In the evening came the party at Dick Bruce’s home, and it was
necessary, she knew, to thrust all recollection of Sir Edwin aside, in
order to give rise to no questioning and appear as usual.
So she dressed herself with special care, rubbed a pink tinge on to her
white cheeks, bathed and refreshed eyes dulled by worry and shadows,
and made her appearance, looking, if anything, a little more radiant
than usual.
“By Jove! you look stunning, Hal,” was her jovial uncle’s warm
greeting. “Who’d ever have thought, to see the ugly little imp of a
small child you were, that you would grow up into a fashionable,
striking woman? I congratulate you. When’s the happy man coming along?”
“When I’m tired of enjoying of myself,” she laughed, “and feel equal to
coping with anything as trying as a husband. At present a brother keeps
me quite sufficiently occupied,” and she passed on.
Across the large, well-lit room, towering above every one around him,
she saw the head and shoulders of Alymer Hermon. All about her, as she
moved towards him, she heard the low-voiced query: “Who is he?”
No society beauty at her zenith could have caused greater interest. He
was looking grave, too, and thoughtful, which suited him better than
laughter, giving him something of a look apart, and banishing all
suggestion of the conceit and self-satisfaction that would have spoilt
him. Then he caught sight of Hal, and instantly all his face lit up,
and a twinkle shone in his eyes as he edged towards her.
“How late you are! I thought you were never coming. Did your hair
require an extra half-hour? I suppose you’ve been tearing it out by the
roots over your faithless swain.”
“I don’t know what you mean, and anyhow I shouldn’t be such a fool as
to tear my own hair out by the roots for any one. If hair is coming out
in that fashion, it shall be his roots.”
“Come and sit down. I’ll soon find you a chair.”
“What’s the good of that? We can’t converse unless you sit on the
floor. I work too hard to spend my evening shouting banalities at the
ceiling.”
“Well, let’s hunt for a couch; there are plenty here on ordinary
occasions. Isn’t it a poser where all the furniture goes to at a
‘beano’ like this! There’s nothing in the hall, nor in the dining-room;
and there doesn’t seem to be much here. Let’s make for the lounge.”
“But I can’t take you away. I shall get my face scratched. You were
made to be looked at, and half these silly people are staring their
eyes out in your direction. I don’t know how you put up with it so
serenely. I should want to bite them all. If I were a man, and had been
burdened with an appearance like yours, I should want to hit Life in
the face for it.”
“Don’t be silly. What does it matter? It pleases them, and it doesn’t
hurt me. I get my own back a little anyway... when I want to”—with a
low, significant laugh.
“Oh of course lots of women are in love with you,”—with a contemptuous
sniff; “but if I were a man I wouldn’t give tuppence for the woman who
made me a present of her affections. You miss all the fun of the chase,
and the victory. It must be deadly dull.”
“That’s what Lorraine has sometimes said; but what can I do? Shall I
paint my face black?”
“Oh, I’ve seen you look black enough, but it’s rather becoming than
otherwise. Anyhow, it isn’t insipid. But you’ve grown quite manly
lately, I suppose. I hear about you occasionally positively working
hard. Heavens!—what you owe to Lorraine!”
“I do,” fervently.
“Then why in the world don’t you look after her a bit? I turned up
unexpectedly at half-past one today, and found her sobbing her eyes
out.”
“You found Lorraine sobbing her eyes out...” incredulously.
“I did. She told me not to tell you, as it was only nerves—but of
course it wasn’t. You know as well as I that Lorraine doesn’t suffer
from weepy nerves. It’s worry again; and she is looking thoroughly
ill.”
“Why again?...”
He was looking grave enough now, and there was anxiety in his voice.
“Oh, because there’s often something to worry her—either her mother, or
her memories, or the future. I suppose you haven’t bothered to go and
see her lately to cheer her up? Been too busy with your briefs!”
“I was there yesterday, to inquire how she was after a bad sick
headache. The room was all violets and snow-drops”; and his eyes grew
soft.
“And did she sight of her robust health knock you backwards?”
Hal was irritable from the strain on her own nerves, and it pleased her
to hurl sarcasms at him, feeling somehow angry at his calm,
smoothly-flowing path to success.
“I thought she looked ill, and I advised her to go away for a week.”
“That was kind of you. And why won’t she take your safe advice?”
“She won’t go alone, and she said there was no one to go with her.”
“Too many briefs, eh?”
“What have my briefs to do with it?”
“Oh, nothing. She’s given hours and hours to you and your future; but
of course you couldn’t risk sparing a week—”
“But!...” he began with raised eyebrows.
“Oh, don’t ‘but’ in that inane fashion. If you say it isn’t proper I
shall scream. Lorraine is nearly old enough to be your mother, and she
has far too much sense to be in love with you; and you wouldn’t be so
idiotic as to imagine it any use for you to be in love with her.
Therefore it’s only a companion she wants to keep her from moping and
dwelling on sad thoughts; and you seem to be able to do that—as well as
any of us; so why can’t you get another man, or boy if you prefer it,
to go for a run into the country with you? Flip would take her by the
next train if he were there. He wouldn’t care a farthing for
scandalmongers. But I suppose he can do that sort of thing because he’s
a man. And, anyhow, I don’t suppose she would go with you, even with a
third person. She might think a whole week of you too much of a good
thing.”
His face has grown still more thoughtful, and he paid small heed to her
taunts.
Lorraine sobbing, Lorraine ailing, Lorraine unhappy, filled his mind.
What could have happened to upset her so? True, she had not been
looking well for some weeks, and had complained of headaches and
weariness; but he felt sure something quie apart had transpired to
upset her so thoroughly.
Neither did he think it was Hal’s version of the usual worries. He
greatly feared his own people had made some move of which he was in
ignorance. He contemplated with deep vexation the probability that he
himself was indirectly the cause of her new trouble, and he mentally
decided then and there to go to considerable lengths, if she wished it,
on her behalf.
Probably if he travelled down to some seaside place and saw her
comfortably settled, and later on ran down to fetch her, she would be
more easily induced to go. At any rate he would call the very next day
and see, if his proposition simplified matters at all.
Hal watched him a little impatiently, and at length remarked:
“You seem to be thinking rather hard. Are you meditating upon
Lorraine’s trouble, or my suggestion, that it is unlikely she could
endure a whole week of you, unadulterated?”
“Both,” with a humorous glance at her. “I’m thinking it would be
interesting to find out the truth in both cases.”
“Well, you won’t do that. Lorraine never tells her troubles. Not even
to me. And she’s too tender-hearted to hurt your feelings on the other
question.”
“I’m not afraid of that.”
His face grew a little brighter, and, as if satisfied with the result
of his cogitations, he changed the subject.
“What’s making you so ratty tonight? Is it the faithless swain?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Perhaps you haven’t seen the evening paper.”
“I haven’t. I’m sick to death of papers by six o’clock.”
“Well, you oughtn’t to have missed it tonight, and then you’d have had
the pleasure of seeing the announcement of the faithless swain’s
engagement to the rich heiress.”
Hal bit her lip suddenly, and felt her blood run cold, but she kept her
outward composure perfectly, and merely commented:
“Oh, you mean about Sir Edwin Crathie and Miss Bootes!… that’s very old
news.”
“Well, it was only in the paper tonight anyhow; and only given as a
rumour then. I was going to ask you if it is true. They say he’s in the
dickens of a mess for money. But of course you know all about it.”
He was enjoying himself now, feeling that he was getting a little of
his own back, and it made him unconsciously merciless.
“It must have been rather a trying moment when you had to break to him
that you couldn’t possibly pay any of his debts, and that therefore you
must part?”
“I don’t know anything about his debts. They don’t interest me. I can
beat him at golf, playing level, and that’s far more to the point.”
“Then you are going to play golf with him, while Miss Bootes bears his
proud name in return for paying his debts! Sure, it sounds a nice handy
arrangement for him.”
Then Hal got up.
“I don’t want to _talk_ to you, because you are talking such drivel;
and I don’t want to _look_ at you, because your pink and white and blue
and gold irritate me beyond words, so you’d better go and stand in the
middle of the room for the benefit of those who delight to gaze; and
I’ll go in search of a refreshingly ugly person who can talk sense!”
Hermon gave a low chuckle of enjoyment, and continued to chuckle to
himself until she was lost to sight and his hostess was introducing
some charming débutante to him. The débutante was pink and white and
blue and gold likewise, and gazed up at him adorably under long curling
lashes; but he might have expressed a fellow-feeling with Hal, for he
found himself merely bored, and longed to go in search, not of a
refreshingly ugly person, but of the refreshingly irritable, snappy,
unappreciative one who had just left him.
When at last he was free, however, he found Hal had complained of a
headache and gone home early, unattended.