The close of the performance left them both curiously tongue-tied. They
waited until the theatre was half empty before they left their seats.
Then they joined the little throng of stragglers at the end.
"Your play!" she murmured, as they faced the soft night air. "I can't
believe it, even now. We've seen it together--your play--and this is
New York! That's a new ending, isn't it?"
"Absolutely," he confessed. "The ending was always what bothered me, you
know."
She laughed, not quite naturally. She was unexpectedly impressed.
"So you're a genius, after all," she went on. "Sometimes I wondered--but
never mind that now. Philip, do you know I am starving? We took exactly
ten minutes over dinner!"
He led her to a huge restaurant a few doors away, where they found a
corner table. Up in the balcony an orchestra was playing light music, and
a little crowd of people were all the time streaming through the doors.
Beatrice settled herself down with an air of content. Few of the people
were in evening dress, and the tone of the place was essentially
democratic. Philip, who had learnt a little about American dishes, gave
an order, and Beatrice sipped her cocktail with an air of growing
appreciation.
"Queer idea, this, but the stuff tastes all right," she acknowledged. "I
suppose, if you were taking your dear Miss Dalstan out, you'd go to a
different sort of place, eh?"
"We generally go further up town," he admitted unthinkingly.
She set her glass down quickly.
"So you do take her out, do you?" she asked coldly. "You'd have been with
her to-night, perhaps, if I hadn't been here?"
"Very likely."
She was half inclined to rally him, behind it all a little annoyed.
"You're a nice sort of person! Why, it's only a few months ago since you
pretended to be in love with me!"
He looked at her, and her eyes fell before his.
"I don't think there was ever much question of our being in love with one
another, was there? We simply seemed to have drifted together because we
were both miserable, and then, as the time passed on--well, you came to
be my only solace against the wretchedness of that life."
She nodded appreciatively. For a moment the sights and sounds of the
noisy restaurant passed from her consciousness.
"Do you remember how glad I was to see you? How we used to spend our
holidays out in those dingy fields and hope and pray for better things
some day? But it was all so hopeless, wasn't it! You could barely keep
yourself from starving, and I--oh, the misery of that awful Detton Magna
and teaching those wretched children! There never were such children in
the world. I couldn't get their mothers to send them clean. They seemed
to have inherited all the vice, the bad language, the ugly sordidness
with which the place reeked. They were old men and women in wickedness
before they passed their first standard. It's a corner of the world I
never want to see again. I'd rather find hell! Have you ordered any wine,
Philip? I want to forget."
He pointed to the bottle which stood in the pail by their side, and
summoned a waiter. She watched it being opened and their glasses filled.
"This is like one of our fairy stories of the old days, isn't it?" she
said. "Well, I drink to you, Philip. Here's success to our new lives!"
She raised her glass and drained it. A woman had entered who reminded him
of Elizabeth, and his eyes had wandered away for a moment as Beatrice
pledged him. She called him back a little impatiently.
"Don't sit there as though you were looking at ghosts, Philip! Try and
remember who I am and what we used to mean to one another. Let us try
and believe," she added, a little wistfully, "that one of those dreams of
ours which we used to set floating like bubbles, has come true. We can
wipe out all the memories we don't want. That ought to be easy."
"Ought it?" he answered grimly. "There are times when I've found it
difficult enough."
She laughed and looked about her. He realised suddenly that she was still
very attractive with her rather insolent mouth, her clear eyes, her silky
hair with the little fringe. People, as they passed, paid her some
attention, and she was frankly curious about everybody.
"Well," she went on presently, "thank heavens I have plenty of will
power. I remember nothing, absolutely nothing, which happened before this
evening. I am going to tell myself that an uncle in Australia has died
and left me money, and so we are here in New York to spend it. To-morrow
I am going to begin. I shall buy clothes--all sorts of clothes--and hats.
You won't know me to-morrow evening, Philip."
His heart sank. To-morrow evening!
"But Beatrice," he expostulated, "you don't think of staying out here, do
you? You don't know a soul. You haven't a friend in the city."
"What friends have I in England?" she retorted. "Not one! I may just as
well start a new life in a new country. It seems bright enough here, and
gay. I like it. I shall move to a different sort of hotel to-morrow. You
must help me choose one. And as to friends," she whispered, looking up at
him with a little provocative gleam in her eyes, "don't you count? Can't
you do what I am going to do, Philip? Can't you draw down that curtain?"
He shivered.
"I can't!" he muttered.
A waiter brought their first course, and she at once evinced interest in
her food. She returned to the subject, however, later on, after she had
drunk another glass of wine.
"You're a silly old thing, you know," she declared. "You found the
courage, somehow, to break away from that loathsome existence. You had
more courage, even, than I, because you ran a risk I never did. But here
you are, free, with the whole world before you, and your last danger
disappearing with the knowledge that I am ready to be your friend and
am sensible about everything that has happened. This ought to be an
immense relief to you, Philip. You ought to be the happiest man on earth.
And there you sit, looking like a death's-head! Look at me for a moment
like a human being, can't you? Drink some more wine. There must be some
strength, some manhood about you somewhere, or you couldn't have done
what you have done."
He filled his glass mechanically. She leaned across the table. Her eyes
were bright, her cheeks delicately pink.
"Courage, Philip," she murmured. "Remember that what you did ... well, in
a way it was for my sake, wasn't it?--for love of me? I am here now and
we are both free. The old days are passed. Even their shadow cannot
trouble us any longer. Don't be a sentimentalist. Listen and I'll tell
you something--at the bottom of my heart I rather admire you for what you
did. Don't you want your reward?"
"No," he answered firmly, "I don't!"
She shrugged her shoulders and kept time with her foot to the music.
Across the table, although she kept silence for a while, she smiled at
him whenever she caught his eye. She was not angry, not even hurt. Philip
had always been so difficult, but in the end so easily led. She had
unlimited confidence in herself.
"Don't be a goose!" she exclaimed at last. "Of course you want your
reward, and of course you'll have it, some day! You've always lived with
your head partly in the clouds, and it's always been my task to pull you
down to earth. I suppose I shall have to do the same again, but to-night
I haven't patience. I feel suddenly gay. You are so nice-looking, Philip,
but you'd look ten times nicer still if you'd only smile once or twice
and look as though you were glad."
The whole thing was a nightmare to him. The horror of it was in his
blood, yet he did his best to obey. Plain speaking just then was
impossible. He drank glass after glass of wine and called for liqueurs.
She held his fingers for a moment under the table.
"Oh, Philip," she whispered, "can't you forget that you have ever been a
school-teacher, dear? We are only human, and did suffer so. You know,"
she went on, "you were made for the things that are coming to us. You've
improved already, ever so much. I like your clothes and the way you carry
yourself. But you look--oh, so sad and so far away all the time! When I
came to your rooms, at my first glimpse of you I knew that you were
miserable. We must alter all that, dear. Tell me how it is that with all
your success you haven't been happy?"
"Memories!" he answered harshly. "Only a few hours before you came,
I was in hell!"
"Then you had better make up your mind," she told him firmly, "that you
are going to climb up out of there, and when you're out, you're going to
stay out. You can't alter the past. You can't alter even the smallest
detail of its setting. Just as inevitably as our lives come and go, so
what has happened is finished with, unchangeable. It is only a weak
person who would spoil the present and the future, brooding. You used not
to be weak, Philip."
"I don't think that I am, really," he said. "I am moody, though, and
that's almost as bad. The sight of you brought it all back. And that
fellow Dane--I've been frightened of him, Beatrice."
"Well, you needn't be any longer," she declared. "What you want is some
one with you all the time who understands you, some one to drive back
those other thoughts when they come to worry you. It is really a very
good thing for you, dear, that I came out to New York. Mr. Dane is going
to be very disappointed when I tell him that I never saw you before in my
life.... Don't you love the music? Listen to that waltz. That was written
for happy people, Philip. I adore this place. I suppose we shall find
others that we like better, as time goes on, but I shall always think of
this evening. It is the beginning of my task, too, Philip, with you--for
you. What has really happened, dear? I can't realise anything. I feel as
though the gates of some great prison had been thrown wide-open, and
everything there was to long for in life was just there, within reach,
waiting. I am glad, so much gladder than I should have imagined possible.
It's wonderful to have you again. I didn't even feel that I missed you so
much, but I know now what it was that made life so appalling. Tell me, am
I still nice to look at?"
"Of course you are," he assured her. "Can't you understand that by the
way people notice you?"
She strummed upon the table with her fingers. Her whole body seemed to be
moving to the music. She nodded several times.
"I don't want them to notice me, Philip," she murmured. "I want you to
look just for a moment as though you thought me the only person in the
world--as you did once, you know."
He did his best to be responsive, but he was not wholly successful.
Nevertheless, she was tolerant with his shortcomings. They sat there
until nearly three o'clock. It was she at last who rose reluctantly to
her feet.
"I want to go whilst the memory of it all is wonderful," she declared.
"Come. Here's a card with my address on. Drive me home now, please."
He paid his bill and they found a cab. She linked her arm through his,
her head sank a little upon his shoulder. He made no movement. She waited
for a moment, then she leaned back amongst the cushions.
"Philip," she asked quietly, "has this Elizabeth Dalstan been letting you
make love to her?"
"Please don't speak of Miss Dalstan like that," he begged.
"Answer my question," she insisted.
"Miss Dalstan has been very kind to me," he admitted slowly, "wonderfully
kind. If you really want to know, I do care for her."
"More than you did for me?"
"Very much more," he answered bravely, "and in a different fashion."
In the darkness of the cab it seemed to him that her face had grown
whiter. Her arm remained within his but it clasped him no longer. Her
body seemed to have become limp. Even her voice, firm though it was,
seemed pitched in a different key.
"Listen," she said. "You will have to forget Miss Dalstan. I have made up
my mind what I want in life and I am going to have it. I shall draw my
money to-morrow morning and afterwards I shall come straight to your
rooms. Then we will talk. I want more than just that money. I am lonely.
And do you know, Philip, I believe that I must have cared for you all the
time, and you--you must have cared for me a little or you would never
have done that for my sake. You must and you shall care, Philip, because
our time has come, and I want you, please--shall I have to say it,
dear?--I want you to marry me."
He wrenched himself free from her.
"That is quite out of the question, Beatrice," he declared.
She laughed at him mockingly.
"Oh, don't say that, Philip! You might tempt me to be brutal. You might
tempt me to speak horribly plain words to you."
"Speak them and have done with it," he told her roughly. "I might find a
few, too."
"I am past hurting," she replied, "and I am not in the least afraid of
anything you could say. You robbed me of the man who was bringing me to
America--who would have married me some day, I suppose. Well, you must
pay, do you see, and in my way? I have told you the way I choose."
"You want me to marry you?" he demanded--"simply marry you? You do not
care whether I have any love for you or whether I loathe you now."
"You couldn't loathe me, could you?" she begged. "The thought of those
long days we spent together in our prison house would rise up and forbid
it. Kiss me."
"I will not!"
Her lips sought his, in vain. He pushed her away.
"Don't you understand?" he exclaimed. "There is another woman whom I have
kissed--whom I am longing to kiss now."
"But we are old friends," she pleaded, "and I am lonely. Kiss me how you
like. Don't be foolish."
He kissed her upon the cheek. She pulled down her veil. The cab had
stopped before the door of her hotel.
"You are not to worry any more about ugly things, Philip," she whispered,
holding his hand for a moment as he rang the bell for her. "You are safe,
remember--quite safe. I've come to take care of you. You need it so
badly.... Good night, dear!"