of the rehearsals, and, on the strength of that, it was always 'our
play.' . . . I say, have you really heard that from many people? She's a
very great friend of mine, and I shouldn't like to feel that our names
were being coupled."
Lord Ettrick wrinkled his forehead in surprise and shook his head with a
grim smile.
"Then, my young friend, if that's your ambition, you're not going the
right way about it. I'm too busy by day to go out much at night, but any
time during the last month or two . . . You know how people talk; and
you're both of you pretty well known." Eric's look of mortification
roused him to a more conciliatory tone. "It's done now, and, if it
doesn't blow over, you'll only have yourself to thank. I wouldn't have
mentioned the subject, if I thought it was going to spoil your dinner.
But I very nearly congratulated you publicly. . . . Let's see if we're
all here."
They returned to the fire, and Ettrick called the roll. Throughout
dinner, when Eric ought to have been thinking over his speech, he sat
dazed by the warning and his own blindness. Six weeks before, Lady
Maitland was proclaiming that he and Barbara were in love with each
other; now a dry stick of a law lord, retiring and uninterested in
gossip, heard of their engagement from a dozen different mouths and was
an inch removed from congratulating him before half the club. Eric might
assume that other eyes had observed him calling for her, shopping with
her; it was accepted that, when they dined in the same house, he should
always take her home; it was almost accepted that one could not be
invited to dine without the other. . . .
It hardly lay in his mouth to tell Barbara that she must not compromise
herself.
A waiter entered with a telegram for Lord Ettrick, which he read and
handed to Eric.
"_Regret confined bed severe chill all success to dinner and
congratulations and best wishes to our distinguished young friend._"
It was signed by the one absentee, whose chair still stood empty on the
opposite side. Eric suddenly remembered Barbara's note: "_Imagine I'm
sitting by you, darling._" As he read it, he wished that he could have
brought her there; in the morning-room he had wished--no, he had thought
how proud he would have been to tell Lord Ettrick that the story was
true. If he could see her now in the empty chair, a rose behind one ear,
a silk shawl broidered with grey birds in flight, as on the evening when
they first met. . . .
But she would hardly come dressed as Carmen. And, however she arrayed
herself, the Thespian Club would not admit her. . . .
"Well, have you thought out your speech?" asked Lord Ettrick.
"I've been thinking about what you said before dinner," Eric answered.
"Don't take it too seriously. You know how people talk."
"Yes, but I don't want them to talk like that about _her_! She's the
best friend I've got."
He hesitated in surprise at his own vehemence.
"Have you observed one thing?" Lord Ettrick enquired after a pause.
"Neither of us has mentioned the lady's name."
"Well----"
"Exactly. Well, if it wasn't necessary for me, who after all don't go
about very much--But you needn't take it to heart."
"Oh, I'm not," said Eric carelessly. "And, as you said, I shall only
have myself to blame if the story's not scotched here and now."
"I'll propose the King's health now," said Lord Ettrick, "and then we
can have something to smoke."
2
By the simple standard of applause, Eric achieved a success. Abandoning
his prepared speech, he followed Lord Ettrick's lead, picked up his cues
and surrendered himself to the moment. It was something of a triumph to
amuse others when he was so little amused himself.
"Not nearly long enough," said Dr. Gaisford, as Eric looked furtively at
the watch on his wrist. He was wondering how soon he could go home and
telephone to Barbara.
"Shall we go upstairs or sit here?" asked Lord Ettrick. "Manders ought
to be with us in another half-hour."
Eric remembered with consternation that he would be expected to stay at
least until midnight. There was no escaping it. Five and thirty men, his
friends and entertainers, were preparing for a long, happy session;
their chairs were turned at comfortable angles, they had shuffled and
sorted themselves into congenial groups, each was at the earliest stage
of a long cigar, and they waited on him in turn like an endless series
of deputations.
"I've discussed the nightly takings of a theatre with Ettrick," he
whispered, when Manders arrived at half-past eleven as vigorous and
high-spirited as if he had just got out of bed; "the Dardanelles
expedition with Gaisford, the plays of Synge with George Oakleigh, 'The
Bomb-Shell' with Vincent Grayle, memories of Jessie Farborough with
Deganway, 'The Bomb-Shell' with Grierson, Ibsen with Harry Greenbank,
and 'The Bomb-Shell' with Donald Butler. I'm worn out!"
"Stay a bit longer, boy," Manders begged. "I've only just come."
When at last he escaped, there was no taxi to be had, though Eric told a
waiter to keep the first that drove up. He covered half of the way to
Ryder Street at a run, threw himself on his bed and asked for the
familiar number in Berkeley Square.
After a long interval a sleepy voice said: "Yes? My dear, you _are_
late! I've rung you up again and again. I--Eric, I was afraid you were
angry with me for sulking."
"I say, Babs!" He began earnestly and had no idea how to go on. "Angry
with you? Don't be so ridiculous! I got a very sweet note from you
to-night. Thank you. And I think the speech went down all right. I say,
Babs. . . ."
"You're out of breath, sweetheart."
"I came home in rather a hurry. Can you see me some time? I suppose
you're going to Crawleigh to-morrow--That's no good. Can you dine with
me on Tuesday?"
"I wanted you to come here on Tuesday."
"You never said anything about it. Will you be alone?"
"I'm afraid not. Eric, will you be honourable? It's my half-birthday; I
always have two a year. I didn't tell you, because I was afraid you'd
rush out and buy me a present. And I couldn't bear to receive anything
more from you. But will you come _without_ a present? I've got a little
party."
"I should love it. Thank you, Babs. But I want to see you alone."
She was silent for several moments.
"You're very mysterious, darling," she said at last.
"I heard something to-night that rather upset me----"
"About Jack?"
A thrill of expectation had come into her voice.
"Oh, no! It's one of those things that wouldn't matter if we weren't all
congenital idiots."
"It's not something I've done?"
"My dear child, no!"
"Won't you tell me what it is?"
"I'd rather not on the telephone. I may get a moment on Tuesday; if not,
can you dine with me here the next night?"
"_Alone?_" Her laugh mocked him without malice. "I insist on bringing my
kitten."
He joined in the laugh.
"You may bring the kitten. I know I'm asking you to do something that I
disapprove of, but I'm rather worried and I must see you alone."
For three days he explored cautiously to discover how far the Ettrick
story had spread. Saturday brought him a heavy bundle of news-cuttings;
but they were all concerned with "The Bomb-Shell." No one wrote to him,
no one confronted him with a blunt question, though Ettrick had
protested that the story was common property. When Eric walked to
Berkeley Square for the birthday party, he was embarrassed for the first
time in shaking hands with Lord Crawleigh; sooner or later he would be
summoned to a very unpleasant interview.
It was obvious at a glance that no one would have private conversation
with Barbara that night. She stood in the drawing-room at the apex of a
triangle with a compact row of parents behind and, supporting them, a
longer row of silent, embarrassed brothers; cousins in every degree
described a circle round the triangle, and in a wider, looser circle
stood people who knew Eric and needed diplomatic handling to hide his
forgetfulness of them.
"My aunt's parties are like a Derby Day crowd," panted Amy Loring, as an
unseen pianist began to play and they were squeezed into the embrasure
of a window. "I've not had time to see who's here yet. Babs, of course,
looks divine."
"She looks well in anything," Eric answered. It was dangerous to praise
her even to her own cousin lest one more voice should rise to proclaim
that he was in love with her.
"You're a great friend of hers, aren't you?" Amy asked. "Some one told
me at tea to-day----"
Eric became rigid, and she stopped.
"Yes?"
"My dear Mr. Lane, you don't even know what I was going to say!"
"I think I do."
"Then you aren't very complimentary to Babs."
"I feel a certain responsibility towards her."
"You mustn't mind too much what people say. . . . You know George
Oakleigh? Well, in the dark ages, when I came out, he and I were very
great friends; we always have been; I've known him all my life, and his
cousin married my poor brother. . . . Need I say that _quite_ a number
of people . . .? If they'd troubled to think for a moment, they might
have remembered that I was a Catholic, but a little thing like that
never occurs to them. . . . D'you mind my talking to you like this?" she
asked with a smile that sweetened the abruptness of her tone. "When I
introduced the subject, you froze up so----"
"Can't you understand?" he interrupted. "I'm very fond indeed of
Barbara, but if people talk like this . . ."
"Don't mind what people say, Mr. Lane. . . . I feel we--all the
family--owe you such an enormous debt. No one knows what was the matter
with Babs, but my aunt was really afraid we might lose her. Of course,
she'd led rather a wild and wearing life since she was a child; suddenly
she collapsed. I do feel that you've saved her life, you know; she's the
old, vital, irresistible Babs once more--except that you've taught her
to take care of herself."
"The position is a little awkward. If people talk, if Lord
Crawleigh----"
"I think he quite likes you," Amy interrupted.
Eric bowed and pretended for a moment to listen to the music. It was
common knowledge that Barbara's fortune was forfeit on the day when she
married any one but a Catholic; if he had ever contemplated marrying
her, the fees from the "Divorce" and "The Bomb-Shell" would not keep
them for six months. He wondered whether Amy Loring's embassage had been
inspired.
"I always feel that Lord Crawleigh condemned the world and then allowed
it to continue existing on day-to-day reprieves," he said.
"That's rather my uncle's manner. He hasn't insulted you yet? He
_will_."
"He's only seen me once by daylight. I fancy he thinks I'm one of the
footmen. If I came to him in any other capacity . . . The industrious
ink-slinger, you know----"
Amy tossed her head impatiently.
"I don't know whether you're a genius or not, because I'm not clever
about books and things. But you've made an enormous name for yourself,
you've a big career before you; and, so long as a man's a gentleman--by
which I _don't_ mean what most people do,--I wouldn't let anything stand
in the way--except religion, of course. And I'm afraid that doesn't
count very much with Babs." She lapsed into silence, as though she had
already said too much. "And I know I'm right," she added at length.
"I daresay you are. . . . You see, I've never regarded Barbara as
anything but a wonderful friend. We casually dropped into an
extraordinary intimacy----"
"It's been too easy, too casual!" she cried. "You've taken it as a
matter of course. Neither of you appreciate what you are to the
other--I'm simply speaking from my impression; Babs hasn't said
anything, naturally, and I've hardly had two words with you until
to-night----; if it had been less easy----"
"If your uncle had forbidden me the house?" he suggested.
"If either of you were in danger of losing the other . . . I wonder what
you think of me, talking like this?"
"I'm grateful."
The music came to an end, and Gerald Deganway gave imitations of the
various ministers whom he had served as private secretary. Eric looked
across the room and identified Barbara leaning against the piano. She
was better, happier; and he had grown to be very fond of her. So long as
they met daily without marrying, he shirked deciding whether he wanted
to marry her. It would be pleasant to drift; but, when the cloud of
gossip and speculation penetrated into the heart of the Crawleighs' own
home, a man of honour could not shirk the decision any longer. He could
ask Barbara to marry him; or her father could inspire a paragraph in the
press, admitting the rumour in order to contradict it. Failing that, he
would have to say good-bye to her, though she had become so much a habit
as almost to be part of his life. . . .
The imitations were succeeded by more music, and Eric threaded his way
to the piano where Carstairs and Oakleigh were begging Barbara to sing.
"Honestly, I've no voice to-night," he heard her say.
As he drew near, she seemed to feel his presence and turned with a quick
smile.
"Can't you manage one?" he asked.
"Well, perhaps one, if you want me to. What shall it be?"
"That thing out of '_Butterfly_,'" Eric suggested.
"I'll sing it, if you like."
As Eric sought a chair, Oakleigh looked at him, stroked his chin, sighed
gently and withdrew to the bridge-room as though he could not face
seeing them together.
3
"I want you to take this seriously," said Eric, when Barbara arrived for
dinner. "Don't try to laugh it off by saying I'm conventional; I _know_
I am. The fact is, people are beginning to talk about us. I want to
discuss what's to be done."
His earnestness kept Barbara from smiling, and, as he was worried and
ill at ease, she beckoned him to a place by her side on the sofa.
"Do you find it so intolerable to have your name joined with mine?" she
asked a little wearily.
He looked at her in perplexity. Instead of being embarrassed herself or
feeling gratitude that he was embarrassed for her reputation, she spoke
as though the gossipers had conferred a favour upon him.
"If the thing were true, it would be another matter altogether. Subject
to your parents' approval, I think the best thing would be to get a
paragraph into the papers, saying that there's no foundation for the
rumour."
"But the rumour hasn't got into the papers yet," she objected.
"I'm meeting it on every hand."
"But, if I don't mind, why should you?" she asked.
"Well, I _do_ mind. I don't like you to be 'talked about.' And I don't
care to have people saying that I'm getting you 'talked about,'" he
added with heat. "You must try to look at this from a man's point of
view. If you were my sister, and some man who had no intention of
marrying you, some man whom you had no intention of marrying----"
"You've never asked me," she interrupted.
Eric was shocked into silence. When he was fighting for her reputation,
she was once more the coquette as he remembered her at their first
meeting.
"I've thought this over, Babs, from every point of view," he went on,
with an effort keeping his temper under her look of slightly bored
amusement. "There are three ways out of the difficulty; the first is
what certain people think the most obvious--that we should make the
story true; the second is that we should contradict it publicly--it's
the easiest thing in the world to do--and the third is that we should
give up seeing each other."
He stood up with the pretence of warming his hands and fidgeted
restlessly by the fire. Barbara had lost her expression of amusement and
was honestly puzzled that he should make so great a pother about a piece
of idle gossip.
They remained without speaking until a maid entered to announce dinner.
"I'm sorry you've been worried," she said gently. "For once it really
wasn't my fault. . . . I suppose I'm hardened to this sort of thing. Why
don't you just not worry? And give me dinner, because I'm very hungry."
"I can't leave it like that," said Eric, as he accompanied her to the
dining-room. "A plain statement in the press----"
"It would simply draw attention to it."
"Well, that's one of the solutions ruled out."
"And I'm left with the choice of marrying you--you haven't asked me
_yet_!--or saying good-bye? There _is_ another alternative, Eric: and
that is to shew you're too sensible to mind what silly people say about
you."
Eric shook his head obstinately.
"No good, I'm afraid."
"Well, try to think of something else," she sighed. "Don't spoil our
evening, sweetheart."
The intermittent presence of the maid, rather than any state of mental
satisfaction in Eric, kept the conversation peaceful. He almost forgot
the annoyances of the last week in watching Barbara's delighted
enjoyment of a new experience so trivial as dining with him for the
first time in his own flat. Nothing escaped her curious notice--a wine
that he gave her to try with the scallops, the Lashmar chrysanthemums in
a flat, blue-glass bowl, the unaging pleasure of an invisibly lighted
room, Australian passion-fruit at dessert, a new artist's proof. . . .
"You're really like a child at a pantomime, Babs," he laughed, when they
were alone.
She rose slowly and bent over him, touching his forehead with her lips
and then kneeling beside his chair.
"I'm interested in everything!" she cried. "I love new experiences! At
least, I _did_. I loved meeting new people, hearing new things--the
world was so wonderful. And then--I never understood why I went on
living. . . . _You_ made life wonderful for me again. The first night
we met, when I came here. . . . You were quite right, Eric, I was a
fool. . . . But somehow I wasn't afraid. I knew you'd put your hand in
the fire for me."
He stroked her head and gave a sudden shiver. No one would ever know
what path he might have chosen that night out of the maze of his
disordered emotions.
"In those days you were nothing to me," he murmured.
"But you put all women on pedestals. . . . Eric, will you believe me if
I say that I've tried to live up to your conception of me?"
"But do you know what my conception of you is?"
"Something a thousand miles higher than I can ever climb! When I'm
restless, lonely, I think of our love, your wonderful devotion--like a
mother's to her child . . . and my love for you. Give me your cigarette,
Eric."
Before he could see what she was doing, the glowing end had been pressed
against her hand until it blackened and died. He saw her eyes shut and
her lip whitening as she bit it. Her body swayed and fell forward before
the crumpled cigarette dropped on to the carpet.
"You little--Babs, what's the matter with you?"
She opened her eyes, breathing quickly and holding out her hand to shew
a vermilion ring with a leprous-white centre.
"_I'd_ put my hand in the fire for _you_!" she panted.
"You little fool!" He was filled with a desire to hurt her for having
hurt herself. "Look here, Barbara. . . ."
But she had risen to her feet and was pressing the wounded hand to her
lips.
"You don't _know_ how it hurt!" she cried with a tremble in her voice.
"What good, precisely, d'you think you've done?" he asked.
She snatched a spill from the mantel-piece and thrust it between the
bars of the fire.
"If you want it again----!"
Eric dragged her upright with one arm and rang the bell.
"We'll have coffee in the smoking-room," he said. "Barbara, what's the
matter with you?"
She laughed almost hysterically.
"I feel I'm fighting for my life! That was to shew you I'd do anything
in the world you asked me to! And you talk about our giving up meeting
. . . like giving up smoking!"
Eric drew a chair to the fire and lighted her cigarette in silence. Only
a fool would break that silence for twenty-four hours. . . .
"A bit rash that, isn't it?" he asked, as he cut his cigar.
"You won't ask me anything that I don't want you to," she answered. "And
you know there are some things I _can't_ give you."
Coffee was brought in, and he offered her sugar, knowing well--if he had
been able to collect himself--that she never took it. Her cigarette went
out and required another match. A pile of five books, still in their
wrappers, absorbed her.
It was only half-past ten when she forced a yawn and asked him to get
her a taxi. He collected a coat and hat from the hall and arranged his
muffler elaborately with his back to her.
"Returning to the other thing," he began slowly. "We've not exactly
disposed of it, have we?"
"I thought we were going to leave it alone," she answered timidly.
"That's out of the question." He banged open his opera hat and squeezed
it shut again. "Why won't you have a simple contradiction in the press?"
he pleaded.
"I don't want it. Isn't that enough?"
"Certainly. But . . . I don't want to say good-bye, if I can help it."
Barbara looked at him slowly and carefully; she was utterly at fault.
"It's for you to decide," she said.
"There doesn't seem to be any alternative."
She stood up and wrapped a lace scarf round her throat. As he helped her
into her cloak, she looked reflectively round the room. Save that the
windows were closed to shut out the December fog, save that there were
chrysanthemums in place of roses, nothing had changed since the night
when she forced her way in and sipped soda-water from a heavy goblet and
broke the glass horseshoe and laughed and talked and suddenly cried. . . .
As he watched, her bones seemed to bend like soft wax, and she sank on
to the sofa, burying her face in her arms and sobbing convulsively. Eric
stood motionless by the fire, because he could not trust himself to
move. Her shoulders, which he had always admired for their line and
wonderful whiteness, rose in quick jerks and subsided with a quiver; she
shook with the abandonment of a bird in its death-spasm.
"Barbara!"
"Oh, can't I even cry?" she moaned.
"Darling, you break my heart when you go on like this!" He found himself
kneeling on the floor with his arm round her shoulder and drawing her
head back until he could kiss her wet cheek. "If you'll shew me _any_
other way out of it----"
"Why can't you let it go on?" she wailed.
"I can't; I suppose I love you too much."
"Too much to give me the one thing--Eric, you're not going to turn me
away?"
"I'm not going to take risks with your reputation."
"But it would be just the same! If you _put_ your denial into the
paper, people would still go on talking as long as we went on meeting!
Does it matter? Do you mind it so much, Eric? Oh, my dear, I can't
afford to lose you!"
She fell away from him, and he walked back to the fire. This, then, was
the moment that came to every man once--the moment that he forced into
the lives of his puppets once a play.
"Barbara!"
She was still shaken with sobs.
"Barbara, are you listening? You said you'd put your hand in the fire
for me. Well, did you mean that?"
He snapped the question at her, and she was galvanized to drag herself
upright on the sofa.
"Yes, I said that."
"You'll do anything I ask?"
"Yes." From the slow-drawn answer he knew that more was coming. "I've
told you everything. I don't belong to myself. . . . There's one thing
that--that I don't think you're going to ask me."
"Why not?"
"Because you know I trust you. I always have. I always shall. Oh, God
forgive me for the way I've treated you! But it's your fault. Whatever I
did, I should know that I could always trust you and that in time you'd
understand!" A single sob escaped her, and she steadied herself like a
man stopping short at the edge of a precipice. "You've quite made up
your mind? . . . I must go now. Will you do something for me?"
"What is it?"
"Won't _you_ trust _me_? I don't want you to see me home, that's all.
It'll remind me of too much. Good-bye, Eric. I used to think I didn't
believe in God, but somebody's got to reward you, and I can't. Kiss
me--quickly, or I shall start crying again. Good-bye, Eric! Oh, oh--my
God!"
She stumbled to the door and twisted blindly at the handle. It was open
before he could help her. A grey wedge of fog thrust itself past her as
she hurried out of the hall.
"You're not going home alone!" he cried.
Half-way down the first flight of stairs she turned with arms
outstretched like a figure nailed to a cross.
"My darling; it's the last thing I shall ever ask you!"
4
Eric slept little that night. From eleven till two he walked up and down
his smoking-room, occasionally throwing himself into a chair for very
exhaustion, only to jump up restlessly and resume his aimless pacing.
The fingers of his right hand were yellow from the cigarettes that he
was always lighting and throwing away; the rest of him became stiff and
chilled as the fire died down. "_As if I'd murdered her._ . . ." The
phrase, self-coined, repeated itself in his brain even when he was not
thinking of the shaken, nerveless body which he had tried to revive.