It was late that night when Micky turned up at the Delands'. He had
taken extravagant pains with his toilet, lingering over it as long as
possible. Ever since the arrival of that parcel from Esther, he had
been trying to make up his mind to take the irrevocable step, and ask
Marie Deland to be his wife. He was miserably sure that she would
accept him, miserably sure that he was already forgiven for the past.
He kept on persuading himself that it was the one and only thing left
to him to do. He tried to believe that once the affair was settled, he
would find some sort of happiness. After all, what did it matter whom
he married if it could not be Esther?
He looked pale but determined when he walked into the Delands'
drawing-room and found Marie there alone. She turned to greet him with
a little eager movement that was somehow comforting.
Here, at any rate, was some one who really cared for him and was glad
to see him. He took the hand she held out and, bending, kissed it.
She caught her breath on a little sound that was almost a sob, but she
checked it instantly and tried to laugh.
"This is almost like old times," she said.
"Quite like old times," Micky answered recklessly. "We've just turned
the pages back again and gone on where we left off, that's all."
He looked at her and tried to forget everything else. She was pretty
and dainty enough to satisfy the most exciting man, and she loved him!
To a man who is disappointed and unhappy there is great consolation in
the knowledge that to one person at least he counts before anything
else in the world.
She looked up at him, and impulsively he took a step towards her;
another moment and Micky would have sealed his fate, had not Mrs.
Deland pushed open the door and walked into the room.
It had not been any effort for her to forgive Micky for his cavalier
treatment of her daughter. For the last week she had been busy telling
every one that Marie and Micky had made up their quarrel--"entirely
Marie's fault it was, you know," and so on.
"You are going to give me half your dances at least," Micky said, when
they reached the Hoopers'. He took the card from Marie's hand and
filled in his own initials recklessly against the numbers.
She laughed tremulously; she was too happy to think of anything but
the present; she had got Micky again, and that was all she cared
about.
"Good-evening!" said a voice at her side, and, turning, she found
Raymond Ashton at her elbow.
Marie did not care particularly for Ashton. She greeted him rather
coldly.
"So you're back in town," she said. "And your wife?"
"Not here to-night," he answered. "She has a bad cold, so I persuaded
her to stay at home. May I have a dance?"
She gave him her card reluctantly. She would have liked to have
refused, but she thought Micky would be annoyed; she did not know that
he and this man were friends no longer.
She saw him glance at Micky's many initials on her card, saw the half
ironical smile he gave as he looked at her.
"Mellowes is back, then?" he said.
"Yes--he came with us to-night."
"Really! I thought----" he paused eloquently.
Marie flushed, she knew quite well what he meant; that he must have
known how Micky had once deserted her.
"I understood that Mellowes was in Paris."
Ashton went on calmly.
"At least I was told so by an ... acquaintance of mine--who was
staying there with him."
Marie's eyes dilated.
"Father and I crossed by the same boat as he did," she said with an
effort. "He was alone then----"
Ashton laughed detestably. "Ah, but not afterwards," he said--then
checked himself. "But I forgot. I must not tell tales out of school,
only as every one seems to have learned of his _penchant_ for the
little lady from Eldred's"--he laughed lightly.
Marie stood staring down the long ballroom. The colour slowly
faded from her cheeks, leaving her as white as her frock. She looked
at Ashton, intent on a crease in his glove, and she broke out
stammering:
"How dare you say such a thing! I don't believe you--in Paris--Micky----"
He raised his brows with assumed surprise.
"I'm sorry--perhaps I should not have spoken--but I thought every one
knew----"
She shrugged her shoulders. "Of course it may be a mistake, but I
happen to know the lady in question slightly--through Mellowes--and it
was she who told me.... I am sorry if my carelessness has pained
you--excuse me, I am engaged for this dance."
He bowed and left her standing there, white and dazed.
"I don't believe it! I don't," she told herself despairingly, and yet
in her heart something told her that, for once at least, Ashton had
spoken the truth.
"Our dance, I think," said Micky beside her.
She laid her hand on his arm mechanically; they went the round of the
room once, then Micky, glancing down, saw how white she was and how
her head drooped towards his shoulder.
He tightened his arm a little--he swept her skilfully out of the crowd
and into a small anteroom; he put her into a chair and bent over her
in concern.
"You are not well--what can I do? Can I get you anything?"
For a moment she did not speak, then all at once she rose to her feet;
she clutched Micky by both arms; he could feel how her hands shook;
there was heartbroken tragedy in her brown eyes as she looked into his
face. For once she had forgotten her pride and the indifference into
which she had been drilled for twenty years; she was no longer Marie
Deland, a sought-after and courted beauty; she was just an unhappy,
jealous woman.
"It isn't true, Micky, is it?" she entreated him; her voice was only a
broken whisper. "Tell me--oh, please, please, tell me. You don't care
for her, do you?--it isn't true, is it?"
She forgot that he did not know of what she was speaking; it seemed as
if everybody in the world must know of this tragedy that had desolated
her life.
"I can't bear it any longer--it's no use.... I've borne all I can....
O Micky ... Micky."
He forced her hands from his arms; he put her back into the chair and
sat beside her; he hated to see the white despair of her face.
"You're ill--upset.... It's all right--everything is all right. You're
not to worry any more.... Everything is all right."
At that moment he would have given his soul could he have truthfully
said that he wanted her for his wife. He cursed himself for a cur and
a coward, but somehow he could not force the words to his lips.
She lay back against the cushions, hiding her face.
There was a tragic moment of silence. Out in the ballroom a noisy
one-step was in boisterous progress; there was a great deal of
laughter and chattering; the little anteroom seemed as if it must be
in another world.
Micky got up. He walked across the room and shut the door. There was a
hard look about his mouth. For an instant he stood staring down at the
floor irresolutely, then he came back to Marie. He bent over her, but
he did not touch her.
He spoke her name gently.
"Marie."
She did not raise her head.
"I want to speak to you," he said huskily.
She looked up then. Her face was flashed and quivering, and the brown
eyes that for a moment met his own were full of an unutterable grief
and shame.
"Oh," she said in a broken whisper. "If you'd just go away--and leave
me to myself."
Micky did not answer. The impossibility of ever going back now struck
him to the soul. This was the end, the very end--he had burned his
boats and bidden good-bye to the woman he loved for ever.
Then all his natural chivalry rose in his heart. Hitherto it had been
only of himself that he had thought, but now ... his eyes softened as
they rested on the girl's bowed head; he stooped and took her hand,
held it fast in his steady grip.
"Will you marry me?" he said very gently.
And, oh, the long time before she answered! It seemed to Micky that he
lived through years as he stood there with the rattling tune of the
one-step in his ears and Marie's tragic figure before his eyes. Was
she never going to speak?
Then she sat up very stiff and straight--there were tears scorching
her flushed cheeks, and her eyes seemed to burn.
"Will I--will I--marry you?" she echoed, as if not understanding.
Her voice rose a little.
"Then it isn't true ... it can't be true--what he said?"
"What did he say? Who are you talking about? What do you mean?"
She began to sob; quiet, tearless sobs that seemed to bring no relief
with them.
"Raymond Ashton--he told me--here! just now--that you...." She
stopped, catching her breath at the change in Micky's face; it no
longer looked tender--his eyes were fierce.
"Ashton! What has he said?" His voice was roughly insistent.
"He told me that you--you were in Paris--a week or two ago--with a
girl from Eldred's."
"It's a lie!" The words escaped Micky before he could check them; his
first thought was to defend Esther. "It's an infernal lie!" he said
again violently.
It turned him cold to think of all that the brute must have implied.
The tears were frozen on Marie's cheeks--her hands were clasped
together in her lap.
When at last she found her voice it was strained and cracked.
"... that she told him you were there with her...." Her brown eyes
searched his face as if they were trying to read his very soul. "If
it's a lie," she said shrilly, "it's she who is lying--she told
Raymond Ashton that she was there with you."
"She told him...."
For a moment Micky stood like a man turned to stone. Was this the
truth?--that Esther had told Ashton....
He looked again at Marie.
"When did Ashton tell you this?"
"To-night--not a moment ago--he is here."
"Here!" Then to how many more people had he told the same distorted
story?
The blood beat into Micky's face; it seemed to hammer maddeningly
against his temples. Nothing counted but the fact that Esther's name
was being bandied about on the lips of the creature. To stop him--to
stop his lying tongue was the one thought in Micky's mind; he saw the
whole world red as he tore open the door of the silent room and strode
out into the corridor.
The noisy ragtime had ceased, but a storm of deafening applause and
cries of "Encore!" filled the ballroom.
An elderly man cannoned into Micky, and stopped short with a laughing
apology.
"Hullo, Mellowes--not dancing--what the deuce is the matter?" he asked
with sudden change of voice.
Micky passed a shaking hand across his mouth--
"Nothing ... where's Ashton--have you seen Ashton?"
"I've just left him; he isn't dancing either. Can't think what's
happened to you youngsters to-day. When I was your age...." He broke
off, realising that Micky was not listening. "Ashton's in the
smoking-room," he said uneasily.
Micky went on; his hands were clenched, his teeth set.
The smoking-room door was half ajar; he could see that there were
several men there. There was a clink of glasses and the sound of
voices talking in a rather subdued way.
Micky paused. He knew that if Ashton were there it would mean a scene,
and a scene in any one else's house.... The thought snapped at the
sound of his own name.
"Mellowes! Well, you do surprise me." There was a chuckle. "Always
thought he was one of the good boys.... It just shows that you never
know a man till you find him out. Rather an error of judgment to
choose Paris, eh? Who did you say she was?"
"A girl from Eldred's--pretty little thing. I knew her before he did.
As a matter of fact, it was only when I cooled off...."
That was Ashton's voice; Micky could not see him, but he could picture
vividly the eloquent shrug, the meaning smile with which he finished
his incomplete sentence.
The hot blood died down, leaving him cool and alert. He pushed the
door wide and walked into the room.
The group of men by the fireplace scattered; some one coughed
deprecatingly; some one else seized upon a siphon and began filling an
already full glass recklessly.
Nobody spoke.
Micky kicked the door to behind him, shutting it with a slam.
His eyes went straight to Ashton--a pale Ashton, trying to smile
unconcernedly and brazen the situation out.
"I'll give you two minutes in which to apologise," Micky said in a
voice of steel. "Two minutes in which to retract the damned lies
you've just been saying in this room--or--or I'll thrash you within an
inch of your life."
In the silence following one could have heard a pin drop. Every one
looked at Ashton. Micky took out his watch.
It seemed an eternity before Ashton spoke.
"If you've been listening----" he began blustering.
He moistened his dry lips.
"What I said is the truth," he broke out spluttering. "You were in
Paris with...." But the name was never spoken--Micky's clenched fist
shot out and struck him right in the mouth.
In a moment the room was in an uproar; half a dozen men rushed at
Micky and pinned his arms.
"Mellowes--for God's sake--if Hooper comes in...."
Ashton had staggered back against the wall; his mouth was cut and
bleeding; he was swearing horribly.
Micky was crimson in the face; the veins stood out like cords on his
forehead; he was straining every nerve to free himself from his
captors.
"Apologise!" he gasped. "Apologise, you dammed cad!"
Ashton laughed savagely.
"Apologise! What for? It's the truth, and you know it. Apologise! I'll
repeat it.... I say that you were in Paris three weeks ago with Esther
Shepstone, one of the girls from Eldred's...."
Micky suddenly stopped struggling, but his breath came in deep gasps
as he spoke. He looked round at the faces of the other men.
"I know most of you--here," he said in a laboured voice. "And most of
you know me--and you know that I'm not a damned liar like Ashton; and
I know that you'll believe me--believe me--when I tell you that the
lady who was with me in--in Paris--three weeks ago--is my wife ...
we've been married some time--and it is solely by her wish that it has
been kept a secret."
If Micky had dropped a bomb in the room it could hardly have created
more consternation. The incredulity on the faces of the men around him
would have been amusing to an onlooker, but to Micky the whole thing
was tragedy.
He had brought Esther to this with his blundering quixotism; he was
nearly beside himself with remorse.
If he had been free he would have half killed Ashton. His hands ached
to get at him; to take him by his lying throat and choke the breath
from his body.
He looked at the men around him with passionate eyes.
"I've never given any of you cause to doubt my word yet," he said
hoarsely. "And I'm sure you'll agree with me that this man should be
made to retract what he said and apologise."
"Certainly--he ought to apologise. It's disgraceful--infernally
disgraceful," said a man who had been listening to Ashton's story
eagerly enough a moment ago.
"What do you say, gentlemen?"
There was a chorus of assent. The men who had been holding Micky's
arms let him go.
Ashton backed a step away.
His face was livid, his eyes furious, but he knew that there was no
other course open to him; nobody in the room had any sympathy with him
now.
"I apologise," he said savagely. "I didn't know that--the--lady--Mellowes
had married--the lady."
His tone added that even now he did not believe it; he edged away to
the door and disappeared.
Micky dropped into a chair; he looked thoroughly done up. Some one
pushed a glass of whisky across to him. There was an uncomfortable
silence. Perhaps they were all feeling guilty; perhaps they all
remembered with what relish they had listened to this spicy bit of
scandal.
"Never could stand Ashton," some one said presently, in gruff
abasement. "Worm--the man is!--perfect outsider!"
There were several grunts of assent; the sympathy was decidedly with
Micky.
After a moment he rose to his feet.
"I suppose an apology is due from me too," he said; he spoke with
difficulty. "But I think any of you--in the same circumstances----"
He waited a moment.
"Quite right--certainly.... Should have done the same myself."
Micky smiled faintly.
"And I am sure you won't let this go any further--for--for my wife's
sake," he added.
They pressed round him, shaking him by the hand and reassuring him.
Micky took it for what it was worth. He knew that those of them who
were married men would go straight home and tell their wives of the
scene at Hoopers', and he knew how speedily the story would spread.
He got away as soon as he could and left the house.
He never gave Marie another thought, till he found himself out in the
street and walking away through the fresh spring night.
He took off his hat and let the air blow on his hot forehead; his hand
still trembled with excitement.
He tried to think, but his thoughts would not come clearly. When he
got back to his rooms he asked Driver for a stiff brandy. The man
looked at his master diffidently, and asked if anything were the
matter.
Micky laughed.
"Why? Do I look as if there is?" He glanced at himself in the mirror.
His face was very white.
"No, there's nothing the matter. I'm tired, that's all."
Driver turned to the door, but Micky called him back.
"You've been with me a good many years, Driver," he said.
"Yes, sir."
"And you've been a faithful servant."
"Thank you, sir."
The man's stolidness did not change a fraction.
Micky took a gulp at the brandy.
"If you were to hear that I'm married, you wouldn't be surprised,
would you?" he asked with a rush.
Driver stood immovable.
"Not in the least, sir."
"You would even say that you knew that I've been married some weeks,
wouldn't you?"
"I should, sir."
"Good--you may go."
"Thank you, sir, and good-night."
"Good-night," said Micky.
And now, what was to be done now?
When he left this room three hours ago it had been with the
determination to put the past behind him for ever, and what had he
done? Only walked more deeply into his quixotism and seriously
compromised the woman he loved.
He had said that she was his wife. It gave him a little thrill to
remember that a dozen of his acquaintances had heard him say it, and
were probably even now spreading the story of his marriage far and
wide.
He paced up and down the room. He had failed all round; even love and
desperate desire had not been able to help him.
He thought suddenly of June; June who, with all her bluntness, had a
great heart and a deep understanding.
She would not want explanations; she would know why he had done it,
and sympathise.
But June was obviously not the one concerned. It was not to June that
he must confess.
The clock in his room struck twelve; too late to do anything to-night.
The memory of Marie returned--Marie as she had looked when he found
her in the drawing-room that night; as she had looked when he had left
her in the little anteroom at the Hoopers' and gone out with murder in
his heart to find Ashton.
He stopped dead in his pacing.
"Oh, you cad--you cad!" he said with a groan.
Life was an intolerable, purposeless thing. He sat down at his desk
and leaned his head in his hands. His whole life seemed to spell
failure. With sudden impulse he seized a pen and began to write.
For the first few moments he hardly knew what he wrote. It was only
when he reached the end of the first page that he seemed to realise
with a start what he had done. He looked back at the written lines
with something of a shock. There was no beginning to the letter, no
date or address; it simply started off as if the pen had been guided
by some influence outside himself, some desperate need.
"I don't know what you will think when you get this letter. I am
writing it because to-night I think I am half mad. I love you so
much; there seems nothing in the whole world that counts any more
now that I am beginning to understand that I can never have you.
Esther, I ask you on my knees to listen to what I have to say. I
have tried to keep away from you, to forget you; I've tried to put
you out of my heart and persuade myself that I do not care--but
it's no use. I love you; I know you care something for me, but I
shall love you always. To-night I have done an unpardonable thing
for your sake. I explain things so badly. I can only hope that you
will understand and try to make some excuse for me. Some one knows
we were together in Paris--I need not tell you who. To-night, at a
house where I was, he had told several people that you and I had
been to Paris together...."
Micky had gone on writing rapidly--he seemed to have lost himself in a
sea of eloquence; his heart was pleading with the woman he loved
through the poor medium of a sheet of unaddressed paper.
"It nearly drove me mad to hear you spoken of by him. There was a
scene, and I knocked him down ... you will hate me for this, but I
would have killed him if they had let me. I told them afterwards
that you were my wife--try and understand how I have suffered all
these weeks--I told them that we had been married some time, and
that it had been kept secret by your own wish. It's only now, when
I am more alone and can think clearly, that I see what I have
done. You don't care for me, and I have compromised you even more
than that man did by his lying insinuations. Tell me what I am to
do--anything, anything in the world. My whole life is yours to do
with as you will. Be my wife, dear, be my wife...."
For a moment the pen faltered, but Micky went on again with an
effort.
"I will stay in London twenty-four hours for your answer, and
then, if I don't hear...."
The pen faltered again, and this time finally stopped.