The Return of the Prodigal Part 20

He paused. He remembered perfectly that last year she had contrived pretty often to be left with him. Last year Mr. Higginson, as the Liberal candidate for East Mickleham, seemed about to achieve a distinction, which, owing to his defeat by an overwhelming majority, he had unfortunately not achieved. He had not been prudent. He had stood, not only for East Mickleham, but for a principle. It was an unpopular principle, and he knew it, and he had stuck to it all the same, with obstinacy and absurdity, in the teeth, the furiously gnas.h.i.+ng teeth, of his const.i.tuency. You couldn't detach Mr.

Higginson from his principle, and as long as he stuck to it a parliamentary career was closed to him. It was sad, for he had a pa.s.sion for politics; he had chosen politics as the one field for the one ponderous talent he possessed. The glory of it had hung ponderously about Mr. Higginson last year; but this year, cut off from politics, it was pitiable, the nonent.i.ty he had become.

Straker could read that in his lady's alienated eyes.

"Last year," he continued, "you seemed to find him interesting."

"You think things must be what they seem?"

Her tone accused him of insufficient metaphysical ac.u.men.

"There is no necessity. Still, as I said, last year----"

"Could Mr. Higginson, in any year, be interesting?"

"Did you hope," Straker retorted, "to make him so by cultivating him?"

"It's impossible to say what Mr. Higginson might become under--centuries of cultivation. It would take centuries."

That was all very well, he said to himself. If he didn't say that Miss Tarrant had pursued Mr. Higginson, he distinctly recalled the grace with which she had allowed herself to be pursued. She _had_ cultivated him. And, having done it, having so flagrantly and palpably and under Straker's own eyes gone in for him, how on earth did she propose to get out of it now? There was, Straker said to himself again, no getting out of it. As for centuries----

"Let us go back," he persisted, "to last year."

"Last year he had his uses. He was a good watch-dog."

"A _what_?"

"A watch-dog. He kept other people off."

For a moment he was disarmed by the sheer impudence of it. He smiled a reminiscent smile.

"I should have thought his function was rather, wasn't it, to draw them on?"

Her triumphing eyes showed him that he had given himself into her hands. He should have been content with his reminiscent smile.

Wasn't he, her eyes inquired, for a distinguished barrister, just a little bit too crude?

"You thought," she said, "he was a decoy-duck? Why, wouldn't you have flown from your most adored if you'd seen her--with Mr.

Higginson?"

Thus deftly she wove her web and wound him into it. That was her way. She would take your own words out of your mouth and work them into the brilliant fabric, tangling you in your talk. And not only did she tangle you in your talk, she confused you in your mental processes.

"You didn't seriously suppose," she said, "that I could have had any permanent use for him?"

Straker's smile paid tribute to her crowning cleverness. He didn't know how much permanence she attached to matrimony, or to Mr.

Higginson, but he knew that she had considered him in that preposterous relation. She faced him and his awful knowledge and floored him with just that--the thing's inherent, palpable absurdity. And if _that_ wasn't clever of her!----

"Of course not." He was eager in his a.s.sent; it was wrung from him.

He added with apparent irrelevance, "After all, he's honest."

"You must be something."

She turned to him, radiant and terrible, rejoicing in her murderous phrase. It intimated that only by his honesty did Mr. Higginson maintain his foothold on existence.

"I think," said Straker, "it's time to dress for dinner."

They turned and went slowly toward the house. On the terrace, watch in hand, Mr. Higginson stood alone and conspicuous, s.h.i.+ning in his single attribute of honesty.

That evening Furnival sought Straker out in a lonely corner of the smoke-room. His face was flushed and defiant. He put it to Straker point-blank.

"I say, what's she up to, that friend of yours, Miss T-Tarrant?"

He stammered over her name. Her name excited him.

Straker intimated that it was not given him to know what Miss Tarrant might or might not be up to.

Furnival shook his head. "I can't make her out. Upon my honor, I can't."

Straker wondered what Furny's honor had to do with it.

"Why is she hanging round like this?"

"Hanging round?"

"Yes. You know what I mean. Why doesn't somebody marry her?" He made a queer sound in his throat, a sound of unspeakable interrogation.

"Why haven't you married her yourself?"

Straker was loyal. "You'd better ask her why she hasn't married me."

Furnival brooded. "I've a good mind to."

"I should if I were you," said Straker encouragingly.

Furnival sighed heavily. "Look here," he said, "what's the matter with her? Is she difficult, or what?"

"Frightfully difficult," said Straker, with conviction. His tone implied that Furnival would never understand her, that he hadn't the brain for it.

IV

And yet, Straker reminded himself, Furnival wasn't an a.s.s. He had brain for other things, for other women; for poor Nora Viveash quite a remarkable sufficiency of brain, but not for Philippa Tarrant.

You could see how he was being driven by her. He was in that state when he would have done anything to get her. There was no folly and no extravagance that he would not commit. And yet, driven as he was, it was clear that he resented being driven, that he was not going all the way. His kicking, his frantic dashes and plunges, showed that the one extravagance, the one folly he would not commit was matrimony.

Straker saw that very plainly. He wondered whether Miss Tarrant would see it, too, and if she did whether it would make any difference in her method.

It was very clear to Straker that Miss Tarrant was considering Furnival, as she had considered him, as she had considered young Reggy Lawson, as she had considered Mr. Higginson, who was not so young. As for Reggy and his successor, she had done with them. All that could be known of their fatuity she knew. Perhaps they had never greatly interested her. But she was interested in Laurence Furnival. She told Straker that he was the most amusing man of her acquaintance. She was, Straker noticed, perpetually aware of him.

All Monday morning, in the motor, Miss Tarrant in front with Brocklebank, Furnival with Mrs. Viveash, and Straker behind, it was an incessant duel between Furnival's eyes and the eyes that Miss Tarrant had in the back of her head. All Monday afternoon she had him at her heels, at her elbow. With every gesture she seemed to point to him and say: "Look at this little animal I've caught. Did you ever see such an amusing little animal?"

She was quite aware that it was an animal, the creature she had captured and compelled to follow her; it might hide itself now and then, but it never failed to leap madly forward at her call. The animal in Furnival, so simple, so undisguised, and so spontaneous, was what amused her.

Its behavior that Monday after tea on the terrace was one of the most disconcerting things that had occurred at Amberley. You could see that Mrs. Viveash couldn't bear it, that she kept looking away, that Brocklebank didn't know where to look, and that even f.a.n.n.y was perturbed.