MR. ALINGTON OPENS CHECK
Kit, like most people who possess that master-key to immense enjoyment
of life, namely, a ravenous, insatiable appetite for pleasure, had
always a vital instinct to put off as long as possible anything which
was unpleasant. She usually found plenty of delightful things to do
every day of her life; indeed, with her tremendous _joie de vivre_,
almost everything she did was delightful, and if there was something not
delightful to be done, as a rule she did not do it. In this complicated
hurly-burly of life, it is a great thing to be able to simplify, as in
the tutor-ridden days one used to simplify the huge vulgar fractions
which covered the page, and turned out in the end to be equivalent to
zero. Kit's methods of simplification were really notable; she cut out
everything which looked as if it would give trouble, and did not care in
the slightest degree about the result. And if you do not care about the
result, life, like vulgar fractions and the wicked, ceases from
troubling.
But occasionally, so cruelly conducted is this world, she was driven to
take odiously disagreeable steps, for fear of the speedy and inevitable
disaster which would attend their omission. There were also certain
prophylactic measures she used habitually to take, just as one goes to
the dentist to avoid possible toothache in the future. Under the latter
head came such small affairs as bazaar-openings and tedious "Grundy"
dinners; also the yearly visit to Jack's uncle, who was a Bishop--a grim
ordeal, but efficacious. They gave one a firmer stand, so to speak. It
would have argued a shocking lack of worldly wisdom to neglect such
simple little things, and whatever Kit lacked, she had an admirable
amount of that. But the avoidance of unpleasantness in the greed for the
pleasures of the moment led her constantly to put off distasteful
things, in the same way in which one puts off the writing of letters,
blindly hoping that if they are left unanswered long enough they will,
in a manner of speaking, answer themselves. This charming result is
often attained, but sometimes it is not, whereby the children of Eve are
disconcerted.
The tiresome baccarat incident had now been unanswered rather more than
a fortnight, during which interval Kit had not seen Mr. Alington. She
told Jack that the mine-man was rather too much for her. Besides, she
had introduced him to a hundred houses; if he could not swim for himself
now, he never would. But when on the morning following this Sunday, as
Kit, figuratively speaking, looked over her old letters to see what had
to be done in the last week in London, she came upon the baccarat
letter, and read it through again, hoping that she would feel that it
had by now answered itself, for she had given it time. But though she
was sedulous in taking a favourable view of this and all other matters
concerning herself, she came to the disheartening conclusion that it had
not. There was clearly only one of two things to be done--either give it
more time and another chance to answer itself unaided, or answer it
herself at once. And, as a wise and perhaps a good wife should, she
determined to consult her husband about it, wishing that she had done so
before.
The confidence between the two was, in a certain well-defined area, of
an intimate kind. There were, no doubt, certain things which Kit did not
tell Jack, and she on her side felt that there might be developments in
the Alington scheme, for instance, into which she would not be permitted
to enter. She did not resent this; everyone may have his own private
sitting-room, where, if one knocks, one may be refused admittance. It
was wiser then not to knock, and certainly there were things in hers
which it was not her intention to show Jack. But apart from these few
exceptions, Kit always told Jack everything, especially if she was in
difficulties.
"It produces such peace of mind," she had said once to Alice, "to know
that no one can tell your husband worse things than he already knows
about you. How some women can go on letting their husbands remain in
ignorance about their bills and other indiscretions, I can't conceive.
Why, I should have to ask Jack every evening what he had learned about
me during the day. And that sort of revelations come much better from
oneself. It wears," said Kit thoughtfully, "the guise of candour, and
also possibly of regret."
The two women practised great freedom of speech with each other, and
Alice replied frankly:
"Sometimes I think you are a clever woman, Kit; at other times I feel
sure I am wrong, and that you are the most abject of fools."
"I suppose you mean that I seem to you an abject fool now," said Kit.
"Why, please?"
"Because you tell Jack only the things that don't really matter. The
things which if he heard from elsewhere would really make a row, you
don't tell him."
"Ah, but those are the things which nobody can tell him," said Kit, with
her customary quickness, and more than her usual penetration.
This conversation occurred to her mind to-day, when she determined to
ask his advice about the baccarat. The only question was whether it,
too, came under the head of what nobody else could tell him. If it had
been someone of her own set who had seen, or whom she suspected to have
seen, the little _faux pas_ of the hundred-pound counter, it would no
doubt have come under the head of the things incommunicable. To Tom,
Toby, Jack, Lord Comber, it would have been impossible to repeat such a
thing. But one could not guess what ideas of honour a wild West
Australian miner might have. To repeat such a thing about a woman was
contrary to the code in use among her associates, and a good thing, too,
thought Kit, strictly confining the question to the particular instance,
and not confounding issues by a consideration of honour in general.
Even after the lapse of a fortnight the thought of that evening was a
smart and a mortification. Jack was going to entrust the ship of his
fortunes to the wild man who sang hymns, and played a harmonium, for
aught she knew, and her really laudable desire to have some hold, some
handle over him, had ended in this _débâcle_. It was not certain,
indeed, that he had seen, but Kit could not but admit that it was highly
probable. After all, honesty was the best policy, and she determined to
tell Jack.
He had gone up to town by an early train, and Kit, who disliked getting
up early almost as much as she disliked going to bed early, followed him
later. He was out when she reached Park Lane, and it was close on
lunch-time when she heard a cab drive up. Next moment the butler had
announced Mr. Alington. The two looked just like brothers.
"Good-morning, Lady Conybeare," he said very smoothly. "Your husband
asked me to lunch here, as we have some business to talk over. I was to
give you a message, if he was not yet in, asking you not to wait lunch
for him. He might"--Mr. Alington appeared to ponder deeply for a
moment--"he might be detained."
This meeting was intensely annoying to Kit. She had told Jack that she
had had enough of the mine-man, and it was very tiresome to have this
_tête-à-tête_, and quite particularly disagreeable after their last
meeting to see him alone. However, she put on the best face she could to
the matter, and spoke with familiar geniality.
"Oh, Jack is always late," she said. "But why he should think it
necessary to ask me not to wait for him is more than I can say. I
suppose you have been imbuing him with business habits. Jack a business
man! You have no idea how droll that seems to his wife, Mr. Alington.
Let us lunch at once; I am so hungry. Kindly ring that bell just behind
you, please."
Mr. Alington sat still a moment, and then rose with deliberation, but
did not ring.
"I am lucky to find you alone, Lady Conybeare," he said, "for the truth
is, there was a little matter I wanted to talk over with you."
Kit rose swiftly from her seat before he had finished his sentence, and
rang the bell herself. It was answered immediately, and as the man came
into the room, "Indeed; and what is that?" she said. "Is lunch ready,
Poole? Let us go in, Mr. Alington. I am always so hungry in London and
elsewhere."
Kit could scarcely help smiling as she spoke. She had no intention
whatever of talking any little matter over with Mr. Alington, especially
if it was the one she had in her mind; and she could not help feeling
amused by the simplicity of the means by which she had put the stopper
on the possibility of a private talk. She wished to hold no private
communications with the man. She had done her part in launching him, for
the convenience of Jack; she had given him to understand, or rather
given other people to understand, that he was an _ami de la maison_, and
she washed her hands of him. He was very kindly going to make Jack's
fortune in return for benefits received, but he had distinctly said that
the arrangement was one of mutual advantage. It was give and take; he
was on the same level as your grocer or bootmaker, except that those
tradesmen gave in the hopes of eventually taking, while Mr. Alington
took as he went along. At the best he was a sort of cash-down shop, and
Kit did not habitually deal with such. She did not consider him
dangerous, and she was so well pleased with her own adroitness that she
very unwisely determined to drive her advantage home.
So, as he followed her through the folding-doors into the dining-room,
"What is the little matter you referred to?" she asked again, feeling
perfectly secure in the presence of servants in the room.
Mr. Alington closed his eyes for a moment before he took his seat, and
murmured a brief grace to himself. He opened them a moment afterwards
with a short sigh, and Kit's _riposte_ to his thrust did not seem to
have ruffled or disconcerted him in the least.
His broad butler-like face was as serene as ever.
"It was a matter which I thought you might have preferred to discuss
alone," he said; "but as you seem to wish it, I will tell you here. The
other night when I had the pleasure of playing baccarat with you, you
won on a natural----"
A flush of anger rose to Kit's face. The man was intolerable, insolent,
before the servants, too; but as he spoke she felt a sudden fear of him.
He looked her full in the face with mild firmness, breaking his toast
with one hand, while with the other he manipulated his macaroni on the
end of his fork.
"Stop!" said Kit, quick as the curl of a whiplash.
But Mr. Alington did not wince.
"You will be so kind, then, as to give me the opportunity of speaking to
you privately about it," he said. "I am quite of your way of thinking.
It is far better discussed so. I quite see."
Kit felt herself trembling. She was not accustomed to such bland
brutality at the hands of anyone. She would have been scarcely more
surprised if her stationer or butcher had suddenly appeared in the room,
and urged the propriety of a private talk. Alington, it is true, had
been to her house, had a right to consider himself a guest; but that
made it even more intolerable. Apparently he had no idea of the
distinction between guests and guests, and it would be a shocking thing
if this were overlooked. Meantime he went on eating macaroni with a
superb mastery over that elusive provender, in silence, since Kit did
not reply.
The dining-room was one of the most charming rooms in London, rather
dark, as dining-rooms should be, the walls of a sober, self-tint green,
and bare but for some half-dozen small pictures of the Barbizon school,
which, if alienable, would long ago have been alienated to supply the
chronic scarcity of money in the Conybeare establishment. They were
wonderful examples, but Kit hated them, since they could not be sold.
"They make me feel like a man on a desert island with millions of gold
sovereigns and no food," she had said once. The chairs were all armed,
and upholstered in green brocade, and the thick Ispahan carpet made
noiseless the feet of those "who stand and wait." Partly this, partly
the distraction of her thoughts, brought it about that red mullets were
at Kit's elbow a full ten seconds unperceived. She could not make up her
mind what to do. She bitterly repented having said "Stop!" just now to
Alington, for the vehemence of her interjection gave herself away. She
had practically admitted that something had occurred on the night they
played baccarat which she earnestly desired not to have discussed in
public. A fool could have seen that, and with all her distaste for the
man she did not put this label to him. And with odiously familiar
deference he had agreed with her; he had assumed the right of discussing
things with her in private.
Again, she could not quarrel with him. Conybeare's application to
business, his early visits to the City, his frequent conferences with
Alington, his unexampled preoccupation, all showed for certain that
there were great issues at stake, for he would not give himself such
trouble for a few five-pound notes. All this passed through her mind
very rapidly, and at the end of ten seconds she leaned back in her
chair, saw the red mullets, and took two of them.
"Yes, you are quite right," she said; "we will talk of it afterwards.
Ah, here is Jack! Morning, Jack!"
Jack nodded to her and Alington, and took his seat.
"You have heard the news, Kit?" he asked.
"Lots; but which?"
"Toby is engaged to Miss Murchison. The Croesum told me in the train
this morning. She is coming to see you this afternoon."
Kit for the moment forgot her other worries.
"Oh, how delightful!" she cried. "Dear Toby! And Lily is most charming,
and so pretty! Do you know her, Mr. Alington?"
"I have met her at your house, I think. And an heiress, is she not?"
"I believe she has a little money," said Kit. "One has heard people say
so. But mere gossip, perhaps."
Jack laughed low and noiselessly.
"That will be so pleasant for Toby," he observed, "if it is true."
Kit sighed.
"What a pity that it is not the custom for a bride to settle money on
her husband's brother, Jack!" she said.
"Yes, or give it in order to escape death duties. What opportunities for
unusual kindness some people have!"
"Well, it is charming, anyhow," said Kit. "I noticed they went for a
stroll in the punt yesterday afternoon, which I thought promising. A
punt is so often a matrimonial agency. You aren't afraid of tipping it
up like an ordinary boat. You proposed to me in a racing pair, or
something skittish--do you remember, Jack?--and I said I'd do anything
in the world if you would only row straight to shore. And you kept me to
it. Hardly fair, was it, Mr. Alington?"
Mr. Alington smiled like an elderly clergyman at a school feast, and his
smile was suggestive of his liking to see young people happy.
"I wonder the Matrimonial News doesn't keep a few punts for the use of
clients," went on Kit, in nervous anxiety to get lunch over as quickly
as possible. She had made up her mind about Alington in the last
half-minute or so, and was desirous of getting a word with him, her
intention being to deny his charge point-blank, and in turn accuse him.
"Punts and evening hymns do wonders with people who can't quite make up
their minds to propose."
Mr. Alington looked mildly interested at this surprising information,
and he appeared to be weighing it carefully as he ate his quail before
giving it his support.
"They might keep a small choir and a harmonium as well," went on Kit. "I
believe all the respectable middle-class go to evening church on Sunday
and sing hymns very loud out of one book, and propose to each other
afterwards. Dear Toby, how happy he will be! How nice--how exceedingly
nice!" she murmured sympathetically.
Alington and Kit had by this time finished lunch, and she rose.
"I can't stop and see you eat, Jack," she said. "Come, Mr. Alington; we
will go and have coffee, and Jack will join us."
On these hot July days Kit often sat in the inner hall, which was cooler
than the drawing-room. It was a charming place of palms and parquetry,
with furniture at angles, and a general atmosphere of coolness and
sequestered corners. Coffee came immediately with cigarettes, and Kit
took one. Mr. Alington, however, explained that except on Sundays he did
not allow himself to smoke till after dinner.
"I find a little abstinence very helpful," he gave as his modest excuse.
The servants withdrew, and Kit began playing with her subject.
"I am afraid you thought me very abrupt at lunch," she said, "but I have
a great objection to discussing matters, which it is conceivable might
be better kept private, before servants, and when you mentioned baccarat
I thought it better to stop you, even at the risk of seeming very
brusque. You will hardly believe it, Mr. Alington"--here her voice sank
to a low confidential murmur--"you will hardly believe it, but only a
few weeks ago I saw a man cheat at baccarat at a friend's house. Very
distressing, was it not? I talked it over with a friend, and we found it
most difficult to decide what to do. That sort of thing might so easily
get about; it is so dangerous to speak before servants."
"I think you talked it over with Lady Haslemere?" remarked Mr. Alington.
Kit was stirring her coffee and smiling sweetly. She was getting on
beautifully. But at these words and their peculiarly calm delivery her
hand stopped stirring, and her smile faded.
"I think also you agreed to ask the suspect to play again, in order to
watch him," went on the impassive butler. "Was it not so, Lady
Conybeare? And I think the suspect was none other than myself."
Kit put down her coffee-cup and leaned back in her chair. The thing had
gone wrong; she had meant to have got first innings on the subject of
baccarat cheating, and she was rather afraid she was clean bowled. Quick
as she was, she could not see her answer. Mr. Alington did not, however,
look at her, nor did he pause longer than was necessary to sip his
coffee.
"Your tactics were a little open, a little obvious, Lady Conybeare, if
you will allow me to say so," he went on. "Delicious coffee! You
exchanged so many glances with Lady Haslemere, and then looked up at me,
that I could not fail to see you were watching for something. No man, I
expect, likes to be suspected of so very paltry a crime as cheating at
baccarat--a crime so hopelessly void of any grandeur--and no man, I am
sure, likes a trap being laid for him by those whom he is entitled to
consider his friends. And before I go on to the point I have in my mind
I should like to say a word about this."
He cleared his throat and sipped his coffee again.
"What you and Lady Haslemere saw," he went on--"did your husband suspect
me too? It does not matter--what you saw was this: I had declared a
natural, and you saw me, as you thought, push a fifty-pound counter over
the line. Was that not so?"
"There is no question of 'thought,'" said Kit, whom a sense of danger
made the more incautious; "we saw you do it."
"Quite true. If you had observed a little more closely, you would have
seen something else. Now, I ask you, the few times we have played
baccarat together, did you ever see me fail to stake?"
"Not to my knowledge."
"Quite so. If you had looked at the table a moment before, you would
have seen I had nothing staked. What happened was this: I had staked
four ten-pound counters and two fives; then, seeing that I had no more
smaller ones, I withdrew them to substitute one fifty for them. At that
moment I received my cards, and, taking them up I forgot for the moment
to substitute my fifty. I looked at the cards, declared the natural, and
you saw me push forward the fifty-pound counter quite openly, and, so
you thought, clumsily. It never occurred to me for a moment there was
any need of an explanation."
Kit's anger and alarm was growing on her.
"Very clumsily," she said; "we all saw it."
"It was stupid of me, no doubt, not to have explained at the time," he
said, "but really I had no idea the company was so suspicious."
He paused for a moment, and his mild temper was roused at the thought of
Kit's behaviour.
"But perhaps people are right to be suspicious," he added, with a raised
intonation.
The shot went home, and Kit's face grew a shade paler. But she could not
conceivably show that she knew what he meant, for that would be to
accuse herself. Instead, she put all the insolence her voice would hold
into her reply.
"And what proof have I of the truth of what you say?" she asked,
fighting desperately on this battle-ground of her adversary's choosing.
"The fact that I say it," said Mr. Alington. "Also, there is
corroborative evidence if I choose to adduce it. I showed you the other
night, meaning merely to give you a hint, that, had I wanted, I could
have cheated very neatly. Is it credible, then, even supposing that I am
one of those people who cheat, that I should have done it so clumsily?"
Kit in her heart believed the man, but her superficial woman's cunning
refused to give up the hold she still hoped she might have over him, her
only answer to the hold she was afraid he had over her.
"We all make blunders at times," she said, in her most fiendish manner.
"Unfortunately, I don't believe what you say."
Mr. Alington sipped his coffee again. His momentary irritation had quite
died down; you could not have found a kinder Christian in all England.
"Fortunately, however, that matters very little," he replied.
"It does not make a man popular among us," observed Kit, "if he is known
to cheat at baccarat. I understood you the other night to say that sort
of thing was common in Australia. I should advise you to remember that
we think differently here."
Kit had lost her temper completely, and did not stop to weigh her words.
Worse than that, she lost her head, and lashed out insults with foolish
defiance.
Mr. Alington crossed one leg over the other, his mouth grew a shade more
compressed and precise, and his large pale eyes turned suddenly
unluminous and stale like a snake's. Kit grew frightened again, and when
a woman is frightened as well as angry she is not likely to score off a
perfectly cool man. There was a moment's pause.
"Lady Conybeare," said he at length, "you have chosen to treat me as a
knave and as a fool. And I dislike very much being treated as a knave or
a fool by you. You accuse me of cheating: that I have reason to believe
does not seem to you very shocking."
"May I ask why?" interrupted Kit.
Mr. Alington held up his hand, as if to deprecate any reply just now.
"And you accuse me of cheating clumsily, foolishly," he continued. "But
can you really think I should be so tragic an ass as to come to you with
my mere assertion that I did not cheat? I have given you your chance to
believe me of your own free will; you have, I regret to say, refused it.
I will now force you to believe me--force you," he repeated
thoughtfully. "I have a witness, a person then present, who saw me
withdraw those smaller counters and replace the larger."
Kit laughed, but uneasily.
"How very convenient!" she said. "What is his name?"
"Lord Abbotsworthy," remarked Alington. "I even took the precaution of
calling his attention to what I had done. It was lucky I did. Ask Lord
Abbotsworthy."
"One of your directors," said Kit, almost beside herself with anger, and
rising from her chair.
"One of my directors, as you say," he replied, "and your friend. I need
hardly remind you that your husband is another of my directors."
On the moment Jack came out of the dining-room. He cast one glance at
Kit's face, took a cigarette, and strolled discreetly upstairs. When his
wife was on the war-path and had not asked his alliance he did not give
it.
"I shall be upstairs when you and my wife have finished your talk," he
said over his shoulder to Alington. "Come and see me before you go."
The pause sobered Kit.
"Yes," continued Alington, "he had a moment before asked me to change
him some money for small counters, and that left me with only a few
small ones. Luckily, he will remember seeing me withdraw and substitute
my stake. You and Lady Haslemere would have been wise to consult him
before taking this somewhat questionable step of watching me. A fault of
judgment--a mere fault of judgment."
Kit, figuratively speaking, threw up her hand. The desperate hope that
Alington was lying was no longer tenable.
"And I await your apology," he added.
There was a long silence. Kit was not accustomed to apologize to anybody
for anything. Her indifference to this man, except in so far as he could
financially serve them, had undergone a startling transformation in the
last hour. Indifference had given place first to anger at his insolence,
then to fear. His placid, serene face had become to her an image of some
infernal Juggernaut, whose car rolled on over bodies of men, yet whose
eyelash never quivered. Pride battled with fear in her mind, fury with
prudence. And Juggernaut (butler no longer), contrary to his ascetic
habit, lit a cigarette.
"Well?" he said, when he judged that the pause was sufficiently
prolonged.
Kit had sat down again in her chair, and was conscious only of two
things--this inward struggle, and an absorbing hatred of the man seated
opposite her.
"Supposing I refuse to apologize?" she asked at length.
"I shall regret it very much," he said; "you probably will regret it
more. Come, Lady Conybeare, by what right do you make an enemy of me?"
Again there was silence. Kit knew very well how everyone would talk if
this detestable business became public, which she understood to be the
threat contained in Alington's words, and knew also that a rupture
between Jack and him, which must inevitably follow, would not be likely
to lead to their financial success in this business of the mines.
"I shall require you also to tell Lady Haslemere and your husband, if he
also has at any time suspected me, into what a deplorable error you have
fallen," continued Alington, dropping out his words as you drop some
strong drug into a graduated glass, careful to give neither too much nor
too little.
Suddenly Kit made up her mind, and having done that, she determined to
act with the best possible grace.
"I apologize, Mr. Alington," she said; "I apologize sincerely. I wronged
you abominably. I will do in all points as you suggest."
Mr. Alington did not move a muscle.
"I accept your apology," he said. "And please do me the favour not to
treat me like a fool again, for I am far from being a fool."
This speech was not easy swallowing for Kit, but she had to take what he
threw her. Alington got up.
"I have to go upstairs to see your husband," he said, "because we have a
good deal of business--the shares of the new group will be on the market
in a few days."
He paused a moment.
"Do not give another thought to the matter, Lady Conybeare," he said.
"It is much better we should be friends. Ah, by the way, regarding that
matter on which I meant to speak to you, that unfortunate affair of the
hundred-pound counter--you know what I mean. Do not give another thought
to that, either. I assure you that it will not be through me that it
goes further. I fully believe you never meant it. Only you did not
correct your mistake instantaneously, and so correction became
impossible. Was it not so?"
His broad face brightened and beamed, like the face of a father speaking
lovingly and consolingly to a son about some petty fault, and he held
out his hand to her.
Kit wavered. She would have given anything in the world to say, "What
affair of the hundred-pound counter? I don't know what you mean." But
she could not. She was physically, perhaps morally, incapable of giving
the words utterance. Alington had made her afraid; she was beaten,
cowed. And the accuracy of his intuition astounded her. Then she gave
him her hand; she had no word for him on this subject.
"Good-bye," she said--"_au revoir_, rather. You will be in and out a
good deal, I suppose, while we are in London. There is always lunch at
two. My husband is in his room upstairs. You know the way, I think."
Many people have their own pet plan of sending themselves to sleep, such
as counting imaginary sheep going through a visionary hedge, or marking
out a lawn-tennis court, lifting the machine as seldom as possible.
Kit's method, though she usually fell asleep immediately, was to
enumerate her dislikes. This was a long and remarkably varied list,
beginning "Marie Corelli, parsnips," and she seldom got to the end of
it. To-night she admitted Mr. Alington into the charming catalogue, and
getting to his name, she did not continue the list, nor did she
immediately go to sleep.