For some weeks after his chief's dinner party, Tallente slackened a
little in his grim devotion to work. A strangely quiescent period of
day-by-day political history enabled him to be absent from his place in
the House for several evenings during the week, and although he spent a
good many hours with Dartrey at Demos House, carefully discussing and
elaborating next season's programme, he still found himself with time to
spare, and with Jane's note buttoned up in his pocket, he deliberately
turned his face towards life in its more genial and human aspect.
He dined one night at the club to which he had belonged for many years,
a club frequented chiefly by distinguished literary men, successful
barristers, and a sprinkling of actors. His arrival created at first
almost a sensation, a slight feeling of constraint even, amongst the
little gathering of men drinking their apéritifs in the lounge under the
stairs. Somehow or other, there was a feeling that many of the old ties
had been broken. Tallente stood for new and menacing things in
politics. He had to a certain extent cut himself adrift from the world
which starts at Eton and Oxford and ends by making mild puns on the
judicial bench, or uttering sonorous platitudes from a properly
accredited seat in the House.
Tallente, fully appreciating the atmosphere, nevertheless made strenuous
and not unsuccessful efforts to pick up the old threads. He abandoned
even the moderation of his daily life. He drank cocktails, champagne
and port, laughed heartily at the stories of the day and ransacked his
brain to cap them. Of bridge, unfortunately, he knew nothing, but he
played pool with some success, and left the club late, leaving behind
him curiously mingled opinions as to the cause for this sudden return to
his old haunts.
He himself walked through the streets, on his way homeward, conscious of
at least partial success, feeling the pleasurable warmth of the wine he
had drunk and the companionship for which he had so strenuously sought.
He found himself thinking almost enviously of the men with whom he had
associated,--Philipson, with whom he had been at college, with three
plays running at different theatres, interested, even fascinated by his
work, chaffing gaily with his principal actor as to the rendering of
some of his lines. Then there was Fardell, also a schoolfellow, now a
police magistrate, full of dry and pleasant humour, called by his
intimates "The Beak "; Amberson, poseur and dilettante thirty years ago,
but always a good fellow, now an acknowledged master of English prose
and a critic whose word was unquestioned. These men, one and all,
seemed to be up to the neck in life, kept young and human by the taste
of it upon their palate. The contemplation of their whole-sided
existence, their sound combination of work and play, produced in him a
sort of jealousy, for he knew that there was something behind it, which
he lacked.
The night was bright and dry and there were still crowds about Leicester
Square, Piccadilly Circle and Piccadilly itself. As he walked, he
looked into the faces of the women who passed him by, struggling against
his old abhorrence as against one of the sickly offshoots of an
over-eclectic epicureanism. They typified not vice but weakness, the
unhappy result of man's inevitable revolt against unnatural laws. Yet
even then the mingled purity and priggishness encouraged by years of
repression forbade any vital change in his sentiments. The toleration
for which he sought, when it made its grudging appearance, was mingled
with dislike and distrust. He breathed more freely as he turned into
the quieter street in which his rooms were situated, passing them by,
however, crossing Curzon Street and embarking upon a brief pilgrimage
which had become almost a nightly one. Within a very few minutes he
paused before a certain number in a street even more secluded than his
own. At last the thing which he had so greatly anticipated had
happened. There were lights in the house from top to bottom. Jane had
arrived!
He walked slowly back and forth several times. The music in his blood,
stirred already by the wine he had drunk and the revival of old
memories, moved to a new and more wonderful tune. He knew now, without
any possibility of self-deception, exactly what he had been waiting for,
exactly where all his thoughts and hopes for the future were centered.
Was she there now, he wondered, gazing at the windows like a moon-struck
boy. He lingered about and fate was kind to him.
A limousine swung around the corner and pulled up in front of the door,
a few minutes later. The footman on the box sprang down. He heard her
voice as she said "Good-by" to some one. The car rolled smoothly away.
She crossed the pavement with an involuntary glance at the tall,
approaching figure.
"Jane!" he exclaimed.
She stood quite still, with the latch-key in her hand. The car was out
of sight now and they seemed to be almost alone in the street. At first
there was something almost unfamiliar in her rather startled face, her
coiffured hair, her bare neck with its collar of diamonds. There was a
moment of suspense. Then he saw something flash into her eyes and he
was glad to be there.
"You?" she exclaimed, a little breathlessly. He plunged into
explanations.
"My rooms are close by here in Charges Street," he told her. "I was
walking home from the club and saw you step out of the car."
"How could you know that I was coming to-day?" she asked. "I only
telephoned Alice after I arrived."
"To tell you the truth," he confessed, "I have got into the habit of
walking this way home, in case--well, to-night I have my reward."
She turned the key in the latch and pushed the door open.
"You must come in," she invited.
"Isn't it too late?"
"What does that matter so long as I ask you?"
He followed her gladly into the hall, closing the door behind him.
"That wretched switch is somewhere near here," she said, feeling along
the wall.
Her fingers suddenly met his and stayed passive in his grasp. She
turned a little around as she realised the nearness of him.
"Jane," he whispered, "I have wanted you so much."
For a single moment she rested in his arms,--a wonderful moment,
inexplicable, voluptuous, stirring him to the very depths. Then she
slipped away. Her fingers sought the wall once more and the place was
flooded with light.
"You must come in here for a moment," she said, opening the nearest
door. "I shall not ask you to share my milk, and I am afraid I don't
know where to get you a whisky and soda, but you can light a cigarette
and just tell me how things are and when you are coming to see me."
He followed her into a comfortable little apartment, furnished in
mid-Victorian fashion, but with an easy-chair drawn up to the brightly
burning fire. On a table near was a glass of milk and some biscuits.
The ermine cloak slipped from her shoulders. She stood with one foot
upon the fender, half turned towards him. His eyes rested upon her,
filled with a great hunger.
"Well?" she queried.
"You are wonderful," he murmured.
She laughed and for a moment her eyes fell.
"But, my dear man," she said, "I don't want compliments. I want to know
the news."
"There is none," he answered. "We are marking time while Horlock digs
his own grave."
"You have been amusing yourself?"
"Indifferently. I dined the other night with Dartrey, to-night at the
Sheridan Club. The most exciting thing in the twenty-four hours has
been my nightly pilgrimage round here."
"How idiotic!" she laughed. "Supposing you had not happened to meet me?
You could scarcely have rung my bell at this hour of the night."
"I should have been content to have seen the lights and to have known
that you had arrived."
"You dear man!" she exclaimed, with a sudden smile, a smile of entire
and sweet friendliness. "I like the thought of your doing that. It is
something to know that one is welcome, when one breaks away from the
routine of one's life, as I have."
"Tell me why you have done it?" he asked.
She looked back into the fire.
"Everything was going a little wrong," she explained. "One of my
farmers was troublesome, and the snow has stopped work and hunting. We
lost thirty of our best ewes last week. I found I was getting out of
temper with everybody and everything, so I suddenly remembered that I
had an empty house here and came up."
"To the city of adventures," he murmured.
She shrugged her shoulders.
"London has never seemed like that to me. I find it generally a very
ugly and a very sordid place, where I am hedged in with relatives,
generally wanting me to do the thing I loathe.--You have really no news
for me, then?"
"None, except that I am glad to see you."
"When will you come and have a long talk?"
"Will you dine with me to-morrow night?" he begged eagerly. "In the
afternoon I have committee meetings. Thursday afternoon you could come
down to the House, if you cared to."
"Of course I should, but hadn't you better dine here?" she suggested.
"I can ask Alice and another man."
"I want to see you alone," he insisted, "for the first time, at any
rate."
"Then will you take me to that little place you told me of in Soho?" she
suggested. "I don't want a whole crowd to know that I am in town just
yet. Don't think that it sounds vain, but people have such a habit of
almost carrying one off one's feet. I want to prowl about London and do
ordinary things. One or two theatres, perhaps, but no dinner parties.
I shan't stay long, I don't suppose. As soon as I hear from Mr.
Segerson that the snow has gone and that terrible north wind has died
away, I know I shall be wanting to get back."
"You are very conscientious about your work there," he complained.
"Don't you ever realise that you may have an even more important mission
here?"
For a single moment she seemed troubled. Her manner, when she spoke,
had lost something of its calm graciousness.
"Really?" she said. "Well, you must tell me all about it to-morrow
night. I shall wear a hat and you must not order the dinner beforehand.
I don't mind your ordering the table, because I like a corner, but we
must sail into the place just like any other two wanderers. It is
agreed?"
He bent over her fingers. His good angel and his instinct of
sensibility, which was always appraising her attitude towards him,
prompted his studied farewell.
"You will let yourself out?" she begged. "I have taken off my cloak and
I could not face that wind."
"Of course," he answered. "I shall call for you at a quarter to eight
to-morrow night. I only wish I could make you understand what it means
to have that to look forward to."
"If you can make me believe that," she answered gravely, "perhaps I
shall be glad that I have come."