It was a Monday morning and a bank holiday. A few regular habituées
of the park to whom the word "holiday" had no especial significance,
had overlooked the fact and took their cantering exercise a little
selfconsciously under admiring eyes of the people who seldom saw
people riding on horseback for the pleasure of it. The day was fine
and warm, the hawthorn trees were thickly frosted with their cerise
and white blossoms; stiff crocuses flamed in every bed and the
banners of the daffodils fluttered in the light breeze that blew
halfheartedly across the wide green spaces. On every path the
holiday-makers straggled, small mothers laden with large babies;
shopboys in garments secretly modelled on the supermen they served;
girls from the stores in their bargain-price finery; young men with
and without hats, the waitresses of closed teashops, and here and
there a pompous member of the bourgeoisie conscious of his
superiority to the crowd with which, in his condescension, he mingled.
There is one shady place which faces Park Lane--a stretch of wooded
lawn where garden chairs are set six deep. Behind this phalanx there
is an irregular fringe of seats, usually in couples, and greatly in
request during the darker hours. In the early morning, before the
energies of the promenaders are exhausted, the spot is deserted. But
two young people occupied chairs this morning. There was nothing in
the appearance of the girl that would have made the companionship
seem incongruous. In her tailored costume, the unobtrusive hat and
the simplicity of her toilette, she might as well have been the
youngest daughter of a duke or a workgirl with a judgment in dress.
Her clothes would not be "priced" by the most expert of women critics
and even stockings and shoes, the last hope of the appraiser, would
have baffled. No two glances would have been required to put the man
in his class. If he was a thought dandified, it was the
dandification of a gentleman. He looked what he was, a man of
leisure; the type which is to be found in the Guards or the smartest
regiment of cavalry. Yet Ronald Morelle was no soldier. He had
served during the war, but had seen none of its devastations. He
hated the violence of battle and despised the vulgarity of noisy
patriotism. His knowledge of Italian had secured him a
quasi-diplomatic appointment, nominally at the Italian headquarters,
actually in Rome. He had used every influence that could be
employed, pulled every string that could be pulled, to keep him from
the disorder of the front line, and fortune had favored him to an
extraordinary extent. On the very day he received instructions to
report to the regiment with which he had trained, the armistice was
signed--he saw the last line of trenches which the British had
prepared but never occupied, south of Amiens, saw them from the train
that carried him home, and thought that they looked beastly
uncomfortable.
The girl by his side would not be alone in thinking him good-looking.
He was that rarity, a perfectly featured man. His skin was
faultless; his straight nose, his deep-set brown eyes, his
irreproachable mouth, were excellent. The hyper-critical might cavil
at the almost feminine chin. A small brown moustache was probably
responsible for the illusion that he favored the profession of arms.
Evie Colebrook thought he was the most beautiful man in the world,
and when he smiled, as he was smiling now, she dared not look at him.
He was talking about looks, and she was deliciously flattered. "How
ridiculous you are, Mr. Morelle," she protested, "I suppose you have
said that to thousands and thousands of girls?"
"Not quite so many, Evie," he answered. "To be exact, I can't
remember having been so shamelessly complimentary to any girl before.
You need not call me 'Mr. Morelle' unless you wish to--my friends
call me 'Ronnie'."
She played with the handkerchief on her lap. "It seems so familiar.
Honestly, Ronnie, aren't you rather--what is the word? The book you
lent me--a play?"
"A philanderer?" suggested the other. "My dear child, how silly you
are. Of course I'm not. Very few people have impressed me as you
have. It must have been fate that took me into Burts--I never go
into shops, but François--that's my man--"
"I know him," she nodded, "he often comes in. I used to wonder who
he was."
"He was out and I wanted--I forget what it was I wanted, even forget
whether I bought it. I must have done, otherwise I should not have
found myself staring over a paydesk at the most lovely girl in all
the world."
She laughed, a gurgling laugh of sheer happiness, and looked at him
swiftly before she dropped her eyes again.
"I like to hear that," she said softly. "It is so wonderful--that
you like me, I mean. Because I'm nothing, really. And you, you're
a--well, gentleman. I know you hate the word, but you are. Miles
and miles above me. Why, I live in a miserable little house in a
horrible neighborhood--full of thieves and terrible creatures who
drink. And my mother does odd jobs for people. And I'm not very
well educated--really. I can read and write, but I'm not half so
clever as Christina, that is my sister. She's an invalid and reads
all day and all night too, if I'd let her."
He was watching her as she spoke. The play of color in her pretty
face, the rise and fall of her narrow chest, the curve of chin and
the velvet smoothness of her throat--he marked them all with the eye
of the gourmet who watches lambs frisking in the pasture and sees,
not the poetry and beauty of young life, but a likeable dish that
will one day mature. "If you were a beggar-maid and I were a
prince"--he began.
"I'm not much better, am I?" she asked ruefully, "and you are a
prince, to me, Ronnie--" She was thinking.
"Yes?"
"How can anything come right for us? I don't want to think about it
and I try ever so hard to keep it out of my thoughts. I'm so
happy--meeting you--and loving you--and tomorrow never comes, but--"
"You mean how will this dear friendship end?" She nodded.
"How would you like it to end?"
Evie Colebrook poked the furrel of her sunshade into the grass and
turned up a tuft of clover. "There is only one way it can ever
end--happily," she said in a low voice, "and that is--well you know,
Ronnie."
He laughed. "With you in a beautiful white dress and a beautiful
white veil and a wreath of orange blossoms round your glorious hair,
and a fat and nasty old man in a surplice reading a few passages from
a book; and people leering at you as you go down the aisle and
saying--well, you know what they say. I think a wedding is the most
indelicate function which society affects."
She said nothing, but continued prodding at the turf. "It can be
done quietly," she said at last.
Leaning toward her, he slipped his hand under her arm. "Evie, is
love nothing?" he asked earnestly, "isn't it the biggest thing? What
is the most decent, a wedding between two people who halfhate one
another, but are marrying because one wants money and the other a
swagger wife, or an everlasting love union between a man and a woman
whom God has bound with bonds that a parson cannot strengthen or a
snuffy judge cannot break?"
She sighed, the quick, double sigh of one half convinced.
"You make me feel that I'm common and--and brainless, and anyway, I
don't want to talk about it. Ronnie, I suppose you're awfully busy
this morning?" She looked wistfully at the big Rolls that was drawn
up by the side of the road.
"I am rather," he said, "I wish I weren't. I'd love to drive you
somewhere--anywhere so long as you were by my side, little fairy.
When shall I see you again?"
"On Sunday?" she asked as they strolled toward the car.
"Why not come up to the flat to tea on Saturday afternoon?" he
suggested, but she shook her head.
"I'd rather not, Ronnie--do you mind? I--well, I don't want to
somehow. Am I an awful pig?"