1
Julia Cavendish was always at home on Saturday afternoons. You used to
meet nearly all social sorts and conditions of men and women in that
exquisitely tended Bruton Street house: literary folk, financial folk,
embassy folk, Anglican priests, politicians, schoolmasters with their
wives, young soldiers with their fiancées, old soldiers with their
grievances, the "Ritz crowd" (which thinks itself Society), and real
Society (which does not need to think about itself at all), intellectual
aristocrats and democratic intellectuals--the whole curious "London"
which an eclectic woman of means can, if she be so minded, gather about
herself by the time she reaches sixty.
But the house itself betrayed, to a trained observer, the fact that
Ronnie's mother really preferred things to people. Not necessarily
expensive things--only occasionally could she afford a real "piece": but
pleasant things; beautiful things that became, as it were, part of one's
life; things one could feel about the house as though they were people,
but people without too many claims on one.
Despite which, No. 67a was neither over-large nor over-crowded with
possessions. Old prints had space on its panels, old furniture on its
floors. Jade idols, Toby mugs, Dresden, Chelsea, and Japanese figures
did not jostle one another on its mantelpieces or in its cabinets.
Spanish velvets and Venetian brocades forbore to pose as "specimens,"
but were curtains, cushions, or chair-covers as use demanded. Georgian
silver employed itself in a hospitable capacity; Satsuma vases held
flowers; Bokhara rugs covered the parquet, not the walls.
"I'm a practical old woman," said Julia; and she looked it now, as she
lay reading on the sofa in the square bow-windowed drawing-room.
A rather stern face was Julia Cavendish's: the Wixton chin dimpled but
very determined; the eyes, under their tortoise-shell spectacles, bluer,
harder than the eyes of her son. The wrinkles in the scarcely powdered
cheeks and at the high temples, as well as the graying of the light
brown hair, not all her own, betrayed her age. But the hands which held
the novel still appeared the hands of a young woman; nor had the years
robbed her of her figure. Her dress--a black tea-gown, real lace at
bosom and wrist--was so unfashionable as to be almost smart. Black silk
stockings and black satin shoes--she had elegant feet--complete the
picture.
A bell rang below. Julia laid her novel on a little lacquered stand by
the sofa; took off her spectacles; and sat up to the maid's announcement
of "Mr. Fancourt."
Dot Fancourt, a sentimental, unhappy old man with over-red cheeks,
sunken eyes and beetling gray brows, his weak mouth hidden by a walrus
mustache, extended both dry hands in effusive salutation.
"My dear, how are you?"
"In the best of health, as usual." Julia Cavendish released her fingers
from the dry hands. "Tell me what Fleet Street thinks about the Ellerson
case."
The editor of "The Contemplatory Magazine" began to gossip; and she
listened to him. The pair had been friends for thirty years, the man's
weakness of character finding comfort in the woman's strength. "Poor
Dot!" thought Julia. His last illness, and the inevitable last
sentimental complication, had aged him. Probably he would go next of the
Victorians. That would leave only Harrison, Gosse, Hardy, and . . .
"Mr. Paul Flower, madam," announced the maid.
There entered a pale, hairless sexagenarian who resembled nothing so
much as a very large white slug. He greeted them both sluggishly; and
began to discuss, with an almost Biblical frankness, the psychology of
Lady Hermione Ellerson--whom he had never met.
"A passionate limpet," he pronounced her, pulverizing that imaginary
mollusc between thumb and forefinger. "The clinging type. I remember
when I was a young man in Paris----"
Paul Flower's conversation, unfortunately, will no more bear the ordeal
of cold print than Rear-Admiral Billy's. He continued holding forth on
the subject of his Parisian youth till interrupted by tea, and Lucien
Olphert--a bald-headed, under-sized creature whose real life was as mild
as his historical novels were heroic. Various other novelists--Jack
Coole, Robert Backwell, and John Binney with Mrs. Binney--dropped in.
Literary "shop," inanest of all "shops" to an outsider, was in full
blast when the maid ushered in Lady Simeon Brunton.
The ex-ambassadress swept across Julia's drawing-room like a well-bred
monsoon. Her Paquin confection--frailest gossamer black with gold
underskirt--rustled condescension. The ospreys in her Lewis hat waved
approving patronage to art and letters.
"You see that I took you at your word, Mrs. Cavendish."
The hostess, who had been introduced to Lady Simeon (and promptly
forgotten her) at a Foreign Office reception some weeks previously, said
the appropriate word and made the appropriate presentations.
"But this isn't a mere social call." explained the new-comer. "This is a
call with a purpose."
She accepted some tea; and subsided on to the sofa. Paul Flower judged
her a Philistine (i.e., a woman who did not regard Paul Flower as the
last living exponent of English literature), but decided her attractive.
He approved her age, about forty-five; her eyes, which were darkly
vivacious; her figure, which was inclined to the abundant; her hair and
complexion, which were both _soigné_, the one matching her eyes and the
other her pearls.
Jack Coole, the two Binneys, and Robert Backwell, his prominent teeth
parted in a valedictory grin, departed. Flower, Fancourt, and Olphert
continued to talk shop.
"A call with a purpose sounds very serious," prompted Julia.
Sir Simeon's wife smiled diplomatically. "The fact is, dear Mrs.
Cavendish, that I want you to dine with us. Next Thursday. You will,
won't you? Although it is such a short invitation. We shall be quite a
small party--not more than twenty at the outside. And will you bring
your son?"
"My son----" Julia, whose inclination was to decline--for some time now,
late nights had wearied her--became visibly more gracious.
"Yes. My cousin Hermione--poor dear, what a time she's been going
through--and all this publicity--so distressing for everybody--says he
was simply charming to her during the case. So wise! So calm! So
helpful! You must be very proud of your son, Mrs. Cavendish."
Not for nothing had the heiress of The Raneegunge Jute and Cotton Mills
married an ambassador!
"Ronnie's coming to dinner this evening," said Ronnie's mother. "If he's
free on Thursday we shall both be delighted. May I telephone you?"
2
Ronnie, who had been watching the polo at Ranelagh, arrived ten minutes
late for dinner.
He came unannounced into the drawing-room; kissed his mother;
complimented her on her clothes (she had changed into a dinner-gown in
his honor); and inquired about the afternoon.
"Dullish," pronounced Julia--and broached the Brunton invitation.
"The Bruntons!" He seemed a little taken aback at the name. "I don't
think I care to go."
"Nonsense. Of course you must go. A barrister's career is mainly
social."
She prolonged the argument over dinner; she mentioned the Brunton
"influence," the Ellerson case: till eventually--somewhat against his
better judgment--she persuaded him to go.
A very different Julia this from the hostess of the afternoon! Always a
little constrained, a little too dignified in company; with her son, she
hid affection under a mask of brusquerie almost dictatorial. In boyhood
Ronnie had been frightened by the mask; even at thirty-six he was only
just beginning to realize the affection it concealed.
Only since his return from the war had full knowledge of this affection
come to him. He saw her now--sipping her coffee in the print-hung,
walnut-furnished dining-room--as a lonely old woman dependent on his
love. And the sight hurt, because his heart was already aware of the
possibility that one day there might be another woman, a younger woman,
in his life.
"I wish you'd let me make you a decent allowance," she said abruptly.
"You ought to be about everywhere. You ought to stand for Parliament.
Even if you don't get in, it's an advertisement."
"I thought you hated publicity, mater."
"So I do--for myself." She cogitated. "I could manage another eight
hundred a year."
"And deprive yourself of----"
"Of nothing. I don't want any money. I'm too old to know how to spend
it. You'll have it all when I'm dead," she added.
"Mater!"--he was the softer in many ways--"I wish you wouldn't talk like
that."
"Why not? Death's a fact. I've no patience with people who won't face
facts. Life isn't a kinema show."
Coffee finished, they removed themselves to Julia's work-room--a square
box of an apartment, book-lined, an Empire desk in its exact center
under the illuminated top-light. Julia sat down at the desk; opened a
drawer; and took out her check-book.
"Eight hundred a year," she said, writing. "That's two hundred a
quarter. I'd better cross the check."
"Don't be absurd, mater." Ronnie frowned.
"But I want you to have it."
"What for?"
"Oh, clothes. You ought to dress better. Club subscriptions.
Entertaining. Cigars. I don't know what men spend their money on. Women,
mostly, I suppose."
Blotting the check, she would have given anything in the world to say:
"Ronnie, darling, do take it. I can't slobber like other women. But I
love you--you're everything I have in the world. Please, please Ronnie,
don't refuse this. It's not money--it's just a token--a token of my love
for you."
Actually, she said: "If your father hadn't been such a fool about money
matters, he'd have left _you_ his estate. He knew that I could always
make all I wanted."
Ronnie frowned again. "You know perfectly well that I won't take it."
"Not even to oblige me? I--I want you to take it. It may cheer you up.
You've been looking depressed lately."
"Have I?"
They had played this comedy of the allowance more than once since his
father's death; but never before had he seen her so insistent.
"Yes." She stretched out the check to him, knowing her offer already
rebuffed. In a way, she was proud of his independence. All the same, it
hurt. One ought to be able to do more for one's child.
"I'm not depressed. And I'm not hard up. Really."
He smiled at her across the desk--one of those rare smiles which
reminded her of the boy she had tried to tip at Winchester. She seemed
to hear his boyish voice, "The pater gave me a fiver when he was down
last. I don't need any more. Honestly, mater."
"You're quite sure?"
"Quite." He watched her tear up the check; noticed a sheaf of proofs on
her desk; and questioned her about them. "Another short story!"
"No. It's an article on 'Easy Divorce' for next month's 'Contemplatory.'
These are the duplicate proofs."
"You're opposing it?"
"Of course."
"On moral grounds?"
"Not entirely. Listen!" She put on her spectacles, and read him the
opening paragraphs. "The woman of to-day is asking that divorce and
remarriage should be made easier. Why? Because the woman of to-day
refuses to face the simple fact that primarily she is her husband's
helpmate. Personally I am a Churchwoman; and therefore find it
impossible to believe the remarriage of divorced people justified. I am
willing to admit that, in a limited number of cases, divorce itself may
be expedient. But I feel that to make divorce easier would be a direct
encouragement of immorality. We have to face facts. Woman is not, never
has been, and never will be capable of resisting the sentimental
impulse."
"You're a real Puritan at heart, aren't you, mater?" he interrupted.
She put down the proofs, vaguely distressed that he should prefer her
conversation to her written word. For work, to Julia Cavendish, counted
more than anything in life--except this lean, clean, sober-minded son of
hers.
"It isn't a very good article, I'm afraid. Dot was in too much of a
hurry for it. I never could write quickly."
These last months she had discovered herself writing even less quickly
than usual. Once or twice, even, she had been forced to break off in the
middle of the morning by a strange fatigue--a pain in her back. She had
meant to consult a doctor; meant to ask Ronnie's advice. But she hated
fussing about herself, hated fussing Ronnie. And besides, Ronnie _was_
depressed--in some trouble or other. She could feel that trouble
instinctively.
"You're sure nothing's worrying you?" she asked him as they said good
night.
"Quite sure. Sleep well, mater."
He kissed her, and went.
"No," he thought, striding home to the rooms in Jermyn Street which she
had insisted on furnishing for him. "No! Nothing's wording me. In point
of sheer fact, I've never been so bucked in my life."
And he was "bucked," ludicrously so; "bucked" because he had yielded to
his mother's persuasions; ludicrously so because, just for the moment,
he had altogether forgotten Hector Brunton's existence.
Only when he awoke next morning did Ronald Cavendish remember that
Aliette was a married woman--and the possibility that, after all, she
might not be one of the guests at her uncle-in-law's dinner-party.
3
The ambassadorial branch of the Brunton family occupies a palace of a
house in that palatial avenue, Kensington Palace Gardens.
Driving thither with his mother in the electric brougham with which she
compromised between the horseflesh of the Victorian past and the petrol
of the democratic present, Ronnie knew himself feverishly excited. All
the suppressed emotions of three months leaped to new anticipation as
they rolled away from Bruton Street, through Berkeley Square into the
park.
It was still daylight. Happy lower-middle-class folk crowded the seats
under the trees, the grass beyond. Here and there, lovers, splendidly
indifferent to the public eye, embraced one another with the frankness
of post-wartime. Subconsciously, the sight of these couples affected the
serious young man in the silk hat and stiff shirt of formal party-going.
Almost he envied them.
"The season has been the fiasco one expected," commented his mother.
"Decent people have no money to spend--the other sort don't know how to
spend it. I wish you'd order yourself a new dress-suit, Ronnie. And
those waistcoat buttons are very old-fashioned. I must get you some new
ones."
"Rather a contradictory sentence," he commented.
"Nothing of the kind. It's a man's duty to be well-groomed." She
sighed--it had been a tiring day, and she hated dinner-parties. "I often
wish you'd stayed on in the army."
"Why?"
"I think you were happier; and the army, in peace-time, is so healthy."
"You do worry about me, don't you?"
"Of course. That's what mothers are for."
The remark, coming from her, sounded curiously pathetic. For the moment,
Ronnie forgot his anticipations. He put a shy hand on his mother's arm.
"Cheer up, mater," he said, seeing her, once again, as a lonely old
woman--the intellect, the public fame of her, merest surface-stuff.
By now, they were through Hyde Park, and into Kensington Gardens. She
removed her arm; made her usual acrid comment on the Albert Memorial;
and the pair of them subsided into contemplation.
Contemplating, Ronald Cavendish realized for the first time exactly how
far he had already drifted toward violation of his mother's code. He
imagined himself saying to Julia, "Mater, I'm in love with Aliette
Brunton."
But he could not imagine Julia's reply. The old fear of her came back,
chilling him.
And yet, code or no code, mother or no mother, he had to admit himself
in love, passionately in love with Aliette Brunton. Even the possibility
of meeting her thrilled his whole being. Looking back now, he saw that
not for one hour since their ride together had she been entirely out of
his thoughts.
Their electric circled out of the gardens, climbed Palace Green, and
swung left between high lights, on to gravel, under an awning. A footman
opened the brougham-door. Ronnie, jumping out, helped his mother to
alight. "Thanks, dear. Tell him to be back by eleven," she said.
Obeying, Ronnie was conscious that he stood in the glare of impatient
headlights. Behind and above the glare, through the plate-glass front of
the approaching cabriolet, he saw two faces: one heavy-jowled above its
starched collar, the other--Aliette's.
4
"That looked like young Cavendish. If it was, and you get an
opportunity, don't forget about asking him to dine with us," said Hector
Brunton.
Aliette did not answer; but her gloved hands, as she alighted from her
husband's car, trembled ever so slightly. She had seen _him_. He had
seen her. And the wound, the wound in her heart, was _not_ cured. She
could feel it throbbing, throbbing with sheer joy. "I'm glad I wore this
dress," she thought.
Her chinchilla cloak, ermine at neck and wrists, covered a gown of soft
grays and softer mauves, silver-girdled. Pearls gleamed at her lustrous
throat, in the tiny ears under her vivid hair. Crossing the
black-and-white tessellated hall to the ambassadorial cloak-room, she
looked a very picture of dignified composure.
But the composure was mainly superficial. Her heart throbbed and
throbbed. She forgot Hector, remembered only Ronnie. This stately old
lady, just being divested of her mandarin opera-cloak, must be his
mother. She resembled him, about the chin, about the eyes.
"What a charming woman!" thought Julia Cavendish. "I wonder if she's
Hector Brunton's wife. I wish I could find a wife like that for Ronnie."
"I'm afraid we're the last," smiled the elder woman, eying the
formidable collection of furs.
"I'm afraid so too," smiled back the younger. She took off her own
cloak; gave one swift glance at the mirror, and was ready.
"Practical, too. Makes no fuss about herself," thought Julia Cavendish,
as they reëntered the hall together.
Aliette could not think. The meeting, unanticipated, had taken her off
her guard. Delight, apprehension, sheer eagerness, and sheer diffidence
made her utterly the girl. It seemed as though, at the instant,
something tremendous must occur.
But nothing tremendous occurred! Or if it did, their social sense saw
them through it. Ronnie was talking to Hector in the hall. He shook
hands with Aliette. He introduced her to his mother. He introduced
Hector to his mother. The four of them went up the wide stairs together.
Aliette heard them announced, "Mr. and Mrs. Hector Brunton. Mrs. Julia
Cavendish. Mr. Ronald Cavendish."
How silly she had been about him. How calm he was! How calm they both
were! Naturally! He hardly knew her. They hardly knew one another.
Hector Brunton's wife realized suddenly that her left glove had split in
the clenched palm, that she had forgotten to take off her gloves before
entering the drawing-room.
"My dear child, how are you? _En beauté_, as always. A credit to the
family." She found herself, among a mob of people, shaking hands with
Simeon.
5
The craftswoman in Julia Cavendish, the literary memory and sense of
"copy" which make her books such exact social pictures, functioned quite
independently from the rest of her personality. No one, watching her as
she talked international politics with her host, would have guessed
that, behind the calm, dignified face, the novelist's brain was busy.
Kodak-like, that brain registered its impressions, rolling them away for
development at leisure.
First impression: an oblong room--paneled--Venetian
bracket-lights--brocaded French windows either end--low scarlet flowers
on a long gold-decked table, narrowing as you looked down it--many faces
either side, two faces at each end--hum of subdued
conversation--servants' white-gloved hands and dark-coated arms
proffering bottles, plates, dishes.
The camera in the brain clicks, rolls away the picture.
Second impression: Sir Simeon, sixty-eight, a little man, white-haired,
blue-eyed, mustache floppy, charming, not very efficient, presumably the
weaker matrimonial vessel--his wife ought never to wear pink--Sir
Simeon's three daughters, obviously by his first marriage, two with
wedding-rings, thirty-eight, thirty-six, nonentities--their partners
ditto--an ugly one, younger, rather interesting.
"My sympathies are entirely with the Jugo-Slavs, Sir Simeon. Italy is
not entitled to a yard of territory more than we guaranteed her by the
Treaty of London," says Julia Cavendish, society-woman.
The camera continues its work.
Third impression: the secretary of the Spanish embassy would look
exactly like a bull-fighter if he wore the national costume instead of
civilized evening-dress--General Fellowes has aged since the War Office
inquiry--a fine type--the big woman he has taken in to dinner would look
like a cantaloup melon if you cut her in two--the pretty girl flirting
with the young soldier (Guards?) must be her daughter.
"Aren't you rather hard on our allies, Mrs. Cavendish?" chips in Hector
Brunton.
"I have no patience with d'Annunzio."
"But at least you will admit that he is a patriot," protests Sir Simeon.
"No bombastic person is really patriotic. Patriotism is a dumb virtue."
"But is patriotism a virtue?" asks the K.C.
"Almost the greatest."
Julia's mental camera snaps again.
Impression of Hector Brunton: a would-be cave-man--not as strong as he
imagines himself--putty in the hands of a sexful woman--rather a
difficult problem for a fastidious wife--obstinate--capable of cruelty.
At which precise moment, the mother ousted the craftswoman from Julia's
brain. She began to wonder if Ronnie were enjoying himself. If only he
weren't so shy with women! Women made men's careers. He had taken down
that charming Mrs. Brunton. She looked down the table and caught his
eyes across the scarlet flowers. He smiled at her. He must be enjoying
himself. She had done right, then, to make him accept the invitation.
"I gather you prefer patriotism to the League of Nations," remarked her
host.
"Your League of Nations," answered Julia, "is merely the sentimental
impulse translated into terms of international diplomacy. Every one
wants it to work--every one realizes it unworkable."
Answering, she thought that she had rarely seen Ronnie look so happy.
But not even the mother in Julia Cavendish knew the cause of Ronnie's
happiness; she was as blind to her son's infatuation as Hector Brunton
to his wife's. She could not divine that the pair of them had passed
beyond mere happiness into a little illusive world of their own making.
For the moment, Aliette and Ronnie dwelt in a rose-bubble of
enchantment. A frail bubble! Yet it cut them off, as surely as though it
had been opaque crystal, from their fellow-guests. Physical passion
found no place in that rose-bubble. Their bodies, the bodies which made
pretense of eating and drinking, which uttered the most absurdly
conventional sentiments, dwelt outside of its magic; while within, their
minds, their natures, their very souls, held secret commune--as two
friends so set in friendship that words have become unnecessary. Yet
actually, magic apart, they were merely a man and a woman, each lonely,
each too healthy for that loneliness which is the prerogative of the
sick and the abnormal.
They had been lonely; now they were no longer lonely. They had been
obsessed with visions of each other; now they no longer saw visions.
They saw each other; and their souls were satisfied.
But of all that their souls knew, their lips spoke no word.
"I've often thought about that run we had," said the man. "One doesn't
get a gallop like that every day of one's life. Did you have many other
good days?"
"I didn't go out again last season," said the woman.
"Really? How was that?"
"Oh, I went down to Devonshire with my sister."
"You didn't take Miracle?"
"No." It pleased her that he remembered Miracle's name. "By the way, I'm
quite angry with you, Mr. Cavendish. Mr. Wilberforce told us on Sunday
that you preferred golf to our society."
"Jimmy's a mischief-maker. Why isn't your sister here to-night, Mrs.
Brunton?" Man-like, he wondered--now--why he had refused to call on her.
"Mollie's at a dance. I believe Mr. Wilberforce will be there too."
"Jimmy's a great dancer." Did she know, he speculated, about Jimmy and
her sister? Probably. Women--according to Ronnie--always told one
another that sort of thing.
"And you?" she asked.
"Oh, I'm like the Tenth. I don't dance."
Aliette dimpled to laughter at the old jest. It mattered so little what
he said to her with his lips. His eyes gave her the answer to the one
question; the only question she had ever asked herself in vain. His eyes
said: "Yes. This is Love. This is the Real Thing." She wondered if his
brain knew the message of his eyes. She marveled at herself for not
having sooner known the message of her heart. "I'm in love with him,"
she thought. "I've been in love with him ever since that Sunday at Key
Hatch." All the gray unease of the past months, of the past years,
diffused to amber sunshine.
The Spanish secretary, sitting on her right, chimed in to their
conversation. "You do not dance, Cavendish. That is strange. I thought
all English people danced."
The rose-bubble of enchantment was broken. Talk grew general. Dinner
drew to its end.
6
"You look a little tired, Mrs. Cavendish. Can't I get you some more
coffee? A cigarette, perhaps?"
"Thank you so much. I think I would like a cigarette."
Aliette and Julia sat together in a palm-screened corner of the vast
Louis Quinze drawing-room. The men were still downstairs. The younger
woman rose; and fetched a silver cigarette-box, matches.
Julia lit her cigarette. She felt very old, very weary, quite unlike
herself. The pain nagged at her back.
"I'm afraid I'm not a very gay companion for a beautiful young woman.
You mustn't mind my paying you compliments." Aliette had raised a
protesting hand at the word "beautiful." "When I was your age,
compliments were in vogue. Nowadays they're out of fashion--like good
manners."
"Surely good manners are never out of fashion," said Aliette.
"Only--like fashions--they change."
Lady Simeon veered toward them, but diverted her course. They talked on,
drawn to each other by a kindred obsession--Ronnie.
"I'd love to ask her what she thought of him," mused Julia Cavendish. "I
simply daren't mention her son," mused Aliette Brunton.
Thus the man found them when he came upstairs. They made an exquisite
picture, there, under the green--his mother, dignified, strong (not
wishing to let him guess her weariness, she had pulled herself together
at his approach), the halo of intellectual achievement setting her apart
from every other woman in the room; and the vivid, exquisite, but
equally dignified creature at his mother's side.
"You don't often smoke, mater." He felt consoled that these two should
be together. For the last twenty minutes the sight of Hector
Brunton--holding forth, loud-voiced, over a cigar--had made him feel a
little guilty.
"Mrs. Brunton insisted. Come and sit down, Ronnie. Unless"--servants
with card-tables made a belated appearance--"you want to play bridge."
"I'd just as soon talk."
They made place for him. He and his mother began to discuss their
fellow-guests, critically, but without malice. Listening, Aliette felt
like an interloper. Even if she had been unmarried, how could she
interpose her love--for it was love, she knew that now, knew it
irremediably--between these two? Her mind reacted from happiness to
depression.
He said to her, "You're looking very thoughtful."
She answered absent-mindedly, "Am I?"
He said: "Yes. Don't you want to play? They're making up tables."
She said: "No. I'd rather sit here and watch."
Sir Simeon drifted up to them, bringing the young Guardee and the pretty
girl he had taken down to dinner. The pair were still flirting,
butterfly-like. Their host had insisted on introducing them to Julia.
They suffered the introduction, and flitted away. "Who _is_ Julia
Cavendish?" asked the boy. "Silly! She writes poetry," answered the
girl. "Oh, I say, ought I to have read it?" "Of course you ought. I wish
we were going to dance, don't you?" "Rather."
The cantaloup lady rolled up to Sir Simeon, and dragged him away to show
her his pictures. Julia relapsed into mono-syllables. It must be nearly
half-past ten. Thank goodness! She could just manage another thirty
minutes. Meanwhile Ronnie could continue talking to this pretty woman.
Perhaps he would stay on. That would be best. She wanted to go home
alone. In the morning she could telephone Dot for the name of his
doctor.
And so, once again, the rose-bubble of enchantment formed itself about
those two lovers. But now both were conscious of the bubble's frailty.
And the man thought: "This cannot endure. I cannot endure this. To-night
must be the last time we meet." He saw her husband, pompous, considering
the call of a hand. He knew that he abhorred Brunton for the possession
of this exquisite woman. He loathed himself for abhorring Brunton.
The woman, too, saw her husband. But she could only feel sorrow for him.
Poor Hector, who would have been satisfied with so little of her; who
had never known how much she had to give. And now--now no man would ever
know. Unless----Her fastidiousness revolted abruptly from introspection.
She felt glad of Julia's:
"I think the brougham should be here by now, Ronnie. Do you mind finding
out? And don't worry to see me home. I'm sure Mrs. Brunton will never
forgive me if I drag you away."
"Don't be absurd, mater. Of course I sha'n't let you go home by
yourself." Ronnie rose, and made his way across the room.
"You'll persuade him to stop? I--I'd rather go home alone," said Julia.
"Because you're tired. Because you don't want him to see it." The words
escaped Aliette before she could control them. She covered herself
quickly. "I'm sure that must be the reason. I'm sure, if I had a son, I
should never want him to think that I was tired."
"You have children then--girls? You couldn't have known otherwise." The
novelist in Julia was asleep; she could see no other reason why this
"charming creature" should have divined her mentality.
"No. I have no children, worse luck!"
Ronnie came back to say that the brougham waited.
"You mustn't come with me, Ronnie." Julia got to her feet.
"Mater, I insist."
"Persuade him to stay, Mrs. Brunton."
Subconsciously, Aliette knew the incident momentous. His blue eyes were
looking down into hers. Behind them she read indecision. He wanted to
see his mother home: he wanted to stay with her. She could keep him at
her side. Only, if she did keep him--and it would take the littlest
look, the littlest gesture,--then she would be interloper indeed.
Consciously now, she made her first sacrifice.
"I think a son's first duty is to his mother," smiled Aliette Brunton.