When the door closed, Cecily, without a glance at Philippa, who stood
motionless just within the room, crossed blindly to the window, and
stood looking out. Half consciously she noticed the cathedral tower
against the sky. The sight of it reminded her of her struggles for
peace and freedom, their slow attainment, her hardly won serenity.
Disgust filled her mind. It was for this, then, that she had abandoned
Dick, and hurried back hundreds of miles to a man who was ready to
subject her once more to insult. She smiled to herself disdainfully at
the thought of Rose’s credulity, of her own emotional tenderness. The
door-bell rang suddenly. A moment, and she heard a man’s footstep, and
a man’s voice. It was Dick! Rose was asking him into the dining-room,
where she herself was sitting.
Involuntarily Cecily turned--her one instinct to go to him. Through her
mind darted possibilities. She had taken no irrevocable step--nothing
was yet too late. As she turned, her eyes fell upon Philippa, whose
presence she had forgotten. She was still standing, waiting till Cecily
should move, and, as for the second time her eyes met Cecily’s, she
was struck afresh by their desperate appeal. Well as she knew, and
contemptuous as she was, of all Philippa’s posing, this new look of
hers was genuine. It served to stay her steps.
Philippa made a hesitating movement towards her.
“Oh, it was _noble_ of you,” she whispered.
The familiar word jarred upon Cecily. She frowned impatiently.
“Shall we leave nobility out of our conversation?” she asked. “I’m
rather tired of it. Will you sit down?”
Philippa complied, and after a moment Cecily too sat down at some
little distance. For an interval there was silence.
“I suppose you will admit that I managed to save you just now from a
scandal,” she said at last.
“Yes, indeed,” murmured the other woman.
“Then will you look upon this as a business transaction, and pay me by
speaking the truth?”
“Yes,” said Philippa again, her mournful eyes fixed upon Cecily’s.
“Did you see my husband the other night?”
“No--he wasn’t here.”
“But you came to see him?”
“Yes.”
Cecily drew in her breath a little.
“At his request, of course?” she asked lightly, with a smile.
“No--he didn’t know I was coming.”
Again they looked at one another in silence.
“Please listen,” said Cecily after a time, slowly. “Though I did not
leave my husband on your account, I shouldn’t have returned to his
house if I had known that his--his friendship with you was not over.”
“It _is_ over.”
“Then will you be kind enough to explain to me why you were here last
week?”
Philippa’s eyes wavered. She began to trace patterns on the floor with
her foot.
“I--I came to borrow money,” she answered under her breath.
Cecily leaned back in her chair. With Philippa’s words came a swift
realization of the sordidness of a “love affair.” She was startled a
moment later by a sudden torrent of words from the woman opposite to
her.
“You’ll have to know all about it, I suppose!” she broke out in a
hoarse, unnatural voice. “I’m desperate--hunted. Do you know what that
feels like? Of course you don’t. There’s a man who threatens--oh, I
can’t tell you!--I can’t tell you!” She broke into sudden hysterical
crying.
“Hush!” said Cecily, more gently. “Tell me. You must tell me everything
now. It is only fair to yourself, and to me. You wanted money, you say?
But why didn’t you write, instead of----”
“I _did_ write,” she explained, between her sobs, “ever so many
times. He always returned my letters unopened. He--he had discovered
that I was going to marry Nigel. And then--I used to come down here and
wait for him to come out. But I never saw him. One evening, when I was
waiting, I saw both the servants leave the flat, and I thought he would
be alone. I didn’t know he wasn’t in town. I had the latch-key. He gave
it to me once, when I--when I used to work here. I knew he wrote late.
I thought if I could once get to his study and see him, I might----”
She paused. Cecily was still silent.
“It was very mad,” she went on, “but it seemed an opportunity. The hall
door downstairs was open. I suppose there was a party going on in one
of the flats, and I trusted to luck.... But he wasn’t here. I didn’t
know he’d gone away....” Again her voice failed.
“And to-day?” asked Cecily. “You came back to-day to see him?”
“Yes. Of course I had no idea you were here.... I thought I might--he
might....” She laid the latch-key with which she had entered on the
table between them.
The room was quite still. Cecily scarcely knew how to define her
sensations, but relief was one of them--the greatest. She was glad,
inexpressibly glad to find her new suspicions of Robert groundless. She
started when Philippa sprang with sudden passion to her feet.
“Oh!” she cried, “how you despise me, don’t you? But if you’d had my
existence----Do you know what life means for a woman who has no money?”
she demanded, fiercely. “Do you know what it means to be turned out
into the world when your parents die, without influence, without proper
training for any work, just to sink or swim as you can? I tell you,
you clutch at anything, at anybody.... I shall have to tell you.... I
lived with a woman once--and there was some money--I”--she moistened
her dry lips--“I had the handling of her--money, and I--I meant to
return it, of course. But she found out before I had time. She was
hard--as hard as nails. She gave me a certain time to pay it back, and
if I didn’t she threatened to make it public. Well--I borrowed it--I
had to--from a man.” Again she suddenly lowered her eyes--and Cecily
understood. “It’s he who threatens,” she went on in a choking voice.
“It’s not paid back yet--and he’s poor---- Oh, you’ve never met such
a man in your world, of course! _You_ don’t know the sort of man
who would----It’s the money he wants. And I can’t marry Nigel, because
he--this man will go to him, and----”
She threw herself on the sofa and hid her face.
Cecily drew nearer. Human misery is terrible to witness. She was moved
inexpressibly. Philippa’s affectations, her poses, her exasperating
mannerisms, had dropped from her, leaving her just a naked, shivering
human soul, desperately afraid.
“Philippa!” she whispered, bending over her, “if only you had ever,
even _once_ before, been sincere with me!” She spoke in a voice
trembling with pity, and Philippa looked up.
“Go on,” she said. “Don’t be afraid to tell me everything.”
Philippa raised her head, pushing her hair away from her haggard eyes.
She looked old and beaten and hunted as she sat there.
“There’s nothing much to tell,” she said, doggedly. “That’s what I
did--and I’ve paid for it. It’s awful to get into a net. I saw your
husband was interested in me--at the beginning, I mean. I couldn’t
afford to let him go.”
The slow color rose to Cecily’s cheek. Chaotic emotions surged within
her; among them shame, and a curious despairing pity that after all
her husband had never been loved--merely tricked,--deceived. “Poor
Robin!” she found herself repeating silently, with a sort of passion of
protection, as she returned in thought to the “little” name of their
happy days.
Philippa was still talking, wildly, incoherently, as though with relief.
“And then when I met Nigel, and he wanted to marry me, I was thankful.
I was so tired of struggling and having to pretend. I wanted to feel
safe and--and sheltered. I wanted it so much. And now I shall lose him
too. And it will all begin over again--all over again----” She stopped,
drawing a long, exhausted breath.
Cecily rose and went to the window, which she threw wider open. She
felt that she wanted fresh air. Then she turned. “Listen!” she said.
“Don’t say any more. Go home now, and write to me. Tell me just what
you want to put things straight, and I’ll manage it somehow.”
For a minute Philippa sat motionless, staring, her mouth a little open,
her untidy hair hanging round her face.
“You mean----?” she began.
“I should like to put things quite straight for you,” Cecily answered,
simply.
Philippa rose rather unsteadily to her feet. She began to realize that
she was safe. With the knowledge, her old self, the self made out of
incessant posing, constant mental attitudinizing, began to gather
like a shell over the elemental human being for whom Cecily had been
experiencing a very passion of pity.
She pushed her crushed hat at the right angle, her head drooped to its
accustomed position, a little on one side, her body reassumed its
yearning lines. She held out both hands to Cecily.
“How we have misjudged each other, you and I!” she exclaimed,
employing the deep tones in her voice. “I thought you unsympathetic,
unimaginative. And you no doubt thought me----” She hesitated. It
became difficult with Cecily’s eyes upon her to suggest the possible
mental attitude she might formerly have adopted towards her husband’s
secretary. “You have a fine nature,” she murmured. “You----”
Cecily checked her sharply. The impulsive wave of pity had passed.
“Please don’t,” she said, coldly. “I’m not noble, nor generous, nor a
fine character, nor any of the things you are fond of talking about.”
Her heart began to beat quickly. “You altered the world for me!” she
cried, with a sudden passion for which she could not account. “_Some
one_ would have done it anyhow, no doubt; I have realized that.
But it happened to be _you_. If I were jealous now, I couldn’t
lift a finger to help you. But the worst of it is, I’m not jealous any
more, and because you’re a woman, too,--and that in itself is hard
enough,--I’ll help you now. You have taught me to put it out of any
man’s power to hurt me much again. But listen to me!” Her voice rang
imperatively. Philippa raised unwilling eyes, and the women looked at
each other. “For what I’ve had to kill to make it possible _not_
to be hurt, I will never forgive you to the end of my life.” The words
were uttered with an intense deliberation. Philippa paled, and turned
away without offering her hand.
Before she reached the door, she heard Cecily’s voice again. This
time it was quite under control. She spoke as though they had been
conducting an ordinary business interview.
“Good-bye. Please tell me exactly how matters stand, and everything
shall be arranged.”
Philippa closed the door. She was saved, but it had been at a price.