Heaven knows how I got rid of the fellow after that. Perhaps I was
discourteous; perhaps he thought I had been suddenly taken ill; more
likely, of course, he assumed that I was merely drunk. And perhaps I
was. I don't remember what I said to him, or what he said to me either;
all I know is that, drunk or not, by the time he had gone, I had reached
a very definite decision, and that was that, whatever happened, Terry
and I must avoid a meeting with the Severns.
Terry was silent--had been silent, indeed, ever since Bentley's
intrusion. As soon as we were alone together I leaned across the table
and put the matter to him as carefully as I could. (The orchestra, I
remember, struck up with feverish inaccuracy the overture to _Ruy
Blas_.) We had better, I said, to avoid any possible unpleasantness,
change our hotel. We could cancel the booking if we hurried, and get
rooms somewhere else. It was the wisest thing to do, as he would realize
if he thought about it. "After all, you can see how awkward the meeting
_might_ be, can't you?" The trouble was, of course, that I didn't want
to tell him the chief reason for the awkwardness--my own seven-years'
estrangement from Helen.
I argued for a quarter of an hour at least, and then, inferring from his
silence that he was wholly or partly in agreement, I suggested returning
to the hotel. He nodded, and I paid the bill. Not till we were outside
on the pavement did he speak, and then he said quietly: "_You_ can
change hotels if you like, but _I_ shan't."
And he was adamant. It was as hopeless to attempt to persuade him to
leave the Andrassy as it had been to persuade him to come for a holiday
to London. He just set his teeth and held firm. He wasn't going to alter
_any_ of his arrangements--not for her, or Severn, or anybody else. _He_
wasn't afraid of a meeting. What had happened to him before couldn't
happen to him again--he was proof against it. And he wasn't going to run
away and hide as if he had anything to fear.
I pointed out that it wasn't a question of running away, but merely of
avoiding possible unpleasantness. He had put an end to the
correspondence between them by not answering her letters--would _that_
make a reunion very easy? But he said: "I don't care whether it's easy
or not. If she goes out of her way to meet me, that's her affair, not
mine. _I_ shan't make a scene, I promise you. But I won't, whatever's
going to happen, skulk round the corner to some other place." He added,
apologetically: "I hate to get my own way against your wishes, but I'm
afraid you'll have to put up with it for once."
And that was so. I had to put up with it. I had to put up with his
determination to have supper in the public dining-room of the Andrassy
merely because "we're going to do exactly what we should have done." I
couldn't make him budge an inch by persuasion, but I guessed that where
argument failed altogether, guile might slightly succeed. Accordingly,
when we reached the hotel I piloted him into an alcove of the
_gastzimmer_, whence we could see the rest of the room without being too
prominently on view ourselves. That was something, at any rate.
I don't think either of us enjoyed the supper very much. Terry was
silent most of the time, and I found it hard to keep going a one-sided
conversation. I kept looking at the swing-doors that led into the
vestibule, looking at the Pesthians remorselessly picking their
gold-filled teeth with fibre tooth-picks, looking at the tables as they
filled and emptied; and at first hoping, and then, as time passed, even
believing that the Severns must be dining elsewhere that night. It was
already long past eight o'clock, and the room was getting emptier. The
strain of waiting stamped its features indelibly on my memory; I can
picture now its rather showy magnificence--panelled walls and
gilt-and-white cornice, and so on--and, by way of contrast lower down, a
wavy green smear of insecticide running all round the walls just above
the floor. I remember that while the waiter was taking our order a large
blue-black cockroach crawled sedately from under the table and
disappeared into a hole near the skirting-board.
A quarter to nine, and still there was no sign of the Severns. And then,
just when I was about to suggest leaving the table, I saw a couple of
waiters detach themselves from the serving and rush to hold open the
doors with an obsequiousness that seemed to indicate the approach of at
least an heir-apparent of a Balkan principality.
But no ... it was Severn.
Severn, in an exquisitely summery lounge-suit, Severn laughing and
talking and gesticulating with that queer, panther-like litheness that
marked him out from all other men in the world....
But the really odd thing was that the woman who was with him wasn't
Helen.