Second String Part 29

The great campaign was to begin on the following Monday, though Andy would not be at leisure to devote himself to it till a week later. The talk ran on it. Wellgood, who seemed in excellent spirits, displayed keen interest in the line Harry meant to take, and was ready to be chairman whenever desired. Even Mrs. Belfield herself showed some mild excitement, and promised to attend one meeting. The girls were to go to as many as possible, Vivien being full of tremulous antic.i.p.ation of Harry's triumph, Isobel almost as enthusiastic a partisan. She had met Andy with a perfection of composure which drove out of his head any idea that she suspected him of secret knowledge.

"I'm afraid Harry's been overworking himself over it, poor boy," said Mrs. Belfield. "Don't you think he looks pale, Mr. Wellgood?"

"I don't know where he's found the time to overwork," Wellgood answered, with a gruff laugh. "We can account for most of his time at Nutley."

Harry burst into a laugh, and gulped down his wine. He was drinking a good deal of champagne.

"I sigh as a lover, mother," he explained.

"That's what makes me pale--if I am pale." His tone turned to sudden irritation. "Don't all look at me. There's nothing the matter." He laughed again; he seemed full of changes of mood to-night. "The speeches won't give me much trouble."

"I'm sure you need have no other trouble, dear," said Mrs. Belfield, with an affectionate glance at Vivien.

"He'll have much more trouble with me, won't he?" Vivien laughed.

Andy stole a look at Isobel. He was filled with admiration; a smile of just the right degree of sympathy ornamented her lips. A profane idea that she must be in the habit of being kissed crossed his mind. It was difficult to see how she could be, though--at Nutley. Kissing takes two.

He did not suspect Wellgood, and he was innocent himself.

Another eye was watching--shrewder and more experienced than Andy's--watching Harry, watching Isobel, watching while Andy stole his glance at Isobel. It was easy to keep bluff Wellgood in the dark; his own self-confidence hoodwinked him. Belfield was harder to blind; for those who had anything to conceal, it was lucky that he did not live at Nutley.

"Well, waiting for a wedding's tiresome work for all concerned, isn't it?" he said to Isobel, who sat next him.

"Yes, even waiting for other people's. It's such a provisional sort of time, Mr. Belfield."

"You've forsworn one set of pleasures, and haven't got the other yet.

You've ceased to be a rover, and you haven't got a home."

"You don't seem to consider being engaged a very joyful period?" she smiled.

"On the whole, I don't, Miss Vintry, though Vivien there looks pretty happy. But it's telling on Harry, I'm sure."

She looked across at Harry. "Yes, I think it is a little," came apparently as the result of a scrutiny suggested by Belfield's words. "I hadn't noticed it, but I'm afraid you're right."

"If there's anything up, she's a cool hand," thought Belfield. "You must try to distract his thoughts," he told her.

"I try to let them see as little of me as possible."

"Too complete a realization of matrimonial solitude _a deux_ before marriage--Is that advisable?"

"You put too difficult questions for a poor spinster to answer, Mr.

Belfield."

He got nothing out of her, but from the corner of his eye he saw Harry watching him as he talked to Isobel. Turning his head sharply, he met his son's glance full and straight. Harry dropped his eyes suddenly, and again drank off his champagne. Belfield looked sideways at the composed lady on his right, and pursed up his lips a little.

Wellgood stayed with him to-night after dinner, the young men joining the ladies in the garden for coffee.

"Our friend Miss Vintry's in great good looks to-night, Wellgood.

Remarkably handsome girl!"

"That dress suits her very well. I thought so myself," Wellgood agreed, well-pleased to have his secret choice thus endorsed.

Belfield knew nothing of his secret, nothing of his plans. He was only trying to find out whether Vivien's father were fully at his ease; of Isobel's lover and his ease he took no account.

"Upon my word," he laughed, "if I were engaged, even to a girl as charming as your Vivien, I should almost feel it an injury to have another as attractive about all day. 'How happy could I be with either--!' you know. The unregenerate man in one would feel that good material was being wasted; and my boy used to be rather unregenerate, I'm afraid."

Wellgood smiled in a satisfied fas.h.i.+on. "Even if Master Harry was disposed to play tricks, I don't think he'd get much encouragement from--"

"'T'other dear charmer?' Of course you've perfect confidence in her, or she wouldn't be where she is."

"No, nor where she's going to be," thought Wellgood, enjoying his secret.

"My licentious fancy has wronged my son. I must have felt a touch of the old Adam myself, Wellgood. Don't tell my wife."

"You wouldn't tell me, if you knew a bit more," thought triumphant Wellgood.

"I think Harry's constancy has stood a good trial. Oh, you'll think I don't appreciate Vivien! I do; but I know Harry."

Wellgood answered him in kind, with a bludgeon-like wit. "You'll think I don't appreciate Harry. I do; but I know Miss Vintry, and she doesn't care a b.u.t.ton about him."

"We proud parents put one another in our places!" laughed Belfield.

Wellgood saw no danger, and he had been home a fortnight! True, he had, before that, been away six weeks. But such mischief, if it existed, would have grown. If it had been there during the six weeks, it would have been there, in fuller growth, during the fortnight. Belfield felt rea.s.sured. He had found out what he wanted, and yet had given no hint to Vivien's father. But one or two of his remarks abode in the mind of Isobel's lover, to whom he did not know that he was speaking. Wellgood's secret position towards Isobel at once made Belfield's fears, if the fears were more than a humorous fancy, absurd, and made them, even though no more than a fancy, stick. He recked nothing of them as a father; he remembered them as a lover, yet remembered only to laugh in his robust security. He thought it would be a good joke to tell to Isobel, not realizing that it is never a good joke to tell a woman that she has been, without cause and ridiculously, considered a source of danger to legitimate affections. She may feel this or that about the charge; she will not feel its absurdity. She is generally right. Few women pa.s.s through the world without stirring in somebody once or twice an unruly impulse--a fact which should incline them all to circ.u.mspection in themselves, and to charity towards one another, if possible, and at any rate towards us.

"And what," asked Belfield, with an air of turning to less important matters, "about the life of this Parliament?"

Wellgood opined that it would prove much what a certain philosopher declared the life of man to be--nasty, short, and brutish.

In the garden Mrs. Belfield, carefully enfolded in rugs, dozed the doze of the placid. Isobel and Harry whispered across her unconscious form.

"You shouldn't drink so much champagne, Harry."

"Hang it, I want it! I said nothing wrong, did I?"

"You don't keep control of your eyes. I think your father noticed. Why look at me?"

"You know I can't help it. And I can't stand it all much longer."

"You can end it as soon as you like. Am I preventing you?"

"I beg your pardon, Miss Vintry? I'm afraid I'm drowsy."

"I was just saying I hoped I wasn't preventing Mr. Harry from strolling with Vivien, Mrs. Belfield."

"Oh yes, my dear, of course!" The placid lids fell over the placid eyes again.

"End it? How?"

"By behaving as Vivien's _fiance_ ought."