IV

He had found her again! She had not flown away from London ... she was

not ill, as he had so alarmingly imagined, nor, as he had horribly

imagined for one dreadful moment, was she dead. She lived ... she was

well ... she was here in this very hall, separated from him only by a

thin partition of wood ... and she had looked at him without fear in

her eyes. He mounted the short flight of stairs leading to the corridor

on to which the doors of the boxes opened, and read the name written on

the card underneath the number painted on the door of the box in which

Eleanor was sitting. "The Viscountess Walbrook." The name puzzled him,

and he turned to an attendant, a lugubrious man in a dingy frock-coat

looking extraordinarily like a dejected image of Albert the Good, and

asked for an explanation.

"It means that she owns that box," he explained. "Lots of the seats and

boxes 'ere belong to private people. That one belongs to the

Viscountess Walbrook. She in'erited it from 'er father. Very kind-'earted

woman ... always gives 'er box to orphans and widders and people

like that!"

"Then the ladies in the box now are not friends of hers?" John asked,

meaning by "friends," relatives.

"I shouldn't think so," the attendant answered. "I noticed the party

comin' in. They come in a 'ired carriage. No, they're orphans or

widders or somethin'. There's always a lot of orphans an' widders about

this 'All, partic'lar on a Sunday afternoon when they're doin' 'Andel's

_Messiar_. And the _Elijiar_, too! You know! Mendelssohn's

bit! Reg'lar fascination for orphans an' widders that 'as. I call it

depressin' meself, but some 'ow it seems to fit in with orphans an'

widders!..."

John thanked the attendant and moved down the corridor. He must not

lose sight of Eleanor now that he had found her again. If only he could

discover where she lived ... He stood where he could see the door of

the Viscountess Walbrook's box, and brooded over the chances of

discovering Eleanor's home. He must not lose sight of her ... that was

imperative. The luckiest thing in the world had brought him into her

company again, and he might never have such an opportunity again if he

let this one slip away from him. He could look round every now and then

from his seat to assure himself that she was still in the box, but

supposing she were to go away in the interval between his assuring

glances? Even if he were to see her leaving the box, he would have some

difficulty in getting to her in time to keep her in sight!... No, no,

he must not run the risk of losing her again. He must stay in some

place from which he could immediately see her leaving the box and from

which he could easily follow her without ever missing her. He looked

about him, and felt inclined to sit down in the corridor and wait there

until Eleanor emerged from the Viscountess Walbrook's private property!

But the corridor was a draughty and conspicuous and depressing place in

which to loiter, and he felt that the cheerless attendant might suspect

him of some felonious or other criminal intent if he were to stay there

during the whole of the second part of the programme. He peered through

the curtains which separated the corridor from the auditorium and saw

an empty seat on the opposite side of the gangway to that on which Lady

Walbrook's box was situated; and when the interval was ended and the

violinist began to play the first movement of Beethoven's _Romance in

G_, he slipped into the seat, and sat so that he could see every

movement that Eleanor made. How very beautiful she looked! She seemed

more beautiful to him in her blue evening dress even than she had

seemed on the first day that he saw her. Until he had come to London,

he had never seen a woman in evening dress, except in photographs and

in illustrated papers, and when, for the first time, he had seen real

women in real evening clothes in a theatre, the sight of their bare

white shoulders and bosoms had appeared to him both beautiful and

improper. Eleanor's shoulders were bare, and as he looked at her, he

could see her bosom very gently rising and falling with her breathing,

but he felt no confusion in seeing her in that bare state. She was

beautiful ... he could think of nothing else but her beauty. Her

shapely head was perfectly poised upon her strong neck, and he was

aware instantly of the graceful line of her shoulders. If she had not

been in those pretty evening clothes, he would not have known that her

neck and shoulders were so beautiful. Her soft, dark hair, loosely

dressed over her ears, glowed with loveliness, and the narrow golden

band that bound it was no brighter than her eyes. How lovely she is, he

said to himself, indifferent to the applause that was offered to the

violinist, and then he fell to admiring the way in which she clapped

her gloved hands together, slowly but firmly. Her applause was not

languid applause, neither was it without discrimination. She seemed to

John to be telling the violinist that he had played well, but might

have played better....

"She's the great wee girl," he said to himself.

He saw now that she shared the box with two other girls, but he had no

further interest in them than that they were in her company and that

they were not men. He wished that her hands were not gloved so that he

might see whether she wore rings on her fingers, and if so, on which

fingers they were worn. Supposing she were engaged to some other man

... or worse still, supposing she were married! It was possible for her

to have been married since he last saw her!... An agony of doubt and

despair came upon him as he brooded over the thought of her possible

marriage, and although he was aware that Tetrazzini was singing

Mazzone's _Sogni e Canti_ and Benedict's _Carnevale di

Venezia_, the music was no more than a noise in the air to him. What

should he do if Eleanor were married? Bad enough if she were engaged,

but married!... An engagement was not an irrefragable affair, and he

could woo her so ardently that his rival would swiftly vanish from her

thoughts ... but a marriage!... He knew that marriages were not so

irrefragable as they might be, and that a very desperate couple might

go to the length of running away together even though one of them were

married to someone else ... but he did not like the thought of running

away with a married woman. Eleanor might not wish to run away with

him ... his agony of mind was such that he stooped to that humility of

imagination ... she might very dearly love her husband!...

Lord alive, why couldn't that Italian woman stop singing! Why was not

this silly music ended so that he could settle his doubts about

Eleanor's freedom to marry him! Why could the audience not be content

with two songs from the woman instead of demanding encores from her!...

And then the concert ended after what seemed an interminable time, and

the audience began to emerge from the Hall. John went quickly into the

corridor and waited until the door of the Viscountess Walbrook's box

opened and Eleanor, followed by her friends, came out of it. She had a

long coat with a furry collar over her pretty blue frock, and as she

gathered her skirts about her, he could see that she was wearing blue

satin shoes and blue silk stockings. One hand firmly grasped her skirts

and the other hand held the furry collar in front of her mouth. She

passed so close to him that he could have touched her glowing cheeks

with his hands, but she did not see him. The crush of people made

progress slow and difficult, but he was glad of this for it enabled him

to be near to her much longer than he could otherwise have hoped to be.

As she passed him, he had fallen in behind her, and now he could touch

her very gently without her being aware that his touch was any more

than the unavoidable contact of people in the crowd. There was a faint

smell of violets about her clothes, and he snuffed up the delicate

odour eagerly. Mrs. Cream had smelt strongly of perfume, an

overpowering hothouse-smelling perfume that had made him feel as if he

were stifling, but this delicate odour pleased him. How natural, how

very obvious even, that Eleanor should use the scent of violets!

When they reached the front of the Hall, Eleanor turned to her friends

and made some remark about a carriage. He supposed they had hired a

vehicle to bring them to the Hall and take them home again, and when he

discovered that his supposition was right, a sense of disappointment

filled him. He had hoped that they would walk home or that they would

get on to a 'bus!...

He watched them climb into the shabby hired brougham, and when the door

was closed upon them and the driver had whipped up his horse, he

followed it into the Kensington Road. The traffic was so congested that

the horse had to move at a walking pace, and John was easily able to

keep close to it; but in a few moments, he told himself, the driver

would get clear of the congestion and then the horse would begin to

trot; and while the thought passed through his mind, the driver cracked

his whip and the slow, spiritless horse began to move more rapidly ...

and as it gathered speed, resolution suddenly came to John out of a

sudden vision of a boy's pleasure.

"Fancy not thinking of this before," he said, as he swung himself on to

the back of the carriage and balanced uncomfortably on the bar.

V

The brougham drove along Kensington Road and then turned sharply into

Church Street along which it was drawn at an ambling pace to Notting

Hill. It turned to the right, and went along the Bayswater Road, and

then John lost his bearings. He was in one of the streets off the

Bayswater Road, but in the darkness he could not tell what its name

was. Presently the driver shouted "Whoa!" to his horse and drew up in

front of a dreary, tall house, with a pillared portico, and John had

only sufficient time in which to drop from the back of the carriage and

skip across the street to the opposite pavement before the three girls

alighted from the brougham and stood for a few moments in front of the

house. The driver drove off, and John, lurking in the shadow of a

doorway, watched the girls as they stood talking together. Then he saw

two of them climb up the steps leading to the house, and Eleanor,

calling out "Good-night!" to them, went round the corner. He hurried

after her, and saw her going up the steps of a similar house

immediately round the corner from the one into which her friends had

entered. She was fumbling at the keyhole with her key as he came

opposite the house, and she did not see him until he spoke to her.

"Miss Moore," he said in a hesitating manner, taking off his hat as he

spoke.

She started and turned round. "What is it?" she said in an alarmed

manner.

"I ... I've been trying to find you for a long time!..."

She shrank away from him. "I don't know you," she said. "You've made a

mistake. Please go away!"

"Don't be afraid of me," he pleaded. "I know you don't know me, but I

know you. You're Eleanor Moore!..."

She came forward from the shadow. "Yes," she said, half in alarm, half

out of curiosity. "Yes, that's my name, but I don't know you!..." Then

she recognised him. "Oh, you're that man!" she said, now wholly

alarmed.

"I saw you at the tea-shop," he replied hastily. "You remember you left

a letter behind and I picked it up and gave it to you. That's how I

know your name!"

"Why are you persecuting me?" she demanded, almost tearfully.

He was daunted by her tone. "Persecuting you!" he said.

"Yes. You follow me about in the street, and stare at me. I saw you

this evening at the Albert Hall, and you stared at me!..."

"Because I love you, Eleanor!" He went nearer to her, and as he did so,

she retreated further into the shadow. "Don't be afraid of me, please,"

he said. "I fell in love with you the moment I saw you, but I'm a

stranger in this town and I had no way of getting to know you. I tried

hard, Eleanor!..."

"Don't call me Eleanor!"

"I can't help it. I think of you as Eleanor. I always call you Eleanor

to myself. You see, dear, I'm in love with you!"

"But you don't know me. I wish you'd go away. I shall ring the bell or

tell the policeman at the corner!..."

"Let me tell you about myself," he pleaded.

"I don't want to hear about you. I don't like you. You stare so hard,

and you're always looking at my stockings!..."

"Oh, no!"

"Yes, you are. You're looking at them now!"

"Only because you mentioned them. I won't look at them if you tell me

not to!..."

"I don't want to tell you anything," she murmured. "I only want you to

go away!..."

"I know that, dearest, but just let me tell you this. My name is John

MacDermott!..."

"I don't care what your name is," she interrupted. "It doesn't interest

me in the least!..."

"But it will, Eleanor, darling. When you're married to me!..."

She burst out laughing, "I think you're mad," she said.

"I was very lonely, Eleanor, when I saw you. I have not got a friend in

London!..." He omitted to remember the existence of Hinde. "I come from

Ireland!..."

"Oh!"

"And I had not been in London more than a day when I saw you. I fell in

love with you at once!..."

"Absurd!" she said.

"It's true. After you'd gone back to your office, I went for a long

walk, but all the time, I was thinking of you, and I hurried back to

the shop at teatime, hoping I'd see you. And you were there, looking

lovelier than you looked in the middle of the day. Do you remember?"

"Yes," she said. "You looked so ridiculous!..."

"Perhaps I did, but I didn't care how I looked so long as I was near

you. I felt miserable and lonely, and you were the only person in

London I knew!..."

"But you didn't know me!" she insisted.

"I knew your name, and I was in love with you. That was enough. I tried

to speak to you, but you would not let me. I asked you to be friends

with me, and you got up and walked away. I felt ashamed of myself

because I thought I had frightened you, and I hurried out of the shop

and followed you so that I might tell you how sorry I was and how much

I loved you, but I lost you at your office, and the man at the lift

nearly had a fight with me!..."

"Then it _was_ you who had been asking for me? He told me that a

suspicious character had been hanging about the hall, enquiring for me.

I thought it might be you!"

"I don't look suspicious, do I?"

"You behave suspiciously. You speak to people whom you do not know, and

you follow them in the street!..."

"Only you, Eleanor. Not anybody else!"

There was a silence for a few moments, and then she turned to the door

and inserted the key in the lock.

"Well, please go away now," she said. "You can't do any good here!..."

"Let me come in and tell your father and mother I want to marry you!"

She opened the door and gazed at him as if she could not believe her

ears.

"This is a residential club for women," she said. "I have no parents, I

think you're the silliest man I've ever encountered. Please go away!

You'll get me talked about!..."

She shut the door in his face.

He stared blankly at the glass panels of the door for a few moments and

then went down the steps into the street, and as he did so, he saw a

light suddenly illuminate the room immediately above the pillared

portico. He stared up at it, and saw that the window was open, and

while he looked, he saw Eleanor come to it and begin to draw it down.