But no father came to her call, no companion from the void to her tryst.
She waited, feeling, or thinking that she felt, the air touch her hair,
brush her face, cool but kindly, and once cross her lips. She waited,
but only the light air, or her fancy of it, came.
She knelt down by the old chair in which she had seen him last until she
had seen him in his majesty, on the floor, in the hall. She laid her
head on the seat that had been his, and wept there softly, disappointed,
overwrought.
Some one was coming; some one very much of this world. High heels
clattered on the inlaid hall floor, silk sounded crisply, and an
expensive Persian perfume—attar probably—came in as a hand turned the
knob on the other side and pushed the door open, and with the perfume
the silken frou-frou, a jumble of several furs, lace and pearls, and
Angela in a very big hat and a chinchilla coat. She closed the door
behind her—an odd thing for an unexpected, uninvited guest to do, and
she closed it quietly, for her very quietly. She tip-toed across the
room stealthily, caught sight of Helen and screamed.
At the sound of some one coming Helen had risen to her feet and pulled
herself together with the quick pluck of her sex. But she was still too
overwrought to grasp entirely the strangeness of her friend’s behavior.
Mrs. Hilary was dumfounded. She had thought Helen in London. She had
crept into the house through a side door, come through the halls
secretly and as silently as such shoes and so much silk and many
draperies could, meeting no one and hoping neither to be seen nor heard.
Her errand was particularly private. She had not been surprised to find
the library door unlocked, for she had not been deeper in the house than
the drawing-room since Mr. Bransby’s death. She and Mrs. Leavitt were
far from intimate. And Mrs. Hilary had not heard of the taboo Helen had
placed on the father’s room. She was dumfounded to find Helen here, and
bitterly disappointed. But she noticed little amiss with the girl. Each
was too agitated to realize the agitation of the other.
Helen pulled herself together and waited, Angela pulled herself together
and gushed; each with the woman’s shrewd instinct to appear natural and
much as usual.
Angela supplemented her cry of dismay with an even shriller cry of
enthusiastic delight.
“My dearest Helen! How perfectly lovely!”
“This is a surprise,” Helen said more quietly. Of the two she was the
less surprised and far the more pleased.
“Yes—isn’t it—a surprise?”
“You didn’t expect to see me?” What had brought Angela rushing into this
room, then?
Mrs. Hilary saw her blunder as soon as she made it, even while she was
making it almost. She was greatly confused—a thing that did not often
befall Angela Hilary. She and embarrassment rarely met.
“No,” she stammered. “No—I—uh—yes, yes, I came over to——” She was
utterly at a loss now. “Well,” she went on desperately, “I happened to
be passing——” She broke off suddenly, looking anxiously at the window,
and then looked away from it pointedly, and hurried on with, “I came to
see if, by any chance, it was you Margaret McIntyre caught a glimpse of
in the grounds yesterday. But—I—I didn’t see you when I came in here.
It’s so dark here, after the hall. When did you come? Are you going to
stay long?”
“I came suddenly—on an impulse—to find something. I may stay. I may go
back to-morrow. I don’t know. But I haven’t unpacked much.”
Mrs. Hilary seized on the pretext this offered to get rid of Helen. She
had been searching her excited mind for one wildly for some moments.
“Then,” she said sharply, “you must see at once that your things are
properly unpacked. Nothing spoils things like being crushed in trunks.
And, as for chiffons! Go at once.”
“But,” Helen began.
“At once. I insist. You must not let me keep you. I shall be all right
here, and when you have finished——” She was pushing Helen towards the
door.
“Don’t be absurd, Angela,” the girl laughed—freeing herself, “my things
can wait—I may not unpack them at all.”
“Are you sure—sure they can wait?” Mrs. Hilary said lamely.
“Of course I am sure, you absurdity. Besides, tea must be ready in the
drawing-room. Angela, Dr. Latham is here.”
Angela dimpled and flushed. “Oh! is he—is he really?”
Helen nodded.
Angela sat down and opened her vanity bag. She propped the mirror up on
the table, shook out her powder puff, tried it on one cheek, refilled
and applied it liberally, thinking, thinking, as she beautified. How
could she get rid of Helen? She wanted to see Horace Latham, of course,
but she had something much more important to attend to first. Latham
could wait—for once in a way. As she piled on powder, and flicked it
off, another idea came to her. She seized it. “You go along now, dear,
and I’ll follow you.”
Helen shook her head. “You will stop prinking and come with me, now.”
“Very well,” Mrs. Hilary said reluctantly, letting Helen take her arm
and lead her to the door. At the door she cried, “Oh! Oh!” pressed her
hand to her side and staggered back to a chair. She did it beautifully.
It scarcely could have been done better.
“What is it, Angela?” Helen was thoroughly alarmed.
“Oh! the whole room is swimming.”
“My dear——”
“You must think I am awfully silly.” She could only just speak.
“You poor thing—of course I don’t. Perhaps a glass of water——”
Mrs. Hilary shook her head violently—far too violently for so ill a
woman.
“I’ll get Dr. Latham.”
“Please don’t,” the invalid said sharply, and then, “I’m not well enough
to see a doctor,” she wailed.
“But I’m worried about you, Angela.”
“There’s nothing to worry about. It’s only the pain, the pain and the
faintness, the horrid faintness. If only I had some smelling salts,” she
moaned.
“There are some in my dressing-case,” Helen said quickly. “I’ll ring.”
“Oh no, no, you mustn’t!” Mrs. Hilary cried. “I—I—can’t let Barker see
me like this. No, no! Don’t do that. Couldn’t you get them yourself,
dear? Couldn’t you? Do you mind?”
“Why, no—of course not.” Helen was puzzled—and a little amused. How
absurd Angela was—even when ill.
“How long will it take you?” Mrs. Hilary asked faintly.
“About two minutes.”
“That will do nicely,” the sick woman said with sudden cheerfulness.
“Helen,” she cried fretfully as the other turned to go, “don’t hurry.
You are not to hurry. Promise me you won’t hurry. It drives me crazy to
have people hurry.”
Helen studied her friend for a moment, shook a puzzled and a now
somewhat suspicious head, and went slowly out.
As the door closed the fainting one bounced up, searched the room
rapidly with her sharp American eyes, rushed to the window, threw it
open, and leaned out far over the sill.
“It’s all right, thank goodness, at last! Come in!” she called in a
shrill whisper.
A brown hand clasped the sill in a moment. In another a khaki-clad man
swung up into the room. Hugh had come home.
Not the spick and span serviceless subaltern of eight months ago, but a
sergeant, battered and brown—his uniform worn and faded, his face thin
and alert. Hugh Pryde’s face had never been that before.
“My, but I’ve had a time,” Angela Hilary told him.
Once in the familiar room he looked about it quickly, heaved a great
sigh of relief, threw his cap on the table, and laid his hands on the
back of a chair affectionately, as if greeting an old friend.
Mrs. Hilary shut the window carefully. “Did any one see you come through
the garden?” she asked.
“No.”
“Sure?”
“Quite.”
“Well, thank Heaven for that much.”
“Helen?” he begged. “No danger of her seeing me?” he added.
“No—no—of course not,” Angela replied promptly. “I told you she was in
town.”
Hugh sighed. “I want to see her—but I mustn’t.”
“Of course you mustn’t.” Mrs. Hilary was plainly shocked at the very
idea. “Of course not—but I’m sure she’d want to see you, if she
knew—and, if she hadn’t been in town, she might help you. Do you know?
I almost wish she’d come in by accident, and find you.”
Hugh drew a sharp breath. “No, no!” he said quickly, “I promised not to
see her until I could show that I was innocent.”
“Well, now that you _are_ in this room, I hope you can prove it quickly.
This atmosphere of conspirator is wearing me to a frazzle. I’m so jumpy
my powder won’t half stick on, and that’s awful. And every time I see a
policeman the cold chills run up and down my spine, and I speckle all
over with goose-flesh. This morning one of them came to see me about a
dog license and I was so terrified I went wobbly and almost fainted away
in his arms. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and have some tea.” She
turned to go, elated and dimpling—like the child that she was.
“Mrs. Hilary!” Hugh delayed her. She turned back to him. “You’ve been a
dear.”
“I always am.”
He caught her hands. “I’ve a lot to thank you for. You know I can’t say
things—I never could. But I want you to know how I appreciate it.”
“Oh! that’s nothing,” she said gayly. “You mustn’t thank me. It wasn’t
kindness. It’s just sheer creature weakness; it’s simply that I don’t
seem able to resist a uniform, I never could. There was a German band in
’Frisco——” But she heard a light step in the hall. “Good gracious! I’m
forgetting Dr. Latham. Good luck!” she cried hysterically and sped from
the room, as Helen stood in the door.