"Oh, that _would_ be telling. It's just as well you shouldn't know."
"Was it as naughty as all that then?"
"Yes. Or as nice."
They kept it up, lightly, till Partridge and Annie Trinder came,
tinkling and rattling with the tea-things outside the door. As if, Mr.
Waddington thought, they meant to warn them.
"Partridge," he called, as the butler was going, "Partridge, if Sir John
Corbett calls you can show him in here; but I'm not at home to anybody
else."
(Clever idea, that.)
"He isn't coming, is he, the tiresome old thing?"
"No. He isn't. If I thought he was for one minute I wouldn't be at
home."
"Then why--?"
"Why did I say I would be? Because I wanted to make it safe for you,
Elise."
Thus tactfully he let it dawn on her that he might be dangerous.
"We don't want to be interrupted, do we?" he said.
"Not by Sir John Corbett."
He drew up the big, padded sofa square before the fire for Elise. All
his movements were unconscious, innocent of deliberation and design. He
seated himself top-heavily behind the diminutive gate-legged tea-table;
the teapot and cups were like dolls' things in his great hands. She
looked at him, at his slow fingers fumbling with the sugar tongs.
"Would you like me to pour out tea for you?" she said.
He started visibly. He wouldn't like it at all. He wasn't going to allow
Elise to put herself into Fanny's place, pouring out tea for him as if
she was his wife. She wouldn't have suggested it if she had had any tact
or any delicacy.
"No," he said. The "No" sounded hard and ungracious. "You must really
let me have the pleasure of waiting on you."
The sugar dropped from the tongs; he fumbled again, madly, and Elise
smiled. "Damn the tongs," he thought; "damn the sugar."
"Take it in your fingers, goose," she said.
Goose! An endearment, a caress. It softened him. His tenderness for
Elise came back.
"My fingers are all thumbs," he said.
"Your thumbs, then. You don't suppose I mind?"
There was meaning in her voice, and Mr. Waddington conceived himself to
be on the verge of the first exquisite intimacies of love. He left off
thinking about Fanny. He poured out tea and handed bread and butter in a
happy dream. He ate and drank without knowing what he ate and drank. His
whole consciousness was one muzzy, heavy sense of the fullness and
nearness of Elise. He could feel his ears go "vroom-vroom" and his voice
thicken as if he were slightly, very slightly drunk. He wondered how
Elise could go on eating bread and butter.
He heard himself sigh when at last he put her cup down.
He considered the position of the tea-table in relation to the sofa. It
hemmed in that part of it where he was going to sit. Very cramping. He
moved it well back and considered it again. It now stood in his direct
line of retreat from the sofa to the armchair. An obstruction. If
anybody were to come in. He moved it to one side.
"That's better," He said. "Now we can get a clear view of the fire. It
isn't too much for you, Elise?"
He had persuaded himself that he had really moved the tea-table because
of the fire. As yet he had no purpose and no plan. He didn't know what
on earth he was going to say to Elise.
He sat down beside her and there was a sudden hushed pause. Elise had
turned round in her seat and was looking at him; her eyes were steady
behind the light tremor of their lashes, brilliant and profound. He
reflected that her one weak point, the shortness of her legs, was not
noticeable when she was sitting down. He also wondered how he could ever
have thought her mouth hard. It moved with a little tender, sensitive
twitch, like the flutter of her eyelids, and he conceived that she was
drawn to him and held trembling by his fascination.
She spoke first.
"Mr. Waddington, I don't know how to thank you for your kindness about
the rent. But you know it's safe, don't you?"
"Of course I know it. Don't talk about rent. Don't think about it."
"I can't help it. I can't think of anything else until it's paid."
"I'd rather you never paid any rent at all than that you should worry
about it like this. I didn't ask you to come here to talk business,
Elise."
"I'm afraid I must talk it. Just a little."
"Not now," he said firmly. "I won't listen."
It sounded exactly as if he said he wouldn't listen to any more talk
about rent; but he thought: "I don't know what I shall do if she begins
about that five hundred. But she hardly can, after that. Anyhow, I shall
decline to discuss it."
"Tell me what you've been doing with yourself?"
"You can't _do_ much with yourself in Wyck. I trot about my house--my
dear little house that you've made so nice for me. I do my marketing,
and I go out to tea with the parson's wife, or the doctor's wife, or
Mrs. Bostock, or Mrs. Grainger."
"I didn't know you went to the Graingers."
He thought that was not very loyal of Elise.
"You must go somewhere."
"Well?"
"And in the evenings we play bridge."
"Who plays bridge?"
"Mr. Hawtrey, or Mr. Thurston, or young Hawtrey, and Toby, and Major
Markham and me."
"Always Major Markham?"
"Well, he comes a good deal. He likes coming."
"_Does_ he?"
"Do you mind?"
"I should mind very much if I thought it would make any difference."
"Any difference?" She frowned and blinked, as though she were trying
hard to see what he meant, what he possibly _could_ mean by that.
"Difference?" she said. "To what?"
"To you and me."
"Of course it doesn't. Not a scrap. How could it?"
"No. How could it? I don't really believe it could."
"But why should it?" she persisted.
"Why, indeed. Ours is a wonderful relation. A unique relation. And I
think you want as much as I do to--to keep it intact."
"Of course I want to keep it intact. I wouldn't for worlds let anything
come between us, certainly not bridge." She meditated. "I suppose I do
play rather a lot. There's nothing else to do, you see, and you get
carried away."
"I hope, my dear, you don't play for money."
"Oh, well, it isn't much fun for the others if we don't."
"You don't play high, I hope?"
"What do you call high?"
"Well, breaking into pound notes."
"Pound notes! Penny points--well, ten shillings is the very highest
stake when we're reckless and going it. Besides, I always play against
Markham and Hawtrey, because I know _they_ won't be hard on me if I
lose."
"Now, _that's_ what I don't like. I'd a thousand times rather pay your
gambling debts than have you putting yourself under an obligation to
those men."
He couldn't bear it. He couldn't bear to think that Elise could bear it.
"You should have come to me," he said.
"I have come to you, haven't I?" She thought of the five hundred pounds.
He thought of them too. "Ah, that's different. Now, about these debts to
Markham and Hawtrey. How much do they come to--about?"
"Oh, a five-pound note would cover all of it. But I shall only be in
debt to you."
"We'll say nothing about that. If I pay it, Elise, will you promise me
you'll never play higher than penny points again?"
"It's too angelic of you, really."
He smiled. He liked paying her gambling debts. He liked the power it
gave him over her. He liked to think that he could make her promise. He
liked to be told he was angelic. It was all very cheap at five pounds,
and it would enable him to refuse the five hundred with a better grace.
"Come, on your word of honour, only penny points."
"On my word of honour.... But, oh, I don't think I can take it."
She thought of the five hundred. When you wanted five hundred it was
pretty rotten to be put off with a fiver.
"If you can take it from Hawtrey and Markham--"
"That's it. I _can't_ take it from Markham. I haven't done that. I can't
do it."
"Well, Hawtrey then."
"Hawtrey's different"
"Why is he different?"
A faint suspicion, relating to Markham, troubled him, and not for the
first time.
"Well, you see, he's a middle-aged married man. He might be my uncle."