The Making of a Prig Part 35

"Phyllis was wondering if I was ever coming back again to my work,"

she said to him abruptly.

"Oh, was she? Rather a nice girl, Phyllis, if she didn't dress so badly," observed Ted unconsciously. They were at a Wagner concert in the Queen's Hall, and the Siegfried Idyll had just drawn to a close.

It seemed to her an auspicious moment.

"I said I was never coming back," pursued Katharine, studying his profile critically.

"Of course not," said Ted, humming the refrain they had just heard.

For once, Katharine felt faintly annoyed with him for his want of proper sentiment.

"I don't believe you care whether I do or not," she said in a piqued tone.

"Eh, what?" said Ted, staring round at her in blank amazement. "Ought I to have said anything else? But you settled that long ago, Kit, didn't you? There is nothing more to be said about it, is there?"

"Oh, no, of course not," said Katharine, in what seemed to him a most unreasonable manner; "but all the same, I'm not at all sure that I sha'n't go back when the term begins again."

Ted stared more than ever.

"Oh, rats!" he exclaimed, heartily. "What's wrong, Kitty? Have you been hit up to-day, or anything? I'm such a rotten a.s.s, I never know.

Of course you're never going to grind any more; what an idea!"

"Why not?" asked Katharine, with uncomfortable persistence. Ted began to make fresh a.s.sertions, but paused in the middle and hesitated. He suddenly realised that there was only one answer to her question, and that he would have to make it now. He looked down and made havoc with his programme, and stammered hopelessly until Katharine took pity on him and came to his a.s.sistance with a laugh.

"It's all right, old man; I am never going back, of course," she said; and Ted brightened up again when he found that he need not propose to her yet, and was obviously relieved at the establishment of their old relations. She did nothing more to change them, and the only result of her abortive attempt was, that Ted was more attentive to her than before, and constantly made little plans for taking her to some unfrequented museum or picture gallery, evidently with some design in his mind which he had not the courage to carry out.

"Poor old Ted," she thought to herself, after they had spent a dull and silent afternoon at the Royal Inst.i.tute among the colonial produce; "I wonder if he will ever get it out!"

Curiously enough, through all the weeks she spent in town, the thought of Paul Wilton rarely crossed her mind; and when it did she felt that it referred to some former life of hers, with which this present calm existence had no connection. Sometimes she wondered idly whether he were married yet, and if so, whether he ever gave a thought to her; but she could think of Marion as his wife without a regret, and she was glad to find that she had no desire whatever to see him again. The impression he seemed to have left in her mind, after all these months, was that of a disturbing element which had brought the greatest unhappiness into her life she had ever been forced to endure. It was inconsequent, perhaps, that, thinking thus, she should have been emphatic in her refusal to go and see the Keeleys; but although she was incapable of explaining why she felt so strongly about such a small matter, she was at least genuine in her belief that he had no further place in her thoughts.

And then, two days before they left town, she met him at last.

It was in Bury Street, late on a foggy afternoon, as she was on her way to the Museum with Ted. She had stopped with an exclamation of delight in front of an old book shop, and the owner, who was talking to an intending purchaser inside, came out good-naturedly and offered to light the gas jet over the tray of dusty volumes. "I shall have to stop now," whispered Katharine; "supposing you go on for daddy and bring him back here?"

The light flared up, and made a bright semicircle in the gloom that was fast closing up round the shop. The customer who was inside concluded his purchase, and came out just as Ted was strolling off.

Apparently they did not see each other, and the fog soon swallowed up the retreating form; but Katharine turned round at this moment from the book she was examining, and met the stranger face to face.

"Ah," he said, quietly; "at last!"

"Yes," she repeated; "at last!"

It did not strike her until afterwards that it was not at all the mode of address with which she would have greeted him had she been more prepared; but at the time it came quite naturally to her lips. He still held her hand as he went on speaking.

"And Ted? Where have you sent him? Will he be long?"

She resented the implication in his words.

"I have not sent him anywhere. He has gone to fetch my father from the Museum; they will be back directly. Do you mean to say you recognised Ted in that instant?"

"Why, surely! Did you not recognise me, although I was standing back there in the shadow?"

"Of course I didn't," cried Katharine hotly, as she pulled away her hand. "I never saw you until you came out into the light. I should have stopped Ted if I had."

"Oh, to be sure; pardon my mistake. Of course you would have detained Ted in that case." And he smiled as though he were faintly amused at something.

She had noticed his glad look of recognition, and she hated him for it. What right had he to be glad to see her? And now that he was laughing at her and making insinuations about Ted, true insinuations moreover, she hated him still more for his acuteness.

"So you are back in town?" he was saying, with what appeared to be meant for a kindly interest. "I am not surprised, though. I always knew you would have to come back."

"What do you mean?" she asked, feeling more annoyed than ever. It was so like him to know everything about her without being told, and then to put a complexion upon it that he gave her no opportunity of contradicting. "We came up, daddy and I, because Ted was ill; and we are going back again on Wednesday."

"Really? My mistake again. It is difficult to imagine Ted except in the complete enjoyment of his health. Not seriously ill, I hope?"

"Oh, no," she said, with an uncomfortable conviction that she was being made to expose herself in all her weakness; "but there was no one to nurse him, so I came. He is all right now."

"So I should judge from the brief glimpse I had of him just now. Lucky fellow, Ted! He looked very jolly, I thought; no doubt he has good cause for his happiness. You are looking well too, if I may say so. It is very delightful to be young, is it not?"

She felt a wild rage against him for detecting the situation so absolutely, and for making it merely a subject for his raillery. She did not know how she would have wished him to take it, but she hated him all the same for so calmly accepting it.

"I don't understand you," she said, speaking rapidly. "It isn't a bit delightful; you know it isn't. You know I hate you; you know I am the most miserable person in the whole world. You know everything there is to know about me; and I hate you! Why did you come back to spoil it all, when I was trying so hard to be happy?"

Her own words amazed her. She knew they were true as she spoke them; but she had not known it ten minutes ago.

"I'm sorry," he said, gravely. "Shall I go?"

He had completely dropped his jesting tone, but she hated him for his pity even more than she had hated him for his ridicule; she tried to speak, but her anger choked her utterance.

"When will you be at Ivingdon again?" he asked. "Did you say Wednesday? And you are going to leave Ted in town?"

She asked herself why he did not go, instead of standing there and making conversation by inventing questions to which he could not possibly want to know the answers. But she mechanically made a gesture in the affirmative to both of them; and he repeated his former inquiry with gentle insistence.

"Shall I go now?"

"Yes, go!" she cried fiercely, and ignored the hand he proffered her, and let him go without another word.

The fog swallowed him up, and she stood and gazed at the place where he had stood, and wondered vaguely if he had been there at all or if she had not dreamt the whole incident. For one moment the wild impulse seized her to rush after him into the fog and the darkness, and to implore him to take her with him anywhere, so long as she might be with him. And then a smile flickered across her face as the bookseller came out and spoke to her; and she paid for the first volume she picked up; and the Rector and Ted emerged from the fog into the semicircle of light, and life resumed its ordinary aspect again.

"Has he gone?" asked Ted.

"Who? Mr. Wilton? I did not know you saw him. Oh, yes; he went some time ago. Isn't this a jolly little thing I have picked up?" said Katharine lightly; and Ted apparently thought no more about it.

That evening she was almost feverishly gay. The Rector sat and smiled happily as she turned everything that occurred into ridicule, and made every pa.s.ser-by a subject for her wit. They did not go to a theatre, on account of the bad weather; and when Monty dropped in to coffee later on, she kept him in a perpetual condition of adoring approval until the fact of Ted's gloomy silence was gradually forced upon her, and she blamed herself hotly for her stupidity. She was very cool to Monty after she had realised her blunder; and the poor fellow, who was quite ignorant of his offence, took the first opportunity to depart.

Even then, in spite of her efforts to be kind to him, Ted did not wholly recover his spirits; and she sighed inwardly as she reflected that she could not even be sure of accomplis.h.i.+ng the one task she had set herself to perform.

And the next day her old restlessness possessed her again. All the work of the past six weeks seemed to have been suddenly undone; nothing brought her any happiness, she reflected bitterly; she was incapable of happiness and it was absurd of her to have expected to find it. All the same, perhaps if Ted were to say something to her--but Ted still said nothing, and went about making plans for her enjoyment on this her last day in town, as though their coming separation were of no matter at all; and he seemed as unconscious of her change of mood as he had been all along of her unusual contentment. The day was not a success; their little improvised amus.e.m.e.nts had been far more satisfactory than the carefully planned ones of to-day, and Ted's silence on the one subject of interest grew more marked as the time wore on, and ended in raising an uncomfortable barrier between them. Once she felt sure that he would have spoken if the Rector had not come in unexpectedly; and once, he startled her by suddenly taking both her hands in his and looking into her eyes for a full minute, while she waited pa.s.sively for him to speak. But he turned very red instead, and called himself a fool and hurried out of the room, and left her half amused and half regretful. She felt very tender towards him after that; and the old desire to mother him was very strong within her when they stood together at last on the platform at Euston, and had only a few moments left in which to say what was in their minds.

"G.o.d bless you, dear! I shall see you again soon?" was all she could bring herself to say in that last moment.