Second String Part 37

"Let's suppose it's one of those thousand things that are going to change," he suggested, with his sceptical smile.

"Do things between men and women change much, in spite of all the talk?

You've read history, I haven't."

"Yes, I have to a certain extent. I don't know that I'm inclined to give you the result of my researches. Not very cheerful! And, meanwhile, there's Andy Hayes!"

"I never do it," the Nun repeated firmly. "Besides, in this case I've not been asked. I'm not the sort of girl he would fall in love with."

"Will you forgive an old man's compliment, Miss Flower, if I say I don't know the sort of man who wouldn't--I'll put it mildly, I'll say mightn't--fall in love with the sort of girl you are?"

"I forgive it, but it's not as clever as you generally are. Andy always wants to help. Well, I don't want anybody to help me, you see."

"The delight of the eyes?" he suggested. "What? That doesn't count? Only such as you can afford to say so!"

"I don't think it counts much with Andy. He appreciates, oh yes! He almost stared me out of countenance the first time we met; and that's supposed to be difficult--in London! But I don't think it really counts for a great deal. Andy's not a love-making man; he's emphatically a marrying man."

"You draw that distinction? But the love-making men marry?"

"In the end perhaps--generally rather by accident. They haven't the instinct."

"You've thought about these things a good deal, Miss Flower."

"I live almost entirely among men, you see," she answered simply. "And they show me more than they show girls of--of that other cla.s.s. Shall I call again on your reminiscences?" She smiled suddenly and brightly.

"Miss Wellgood's being awfully nice to me. She's been here twice, and I'm going to tea at Nutley to-morrow."

"She's one of the dearest girls in the world," said Belfield. "Harry's a lucky fellow." He glanced at the Nun. "I hope he appreciates it properly. I believe he does."

She offered no comment, and a rather blank silence followed. If Belfield had sought a rea.s.surance, he had not received it. On the other hand she gave away no secrets. She, like the silence, was blank, looking away from him, down High Street.

The Bird pa.s.sed the window; Jack Rock trotted by on a young horse; one of his business equipages clattered along not far behind him; the quiet old street basked and dozed in the sun.

"What a dear rest it is--this little town!" said the Nun softly. "Surely nothing but what's happy and peaceful and pleasant can ever happen here?"

Sally Dutton came by, returning from a stroll to which she had betaken herself on Belfield's arrival.

"Well, Sally, been amusing yourself?" the Nun called.

"The streets present their usual gay and animated aspect," observed Miss Dutton, as she entered the Lion.

"There are the two sides of the question," laughed Belfield. "The line between peace and dullness--each man draws it for himself--in pencil--with india-rubber handy! I'm really afraid we're not amusing Miss Dutton?"

"Oh yes, she's all right. That's only her way." She smiled reflectively; Sally always amused her.

Belfield rose to take leave. "We can't let Nutley beat us," he said. "We must have you at Halton too!" He was led into a.s.suming that his little domestic struggle would end in victory.

She looked at him, still smiling. "Wait and see how I behave at Nutley first. If Harry gives a good report of me--I suppose he'll be there?--ask me to Halton!"

He laughed, and so let the question go. After all, it would not do to be too sudden with his wife.

"You needn't be afraid of Harry. But Wellgood's rather a formidable character."

"And Miss Vintry? Is she alarming?"

He pursed up his lips. "I think she might be called a little--alarming."

"I'll have a good look at her--and perhaps I'll let you know what I think of her," said the Nun, with no more than the slightest twinkle in her eyes. It was enough for Belfield's quickness; it was much more informing than the blank silence--though even that had set him thinking.

But the Nun's account of her first visit to Nutley chanced--or perhaps it was not chance--to be rendered not to Belfield, but to Andy Hayes.

After the last meeting of the campaign, he had gone round to smoke a pipe with Jack Rock. Leaving him hard on midnight--there had been much to be wormed out of Andy concerning his speeches, their reception, the applause--he saw a light still burning in the window at the Lion. As he drew near, he perceived that the window was open, and he heard a voice crooning softly. He made bold to look in. The Nun was alone; she sat in the window, doing nothing, singing to herself. "Boo!" said Andy, putting his big head in at the window.

"Andy!" she cried, her face lighting up. "Jump in! You've come to scare the devils! There are a hundred of them, and they won't go away for all my singing. And Sally's gone to bed, prophesying a breaking of at least six out of the Ten Commandments! And only yesterday I told Mr. Belfield that nothing unpleasant could happen in Meriton! Where is one to go for quiet if things happen in Meriton?"

An outburst like this was most unusual with the Nun. It produced on Andy's face such a look of mild wonder as may be seen on a St. Bernard's when a toy-terrier barks furiously.

"What's happened?"

"I've been at Nutley."

"Oh yes! Harry came on from there in the car--got to the meeting rather late."

"Something's happened--or is happening--in that house." She looked at him sharply. "You've been here longer than I have--do you know anything?

Go on with your pipe."

Andy considered long, smoking his pipe.

"You do know something!" she exclaimed.

"I've ground for some uneasiness," he admitted.

She nodded. "It was all sort of underground," she said. "Really most uncomfortable! They'd try to get away from it, and yet come back to it--those three--Mr. Wellgood, Harry, and that Miss Vintry. Poor Vivien seemed quite outside of it all, but somehow conscious of it--and unhappy. She saw there was--what shall I say?--antagonism, you know. And she didn't know why. Have you seen anything that would make Mr. Wellgood savage if he saw it?"

"He didn't see what I saw."

"Not that time anyhow!" she amended quickly.

Andy frowned. "That time, I mean, of course. If he's seen anything of that sort, or suspected it, naturally, as Vivien Wellgood's father--"

"Vivien's father!" Her tone was full of impatience for his stupidity. "I suppose no woman has ever been to Nutley lately? Oh, Vivien's not one; she's a saint--and that's neither male nor female. Vivien's father!"

"I've been there off and on," said Andy.

"You! Have you ever seen--not that I suppose you'd notice it--a woman keeping two men from one another's throats, trying to make them think there's nothing to quarrel about, trying to say things that one could take in one way, and the other in the other--and third persons not take in any way at all? Oh, it's a pretty game, and I'm bound to say she plays it finely. But she's on thin ice, that woman, and she knows it.

Vivien's father!"

"Why do you go on repeating 'Vivien's father'?"

"I won't." She leant forward and laid her small hand on his arm. "Isobel Vintry's lover, then! The man's in love with her, Andy, as sure as we sit here. In love--and furious!"