The vision of her daughter dressed for going out temporarily deprived
Mrs. Colebrook of speech. Before she could frame adequate comment,
Christina was gone.
She dropped Beryl at her house and drove to Knightsbridge. The
porter was not sure whether Mr. Morelle was in or out. It was his
duty to be uncertain. He took her up to Ronnie's floor and waited
until the door opened.
"My dear, what brings you here at this hour?"
He had been out, he told her. A Royal Society lecture on Einstein's
Theory had been absorbing. He was so full of the subject, so alive,
so boyish in his interest that for a while he forgot the hour and the
obvious urgency of her call.
"I love lectures," he laughed, "but you know that. Do you remember
how I was so late last night that your mother locked me out--no, not
your mother--it must have been François." He frowned heavily. "How
curious that I should confuse François with your dear mother."
She listened eagerly, delightedly, forgetting, too, the matter that
brought her. The phenomenon had no terror for her, tremendous though
it was. He was the first to recall himself to the present.
"From Beryl?" he said quickly, "what is wrong?"
She handed him the letter and he read it carefully.
"How terrible!" he said in a hushed voice, "how appallingly terrible!
He says she is marrying Steppe! That can't be true, either. It
would be grotesque--"
She was on the point of telling him that the marriage was due for the
second day, when he went abruptly into his room. He returned,
carrying his overcoat, which he put on as he talked.
"The past can only be patched," he said, "and seldom patched to look
like new. Omar crystallizes its irrevocability in his great stanza.
We can no more 'shatter it to bits,' than 'remould it nearer to our
heart's desire.'"
"Ronnie, Beryl is to be married the day after tomorrow."
"Indeed?"
He looked at her with a half smile and then at the clock. It was a
minute past midnight.
"Tomorrow?"
She nodded.
"Where are you going?"
"To see Talbot. He acted according to his lights. You can't expect
a cockerel to sing like a lark. There is no sense in getting angry
because things do not behave unnaturally. I made him feel very badly
toward me yesterday. I think he can be adjusted. Some problems can
be solved: some must be scrapped. Have you a car--Beryl's--good.
Will you drop me in Curzon Street?"
She asked him no further questions and when in the car he held her
hand in his, she felt beautifully peaceful and content.
"Good night, Christina. I will see Beryl tomorrow."
He closed the car door softly and she saw him knocking at No. 703 as
she drove away.
The door was opened almost immediately.
"Is Mr. Talbot in, Brien?"
The butler stared.
"Why--why, yes, Mr. Morelle," he stammered.
He had not waited at table these past two days without discovering
that Ronald Morelle was a name to be mentioned to the accompaniment
of blasphemous et ceteras.
"He is in bed. I was just locking up. Does he expect you, Mr.
Morelle?"
"No," said Ronnie. "All right, Brien, I know my way up."
He left an apprehensive servant standing irresolutely in the hall.
Jeremiah was not in bed. He was in his dressing gown before a mirror
and his face was mottled with patches of gray mud--a cosmetic
designed to remove wrinkles from tired eyes.
Ronnie he saw reflected in the mirror.
"What--what the devil do you want?" he demanded hollowly. "What are
you doing?"
"Locking the door," said Ronnie, and threw the key on to the pillow
of a four-poster bed.
"Damn you--open that door--you sneaking cad!"
Mr. Talbot experienced a difficulty in breathing, his voice was a
little beyond his control. Also the plaster at the corner of his
mouth made articulation difficult.
"I've come to see you on rather a pressing matter," said Ronnie
evenly. "You wrote a letter to Dr. Merville making a very serious
charge against my friend, Miss Merville. I do not complain and I
certainly do not intend abusing you. I may kill you: that is very
likely. I hope it will not be necessary. If you shout or make a
noise, I shall certainly kill you, because, as you will see, being an
intelligent man, I cannot afford to let you live until your servants
come."
Mr. Talbot sat down suddenly, a comical figure, the more so since the
dried mud about his eyes and the corner of his mouth made it
impossible that he should express his intense fear. As it was, he
spoke with difficulty and without opening his mouth wider than the
mud allowed.
"You shall pay for thish, Morelle--vy God!"
"I want you to write me a letter which I shall give to Miss Merville
apologizing for your insulting note to the doctor--"
With a gurgle of rage, Talbot sprang at him. Ronnie half turned and
struck twice.
The butler heard the thud of a falling body; it shook the house.
Still he hesitated.
"Get up," said Ronnie. "I am afraid I have dislocated your beauty
spots, Jerry, but you'll be able to talk more freely."
Mr. Talbot nursed his jaw, but continued to sit on the floor. His
jaw was aching and his head was going round and round. But he was an
intelligent man.
When he did get up he opened a writing bureau and, at Ronnie's
dictation, wrote.
"Thank you, Jerry," Ronnie pocketed the letter. "Perhaps when I have
gone you will regret having written and will complain to the police;
you may even write a worse letter to the doctor--who hasn't seen your
first epistle, by the way. I must risk that. If you do, I shall
certainly destroy you. I shall be sorry because--well, because I
don't think you deserve death. You can be adjusted. Most people
can. Will you put a stamp on the envelope, Jerry?"
At the street door: "Perhaps you will lose your job because you have
admitted me, Brien. If that happens, will you come to me, please?"
The dazed butler said he would.
Ronnie stopped at a pillar box to post the letter and walked home.