The hand was withdrawn, and he could see her biting her lip.
"I'm sorry," she murmured.
"There's no need to be."
"I was apologizing to myself--for giving you _another_ opportunity of
refusing something I asked you to do for me."
Eric walked back to his flat, puzzled and irritated. The girl was
intolerably spoiled; nothing that you did was right, there was
altogether too much wear and tear in trying to adapt yourself to her
moods. . . .
Even if you wanted to. . . .
3
The rehearsal, despite Barbara, was over in good time, and Eric could
lie unhurriedly in his bath without fear of being late for Mrs.
Shelley's dinner. Two days of his holiday had already slipped away, and
he had made little mark on the work which he had schemed to do.
To-morrow he would start in earnest. . . .
Barbara. . . . He could not remember what had set him thinking about
her. She looked desperately ill, but that was not his fault, nor could
he cure her; which disposed of Barbara. . . . What she needed was some
one who would pull her up, steady her, master her. . . .
Unfortunately--for her--he could not spare the time; nor was it part of
his scheme of life to effect her physical and moral regeneration. . . .
And it was now the moment to begin dressing.
Mrs. Shelley's house lay between Sloane Square and the river; and Eric
arrived punctually to find her insipidly grateful to him for coming. A
self-conscious Chelsea party was assembling; there were two war-poets,
whose "Trench Songs" and "Emancipation," compensating want of finish
with violence of feeling, had made thoughtless critics wonder whether
the Great War would engender a new Elizabethan splendour of genius;
there was Mrs. Manisty, who claimed young poets as of right and helped
them to parturition in the pages of the _Utopia Review_; there was a
flamboyant, short-haired young woman who had launched on the world a
war-emergency code of sex-morals under the guise of a novel; there were
three bashful aliens suspected of being pianists and one self-assured
journalist who told Mrs. Shelley with suitable heartiness that he had
not _met_ Mr. Lane, but of course he knew his _work_ and went on to ask
Eric if he was engaged on a new "work." The flamboyant woman, Eric
observed, talked much of "creation" and its antecedent labour; the
trench poets, with professional modesty, referred to their "stuff." A
fourth alien entered and was greeted and introduced in halting French,
to which he replied in rapid and faultless English.
Eric looked round on a triumph of ill-assortment. He came here partly
out of old friendship for his hostess, but chiefly for fear of seeming
to avoid a section of society which at least took itself seriously.
There was no question of a Byronic descent on Chelsea; these people
would ever cringe before the face of success and disparage behind its
back, as they had always done; they made a suburb and called it a
school. For ten years Eric had listened to their theories and
discoveries; after ten years he was still waiting for achievement. The
very house, with its "art" shades of upholstery, its hammered brass
fenders, its wooden nooks and angles filled with ramshackle bookcases,
hard seats and inadequately stuffed cushions, was artificial; it was
make-believe, pretentious, insincere. . . .
"Lady Barbara Neave."
There was a rustle of excitement, the more noticeable against the
conscientious effort of several not to seem interested. Eric smiled to
himself, as the young journalist, interrupted in his discourse on "the
aristocracy of illiterates," watched Barbara's entry and posed himself
for being introduced. She looked round with slow assurance, fully
conscious of the lull in conversation and of the eyes that were taking
stock of her. Eric felt an artistic admiration for her way of silently
dominating a room.
"Am I late, dear Marion?" she asked, with the smile of startled
recognition which made men and women anxious to throw protecting arms
round her thin shoulders. "Eric and I have been rehearsing our play--the
new one, I mean, that I'm taking in hand--and I had such a lot to do
when I got home." She displayed adequate patience, while Mrs. Shelley
completed her introductions, and then crossed to Eric's corner. "Glad to
see me again?" she whispered. "I've decided that you're to lunch with us
on Saturday."
"And I've decided to gladden the hearts of my family by going down to
Winchester," he answered.
"But you must go later. I'll come with you, if you'll find a practicable
train; I'm going to Crawleigh. Say you'd like to travel down with me."
"I make a practice of sleeping in the train," he answered.
"You won't on Saturday. Sometimes, Eric, I find your little practices
and habits and rules rather tiresome; I must educate you out of them. By
the way, I want to be seen home to-night."
It was a disappointing dinner for Eric, as, after coming to gratify
Barbara, he was separated from her by the length of the table. In
conversation Mrs. Shelley always gave people what was good for them
rather than what they liked; Barbara was accordingly set next to an art
editor, who tried to wheedle from her an article on "Eastern Decoration
in Western Houses," while Eric found himself sandwiched without hope of
escape between Mrs. Manisty, who discussed poetry which he had not read,
and the flamboyant novelist, who had lately discovered and insisted on
exposing a mutual-admiration ring in the novel-reviewers of the London
press.
If dull, the meal was at least not so embarrassing as his dinner of the
night before with Lady Poynter. Barbara seemed chilled by uncongenial
company, though she touched his hand on her way to the door and turned,
with patent consciousness that she was being watched, to give him a
parting smile. Mrs. Manisty also turned, before she could control her
curiosity, to see for whom the smile was intended. And, as Eric threw
away his match after lighting a cigar, he found two of the men smiling.
In the absence of a host to pull them together, six groups
self-consciously set themselves to discover a subject of conversation
more worthy of their steel than either the evening _communique_ or the
port. The three alien pianists had reduced themselves to a Polish
sculptor, an Irish novelist and a Scottish portrait-painter. By sitting
next to the journalist, Eric saved himself the effort of talking and
recuperated at leisure after the exhausting boredom of dinner. He had
looked forward to seeing Barbara again, feeling disappointment that she
was not in the big shadowy drawing-room when he arrived--(but she would
come any moment)--and a little proprietory thrill of pleasure when she
walked straight across the room to him. But her manner, her use of his
Christian name--(and Mrs. Shelley knew that they had first met less than
twenty-four hours ago)--her clear-voiced, unabashed habit of flirtation,
the parting smile at the door. . . .
One of his neighbours interrupted the ill-humoured train of thought by
introducing himself in a pleasant, soft brogue.
"Er, me name's Sullivan, Mr. Lane. Ye know Priestley, I expect?
Priestley and I have been concocting a great scheme. I have a new book
coming out in the spring and I'm wanting a girl's head for the
frontispiece. Well, since I saw Lady Barbara to-night, there's only one
head that will do for me. And Priestley's the one man to do it.
Charcoal, ye know; a single sitting would be enough. Do ye think she
would be willing?"
Eric smiled to hide his impatience.
"Why not ask her?" he suggested. "She's fairly well-known, of course;
everybody'd recognize it."
"Ah, don't distress yourself! The book's symbolical," Sullivan
explained vaguely. "I was wondering now, would ye sound her? Priestley
and I don't know her, ye see. And, as ye're a friend----"
"We'll ask her, when we get upstairs," Eric answered.
Three tentative chords broke the silence overhead, and a woman's voice
began to sing.
"_Butterfly_," the journalist jerked out as though he were in the last
heat of a competition. "Second act, isn't it? Where Madame Butterfly
hears that Pinkerton's ship has been sighted. I never think
_Butterfly's_ as bad as some of the high-brows try to make out. If you
_like_ that sort of thing, I mean," he added prudently.
Eric held up his hand.
"_Please!_ I want to hear this."
"_One fine day, we'll notice
A thread of smoke arising on the sea
In the far horizon,
And then the ship appearing:--
Then the trim white vessel
Glides into the harbour, thunders forth her cannon.
See you? He is coming!--
I do not go to meet him. Not I. I stay
Upon the brow of the hillock and wait, and wait
For a long time, but never weary
Of the long waiting.
From out the crowded city,
There is coming a man--
A little speck in the distance, climbing the hillock.
Can you guess who it is?
And when he's reached the summit
Can you guess what he'll say?
He will call 'Butterfly' from the distance.
I, without answering,
Hold myself quietly concealed,
A bit to tease him, and a bit so as not to die
At our first meeting: and then, a little troubled,
He will call, he will call:
'Dear baby-wife of mine, dear little orange-blossom!'
The names he used to call me when he came here_. . . ."
Eric had allowed his cigar to go out. He lighted it again and turned to
his neighbour with an apology, as the voice ceased and then seemed to
revive with a last sob of ecstasy.
"She did that very well. Shall we go upstairs? I should like some more.
We can take our cigars with us."
Without waiting for an answer, he made for the door and hurried ahead of
the others. The drawing-room was sombrely lighted by three low standard
lamps which threw the upper half of the room into shadow. He stood for
several moments with lips parted and shining eyes, trying to identify
three scattered couples of women before reducing the figure at the
piano, by elimination, to Barbara.
"I say, was that you?" he demanded.
She made way for him at her side, welcoming him with a chastened smile
and wondering at his sudden enthusiasm.
"Did you like it? I'm so glad. I was beginning to think you were a
craftsman, but I believe you're an artist. . . . I'm full of
accomplishments, Eric. Pity, isn't it, that in _spite_ of it all----?"
She hesitated, wistfully provocative.
"What's a pity?" he asked.
"What you were thinking; that I am _what_ I am."
"I wasn't thinking that," he answered dreamily. "I was wondering if
you'd sing again. We couldn't hear you at all downstairs----"
"Enough to bring you up very quickly?"
He sighed with exasperation.
"Yes, if your vanity needs a sop. Was that why you sang?"
She shook her head at him wearily, and he saw undried tears on her
cheeks.
"Marion just asked me to sing. It was either that or talking to Yolande
Manisty, and I hate her. What would you like me to sing?"
Eric felt ashamed of his rasping harshness.
"I don't know. That particular song always makes me cry. In spite of
that," he looked at her, and smiled to himself. "No, I'm going to be
very self-sacrificing. You said you wanted me to take you home, and I
will--if you'll come at once."
"But it's not half-past nine yet."
"I don't care. My dear child, d'you think I can't see that you're tired,
ill, over-excited----"
"It makes the night so long, Eric! But--thank you! I was beginning to
think you were a prig, but I believe you're a saint!" The wistfulness
left her eyes, and she smiled mischievously. "In moments of emotion how
all our habits and practices break down! 'My dear child,' 'My dear
child,' 'D'you think I can't see?' 'My dear child,' 'Tired, ill,
over-excited.'"
"I'm sorry, Lady Barbara."
He tried to rise, but she pulled him back.
"You baby! Can't I make fun of you _ever_? It meant so much--just that
little change in your voice when you forgot to be inhuman. I prefer
'dear child' to 'Lady Barbara' any day. Do you find it so hard to be
affectionate, Eric?"
"I haven't tried. It would be impossible with you. I--I don't understand
you. When I was dressing for dinner----"
"You thought you did? I'm so glad you thought of me, when you were
dressing for dinner; I've a sort of feeling that it's not your practice
to think of me when you're dressing for dinner."
"I don't imagine my affection makes any great difference in your life,"
he interrupted stiffly.
"Dear Eric, let me laugh at you sometimes! It's good for you and it's
ever so good for me. It isn't as if I'd laughed so very much lately. . . .
I _will_ come home and I'll go _straight_ to bed. But--don't be too
hard on me, Eric."
Her voice was trembling, and her eyes had again filled with tears.
"May I say that I'm 'not in the habit' of being hard on people? But--I
don't understand you."
"Ah, now you're repeating yourself," she threw back flippantly over her
shoulder, as she went to bid Mrs. Shelley good-night. "I'm telling
Marion I've got a headache."
Eric felt that he was slipping into the practice of letting people make
a fool of him. . . .
4
Though it was a fine night, they sought in vain for a taxi and had to
walk the whole way from Chelsea to Berkeley Square, Barbara with her arm
through Eric's and her hand in his, leaning against him.
"I'm going away on Saturday," she reminded him, as they entered Eaton
Square.
"High time, too," he answered.
"Do you want to get rid of me as much as all that?" she asked in gentle
reproach.
"Well, you'll automatically stop compromising yourself with me. But even
that doesn't matter so much as your health, which you're quite
deliberately ruining."
She stopped and put her hands on his shoulders, drawing his head to her
until she could kiss him. Still capable of being surprised, he thanked
Heaven--after a quick survey--that they had Eaton Square to themselves.
"Dear Eric, are you very delicate?" she asked. "It's only when health is
mentioned that you become human. Last night, at the very beginning of
dinner. . . . And again this evening. If--if I gave in and had a week in
bed, I could twist you round my finger. Now, don't pull yourself away
and look dignified! Don't you see that I'm paying you a wonderful
compliment? You're like a woman--not that that's a compliment. . . ."
She slipped her arm through his again, and they walked on past St.
Peter's. Barbara was tired enough by now to be dragging on his arm, and
he felt a sudden responsibility for her--as he had felt the night before
when she had implicitly entrusted herself to him. He glanced down and
found her walking with eyes closed and a faint smile on a very white
face. The wind was blowing her hair into disorder, and he bent forward
to draw her cloak more warmly over her chest.
She looked up with her eyes dark and sleep-laden.
"Am I coming undressed? Eric, you're very good to me! I shall miss you.
Perhaps you'll write to me, perhaps I shall be coming up to London for
just one night in about a week's time; we might dine together. Are you
coming to lunch on Saturday?"
"I'll give the matter my best consideration. Go to sleep again, child."
"Dear Eric!"
She roused again as they crossed Piccadilly; and at the end of Berkeley
Street she again cautiously bade him good-night.
"And about Saturday?"
Until that moment he had decided to be immovable about the Saturday
invitation. He did not want to go, he wanted still less to make her
think that he was going to please her. But, when she stopped him before
walking on alone to her house, he felt that their position must be
regularized. He had a certain status of his own--and some little pride.
"Yes, I'll come. Delighted," he said with sudden determination.
"Good-night, dear."
"Good-night, Lady Barbara."
There was time for an unexpected hour's work; but his broken night and
jarring day had exhausted him, and he was glad to hurry through his
letters and get into bed. Once there he found himself too tired even for
the routine of reading the evening paper; and, while he tried to make up
his mind to stretch up a hand to the switch, he dropped asleep,
clutching the _Westminster Gazette_ and with the light blazing on to his
face.
So he found himself five minutes later when the telephone-bell rang. The
voice of a child, eager for praise, said:
"I'm in bed, Eric. And the light's out. And I'm going to sleep in one
moment."
"I was actually asleep," he answered.
"My _dear_! And I woke you up? I _am_ sorry. Go to sleep again at
_once_! Good-night!"
But the sudden shock of the bell had made his nerves restless. He had,
after all, to read the evening paper and two chapters of a novel before
he felt sleepy enough to turn out the light and compose himself.
Contrition, whim or pressure of other business kept Barbara out of his
life the next morning. He read his letters unmolested, dictated to his
secretary undisturbed and worked until mid-day uninterrupted. Then, as
it was his practice to walk for half-an-hour before luncheon, he
abandoned his own pretence that he was away from London and strolled
along Piccadilly into the Green Park before making for the Thespian Club
in Grosvenor Place. At Devonshire House he caught himself pausing to
glance down Berkeley Street. . . .
At the club, Manders was lunching with a square-faced law lord and a
doctor with humorous, shrewd eyes, who called upon Eric to join them.
"We never see anything of you nowadays," complained Dr. Gaisford.
"I don't have time to get as far away as this for lunch every day,"
Eric answered, as he pulled a chair in to the table. "You're cutting
your vacation short, aren't you, Lord Ettrick?"
"Oh, I had three weeks' fishing in Scotland," the law lord answered.
"Ever since I came back, I've been thinking that, if I had my life over
again and could choose my own career, on my soul! I'd be a gillie.
They're a great breed, and it's a great life."
Manders looked reflectively at the powerful, lined face, tanned yellow
over a normally unwholesome white.
"I'd 'a gone into the Navy," he said. "My idea of a holiday is to get
into old clothes and moon about the Docks or Portsmouth--anywhere with
salt and tar about, you know."
"And what would our young friend do?" asked Dr. Gaisford.
Eric blushed to find three pairs of eyes on him. He thought resentfully
over his ten years of journalism; then, with a warm rush of
satisfaction, he saw the elaborate little flat in Ryder Street, the
bathroom poster of "A Divorce Has Been Arranged," the envelopes from his
agent Grierson, containing cheques for--what _would_ they be for?--the
invitations, the pleasant hum of work and stir of interest as shewn in
letters from country clergymen who objected to his use of the word "God"
in a comedy of manners, the deference paid him when he was invited out
to be spoiled and petted, the easy triumphs. . . .
"If I had my life over again," he answered slowly, "I should
alter--nothing."
Lord Ettrick looked at him with raised eyebrows, chewing his under-lip
reflectively.
"I wonder how long you'll say that," he murmured.
A page-boy threaded his way to the table and stood bashfully at a
distance with a tarnished salver pressed against his buttons.
"Wanted on the 'phone, sir," he whispered.
Eric rose resignedly and followed the page to a dark, ill-ventilated box
behind the porters' desk in the hall.
"Hullo!"
"Is that Eric? Say what you like, my staff-work's extraordinarily
efficient!" Barbara's voice rippled into laughter. "You weren't at your
flat, I just _divined_ that you'd be lunching at your club. I looked in
_Who's Who_ to see which it was. . . . How are you, Eric, dear? I
haven't seen or heard of you since last night."
Eric's utterance hardened and became precise.
"I was asleep then; and I'm at lunch now."
"Who are you lunching with?" she enquired with unabashed interest.
"Oh, nobody that matters! What is it, Lady Barbara? What do you want, I
mean?"
"I want to talk to you. Don't you _like_ talking to me?"
"At the proper time and in the proper place. I say, you know, this is
becoming a little bit tiresome."
There was a short pause; then a crestfallen voice murmured:
"I'm sorry, Eric. I'm truly sorry. I apologize."
"Lady Barbara!" he cried.
There was only a dull click, a silence and then a brisk nasal voice
saying, "Number, please?"
Eric strode wrathfully back to the coffee-room.
"You can't do right with that damned girl," he muttered.
His companions were already paying their bills, so he abandoned his
cheese and walked upstairs with them to the bright biscuit-coloured
card-room overlooking the gardens of Buckingham Palace. While the others
drank their coffee, he tried to write a very short, very simple note
which somehow rejected his best efforts of phrasing. He had torn up four
unsatisfactory drafts when Lord Ettrick threw away his cigar and asked
whether any one was walking towards the Privy Council.
"I'm only scribbling one note," Eric answered.
What he was always in danger of forgetting was that Barbara was really
only a child; she had begun to speak with a delightful ripple of
laughter, and he had driven it from her voice. When she apologized,
there was something hurt, something very much surprised--as though he
had seen her smiling and slapped the smile away.
"_Please forgive me_," he wrote. "_I didn't mean to be rude._"
5
Before deciding whether to send his letter by hand, Eric ascertained
that, by posting it, he could be sure of its reaching its destination by
the last delivery. Then he walked through the Park with Lord Ettrick,
left him at the door of the Privy Council Office and returned home for
an hour's work before rehearsal. On leaving the Regency, he came back to
Ryder Street and dressed for dinner. His own letters clattered into
their wire cage at a quarter past eight, and, before sitting down to
dinner, he transferred the telephone to his dining-room. The child was
unlikely to refuse so open an invitation to ring up and say that all was
well. . . .
There was no call during dinner, no call as he worked in the
smoking-room with the telephone and lamp on a table at his elbow, no
call when he went to bed, though he lay reading for half-an-hour after
his usual time, to be ready for her. The morning brought a pencilled
note ("Surprisingly tidy hand," Eric commented, "seeing what she's
like"), instinct with a new aloofness and restraint. "_After your
refreshingly plain hint that I was a nuisance to you, I determined that
you should not have occasion to suffer from my importunity. You may
lunch with us on Saturday, if you like. And I shall be very glad indeed
to see you, but you must not feel that you are doing this to please me.
I SAY as you THINK: that I have no claim on you. Barbara._"
Eric smiled indulgently and tossed the note into a despatch-box before
ringing for his secretary. He must be more careful in future. . . .
When he looked at his engagement-book on Saturday morning, he found that
Barbara had named no hour; which was characteristic of her. When he
telephoned to the house, there was no answer; which--by no great stretch
of calumny--was characteristic of the house in which she lived. Ninety
per cent. of the people that he knew lunched at half-past one, excluding
a Cabinet Minister, who lunched punctually at a quarter past two, and
three Treasury clerks and one novelist who lunched at one; accordingly,
at half-past one, he presented himself in Berkeley Square, to be
informed by a sedately combative butler that luncheon was at two o'clock
but that Barbara was believed to be in her room.