The Education of Eric Lane Part 41

The announcement, when it came, would be made with imposing ceremony after a meeting between his father and Lord Crawleigh, an adjustment of religious differences and a distressingly material discussion of settlements. There would be ponderous debates and irritating disagreements; Barbara and he both needed a respite for recuperation. . . .

"I telephoned three times this morning," said Eric, as he was shewn into the drawing-room. "I did so want to talk to you! I was so happy I couldn't sleep."

"I couldn't sleep, either," said Barbara huskily, holding out one hand and covering her eyes with the other.

"Aren't you going to kiss me?"

"If you like. It's your right now."

Eric let fall her hand and drew back, biting his lip.

"That's not a very pretty thing to say, darling," he murmured.

"I'm sorry. . . . I've been haunted all night. It seemed as if G.o.d _must_ strike me down. . . . And, whenever I fell asleep, Jack was there, reproaching me, mocking me----"

"He's had his chance," Eric interrupted sharply. "You start absolutely free."

"You mean he's--rejected me?"

After the tragic talk of G.o.d's striking her down for taking His name in vain, Eric could not attune himself readily to a whimper of wounded vanity. Barbara's dramatic intensity had hitherto been convincing, and he had never imagined that she was unhappy because she had offered herself to a man and he had repelled her.

"I mean it's--all over. You've no reason to reproach yourself, Babs. . . .

I want to talk to you about seeing your father----"

She stopped him with a shudder, and Eric found a difficulty in curbing his impatience. Trying a fresh cast, he described his latest invitation to lecture in America. Barbara listened with half her attention, mechanically agreeing that it would be an experience and a change, mechanically accepting his figures and wounding him with an indifference which was made greater by her early love of sharing his triumphs with him. He hunted through a pile of letters and gave her one in which the previous occupant of his flat offered generous terms for the remainder of the lease.

"We must decide some time when we're going to be married," he said, "and where we're going to live."

"_Please_, Eric!"

He looked at her in amazement and drew slowly away from her side, walking to the fire-place and resting his forehead on his arm.

"I--don't . . . I don't understand what's the matter," he murmured at length. "Last night . . . You did it of your own free will, Babs. . . .

And unless you wanted to hurt me more completely and ingeniously than you've ever succeeded in doing before----"

The girl winced and covered her face with her hands.

"I wouldn't hurt you for the world!" she whispered. "Ah! G.o.d! I wish I'd never met you, I wish I'd never been born! Don't you _see_ that I couldn't go on taking, taking, taking with both hands--all your sweetness and gentleness, everything--and giving you nothing in return?

When you said that I'd spoiled your work . . . Didn't I see that I'd already ruined your health and made you miserable? I _tried_ to make amends, but it wasn't in my power. I ought never to have given you that promise!"

"Don't you love me any more, Babs?"

"Oh, yes."

"Well, what have I done since last night?"

"You haven't done anything. . . . It was a letter. . . . You remember about Jim Loring's ball just before the war----"

Eric drew her head on to his shoulder and kissed her.

"My darling, that's all so long ago! Why distress yourself with it now?"

"Jack was staying with the Knightriders," she persisted. "Kathleen Knightrider's the only soul who's ever suspected. . . . _I_ never told her. She's heard that Jack has been sent to Switzerland and she wrote this morning to--to congratulate me! I tried to make amends to Jack too.

. . . Oh, the mockery of it! All last night I saw the two of you pulling, pulling . . ."

"He's had his chance," Eric told her again.

"I wish G.o.d _had_ struck me down," she whispered.

Eric invented an excuse to leave early, for, when Barbara was not reproaching herself for the engagement, she affected the abject humility of a slave whom he had bought for his pleasure. Perhaps she was amusing herself with a new emotion, perhaps she wanted to keep him alert and suspended, perhaps she enjoyed the vision of herself torn between the two men who wanted her more than anything in the world. . . .

2

For the second morning in succession Barbara did not telephone. Eric waited until noon and then asked her to dine with him.

"I will, if you--want me to," she answered with the new servile listlessness; and he wondered again whether she was trying to exact some novel abandonment of adoration or to exhaust him by pa.s.sive resistance.

"I believe we _have_ people dining," she added.

"Well, choose some other night," he suggested.

"Oh, it doesn't matter. Nothing matters. And I'm going to the country to-morrow."

"But I thought you were going to be in London till Christmas."

"I'm supposed to be ill," she answered and hung up the receiver before he could say anything more.

Eric returned to his work, affecting unconsciousness of her alternating indifference and hostility. In the afternoon Agnes Waring telephoned to say that she was unexpectedly in London and would like to have tea with him. He welcomed her cordially, only hoping that she would not stay long enough to clash with Babs, and, guiltily reminded of her letter, put aside his work and began writing to Jack. Once or twice, as he paused to fill his pipe, the old feeling of duplicity came back, as on the Sundays when he walked home from Red Roofs in jubilation after Agnes had told him with her unchanging composure that there was still no news of her brother. And now he was writing a gossipy, facetious letter. . . . Eric tore the envelope in two--and then hesitated. Jack had been given his opportunity, and he had not taken it.

Agnes did not arrive until nearly six o'clock and then came attended by a young officer.

"You remember Mr. Benyon," she said. "We brought him to dine at the Mill-House last year. He hadn't seen 'The Bomb-Sh.e.l.l,' so we went to the _matinee_ to-day."

"Jolly good, if I may say so," murmured Benyon. "Hope you don't mind my b.u.t.tin' in like this? Agnes said----"

"I obviously couldn't come here alone, d.i.c.k," she interrupted; and Eric wondered whether they would have left before Barbara came alone to dine with him.

He wondered too what intimacy Agnes had reached with this young man who was beginning to recur in her life and conversation. They had attained the Christian name milestone without pa.s.sing it; and she seemed to have brought him as a challenge. Whenever Eric flagged in attention, Agnes brought Benyon up like an army of reserve; whenever Benyon fancied that he had won a position, she rounded on her own reinforcements and admitted Eric to a private intimacy of conversation about Jack. It was a new part for her to play, but no woman seemed able to resist the intoxication of having two men interested in her at the same time. If only she knew that his interest had died more than a year ago, on the night when Barbara sat in that room, on that sofa. . . . Perhaps she did know. He caught her looking at him with an expression which changed almost before their eyes met. Was it desperation, defiance, an indifferent resolve to give him one last chance--or his own hypercritical fancy?

They were still talking when Barbara was announced.

"Gracious! Is it _eight_?" Agnes cried, looking at her watch. "I thought it was only seven. We must fly. d.i.c.k's taking me to a _revue_."

"Won't you wait for a c.o.c.ktail?" Eric asked. "By the way, I don't think you know Lady Barbara Neave. Miss Waring, Babs. Mr. Benyon."

The two girls shook hands, and Agnes began searching for her gloves and purse, hurriedly declining Eric's invitation.

"I used to know your brother quite well before the war," said Barbara.

"I was so thankful to hear your good news."