The winter months passed more or less uneventfully and pleasantly. The
case in which Hermon had held his first brief, though in only a very
secondary position, was rather splendidly won. An unlooked-for
development in it roused public interest, and filled the Hall with
spectators. Lord Denton went out of curiosity, and was present when
Hermon, as an unknown junior, made his first public appearance.
He was not the only man specially interested either; senior counsel on
both sides had its grandiloquent eye on the new-comer, so to
speak—interested to know how he would acquit himself. Afterwards they
congratulated him very warmly, and Denton went to tell Lorraine he had
made a hit.
“He looked splendid,” he declared enthusiastically; “and he was
delightfully calm and self-possessed. He’ll soon get another brief now.
You see.”
He did; and the future began to look very full of promise to this
favourite of fortune.
As Lorraine had predicted, his growing success filled his mind, and
kept him safe from many pitfalls; while her sympathetic companionship
satisfied him in other respects, and formed a substantial bulwark
between him and the women who would have tried to spoil him.
He had other women friends as well, but Lorraine felt they were not
dangerous, by the way he talked of them. As long as he did not get
foolishly engaged, and cripple his career at the very outset, as he
easily might while he had no income to rely on, she did not fear. Lord
Denton advised her to marry him to an heiress as soon as possible, but
Lorraine knew better than to risk an impeding millstone of gold, and
insisted he must just win his way through on the allowance his father
gave him.
In the meantime they were a great deal together, and though they seldom
went to any public place alone, they occasionally broke their rule; and
it was known, at any rate in theatrical circles, that Lorraine rarely
went out with her own old set, and had grown reserved and quiet. Hal
knew something of the absorbing friendship, but she still made light of
it, and sparred with Hermon whenever she saw him—“for his good.”
As a matter of fact, she did not go quite so much to Lorraine’s as
usual herself; for many of the hours she had been accustomed to spend
there she now spent with Sir Edwin Crathie. All through the winter they
continued to take motor rides into the country; and often they went
together to a quiet, unfashionable golf club, where they were both
learning to overcome the intricacies and trials of that absorbing
pastime.
It was easy for Sir Edwin to silence curious tongues. He spoke of her
quite frankly as his niece, and Hal more or less acquiesced, because it
was simpler to arrange an afternoon’s golf, for Dudley had managed to
become very thoroughly absorbed in Doris, and she asked no questions.
The only two to raise any real objections were Dick and Alymer Hermon.
Dick had to be talked round, and thoroughly impressed with Sir Edwin’s
great age (of forty-eight), and though Hal did not state the actual
years, she was perfectly correct in insisting that he was old enough to
be her father; though she need not perhaps have said it in quite such a
tone of ridiculing an absurd idea.
Anyhow, Dick was pacified up to a certain point, and obliged to see
that the new friendship did her good, keeping her cheerful and hopeful
in spite of her bitter disappointment about Dudley’s engagement, and
generally brightening the whole of the winter routine for her.
With Hermon it was rather different. He was less cosmopolitan than
Dick, and he insistently adhered to his first idea concerning what he
would have felt had Hal been his sister.
Why she should have been specially interested did not occur to him.
Dick, of course, actually was a sort of brother, being much more so in
a sense than many real brothers, as far as personal interest and
protection went.
When Has was first left an orphan she had been a great deal with him,
at his own home, and they had always been special friends both then and
since.
But Hermon was in no sense either a brother or a special friend. They
had never done anything else but spar, however, good-naturedly; and
Lorraine, in consequence, twitted him once or twice about looking grave
over Hal’s doings.
And Hermon had laughed, and coloured a little, saying something about a
feeling at the flat that they all had a sort of right in Hal, and he
didn’t see what that brute, Crathie—a Liberal into the bargain—wanted
to be taking her about for.
He even went so far as to say something to Hal herself about it; one
day, when they were alone in Lorraine’s drawing-room, waiting for her
to come in, Hal had just told him frankly she had played golf with Sir
Edwin the previous day; and in a sudden burst of indignation Hermon
exclaimed:
“I can’t think how you can be so friendly with the man. Surely you know
what he is? He has about as much principle as my foot.”
Hal had turned round and stared at him in blank astonishment.
“Goodness gracious!” she exclaimed, “what an outburst! What has Sir
Edwin done to hurt you?”
But he stood his ground steadily.
“You know it isn’t that. If you were my sister, I wouldn’t let you go
out with him as you do.”
“Then what a comfort for me, I’m not. And really, Baby dear! I’m much
more adapted to be your mother.”
“Rot!”
He looked at her almost fiercely for a moment, scarcely aware of it
himself, but with a sudden, swift, unaccountable resentment of the old
joke. Hal, surprised again, backed away a little, eyeing him with a
quizzical, roguish expression that made him want desperately to shake
her.
“Grandpapa,” she murmured, with a mock, apologetic air, “you really
mustn’t get so worked up at—at your advanced years.”
His face relaxed suddenly into laughter.
“I don’t know whether I want to shake you or kiss you… you… you—”
“Thanks, I’ll take the shake,” she interrupted promptly. “I certainly
haven’t deserved such severe punishment as a kiss.”
He took a step towards her, but she stood quite still and laughed in
his face; and he could only turn away, laughing himself.
Yet he was conscious that her attitude riled him. He was not in the
least vain, but all the same it was absurd that Hal should persist in
being the one woman who was not only utterly indifferent to his
attractions, but seemed almost to scorn him for them. In some of the
others it would not have mattered in the least—at any rate he thought
so—but in Hal it was sheer nonsense.
He liked her better than any one, except perhaps Lorraine, and he
always enjoyed their sparring; but of course there was a limit, and she
really might be seriously friendly sometimes; and anyhow he hated Sir
Edwin Crathie.
While he thought all this more or less vaguely, Hal watched him with
undisguised amusement.
“Don’t think so hard,” she said; “it spoils the line of your profile.”
“Hang my profile!” he exclaimed, almost crossly. “Can’t you be serious
for five minutes, you’re always so—so—”
“Not at all. I’m perfectly serious. A frown doesn’t suit you one little
bit. Imagine a scowl on one of Raphael’s cherubim.”
“I don’t want to imagine anything so silly, and I’m not in the least
like a cherub. It would be more sensible if you want to do some wise
imagining, to think of Sir Edwin Crathie, and imagine yourself in the
devil’s clutches.”
“But I’ve not the smallest wish to be in Sir Edwin’s clutches, so why
should I try to imagine it?… and you’re not at all polite, are you?”
“I’m honest anyway; and I’ll warrant that’s more than he can rise to.”
“But really, dear Alymer,” reverting again to the mocking tone, “at
what period of your friendship with him have you had occasion to find
him out?”
“Your sarcasm won’t frighten me. A man knows more about this sort of
thing than a girl. Of course he is all right in an ordinary way, but
you are so often with him… Considering his political career, it is
positively unpatriotic of you to be such close friends.”
“Such nonsense! Do you want me to be as bigoted and narrow-minded as
those Conservatives who are continually holding the party back, because
they are quite incapable of realising there are two sides to a
question? I don’t hold the same views as Sir Edwin at all. I’m not
likely to, being on the staff of the _Morning Mail_; but that isn’t any
reason why I should object to him as a friend.”
“No; but his reputation might be.”
Hal stamped her foot.
“Oh, don’t stand there and talk about a man’s reputation in that
superior, self-satisfied fashion. What is it to you anyhow? My
friendship can’t possibly be any concern of yours.”
She moved away with a restless, ruffled manner, and threw back at him:
“Of course I’m awfully grateful to you for being so interested in my
welfare, but your concern is a little misplaced. I am quite capable of
taking care of myself, and have been for at least seven years.”
He looked hurt, and about to retort, but at that moment Lorraine’s
latch-key sounded in the door, and Hal went out into the hall to meet
her.
“I’m so glad you’ve come,” she remarked, as they re-entered together.
“Baby is in one of his insufferable, superior moods, and is lecturing
me on my friendship with Sir Edwin. And all because I casually
mentioned I had had a game of golf with him.”
Lorraine looked a little surprised, but she only remarked laughingly:
“It’s a little fad of his to lecture. I rather like it; but I wonder he
had the temerity to lecture you.”
“Unfortunately, lecturing doesn’t instill common sense,” put in Hermon,
“and it only requires common sense to understand Sir Edwin Crathie
isn’t very likely to prove a satisfactory friend.”
“You mean it only requires dense, narrow-minded self-satisfaction.
Really, Baby, if you are so good to look at, there is surely a limit
even to your permissible airs and graces”; and Hal tossed her head.
“Now come, you two,” interposed Lorraine; “I don’t want quarreling over
my tea. Give her some of that sticky pink-and-white cake, Alymer, and
have some yourself, and you will soon both grow amiable again.”
“He hasn’t got his bib,” Hal snapped, “and he knows his mother told him
he was to have bread-and-butter first. You are not to spoil him, Lorry.
Spoilt children are odious.”
“So are conceited women,” he retorted. “It’s only that new hat that is
making you so pleased with yourself.”
“It’s a dear hat,” she commented. “You have to pin a curl on with it,
else there’s a gap. I’m in mortal dread I shall lose the curl, or find
it hanging down my back.”
No more was said on the subject of Sir Edwin, but when Hal was about to
leave, and found that Hermon was staying on, she pursed up her lips
with an air of sanctimonious disapproval and said:
“I don’t want to hurt any one’s feelings, but I’m not at all sure _Mr_.
Hermont is quite a nice friend for you, Lorraine. His conversation is
neither elevating nor improving, and I hardly like to go off now and
leave you alone with him.”
“Don’t worry,” Lorraine laughed. “He is improving every day under my
tuition. I hope you can say as much for Sir Edwin.”
“I can,” she answered frankly. “He has learnt quite a lot since I took
him in hand; especially about women and the vote. He has positively
made the discovery that they don’t all want it just for notoriety, and
novelty; but I’m afraid he won’t succeed in convincing the other dense
old gentlemen in the Cabinet. Good-bye!”
“Be circumspect, O Youth and Beauty. And don’t let him over-eat
himself, Lorry,” she finished, as she departed.