Franklin looked as uncomfortable as he felt. He went off at a quick
tangent. "I don't think I shall be in New York next fall," he said. "I
may go back to South Africa."
Was he really quite so dense? she asked herself. Had he forgotten every
single word of that odd talk in the Vanderdykes' library? Would she
have to square up to him and blurt out the truth? What was he made of?
She would have one more try. She got up. "I must go now," she said.
"It's getting late."
He got up too and opened his door. "Thanks for looking me up," he said.
"It was very friendly of you."
She gave him one long, analytical look. No, she and her beauty meant
nothing to him. He was not teasing her into a few uncontrolled
hysterical words: He was simply a big, naive, unsuspicious man who
thought nothing but good of her. She deserved better than this. She
had never had any luck. And she loved this man.
She said "Good night" lightly and passed him with a fleeting smile. But
in her own room she flung herself face down on her bed and cried badly.
Franklin hurled off his dressing gown and switched off the light. But
in front of his eyes as he lay in the dark he could see Beatrix
ankle-deep in a blue sea, with the sun on her red bathing cap, clad in
tights, like a boy.
On her way out of Mrs. Keene's room Beatrix saw Ida Larpent leave
Franklin's. Someone seemed to have thrown a stone at her heart.
*XXXVIII*
Ida Larpent did not appear at the breakfast table.
Not for many years had she permitted herself to enjoy the luxury of
tears. It was true that, since she had been flung on her own resources
and faced with the disagreeable necessity of fighting her own battles,
there had been many hours when tears would have helped her and made her
more human. She had refused herself the indulgence for two reasons.
She had no sympathy with what she called weakness and she shuddered at
the idea of spoiling her appearance, even temporarily, by swollen lids.
Her beauty was her only asset, her only stock-in-trade, and she
preserved it with the eager and consistent care of a leading actress.
But Nature had been too strong for her and she had capitulated like an
ordinary woman for once. She had given herself up to an orgy of
disappointment, wounded vanity, anger and bitterness, and after the
storm was over had spent the rest of the night trying to see into the
future, balancing her account with Fate. She was not in immediate need
of money. Franklin's generosity had put her on her feet for the time
being. She had paid her pressing bills and could face the remainder of
the year without anxiety. But there were other years. What of them?
Her small capital saved from the wreck that she had made of the fond and
foolish Clive's affairs had gone. It was certain that she had
miscalculated the sort of man that Franklin was. Not having been able
to "get him" under what, with most men, would have been the most
favorable circumstances, she saw so little chance of binding him to her
and claiming some sort of protection that she came to the conclusion
that she must give him up. She had played Venus to his Adonis and
failed. It was not pride that made her retire from the game but the
flat knowledge that he could do without her. Once more then she must go
back into the Street of Adventure and lay her snares for a rich man,
young or old. One satisfaction was here, and this was inconsistent with
her materialism. It was better to have loved and lost than never to
have loved at all.
Beatrix _did_ appear at the breakfast table.
She too, had had a bad night. The shock of seeing Ida Larpent coming
out of Franklin's room was awful. She sat for an hour chilled to the
bone. After having loved no one but herself, and grown accustomed to
the habit of merely touching a bell to procure the earth, it was
startling enough suddenly to wake and find that the earth meant nothing
to her without the man who did not seem to need her. In itself that was
so much a shock that her whole perspective was shattered and out of
focus. And even if Franklin only liked her as a sister, which gave her
sufficient suffering, she loved him and had surrounded him with a
girlish halo of idealism which of all things did not admit the
possibility of such a visit as she had witnessed.
No one would have imagined who saw her and heard her laugh that morning
that she had sat in the dark for many hours with life lying all smashed
about her like a beautiful stained glass window through which a shell
had burst. She joined Franklin and Malcolm at breakfast with her chin
higher than ever, readier than usual with banter and mischief, the
embodiment of youth, health and careless joy. Her pride came to her
rescue and she intended to live up to Franklin's estimate of her courage
to her last gasp. The difference between Ida Larpent and Beatrix was
breeding.
She found the two men on the veranda outside the dining-room,--Franklin
smoking his inevitable pipe.
"Good morning," she said. Her ringing voice turned them both around.
"Malcolm, if you don't write a long and terrible poem on the early
morning noises of the country, I shall. Even New York with the
explosions in the subway and the rattle of motor buses is a city of the
dead compared with this place. Cocks began to scream at each other
before daybreak, hens have been brawling for hours and the gobble of
turkeys under my window has been worse than an election meeting. Is
Mrs. Larpent down yet?"
"We've not seen her," said Franklin.
"I'm ten minutes late, am I not?"
"About that, but it doesn't matter," said Malcolm.
"I know it doesn't, but ten minutes' grace is enough even for a woman,
so let's go in and eat." And she led the way into the bleak
dining-room, as glad as a school-girl at the chance of being able to get
a little bit back, a very little bit, from Ida Larpent.
The waiters were almost ludicrously obsequious and rolled their eyes
towards Franklin with the nervousness of pet monkeys.
"How's Mrs. Keene?" Both men asked the question together.
"Up and about," said Beatrix. "A little weak, of course, but otherwise
well. Her trouble was wholly mental. Left alone with Pelham on a
yacht, she was convinced that, in order to preserve my honor, as she
puts it, I should have to jump overboard. Poor, dear, little
affectionate Brownie. If only she had taken the trouble to find out the
sort of a man Pelham is she wouldn't have turned a hair."