feel the fluttering of her
heart.
“_That’s_ why I told you I was desperate,” she gulped, burying a
tear-stained face of misery on his shoulder. “_That’s_ why I told you
at the opera that I couldn’t allow myself to _think_ of things... We
met on the way back from America; we liked each other, we were always
meeting. When life at home became more than I could stand, he helped
me... But I told you all about that... It was glorious at first, I’d
never been in love, I felt I’d never been happy before. I used to dine
with him almost every night and go on to a dance. He’s a beautiful
dancer, and I adore dancing. I seemed to _belong_ to him... When we
didn’t do that, we used to go to a theatre, or he’d just come and talk
to me in my rooms, or I’d go and talk to him—”
“Didn’t you feel that was rather a risk?”
Either the girl did not hear him or she deliberately ignored the
interruption.
“I didn’t think any one _could_ be so happy,” she went on. “I remember
thinking how wrong you were... _Some_ days weren’t as perfect as
others, of course. I suppose I’m very jealous, but I loved him so much
that I simply hated to see him _speak_ to another woman; _I_ never
wanted to speak to another man, so it wasn’t fair... We’d had a row
that night when I met you after the theatre. A woman—she was rude to
me, deliberately; he said he’d known her for years, but _that_ didn’t
make any difference or give her the right... I never said anything to
her, but I could see she hated me; and he just laughed at us both and
seemed to enjoy it. I refused to have anything to do with him for ten
days after that. Then he apologized and said the woman had once been in
love with him and he didn’t want a scene in public... Then we became
engaged.”
She threw out the words so abruptly that Eric was conscious of
disproportion, even of omission.
“What happened?,” he asked.
“He took me out to dinner, and we went on to a dance at the Burlington
Rooms. Then we went to his flat for supper. I didn’t want to go at
first, because it was after two, but he begged so hard and said he was
leaving London next day. We became engaged then.”
Eric was still conscious of an omission.
“It was never announced, was it?,” he asked.
“No. He didn’t want us to marry until he knew whether he was going to
stay on in the army. He wants to be demobilized as soon as possible; he
has friends in the City—”
“But that’s no reason why the engagement shouldn’t be announced,” Eric
persisted.
“He didn’t want it. He made me promise to keep it a secret. I oughtn’t
to have told you, but last night—”
She broke off and began to cry again.
“Well, what happened then?” he asked her after a pause.
“After that—My work in his department was over; and, when Aunt Connie
asked me to come and stay with her, I went. Johnnie didn’t like my
going, he said he’d never see anything of me—”
“But I thought he was going away himself?”
“No, he didn’t go—after all. At least, not then. I saw him whenever we
could arrange it, he used to come and dine... He complained that he
never had me to himself; but I told him that, as soon as the engagement
was announced, he could have me as much to himself as he liked. When my
sisters were engaged, every one ran away as if they’d got plague... I
_did_ dine with him once or twice, but in some ways Aunt Connie’s as
bad as mother; she always comes into my room at night to see I’m home
and she’d have had a fit, if she’d known that I was dining alone with
Johnnie. We used to invent people—‘Captain Richards’ and ‘Mrs.
Bosanquet’; whenever Aunt Connie wanted to know who’d been there, I
used to say ‘Captain Richards and Mrs. Bosanquet’.”
She laughed feebly at her strategem, but Eric was disquieted. Innocence
or stupidity might excuse her for running risks; but there must be a
blind spot in her conscience, if she could tell a lie so
light-heartedly and then talk about it.
“And what happened then?,” he asked, deferring censure for fear of
drying the stream of her confidence.
“Well, then the opera started, and I hardly saw him at all. Aunt Connie
was there every night, and I felt she _had_ first call on me. Besides,
I liked going; and there was always room in the box, if he’d wanted to
come. He said he didn’t care to be with me when there was a crowd of
other people... Then he _did_ go away. That was weeks ago, and I didn’t
see him again till last night.”
“Did he write?”
Ivy turned with anguished protest in her eyes, as though he had asked
the question for the pleasure of hurting her:
“No.”
“And what happened last night?”
As she hesitated, he could see her hardening; and the grip on his hand
tightened.
“I hardly knew what I was doing,” she whispered. “I couldn’t see... But
I felt I _had_ to go... He opened the door, and I asked him... Her coat
was on a chair. I shan’t tell you what we said... But I _did_ tell him
he was a beast to behave like that, when he was engaged to me, a beast
not to write, a beast to make me miserable!”
Her voice had risen, she had drooped away from him and was crying
without concealment. Eric lifted her hand to his lips and put an arm
around her shoulders, drawing her to him until her cheek lay against
his breast.
“You must steady yourself, Ivy! I warn you that, when any one cries,
I’m always liable to join in!”
“You? I don’t mind what you do! You’ve been ripping to me—right from
the first time we met... I _hate_ men! I’d never tell _any_ man what
I’ve told you. I don’t know why you let me; you’ve better things to do,
I should have thought.”
“Well, perhaps I hope that I may be useful. What happened then?”
Ivy dabbed jerkily at her eyes and tried to steady her voice.
“He said that, if I thought so badly of him, we’d better end the
engagement,” she went on.
“There I agree with him.”
“I said I only asked him to behave _properly_ to me. He said the whole
thing was a mistake and, if I wouldn’t end it, he would. I said I
wouldn’t let him!”
She wiped her eyes and began smoothing the front of her dress as though
she had nothing to add. Eric got off the arm of her chair and stood
facing her with his shoulders against the mantelpiece.
“Don’t think me prejudiced,” he began, “if I admit that I don’t greatly
care for Gaymer, but believe me when I tell you that you’re very well
out of it—”
“But I’m _not_!,” she interrupted. “I won’t _let_ him break it off!”
“I imagine you’re not prepared to share him,” Eric suggested drily.
“But I love him more than any one in the world!”
“That’s not enough by itself.”
She fingered her handkerchief for a moment and then broke out
explosively:
“I _won’t_ let him go!”
“How can you keep him?” Eric asked. “Will you threaten him with an
action for breach of promise?”
“I’ll do anything!”
He shook his head and waited for her to calm herself.
“In the first place you couldn’t prove that there’d ever been a promise
to marry,” he began. “In the next place, as it’s never been announced,
you couldn’t prove damage. He’s not kept you from marrying any one
else; and a jury wouldn’t give a farthing for your heart or feelings.
And it’s fantastic to think that you can _make_ a man marry you by
threatening an action if he doesn’t. What kind of married life do you
look forward to after that? Of course, I don’t know whether he was
serious last night or whether you’d both lost your tempers; but, if he
meant it, you must regard the thing as being over.”
Pouting and rebellious, Ivy stared at her shoes and bit at the border
of a crumpled handkerchief:
“I won’t!”
“My dear, you must! However much you love him, he’s not worth having
unless he loves you. What can you do to make him?”
“I’ll publish the engagement!”
“And if he contradicts it?”
“He wouldn’t! He couldn’t! He couldn’t be such a brute!” She was
startled by her own vehemence and repeated in a whisper more poignant
than the cry: “Oh, he couldn’t!”
Eric looked at her and walked away to the window. Pillowing his chin on
his arms, he stared into the lifeless street below. Somewhere in the
silent flat a clock struck twelve; a second and a third joined in with
softly discordant chimes, and he realized that he had been sprawling
there in mental catalepsy for ten minutes....
“From your account—you’ve told me everything, I take it—?” he asked
uncertainly.
“Everything!”
He shrugged his shoulders and turned back to the room, avoiding her
eyes because he knew that she was lying. There was no proof, but her
desperate intensity convinced him, and he wondered why he had not
guessed before.
“What are you going to do?,” he asked.
“I don’t know. I didn’t mean to talk to you about this. I only wanted
you not to give me away to Aunt Connie.” She stood up and looked round
the room for a mirror. “Do I look very awful? I cried myself sick last
night.”
“Come into the next room and tidy up,” he suggested.
“I could drown myself!,” she cried.
He gave her a clean handkerchief and watched her thoughtfully as she
bathed and dried her eyes. When she took off her hat and smoothed her
short dark hair, she would have passed anywhere as a slim boy of
fifteen masquerading in a woman’s black dress. As he watched her, his
mind went back to their first conversation in New York, and he felt
that he had foreseen everything as well as if she carried her future
branded on her forehead. It was a tragedy from which he could see no
escape, perfect material for the third act of a play; and the
psychology and emotion had been presented to him without any strain on
his imagination... But artistic detachment was an indecency when a mere
child was being ruined and heartbroken for the passing pleasure of a
man like Gaymer. She was spiritually ruined whether Gaymer married her
or not....
“You mustn’t talk like that,” he said gently. “I’m going to think
whether I can suggest anything. May I take you home? A walk will do me
good.”
They left Ryder Street and crossed the Park without exchanging six
words. Here and there the passers-by paused and looked back to marvel
at their preoccupation, for both walked with knitted brows and bent
heads, Ivy to hide her red eyes, and Eric to concentrate his thoughts
with no other distraction than brown gravel and grey flag-stones. They
said good-bye in Eaton Place after arranging to meet at the opera.
Eric turned back towards Grosvenor Place and walked to the Thespian
Club. As he entered the dining-room, a hand was laid on his arm.
Carstairs was lunching with Deganway, and they greeted him with an air
of grievance.
“You’ve just cut us _once_. Don’t make a habit of it,” said Deganway.
“I’m sorry! May I join you? And tell me where I cut you.”
“It was in the Park,” said Deganway. “We were coming here from the
Foreign Office, and you were walking with a young and lovely sylph. It
was quite deliberate. I think I shall have to tell John Gaymer about
it; on my honour I shall.”
Eric reached for the _menu_ and began to write his bill. Deganway was
the most intolerable gossip in London, but a gossip was sometimes
useful.
“How does _he_ come into it?,” he asked at length.
“Oh, those two! My dear, she’s Johnnie’s latest passion... At least I
haven’t heard of any one later. You’d better watch out, if he finds you
poaching. You _are_ behindhand.”
“We can’t compete with you, Gerry,” said Carstairs.
Eric made no comment, but he ordered a light luncheon and ate it as
quickly as it could be served. He had offered to take Ivy home because
he knew that he could do no work while he was thinking of her; and it
was useless to go back to his rooms or to fancy that he could compose
his mind until he had done something for her or satisfied himself that
nothing could be done. He wondered whether she knew that he had
guessed... The slim, black figure with the short, boyish hair haunted
him; he saw her in every corner of the dining-room and heard her cry of
despair above the clatter of plates and the babble of voices. Once he
tried to tell himself that it was not his business... But she had
talked to him because there was no one else....
Before he could do anything, he had to hear Gaymer’s version. That had
been obvious from the first, but he had seen only the precipitous
difficulties of a meeting until a chance hint from Deganway shewed him
how to overcome them. As soon as he had finished his meal, he
telephoned to find out whether Gaymer was at home. A voice answered
that he was not expected until after six, and Eric strode into the Park
to be by himself and to rehearse the interview.
There was no one who could undertake it for him. He passed General
Maitland, the judge and Ivy’s two brothers in rapid review, but they
were the last people who must ever know. Then, waiving preliminaries,
he wondered what he was going to say to Gaymer. Plain speaking was more
salutary than effective. Gaymer might deny everything, he might laugh;
this was probably not the first time that he had got himself into an
ambiguous position, and he had probably received his share of plain
speaking. Moreover, invective did not help Ivy. Eric tried to make up
his mind whether he wanted, whether he would help, whether he would
even allow her to marry such a man....
There was no one who could advise him. Amy Loring was a sensible,
sympathetic woman, but, where sex morals were in question, she rather
boasted of her old-fashioned intolerance. To tell her would be to
alienate her forever from some one to whom she was at present mildly
attached. Sonia O’Rane had crammed a life-time of experience into
thirty years and would probably respect a girl the more flagrantly she
overthrew the conventional canons of morality. But it was never safe to
entrust Sonia with a secret. The longer he thought over it, the more
clearly Eric saw that the secret could be shared with no one.
He walked slowly into the Green Park and timed his arrival at
Buckingham Gate for half-past six. Gaymer had come home a moment before
him and was still standing in the hall with his cap on, opening
letters. For an instant he betrayed surprise at receiving a call from a
man whom he knew but slightly and had never invited to his flat, but
the surprise was banished without an effort.
“Hullo! How are you?,” he jerked out. “Just let me finish these, will
you?”
“I wanted to have a word with you, if you could spare time,” said Eric.
“Come along.” Gaymer crossed the hall slowly, reading the last of his
letters, and threw open the door of a small sitting-room decorated with
_Vogue_ plates and furnished with a divan, two arm-chairs and a low
Moorish table. “What’ll you have to drink?,” he asked.
“Nothing, thanks... I’d better explain _why_ I’m here. I was at the
opera last night, and Lady Maitland asked me to see Ivy home. I put her
into a taxi just by the Royal Stables, but, when I got home, Lady
Maitland telephoned to say that she wasn’t in yet; did I know what had
happened to her? This morning Ivy called on me, and I gathered that,
after leaving me, she’d come here.”
Gaymer rang the bell and ordered whiskey to be brought in.
“So it was you she was walking with?” he said. “I couldn’t see.”
“Yes... As the result of coming here, she’s rather upset; and I wanted
to straighten things out, if I could.”
Gaymer filled his tumbler and looked at Eric over the top, slightly
raising his eyebrows.
“Well, drive ahead,” he recommended.
“You and she are engaged, aren’t you?”
“Did she tell you that?”
“I should like to hear if that is so.”
Gaymer emptied half the tumbler and set it down behind him on the
mantelpiece.
“_Would_ you?,” he asked with a smile. “I rather feel that’s my
business.”