At the first reading this letter filled him with anger. To be wooed by a
very pretty woman is pleasant even to the most austere of married men
(and never again trust the one who denies it), but to be wooed with a
very dangerous threat mixed up with the wooing is no such pleasant
experience. And it was no empty threat. Violet was a woman who prided
herself upon being as good as her word. She had laughingly said with her
accustomed frankness upon one occasion that it was her sole remaining
virtue. If he did not go to Mariani’s, she would certainly come to
Woking. He shuddered to think of Maude being annoyed by her. It was one
thing to speak in a general way to his wife of prematrimonial
experiences, and it was another to have this woman forcing herself upon
her and making a scene. The idea was so vulgar. The sweet, pure
atmosphere of The Lindens would never be the same again.
No, there was no getting out of it. He must go to Mariani’s. He was
sufficiently master of himself to know that no harm could come of that.
His absolute love for his wife shielded him from all danger. The very
thought of infidelity nauseated him. And then, as the idea became more
familiar to him, other emotions succeeded that of anger. There was an
audacity about his old flame, a spirit and devilment, which appealed to
his sporting instincts. Besides, it was complimentary to him, and
flattering to his masculine vanity, that she should not give him up
without a struggle. Merely as a friend it would not be disagreeable to
see her again. Before he had reached Clapham Junction his anger had
departed, and by the time that he arrived at Waterloo he was surprised to
find himself looking forward to the interview.
Mariani’s is a quiet restaurant, famous for its _lachryma christi
spumante_, and situated in the network of sombre streets between Drury
Lane and Covent Garden. The fact of its being in a by-street was not
unfavourable to its particular class of business. Its customers were
very free from the modern vice of self-advertisement, and would even take
some trouble to avoid publicity. Nor were they gregarious or luxurious
in their tastes. A small, simple apartment was usually more to their
taste than a crowded salon, and they were even prepared to pay a higher
sum for it.
It was five minutes to four when Frank arrived, and the lady had not yet
appeared. He stood near the door and waited. Presently a hansom rattled
into the narrow street, and there she sat framed in its concavity. A
pretty woman never looks prettier than in a hansom, with the shadows
behind to give their Rembrandt effect to the face in front. She raised a
yellow kid hand, and flashed a smile at him.
‘Just the same as ever,’ said she, as he handed her down.
‘So are you.’
‘So glad you think so. I am afraid I can’t quite agree with you.
Thirty-four yesterday. It’s simply awful. Thank you, I have some
change. All right, cabby. Well, have you got a room?’
‘No.’
‘But you’ll come?’
‘Oh yes, I should like to have a chat.’
The clean-shaven, round-faced manager, a man of suave voice and
diplomatic manner, was standing in the passage. His strange life was
spent in standing in the passage. He remembered the pair at once, and
smiled paternally.
‘Not seen you for some time, sir!’
‘No, I have been engaged.’
‘Married,’ said the lady.
‘Dear me!’ said the proprietor. ‘Tea, sir?’
‘And muffins. You used to like the muffins.’
‘Oh yes, muffins by all means.’
‘Number ten,’ said the proprietor, and a waiter showed them upstairs.
‘All meals nine shillings each,’ he whispered, as Frank passed him at the
door. He was a new waiter, and so mistook every one for a new customer,
which is an error which runs through life.
It was a dingy little room with a round table covered by a soiled cloth
in the middle. Two windows, discreetly blinded, let in a dim London
light. An armchair stood at each side of the empty fireplace, and an
uncomfortable, old-fashioned, horsehair sofa lined the opposite wall.
There were pink vases upon the mantelpiece, and a portrait of Garibaldi
above it.
The lady sat down and took off her gloves. Frank stood by the window and
smoked a cigarette. The waiter rattled and banged and jingled with the
final effect of producing a tea-tray and a hot-water dish. ‘You’ll ring
if you want me, sir,’ said he, and shut the door with ostentatious
completeness.
‘Now we can talk,’ said Frank, throwing his cigarette into the fireplace.
‘That waiter was getting on my nerves.’
‘I say, I hope you’re not angry.’
‘What at?’
‘Well, my saying I should come down to Woking, and all that.’
‘I should have been angry if I thought you had meant it.’
‘Oh, I meant it right enough.’
‘But with what object?’
‘Just to get level with you, Frankie, if you threw me over too
completely. Hang it all, she has three hundred and sixty-five days in
the year! Am I to be grudged a single hour?’
‘Well, Violet, we won’t quarrel about it. You see I came all right.
Pull up your chair and have some tea.’
‘You haven’t even looked at me yet. I won’t take any tea until you do.’
She stood up in front of him, and pushed up her veil. It was a face and
a figure worth looking at. Hazel eyes, dark chestnut hair, a warm flush
of pink in her cheeks, the features and outline of an old Grecian
goddess, but with more of Juno than of Venus, for she might perhaps err a
little upon the side of opulence. There was a challenge and defiance
dancing in those dark devil-may-care eyes of hers which might have roused
a more cold-blooded man than her companion. Her dress was simple and
dark, but admirably cut. She was clever enough to know that a pretty
woman should concentrate attention upon herself, and a plain one divert
it to her adornments.
‘Well?’
‘By Jove, Violet, you look splendid.’
‘Well?’
‘The muffins are getting cold.’
‘Frankie, what _is_ the matter with you?’
‘Nothing is the matter.’
‘Well?’
She put out her two hands and took hold of his. That well-remembered
sweet, subtle scent of hers rose to his nostrils. There is nothing more
insidious than a scent which carries suggestions and associations.
‘Frankie, you have not kissed me yet.’
She turned her smiling face upwards and sideways, and for an instant he
leaned forward towards it. But he had himself in hand again in a moment.
It gave him confidence to find how quickly and completely he could do it.
With a laugh, still holding her two hands, he pushed her back into the
chair by the table.
‘There’s a good girl!’ said he. ‘Now we’ll have some tea, and I’ll give
you a small lecture while we do so.’
‘You are a nice one to give lectures.’
‘Oh, there’s no such preacher as a converted sinner.’
‘You really are converted then?’
‘Rather. Two lumps, if I remember right. You ought to do this, not I.
No milk, and very strong—how you keep your complexion I can’t imagine.
But you do keep it; my word, you do! Now please don’t look so crossly at
me.’
Her flushed cheeks and resentful eyes had drawn forth the remonstrance.
‘You _are_ changed,’ she said, with surprise as well as anger in her
voice.
‘Why, of course I am. I am married.’
‘For that matter Charlie Scott is married.’
‘Don’t give Charlie Scott away.’
‘I think I give myself away. So you have lost all your love for me. I
thought it was to last for ever.’
‘Now, do be sensible, Violet.’
‘Sensible! How I loathe that word! A man only uses it when he is going
to do something cold-blooded and mean. It is always the beginning of the
end.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘I want you to be my own Frankie—just the same as before. Ah do,
Franck—don’t leave me! You know I would give any of them up for you.
And you have a good influence over me—you have really! You call’t think
how hard I am with other people. Ask Charlie Scott. He will tell you.
I’ve been so different since I have lost sight of you. Now, Frankie,
don’t be horrid to me! Kiss and be nice!’ Again her soft warm hand was
upon his, and the faint sweet smell of violets went to his blood like
wine. He jumped up, lit another cigarette, and paced about the room.
‘You shan’t have a cigarette, Frankie.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you said once it helped you to control yourself. I don’t want
you to control yourself. I want you to feel as I feel.’
‘Do sit down, like a good girl!’
‘Cigarette out!’
‘Don’t be absurd, Violet!’
‘Come, out with it, sir.’
‘No, no, leave it alone!’
She had snatched it from his lips and thrown it into the grate.
‘What is the use of that? I have a case full.’
‘They shall all follow the first.’
‘Well, then, I won’t smoke.’
‘I’ll see that you don’t.’
‘Well, what the better are you for that?’
‘Now, be nice.’
‘Go back to your chair and have some more tea.’
‘Oh, bother the tea!’
‘Well, I won’t speak to you unless you sit down and behave yourself.’
‘There now! Speak away.’
‘Look here, dear Violet, you must not talk about this any more. Some
things are possible and some are impossible. This is absolutely, finally
impossible. We can never go back upon the past. It is finished and done
with.’
‘Then what did you come here for?’
‘To bid you good-bye.’
‘A Platonic good-bye.’
‘Of course.’
‘In a private room at Mariani’s.’
‘Why not?’
She laughed bitterly.
‘You were always a little mad, Frankie.’
He leaned earnestly over the table.
‘Look here, Violet, the chances are that we shall never meet again.’
‘It takes two to say that.’
‘Well, I mean that after to-day I should not meet you again. If you were
not quite what you are it would be easier. But as it is I find it a
little too much of a test. No, don’t mistake me or think that I am
weakening. That is impossible. But all the same I don’t want to go
through it again.’
‘So sorry if I have upset you.’
He disregarded her irony.
‘We have been very good friends, Violet. Why should we part as enemies?’
‘Why should we part at all?’
‘We won’t go back over that. Now do please look facts in the face and
help me to do the right thing, for it would be so much easier if you
would help me. If you were a very good and kind girl you would shake my
hand, like any other old pal, and wish me joy of my marriage. You know
that I should do so if I knew that you were going to be married.’
But the lady was not to be so easily appeased. She took her tea in
silence or answered his remarks with monosyllables, while the occasional
flash of her dark eyes as she raised them was like the distant lightning
which heralds the storm. Suddenly, with a swift rustle of skirts, she
was between the door and his chair.
‘Now, Frankie, we have had about enough of this nonsense,’ said she.
‘Don’t imagine that you are going to get out of this thing so easily.
I’ve got you, and I’ll keep you.’
He faced round in his chair and looked helplessly at her with a hand upon
each knee.
‘O Lord! Don’t begin it all over again,’ said he.
‘No, I won’t,’ she answered with an angry laugh. ‘I’ll try another line
this time, Master Frank. I’m not the sort of woman who lets a thing go
easily when once I have set my heart upon it. I won’t try coaxing any
longer—’
‘So glad,’ he murmured.
‘You may say what you like, but you can’t do it, my boy. I knew you
before she did, and I’ll keep you, or else I’ll make such a row that you
will be sorry that you ever put my back up. It’s all very fine to sit
there and preach, but it won’t do, Frankie. You can’t slip out of things
as easily as all that.’
‘Why should you turn nasty like this, Violet? What do you think you will
gain by it?’
‘I mean to gain _you_. I like you, Frankie. I’m not sure that I don’t
really love you—real, real love, you know. Any way, I don’t intend to
let you go, and if you go against my will I give you my word that I shall
make it pretty sultry for you down at Woking.’
He stared moodily into his teacup.
‘Besides, what rot it all is!’ she continued, laying her hand upon his
shoulder. ‘When did you begin to ride the high moral horse? You were
just as cheerful as the rest of them when last I saw you. You speak as
if a man ceased to live just because he is married. What has changed
you?’
‘I’ll tell you what has changed me,’ said he, looking up. ‘My wife has
changed me.’
‘Oh, bother your wife!’
A look which was new to her came over his face.
‘Stop that!’ said he sharply.
‘Oh, no harm! How has your wife made this wonderful change?’
His mood softened as his thoughts flew back to Woking.
‘By her own goodness—the atmosphere that she makes round her. If you
knew how wholesome she was, how delicate in her most intimate thoughts,
how fresh and how sweet and how pure, you would understand that the
thought of being false to her is horrible. When I think of her as she
sat at breakfast this morning, so loving and so innocent—’
He would have been more discreet if he had been less eloquent. The
lady’s temper suddenly overflowed.
‘Innocent!’ she cried. ‘As innocent as I am.’
He sprang to his feet with eyes which were more angry than her own.
‘Hold your tongue! How dare you talk against my wife! You are not fit
to mention her name.’
‘I’ll go to Woking,’ she gasped.
‘You can go to the devil!’ said he, and rang the bell for his bill. She
stared at him with a surprise which had eclipsed her anger, while she
pulled on her gloves with little sharp twitches. This was a new Frank
Crosse to her. As long as a woman gets on very well with a man, she is
apt, at the back of her soul, to suspect him of weakness. It is only
when she differs from him that she can see the other side, and it always
comes as a surprise. She liked him better than ever for the revelation.
‘I’m not joking,’ she whispered, as they went down the stair. ‘I’ll go,
as sure as fate.’
He took no notice, but passed on down the street without a word of
farewell. When he came to the turning he looked back. She was standing
by the curb, with her proud head high in the air, while the manager
screamed loudly upon a whistle. A cab swung round a distant corner.
Crosse reached her before it did.
‘I hope I haven’t hurt your feelings,’ said he. ‘I spoke too roughly.’
‘Trying to coax me away from Woking,’ she sneered. ‘I’m coming all the
same.’
‘That’s your affair,’ said he, as he handed her into the cab.