Sir Edwin Crathie had come to the front very rapidly under the auspices
of the Liberal Government. Without having any special worth, he was
sufficiently brilliant and unscrupulous to brush obstacles aside
without compunction, and assert himself in a manner that impressed his
hearers with the notion that he was very clever, very thorough, and
very reliable.
Those who knew him superficially believed him extra-ordinarily clever.
Those who knew him intimately sometimes shrugged their shoulders. He
was possessed undoubtedly of a certain flashy sort of cleverness, but
some of his greatest skill existed in imposing it upon others as
strength and insight.
As may be imagined, such a man was not much troubled with principles.
If a step was likely to help him forward with his ambitions, he took it
without considering the moral aspect. If no help was likely to follow,
he only took it if it happened to please his fancy. To say that he had
climbed by women was to put it mildly.
Many of his steps he had taken on women’s hearts, trampling them
mercilessly in the process. And since he was admittedly unscrupulous,
it was not surprising, for he was possessed not only of an attractive
appearance, but of great personal magnetism when he chose to exert it.
He was a bachelor because so far he had considered the single state
best forwarded his aims, but a growing and imperative need for money
was now causing him to look round among the richest heiresses for some
one to pay his debts in consideration of being made Lady Crathie.
In the meantime Hal’s independent spirit and freshness suggested an
entertaining interlude; and as she attracted him more strongly than any
woman had done of late, he decided to follow up their chance friendship
just for the amusement of it.
In consequence, he felt quite boyishly eager for the hours to pass on
Wednesday, and when at last it was time to start, dismissed his
chauffeur with a curt sentence, and started off alone. The chauffeur,
it may be mentioned, merely glanced after him, and with a shrug of his
shoulders wondered “what the master was up to now.”
When Sir Edwin reached the meeting-place he was not particularly
surprised to find no signs of Hal. He believed she would come; but
evidently she liked being perverse, and would purposely keep him
waiting. He ran the car slowly back again, scanning each pedestrian
ahead with a certain anxious eagerness, wondering how he would like her
in broad daylight.
On returning to the Archway, and still finding no one waiting, he
alighted with a pretence of examining some part of the car, and looked
back over the paths leading down from Piccadilly.
And something in his mental regions felt rather foolishly glad when he
recognised her afar off.
He had never seen her walk, but his instinct told him Hal would move
with just the graceful, swinging stride of the tall, slim figure coming
towards him, and carry her head and shoulders with just such a
dauntless, grenadier attitude.
He found himself standing quite still, with his hands deep in his
overcoat pockets, watching her. Her costume, too, pleased his
fastidious taste. Of course a first-class tailor had cut a coat and
skirt with a fit and hang like that; and the small hat, if it had
nothing Parisian about it, anyhow suited the wearer and dress to
perfection.
He noted with quiet pleasure that she showed no signs of embarrassment
when she met his watching gaze, merely crossing the road with the same
jaunty, upright walk, and a gleam of fun in her eyes.
“Hullo!” was her greeting. “Hope I haven’t kept you waiting. I’ve had a
busy afternoon helping my chief to give you and The Right Honourable
Hayes Matheson a good slanging.”
“Oh, you have, have you?”
The grey eyes were growing more and more approving, as he noted each
detail most likely to appeal to a man who had made a study of women for
many years. The shapely little ears with the glossy hair curling round
them, the full, rounded throat, the determined little chin, the frank,
fearless eyes.
He still hardly knew whether she was pretty or not, but he discerned
wery quickly that she was amply blessed with that rare gift of
personality and humour that is so much more durable than a pretty face.
Hal, for her part, was no less interested in him, but she found little
else than that she had already seen: humorous, quizzical grey eyes, a
face a good deal lined, and a mouth and chin suggesting a nature fond
of enjoyment and self-indulgence, which it had never seen any cause to
deny itself. She saw that he was very grey about the temples, and a
trifle inclined to stoutness, but tall enough and broad enough to carry
it off.
A fine figure of a man, though one, she felt instinctively, belonging
to a very different world to hers. Because she felt his careful
scrutiny, and because she wanted to assert her indifference to it, she
remarked suddenly, after a moment:
“Well, how do you like me by daylight?”
“How do you like me?” he retorted, and laughed.
She shook her head, and her eyes grew mischievous.
“Old,” she said; “quite old and grey.”
“Old be damned! Forty-eight is the prime of life.”
She was taking her seat, and gave a low chuckle of enjoyment at having
drawn him.
“Ah, you may laugh now,” he said, “but I’ll soon show you forty-eight
is far more attractive than twenty-eight. Where shall we go?”
“I don’t mind in the least, but I should prefer to steer for tea and
buns.”
“Tea and buns!… how like a woman!… How can you expect to get the vote
on tea and buns?”
They were spinning along the Broughton Road now, heading for Putney and
Richmond, and Hal felt her spirits rising momentarily with the joy of
the motion and comfort and fresh air.
“We don’t expect to get in on tea and buns; we expect to get it on
whisky and beer. That is to say, we expect the course of events to
prove that tea and buns conduce to a frame of mind better able to cope
with the questions of the day than the whisky and beer drained in such
quantities by men.”
“And when you’ve got it you’ll all vote for the man who happens to be
good-looking, and who can pay you the prettiest compliments.”
“A few will vote that way, no doubt, but not the majority. Women are
not so fond of pretty men as they were”; and her lips curled
significantly.
“Pretty men!…” he echoed, with enjoyment.
“Little woman, you have a neat way of putting things.”
He was silent a few minutes, then added:
“I suppose, down at that office they are all in love with you?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t asked them,” with twinkling eyes. “I’m a bit
in love with the chief myself.”
“Oh, your are, are you? And what aged man might he be?”
“Oh, he’s quite old,” she laughed; “somewhere about forty-eight.”
“And is he in love with you?”
“It just depends. Sometimes he’s rather fond of me on a Saturday; but
on Mondays he loathes me.”
“I see. And are you as changeable?”
“No, I love him always; but on Mondays it’s mostly from habit. On
Saturdays it’s from choice.”
He looked down at her, and it was on the tip of his tongue to state
some commonplace about being jealous. Then suddenly he looked back to
his steering wheel, and the commonplace sentence died unspoken. Quite
unaccountably he felt less inclined to flirt and more inclined to be
really friendly, and for some distance they skimmed along in silence.
They had tea at the Star and Garter, both chatting volubly on the most
interesting topics of the day. Hal’s newspaper work had made her
cognisant of many subjects very few girls of her age would even have
heard of, and her original criticisms delighted him. It was a gay
little tea-table, and the time slipped by with extraordinary rapidity.
Hal noticed it first.
“Do you know it is half-past six?” she said, “and I’m dining out
tonight. We must fly.”
“Is it really past six?…” in astonishment. “How the time has flown! You
know, you are such an entertaining little woman, you make me forget
everything but yourself.” He looked at her hard, and the force of habit
caused him to add: “I doubt if any other woman I know today could have
given me so much pleasure.”
“Well, you needn’t thank me,” with her low, fresh laugh, “because I
came entirely to give myself pleasure.”
“Then I hope you have succeeded. I see it is quite hopeless to expect
any sort of a complimentary speech from you.”
“Quite; though I don’t mind admitting I have been very enjoyably
entertained as well.”
“That is something, anyhow. And now I suppose you are going straight
off home to dress, and dine with some one else, and forget about me?”
“I don’t suppose I shall forget you. It happens to be a journalist
dinner, and probably we shall tear you to pieces between us before we
have finished.”
“Well, I’d rather you did that than forget me.”
She felt him looking hard into her face, with something a little
sinister in his expression, and she got up and turned away.
“Why do you turn away when I am interested? Don’t you think you might
be a little pleased that I don’t want you to forget me?”
He asked the question with a humorous twinkle, though she felt that he
meant it seriously as well. This last, however, she was clever enough
to ignore, and merely threw him a mischievous glance over her shoulder
as she answered:
“Well, I have to consider Brother Dudley’s attitude, you see; and I’ve
a notion he would be best pleased for both the incident and motorist of
Sunday evening to be forgotten.”
He got up slowly, looking amused.
“I suppose he would be horrified at this outing?”
“I strongly suspect he would.”
“What if he hears you were out motoring at Richmond with me?”
“Oh, well, I shall tell him you are old enough to be my father, and not
to be absurd.”
“Why do you harp on my age so?… If I am old enough to be your father,
it doesn’t follow that I’m too old to be your lover?”
He was standing close to her now, looking down into her face, and Hal
felt a little conscious tremor run through her blood. She faced him
squarely, however, and answered in a gay, careless voice:
“Of course it doesn’t, only, as I don’t happen to want a lover, it’s a
contingency not worth considering.”
“Perhaps the post is already filled?” he suggested, refusing likewise
to be daunted.
“Quite filled. It’s a case for a placard stating ‘House Full’, and
you,” she finished, “would naturally be at the tail end of the queue
which has to go away.”
He laughed with relish, and gave it up.
“I can see you will take some taming,” he said, as he handed her into
the car. “My weighty and important position evidently does not impress
you in the least.”
“Of course not, as you’re a Liberal. They have so few really good men,
they have to take anything they can get. Back up the Budget and the
Chancellor, and exhibit a colossal amount of impudence, and there you
are!”
“Well, there isn’t much to boast of in the way of men on the
Conservative side, is there? Chiefly a collection of cousins, and
second-cousins, and cousins by marriage, shoved in by a few interfering
old aunts. You don’t need me to tell an enlightened young woman like
you that even impudence might serve the country better than
cousin-ship.”
“I wonder sometimes if any of you honestly put the country first at any
time; or whether it is just a popular name for a very big ‘me’?”
“You are such a little sceptic. Do you always credit people with
self-interested motives?”
“I don’t know that I do; but if you are a city-worker it is a fairly
safe basis to work upon, until you can find proof that you are wrong.”
He looked down at her with amusement.
“What a wise little head it is! Do you know, I don’t think I ever met
any one quite like you before,”
“What you have missed!” was the gay rejoinder, and they both laughed.
“I suppose I mustn’t take you home?” as they neared Piccadilly.
“Brother Dudley might see us?”
“No, thanks. If you will drop me at Hyde Park Corner I will take a
homely bus, and return to my Bloomsbury level.”
“Until my next free afternoon, I hope. Will you come again soon?”
“Perhaps.”
“What do you do on Sundays?”
“I generally go out with Dick Bruce.”
“Does Dick Bruce consider himself entitled to every Sunday?”
“Well, I consider myself entitled to Dick!…” laughing.
“You’re evidently very fond of Dick.”
“Very,” with enthusiasm. “I have been for twenty-five years. We were
like the two babies in _Punch_ which said, ‘Help yourself and pass the
bottle.’”
“Dick’s a lucky devil. Does he take Saturday afternoons as well?”
“No; he plays cricket or hockey then.”
“Then may I have a Saturday afternoon?”
“It would be jolly;” and a swift gleam in her eyes told him she meant
it.
“Very well. I shall consider that a promise. The first Saturday I can
arrange, we’ll run down to some little place on the coast, and get some
sea air. And if you feel inclined to write me a letter between now and
then, send it to York Chambers, Jermyn Street.”
He pulled up, and instantly she exclaimed in haste:
“Oh, there’s my bus. Good-bye, thanks awfully; I must fly”; and before
he could get in another word, he saw her clambering on to a
motor-omnibus, with the utmost unconcern for his sudden, astonished
solitariness.
“Gad!… what a woman she’ll be one day,” was his comment. “If she’d a
hundred thousand pounds I wouldn’t mind marrying her myself; she’d
never let a chap get bored. I’ll warrant,” He moved slowly down
Piccadilly. “Most of them do,” he cogitated; “it doesn’t seem as if
there were one woman in a thousand who didn’t soon become a bore.
Heigh-ho, but debts are more boring still sometimes, and I want a
fifty-thousand cheque badly.”