But Loder did not leave London. And the hour of two on the day following
his dismissal of Chilcote found him again in his sitting-room.
He sat at the centre-table surrounded by a cloud of smoke; a pipe was
between his lips and the morning's newspapers lay in a heap beside
his elbow. To the student of humanity his attitude was intensely
interesting. It was the attitude of a man trammelled by the knowledge
of his strength. Before him, as he sat smoking, stretched a future of
absolute nothingness; and towards this blank future one portion of his
consciousness--a struggling and as yet scarcely sentient portion--pushed
him inevitably; while another--a vigorous, persistent, human
portion--cried to him to pause. So actual, so clamorous was this
silent mental combat that had raged unceasingly since the moment of his
renunciation that at last in physical response to it he pushed back his
chair.
“It's too late!” he said, aloud. “I'm a fool. It's too late!”
Then abruptly, astonishingly, as though in direct response to his spoken
thought, the door opened and Chilcote walked into the room.
Slowly Loder rose and stared at him. The feeling he acknowledged to
himself was anger; but below the anger a very different sensation ran
riotously strong.
And it was in time to this second feeling, this sudden, lawless joy,
that his pulses beat as he turned a cold face on the intruder.
“Well?” he said, sternly.
But Chilcote was impervious to sternness. He was mentally shaken and
distressed, though outwardly irreproachable, even to the violets in the
lapel of his coat--the violets that for a week past had been brought
each morning to the door of Loder's rooms by Eve's maid. For one second,
as Loder's eyes' rested on the flowers, a sting of ungovernable jealousy
shot through him; then as suddenly it died away, superseded by another
feeling--a feeling of new, spontaneous joy. Worn by Chilcote or by
himself, the flowers were a symbol!
“Well?” he said again, in a gentler voice.
Chilcote had walked to the table and laid down his hat. His face was
white and the muscles of his lips twitched nervously as he drew off his
gloves.
“Thank Heaven, you're here!” he said, shortly. “Give me something to
drink.”
In silence Loder brought out the whiskey and set it on the table; then
instinctively he turned aside. As plainly as though he saw the action,
he mentally figured Chilcote's furtive glance, the furtive movement of
his fingers to his waistcoat-pocket, the hasty dropping of the tabloids
into the glass. For an instant the sense of his tacit connivance came to
him sharply; the next, he flung it from him. The human, inner voice was
whispering its old watchword. The strong man has no time to waste over
his weaker brother!
When he heard Chilcote lay down his tumbler he looked back again. “Well,
what is it?” he said. “What have you come for?” He strove resolutely to
keep his voice severe, but, try as he might, he could not quite subdue
the eager force that lay behind his words. Once again, as on the night
of their second interchange, life had become a phoenix, rising to fresh
existence even while he sifted its ashes. “Well?” he said, once again.
Chilcote had set down his glass. He was nervously passing his
handkerchief across his lips. There was something in the gesture that
attracted Loder. Looking at him more attentively, he saw what his own
feelings and the other's conventional dress had blinded him to--the
almost piteous panic and excitement in his visitor's eyes.
“Something's gone wrong!” he said, with abrupt intuition.
Chilcote started. “Yes--no--that is, yes,” he stammered.
Loder moved round the table. “Something's gone wrong,” he repeated. “And
you've come to tell me.”
The tone unnerved Chilcote; he suddenly dropped into a chair. “It--it
wasn't my fault,” he began. “I--I have had a horrible time!”
Loder's lips tightened. “Yes,” he said, “yes--I understand.”
The other glanced up with a gleam of his old suspicion “'Twas all my
nerves, Loder--”
“Of course. Yes, of course.” Loder's interruption was curt.
Chilcote eyed him doubtfully. Then recollection took the place of doubt,
and a change passed over his expression. “It wasn't my fault,” he began,
hastily. “On my soul, it wasn't! It was Crapham's beastly fault for
showing her into the morning-room--”
Loder kept silent. His curiosity had flared into sudden life at the
other's words, but he feared to break the shattered train of thought
even by a word.
In the silence Chilcote moved uneasily. “You see,” he went on, at last,
“when I was here with you I--I felt strong. I--I--” He stopped.
“Yes, yes. When you were here with me you felt strong.”
“Yes, that's it. While I was here, I felt I could do the thing. But when
I went home--when I went up to my rooms--” Again he paused, passing his
handkerchief across his forehead.
“When you went up to your rooms?” Loder strove hard to keep his control.
“To my room--? Oh, I--I forget about that. I forget about the night” He
hesitated confusedly. “All I remember is the coming down to breakfast
next morning--this morning--at twelve o'clock--”
Loder turned to the table and poured himself out some whiskey. “Yes,” he
acquiesced, in a very quiet voice.
At the word Chilcote rose from his seat. His disquietude was
very evident. “Oh, there was breakfast on the table when I came
down-stairs--breakfast with flowers and a horrible, dazzling glare of
sun. It was then, Loder, as I stood and looked into the room, that
the impossibility of it all came to me--that I knew I couldn't stand
it--couldn't go on.”
Loder swallowed his whiskey slowly. His sense of overpowering curiosity
held him very still; but he made no effort to prompt his companion.
Again Chilcote shifted his position agitatedly. “It, had to be done,” he
said, disjointedly. “I had to do it--then and there. The things were on
the bureau--the pens and ink and telegraph forms. They tempted me.”
Loder laid down his glass suddenly. An exclamation rose to his lips, but
he checked it.
At the slight sound of the tumbler touching the table Chilcote turned;
but there was no expression on the other's face to affright him.
“They tempted me,” he repeated, hastily. “They seemed like magnets--they
seemed to draw me towards them. I sat at the bureau staring at them for
a long time; then a terrible compulsion seized me--something you could
never understand--and I caught up the nearest pen and wrote just what
was in my mind. It wasn't a telegram, properly speaking--it was more a
letter. I wanted you back and I had to make myself plain. The writing of
the message seemed to steady me; the mere forming of the words quieted
my mind. I was almost cool when I got up from the bureau and pressed the
bell--”
“The bell?”
“Yes. I rang for a servant. I had to send the wire myself, so I had to
get a cab.” His voice rose to irritability. “I pressed the bell several
times; but the thing had gone wrong--'twouldn't work. At last I gave it
up and went into the corridor to call some one.”
“Well?” In the intense suspense of the moment the word escaped Loder.
“Oh, I went out of the room; but there at the door, before I could call
anybody, I knocked up against that idiot Greening. He was looking for
me--for you, rather--about some beastly Wark affair. I tried to explain
that I wasn't in a state for business; I tried to shake him off, but
he was worse than Blessington. At last, to be rid of the fellow, I went
with him to the study--”
“But the telegram?” Loder began; then again he checked himself.
“Yes--yes--I understand,” he added, quietly.
“I'm getting to the telegram! I wish you wouldn't jar me with sudden
questions. I wasn't in the study more than a minute--more than five or
six minutes--” His voice became confused; the strain of the connected
recital was telling upon him. With nervous haste he made a rush for
the end of his story. “I wasn't more than seven or eight minutes in the
study; then, as I came down-stairs, Crapham met me in the hall. He told
me that Lillian Astrupp had called and wished to see me. And that he had
shown her into the morning-room--”
“The morning-room?” Loder suddenly stepped back from the table. “The
morning-room? With your telegram lying on the bureau?”
His sudden speech and movement startled Chilcote. The blood rushed to
his face, then died out, leaving it ashen. “Don't do that, Loder!” he
cried. “I--I can't bear it!”
With an immense effort Loder controlled himself. “Sorry!” he said. “Go
on!”
“I'm going on! I tell you I'm going on. I got a horrid shock when
Chapham told me. Your story came clattering through my mind. I knew
Lillian had come to see you--I knew there was going to be a scene--”
“But the telegram? The telegram?”
Chilcote paid no heed to the interruption. He was following his own
train of ideas. “I knew she had come to see you--I knew there was going
to be a scene. When I got to the morning-room my hand was shaking so
that I could scarcely turn the handle; then, as the door opened, I could
have cried out with relief. Eve was there as well!”
“Eve?”
“Yes. I don't think I was ever so glad to see her in my life.” He
laughed almost hysterically. “I was quite civil to her, and she
was--quite sweet to me--” Again he laughed.
Loder's lips tightened.
“You see, it saved the situation. Even if Lillian wanted to be nasty,
she couldn't, while Eve was there. We talked for about ten minutes. We
were quite an amiable trio. Then Lillian told me why she'd called.
She wanted me to make a fourth in a theatre party at the 'Arcadian'
to-night, and I--I was so pleased and so relieved that I said yes!” He
paused and laughed again unsteadily.
In his tense anxiety, Loder ground his heel into the floor. “Go on!” he
said, fiercely. “Go on!”
“Don't!” Chilcote exclaimed. “I'm going on--I'm going on.” He passed his
handkerchief across his lips. “We talked for ten minutes or so, and then
Lillian left. I went with her to the hall door, but Chapham was there
too--so I was still safe. She laughed and chatted and seemed in high
spirits as we crossed the hall, and she was still smiling as she waved
to me from her motor. But then, Loder--then, as I stood in the hall, it
all came to me suddenly. I remembered that Lillian must have been alone
in the morning-room before Eve found her! I remembered the telegram! I
ran back to the room, meaning to question Eve as to how long Lillian
had been alone, but she had left the room. I ran to the bureau--but the
telegram wasn't there!”
“Gone?”
“Yes, gone. That's why I've come straight here.”
For a moment they confronted each other. Then, moved by a sudden
impulse, Loder pushed Chilcote aside and crossed the room. An instant
later the opening and shutting of doors, the hasty pulling out of
drawers and moving of boxes, came from the bedroom.
Chilcote, shaken and nervous, stood for a minute where his companion
had left him; at last, impelled by curiosity, he too crossed the narrow
passage and entered the second room.
The full light streamed in through the open window; the keen spring air
blew freshly across the house-tops; and on the window-sill a band of
grimy, joyous sparrows twittered and preened themselves. In the middle
of the room stood Loder. His coat was off, and round him on chairs and
floor lay an array of waistcoats, gloves, and ties.
For a space Chilcote stood in the doorway staring at him; then his lips
parted and he took a step forward. “Loder--” he said, anxiously. “Loder,
what are you going to do?”
Loder turned. His shoulders were stiff, his face alight with energy.
“I'm going back,” he said, “to unravel the tangle you have made.”