At The Relton Arms Part 12

"But look here, old man," urged the musician, desperately, "let me go in first and explain. You go round to Norah and wait till I come for you.

These--these shocks are too much for women; they can't always stand them; women can't, you know. Surely you must see the folly of frightening her--"

"You old woman, Digby; what by all that's holy are you playing at?

Joan's not that sort; besides, if you'd been away three years, old chap, I guess you'd run the risk of seeing a girl turn pale for you. Eh? So clear out."

He twisted the musician round with one touch of his hand, and flew up the steps. But quick as he was, Digby was quicker still, and sprang before him at the top of the steps, panting, and hardly knowing what he did. Jack seized him by the arm in slowly dawning amazement.

"'Pon my word, if Joan's half as frightened as you look now, I shall begin to believe it _is_ a shock to meet some one who's supposed to have kicked. You want a drink, old man, and if you don't go and get it now I--"

"I know, I 'm going, I am really, Jack. It's purely for your own good I am speaking; why should it matter to me? But you're such an unsuspecting chap, and I don't want to see you made a fool of; and look here, Jack, I'm a brute to suggest it, I know, but women are fickle, as all the world knows, and she thought you were dead, and after all no one could blame her if--don't you see?"

There was a sudden pause then, and a loosening of the strong grip on his arm, and the musician began to feel something of the brute he had been so ready to avow himself.

"Of course, I'm not insinuating that there's some one else, I don't know his name if there is; but knowing their nature as I do, I think it's wiser not to--not to give them a clean bill of constancy always--eh? At all events, how would it be for me to meet you at the flat when I've sounded the ground a bit with Joan? It would only make a delay of half-an-hour or so, and--my dear fellow!"

Jack had caught him by the coat in a sudden paroxysm of nervous fury, and Digby found himself half throttled and pinned against the stone wall of the portico, while a loud peal from the door-bell resounded through the house.

"You brute--you! Why do you want to keep me from her? If you were any one else standing between her and me I would wipe the floor with you.

There--clear out, can't you? Oh, hang it, I've been half crazed to meet her all day, and now--that devilish suggestion of yours--ah! can't you go, you?"

Digby shrank back as he felt himself free. There were steps coming along the hall inside, and he curbed himself to speak carelessly as he turned away as if to leave.

"Poor chap, I forgive you when I think of the hash you are going to make of it. You weren't born to deal with wily women, and when to-morrow comes, ah!--"

After all, when the man opened the door, it was Digby who entered the house. A man with a short beard was walking rapidly down the street.

"What is it? Anything wrong?" asked Lady Joan, quickly.

"No, no, nothing. Only I feel as though I had been persuading you against your will and for my own selfish reasons, and I came back to say so. There is nothing to keep you in England--nothing. Why not go abroad--to-morrow?"

"Oh. Is that all? How stupid of you to come back and look tragic just for that. And as if I should not go without waiting for your permission, Monsieur! Why, I have just been making out a route. Come and look."

He followed her finger mechanically with his eyes as she traced it over the map, and he made a great effort to compose himself. She exhausted France and Germany before she noticed his silence, and then she pushed away the Baedeker suddenly, and leaned back to try and see his face. He was standing a little behind her.

"I wish you'd say something, Digby. You look as if you'd seen a ghost."

"I have," he answered quietly, without taking his eyes from the top of her head.

"Whose was it?" she asked, half puzzled, half amused.

"My brother Jack's. He is in London."

He did not see that the color fled from her face, nor that she gasped a little as though she had a difficulty in breathing. What he saw was that she slowly turned round on her chair and looked to him beseechingly.

"Is--it--true?" she asked in a hushed tone. The dull anguish of it lent a fierceness to his purpose.

"I have spoken to him. Would to G.o.d it were not!"

It did not seem strange to her that he should say so, nor that he did not come and stroke her hair as he so often did when she fancied herself in trouble. She crossed her arms on the top of the chair, and laid her cheek on them.

"I've always known that he must come back. Jack could never be dead,"

she murmured in a hopeless tone of voice; "he is overflowing with life, crude, arrogant life. Why did I believe them when they said he was dead?"

"Perhaps you wished to believe it," said the musician.

When he found the silence that followed no longer endurable, he moved a little nearer to her, where he could see the fierce movement of her shoulders and the curls on the back of her neck.

"Shall we resume our conversation?" he said, and touched the Baedeker.

"How can we? I must wait a little, see Jack, no, no, not see him, but--but write to him--if it is possible he never had my other letter?

Why has he come back to torment me just when I was beginning to feel happy? And--oh, drop that book, can't you? Don't you understand that I cannot go abroad now?"

"Why not?"

"Because, oh, how dense you are! Even if I can get away from Jack, and I feel as if I never should be free again, but even supposing I can break his heart and leave him, how can I go away and be by myself interminably? You don't know me if you think that would do me any good."

"I don't think so. I did not suggest your going alone. You don't know _me_ if--you think I could let you go."

She raised herself slowly on to her elbows and covered her eyes with her hands. He was looking down at the scarlet cover of the Baedeker.

"What do you mean?"

"What I have said. You don't want to see Jack. I will take you away from him. Will you come?"

She did not speak, and a s.h.i.+ver pa.s.sed swiftly down her frame.

He came nearer to her.

"I believe you like him still," he said, with a curious smile.

She raised her head, and clenched her fists, and laughed harshly. She, too, looked at the scarlet cover of the Baedeker.

"I should hate him--if he were worth it. But I have never loved him."

"Then answer my question. Will you come?"

She moistened her lips and tried to speak clearly.

"We were so happy as it was. Can't it go on?"

"No, it cannot go on. If you were a man you would not ask that. Will you come?"

She closed her eyes, and tried not to hear the singing in her ears, and thought he would come and touch her. But he did not move at all.

"You are frightened, are you not?" he said.

"Of you? No, I don't think I am frightened of you."