The Sea Lady Part 25

His pa.s.sive hold of her hands became a pressure. Then they dropped apart again.

"You are very good to help us," she said as he turned to go.

He looked at her. "You are very good to help me," she said, and then: "Tell him whatever you like if only he will come back to me!... No!

Tell him what I have said." He saw she had something more to say, and stopped. "You know, Mr. Melville, all this is like a book newly opened to me. Are you sure----?"

"Sure?"

"Sure of what you say--sure of what she is to him--sure that if he goes on he will--" She stopped.

He nodded.

"It means--" she said and stopped again.

"No adventure, no incident, but a going out from all that this life has to offer."

"You mean," she insisted, "you mean----?"

"Death," said Melville starkly, and for a s.p.a.ce both stood without a word.

She winced, and remained looking into his eyes. Then she spoke again.

"Mr. Melville, tell him to come back to me."

"And----?"

"Tell him to come back to me, or"--a sudden note of pa.s.sion rang in her voice--"if I have no hold upon him, let him go his way."

"But--" said Melville.

"I know," she cried, with her face set, "I know. But if he is mine he will come to me, and if he is not-- Let him dream his dream."

Her clenched hand tightened as she spoke. He saw in her face she would say no more, that she wanted urgently to leave it there. He turned again towards the staircase. He glanced at her and went down.

As he looked up from the bend of the stairs she was still standing in the light.

He was moved to proclaim himself in some manner her adherent, but he could think of nothing better than: "Whatever I can do I will." And so, after a curious pause, he departed, rather stumblingly, from her sight.

IV

After this interview it was right and proper that Melville should have gone at once to Chatteris, but the course of events in the world does occasionally display a lamentable disregard for what is right and proper. Points of view were destined to crowd upon him that day--for the most part entirely unsympathetic points of view. He found Mrs. Bunting in the company of a boldly trimmed bonnet in the hall, waiting, it became clear, to intercept him.

As he descended, in a state of extreme preoccupation, the boldly trimmed bonnet revealed beneath it a white-faced, resolute person in a duster and sensible boots. This stranger, Mrs. Bunting made apparent, was Lady Poynting Mallow, one of the more representative of the Chatteris aunts.

Her ladys.h.i.+p made a few enquiries about Adeline with an eye that took Melville's measure, and then, after agreeing to a number of the suggestions Mrs. Bunting had to advance, proposed that he should escort her back to her hotel. He was much too exercised with Adeline to discuss the proposal. "I walk," she said. "And we go along the lower road."

He found himself walking.

She remarked, as the Bunting door closed behind them, that it was always a comfort to have to do with a man; and there was a silence for a s.p.a.ce.

I don't think at that time Melville completely grasped the fact that he had a companion. But presently his meditations were disturbed by her voice. He started.

"I beg your pardon," he said.

"That Bunting woman is a fool," repeated Lady Poynting Mallow.

There was a slight interval for consideration.

"She's an old friend of mine," said Melville.

"Quite possibly," said Lady Poynting Mallow.

The position seemed a little awkward to Melville for a moment. He flicked a fragment of orange peel into the road. "I want to get to the bottom of all this," said Lady Poynting Mallow. "Who _is_ this other woman?"

"What other woman?"

"_Tertium quid_," said Lady Poynting Mallow, with a luminous incorrectness.

"Mermaid, I gather," said Melville.

"What's the objection to her?"

"Tail."

"Fin and all?"

"Complete."

"You're sure of it?"

"Certain."

"How do you know?"

"I'm certain," repeated Melville with a quite unusual testiness.

The lady reflected.

"Well, there are worse things in the world than a fishy tail," she said at last.

Melville saw no necessity for a reply. "H'm," said Lady Poynting Mallow, apparently by way of comment on his silence, and for a s.p.a.ce they went on.

"That Glendower girl is a fool too," she added after a pause.

My cousin opened his mouth and shut it again. How can one answer when ladies talk in this way? But if he did not answer, at any rate his preoccupation was gone. He was now acutely aware of the determined person at his side.

"She has means?" she asked abruptly.

"Miss Glendower?"