The Tower of Oblivion Part 12

"Puppetty," she said slowly, "is in the greatest favour. Puppetty has wing-portions for dinner and bovril to go to bed with. Puppetty's to have a new quilt for being a good little doggles and protecting his mummie----"

"What on earth----" I began.

Then I sat up as suddenly as if I had been galvanised.

"Julia! You don't mean----?"

She nodded, darkling devils of mischief under that cool smooth brow.

"What, that _he's_ still looking for _her_?"

"He's found her. He spoke to her a couple of days ago."

"And she recognised him?"

"I didn't say that."

"Didn't she recognise him?"

"Didn't know him from Adam."

"Then how do you know it was he?"

I cannot convey the lightness of her disdain. "How do I know!----"

I leaned back in my chair. To think that I had not thought of this, the oldest of all stratagems! _Guettez la femme!_ Runaways are caught by it every day, and always will be. They are released from custody and placed under observation so that they may walk straight into the trap. That is why the trick is old--it never fails. And I had not thought of it!

She wore her triumph with such present moderation that I knew I had not heard the last of it.

"Yes," she continued, "she told me all about it. It was on Monday evening, about seven o'clock, and she was coming up the little street by St. James's Church, where the Post Office is. She fancied she'd noticed a man following her, a very big handsome man with a golden beard."

"Is that her description of him?" I interrupted.

"Yes. That's why I wasn't much surprised when you told me about his beard. Then outside the Post Office the outrage happened. He spoke to her. Spoke to her, George. Try to realise it."

"Well, if she'd no idea who he was it wasn't a pleasant thing to have happen."

She gave a soft laugh. "He's very good-looking," she said brazenly.

"Julia, if you were naturally a catty sort of woman----"

"Don't interrupt, George. I am artificially then. If you don't want to hear go out and look for hansoms. And whatever else you're sententious about don't be sententious about women. Now I've forgotten what I was going to say."

"You said he spoke to her outside the Post Office."

"Behave yourself then. He did speak to her, and she set Puppetty at him."

"_What!_" I cried.

"Quite so, dear George. _As_ you say. Fearfully pleased and excited really. Quite a romance. And of course she'd have given anything _not_ to set Puppetty at him."

"Then why in the name of goodness did she?"

Julia gave an exhausted sigh. "If ever you marry, George, heaven help Lady Coverham!... Why did she? Because she had to. She's that sort.

They've got to do certain things because that sort does, but they _do_ so wish they needn't! Virtue's a funny thing. If you don't want that ice may I have it?"

"But look here," I said presently. "If he'd said straight out, as any man in his position would have done, 'I say, I know this is a bit unusual, but my name's Derwent Rose, and there's something I want to explain'--and so on--you see what I mean. Then she'd have known who he was."

"Well, I'm afraid I'm not responsible for what he didn't say."

"What exactly did he say?"

She gave a shrug. "What do men say? They don't stop _me_ outside post offices. You never did; if all this hadn't happened I don't suppose I should ever have known you one sc.r.a.p better. I dare say he was a bit rattled too. Anyway she didn't stop to think. She just set the dog at him, legged it, and she's as pleased as Punch still."

"You're quite sure she didn't recognise him?"

"Oh, quite. She'd tell me in a minute. She'd love to be able to say she'd had Derwent Rose at her feet."

"I suppose so," I sighed. "Did you ask her what aged man this--marauder--looked?"

"What do you think? Of course I did. Doesn't everything turn on that?

But she could only tell me, 'Oh, about thirty-three or four--thirty-five perhaps.' The very thing we want to know ... but she was in such a hurry to be virtuous...."

Her brow was no longer smooth. Her voice rose a little and then dropped again.

"You see how much turns on which it is--thirty-five or thirty-three. You say he was struggling with himself that night, sweating with funk, wanting to hang on. And yet the moment you turned your back he bolted, and he's riding about with ladies in hansoms."

"Come, my dear!" I protested. "There's nothing in that! All men drive about with women. For that matter I drove you part of the way here."

But she cut me impatiently short.

"Oh, I don't mean that at all! That's nothing to me! I don't care who he takes in hansoms; I've nothing to gain and nothing to lose. I want him to have just whatever he wants. But I told you he knew nothing about women. He's never been in love in his life. Oh, I'm explaining badly, but what I mean is that if you're going to find him by going through London with a dustman's besom and sc.r.a.per, that's as much as to say that he isn't happy. That's what hurts me. He was miserable at thirty-five before--miserable and ashamed. _But the moment he's thirty-three again_----"

I watched the long white fingers that tapped softly for a minute on the table before she resumed.

"_Then_ he's all right," she said in a low and moved voice. "He was writing the _Vicarage_ then. I saw--oh, quite lots of him. He used to 'blow in,' as he called it, with a 'Hallo, Julia! I'm having rather a devil of a good time these days; writing a book that will make some of 'em sit up and take notice; I've done a quarter of it in three weeks; how's that for a little gentle occupation?' Yes, I saw quite a lot of him at thirty-three. I had a studio near Cremorne Road. It wasn't really a studio, but a sort of gutted top floor, big enough to have given a dance in, and my bed was behind a curtain that was drawn right across one end. I used to give him tea there--Patum Paperium sandwiches he liked--and he was sweet. Once I'd an ill.u.s.tration to do for some stupid story or other, about a sort of Sandow-and-Hackenschmidt all rolled into one, and do you know what he did? He looked at my drawing, took it to the window, and then laughed. 'I say, Julia, this will never do!' he said. 'When a man lifts a heavy thing like that he does it _from the earth_, you understand--you do everything that's worth doing from the earth. So you've got to see his feet are right. Anybody likely to come in here? No? Right; I don't mind you. Got anything heavy here? You get your paper and pencil.' And he stripped to the belt and picked up my sewing-machine and posed for me. He did...."

V

I seemed to see the scene in bright illumination, him in that upper room with the curtains drawn across one end, his jacket and s.h.i.+rt tossed on to a chair, his great torso stripped to the buff, the sewing-machine held aloft. She would be at her board or easel, sketching--pretending to sketch--I don't know what. He had merely said, "Anybody likely to come in? No? Right! I don't mind you!"

It was true. He hadn't minded her. Otherwise he would never have displayed himself so gloriously before her eyes.

"Did that ill.u.s.tration ever appear?" I asked without looking at her.

I knew without looking that she smiled as she shook her head.

"Not that one. You know it didn't. The first one was good enough for them."