Winding Paths Part 16

It was all very well for Hal to be a main feature in her life, blessing it with her friends.h.i.+p, while she turned kindly, unseeing eyes away from the corners where the murky shadows lay: Hal, who knew about the mad, discreditable marriage and its violent termination, and probably also of her mother's insatiable thirst for admiration and excitement at any cost.

There was something about Hal in herself that was as a s.h.i.+ning armour, against which unkind barbs fell harmlessly, and enabled her to go on her serene and joyful way in blissful non-attention.

But could it be the same with this treasured only son, who was doubtless destined for a hight place in the world by doting parents, and other proud bearers of the same old name? Of course he might sup and trifle with certain denizens of the theatrical world galore; it would only be part of his education, and a thing to wink at, but she already doubted whether such a slight companions.h.i.+p would have any attraction.

In spite of his youthfulness, there was something in him that would naturally and quickly respond to the fine shades in herself, and grow into a friends.h.i.+p that had no part with the casual, gay acquaintances.h.i.+ps of the theatre and the world.

In a sense he was like Hal, and she knew that just as she attracted Hal's devotion in spite of all disparity of years and circ.u.mstances, so, if she chose, she could make this young giant more or less her slave.

But was it worht it?

What did she, on her high pedestal, want with his young admiration?

What did she want with a companion so undeveloped that she herself must awaken his strongest forces?

Through the gloom, unheeding the shaft of sunlight, she saw him again, towering up there on her hearth, with his young splendour, so extraordinarily unspoilt as yet; and she knew that, reasonable or unreasonable, she was attracted far beyond her wont.

And then she thought of his easy-going temperament, his lack of ambition, his half-sleepy att.i.tude towards life.

What if the wheels ran so smoothly for him that the latent forces were never aroused, and little achieved of all that might be?

If love came at his asking, and a sufficiency of success to satisfy an easy-going nature, what would there ever be to stir depths which she truly believed were worth stiring? Was it so small a thing to help a fine soul forward to its best attainment?... was such an aim not worth some going aside for both?

She felt there were things she could teach him, which without her he might entirely miss; and if without her he were the better according to a conventional standard, he might yet be far the poorer in the big, deep things of life.

Well, no doubt circ.u.mstances would end by suiting themselves, with or without her agency. In the meantime why worry, in a world that it would seem worked out its own ends, sublimely indifferent to the individual?

They were going to dine together to-night anyhow; their first tete-a-tete dinner and evening: time enough to probe and worry when she was more sure a mutual attraction existed; wiser at present to seek a counter attraction for her own sake, that she might not uselessly build a castle without foundations.

Prompt as ever, she reached out for the receiver beside her bed and rang up the Albany to know if Lord Denton were awake yet.

"I'm not awake," came back a sleepy answer. "I am asleep, and dreaming of Lorraine Vivian. If my man wakes me now, I shall curse him solidly for half an hour."

"Well, will you dream you are going to take her for a spin into the country shortly? I happen to know she is fainting for the longing to breathe country air."

"In my dream I am already waiting at her door, with the Yellow Peril spluttering its heart out with delight, and eagerness to be off. I have even dreamt she managed to put a motor bonnet on in half-an-hour - is it conceivable - or should it be half a day?"

"No, your dream is right. Be outside the door in half an hour, and you will see."

An hour later they were spinning out into Surrey at an alarming pace, both silently revelling in the freshness and motion and the fact that they were too old friends to need to trouble about conversation. When they dived into the lanes he slowed down, remarking:

"I suppose we mustn't risk scrunching any one up."

Lorraine only smiled, remaining silent a little longer, and then she suddenly asked him:

"When you feel yourself inclined to fall in love foolishly what do you do?"

"Well... as a rule..." he began slowly and humorously, "I either cut and run, or I hurry to see so much of her that I am bound to get bored."

"The first plan sounds the safest, but would often be the most difficult of execution. Supposing the second miscarries and you don't get bored?"

"Well, then I think - usually - there is an awful moment when I have to tell her I can't afford both a motor and a wife; and to be motorless would kill me."

A sudden little twitching at the corners made Lorraine's mouth dangerously fascinating.

"Evidently you have never fallen in love with me," she said, "for you have not been driven to either way of escape."

He looked into her face with an answering humour, and a twinkle in his eyes as alluring as her smilling lips.

"Because when I fell in love with you I did it sensibly, and not foolishly," was his answer; "instinct told me I couldn't have you for my wife however much I wished it, so I said myself: 'Flip, old boy, she'll make a thundering good pal, you close with it,' and I did."

She made no comment, and he went on more seriously:

"You see, even if you became marriageable and I cut out the motor, you wouldn't be attracted to an ordinary sort of cove like me. I suit you down to the ground as a pal, but it wouldn't go any farther."

"I wonder why you think that?"

"I don't exactly _think_ it - thinking is too much bother - but it's just there, like a commonplace fact. You are all temperament, and high-strung nerves, and soul, and enthusiasm, and that sort of thing, which makes you a great actress. I'm just a two-legged, superior sort of animal, who hasn't much brain, but knows what he likes, and usually does it without wasting time on pros and cons. Consequently, I'm just as likely to end in prison as anywhere else, and take it without much concern as all in the day's work. You are more likely to end in a nunnery, as the most devout of all the nuns."

"What an odd idea! Why a nunnery?"

"Oh, because it's an extreme of one sort or another, and you are made for extremes. You'll perhaps be very wicked first" - he smiled delightfully - "after which, of course, you'd have to be very good.

It's the way you're made. I'm cut out on quite a different plan. I can't be 'very' anything, unless it's very drunk after the Oxford and Cambridge at Lord's."

"Do you think I could be very wicked?" She asked the question with a thoughtfulness that amused him greatly, and he answered at once:

"I haven't a doubt of it. You are probably plotting the particular form of wickedness at this very moment."

She laughed, and he went on in the same serio-comic mood:

"I quite envy you. It mus be very thrilling to think to oneself, 'I've dared to be desperately wicked.' You cease to be a nonent.i.ty at once and become a force. You get right to hand-grips with the big elemental things. Of course that is interesting, but it usually means a confounded lot of bother."

"You are as bad as Hal Pritchard. She announced the other day she would rather have a dishonest purpose than no purpose at all."

"It's the same idea, only Miss Pritchard lives up to her creed by being full of energy and purpose; whereas I can't be anything but a mediocre waster. I've neither the pluck to be wicked, not the energy to be good, nor enough purpose to regret it. I believe I'm best described as an aristocratic 'stiff', a 'stiff' being a person who spends his life trying to avoid having to do things.

"I fill a niche all the same," he finished, "because I make such an excellent foil for the other chaps, who like to pride themselves on their superiority and hard work. It's nice for them to be able to say contemptuously, 'Look at Denton,' and it's nice for me to be able to feel I'm of some use, without the bother of making an effort."

"You are certainly quite incorrigible as an idler, if that can be called a purpose, and, Flip, don't change; I love you for it; you are one of the most restful things I have ever known."

He glanced into her face with a keenness that somewhat belied his professed incapacity to be in earnest, and remarked with seeming lightness:

"Feeling a bit down on your luck, eh? Are you thinking of falling in love foolishly?"

"I'm thinking of trying to guard against doing so."

"You ought not to find it difficult. Crowd him out with other admirers."

"It seems as if he were going to do the crowding out."