character, will find that he has domesticated a tigress," replied
Gaythorpe. "Marriage is an illuminating experiment. And now to revert
to your unsympathetic correspondent...."
v
They parted well before midnight, Gaythorpe to travel by taxicab to
Waterloo and thence to his home at Hindhead, and Edgar to walk home
through the deserted streets. Gaythorpe went his way still ignorant of
the identity of Edgar's correspondent; but by his adroit questioning
he had increased Edgar's preoccupation with the subject of that
letter. It had been a perfectly simple letter, containing an account
of various Stock-buying experiments which had come to disaster, a list
of securities held, a statement of immediate need, and a request for
advice. The writer of the letter had need of several thousand pounds,
and if he were to sell the stock he held it would involve him in still
further loss. Therefore, although Edgar had been technically truthful
in saying that there had been no request for a loan, he had no doubt
at all that the fitting reply to the letter would be an offer of
assistance.
But why a bank had not been asked to advance money on the securities,
which would have been the normal course to adopt, Edgar did not
understand. Had the writer been a close personal friend, he could have
seen the whole thing clearly, and his offer would have been immediate.
But the letter was from Monty Rosenberg. Edgar was deeply perplexed.
What was Monty's object in applying to him? That there must be some
definite object he did not question. He could not suppose that Monty
ever did anything without purpose; and in addition, he felt sure that
Monty was a man to conceal from his acquaintances any hint that he was
embarrassed.
Something, Edgar felt sure, was afoot. He walked home in a brown study.
Only once did he smile; and that was when he recollected Gaythorpe's
curiosity. Gaythorpe, he remembered, had been curious not only about
Monty, but also about the hypothetical attractive person whom it would
have been a pleasure to help. Strange that he should have made so much
of this point. Working, Edgar supposed, from the words "young and
attractive," Gaythorpe had taken it for granted that this person was
a woman--no doubt the fly-away girl who was to marry Edgar against
his will. For an instant it seemed that Gaythorpe must have been
hinting at some story, because in general he was not one of those arch
sentimentalists who wink and curvet about the subject of marriage.
Edgar gave a little laughing grunt as he walked.
"Silly old man," he thought. "I wonder what put all that nonsense into
his head."
Perhaps Edgar was not quite as candid with himself as he should have
been and as he generally was. He strode at a rapid pace along the
ringing pavements; and the fresh wind that met him came deliciously
cordial to his cheeks and lungs. Although he was not tall--about five
feet eight--Edgar was sturdily built, and he loved walking. And in
London the night hours are the best for that exercise. He was refreshed
and invigorated. By the time he was half way down the Brompton Road
Edgar had dismissed the subjects of Monty and the unknown from his
mind; and thereafter all his thoughts were of business affairs until
he reached home. All of them? Very nearly all. Some few, perhaps, he
spared for Patricia; but he hardly was conscious when he thought of
her, so familiar was he with the subject.
vi
It was not until he was indoors, and sitting rather moodily by a
waning fire, that Edgar returned to some of Gaythorpe's remarks. He
did this in an instinctive effort to explain the moodiness of which
he felt suddenly conscious. True, he had felt moments of melancholy
while abroad; but those had been explicable by the fact that he was
friendless in strange cities. Now the case was different. Somewhere
within his heart there was an almost bitter resentment of Gaythorpe's
cynicism on the subjects of women and marriage. At the moment he had
accepted them as he would normally have done. They returned with added
venom to his memory. The first thought--that perhaps Gaythorpe had been
unhappy in his marriage--Edgar dismissed as sentimentality. The truer
explanation was probably that the old man was expressing a fundamental
cynicism, due to the fact that his own happiness had left him occasion
to view the miseries of others. Edgar, too, had witnessed those
miseries. He was still unable to explain them except in individual
cases. He was thoughtful and none too happy. There had been menace--the
deeper because he had concluded it to be unconscious--in Gaythorpe's
insistence on the reality of a young woman towards whom Edgar felt a
helpful eagerness.
"What a fool I was to give him such an opening!" he thought.
Slowly it was as though Edgar fell asleep. He saw two clear eyes, which
he thought to hold all the truth and beauty in the world. He heard
spoken words--words that were almost all that Patricia had ever said
to him. The sense of her presence was extraordinarily strong ... a
presence that was more than presence, for Edgar was quite poignantly
imagining a real Patricia, so much more beautiful than she would seem
with others present. His lips moved in unspoken words. His hands were
gently raised from the arms of his chair, and extended. If desire and
imagination had the power to call those we love to our sides, then
surely Edgar would have awakened with Patricia in his arms. He was
experiencing a reality of communion which only those who love deeply
can conceive. The emotion he then felt transcended anything he had ever
known.
And then his eyes opened, and he saw the extended arms with something
like shame. The lips so lately parted were again firmly set, and he
coloured faintly. Not thus was a woman to be won, he knew. And yet the
vision had served to make his heart clear to him. He had seen Patricia
as she had been at their first meeting, in all the smoke and din and
brilliance of Monty's party. Again he had glimpsed Dalrymple and Monty;
again he had exchanged with Harry Greenlees that measuring glance. He
rose from the chair, and went across to the fireplace, his face lighted
by a sudden flicker of flame. Now he knew why he had been so sensitive
to Gaythorpe's allusions and his bitterness. Now, too, he realised what
had been hidden from him. Never would he have been divided by the sharp
impulse to strike or to kiss Patricia if she had not been the only
person in the world capable of causing him pain. He loved deeply.
CHAPTER ELEVEN: CHANGE
i
The following evening Edgar found on reaching home that some old
friends of his parents had so protracted an afternoon call that they
had been asked to stay for dinner. Both were old ladies from a small
country town, of substantial wealth and position, whose perspective had
become grotesque as the result of long life in a restricted circle;
and as companions Edgar found them insupportable. The airs of the
schoolmistress, the independence of the housemaids, and the general
superiority of the Misses Wickford to the whole of their world were
incessantly discussed; and all these topics combined to make Edgar
restlessly unhappy throughout the meal. Claudia was absent, at the home
of friends; and he had neither solace nor variety. Because of this
trouble Edgar decided upon a plan which was already half-formed in his
mind. It was to run up and see Monty Rosenberg, and thus to learn the
truth about Monty's financial straits and to discover the real nature
of the help which Monty required from him.
Having correctly taken leave of the Misses Wickford, who thereupon
discussed his bachelor state with those who remained and advanced
the claims of a really nice girl living in their district, Edgar was
quickly upon the road. Within half-an-hour he was at Monty's door.
He had not made up his mind what to say; but he had Monty's letter
in his pocket, and was ready to be helpful and businesslike. And as
the door was opened Edgar heard such a din that he recoiled. From the
studio was a huge and brazen noise, as of kettles and fire-irons in
competition with piano and banjo.
"Oh," he cried, electrically reconsidering his plan for the evening.
"A party?" Coming as he had done with the object of advising a man
financially embarrassed, Edgar felt as Mother Hubbard must have done
when she found her dog dancing. He hesitated, quick comments darting
through his mind. This was not the suitable setting for a financial
talk. Was Monty mad? His recoil subsided. After all, Nero fiddled....
"Then perhaps I'd better----"
But the door of the studio had opened, shedding fresh light and
redoubled din from within; and Monty was already aware of his arrival.
The shutting of the door made the noise comparatively negligible again.
Monty hastened forward.
"Hullo, Mayne. I'm glad to see you. Don't go. Come in here." He
indicated the big drawing room to the left of the hall. It was empty,
but a fire was alight there, and the room was warm. From the amber
walls and rich golden brown of the furnishings the soft illumination
evoked glowing beauty. "It's just a few people dancing. Are you a
dancing man?"
Edgar explained the object of his visit. He was all the time acutely
conscious of the room and its air of impenetrable richness, contrasting
it without being aware that he did so with the less exquisite plainness
of his own home, which represented so much more love and enterprise and
so much less finished taste. It stiffened him a little.
"That had better be postponed," he said. "We can't discuss it now."
"I'd like to. Come and dance--and then we'll talk later on."
Monty's manner was cordial--friendly; and yet Edgar felt that it held
perhaps a slight uneasiness. The beautifully-groomed air which always
masked Monty was unchanged; but in those dark eyes and behind the
assured manner lay something that was almost an appeal. Edgar shrank;
but he accepted the invitation, and he was led into the studio.
ii
It had been cleared so as to provide ample floor-space for the guests.
At the piano sat one man and by his side another who played upon a
banjo. Both were in evening dress. A sportive young fellow had been
adding to the noise by clashing tongs and fire-shovel together. About
twenty people were in the studio altogether, of whom only a few of the
men wore dinner jackets; and the dancing had not long been in progress.
It was not yet a rowdy party, although it might later develop into
one when the character of the music and the stimulation of the common
movement should have had their effect. The studio walls rose high
above the moving figures; and the place was quite different from what
it had been when Edgar had seen it before. All that æsthetic blending
of colour which he had noticed was now reduced. It was a large bare
place, the chairs and divans withdrawn to the walls, and the decoration
subdued. Hangings and rugs were gone: the walls were adorned only with
casually hung or pinned sketches. The place seemed lighter and more
airy, but it was wholly out of key with Edgar's recollection. Nor were
the guests recognisable to him in that first glimpse. Edgar smiled as
he turned aside to Monty, and then he heard the music cease. There
came a babble from all round him. It was now that Edgar's heart gave a
slight stir, for he saw that Patricia, who sat with her late partner
at the farther end of the studio, was looking in his direction. She
wore a plain dark dress which emphasised her fairness and the whiteness
of her skin; but he could not tell at that distance of what material
the dress was made nor how Patricia looked, so strong was the light.
Instantly Edgar was delighted that he had come. He felt nothing more
intense than delight--nothing more possessive; but he was engrossed,
and could hardly attend to what Monty was saying.
"I'll introduce you to one or two of the girls. The others won't
interest you. And we'll get away presently and have a talk. That suit
you?"
Again Edgar was aware of that appeal. It revived his sense of
stiffness, for he could never have pleaded for himself as this man was
doing. In distaste for Monty's suppleness, Edgar found also something
which gave him sudden personal interest in the man. He saw him very
truly in that instant, in a quick glimpse. Monty was without pride.
Therefore he was to be watched. Not merely treachery might arise, but
insensitiveness, which upsets standards by unconsciousness that they
exist. It was with a faint shrug that Edgar turned to be introduced to
Rhoda Flower. Strange how instinctively contemptuous of suppleness an
Englishman often is! Edgar did not under-rate Monty; but he despised
him. Deep down, far below his awareness of judgment, lay the snorting
epithet "Foreigner!" All his experience of life and his tolerance of
moral defects could not annul that instinctive hostility to alien
civilisation. Even while he was dancing with Rhoda, he was preoccupied
with other perceptions. He did not speak; he hardly felt her there; but
mechanically followed the rhythm of the dance.
Something awakened him. He could not dance with Rhoda without
recognising her as a voluptuary; and he was interested in her from
the knowledge that Rhoda's personality was, in spite of its mobility,
surprisingly fixed for so young a girl as he supposed her to be.
He looked sharply at his partner--at her black bobbed hair and her
beautifully clear cheeks and eyes. There was something vaguely familiar
about her face, and about the life which gave it constant vivacity of
expression.
"I've seen you before, haven't I?" he said, frowning in the effort to
remember.
"How clever of you!" cried Rhoda. A slow and delicious smile drew
her lips apart, and revealed teeth yet whiter. In the plump but
beautifully-moulded cheeks appeared dimples. Rhoda was languorously
arch. "I wish I was clever!"
"Have you seen me before?" demanded Edgar. He could not resist the
attraction to her, and he was smiling responsively; but he was still
puzzled, thinking her face so familiar and yet so unfamiliar.
"How gallant you are!" teased Rhoda. "Isn't this a good tune?"
"Were you here at a party about six weeks ago?"
Rhoda laughed outright. Patricia, at that moment passing, opened her
eyes wide. She had not hitherto recognised Edgar as a wit, and she took
a peculiar interest in Rhoda Flower, so that her observation in this
instance was made the more alert.
His doubts resolved, Edgar was at ease with Rhoda. He now recognised
her as the girl who had been with Harry Greenlees at the first
party, and who had left in his company at the end of the evening.
He remembered her air of attentiveness to the young man who smiled
so broadly. It was pleasant to recall this picture, because it was
related to his first sight of Patricia. He looked round for Harry, who,
however, was not present. Nor could he see Blanche Tallentyre; but some
of the other faces were those of guests at the earlier gathering. The
majority were unknown to him, and while their spirits seemed to be
good, Edgar thought the company as a whole was a little inclined to be
rakish. He was glad to be dancing with Rhoda, who, apart from Patricia,
was the freshest among the girls. The men struck him as a poor lot.
Now that he was used to the band Edgar no longer found it deafening.
He was only a moderately-good dancer, because although he had a good
ear and sufficient physical elasticity he was not especially interested
in the exercise; but he could tell that his partner was both accurate
and enthusiastic. She moved beautifully, with complete absorption in
the dance. Moreover, he found her impudent cheerfulness delightful.
He would have preferred only one other companion; and it was to this
other that his glance flew whenever she was near. The flying glimpse
was all Edgar had for a long time, for Rhoda was busily engaged during
intervals between dances in trying to learn something about him by
means of adroit questioning, while Patricia herself seemed to be quite
content with her partners and to be elated by their obvious admiration.
Edgar was happy in Patricia's presence. He did not feel any immediate
need to speak to her, and he was in some curious way too shy to wrest
her from these other men. But into his glances there came presently a
slightly anxious gravity, for he noticed differences in her, wrought
by the month during which he had been absent from London, and these
differences were unwelcome. An eye less keen would not have discerned
them: Edgar himself could not have said wherein they were shown. At
last, when Rhoda was momentarily engaged with somebody else, he went
across the room to Patricia's side.
iii
Even in her greeting he found Patricia changed, yet he was at the same
time puzzled at his sense of the change. She was as unaffected as ever,
and almost as fresh. Ah! almost--that was the difference he felt. It
was a restlessness in her expression that made Edgar frown, a strain in
the eyes, a small and perhaps momentary diminution in the bloom of her
cheek. To another there would have seemed no change at all.
"I saw you as soon as I arrived," Edgar said; "but you seemed to have
partners for each dance. I've been abroad for a month."
"I wish I had been," answered Patricia.
Again the mark of slight change! And a leaping impulse in Edgar to
respond that she had but to be constant in such a wish to make him
altogether happy.
"It wasn't really very cheerful," he assured her. "I was very lonely."
"But you were _doing_ something the whole time."
"And what have you been doing? Amusing yourself?"
"Trying to. Oh, yes ... I suppose so." Patricia was listless and
unresponsive. Her vivacity had died down. He was seeing her in a
moment of discouragement. But even as Edgar received this impression,
she brightened, and went on: "That man there--" she indicated a
medium-sized man of about thirty, who was describing something to a
companion and raising his hands with a grace which suggested that he
was not English--"That one ... dances better than anybody I've ever
met. If I could dance as well as he does I should be happy."
"Is he happy?" asked Edgar. "I thought you looked as though you were
happy and as though you danced about as well as anybody could."
She shook her head.
"What did you see abroad?" she demanded.
"Poverty and glitter; cabs in the streets and jewels at the opera;
and everybody wondering how on earth to make both ends meet. Money
that didn't buy what it ought to buy. Plenty of misery going on in
each corner, and plenty of noise and fuss. The same old contradictions
everywhere."
Patricia frowned.
"Worse than here?"
"I couldn't tell. I was busy, and depressed. The men I met were
wretched; and I saw the gaiety only in passing. Very much the same, I
expect."
"Hm." She made no comment; but she had become grave. "D'you think
everybody's mad? I do."
"Perhaps they always are. Perhaps we are."
"Sometimes I feel I shall _go_ mad." There was a discouraged note in
Patricia's voice which confirmed Edgar's intuition. She was obviously
not in a normal mood; although he had seen her laughing with her
partners earlier in the evening.
"Let's dance," he suggested. "Postpone the madness."
"I think," said Patricia, slowly, and as if she were being strangled by
some unexpressed emotion, "that ... you're only afraid because ... you
think I'm a child to be petted out of...."
She allowed him to make her dance; but she did not respond to him, and
there were tears in Patricia's eyes. Edgar did not speak while they
danced. Almost, he did not look at her. He was too much disconcerted,
too preoccupied with an effort to explain Patricia's mood. Yet to
Patricia he appeared immovable.
iv
Once during their partnership Edgar was conscious of a long deep glance
from her. When at last he looked to meet it the glance was withdrawn,
but the gravity of Patricia's face was unchanged. He, too, frowned,
made thoughtful by her expression; and when they were once more seated
together, since he felt that their degree of intimacy was not great
enough for an invited confidence, he tried to divert her attention from
her own thoughts.
"You remember that before I went away you promised to come and make the
acquaintance of Claudia?" he said. "What would you say to coming one
evening this week? Would that be possible?"
"I'm not sure," said Patricia, coldly. "I'm rather busy this week."
The devil you are! thought Edgar. He grew equally cold for an instant,
until his patience conquered his irritation.
"I'll ask my mother to write and suggest an evening," he went on, as if
unconcernedly. "You could come to dinner, and you could meet Claudia.
Also Pulcinella and Percy."
Patricia inclined her head; she was not listening. A moment later she
was claimed by the dancer for whom she had expressed admiration; and
Edgar saw her moving about the room as if she were entirely happy.
He was bewildered. Was it to himself that she had become hostile?
His impulse was to withdraw, to see her no more; but dudgeon is a
preserve of the very young man, so he dismissed it. Nevertheless he was
resentful of her listlessness in his own company, her inattention. What
could account for it?
While Edgar sat thus absorbed in a single problem, he found that Monty
had drawn near. Monty made a motion towards the door.
"Could you come now?" he asked. The two men left the studio and went
into the room to which Edgar had first been introduced on arrival.
v
As the door was closed Edgar could not forbear the comment which had
been in his mind from the moment of discovery that a party was in
progress.
"I thought from your letter that you were in some urgent difficulty,"
he said.
Monty was quite suave. He stood before his companion with the utmost
nonchalance, a faint smile upon his lips.
"Do sit down," he answered, in that gentle voice with the rising note.
"I _am_ in a difficulty, and it's most kind of you to ... give me your
advice. Now, in detail that is quite impossible this evening. This ...
this affair prevents my being away long. But perhaps if I tell you
a little more the whole matter will be ... plainer." When Edgar was
settled, Monty supported himself by the table, and continued. "Well,
now ... as I told you, there's about twenty thousand invested in those
different ... concerns. In every case the prices are seriously down.
Most of them will go up again."
"Quite," agreed Edgar.
"Normally, then, I should hang on. And of course I could borrow from
the bank."
"I wondered why you hadn't done that."
Monty lowered his voice still further, until the thick vibration which
underlay its ordinary softness was emphasised. Edgar had the sense
that Monty always spoke of business in this lazy and confidential way,
that he had the large loose meanness of those born opulent, that even
in dealing with himself Monty was conscious of a sort of explanatory
patience.
"I don't want to go to the bank for a reason which ... I wonder if
you'll appreciate its strength ... because ... well, the local manager
is ... an acquaintance ... a very social man ... rather indiscreet; and
his wife might possibly be more indiscreet; and I'm a little morbid
about...."
"Do they--I understand perfectly. Do you keep your securities at the
bank, or do you keep them yourself?"
"At the bank. That's the trouble. I can get them, of course. I could
transfer them from this branch and deposit them elsewhere without
question or inconvenience; but I have a very definite personal reason
for making no change at all in my present allocations. And, my dear
Mayne, the money I need is ... I need hardly say, this is in great
confidence.... The money I need will have to be paid quickly, and ...
in fact, the whole thing is difficult."
"What's the sum?"
"Two-thousand five-hundred. You understand, I don't...."
"Who are your bankers? Could it be done with the Head Office? No, I
suppose not."
"Not.... Look here, Mayne, I don't want to be mysterious at all...."
"No: that's quite all right. I'm only thinking...."
"It's the Great Central Bank, just up here. I particularly don't
want to do anything whatever in relation to the bank. But for that I
shouldn't have troubled you. I want to raise the money outside. I don't
want to alter my deposits. Let me make that perfectly clear."
Edgar interrupted him.
"You'd like me to suggest lending you the money myself?" he asked
directly.