"Oh, come, you don't suppose we believe a word of it."
They looked at each other. Sir John thought: "I'll get it out of him."
And Mr. Waddington thought: "I'll get it out of him."
"You might as well tell me what you're talking about," he said.
"My dear chap, it's what Mrs. Levitt's talking about. That's the point."
"Mrs. Levitt!"
"Yes. She's a dangerous woman, Waddington. I told you you were doing a
risky thing taking up with her like that.... And there's Hawtrey doing
the same thing, the very same thing.... But he's a middle-aged man, so I
suppose he thinks he's safe. ... But if he was ten years younger--
Hang it all, Waddington, if I was a younger man I shouldn't feel safe. I
shouldn't, really. I can't think what there is about her. There's
something."
"Yes," said Mr. Waddington, "there's something."
Something. He wasn't going to let Corbett think him so middle-aged that
he was impervious to its charm.
"What is it?" said Sir John. "She isn't handsome, yet she gets all the
young fellows running after her. There was Markham, and Thurston, and
there's young Hawtrey. It's only sober old chaps like me who don't get
landed.... Upon my word, Waddington, I shouldn't blame you if you _had_
lost your head."
Mr. Waddington felt shaken in his determination not to let Corbett get
it out of him. It was also clear that, if he did admit to having for one
wild moment lost his head, Corbett would think none the worse of him. He
would then be classed with Markham and young Billy, whereas if he denied
it, he would only rank himself with old fossils like Corbett. And he
couldn't bear it. There was such a thing as doing yourself an
unnecessary injustice.
Sir John watched him hovering round the trap he had laid for him.
"Absolutely between ourselves," he said. "_Did_ you?"
Under Mr. Waddington's iron-grey moustache you could see the
Rabelaisian smile answering the Rabelaisian twinkle. For the life of him
he couldn't resist it.
"Well--between ourselves, Corbett, absolutely--to be perfectly honest, I
did. There _is_ something about her.... Just for a second, you know. It
didn't come to anything."
"Didn't it? She says you made violent love to her."
"I won't swear what I wouldn't have done if I hadn't pulled myself up
in time."
At this point it occurred to him that if Elise had betrayed the secret
of his love-making she would also have told her own tale of its repulse.
That had to be accounted for.
"I can tell you one queer thing about that woman, Corbett. She's
cold--cold."
"Oh, come, Waddington--"
"You wouldn't think it--"
"I don't," said Sir John, with a loud guffaw.
"But I assure you, my dear Corbett, she's simply wooden. Talk of making
love, you might as well make love to--to a chair or a cabinet. I can
tell you Markham's had a lucky escape."
"I don't imagine that's what put him off," said Sir John. "He knew
something."
"What do you suppose he knew?"
"Something the Benhams told them, I fancy. They'd some queer story.
Rather think she ran after Dicky, and Mrs. Benham didn't like it."
"Don't know what she wanted with him. Couldn't have been in love with
him, I will say that for her."
"Well, she seems to have preferred their bungalow to her own. Anyhow,
they couldn't get her out of it."
"I don't believe that story. We must be fair to the woman, Corbett."
He thought he had really done it very well. Not only had he accounted
honourably for his repulse, but he had cleared Elise. And he had cleared
himself from the ghastly imputation of middle-age. Repulse or no
repulse, he was proud of his spurt of youthful passion.
And in another minute he had persuaded himself that his main motive had
been the desire to be fair to Elise.
"H'm! I don't know about being fair," said Sir John. "Anyhow, I
congratulate you on your lucky escape."
Mr. Waddington rose to go. "Of course--about what I told you--you won't
let it go any further?"
Sir John laughed out loud. "Of course I won't. Only wanted to know how
far _you_ went. Might have gone farther and fared worse, what?"
He rose, too, laughing. "If anybody tries to pump me I shall say you
behaved very well. So you did, my dear fellow, so you did. Considering
the provocation."
He could afford to laugh. He had got it out of poor old Waddington, as
he said he would. But to the eternal honour of Sir John Corbett, it did
not go any further. When people tried to get it out of him he simply
said that there was nothing in it, and that to his certain knowledge
Waddington had behaved very well. As Barbara had prophesied, nobody
believed that he had behaved otherwise. It was not for nothing that he
was Mr. Waddington of Wyck.
And in consequence of the revelations she had made to her friend, Miss
Gregg, very early in the New Year Elise found other doors closed to her
besides the Markhams' and the Waddingtons'. And behind the doors on each
side of the White House respectable householders could sleep in their
beds on Friday nights without fear of being wakened by the opening and
shutting of Mrs. Levitt's door and by the shrill "Good nights" called
out from its threshold and answered up the street The merry bridge
parties and the little suppers were no more.
Even the Rector's geniality grew more and more Christian and
perfunctory, till he too left off stopping to talk to Mrs. Levitt when
he met her in the street.
3
Mr. Waddington's confession to Sir John was about the only statement
relating to the Waddington affair which did not go any further. Thus a
very curious and interesting report of it reached Ralph Bevan through
Colonel Grainger, when he heard for the first time of the part Barbara
had played in it.
In the story Elise had told in strict confidence to Miss Gregg, Mr.
Waddington had been deadly afraid of her and had beaten a cowardly
retreat behind Barbara's big guns. Not that either Elise or Miss Gregg
would have admitted for one moment that her guns were big; Colonel
Grainger had merely inferred the deadliness of her fire from the
demoralization of the enemy.
"Your little lady, Bevan," he said, "seems to have come off best in that
encounter."
"We needn't worry any more about the compact, Barbara, now I know about
it," Ralph said, as they walked together. Snow had fallen. The Cotswolds
were all white, netted with the purplish brown filigree-work of the
trees. Their feet went crunching through the furry crystals of the snow.
"No. That's one good thing she's done."
"Was it very funny, your scrap?"
"It seemed funnier at the time than it did afterwards. It was really
rather beastly. Fanny didn't like it."
"You could hardly expect her to. There's a limit to Fanny's sense of
humour."
"There's a limit to mine. Fanny was right. I had to fight her with the
filthiest weapons. I had to tell her she couldn't do anything because he
was Waddington of Wyck, and she was up against all his ancestors. I had
to drag in his ancestors."
"That was bad."
"I know it was. It's what Fanny hated. And no wonder. She made me feel
such a miserable little snob, Ralph."
"Fanny did?"
"Yes. _She_ couldn't have done it. She'd have let her do her damnedest."
"That's because Fanny's an incurable little aristocrat. She's got more
Waddington of Wyckedness in her little finger than Horatio has in all
his ego; and she despises Mrs. Levitt. She wouldn't have condescended to
scrap with her."
"The horrible thing is, it's true. He can do what he likes and nothing
happens to him. He can turn the Ballingers out of their house and
nothing happens. He can make love to a woman who doesn't want to be made
love to and nothing happens. Because he's Waddington of Wyck."
"He's Waddington of Wyck, but he isn't such a bad old thing, really.
People laugh at him, but they like him because he's so funny. And
they've taken Mrs. Levitt's measure pretty accurately."
"You don't think, then, I was too big a beast to her?"
Ralph laughed.
"Somebody had to save him, Ralph. After all, he's Fanny's husband."
"Yes, after all, he's Fanny's husband."
"So you don't--do you?"
"Of course I don't.... What's he doing now?"
"Oh, just pottering about with his book. It's nearly finished."
"You've kept it up?"
"Rather. There isn't a sentence he mightn't have written himself. I
think I'm going to let him go back to Lower Wyck on the last page and
end there. In his Manor. I thought of putting something in about
holly-decked halls and Yule logs on the Christmas hearth. He was
photographed the other day. In the snow."
"Gorgeous."
"I wonder if he'll really settle down now. Or if he'll do it all over
again some day with somebody else."
"You can't tell. You can't possibly tell. He may do anything."
"That's what we feel about him," Barbara said.
"Endless possibilities. Yet you'd think he couldn't go one better than
Mrs. Levitt."
For the next half-mile they disputed whether in the scene with Mrs.
Levitt he was or was not really funny. Ralph was inclined to think that
he might have been purely disgusting.
"You didn't _see_ him, Ralph. You've no right to say he wasn't funny."
"No. No. I didn't see him. You needn't rub it in, Barbara."
"We've got to wait and see what he does next. It may be your turn any
day."
"We can't expect him to do very much for a little while. He must be a
bit exhausted with this last stunt."
"Yes. And the funny thing is he has moments when you don't laugh at him.
Moments of calm, beautiful peace.... You come on him walking in his
garden looking for snowdrops in the snow. Or he's sitting in his
library, reading Buchan's 'History of the Great War.' Happy. Not
thinking about himself at all. Then you're sorry you ever laughed at
him."
"I'm not," Ralph said. "He owes it us. He does nothing else to justify
his existence."
"Yes. But he exists. He exists. And somehow, it's pretty mysterious
when you think of it. You wonder whether you mayn't have seen him all
wrong. Whether all the time he isn't just, a simple old thing. When you
get that feeling--of his mysteriousness, Ralph--somehow you're done."
"I haven't had it yet."
"Oh, it's there. You'll get it some day."
"You see, Barbara, how right I was? We can't keep off him."