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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/31416-8.txt b/31416-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9567ab0 --- /dev/null +++ b/31416-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7617 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Immortal Moment, by May Sinclair + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Immortal Moment + The Story of Kitty Tailleur + +Author: May Sinclair + +Illustrator: C. Coles Phillips + +Release Date: February 27, 2010 [EBook #31416] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IMMORTAL MOMENT *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Iris Schimandle and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +THE IMMORTAL MOMENT + + + + +Books by + +MAY SINCLAIR + + The Helpmate + The Divine Fire + Two Sides of a Question + Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson + Etc., etc. + + + + +[Illustration: "Kitty's face ... pleaded with the other face in the +glass."] + + + + +THE IMMORTAL MOMENT + +The Story of Kitty Tailleur + +_By_ + +MAY SINCLAIR + +ILLUSTRATED AND DECORATED BY + +C. COLES PHILLIPS. + + NEW YORK + DOUBLEDAY PAGE & CO. + 1908 + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1908 BY + +MAY SINCLAIR + +PUBLISHED, OCTOBER, 1908 + + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION + INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING + THE SCANDINAVIAN + + + + +PUBLISHERS' NOTE + + THIS STORY APPEARS IN ENGLAND + UNDER THE TITLE "KITTY TAILLEUR" + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + "Kitty's face ... pleaded with the other face + in the glass" FRONTISPIECE + + "She stood there, strangely still ... before the + pitiless stare that went up to her appealing face" 10 + + "'You won't be tied to me a minute longer than + you like'" 208 + + "'I want to make you loathe me ... never see me + again'" 268 + + + + +[Illustration: THE IMMORTAL MOMENT] + + + + +THE IMMORTAL MOMENT + +CHAPTER I + + +They came into the hotel dining-room like young persons making their +first entry into life. They carried themselves with an air of subdued +audacity, of innocent inquiry. When the great doors opened to them they +stood still on the threshold, charmed, expectant. There was the magic of +quest, of pure, unspoiled adventure in their very efforts to catch the +head-waiter's eye. It was as if they called from its fantastic +dwelling-place the attendant spirit of delight. + +You could never have guessed how old they were. He, at thirty-five, had +preserved, by some miracle, his alert and slender adolescence. In his +brown, clean-shaven face, keen with pleasure, you saw the clear, +serious eyes and the adorable smile of seventeen. She, at thirty, had +kept the wide eyes and tender mouth of childhood. Her face had a child's +immortal, spiritual appeal. + +They were charming with each other. You might have taken them for bride +and bridegroom, his absorption in her was so unimpaired. But their names +in the visitors' book stood as Mr. Robert Lucy and Miss Jane Lucy. They +were brother and sister. You gathered it from something absurdly alike +in their faces, something profound and racial and enduring. + +For they combined it all, the youth, the abandonment, the innocence, +with an indomitable distinction. + +They made their way with easy, unembarrassed movements, and seated +themselves at a table by an open window. They bent their brows together +over the menu. The head-waiter (who had flown at last to their high +summons) made them his peculiar care, and they turned to him with the +helplessness of children. He told them what things they would like, +what things (he seemed to say) would be good for them. And when he went +away with their order they looked at each other and laughed, softly and +instantaneously. + +They had done the right thing. They both said it at the same moment, +smiling triumphantly into each other's face. Southbourne was exquisite +in young June, at the dawn of its season. And the Cliff Hotel promised +what they wanted, a gay seclusion, a refined publicity. + +If you were grossly rich, you went to the big Hôtel Métropole, opposite. +If you were a person of fastidious tastes and an attenuated income, you +felt the superior charm of the Cliff Hotel. The little house, the joy of +its proprietor, was hidden in the privacy of its own beautiful grounds, +having its back to the high road and its face to the open sea. They had +taken stock of it that morning, with its clean walls, white as the +Cliff it stood on; its bay windows, its long, green-roofed veranda, +looking south; its sharp, slated roofs and gables, all sheltered by the +folding Downs. + +They did not know which of them had first suggested Southbourne. +Probably they had both thought of it at the same moment, as they were +thinking now. But it was she who had voted for the Cliff Hotel, in +preference to lodgings. She thought that in an hotel there would be more +scope, more chance of things happening. + +Jane was always on the look-out for things happening. He saw her now, +with her happy eyes, and her little, tilted nose, sniffing the air, +scanning the horizon. + +He knew Jane and her adventures well. They were purely, pathetically +vicarious. Jane was the thrall of her own sympathy. So was he. At a hint +she was off, and he after her, on wild paths of inference, on perilous +oceans of conjecture. Only he moved more slowly, and he knew the end of +it. He had seen, before now, her joyous leap to land, on shores of +manifest disaster. He protested against that jumping to conclusions. He, +for his part, took conclusions in his stride. + +But Jane was always listening for a call from some foreign country of +the soul. She was always entering surreptitiously into other people's +feelings. They never caught her at it, never suspected her soft-footed, +innocent intrusions. + +She was wondering now whether they would have to make friends with any +of the visitors. She hoped not, because that would spoil it, the +adventure. People had a way of telling her their secrets, and Jane +preferred not to be told. All she wanted was an inkling, a clue; the +slenderer the better. + +The guests as yet assembled were not conspicuously interesting. + +There was a clergyman dining gloomily at a table by himself. There was a +gray group of middle-aged ladies next to him. There was Colonel Hankin +and his wife. They had arrived with the Lucys in the hotel 'bus, and +their names were entered above Robert's in the visitors' book. They +marked him with manifest approval as one of themselves, and they looked +all pink perfection and silver white propriety. There was the old lady +who did nothing but knit. She had arrived in a fly, knitting. She was +knitting now, between the courses. When she caught sight of the Lucys +she smiled at them over her knitting. They had found her, before dinner, +with her feet entangled in a skein of worsted. Jane had shown tenderness +in disentangling her. + +It was almost as if they had made friends already. + +Jane's eyes roamed and lighted on a fat, wine-faced man. Lucy saw them. +He teased her, challenged her. She didn't think, did she, she could do +anything with him? + +No. Jane thought not. He wasn't interesting. There was nothing that you +could take hold of, except that he seemed to be very fond of wine, poor +old thing. But then, you had to be fond of something, and perhaps it was +his only weakness. What did Robert think? + +Robert did not hear her. He was bending forward, looking beyond her, +across the room toward the great doors. They had swung open again, with +a flash of their glass panels, to give passage to a lady. + +She came slowly, with the irresistible motion of creatures that divide +and trouble the medium in which they move. The white, painted wainscot +behind her showed her small, eager head, its waving rolls and crowning +heights of hair, black as her gown. She had a sweet face, curiously +foreshortened by a low forehead and the briefest of chins. It was white +with the same whiteness as her neck, her shoulders, her arms--a +whiteness pure and profound. This face she kept thrust a little forward, +while her eyes looked round, steadily, deliberately, for the place where +she desired to be. She carried on her arm a long tippet of brown fur. It +slipped, and her effort to recover it brought her to a standstill. + +The large, white room, half empty at this season, gave her up bodily to +what seemed to Lucy the intolerable impudence of the public gaze. + +She was followed by an older lady who had the air of making her way with +difficulty and vexation through an unpleasantly crowded space. This lady +was somewhat oddly attired in a white dress cut high with a Puritan +intention, but otherwise indiscreetly youthful. She kept close to the +tail of her companion's gown, and tracked its charming evolutions with +an irritated eye. Her whole aspect was evidently a protest against the +publicity she was compelled to share. + +[Illustration: "She stood there, strangely still ... before the pitiless +stare that went up to her appealing face."] + +Lucy was not interested in her. He was watching the lady in black who +was now standing in the middle of the room. Her elbow touched the +shoulder of a young man on her left. The fur tippet slipped again and +lay at the young man's feet. He picked it up, and as he handed it to her +he stared into her face, and sleeked his little moustache above a +furtive, objectionable smile. His companion (Jane's uninteresting man), +roused from communion with the spirit of Veuve Cliquot, fixed on the +lady a pair of blood-shot eyes in a brutal, wine-dark face. + +She stood there, strangely still, it seemed to Lucy, before the pitiless +stare that went up, right and left, to her appealing face. She was +looking, it seemed to him, for her refuge. + +She moved forward. The Colonel, pinker than ever in his perfection, +lowered his eyes as she approached. She paused again in her progress +beside the clergyman on her right. He looked severely at her, as much as +to say, "Madam, if you drop that thing in _my_ neighbourhood, I shall +not attempt to pick it up." + +An obsequious waiter pointed out a table next to the middle-aged +ladies. She shook her head at the middle-aged ladies. She turned in her +course, and her eyes met Lucy's. He said something to his sister. Jane +rose and changed her seat, thus clearing the way to a table that stood +beside theirs, empty, secluded in the bay of the window. + +The lady in black came swiftly, as if to the place of her desire. The +glance that expressed her gratitude went from Lucy to Jane and from Jane +to Lucy, and rested on him for a moment. + +As the four grouped themselves at their respective tables, the lady in +white, seated with her back to the window, commanded a front and side +view of Jane. The lady in black sat facing Lucy. + +She put her elbows on the table and turned her face (her profile was +remarkably pretty) to her companion. + +"Well," said she, "don't you want to sit here?" + +"Oh," said the older woman, "what does it matter where we sit?" + +She spoke in a small, crowing voice, the voice, Lucy said to himself, of +a rather terrible person. She shivered. + +"Poor lamb, does it feel a draught down its little back?" + +The lady rose and put her fur tippet on the shivering shoulders. They +shrank from her, and she drew it closer and fastened it with caressing +and cajoling fingers. There was about her something impetuous and +perverse, a wilful, ungovernable tenderness. Her hands had the swiftness +of things moved by sweet, disastrous impulses. + +The white person (she was quite terrible) undid the fastening and shook +her shoulders free of the fur. It slid to the floor for the third time. + +Lucy rose from his place, picked up the fur and restored it to its +owner. + +The quite terrible person flushed with vexation. + +"You see," said the lady, "the trouble you've given that nice man." + +"Oh don't! he'll hear you." + +"If he does, he won't mind," said the lady. + +He did hear her. It was difficult not to hear, not to look at her, not +to be interested in every movement that she made. Her charm, however, +was powerless over her companion. + +Their voices, to Lucy's relief, sank low. Then suddenly the companion +spoke. + +"Of course," said she, "if you _want_ all the men to look at you----" + +Lucy looked no more. He heard the lady draw in her breath with a soft, +sharp sound, and he felt his blood running scarlet to the roots of his +hair. + +"I believe" (the older lady spoke almost vindictively) "you like it." + +The head-waiter, opportune in all his approaches, brought coffee at that +moment. Lucy turned his chair slightly, so that he presented his back +to the speaker, and to the lady in black his side-face, shaded by his +hand, conspicuously penitential. + +Jane tried to set everybody at their ease by talking in a clear, cool +voice about the beautiful decorations, the perfect management of the +hotel. The two drank their coffee hastily and left the table. In the +doorway Lucy drew the head-waiter aside. + +"Who," said he, "is that lady in the window?" + +"The lady in the window, sir? Miss Keating, sir." + +"I mean--the other lady." + +The head-waiter looked reproachfully at Lucy and apologetically at Jane. + +"The lady in black, sir? You want to know her name?" + +"Yes." + +"Her _name_, sir, is Mrs. Tailleur." + +His manner intimated respectfully that Lucy would not like Mrs. +Tailleur, and that, if he did, she would not be good for him. + +The brother and sister went out into the hotel garden. They strolled up +and down the cool, green lawns that overhung the beach. + +Lucy smoked and was silent. + +"Jane," he said presently, "could _you_ see what she did?" + +"I was just going," said Jane, "to ask you that." + +"Upon my soul, I can't see it," said he. + +"Nor I," said Jane. + +"Could you see what _I_ did?" + +"What you did?" + +"Yes, I. _Did_ I look at her?" + +"Well, yes; certainly you looked at her." + +"And you think she minded?" + +"No; I don't think she minded very much." + +"Come, she couldn't have liked it, could she?" + +"I don't know. I don't think she noticed it. You see" (Jane was off on +the adventure) "she's in mourning for her husband. He has been dead +about two years. He wasn't very kind to her, and she doesn't know +whether to be glad or sorry he's dead. She's unhappy and afraid." + +"I say, how do you know all that?" + +"I know," said Jane, "because I see it in her face; and in her clothes. +I always see things." + +He laughed at that. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +They talked a long time as they paced the green lawns, linked arm in +arm, keeping their own path fastidiously. + +Miss Keating, Mrs. Tailleur's companion, watched them from her seat on +the veranda. + +She had made her escape from the great, lighted lounge behind her where +the men were sitting. She had found a corner out of sight of its wide +windows. She knew that Kitty Tailleur was in there somewhere. She could +hear her talking to the men. At the other end of the veranda the old +lady sat with her knitting. From time to time she looked up over her +needles and glanced curiously at Miss Keating. + +On the lawn below, Colonel Hankin walked with his wife. They kept the +same line as the Lucys, so that, in rhythmic instants, the couples made +one group. There was an affinity, a harmony in their movements as they +approached each other. They were all obviously nice people, people who +belonged by right to the same group, who might approach each other +without any impropriety. + +Miss Keating wondered how long it would be before Kitty Tailleur would +approach Mr. Lucy. That afternoon, on her arrival, she had approached +the Colonel, and the Colonel had got up and gone away. Kitty had then +laughed. Miss Keating suspected her of a similar social intention with +regard to the younger man. She knew his name. She had looked it up in +the visitors' book. (She was always looking up people's names.) She had +made with determination for the table next to him. Miss Keating, in the +dawn of their acquaintance, had prayed that Mrs. Tailleur might not +elect to sit next anybody who was not nice. Latterly she had found +herself hoping that their place might not be in view of anybody who was. + +For three months they had been living in hotels, in horrifying +publicity. Miss Keating dreaded most the hour they had just passed +through. There was something terrible to her in their entry, in their +passage down the great, white, palm-shaded, exotic room, their threading +of the ways between the tables, with all the men turning round to stare +at Kitty Tailleur. It was all very well for Kitty to pretend that she +saved her by thus diverting and holding fast the public eye. Miss +Keating felt that the tail of it flicked her unpleasantly as she +followed in that troubled, luminous wake. + +It had not been quite so unbearable in Brighton, at Easter, when the big +hotels were crowded, and Mrs. Tailleur was not so indomitably +conspicuous. Or else Miss Keating had not been so painfully alive to +her. But Southbourne was half empty in early June, and the Cliff Hotel, +small as it was, had room for the perfect exhibition of Mrs. Tailleur. +It gave her wide, polished spaces and clean, brilliant backgrounds, +yards of parquetry for the gliding of her feet, and monstrous mirrors +for reflecting her face at unexpected angles. These distances fined her +grace still finer, and lent her a certain pathos, the charm of figures +vanishing and remote. + +Not that you could think of Kitty Tailleur as in the least remote or +vanishing. She seemed to be always approaching, to hover imminently and +dangerously near. + +Mr. Lucy looked fairly unapproachable. His niceness, Miss Keating +imagined, would keep him linked arm in arm with his sister, maintaining, +unconsciously, inoffensively, his distance and distinction. He would +manage better than the Colonel. He would not have to get up and go away. +So Miss Keating thought. + +From the lounge behind the veranda, Kitty's voice came to her again. +Kitty was excited and her voice went winged. It flew upward, touched a +perilous height and shook there. It hung, on its delicate, feminine +wings, dominating the male voices that contended, brutally, below. Now +and then it found its lyric mate, a high, adolescent voice that followed +it with frenzy, that broke, pitifully, in sharp, abominable laughter, +like a cry of pain. + +Miss Keating shut her eyes to keep out her vision of Kitty's face with +the look it wore when her voice went high. + +She was roused by the waiter bringing coffee. Kitty Tailleur had come +out on to the veranda. She was pouring out Grace Keating's coffee, and +talking to her in another voice, the one that she kept for children and +for animals, and for all diminutive and helpless things. She was saying +that Miss Keating (whom she called Bunny) was a dear little white +rabbit, and she wanted to stroke her. + +"You see, you are so very small," said Kitty, as she dropped sugar into +Miss Keating's cup. She had ordered cigarettes and a liqueur for +herself. + +Miss Keating said nothing. She drank her coffee with a distasteful +movement of her lips. + +Kitty Tailleur stretched herself at full length on a garden chair. She +watched her companion with eyes secretly, profoundly intent under +lowered lids. + +"Do you mind my smoking?" she said presently. + +"No," said Miss Keating. + +"Do you mind my drinking Kümmel?" + +"No." + +"Do you mind my showing seven inches of stocking?" + +"No." + +"What do you mind, then?" + +"I mind your making yourself so very conspicuous." + +"I don't make myself conspicuous. I was born so." + +"You make me conspicuous. Goodness knows what all these people take us +for!" + +"Holy Innocent! As long as you sit tight and do your hair like that, +nobody could take you for anything but a dear little bunny with its ears +laid back. But if you get palpitations in your little nose, and turn up +your little white tail at people, and scuttle away when they look at +you, you can't blame them if they wonder what's the matter with you." + +"With _me_?" + +"Yes; it's you who give the show away." Kitty smiled into her liqueur +glass. "It doesn't seem to strike you that your behaviour compromises +me." + +Miss Keating's mouth twitched. Her narrow, rather prominent front teeth +lifted an instant, and then closed sharply on her lower lip. Her throat +trembled as if she were swallowing some bitter thing that had been on +the tip of her tongue. + +"If you think that," she said, and her voice crowed no longer, "wouldn't +it be better for us not to be together?" + +Kitty shook her meditative head. "Poor Bunny," said she, "why can't you +be honest? Why don't you say plump out that you're sick and tired of +me? _I_ should be. I couldn't stand another woman lugging me about as I +lug you." + +"It isn't _that_. Only--everywhere we go--there's always some horrible +man." + +"Everywhere you go, dear lamb, there always will be." + +"Yes; but one doesn't have anything to do with them." + +"I don't have anything to do with them." + +"You talk to them." + +"Of course I do," said Kitty. "Why not?" + +"You don't know them." + +"H'm! If you never talk to people you don't know, pray how do you get to +know them?" + +Kitty sat up and began playing with the matches till she held a bunch of +them blazing in her hand. She was blowing out the flame as the Hankins +came up the steps of the veranda. They had a smile for the old lady in +her corner, and for Miss Keating a look of wonder and curiosity and +pity; but they turned from Mrs. Tailleur with guarded eyes. + +"What do you bet," said Kitty, "that I don't make that long man there +come and talk to me?" + +"If you do----" + +"I'll do it before you count ten. One, two, three, four. I shall ask him +for a light----" + +"Sh-sh! He's coming." + +Kitty slid her feet to the floor and covered them with her skirt. Then +she looked down, fascinated, apparently, by the shining tips of her +shoes. You could have drawn a straight line from her feet to the feet of +the man coming up the lawn. + +"Five, six, seven." Kitty lit her last match. "T-t-t! The jamfounded +thing's gone out." + +The long man's sister came up the steps of the veranda. The long man +followed her slowly, with deliberate pauses in his stride. + +"Eight, nine," said Kitty, under her breath. She waited. + +The man's eyes had been upon her; but in the approach he lowered them, +and as he passed her he turned away his head. + +"It's no use," said Miss Keating; "you can't have it both ways." + +Kitty was silent. Suddenly she laughed. + +"Bunny," said she, "would you like to marry the long man?" + +Miss Keating's mouth closed tightly, with an effort, covering her teeth. + +Kitty leaned forward. "Perhaps you can if you want to. Long men +sometimes go crazy about little women. And you'd have such dear little +long babies--little babies with long faces. Why not? You're just the +right size for him. He could make a memorandum of you and put you in his +pocket; or you could hang on his arm like a dear little umbrella. It +would be all right. You may take it from me that man is entirely moral. +He wouldn't think of going out without his umbrella. And he'd be so nice +when the little umbrellas came. Dear Bunny, face massage would do +wonders for you. Why ever not? He's heaps nicer than that man at the +Hydro, and you'd have married him, you know you would, if I hadn't told +you he was a commercial traveller. Never mind, ducky; I dare say he +wasn't." + +Kitty curled herself up tight on the long chair and smiled dreamily at +Miss Keating. + +"Do you remember the way you used to talk at Matlock, just after I found +you there? You _were_ such a rum little thing. You said it would be very +much better if we hadn't any bodies, so that people could fall in love +in a prettier way, and only be married spiritually. You said God ought +to have arranged things on that footing. You looked so miserable when +you said it. By the way, I wouldn't go about saying that sort of thing +to people. That's how I spotted you. I know men think it's one of the +symptoms." + +"Symptoms of what?" + +"Of that state of mind. When a woman comes to me and talks about being +spiritual, I always know she isn't--at the moment. You asked me, +Bunny--the second time I met you--if I believed in spiritual love, and +all that. I didn't, and I don't. When you're gone on a man all you want +is to get him, and keep him to yourself. I dare say it feels jolly +spiritual--especially, when you're not sure of the man--but it isn't. If +you're gone on him enough to give him up when you've got him, there +might be some spirituality in _that_. I shall believe in it when I see +it done." + +"Seriously," she continued, "if you'd been married, Bunny, you wouldn't +have had half such a beastly time. You're one of those leaning, clinging +little women who require a strong, safe man to support them. You ought +to be married." + +Miss Keating smiled a little sad, spiritual smile, and said that was the +last thing she wanted. + +"Well," said Kitty, "I didn't say it was the first." + +Kitty's smile was neither sad nor spiritual. She uncurled herself, got +up, and stood over her companion, stroking her sleek, thin hair. + +Miss Keating purred under the caress. She held up her hand to Kitty who +took it and gave it a squeeze before she let it go. + +"Poor Bunny. Nice Bunny," she said (as if Miss Keating were an animal). +She stretched out her arms, turned, and disappeared through the lounge +into the billiard-room. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +It could not be denied that Kitty had a charm. Miss Keating was not +denying it, even now, when she was saying to herself that Kitty had a +way of attracting very disagreeable attention. + +At first she had supposed that this was an effect of Kitty's charm, +disagreeable to Kitty. Then, even in the beginning, she had seen that +there was something deliberate and perpetual in Kitty's challenge of the +public eye. The public eye, so far from pursuing Kitty, was itself +pursued, tracked down and captured. Kitty couldn't let it go. Publicity +was what Kitty coveted. + +She had then supposed that Kitty was used to it; that she was, in some +mysterious way, a personage. There would be temptations, she had +imagined, for any one who had a charm that lived thus in the public eye. + +And Kitty had her good points, too. There was nobody so easy to live +with as Kitty in her private capacity, if she could be said to have one. +She never wanted to be amused, or read to, or sat up with late at night, +like the opulent invalids Miss Keating had been with hitherto. Miss +Keating owed everything she had to Kitty, her health (she was +constitutionally anæmic), her magnificent salary, the luxurious gaiety +in which they lived and moved (moved, perhaps, rather more than lived). +The very combs in her hair were Kitty's. So were the gowns she wore on +occasions of splendour and display. It struck her as odd that they were +all public, these occasions, things they paid to go to. + +It had dawned on her by this time, coldly, disagreeably, that Kitty +Tailleur was nobody, nobody, that is to say, in particular. A person of +no account in the places where they had stayed. In their three months' +wanderings they had never been invited to any private house. Miss +Keating could not account for that air of ill-defined celebrity that +hung round Kitty like a scent, and marked her trail. + +Not that any social slur seemed to attach to Kitty. The acquaintances +she had made in her brief and curious fashion were all, or nearly all, +socially immaculate. The friends (they were all men) who came to her of +their own intimate accord, belonged, some of them, to an aristocracy +higher than that represented by Mr. Lucy or the Colonel. And they had +been by no means impervious to Kitty's charm. + +From the sounds that came from the billiard-room she gathered that +Kitty's charm appealed also to her audience in there. Leaning her body +forward so as to listen, Miss Keating became aware that Lucy had +returned to the lounge, and was strolling about in it, as if he were +looking for somebody. He strolled into the veranda. + +The garden was dark now, but a little light fell on the veranda from the +open windows of the lounge. Lucy looked at Mrs. Tailleur's empty chair. +He was about to sit in it when he saw that he was alone with Mrs. +Tailleur's companion. He rose again for flight. Miss Keating rose also +with the same intention. + +Lucy protested. "Please don't let me disturb you. I am not going to sit +here." + +"But I am driving you in." + +"Not at all. I only thought you might object to my smoking." + +"But I don't object." + +"You don't, really?" + +"If I stay," said she, "will that prove it?" + +"Please do," said Lucy. + +Miss Keating pushed her chair as far as possible from his. She seated +herself with a fugitive, sidelong movement; as much as to say she left +him to the sanctuary he sought. He would please to observe the +perfection of her withdrawal. The table with the match-stand on it stood +between them. + +Lucy approached the match-stand tentatively. Miss Keating, averted and +effaced, was yet aware of him. + +"I'm afraid there are no matches," said she. "Mrs. Tailleur has used +them all." So effaced and so averted was Miss Keating that there was +nothing left of her but a sweet, attenuated, disembodied voice. It was +as if spirit spoke to spirit with the consecrated doors between. + +Lucy smiled. He paused at Mrs. Tailleur's chair. + +"Is your friend coming back again?" he asked. + +"I don't think so." + +It might have been an effect of her remoteness, but Miss Keating's tone +conveyed to him ever so slight a repudiation of Mrs. Tailleur. + +He seated himself; and as he did so he searched his coat pockets. There +were no matches there. He knew he would find some in the lounge. Perhaps +he might find Mrs. Tailleur also. He would get up and look. + +Miss Keating (still disembodied) rose and withdrew herself completely, +and Lucy thought better of his intention. He lay back and closed his +eyes. + +A light tap on the table roused him. It was Miss Keating laying down a +match-box. He saw her hand poised yet in the delicacy of its +imperceptible approach. + +He stared, stupefied with embarrassment. He stuttered with it. +"Really--I--I--I wish you hadn't." He did not take up the match-box all +at once, lest he should seem prompt in accepting this rather +extraordinary service. + +Mrs. Tailleur's companion slid back into her seat and sat there smiling +to herself and to the incommunicative night. + +"I hope," she said presently, "you are not refraining from smoking +because of me." + +She was very sweet and soft and gentle. But she had not struck him as +gentle or soft or sweet when he had seen her with Mrs. Tailleur, and he +was not prepared to take that view of her now. + +"Thank you," he said. He could not think of anything else to say. He lit +his cigarette, and smoked in an innocent abstraction. + +A clock indoors struck ten. Miss Keating accounted for her continuance. +"It is the only quiet place in the hotel," said she. + +He assented, wondering if this were meant for a conversational opening. + +"And the night air is so very sweet and pure." + +"I'm afraid you find this smoke of mine anything but----" + +"If you are so serious about it," said she, "I shall be afraid either to +stay out or to go in." + +If there were any opening there he missed it. He had turned at the sound +of a skirt trailing, and he saw that Mrs. Tailleur had come back into +the lounge. He was thoughtful for a moment. Then he got up quietly and +went in. + +He did not speak to her or look at her. He sat very still in a corner of +the room where he could see her reflection in a big mirror. It did not +occur to him that Mrs. Tailleur could see his, too. + +Outside in the veranda, Miss Keating sat shuddering in the night air. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Lucy's mind was like his body. Superficial people called it narrow, +because the sheer length of it diverted their attention from its +breadth. Visionary, yet eager for the sound impact of the visible, it +was never more alert than when it, so to speak, sat still, absorbed in +its impressions. It was the sport of young and rapid impulses, which it +seemed to obey sluggishly, while, all the time, it moved with immense, +slow strides to incredibly far conclusions. Having reached a conclusion +it was apt to stay there. The very length of its stride made turning +awkward for it. + +He had reached a conclusion now, on his third night in Southbourne. He +must do something, he did not yet know what, for the protection of Mrs. +Tailleur. + +Her face was an appeal to the chivalry that sat quiet in Lucy's heart, +nursing young dreams of opportunity. + +Lucy's chivalry had been formed by three weeks of courtship and three +years of wedded incompatibility. The incompatibility had hardly dawned +on him when his wife died. Three years were too short a space for Lucy's +mind to turn in; and so he always thought of her tenderly as dear little +Amy. She had given him two daughters and paid for the younger with her +life. + +Five years of fatherhood finished his training in the school of +chivalry. He had been profoundly moved by little Amy's sacrifice to the +powers of life, and he was further touched by the heartrending spectacle +of Jane. Jane doing all she knew for him; Jane, so engaging in her +innocence, hiding her small, childlike charm under dark airs of assumed +maternity; Jane, whose skirts fluttered wide to all the winds of dream; +Jane with an apron on and two little girls tied to the strings of it; +Jane, adorable in disaster, striving to be discreet and comfortable and +competent. + +He had a passionate pity for all creatures troubled and unfortunate. And +Mrs. Tailleur's face called aloud to him for pity. For Lucy Mrs. +Tailleur's face wore, like a veil, the shadow of the incredible past and +of the future; it was reminiscent and prophetic of terrible and tragic +things. Across the great spaces of the public rooms his gaze answered +her call. Then Mrs. Tailleur's face would become dumb. Like all hurt +things, she was manifestly shy of observation and pursuit. + +Pursuit and observation, perpetual, implacable, were what she had to +bear. The women had driven her from the drawing-room; the men made the +smoke-room impossible. A cold, wet mist came with the evenings. It lay +over the sea and drenched the lawns of the hotel garden. Mrs. Tailleur +had no refuge but the lounge. + +To-night the wine-faced man and his companion had tracked her there. +Mrs. Tailleur had removed herself from the corner where they had hemmed +her in. She had found an unoccupied sofa near the writing-table. The +pursuer was seized instantly with a desire to write letters. Mrs. +Tailleur went out and shivered on the veranda. His eyes followed her. In +passing she had turned her back on the screened hearth-place where Lucy +and his sister sat alone. + +"Did you see that?" said Lucy. + +"I did indeed," said Jane. + +"It's awful that a woman should be exposed to that sort of thing. What +can her people be thinking of?" + +"Her people?" + +"Yes; to let her go about alone." + +"I go about alone," said Jane pensively. + +"Yes, but she's so good looking." + +"Am _I_ not?" + +"You're all right, Jenny; but you never looked like that. There's +something about her----" + +"Is that what makes those men horrid to her?" + +"Yes, I suppose so. The brutes!" He paused irritably. "It mustn't happen +again." + +"What's the poor lady to do?" said Jane. + +"She can't do anything. _We_ must." + +"We?" + +"I must. You must. Go out to her, Janey, and be nice to her." + +"No, you go and say I sent you." + +He strode out on to the veranda. Mrs. Tailleur sat with her hands in her +lap, motionless, and, to his senses, unaware. + +"Mrs. Tailleur." + +She started and looked up at him. + +"My sister asked me to tell you that there's a seat for you in there, if +you don't mind sitting with us." + +"But won't you mind me?" + +"Not--not," said Lucy (he positively stammered), "not if you don't mind +us." + +Mrs. Tailleur looked at him again, wide eyed, with the strange and +pitiful candour of distrust. Then she smiled incomprehensibly. + +Her eyelids dropped as she slid past him to the seat beside Jane. He +noticed that she had the sudden, furtive ways of the wild thing aware of +the hunter. + +"May I really?" said Mrs. Tailleur. + +"Oh, _please_," said Jane. + +As she spoke the man at the writing-table looked up and stared. Not at +Mrs. Tailleur this time, but at Jane. He stared with a wonder so +spontaneous, so supreme, that it purged him of offence. + +He stared again (with less innocence) at Lucy as the young man gave way, +reverently, to the sweep of Mrs. Tailleur's gown. Lucy's face intimated +to him that he had made a bad mistake. The wretch admitted, by a violent +flush, that it was possible. Then his eyes turned again to Mrs. +Tailleur. It was as much as to say he had only been relying on the +incorruptible evidence of his senses. + +Mrs. Tailleur sat down and breathed hard. + +"How sweet of you!" Her voice rang with the labour of her breast. + +Lucy smiled as he caught the word. He would have condemned the stress of +it, but that Mrs. Tailleur's voice pleaded forgiveness for any word she +chose to utter. "Even," he said to himself, "if you could forget her +face." + +He couldn't forget it. As he sat there trying to read, it came between +him and his book. It tormented him to find its meaning. Kitty's face was +a thing both delicate and crude. When she was gay it showed a blurred +edge, a fineness in peril. When she was sad it wore the fixed look of +artificial maturity. It was like a young bud opened by inquisitive +fingers and forced to be a flower. Some day, the day before it withered, +the bruised veins would glow again, and a hectic spot betray, like a +bruise, the violation of its bloom. At the moment, repose gave back its +beauty to Kitty's face. Lucy noticed that the large black pupils of her +eyes were ringed with a dark blue iris, spotted with black. There was no +colour about her at all except that blue, and the delicate red of her +mouth. In her black gown she was a revelation of pure form. Colour would +have obscured her, made her ineffectual. + +He sat silent, hardly daring to look at her. So keen was his sense of +her that he could almost have heard the beating of her breast against +her gown. Once she sighed, and Lucy stirred. Once she stirred slightly, +and Lucy, unconsciously responsive, sighed. Then Kitty's glance lit on +him. He turned a page of his book ostentatiously, and Kitty's glance +slunk home again. She closed her eyes and opened them to find Lucy's +eyes looking at her over the top of his book. Poor Lucy was so perturbed +at being detected in that particular atrocity that he rose, drew his +chair to the hearth, and arranged himself in an attitude that made +these things impossible. + +He was presently aware of Jane launching herself on a gentle tide of +conversation, and of Mrs. Tailleur trembling pathetically on the brink +of it. + +"Do you like Southbourne?" he heard Jane saying. + +Then suddenly Mrs. Tailleur plunged in. + +"No," said she; "I hate it. I hate any place I have to be alone in, if +it's only for five minutes." + +Lucy felt that it was Jane who drew back now, in sheer distress. He +tried to think of something to say, and gave it up, stultified by his +compassion. + +The silence was broken by Jane. + +"Robert," said she, "have you written to the children?" + +Mrs. Tailleur's face became suddenly sombre and intent. + +"No; I haven't. I clean forgot it." + +He went off to write his letter. When he came back Mrs. Tailleur had +risen and was saying good night to Jane. + +He followed her to the portière and drew it back for her to pass. As she +turned to thank him she glanced up at the hand that held the portière. +It trembled violently. Her eyes, a moment ago dark under her bent +forehead, darted a sudden light sidelong. + +She paused, interrogative, expectant. Lucy bowed. + +As Mrs. Tailleur passed out she looked back over her shoulder, smiling +again her incomprehensible smile. + +The portière dropped behind her. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Five days passed. The Lucys had now been a week at Southbourne. They +knew it well by that time, for bad weather kept them from going very far +beyond it. Jane had found, too, that they had to know some of the +visitors. The little Cliff Hotel brought its guests together with a +geniality unknown to its superb rival, the Métropole. Under its roof, in +bad weather, persons not otherwise incompatible became acquainted with +extraordinary rapidity. People had begun already to select each other. +Even Mr. Soutar, the clergyman, had emerged from his lonely gloom, and +dined by preference at the same table with the middle-aged ladies--the +table farthest from the bay window. The Hankins, out of pure kindness, +had taken pity on the old lady, Mrs. Jurd. They had made advances to +the Lucys, perceiving an agreeable social affinity, and had afterward +drawn back. For the Lucys were using the opportunity of the weather for +cultivating Mrs. Tailleur. + +It was not easy, they told themselves, to get to know her. She did not +talk much. But as Jane pointed out to Robert, little things came out, +things that proved that she was all right. Her father was a country +parson, very strait-laced, they gathered; and she had little sisters, +years younger than herself. When she talked at all it was in a pretty, +innocent way, like a child's, and all her little legends were, you could +see, transparently consistent. They had, like a child's, a quite funny +reiterance and simplicity. But, like a child, she was easily put off by +any sort of interruption. When she thought she had let herself go too +far, she would take fright and avoid them for the rest of the day, and +they had to begin all over again with her next time. + +The thing, Lucy said, would be for Jane to get her some day all alone. +But Jane said, No; Mrs. Tailleur was ten times more afraid of her than +of him. Besides, they had only another week, and they didn't want, did +they, to see _too_ much of Mrs. Tailleur? At that Lucy got very red, and +promised his sister to take her out somewhere by themselves the next +fine day. + +That was on Wednesday evening, when it was raining hard. + +The weather lifted with the dawn. The heavy smell of the wet earth was +pierced by the fine air of heaven and the sea. + +Jane Lucy leaned out of her bedroom window and looked eastward beyond +the hotel garden to the Cliff. The sea was full of light. Light rolled +on the low waves and broke on their tops like foam. It hung quivering on +the white face of the Cliff. It was like a thin spray thrown from the +heaving light of the sea. + +At breakfast Jane reminded Robert of his promise to take her for a sail +on the first fine day. They turned their backs on the hotel and went +seaward. On their way to the boats they passed Mrs. Tailleur sitting on +the beach in the sun. + +Neither of them enjoyed that expedition. It was the first of all the +things they had done together that had failed. Jane wondered why. If +they were not enjoying themselves on a day like that, when, she argued, +would they enjoy themselves? The day remained as perfect as it had +begun. There was nothing wrong, Robert admitted, with the day. They +sailed in the sun's path and landed in a divine and solitary cove. +Robert was obliged to agree that there was nothing wrong with the cove, +and nothing, no nothing in the least wrong with the lunch. There might, +yes, of course there might, be something very wrong with him. + +Whatever it was, it disappeared as they sighted Southbourne. Robert, +mounting with uneasy haste the steps that led from the beach to the +hotel garden, was unusually gay. + +They were late for dinner, and the table next theirs was empty. Outside, +on the great green lawn in front of the windows, he could see Mrs. +Tailleur walking up and down, alone. + +He dined with the abstraction of a man pursued by the hour of an +appointment. He established Jane in the lounge, with all the magazines +he could lay his hands on, and went out by the veranda on to the lawn +where Mrs. Tailleur was still walking up and down. + +The Colonel and his wife were in the veranda. They made a low sound of +pity as they saw him go. + +Mrs. Tailleur seemed more than ever alone. The green space was bare +around her as if cleared by the sweep of her gown. She moved quietly, +with a long and even undulation, a yielding of her whole body to the +rhythm of her feet. She had reached the far end of the lawn as Lucy +neared her, and he looked for her to turn and face him. + +She did not turn. + +The lawn at this end was bounded by a gravel walk. The walk was fenced +by a low stone wall built on the edge of the Cliff. Mrs. Tailleur paused +there and seated herself sideways on the wall. Her face was turned from +Lucy, and he judged her unaware of his approach. In his eyes she gained +a new enchantment from the vast and simple spaces of her background, a +sea of dull purple, a sky of violet, divinely clear. Her face had the +intense, unsubstantial pallor, the magic and stillness of flowers that +stand in the blue dusk before night. + +She turned at the sound of the man's footsteps on the gravel. She smiled +quietly, as if she knew of his coming, and was waiting for it there. He +greeted her. A few words of no moment passed between them, and there was +a silence. He stood by the low wall with his face set seaward, as if all +his sight were fixed on the trail of smoke that marked the far-off +passage of a steamer. Mrs. Tailleur's face was fixed on his. He was +aware of it. + +Standing beside her, he was aware, too, of something about her alien to +sea and sky; something secret, impenetrable, that held her, as it were, +apart, shut in by her own strange and solitary charm. + +And she sat there in the deep quiet of a woman intent upon her hour. He +had no ear for the call of her silence, for the voice of the instincts +prisoned in blood and brain. + +Presently she rose, shrugging her shoulders and gathering her furs about +her. + +"I want to walk," she said; "will you come?" + +She led the way to the corner where the low wall was joined by a high +one, dividing the hotel garden from the open down. There was a gate +here; it led to a flight of wooden steps that went zig-zag to the beach +below. At the first turn in the flight a narrow path was cut on the +Cliff side. To the right it rose inland, following the slope of the +down. To the left it ran level under the low wall, then climbed higher +yet to the brow of the headland. There it ended in a square recess, a +small white chamber cut from the chalk and open to the sea and sky. From +the floor of the recess the Cliff dropped sheer to the beach two hundred +feet below. + +Mrs. Tailleur took the path to the left. Lucy followed her. + +The path was stopped by the bend of the great Cliff, the recess roofed +by its bulging forehead. There was a wooden seat set well back under +this cover. Two persons who found themselves alone there might count on +security from interruption. + +Mrs. Tailleur and Lucy were alone. + +Lucy looked at the Cliff wall in front of them. + +"We must go back," said he. + +"Oh no," said she; "don't let's go back." + +"But if you want to walk----" + +"I don't," said she; "do you?" + +He didn't, and they seated themselves. In the charm of this intimate +seclusion Lucy became more than ever dumb. Mrs. Tailleur waited a few +minutes in apparent meditation. + +All Lucy said was "May I smoke?" + +"You may." She meditated again. + +"I was wondering," said she, "whether you were ever going to say +anything." + +"I didn't know," said Lucy simply, "whether I might. I thought you were +thinking." + +"So I was. I was thinking of what you were going to say next. I never +met anybody who said less and took so long a time to say it in." + +"Well," said Lucy, "I was thinking too." + +"I know you were. You needn't be so afraid of me unless you like." + +"I am not," said he stiffly, "in the least afraid of you. I'm +desperately afraid of saying the wrong thing." + +"To me? Or everybody?" + +"Not everybody." + +"To me, then. Do you think I might be difficult?" + +"Difficult?" + +"To get on with?" + +"Not in the least. Possibly, if I may say so, a little difficult to +know." + +She smiled. "I don't usually strike people in that light." + +"Well, I think I'm afraid of boring you." + +"You couldn't if you tried from now to midnight." + +"How do you know what I mightn't do?" + +"That's it. I don't know. I never _should_ know. It's only the people +I'm sure of that bore me. Don't they you?" + +He laughed uneasily. + +"The people," she went on, "who are sure of _me_; who think I'm so easy +to know. They don't know me, and they don't know that I know them. And +they're the only people I've ever, ever met. I can tell what they're +going to say before they've said it. It's always the same thing. +It's--if you like--the inevitable thing. If you can't have anything but +the same thing, at least you like it put a little differently. You'd +think, among them all, they might find it easy to put it a little +differently sometimes; but they never do; and it's the brutal monotony +of it that I cannot stand." + +"I suppose," said Lucy, "people _are_ monotonous." + +"They don't know," said she, evidently ignoring his statement as +inadequate, "they don't know how sick I am of it--how insufferably it +bores me." + +"Ah! there you see--that's what _I'm_ afraid of." + +"What?" + +"Of saying the wrong thing--the--the same thing." + +"That's it. You'd say it differently, and it wouldn't be the same thing +at all. And what's more, I should never know whether you were going to +say it or not." + +"There's one thing I'd like to say to you if I knew how--if I knew how +you'd take it. You see, though I think I know you----" he hesitated. + +"You don't really? You don't know who I am? Or where I come from? Or +where I'm going to? I don't know myself." + +"I know," said Lucy, "as much as I've any right to. But unluckily the +thing I want to know----" + +"Is what you haven't any right to?" + +"I'm afraid I haven't. The thing I want to know is simply whether I can +help you in any way." + +She smiled. "Ah," said she, "you _have_ said it." + +"Haven't I said it differently?" + +"I'm not sure. You looked different when you said it; that's something." + +"I know I've no right to say it at all. What I mean is that if I could +do anything for you without boring you, without forcing myself on your +acquaintance, I'd be most awfully glad. You know you needn't recognise +me afterward unless you like. Have I put it differently now?" + +"Yes; I don't think I've ever heard it put quite that way before." + +There was a long pause in which Lucy vainly sought for illumination. + +"No," said Mrs. Tailleur, as if to herself; "I should never know what +you were going to say or do next." + +"Wouldn't you?" + +"No; I didn't know just now whether you were going to speak to me or +not. When I said I wanted to walk I didn't know whether you'd come with +me or not." + +"I came." + +"You came; but when I go----" + +"You're not going?" + +"Yes; to-morrow, perhaps, or the next day. When I go I shall give you my +address and ask you to come and see me; but I shan't know whether you'll +come." + +"Of course I'll come." + +"There's no 'of course' about you; that's the charm of it. I shan't know +until you're actually there." + +"I shall be there all right." + +"What? You'll come?" + +"Yes; and I'll bring my sister." + +"Your sister?" She drew back slightly. "Turn round, please--this +way--and let me look at you." + +He turned, laughing. Her eyes searched his face. + +"Yes; you meant that. Why do you want to bring your sister?" + +"Because I want you to know her." + +"Are you sure--quite--quite sure--you want her to know me?" + +"Quite--quite sure. If you don't mind--if she won't bore you." + +"Oh, she won't bore me." + +"You're not afraid of that monotony?" + +She turned and looked long at him. "You are very like your sister," she +said. + +"Am I? How? In what way?" + +"In the way we've been talking about. I suppose you know how remarkable +you are?" + +"No; I really don't think I do." + +"Then," said Mrs. Tailleur, "you are all the more remarkable." + +"Don't you think," she added, "we had better go back?" + +They went back. As they mounted the steps to the garden door they saw +Miss Keating approaching it from the inside. She moved along the low +wall that overlooked the path by which they had just come. There was no +crunching of pebbles under her feet. She trod, inaudibly, the soft edge +of the lawn. + +Lucy held the door open for Miss Keating when Mrs. Tailleur had passed +through; but Miss Keating had turned suddenly. She made the pebbles on +the walk scream with the vehemence of her retreat. + +"Dear me," said Lucy, "it must be rather painful to be as shy as that." + +"Mustn't it?" said Mrs. Tailleur. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +The next day it rained, fitfully at first, at the will of a cold wind +that dragged clouds out of heaven. A gleam of sunshine in the afternoon, +then wild rain driven slantwise by the gusts; and now, at five o'clock, +no wind at all, but a straight, soaking downpour. + +The guests at the Cliff Hotel were all indoors. Colonel Hankin and his +wife were reading in a corner of the lounge. Mr. Soutar, the clergyman, +was dozing over a newspaper by an imaginary fire. The other men drifted +continually from the bar to the billiard-room and back again. + +Mrs. Tailleur and Lucy were sitting in the veranda, with rugs round +them, watching the rain, and watched by Colonel and Mrs. Hankin. + +Jane had gone into the drawing-room to write letters. There was nobody +there but the old lady who sat in the bay of the window, everlastingly +knitting, and Miss Keating isolated on a sofa near the door. + +Everybody in the hotel was happy and occupied, except Miss Keating. Her +eyes followed the labour of Miss Lucy's pen, watching for the stroke +that should end it. She had made up her mind that she must speak to her. + +Miss Keating was subject to a passion which circumstances were +perpetually frustrating. She desired to be interesting, profoundly, +personally interesting to people. She disliked publicity partly because +it reduced her to mournful insignificance and silence. The few moments +in her life which counted were those private ones when she found +attention surrendered wholly to her service. She hungered for the +unworn, unwearied sympathy of strangers. Her fancy had followed and +fastened on the Lucys, perceiving this exquisitely virgin quality in +them. And now she was suffering from an oppression of the nerves that +urged her to a supreme outpouring. + +Miss Lucy seemed absorbed in her correspondence. She felt that Miss +Keating's eyes were upon her, and as she wrote she planned a dexterous +retreat. It would, she knew, be difficult, owing to Miss Keating's +complete occupation of the sofa by the door. + +She had made that lady's acquaintance in the morning, having found her +sitting sad and solitary in the lounge. She had then felt that it would +be unkind not to say something to her, and she had spent the greater +part of the morning saying it. Miss Keating had tracked the thin thread +of conversation carefully, as if in search of an unapparent opportunity. +Jane, aware of the watchfulness of her method, had taken fright and left +her. She had had an awful feeling that Miss Keating was about to bestow +a confidence on her; somebody else's confidence, which Miss Keating had +broken badly, she suspected. + +Jane had finished her letters. She was addressing the envelopes. Now she +was stamping them. Now she was crossing the room. Miss Keating lowered +her eyes as the moment came which was to bring her into communion with +the Lucys. + +Jane had made her way very quietly to the door, and thought to pass +through it unobserved, when Miss Keating seemed to leap up from her sofa +as from an ambush. + +"Miss Lucy," she said, and Jane turned at the penetrating sibilants of +her name. + +Miss Keating thrust toward her a face of tragic and imminent appeal. A +nervous vibration passed through her and communicated itself to Jane. + +"What is it?" Jane paused in the doorway. + +"May I speak to you a moment?" + +"Certainly." + +But Miss Keating did not speak. She stood there, clasping and +unclasping her hands. It struck Jane that she was trying to conceal an +eagerness of which she was more than half ashamed. + +"What is it?" she said again. + +Miss Keating sighed. "Will you sit down? Here--I think." She glanced +significantly at the old lady who was betraying unmistakable interest in +the scene. There was no place where they could sit beyond her range of +vision. But the sofa was on the far side of it, and Miss Keating's back +protested against observation. + +She bent forward, her thin arms stretched out to Jane, her hands locked, +as if she still held tight the confidence she offered. + +"Miss Lucy," she said, "you were so kind to me this morning, so kind and +helpful." + +"I didn't know it." + +"No, you didn't know it." Miss Keating looked down, and she smiled as if +at some pleasant secret of her own. "I think when we are really helping +each other we don't know it. You couldn't realise what it meant to me, +your just coming up and speaking to me that way." + +"I'm very glad," said Jane; and thought she meant it. + +Miss Keating smiled again. "I wonder," she said, "if I might ask you to +help me again?" + +"If I can." + +"You look as if you could. I'm in a great difficulty, and I would like +you--if you would--to give me your advice." + +"That," said Jane, "is a very dangerous thing to give." + +"It wouldn't be in this case. If I might only tell you. There's no one +in the hotel whom I can speak to." + +"Surely," said Jane, "there is Mrs. Tailleur, your friend." + +"My friend? Yes, she is my friend; that's why I can't say anything to +her. She _is_ the difficulty." + +"Indeed," said Jane coldly. Nothing in Miss Keating appealed to the +spirit of adventurous sympathy. + +"I have received so much kindness from her. She _is_ kind." + +"Evidently," said Jane. + +"That makes my position so very delicate--so very disagreeable." + +"I should think it would." + +Miss Keating felt the antipathy in Miss Lucy's tone. "You _do_ think it +strange of me to come to you when I don't know you?" + +"No, no; people are always coming to me. Perhaps because they don't know +me." + +"Ah, you see, you make them come." + +"Indeed I don't. I try to stop them." + +"Are you trying to stop me?" + +"Yes; I think I am." + +"Don't stop me, please." + +"But surely it would be better to consult your own people." + +Miss Keating paused. Miss Lucy had suggested the obvious course, which +she had avoided for reasons which were not obvious even to herself. + +"My own people?" she murmured pensively. "They are not here." + +It was not her fault if Miss Lucy jumped to the conclusion that they +were dead. + +"I wonder," she said, "if you see my difficulty?" + +"I see it plainly enough. Mrs. Tailleur has been very kind to you, and +you want to leave her. Why?" + +"I'm not sure that I ought to stay." + +"You must be the best judge of your obligations." + +"There are," said Miss Keating, "other things; I don't know that I'm a +good judge of _them_. You see, I was brought up very carefully." + +"Were you?" + +"Yes. I'm not sure that it's wise to be as careful as all that--to keep +young girls in ignorance of things they--things they must, sooner or +later----" she paused staring as if at an abyss. + +"What things?" asked Jane bluntly. + +"I don't know what things. I don't _know_ anything. I'm afraid. I'm so +innocent, Miss Lucy, that I'm like a child in the dark. I think I want +some one to hold my hand and tell me there's nothing there." + +"Perhaps there isn't." + +"Yes, but it's so dark that I can't see whether there is or isn't. I'm +just like a little child. Except that it imagines things and I don't." + +"Don't you? Are you sure you don't let your imagination run away with +you sometimes?" + +"Not," said Miss Keating, "not on this subject. Even when I'm brought +into contact"--her shoulder-blades obeyed the suggestion of her brain, +and shuddered. "I don't know whether it's good or bad to refuse to face +things. I can't help it. All that side of life is so intensely +disagreeable to me." + +"It's not agreeable to me," said Jane. "And what _has_ it got to do with +Mrs. Tailleur?" + +Miss Keating smiled queerly. "I don't know. I wish I did." + +"If you mean you think she isn't nice, I can tell you I'm sure you're +mistaken." + +"It's not what _I_ think. It's what other people think." + +"What people?" + +"The people here." + +Little Jane lifted her head superbly. + +"_We_ think the people here have behaved abominably to Mrs. Tailleur." + +She lifted her voice too. She didn't care who heard her. She rose, +making herself look as tall as possible. + +"And if you're her friend," said she, "you ought to think so too." + +She walked out of the room, still superbly. Miss Keating was left to a +painful meditation on misplaced confidence. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +She had had no intention of betraying Kitty. Kitty, she imagined, had +sufficiently betrayed herself. And if she hadn't, as long as Kitty chose +to behave like a dubious person, she could hardly be surprised if +persons by no means dubious refused to be compromised. She, Miss +Keating, was in no way responsible for Kitty Tailleur. Neither was she +responsible for what other people thought of her. That was all, in +effect, that she had intimated to Miss Lucy. + +She did not say what she herself precisely thought, nor when she had +first felt that uncomfortable sensation of exposure, that little shiver +of cold and shame that seized her when in Kitty Tailleur's society. She +had no means of measuring the lengths to which Kitty had gone and might +yet go. She was simply possessed, driven and lashed by her vision of +Kitty as she had seen her yesterday; Kitty standing at the end of the +garden, on the watch for Mr. Lucy; Kitty returning, triumphant, with the +young man at her heels. + +She had seen Kitty with other men before, but there was something in +this particular combination that she could not bear to think of. All the +same, she had lain awake half the night thinking of it. She had Kitty +Tailleur and Mr. Lucy on her nerves. + +She had desired a pretext for approaching Miss Lucy, and poor Kitty was +a pretext made to her hand. Nothing could be more appealing than the +spectacle of helpless innocence struggling with a problem as terrible as +Kitty. Miss Keating knew all the time that as far as she was concerned +there was no problem. If she disliked being with Kitty she had nothing +to do but to pack up and go. Kitty had said in the beginning that if she +didn't like her she must go. + +That course was obvious but unattractive. And the most obvious and most +unattractive thing about it was that it would not have brought her any +further with the Lucys. It would, in fact, have removed her altogether +from their view. + +But she had done for herself now with the Lucys. She should have kept +her nerves to herself, rasped, as they were to a treacherous tenuity. +And as the state of her nerves was owing to Kitty, she held Kitty +responsible for the crisis. She writhed as she thought of it. She +writhed as she thought of Mr. Lucy. She writhed as she thought of Kitty; +and writhing, she rubbed her own venom into her hurt. + +Of course she would have to leave Kitty now. + +But, if she did, the alternatives were grim. She would have either to go +back to her own people, or to look after somebody's children, or an +invalid. Her own people were not interested in Miss Keating. Children +and invalids demanded imperatively that she should be interested in +them. And Miss Keating, unfortunately, was not interested in anybody +but herself. + +So interested was she that she had forgotten the old lady who sat +knitting in the window, who, distracted by Miss Lucy's outburst, had let +her ball roll on to the floor. It rolled away across the room to Miss +Keating's feet, and there was a great tangle in the wool. Miss Keating +picked up the ball and brought it to the old lady, winding and +disentangling it as she went. + +"Thank you; my wool is a nuisance to everybody," said the old lady. And +she began to talk about her knitting. All the year round she knitted +comforters for the deep-sea fishermen, gray and red and blue. When she +was tired of one colour she went to another. It would be red's turn +next. + +Miss Keating felt as if she were being drawn to the old lady by that +thin thread of wool. And the old lady kept looking at her all the time. + +"Your face is familiar to me," she said. (Oddly enough, the old lady's +face was familiar to Miss Keating.) "I have met you somewhere; I cannot +think where." + +"I wonder," said Miss Keating, "if it was at Wenden, my father's +parish?" + +The old lady's look was sharper. "Your father is the vicar of Wenden?" + +"Yes." + +"I thought so." + +"Do you know him?" The ball slipped from Miss Keating's nervous fingers +and the wool was tangled worse than ever. + +"No, no; but I could tell that you were----" she hesitated. "It was at +Ilkley that I met you. It's coming back to me. You were not then with +Mrs. Tailleur, I think? You were with an invalid lady?" + +"Yes; I was until I broke down." + +"May I ask if you knew Mrs. Tailleur before you came to her?" + +"No. I knew nothing of her. I know nothing now." + +"Oh," said the old lady. It was as if she had said: that settles it. + +The wool was disentangled. It was winding them nearer and nearer. + +"Have you been with her long?" + +"Not more than three months." + +There were only five inches of wool between them now. "Do you mind +telling me where you picked her up?" + +Miss Keating remembered with compunction that it was Kitty who had +picked _her_ up. Picked her up, as it were, in her arms, and carried her +away from the dreadful northern Hydropathic where she had dropped, +forlorn and exhausted, in the trail of her opulent invalid. + +"It was at Matlock, afterward. Why?" + +"Because, my dear--you must forgive me, but I could not help hearing +what that young lady said. She was so very--so very unrestrained." + +"Very ill-bred, I should say." + +"Well, I should not have said that. You couldn't mistake the Lucys for +anything but gentlepeople. Evidently I was meant to hear. I've no doubt +she thinks us all very unkind." + +"Unkind? Why?" + +"Because we have--have not exactly taken to Mrs. Tailleur; if you'll +forgive my saying so." + +Miss Keating's smile forgave her. "People do not always take to her. She +is more a favourite, I think, with men." She gave the ball into the old +lady's hands. + +The old lady coughed slightly. "Thank you, my dear. I dare say _you_ +have thought it strange. We are such a friendly little community here; +and if Mrs. Tailleur had been at all possible----" + +"I believe," said Miss Keating, "she is very well connected. Lord +Matcham is a most intimate friend of hers." + +"That doesn't speak very well for Lord Matcham, I'm afraid." + +"I wish," said Miss Keating, "you would be frank with me." + +"I should like to be, my dear." + +"Then, please--if there's anything you think I should be told--tell me." + +"I think you ought to be told that we all are wondering a little at your +being seen with Mrs. Tailleur. You are too nice, if I may say so, and +she is--well, not the sort of person you should be going about with." + +Miss Keating's mouth opened slightly. + +"Do you know anything about her?" + +"I know less than you do. I'm only going by what Colonel Hankin says." + +"Colonel Hankin?" + +"Mrs. Hankin, I should say; of course I couldn't speak about Mrs. +Tailleur to _him_." + +"Has he ever met her?" + +"Met her? In society? My dear!--he has never met her anywhere." + +"Then would he--would he really know?" + +"It isn't only the Colonel. All the men in the hotel say the same thing. +You can see how they stare at her." + +"Oh, those men!" + +"You may depend upon it, they know more than we do." + +"How can they? How--how do they tell?" + +"I suppose they see something." + +Miss Keating saw it, too. She shuddered involuntarily. Her knees shook +under her. She sat down. + +"I'm sure I don't know what it is," said the old lady. + +"Nor I," said Miss Keating faintly. + +"They say you've only got to look at her----" + +A dull flush spread over Miss Keating's face. She was breathing hard. +Her mouth opened to speak; a thick sigh came through it, but no words. + +"I've looked," said the old lady, "and I can't see anything about her +different from other people. She dresses so quietly; but I'm told they +often do. They're very careful that we shouldn't know them." + +"They? Oh, you don't mean that Mrs. Tailleur--is----" + +"I'm only going by what I'm told. Mind you, I get it all from Mrs. +Hankin." + +Miss Keating, who had been leaning forward, sat suddenly bolt upright. +Her whole body was shaking now. Her voice was low but violent. + +"Oh--oh--I knew it--I knew. I always felt there was something about +her." + +"I'm sure, my dear, you didn't _know_." + +"I didn't. I didn't think it was that; I only thought she wasn't nice. I +thought she was fast, or she'd been divorced, or something--something +terrible of that sort." + +She still sat bolt upright, gazing open-eyed, open-mouthed at the +terror. She was filled with a fierce excitement, a sort of exultation. +Then doubt came to her. + +"But surely--surely the hotel people would know?" + +"Hotel people never know anything that isn't their interest to know. If +there were any complaint, or if any of the guests were to leave on +account of her, Mrs. Tailleur would have to go." + +"And has there been any complaint?" + +"I believe Mr. Soutar--the clergyman--has spoken to the manager." + +"And the manager?" + +"Well, you see, Mr. Soutar is always complaining. He complained about +the food, and about his bedroom. He has the cheapest bedroom in the +hotel." + +Miss Keating was thinking hard. Her idea was that Kitty Tailleur should +go, and that she should remain. + +"Don't you think if Colonel Hankin spoke to the manager----" + +"He wouldn't. He's much too kind. Besides, the manager can't do anything +as long as she behaves herself. And now that the Lucys have taken her +up----. And then, there's you. Your being with her is her great +protection. As she very well knew when she engaged you." + +"I was engaged for _that_?" + +"There can be very little doubt of it." + +"Oh! then nobody thinks that I knew it? That I'm like her?" + +"Nobody _could_ think that of you." + +"What am I to do? I'm so helpless, and I've no one to advise me. And +it's not as if we really knew anything." + +"My dear, I think you should leave her." + +"Of course I shall leave her. I can't stay another day. But I don't know +how I ought to do it." + +"Would you like to consult Colonel Hankin?" + +"Oh no; I don't think I could bear to speak about it to him." + +"Well--and perhaps he would not like to be brought into it, either." + +"Then what reason can I give her?" + +"Of course you cannot tell her what you've heard." + +Miss Keating was silent. + +"Or if you do, you must please not give me as your informant." + +"I will not do that." + +"Nor--please--Colonel and Mrs. Hankin. We none of us want to be mixed up +with any unpleasant business." + +"You may trust me," said Miss Keating. "I am very discreet." + +She rose. The old lady held her with detaining eyes. + +"What shall you do when you have left her?" + +"I suppose I shall have to look for another place." + +"You are not going home, then?" + +Miss Keating's half-smile hinted at renunciation. "I have too many +younger sisters." + +"Well, let me see. I shall be going back to Surbiton the day after +to-morrow. How would it be if you were to come with me?" + +"Oh, Mrs.--Mrs.----" The smile wavered, but it held its place. + +"Mrs. Jurd. If we suited each other you might stay with me, at any rate +for a week or two. I've been a long time looking out for a companion." + +Miss Keating's smile was now strained with hesitation. Mrs. Jurd was not +an invalid, and she was interested in Miss Keating. These were points in +her favour. On the other hand, nobody who could do better would choose +to live with Mrs. Jurd and wind wool and talk about the deep-sea +fishermen. + +"I am living," said Mrs. Jurd, "with my nephew at Surbiton. I have to +keep his house for him." + +"Then do you think you would really need any one?" + +"Indeed I do. My nephew isn't a companion for me. He's in the city all +day and out most evenings, or he brings his friends in and they get +smoking." + +Miss Keating's smile was now released from its terrible constraint. A +slight tremor, born of that deliverance, passed over her face, and left +it rosy. But having committed herself to the policy of hesitation she +had a certain delicacy in departing from it now. + +"Are you quite sure you would care to have _me_?" + +"My dear, I am quite sure that I don't care to have any one who is not a +lady; and I am quite sure that I am talking to a lady. It is very seldom +in these days that one can be sure." + +Miss Keating made a little bow and blushed. + +After a great deal of conversation it was settled that she should +exchange the Cliff Hotel for the Métropole that night, and that she +should stay there until she left Southbourne for Surbiton, with Mrs. +Jurd. + +When Colonel and Mrs. Hankin looked in to report upon the weather, this +scheme was submitted to them as to supreme judges in a question of +propriety. + +Mrs. Tailleur was not mentioned. Her name stood for things that decorous +persons do not mention, except under certain sanctions and the plea of +privilege. The Colonel might mention them to his wife, and his wife +might mention them to Mrs. Jurd, who might pass them on with +unimpeachable propriety to Miss Keating. But these ladies were unable to +discuss Mrs. Tailleur in the presence of the Colonel. Still, as none of +them could do without her, she was permitted to appear in a purified +form, veiled in obscure references, or diminished to an innocent +abstraction. + +Miss Keating, Mrs. Jurd said, was not at all satisfied with her--er--her +present situation. + +The Colonel lowered his eyes for one iniquitous instant while Mrs. +Tailleur, disguised as Miss Keating's present situation, laughed through +the veil and trailed before him her unabashed enormity. + +He managed to express, with becoming gravity, his approval of the +scheme. He only wondered whether it might not be better for Miss Keating +to stay where she was until the morning, that her step might not seem so +precipitate, so marked. + +Miss Keating replied that she thought she had been sufficiently +compromised already. + +"I don't think," said the Colonel, "that I should put it that way." + +He felt that by putting it that way Miss Keating had brought them a +little too near what he called the verge, the verge they were all so +dexterously avoiding. He would have been glad if he could have been kept +out of this somewhat perilous debate, but, since the women had dragged +him into it, it was his business to see that it was confined within the +limits of comparative safety. Goodness knew where they would be landed +if the women lost their heads. + +He looked gravely at Miss Keating. + +That look unnerved her, and she took a staggering step that brought her +within measurable distance of the verge. + +The Colonel might put it any way he liked, she said. There must not be a +moment's doubt as to her attitude. + +Now it was not her attitude that the Colonel was thinking of, but his +own. It had been an attitude of dignity, of judicial benevolence, of +incorruptible reserve. Any sort of unpleasantness was agony to a man who +had the habit of perfection. It was dawning on him that unless he +exercised considerable caution he would find himself mixed up in an +uncommonly disagreeable affair. He might even be held responsible for +it, since the dubiousness of the topic need never have emerged if he had +not unveiled it to his wife. So that, when Miss Keating, in her +unsteadiness, declared that there must not be a moment's doubt as to her +attitude, the Colonel himself was seized with a slight vertigo. He +suggested that people (luckily he got no nearer it than that)--people +were, after all, entitled to the benefit of any doubt there might be. + +Then, when the danger was sheer in front of them, he drew back. Miss +Keating, he said, had nobody but herself to please. He had no more light +to throw on the--er--the situation. Really, he said to himself, they +couldn't have hit on a more serviceable word. + +He considered that he had now led the discussion to its close, on lines +of irreproachable symbolism. Nobody had overstepped the verge. Mrs. +Tailleur had not once been mentioned. She might have disappeared behind +the shelter provided by the merciful, silent decencies. Colonel Hankin +had shown his unwillingness to pursue her into the dim and undesirable +regions whence she came. + +Then suddenly Miss Keating cried out her name. + +She had felt herself abandoned, left there, all alone on the verge, and +before any of them knew where they were she was over it. Happily, she +was unaware of the violence with which she went. She seemed to herself +to move, downward indeed, but with a sure and slow propulsion. She +believed herself challenged to the demonstration by the Colonel's +attitude. The high distinction of it, that was remotely akin to Mr. +Lucy's, somehow obscured and degraded her. She conceived a dislike to +this well-behaved and honourable gentleman, and to his visible +perfections, the clean, silver whiteness and the pinkness of him. + +His case was clear to her. He was a man, and he had looked at Kitty +Tailleur, and his sympathies, like Mr. Lucy's, had suffered an +abominable perversion. His judgment, like Mr. Lucy's, had surrendered to +the horrible charm. She said to herself bitterly, that she could not +compete with _that_. + +She trembled as she faced the Colonel. "Very well, then," said she, "as +there is no one to help me I must protect myself. I shall not sleep +another night under the same roof as Mrs. Tailleur." + +The three winced as if the name had been a blow struck at them. The +Colonel's silver eyebrows rose bristling. Mrs. Hankin got up and went +out of the room. Mrs. Jurd bent her head over her knitting. None of +them looked at Miss Keating; not even the Colonel, as he spoke. + +"If you feel like that about it," said he, "there is nothing more to be +said." + +He rose and followed his wife. + +Upstairs, when their bedroom door had closed on them, he reproved her +very seriously for her indiscretion. + +"You asked me," said he, "what I thought of Mrs. Tailleur, and I told +you; but I never said you were to go and hand it on. What on earth have +you been saying to those women?" + +"I didn't say anything to Miss Keating." + +"No, but you must have done to Mrs. What's-her-name?" + +"Not very much. I don't like talking about unpleasant subjects, as you +know." + +"Well, somebody's been talking about them. I shouldn't wonder, after +this, if poor Mrs. Tailleur's room were wanted to-morrow." + +"Oh, do you think they'll turn her out?" + +She was a kind woman and she could not bear to think it would come to +that. + +The Colonel was silent. He was sitting on the bed, watching his wife as +she undid the fastenings of her gown. At that moment a certain brief and +sudden sin of his youth rose up before him. It looked at him pitifully, +reproachfully, with the eyes of Mrs. Tailleur. + +"I wish," said Mrs. Hankin, "we hadn't said anything at all." + +"So do I," said the Colonel. But for the life of him he couldn't help +saying something more. "If she goes," he said, "I rather think that +young fellow will go, too." + +"And the sister?" + +"Oh, the sister, I imagine, will remain." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Kitty was dressed. She was calling out to her companion, "Bunny, hurry +up, you'll be late." No answer came from the adjoining room. She tapped +at the door and there was no answer. She tried to open the door. It was +locked on the inside. "Bunny," she cried, "are you there?" She laid her +ear to the panel. There was the sound of a box being dragged across the +floor. + +"You _are_ there, are you? Why don't you answer? I can't hear you. Why +can't you open the door?" + +Miss Keating unlocked the door. She held it ajar and spoke through the +aperture. + +"Be good enough," she said, "to leave me alone." + +"All right; but you'll be awfully late for dinner." + +"I am not coming down to dinner." + +Miss Keating shut the door, but she did not lock it. + +Kitty gave a cry of distress. + +"Bunny, what _is_ the matter? Let me in--do let me in." + +"You can come in if you like." + +Kitty opened the door. But instead of going in, she stood fixed upon the +threshold, struck dumb by what she saw. + +The room was in disorder. Clothes littered the bed. More clothes were +heaped on the floor around an open trunk. Miss Keating was kneeling on +the floor seizing on things and thrusting them into the trunk. Their +strangled, tortured forms witnessed to the violence of her mood. + +"What _are_ you doing?" + +"You can see what I'm doing. I am packing my things." + +"Why?" + +"Because I am going away." + +"Have you had bad news? Is--is anybody dead?" + +"I wouldn't ask any questions if I were you." + +"I must ask some. You know, people _don't_ walk off like this without +giving any reason." + +"I am surprised at your asking for my reason." + +"Sur--prised," said Kitty softly. "Are you going because of me?" + +Miss Keating did not answer. + +"I see. So you don't like me any more?" + +"We won't put it that way." + +Kitty came and stood beside Miss Keating and looked down at her. + +"Bunny, have I been a brute to you?" + +"No." + +"Have I ever been a brute to any one? Have you ever known me do an +unkind thing, or say an unkind word to any one?" + +"N--no." + +"Then why do you listen when people say unkind things about me?" + +Miss Keating stooped very low over the trunk. Her attitude no doubt +accounted for the redness of her face which Kitty noticed. "I think I +know what they've been saying. Did you or did you not listen?" + +"Listen?" + +"Yes. I don't mean behind doors and things. But you let them talk to +you?" + +"You cannot stop people talking." + +"Can't you? I'd have stopped them pretty soon if they'd talked to me +about you. What did they say?" + +"You've said just now you knew." + +"Very well. Who said it?" + +"You've no reason to assume that anybody has said anything." + +"Was it Mr. Lucy, or his sister?" + +Miss Keating became agitated. + +"I have never discussed you with Mr. Lucy. Or his sister." There was a +little click in Miss Keating's throat where the lie stuck. + +"I know you haven't. They wouldn't let you." + +Kitty smiled. Miss Keating saw the smile. She trembled. Tears started to +her eyes. She rose and began sorting the pile of clothing on the bed. + +Something in her action inspired Kitty with an intolerable passion of +wonder and of pity. She came to her and laid her hand on her hair, +lightly and with a certain fear. + +Miss Keating had once purred under Kitty's caresses. Now she jerked back +suddenly and beat off the timid hand. + +"I wish you wouldn't touch me." + +"Why not?" + +"Because it makes me loathe you." + +Kitty sat down on the bed. She had wrapped her hand in her +pocket-handkerchief as if it had been hurt. + +"Poor Bunny," she said; "are you feeling as bad as all that? You must +want dreadfully to marry that long man. But you needn't loathe me. I'm +not going to make him marry _me_." + +"Can you not think of anything but that?" + +"I can _think_ of all sorts of things. At present I'm thinking of that. +It does seem such an awful pity that you haven't married. A dear little, +sweet little, good little thing like you--for you _are_ good, Bunny. +It's a shame that you should have to live in rage and fury, and be very +miserable, and--and rather cruel, just because of that." + +"If every word you said of me was true, I'd rather be myself than you, +Mrs. Tailleur." + +"That, Miss Keating, is purely a matter of taste. Unhappiness is all +that's the matter with you. You'd be quite a kind woman if it wasn't for +that. You see, I do understand you, Bunny. So it isn't very wise of you +to leave me. Think what an awful time you'll have if you go and live +with somebody who doesn't understand and won't make allowances. And +you're not strong. You never will be as long as you're miserable. You'll +go and live with ill old ladies and get into that state you were in at +Matlock. And there won't be anybody to look after you. And, Bunny, +you'll never marry--never; and it'll be simply awful. You'll go getting +older and older and nervier and nervier, till you're _so_ nervy that +even the old ladies won't have you any more. Bad as I am, you'd better +stop with me." + +"Stop with you? How can I stop with you?" + +"Well, you haven't told me yet why you can't." + +"I can't tell you. I--I've written you a letter. It's there on the +dressing-table." + +Kitty went to the dressing-table. + +"I am returning you my salary for the quarter I have been with you." + +Kitty took up the letter. + +"I'd rather you did not read it until after I am gone." + +"That's not fair, Bunny." + +"Please--I've written what I had to say because I wished to avoid a +scene." + +"There won't be any scene. I'm not going to read your beastly letter." + +She opened the envelope and removed the notes and laid them on the +dressing-table. Then she tore up the letter and the envelope together +and tossed them into the grate. + +"And I'm not going to take those notes." + +"Nor am I." + +"You'll have to." She found her companion's purse and tucked the notes +inside it. Miss Keating turned on her. "Mrs. Tailleur, you shall not +thrust your money on me. I will not take it." + +"You little fool, you've got to." + +Miss Keating closed her eyes. It was a way she had. "I can't. And you +must please take back the things you've given me. They are all there; in +that heap on the bed." + +Kitty turned and looked at them. They were all there; everything she had +ever given to her, the dresses, the combs, the little trinkets. She took +some of these and stared at them as she held them in her hand. + +"Won't you keep anything?" + +"I won't keep a thing." + +"Not even the little chain I gave you? Oh, Bunny, you liked your little +chain." + +Miss Keating took the chain from her and laid it with the rest. + +"Please leave me to pack." + +"Presently. Bunny--look at me--straight. Why are you doing this?" + +"I wish to be spared the unpleasantness of speaking." + +"But you've got to speak. Out with it. What have I done?" + +"You know better than I do what your life has been." + +"My life? I should think I did. Rather." + +Kitty crossed the room to the bell. + +"What time does your train go?" + +"My----? I--must leave this at seven-thirty." + +Kitty rang the bell. A housemaid appeared. + +"I want a fly at seven-thirty. Please see that Miss Keating's luggage is +downstairs by then. Her room will not be wanted." + +Miss Keating's face was livid. + +"You wish," said she, "the hotel people to think that it is you who have +given _me_ notice?" + +"You poor thing. I only wanted the fly to go down to my account." + +"You expect me to believe that?" + +"I don't expect anything of you--now. I suppose it's Colonel Hankin who +has been talking about my life? It wasn't Mr. Lucy, though you'd like to +make me think so." + +"There's no need for anybody to talk. Do you suppose I don't know what +you are? You can't hide what's in you. You're--you're full of it. And +you've no shame about it. You can stand there, knowing that I know, and +ask me what you've done. How do I know what you've done? I don't want to +know it. It's bad enough to know what you are. And to know that I've +been living with it for three months. You got hold of me, an innocent +woman, and used me as a cover for your evil life. That's all you wanted +me for." + +"Whatever I've done, I've done nothing to deserve that." + +"You think not? Have you any idea what you've done--to me?" + +"No; I haven't. What have I done?" + +"I'm going to tell you. You've never ceased casting it up to me that I'm +not married, that I haven't your attractions--I thank heaven I have +not--I am not the sort of woman you take me for. I never have wanted to +be married, but if--if ever I had, I shouldn't want it now. You've +spoilt all that for me. I shall never see a man without thinking of +_you_. I shall hate every man I meet because of you." + +"Well, hate them, hate them. It's better than loving them. Let me strap +that box. You'll tear your poor heart out." + +Miss Keating wrenched the strap from Kitty's hands. + +"Ah, how you hate me! Hate the men, dear, that can't do you any harm; +but don't hate the other women. At my worst I never did that." + +Miss Keating shrugged her shoulders, for she was putting on her coat. +Kitty looked at her and sighed. + +"Bunny," said she, "I want to make it quite clear to you why you're +going. You think it's because you know something horrible about me. But +it isn't. You don't know anything about me. You've only been listening +to some of the people in the hotel. They don't know anything about me +either. They've never met me in their lives before. But they've been +thinking things and saying things, and you've swallowed it all because +you wanted to. You're so desperately keen on making out there's +something bad about me. Of course, you might have made it out; you might +have proved all sorts of things against me. But you haven't. That's my +whole point. You haven't proved a thing, have you? If you were my +husband, and wanted to get rid of me, you'd have to trump up some +evidence, wouldn't you?" + +"There is no need to trump up evidence. I'm acting on my instinct and +belief." + +"Oh, I know you believe it all right." + +"I can't help what I believe." + +"No, you can't help it. You can't help what you want. And you wouldn't +have wanted it if you hadn't been so furiously unhappy. I was furiously +unhappy myself once. That's why I understand you." + +"It is five-and-twenty minutes past seven, Mrs. Tailleur." + +"And in five minutes you'll go. And you won't hear a word in my defence? +You won't? Why, if I'd murdered somebody and they were going to hang me, +they'd let me defend myself before they did it. All I was going to say +was--supposing everything you said was true, I think _you_ might have +made allowances for me. You can't? I was harder driven than you." + +"No two cases could well be more different." + +"Once they were the same. Only it was worse for me. All your temptations +are bottled up inside you. Mine rushed at me from inside and outside +too. I've had all the things you had. I had a strait-laced parson for my +father--so had you. I was poked away in a hole in the country--so were +you. I had little sisters--so had you. My mother sent me away from home +for fear I should harm them." Her voice shook. "I wouldn't have harmed +them for the world. I was sent to live with an old lady--so were you. I +was shut up with her all day, till I got ill and couldn't sleep at +night. I never saw a soul but one or two other old ladies. They were +quite fond of me--I made them. I should have died of it if it hadn't +been for that. Then--do listen, Bunny--something happened, and I broke +loose, and got away. You never had a chance to get away, so you don't +know what it feels like. Perhaps, I think, when it came to the point, +you'd have been afraid, or something. I wasn't. And I was young. I'm +young still. You can't judge me. Anyhow, I know what you've been +through. That's what made me sorry for you. Can't you be a little sorry +for me?" + +Miss Keating said nothing. She was putting on her hat, and her mouth at +the moment was closed tight over a long hat-pin. She drew it out slowly +between her shut lips. Meeting Kitty's eyes she blinked. + +"You needn't be sorry," said Kitty. "I've had things that you haven't." + +Miss Keating turned to the looking-glass and put on her veil. Her back +was toward Kitty. The two women's faces were in the glass, the young and +the middle-aged, each searching for the other. Kitty's face was tearful +and piteous; it pleaded with the other face in the glass, a face furtive +with hate, that hung between two lifted arms behind a veil. + +Miss Keating's hands struggled with her veil. + +"I mayn't tie it for you?" said Kitty. + +"No, thank you." + +There was a knock at the door, and Miss Keating started. + +"It's the men for your boxes. Come into my room and say good bye." + +"I prefer to say good bye here, if it's all the same to you. Good bye." + +"You won't even shake hands with me? Well, if you won't--why should +you?" + +"I am holding out my hand. If you won't take it----" + +"No, no. I don't want to take it." + +Kitty was crying. + +"I must let those men in," said Miss Keating. "You are not going to make +a scene?" + +"I? Oh Lord, no. You needn't mind me. I'll go." + +She went into her own room and flung herself, face downward, on to her +pillow, and slid by the bedside, kneeling, to the floor. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +At eight o'clock Mrs. Tailleur was not to be found in her room, or in +any other part of the hotel. By nine Lucy was out on the Cliff-side +looking for her. He was not able to account for the instinct that told +him she would be there. + +The rain had ceased earlier in the evening. Now it was falling again in +torrents. He could see that the path was pitted with small, sharp +footprints. They turned and returned, obliterating each other. + +At the end of the path, in the white chamber under the brow of the +Cliff, he made out first a queer, irregular, trailing black mass, then +the peak of a hood against the wall, and the long train of a woman's +gown upon the floor, and then, between the loops of the hood, the edge +of Mrs. Tailleur's white face, dim, but discernible. She sat sideways, +leaning against the wall, in the slack, childlike attitude of exhausted +misery. + +He came close. She did not stir at the sound of his feet trampling the +slush. Her eyes were shut, her mouth open; she breathed, like a child, +the half-suffocated breath that comes after long crying. He stood +looking at her, tongue-tied with pity. Every now and then her throat +shook like a child's with guileless hiccoughing sobs. + +He stooped over her and called her name. + +"Mrs. Tailleur." + +She turned from him and sank sidelong into the corner, hiding her face. +The long wings of her cloak parted and hung back from her cowering body. +Her thin garments, beaten smooth by the rain, clung like one tissue to +the long slope above her knees. Lucy laid his hand gently on her gown. +She was drenched to the skin. It struck through, cold and shuddering, to +his touch. She pushed his hand away and sat up. + +"I think," she said, "you'd better go away." + +"Do you want me to go?" + +"I don't want you to see me like this. I'm--I'm not pretty to look at." + +"That doesn't matter in the very least. Besides, I can hardly see you in +this light." + +He drew her cloak about her and fastened it. He could feel, from the +nearness of her flushed mouth, the heat and the taste of grief. She +flung her head back to the wall away from him. Her hood slipped, and he +put his arm behind her shoulders and raised it, and drew it gently +forward to shelter her head from the rough wall. His hand was wet with +the rain from her loose hair. + +"How long have you been walking about in the rain before you came here?" + +She tried to speak, and with the effort her sobs broke out in violence. +It struck him again, and with another pang of pity, how like a child she +was in the completeness of her abandonment! He sat down beside her, +leaning forward, his face hidden in his hands. He felt that to hide his +own face was somehow to screen her. + +Her sobbing went on, and her hand, stretched toward him unawares, +clutched at the top of the wooden seat. + +"Would you like me to go away and come back again?" he said presently. + +"No!" she cried. And at her own cry a terrible convulsion shook her. He +could feel her whole body strain and stiffen with the effort to control +it. Then she was calm. + +"I beg your pardon," she said. "I told you, didn't I, that you'd better +go away?" + +"Do you suppose that I'm going to leave you here? Just when I've found +you?" + +"Miss Keating's left me. Did you know?" + +"Yes, I heard. Is it--is it a great trouble to you?" + +"Yes." She shook again. + +"Surely," he began, and hesitated, and grew bold. "Surely it needn't be? +She wasn't, was she, such a particularly amiable person?" + +"She couldn't help it. She was so unhappy." + +His voice softened. "You were very fond of her?" + +"Yes. How did you know she'd gone?" + +It was too dark in there for him to see the fear in her eyes as she +turned them to him. + +"Oh," he said, "we heard she'd left. I suppose she had to go." + +"Yes," said Mrs. Tailleur, "she had to go." + +"Well, I shouldn't distress myself any more about it. Tell me, have you +been walking about in the rain ever since she left?" + +"I--I think so." + +"And my little sister was looking for you everywhere. She wanted you to +dine with us. We thought you would, perhaps, as you were free." + +"That was very good of you." + +"We couldn't find you anywhere in the hotel. Then I came out here." + +"What made you come?" + +"I came to look for you." + +"To look for me?" + +"Yes. You don't mind, do you?" + +"How did you know I should be here?" + +"I didn't. It was the last place I tried. Do you know it's past nine +o'clock? You must come in now." + +"I--can't." + +"Oh yes," he said, "you can. You're coming back with me." + +He talked as he would to a frightened child, to one of his own children. + +"I'm afraid to go back." + +"Why?" + +"Because of Bunny. She told me people were saying dreadful things about +me. That's why she left. She couldn't bear it." + +Lucy ground his teeth. "_She_ couldn't bear it? That shows what she was, +doesn't it? But you--you don't mind what people say?" + +"No," she said, "I don't mind." + +"Well----" + +"Yes!" she cried passionately. "I do mind. I've always minded. It's just +the one thing I can't get over." + +"It's the one thing," said Lucy, "we have to learn to get over. When +you've lived to be as old as I am, you'll see how very little it matters +what people say of us. Especially when we know what other people think." + +"Other people?" + +"Friends," he said, "the people who really care." + +"Ah, if we only could know what they think. That's the most horrible +thing of all--what they think." + +"Is that why you don't want to go back?" + +Lucy's voice was unsteady and very low. + +"Yes," she whispered. + +There was a brief silence. + +"But if you go back with _me_," he said, "it will be all right, won't +it?" + +The look in her eyes almost reached him through the darkness, it was so +intense. + +"No," she said out loud, "it won't. It will be all wrong." + +"I don't agree with you. Anyhow, I'm going to take you back. Come." + +"No," she said, "not yet. Mayn't we stay here a little longer?" + +"No, we mayn't. You've got your death of cold as it is." + +"I'm not cold, now. I'm warm. Feel my hands." + +She held them out to him. He did not touch them. But he put his arm +round her and raised her to her feet. And they went back together along +the narrow Cliff-path. It was dangerous in the perishing light. He took +her hands in his now, and led her sidelong. When her feet slipped in the +slimy chalk, he held her up with his arm. + +At the little gate she turned to him. + +"I was kind to Bunny," she said, "I was really." + +"I am sure," he said gently, "you are kind to everybody." + +"That's something, isn't it?" + +"I'm not sure that it isn't everything." + +They went up the side of the garden, along the shrubbery, by a path that +led to the main entrance of the hotel. A great ring of white light lay +on the wet ground before the porch, thrown from the electric lamps +within. + +Mrs. Tailleur stepped back into the darkness by the shrubbery. "Look +here," she said, "I'm going in by myself. You are going round another +way. You have not seen me. You don't know where I am. You don't know +anything about me." + +"I know," said Lucy, "you are coming in with me." + +She drew farther back. "I'm not thinking of myself," she said, "I'm +thinking of you." + +She was no longer like a child. Her voice had suddenly grown older. + +"Are you?" he said. "Then you'll do what I ask you." He held her with +his arm and drew her, resisting and unresisting, close to him. + +"Ah," she cried, "what are you going to do with me?" + +"I am going," he said, "to take you to my sister." + +And he went with her, up the steps and into the lighted vestibule, past +the hall-porter and the clerk in his bureau and the manager's wife in +hers, straight into the lounge, before the Colonel and his wife, and he +led her to Jane where she sat in her place beside the hearth. + +"It isn't half such a bad night as it looks," said he in a clear voice. +"Is it, Mrs. Tailleur?" + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +Five minutes later Lucy was talking to Colonel and Mrs. Hankin, with +genial unconcern. They never knew that he knew what they had been +saying, or how their tongues had scourged Mrs. Tailleur out into the +lash of the rain. They never knew that the young man who conversed with +them so amiably was longing to take the Colonel by his pink throat and +throttle him, nor that it was only a higher chivalry that held him from +this disastrous deed. The Colonel merely felt himself in the presence of +an incomparable innocence; but whether it was Lucy who was innocent, or +Mrs. Tailleur, or the two of them together, he really could not say. + +Upstairs, in Mrs. Tailleur's bedroom, Jane Lucy was talking to Mrs. +Tailleur. They were sitting by the hearth while Kitty, clothed in warm +garments, shook out her drenched hair before the fire. She had just told +Jane how Miss Keating had left her, and she had become tearful again +over the telling. + +"Need you mind so much? Is she worth it?" said Jane, very much as Robert +had said. + +"I don't mind her leaving. I can get over that. But you don't know the +awful things she said." + +"No, I don't; but I dare say she didn't mean half of them." + +"Didn't she though! I'll show you." + +Kitty got up and opened the door into the other room. It was as Miss +Keating had left it. + +"Look there," she said, "what she's done." + +Jane looked. "I'm not surprised. You did everything for her, so I +suppose she expected you to pack and send her things after her." + +"It isn't that. Don't you see? It's--it's the things I gave her. She +flung them back in my face. She wouldn't take one of them. See, that's +the white frock she was wearing, and the fur-lined coal (she'll be so +cold without it), and look, that's the little chain I gave her on her +birthday. She wouldn't even keep the chain." + +"Well, I dare say she would feel rather bad about it after she's behaved +in this way." + +"It isn't that. It's because they were mine--because I wore them." Kitty +began to sob. + +"No, no, dear Mrs. Tailleur----" + +"Yes, yes. She--she thought they'd c--c--contaminate her." + +Kitty's sobs broke into the shrill laugh of hysteria. Jane led her to +the couch and sat beside her. Kitty leaned forward, staring at the +floor. Now and then she pressed her handkerchief to her mouth, stifling. +Suddenly she looked up into Jane's face. + +"Would _you_ mind wearing a frock I'd worn?" + +"Of course I wouldn't." + +Kitty's handkerchief dropped on to her lap, a soaked ball, an +insufficient dam. + +"Oh," she cried, "the beast!--the little, little beast!" + +She looked again at Jane, but with a glance half cowed, half candid; +like a child that has proved, indubitably, its predestined naughtiness. + +"I didn't mean to use that word." + +"I want to use it myself," said Jane. "It's not a bit too much." + +"I didn't mean it." + +She added softly, reminiscently. "She was such a little thing." + +"Much too little for you to care about." + +"That's why I cared. I know it was. She was just like a little, lonely +child; and she clung to me at first." + +"She certainly seems to have clung." + +"That's why it's so awful to think that she couldn't bear it--couldn't +bear to live with me." + +"We wondered how you could bear to live with her." + +"Did you?" + +"Yes. Why did you have her?" + +"You see, I had to have some one; and she was nice." + +"I don't think she was nice at all." + +"Oh yes," said Kitty, solemnly, "you could see _that_." + +"I suppose you mean she was a lady?" + +"Ye--es." Kitty was not by any means certain that that was what she did +mean. It was so difficult to find words for what she meant. + +"That," said Jane, "is the least you can be." + +"Anyhow, she _was_." + +"Well, if you take a charitable view of her. Her people are probably +nicer than she is. Perhaps that's why she doesn't live with them." + +"Her father," said Kitty, "is the vicar of Wenden. I suppose that's all +right." + +"Probably; but _we_ don't care what peoples' fathers are like, provided +they're nice themselves." + +"Do you think I'm nice?" + +Jane laughed. "Yes, as it happens, I do." + +"Ah, _you_--_you_----" + +"We both do," said Jane boldly. + +"You're the first nice woman I've known who hasn't been horrid to me. +And he----" Kitty had been playing with a button of her dressing-gown. +Her fingers now began tearing, passionately, convulsively, at the +button. "He is the first nice man who--who hasn't been what men are." + +"You don't mean that," said Jane calmly. She was holding Mrs. Tailleur's +hand in hers and caressing it, soothing its pathetic violence. + +"I do. I do. That's why I like you so." + +"I'm glad you like us." + +"I'd give anything to know what you really think of me." + +"May I say what I think?" + +"Yes." + +"I think you're too good to be so unhappy." + +"That's a new view of me. Most people think I'm too unhappy to be very +good." + +"You _are_ good; but if you'd been happier you'd have known that other +people are what you call good, too." + +"That's what I said to Bunny. _She_ was unhappy." + +"Never mind her. If you'd been happier you'd have known, for instance, +that my brother isn't an exception. There are a great many men like him. +All the men I've known have been more or less like Robert." + +"They would be, dear; all the men _you've_ known. But, you see, +something happened. Nothing ever happened to you." + +"No. Nothing very much has happened to me. Nothing very much ever will." + +"You never wanted things to happen, did you?" + +"I don't know. Perhaps I'm interested most in the things that happen to +other people." + +"You dear! If I'd been like you----" + +"I wish," said Jane, "you'd known Robert sooner." + +Mrs. Tailleur's lips parted, but no voice came through them. + +"Then," said Jane, "whatever happened never would have happened, +probably." + +"I wonder. What do you suppose happened?" + +"I don't know. I've no business to know." + +"What do you think? Tell me--tell me!" + +"I think you've been very badly handled." + +"Yes. You may think so." + +"When you were young--too young to understand it." + +"Ah, I was never too young to understand. That's the difference between +you and me." + +"That makes it all the worse, then." + +"All the worse! So that's what you think? How does it make you feel to +me?" + +"It makes me feel that I want to take you away, and warm you and wrap +you round, so that nothing could ever touch you and hurt you any more." + +"That's how it makes you feel?" + +"That's how it makes us both feel." + +"_He_ takes it that way, too?" + +"Of course he does. Any nice man would." + +"If _I_ were nice----" + +"You _are_ nice." + +"You don't know, my child; you don't know." + +"Do you suppose Robert doesn't know?" + +Mrs. Tailleur rose suddenly and turned away. + +"I was nice once," she said, "and at times I can be now." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Colonel Hankin was mistaken. Mrs. Tailleur's room was not wanted the +next day. The point had been fiercely disputed in those obscure quarters +of the hotel inhabited by the management. The manager's wife was for +turning Mrs. Tailleur out on the bare suspicion of her impropriety. The +idea in the head of the manager's wife was that there should be no +suspicion as to the reputation of the Cliff Hotel. The manager, on his +side, contended that the Cliff Hotel must not acquire a reputation for +suspicion; that any lady whom Miss Lucy had made visibly her friend was +herself in the position so desirable for the Cliff Hotel; that, in any +case, unless Mrs. Tailleur's conduct became such as to justify an +extreme step, the scandal of the ejection would be more damaging to the +Cliff Hotel than her present transparently innocent and peaceful +occupation of the best room in it. He wished to know how a scandal was +to be avoided when the place was swarming with old women. And, after +all, what had they got against Mrs. Tailleur except that she was better +looking by a long chalk, and better turned-out, than any of 'em? Of +course, he couldn't undertake to say--offhand--whether she was or wasn't +any better than she should be. But, in the absence of complaints, he +didn't consider the question a profitable one for a manager to go into +in the slack season. + +All the manager's intelligence was concentrated in the small commercial +eye which winked, absurdly, in the solitude of his solemn and enormous +face. You must take people as you found them, said he, and for his part +he had always found Mrs. Tailleur---- + +But how the manager had found Mrs. Tailleur was never known to his wife, +for at this point she walked out of the private sitting-room and shut +herself into her bureau. Her opinion, more private even than that +sitting-room, consecrated to intimate dispute, was that where women were +concerned the manager was a perfect fool. + +The window of the bureau looked out on to the vestibule and the big +staircase. And full in sight of the window Mrs. Tailleur was sitting on +a seat set under the stair. She had her hat on and carried a sunshade in +her hand, for the day was fine and warm. She was waiting for somebody. +And as she waited she amused herself by smiling at the little +four-year-old son of the management who played in the vestibule, it +being the slack season. He was running up and down the flagged floor, +dragging a little cart after him. And as he ran he never took his eyes +off the pretty lady. They said, every time, with the charming vanity of +childhood, "Look at me!" And Kitty looked at him, every time, and made, +every time, the right sort of smile that says to a little boy, "I see +you." Just then nobody was there to see Kitty but the manager's wife, +who stood at the window of the bureau and saw it all. And as the little +boy was not looking in the least where he was going, his feet were +presently snared in the rug where the pretty lady sat, and he would have +tumbled on his little nose if Kitty had not caught him. + +He was going to cry, but Kitty stopped him just in time by lifting him +on to her lap and giving him her watch to look at. A marvellous watch +that was gold and blue and bordered with a ring of little sparkling +stones. + +At that moment Robert Lucy came down the stairs. He came very quietly +and leaned over the banister behind Kitty's back and watched her, while +he listened shamelessly to the conversation. The pretty lady looked +prettier than ever. + +"My daddy gave my mummy her watch on her birthday," said the little boy. +"Who gave you your watch?" + +"It wasn't your daddy, dear." + +"Of course it wasn't my daddy." + +"Of course not." + +"What is your name?" + +"My name is Mrs. Tailleur." + +"Mrs. Ty-loor. My name is Stanley. That gentleman's name is Mr. Lucy. I +like him." + +Lucy came down and seated himself beside her. She made him a sign with +her mouth, as much as to say she was under a charm and he wasn't to +break it. + +"Do you like him, Mrs. Tyloor?" + +"Well--what do you think?" + +"I think you like him very much." + +Mrs. Tailleur laughed softly. + +"What makes you laugh?" + +"You. You're so funny." + +"_You're_ funny. Your eyelashes curl up when you laugh, and your eyes +curl, too. And your mouth!" he crowed with the joy of it. "Such a funny +mouth." + +The mouth hid itself in the child's soft neck among his hair. The woman +in the bureau saw that, and her face became curiously contracted. + +"I remember the day you came. My daddy said you was very pretty." + +"And what did your mummy say?" + +Kitty had caught sight of the fierce face in the window, and a little +daring devil had entered into her. + +"Mummy said she couldn't tell if she wasn't allowed to look." + +"And why," said Lucy, "wasn't she allowed to look?" + +"Daddy said she wasn't to." + +"Of course he did," said Lucy. "It's very rude to look at people." + +"Daddy looked. I saw him." + +The door of the bureau opened and the manager's wife came out. She had a +slight flush on her face and her mouth was tighter than ever. + +Mrs. Tailleur saw her coming and slipped the child from her lap. The +manager's wife put out her hand to take him, but he turned from her and +clung to the pretty lady. + +The woman seized him by the arm and tore him from her, and dragged him +toward the apartments of the management. The child screamed as he went. + +"Women like that," said Lucy, "shouldn't be allowed to have children." + +Mrs. Tailleur turned to him though she had not heard him. + +"What have I done? What harm could I do the little thing?" + +"What have you done?" It was hard for him to follow the workings of her +mind. "You don't mean to say you minded that?" + +"Yes, I minded. I minded awfully." + +"That dreadful woman?" + +"Do you think she really was dreadful?" + +"Quite terrible." + +"I don't know. I suppose," she said, "they're all like that. Yet they +can't all be dreadful." + +Lucy laughed. He couldn't see her point. "I don't understand who 'they' +are." + +"The women who are--the women who've got children." + +She stooped down and picked up something from the floor. It was the +little man out of the cart that the child had been playing with, that +lay there, smashed, at her feet. The manager's wife had stepped on it. +Kitty set the little man upon the seat and smiled at him sadly. And Lucy +smiled at her out of a great and sudden tenderness. + +He thought he saw it now. + +"I think," said he, "you must allow for a little maternal jealousy." + +"Jealousy? I can understand jealousy." + +"So can I," said Lucy. + +"And you think that was jealousy?" + +"Well, you know, that little boy was making barefaced love to you." + +She laughed. "I suppose," she said, "you _would_ feel like that about +it." + +She got up and they went out, past the hotel front and down the lawn, in +sight of the veranda, where at this hour everybody was there to see +them. Lucy meant everybody to see. He had chosen that place, and that +hour, also, which wore, appropriately, the innocence of morning. He knew +her pitiful belief that he was defying public opinion in being seen with +her; but from her ultimate consent, from her continuous trust in him, +and from the heartrending way she clung to him, he gathered that she +knew him, she knew that defiance, from him, would be a vindication of +her. + +He did not yet know how dear she had become to him. Only, as he looked +at her moving close beside him, so beautiful and so defenceless, he +thanked God that he had kept his manhood clean, so that nothing that he +did for her could hurt her. + +And so, holding himself very upright, and with his head in the air, he +went slowly past the veranda and the Hankins, and, turning to Mrs. +Tailleur, gave them the full spectacle of his gladness and his pride in +her. + +"How good you are to me," she said. "I know why you did that." + +"Do you?" + +He smiled, guarding his secret, holding it back a little while longer. + +"Where are we going to?" + +"Anywhere you choose to take me." + +He took her through the gate that led them to the freedom of the Cliff. + +"Do you see that?" He pointed to the path which was now baked hard and +white by the sun. + +"What is it?" + +"Your little footprints, and my great hoofmarks beside them. I believe +nobody comes this way but you and me." + +"You see, it leads nowhere," said she. + +"Doesn't it?" said he. + +The little room in the Cliff-side was whiter than ever, burning white, +it was, where the sun faced it. But the east side of it was in shadow, +and they sat there, under the great forehead of the Cliff. + +They were both silent. Lucy was thinking of how he had found her there, +and of the fear and trouble of last night. He vowed that if he could +help it there should be no more fear and no more trouble for her. In +their silence, voices thin and sweet with distance, came to them from +below, where children played on the beach among the rocks that, washed +by water-springs from the Cliff's forehead to its foot, lay heaped where +they had fallen. She listened and laughed. + +She was happy now. He watched her as she stretched her adorable feet to +the sun. A little wind came from the sea and played with her, taking +from her a slight scent of violets for its salt. Every nerve in his body +was aware of her nearness. + +Only last night he had seen her crouching just there, in the darkness, +convulsed, her face wet with rain and tears. It was good that the place +they had chosen should be changed and cleansed for them by sunlight and +wind from the sea and the sweet voices of children. + +She did not break the silence. She only looked at him once with eyes +whose pupils, black and dilated, narrowed the blue ring of the iris. + +Then he spoke. "I was going to say something to you last night, but I +didn't. There was something I wanted to know first, something I wasn't +quite sure about." + +She turned her face from him. The light struck it, and it quivered and +grew white. + +"Well, do you know now?" + +"Yes," he said, "I know now." + +But her lips scarcely moved as she answered him. "Of course you know." + +She faced him with her sad white courage. + +"Everybody knows. I'd rather you knew. I--I meant you to." + +"Oh please"--he protested. "I wonder if I may say what it is?" + +"It's something about me?" + +"Yes. It's something about you. If I may say it." + +"You may say anything you please. You know that." + +"Well, I wanted very much to know whether--whether you were fond of +children." + +"Oh----" She drew a long breath, as if released from torture. Then she +laughed the indescribable half-sobbing laugh of a child tormented and +suddenly set free. + +"Whether I were fond of children. Do you honestly mean it? Was that what +you weren't sure of?" + +"Well, of course, in a way I knew--but I couldn't tell, you know, till +I'd seen you with one." + +"Well, and so you can tell now?" + +"Yes. I can tell now." + +"And if I am fond of children, what difference does that make?" + +"It makes all the difference. You see, I've got two little girls----" + +"Two little girls." She repeated it after him smiling, as if she played +with the vision of them. + +"You see--they've no mother. My wife----" + +"I know," she said softly. + +"How did you know?" + +"I can't tell you." + +"My wife died five years ago when my youngest little girl was born." + +"And I thought," she said, "you were so young." + +"I'm thirty-five." + +"Still I was right. You're young. Very young." + +"Oh, well, don't you know, they say a woman's as young as she looks, and +a man's as young as he feels. I _feel_ all right." + +"You dear." Her mouth and eyes said it without a sound. + +"Are you quite sure that's all you want to know?" + +"I had to know it." + +"It was so important?" + +"Yes. Because of _them_." + +"And now you know all about me?" + +"Yes. Now I know all about you." + +"Don't you want to know something about--about Mr. Tailleur?" + +Lucy's face hardened. "No, I don't think I want to know anything about +him." + +He had made up his mind that Mr. Tailleur had been a brute to her. + +"He _is_ dead." + +"Well, yes. I supposed he would be." + +"He died four years ago. I was married very young." + +"I supposed that too." + +"You don't feel that he's important?" + +"Not in the very least." + +She laughed. + +"When I said that I knew all about you, I only meant that I knew--I'd +the sense to see--what you were. You mustn't think that I take anything +for granted." + +"Ah, Mr. Lucy, dear, I'm afraid you're taking everything for granted." + +"On my soul I'm not. I'm not that sort. There's one thing about you I +don't know yet, and I'm afraid to ask, and it's the only thing I really +want to know. It's the only thing that matters." + +"Then ask me, ask me straight, whatever it is, and let's get it over. +Can't you trust me to tell you the truth?" + +"I trust you--to tell me the truth. I want to know where I am--where we +are." + +"Is it for me to say?" + +"It's for you to say whether you think you can ever care for me." + +"Can't you see that I care for you?" + +"No, I'd give anything to see." + +"Ah, it's so like you not to. And I thought I'd shown you--everything." + +"You haven't shown me yet whether you care enough to--to----" + +He checked himself, while his love for her drew its first breath, as if +it had been born but that instant, in an agony of desire and fear. + +"To do what?" she said. "Why won't you tell me?" + +"I'm afraid," he said simply. + +"Afraid of _me_! Why should you be?" + +"Because, if you really cared for me, I think you'd know what I want." + +"It's because I care so much that I don't know. Unless you tell me." + +She put her small fingers lightly on the sleeve of his coat; they slid +till they found his hands that hung clenched before him. + +At her touch he trembled. + +"Don't you know," she said, "that there's nothing I wouldn't do for you? +Tell me what you want me to do." + +He spoke so low that she strained to hear him. + +"To marry me--to be my wife." + +Her hand still lay on his, but she herself seemed to draw back and +pause. + +"Your wife?" she said at last. "My dear, you've only known me ten days." + +"It makes no difference." + +He took her hand in his and kissed it, bowing his head. + +She twisted herself away from him, and drew back her face from his. They +rose. + +"Ah," she said, "you're cold. You don't know how. Let me look at you. +It's not me you want. You want a mother for your children." + +"Not I. I want you--you--for myself." + +She moved toward him with a low cry, and he took her in his arms and +stood still by her without a word. And to his joy, she whom he held +(gently, lest he should hurt her) laid her face to his face, and held +him with a grip tighter than his own, as if she feared that he would +loose himself and leave her. Her eyes closed as he kissed her forehead, +and opened as her mouth found his. + +Then she drew herself slowly from him. + +"You love me then?" she said. + +"Yes, Kitty, I love you." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +The awkward thing was telling Jane about it. Jane had been his dead +wife's friend before he married her, and she had known her better then +than she knew Kitty. Yet he remembered, acutely, how he had gone to her +eight years ago, and told her that he was going to marry Amy, and how +she had kissed him and said nothing, and how, when he asked her if she +had any objection, she had said "No, none. But isn't it a little +sudden?" + +He wondered how Jane would look when he told her he was going to marry +Kitty. That was bound to strike her as very sudden indeed. + +It was wonderful to him that this thing should have happened to him. He +was aware that it was a new thing. Nothing in his previous experience +had prepared him for it. He had been very young eight years ago, and a +gayer, lighter-hearted chivalry had gone to his courtship of poor Amy. +Poor Amy, though he would not own it, had been a rather ineffectual +woman, with a prodigious opinion of her small self and a fretting +passion for dominion. She had had a crowd of friends and relations whom +she had allowed to come between them. Poor Amy had never understood him. +There were heights and depths in him to which she had made no appeal. + +But Kitty--she had brought something out of him that had been hidden and +unknown to him before. Something that answered to the fear with which +she had drawn back from him and to the tremendous and tragic passion +with which she had given herself to him at the last. Poor little Amy had +never held him so. She had never loved him like that in all her poor +little life. And so his very tenderness for Kitty had terror in it, lest +he should fail her, lest he should in any way justify her prescience of +disaster. + +Somebody was coming along the Cliff-path, somebody with a telegram for +Mrs. Tailleur. She rose, moving away from Lucy as she opened it. + +"There is no answer," she said. And she came to him again and sat beside +him, very still, with hands spread over the telegram that lay open in +her lap. + +"Has anything happened?" + +She shook her head. He took the hand that she held out to him by way of +reassurance and possession. + +"Then why do you look like that?" + +She smiled. + +"Kitty--that was an unconvincing smile." + +"Was it? I'm sorry to say there's a tiresome man coming to see me." + +"Say you can't see him. Send him a wire." + +"I must. He's coming on business. I don't _want_ to see him." + +"Can't I see him for you, if you feel like that?" + +"No, dear. He must see me." + +"When is he due?" + +"At seven-thirty." + +"Oh--only in the evening. How long do you think he'll stay?" + +Kitty hardened her face. "Not a minute longer than I can help." + +"An hour? Two hours?" + +"I shall have to give him dinner. He's--he's that sort of man." + +"Two hours, probably. I think I'll take Janey for a stroll while he's +here. You see, I've got to tell her, and I shall tell her then." + +She put her hands on his shoulders. "And what will--Janey--say?" + +"She'll say she's glad I'm going to be happy." + +He became thoughtful. "And there are the children," he said. "I've got +to tell them, too." + +She was silent. She did not ask him as he had half expected, "What will +_they_ say?" + +"I think," he said, "I'd better send for them and let them stay here a +bit. Could you stand another week of Southbourne? You said you hated +it." + +"Yes. I hated it. I shouldn't have stayed if it hadn't been for you." + +"Do you mind staying a little longer now?" + +"I don't mind staying anywhere where you are." + +"Well--just a little longer." + +She saw the workings of his mind. The people here had been saying awful +things about her. If he took her away they would continue to say them. +He couldn't stop them. He couldn't for instance, go up to Colonel Hankin +before leaving, and tell him that he lied, and that Mrs. Tailleur, +though appearances might be against her, was as innocent a lady as Mrs. +Hankin. He couldn't even announce his engagement to her by way of +accounting for their simultaneous departure. They were not accountable +to these people. But, if they stayed on as if nothing had happened, he +could demonstrate to everybody's satisfaction that he had no other +intention with regard to Mrs. Tailleur than to make her his wife and a +mother to his children. That was why he was sending for them. Evidently +the idea he had--poor lamb--was that he could shelter her innocence with +theirs. + +And so she told him that she adored Southbourne now and didn't care how +long they stopped there. + +Lucy's idea had really gone more or less on those lines, though they +remained rather more obscure to him than they were to Kitty. + +His scheme was so far successful that there were people in the Cliff +Hotel who knew about his engagement before Jane did. + +It was clear to the management, at any rate, that some consecrating seal +had been set to the very interesting relations of Mrs. Tailleur and Mr. +Lucy. The manager was more inclined than ever to take a favourable view +of Mrs. Tailleur. To begin with, Mrs. Tailleur had ordered a private +sitting-room. Then Mr. Lucy presented himself at the bureau with Mrs. +Tailleur and inquired whether he could have a room for his two little +girls and their nurse. The manager's wife looked dubious. The best +rooms, she said, were taken. And Mrs. Tailleur said, looking at Mr. +Lucy, "How about poor Bunny's room? The one leading out of mine?" + +A fine flush appeared on Mr. Lucy's face as he said he would have that +room. + +He then announced that he would wire for the little girls to come at +once, and that they would arrive at four o'clock to-morrow. It was +further arranged that they were to have their meals in Mrs. Tailleur's +private sitting-room. And please, there was to be lots of jam for tea, +Mrs. Tailleur said. The manager's wife looked humble before her lord as +she booked that order. + +That was at twelve o'clock of the tenth day. + +Seven hours later Mrs. Tailleur was alone in her private sitting-room, +preparing with some agitation for the appointment that she had. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Her tense, flushed mind recorded automatically, and with acute +vividness, every detail of the room; the pattern of the gray French +wall-paper, with the watered stripe, and of the hot, velvet upholstery, +buff on a crimson ground; the architecture of the stained walnut +sideboard and overmantel, with their ridiculous pediments and little +shelves and bevelled mirrors; the tapestry curtains, the palms in +shining turquoise blue pots, and the engraved picture of Grace Darling +over the sideboard. + +It was absolutely necessary that she should have this place to see him +in, without Robert seeing him. Beyond that immediate purpose she +discerned its use as a play-room for Robert's children. + +To-morrow, at four o clock, she would be waiting there for them. They +had settled that, she and Robert. She was to have everything ready, and +the table laid for tea. To-morrow they would all be sitting there, round +the table. To-morrow she would see Robert's children, and hold them in +her arms. + +Her heart gave a sudden leap, as if something had quickened in it. Her +brain glowed. Her pulses throbbed with the race of the glad blood in her +veins. Her whole being moved, trembling and yearning, toward an +incredible joy. Till that moment she had hardly realised Robert's +children. A strange unquietness, not yet recognised as fear, had kept +her from asking him many questions about them. Even now, their forms +were like the forms of children seen in the twilight of dreams, the +dreams of women who have never had children; forms that hover and +torture and pursue; that hide their faces, half seen; that will not come +to the call, nor be held by the hand, nor gathered to the heart. + +That she should really see them, and hear their voices, and hold them in +her arms, to-morrow, seemed to her a thing impossible, beyond +credibility or dream. Then she said to herself that it all depended on +what happened between to-morrow and to-day. + +It was not long past seven and she had still a good twenty minutes +before her. She spent it in pacing up and down the room, and looking at +the clock every time she turned and confronted it. At the half-hour she +arranged herself on the sofa, with a book, in an attitude of +carelessness as to the event. As a material appearance the attitude was +perfect. + +She rose as the servant announced "Mr. Wilfrid Marston." She stood as +she had risen, waiting for her visitor to advance. Her eyes were fixed +on her book which she laid down, deliberately marking the page, and yet +she was aware of his little pause at the door as it closed behind him, +and of his little smile that took her in. She had no need to look at +him. + +He was a man of middle size, who held himself so well that he appeared +taller and slenderer than he was. You saw that he had been fair and +florid and slender enough in his youth, and that all his good points had +worn somewhat to hardness. His face was hard and of a fast-hardening, +reddish-sallow colour, showing a light network of veins about the +cheekbones. Hard, wiry wrinkles were about the outer corners of his +eyes. He kept his small reddish-gold moustache close clipped, so that it +made his mouth look extraordinarily straight and hard. People who didn't +know him were apt to mistake him for a soldier. (He was in the War +Office, rather high up.) He had several manners, his official manner to +persons calling at the War Office; his social manner, inimitably devout +to women whom he respected; and his natural manner, known only in its +perfection to women whom he did not respect. And under both of these +he conveyed a curious and disagreeable impression of stern sensuality, +as if the animal in him had worn to hardness, too. + +"Kitty, my dear girl!" His voice, unlike the rest of him, could be thick +and soft and fluid. He put his arm round her, and she offered him her +mouth, curled forward, obedient but unsmiling. Her hand, surrendered to +his, lay limp in the hard clasp of it. He raised it as if weighing the +powerless, subservient thing. + +"Kitty," he said, "you're still getting thin. My last orders were, if +you remember, that you were to put on another stone before I saw you +again." + +He bared her wrist, pressing it slightly, to show how its round curves +were sunken. + +"Do you call that putting on another stone?" + +She drew back her arm. + +"What have you been doing to yourself?" he said. + +"Nothing. There hasn't been anything to do. It's not very amusing +being left all by yourself for weeks and weeks, you know." + +"All by yourself?" + +"Yes. Bunny doesn't count." + +"No, she certainly doesn't. Poor Kitten, you must have been very badly +bored." + +He looked round the room. + +"Do they do you well at this place?" + +"It isn't _very_ comfortable. I think you'd be better off at the +Métropole." + +"What possessed you to stay at the place if you're not comfortable?" + +"Well, you see, I didn't expect you for another week." + +"What's that got to do with it?" + +"I mean it did well enough for Bunny and me." + +"Where is that woman?" + +"She's gone. She left yesterday." + +"Why?" + +"Well, you know, Wilfrid, Bunny was very respectable." + +He laughed. "It's just as well she went, then, before I came, isn't it? +I say, what have you done to your eyes? They used to be black, now +they're blue. Bright blue." + +There was a look in them he did not understand. + +"I think," she said, "you would be much more comfortable at the +Métropole." + +"Oh no; I'll try this place for one night." She veiled her eyes. + +"We can move on if I can't stand it. When are we going to dine?" + +"At eight. It's twenty to, now. You'd like it up here, wouldn't you?" + +"Rather. I say, where's my room?" + +She flushed and turned from him with an unaccountable emotion. + +"I--I don't know." + +"Didn't you order one for me?" + +"No; I don't think I did." + +"I suppose I can get one, can't I?" + +"I suppose so. But don't you think you'd better go over to the +Métropole? You see, this is a very small hotel." + +He looked at her sharply. + +"I don't care how small it is." + +He summoned a waiter and inquired irascibly for his room. + +Kitty was relieved when the room was got for him, because he went to it +instantly, and that gave her time. She said to herself that it would be +all right if she could be alone for a minute or two and could think. She +thought continuously through the act of dressing, and in the moment of +waiting till he appeared again. He would be hungry, and his first +thought would be for his dinner. + +It was. But his second thought was for Kitty, who refused to eat. + +"What's the matter with you?" + +"Nothing. I've got a headache." + +Again he looked sharply at her. + +"A headache, have you? It'll be better if you eat something." + +But Kitty shook her head. + +"What's the good of my sending you to Matlock and those places if you +come back in this state? You know, if you once get really thin, Kitty, +you're done for." + +"Am I?" Her mouth trembled, not grossly, but with a small, fine quiver +of the upper lip. The man had trained her well. She knew better than to +cry before him. + +The slender sign of emotion touched him, since it was not disfiguring. + +"How long have you been starving yourself?" he asked more gently. + +"I've not been starving myself. I've got a headache." + +He poured out some wine for her. + +"You must either eat _or_ drink." + +"I don't want any." + +"Nonsense." + +"I--I can't. I feel sick." + +He raised his eyebrows. + +"Need you mention it?" + +"I wouldn't if you hadn't teased me so." + +"I beg your pardon." + +She began playing with some salted almonds. + +"My _dear_ girl, I wouldn't eat those things if I were you." + +"I'm not eating them." She pushed the dish from her. "I'm afraid," said +she, "it isn't a very nice dinner." + +He was looking at the _entrée_ with interest and a slight suspicion. + +"What is this?" + +"Curried chicken." + +"Oh." He helped himself fastidiously to curried chicken, tasted it with +delicate deliberation, and left it on his plate. + +"You are wise," said he. "There is a certain crude, unsatisfying +simplicity about this repast." + +"Didn't I tell you?" + +"You did." + +"You see now why I said you'd better go to the Métropole?" + +"I do indeed." + +An admirable joint of mutton, cheese, coffee and a liqueur effaced the +painful impression made by the _entrée_. By nine o'clock Marston +declared himself inured to the hardships of the Cliff Hotel. + +"How long can you stay?" she asked. The question had been burning in her +for two hours. + +"Well, over the week end, I think." + +Her heart, that had fluttered like a bird, sank, as a bird sinks in +terror with wings tight shut. + +"Have you got to go up to town to-morrow?" + +"I have, worse luck. How do the trains go from this godforsaken place?" + +"About every two hours. What sort of train do you want? An early one?" + +"Rather. Got to be at Whitehall by twelve." + +"Will the nine-fifteen do?" + +"Yes; that's all right." + +The wings of her heart loosened. It rose light, as if air, not blood, +flowed from its chambers. + +The Lucys were never by any chance down before nine. Robert would not +meet him. + +He sat down in the chair opposite her, with his eyes fixed on her as she +leaned back in the corner of the sofa. He settled himself in comfort, +crossing his legs and thrusting out one foot, defined under a delicate +silk sock, in an attitude that was almost contemptuous of Kitty's +presence. + +Kitty's face was innocent of any perception of these shades. He drew the +long breath of ease and smiled at her again, a smile that intimated how +thoroughly he approved of her personal appearance. + +"Ye--es," he said, "you're different, but I think you're almost as +pretty as you were." + +"Am I?" she said. "What did you expect?" + +"I didn't expect anything. I never do. It's my scheme for avoiding +disappointment. Is your head better?" + +"No; it's aching abominably." + +"Sorry. But it's rather hard lines for me, isn't it? I wish you _could_ +have chosen some other time to be ill in." + +"What does it matter whether I'm ill or not, if I'm not pretty?" + +He smiled again. + +"I don't mean, child, that you're ever not pretty." + +"Thank you. I know exactly how pretty I am." + +"Do you? How pretty do you think you are now?" + +"Not half as pretty as Dora Nicholson. You know exactly how pretty she +is." + +"I do. And I know exactly how pretty she'll be in five years' time. +That's the worst of those thin women with little, delicate, pink faces. +You know the precise minute when a girl like Dora'll go off. You know +the pinkness will begin to run when she's once past thirty. You can see +the crows' feet coming, and you know exactly how far they'll have got by +the time she's thirty-five. You know that when she's forty there'll be +two little lines like thumb-nail marks beside her ears, just here, and +you know that when she's forty-five the dear little lobes will begin to +shrivel up, and that when she's fifty the corners of her mouth will +collapse." + +"And then?" + +"Then, if you're a wise man you don't know any more." + +"Poor little Dora. You _are_ a brute, Wilfrid." + +"I'm not a brute. I was going to say that the best of you, dear, is that +I don't know how you'll look at fifty. I don't know how you'll look +to-morrow--to-night. You're never the same for ten minutes together. +When you get one of those abominable headaches you look perhaps as old +as you are. You're twenty-seven, aren't you?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, I dare say you'll look twenty-seven when you are fifty. There's +something awfully nice about that sort of prettiness. It leaves things +delightfully vague. I can't _see_ you fifty." + +"Perhaps I never shall be." + +"Perhaps not. That's just it. You leave it open to me to think so. I +don't seriously contemplate your ever being forty. In fact your being +thirty is one of those melancholy and disastrous events that need not +actually occur. It's very tactful of you, Kitty." + +"All the same, I'm not as pretty as Dora Nicholson." + +"Dora Nicholson!" + +"You can't say she isn't awfully pretty." + +"I don't say it." His voice rose to an excited falsetto. "She _is_ +awfully pretty--extravagantly, preposterously pretty. And she'll have to +pay for it." + +"Oh--we all have to pay for it." + +"Sooner _or_ later." + +"Poor Dora----" + +"Poor Dora. Perhaps we have been rather brutal to her. She's good for +another five years." + +"Only five years? And what will she do then?" + +"Oh, she'll be all right. She'll rouge a bit, and powder a bit, and +dress like anything. You needn't be unhappy about Dora. I can tell you +Dora isn't going to be unhappy about you. Unhappiness would be extremely +unbecoming to her, and she knows it. It isn't particularly becoming to +any woman. You would be less damaged by it than most perhaps." + +"You've never seen me unhappy." + +"I hope to God I never shall." + +"You needn't be afraid, Wilfrid, you never will." + +"I wish," she said presently, "I wish you liked Dora Nicholson." + +"I do like her." + +"I wish you liked her as much as me." + +"That's very noble of you, Kitty. But may I ask, why?" + +"Because it would make things simpler." + +"Simpler? I should have said myself that that was just where +complications might occur. Supposing I liked Dolly better than you, what +then?" + +"Oh, that would make it simpler still." + +"It certainly would be simpler than the other situation you suggest." + +"It would for both of us." + +"But why this sudden yearning for simplicity? And why Dora Nicholson?" + +"There isn't any why. Anybody else would do, provided you liked them +better than me. It's only a question of time, you know. You're bound to +tire of me sooner or later." + +"Later, Kitty, later. Barring jealousy. If you're going in for that, I +may as well tell you at once that I shall tire of it very soon." + +"You think that's what's the matter with me?" + +"Well, something's the matter with you. I suppose it's that. I should +drop it, Kitty. It really isn't worth while. It only makes you thin, +and--and I can't be bored with it, d'you see?" + +"I don't want--to be bored--with it--either." She spoke very slowly. "If +you wanted to leave me for Dora Nicholson, I should be a fool to try and +keep you, shouldn't I?" + +"Well--you're not a fool." + +"You're not a fool either, Wilfrid." + +"If I am I take some pains to conceal it." + +"If a woman wanted to leave you for another man, would you try and keep +her?" + +He looked at her attentively. "It depends on the woman, and on some +other things besides. For instance, if I were married to her, I might +make a considerable effort, not to keep _her_, but--to keep up +appearances." + +"And if--you were not married to her?" + +"There again it would depend on the woman. I might take it that she'd +left me already." + +"Yes, but if you knew she wasn't that sort--if you knew she'd always +been straight with you?" + +"Well, then perhaps I might take the trouble to find out whether there +really was another man. Or I might have reason to suppose she was only +trying it on. In which case I should say to her 'My dear Kitty, you're a +very clever woman and it's a brilliant idea you've got. But it's been +tried before and it won't work. You can't draw me that way.'" + +"But, Wilfrid--if there _was_ another man?" + +"Well, it's possible that I might not consider it worth while to dispute +his claim. That would depend altogether on the woman." + +"If you cared for her?" + +"If I cared enough for her I might be able to convince her that it would +at any rate be prudent, from a worldly point of view, to stick to me. +But _that_ would depend, wouldn't it, on the amount of the other +fellow's income?" + +"And if all that didn't matter in the very least to her, if she didn't +care a rap about anybody's income, if she cared for the other fellow +more than she'd ever cared for you, if she didn't care for your caring, +if she cared for nothing except _his_ caring, and nothing you could do +could move her--what would you do then?" + +He paused to light another cigarette before he answered her. "I should +probably tell her, first of all, that for all I cared she might go to +the devil, I mean to the other fellow, and stay there as long as he +wanted her." + +"Well"--she said placably. + +"That's what I should say first. Afterward, when we were both a little +calmer--if I cared for her, Kitty--I should ask her to think a moment +before she did anything rash, to be quite sure that she would really be +happier with the other fellow. And I should point out to her very +clearly that, in any case, if she once went, it would not be open to her +to come back." + +"But you wouldn't try and keep her?" + +"I couldn't keep her, my dear child, by trying." + +"No--you couldn't keep her. Not for yourself. But, if you could keep her +from the other man, would you?" + +"I dare say I should do my best." + +"Would you do your worst? No, Wilfrid, you've been very good to me--I +don't believe you'd do your worst." + +"What do you mean," he said sharply. + +"You wouldn't tell him what she was, what she had been--if he didn't +know it. Would you?" + +He was silent. + +"Would you?" she cried. + +"No, Kitty, I wouldn't do that. I'm not a cad." + +He pondered. + +"But my dear girl, do you suppose for a moment that he doesn't know?" + +"He doesn't know a thing." + +"Then what in heaven's name are you talking about?" + +"I'm trying to tell you. It isn't what you think. I--I'm going to be +married." + +Marston took his cigarette out of his mouth, and stared at it. There was +no expression in his face beyond that concentrated, attentive stare. + +"Good Lord. Why," he said, "couldn't you tell me that before I came +down?" + +"I was going to. I was going to write to you and ask you not to come." + +"_Good_ God." + +He said it softly, and with calm incredulity rather than amazement. + +"Who is it, Kitty? Do I know him?" + +"No." + +"Do you know him yourself?" + +She smiled. "Yes I know him." + +"Well--but how long?" + +"Ten days." + +"You met him here? In this hotel?" + +"Yes." + +"That's why you were so anxious for me to go to the Métropole, was it?" + +"Yes." + +"Look here. I don't want to be unkind, but it doesn't do to blink facts. +Are you quite sure he means to marry you?" + +"Why shouldn't he?" + +"Well, these marriages do happen, but--I don't want to be unkind +again--but you know they are, to say the least of it, a little unusual." + +"Yes." + +"You've seen some of them?" + +"Yes." + +"And you know, you know as well as I do, the sort of man who--who----" + +"Who marries the sort of woman I am? Yes, I know him, perfectly well. +He's horrible." + +"There are exceptions, but he's generally pretty bad. You think he's +horrible. You'll be miserable when you find yourself tied to him for +life. You see, however awful he was, you wouldn't be exactly in a +position to get rid of him." + +"Wilfrid," her voice was very low and tender, "he isn't like that. He's +good----" + +"Good, is he?" He laughed. + +"Oh, don't laugh. He _is_ good." + +"Well, I don't say he isn't--only----" he smiled. + +"You forget," she said. "He doesn't know." + +"Are you quite sure he doesn't know?" + +"Quite--quite sure." + +"And you are not going to enlighten him?" + +She drew back before his penetrating gaze. "I can't. I couldn't bear him +to know." + +"How do you propose to prevent his knowing? Do you think you're clever +enough to keep him in the dark for ever?" + +"Why not? He hasn't seen things in the broad daylight, under his very +nose. There were plenty of things to see." + +"You mean he's stupid?" + +"I mean I haven't been clever, if that's what you think. Once I did +nearly tell him." + +"Supposing somebody else tells him?" + +"If they do it'll only be their word against mine. And he'd take my word +against anybody's." + +"Poor devil!" + +He seemed to meditate, dispassionately, on the poor devil's case, and +hers. + +"You little fool. It isn't a question of people's words. How are you +going to get rid of the facts?" + +"He needn't know them." + +"You forget. I'm one of them. How are you going to get rid of me?" + +"Oh, Wilfrid--you're not going to tell him? You said you wouldn't." + +"Of course I said I wouldn't--I'd even be glad to get rid of myself to +oblige you, Kitty, but I can't. Here I am. How are you going to account +for me?" + +"I've thought of that. He needn't see you. It'll be all right, Wilfrid, +if you'll go away." + +"No doubt. But I haven't gone away." + +He emphasised his point by rising and taking up a commanding position on +the hearthrug. + +Some one knocked at the door, and she started violently. + +It was only a servant, bringing a note for her. + +She read it and handed it to Marston, looking piteously at him as he +stood his ground. + +"Mr. Lucy can come up," she said. "We have finished all we had to say." + +"I think there are one or two points," he replied, "still unsettled." + +She turned to the servant. + +"Will you tell Mr. Lucy I'm engaged for the present. I will see him +later." + +"No, my dear Mrs. Tailleur, not on my account. There's no reason why you +shouldn't see Mr. Lucy now. No reason at all." + +She stood tortured with indecision. + +"Mrs. Tailleur will see Mr. Lucy now." + +"I will see him in ten minutes." + +"Very good, ma'am." + +The servant withdrew. + +Marston shrugged his shoulders. + +"There you are. Here we both are. Here we are all three in the same +hotel. An uncomfortably small hotel. How are you--or rather, how is +he--going to get over that?" + +"It would be all right if you'd only go. I've told him you were a man +coming on business." + +"My dear Kitty, that was quite unworthy of you." + +"Well, what could I do? It's not as if I was in the habit of telling +lies." + +"I won't criticise it if it was a first attempt. But in telling a lie, +my child, it's as well to select one that bears some resemblance to the +truth. Do I look like a man who comes on business?" + +"You will go before he comes, won't you?" + +"No, I don't think I will." + +"You have nothing," she said, "to gain by staying." + +"I suppose you think you have everything to gain by my going?" + +"Oh, Wilfrid, give me my chance." + +"I'm giving you your chance, you little fool. I wouldn't produce that +pocket-handkerchief if I were you. It's quite the most damaging thing +about you." + +She gave a hysterical laugh, and put the pocket-handkerchief away. + +"You are utterly unfit," he commented, "to manage your own affairs." + +They sat silent, while the clock ticked out the last minutes of her +torture. + +"You'd better make up your mind what you're going to do when he +arrives," he said finally. + +"I don't know," said Kitty, "what I'm going to do." + +"I'll tell you, then. You are going to introduce me as you would any +ordinary man of your acquaintance." + +"By your own name?" + +"By my own name, of course." + +They waited. Lucy's stride was heard along the corridor. She looked up +at her tormentor. + +"Is my nose red, Wilfrid?" + +"No," he said, smiling grimly, "my dear Mrs. Tailleur," he added as Lucy +entered. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +She came to meet him, keeping her back to Marston, her face thrust a +little forward in the way it had, looking for the protection of Robert's +kind eyes. Only when she had his hand in hers she turned. + +"May I introduce Mr. Wilfrid Marston?" + +The two men bowed, glancing at each other with eyes urbanely innocent of +curiosity. + +"I'm sorry to have had to keep you waiting," said Kitty. + +"So am I," said Marston. "Our business took rather longer than we +thought." + +"Business generally does," said Lucy. + +"It need not have taken quite so long if I could have persuaded Mrs. +Tailleur to think a little of her own advantage." + +"I have," said Kitty, "an admirable adviser in Mr. Marston." + +"You are always kind. Even if you don't always act on my advice." + +"Sometimes you think you know your own affairs best." + +"And sometimes," said Lucy, "it's just possible you do." + +"Sometimes. I've been telling Mrs. Tailleur that she's incapable of +managing her own affairs when it's a question of her own advantage. If +you know anything of Mrs. Tailleur, you will agree with me there." + +"I certainly agree with you, if Mrs. Tailleur will forgive my saying so. +I hope I've not come too soon." + +"Oh, no. Mr. Marston has missed the last train up." + +"And Mrs. Tailleur has been kind enough to ask me to stop the night." + +"If you don't prefer the Métropole. Mr. Lucy is not going. Don't--it's +all right, Robert." + +"Are you sure?" + +"Quite sure. Our business is finished." + +"All except one or two details which we may perhaps arrange later," said +Marston, who preserved a perfect suavity. + +"How much later?" said Kitty. "_I'm_ not going to arrange anything more +to-night." + +"To-morrow night." + +"There won't be any to-morrow night--if you're going up to town." + +"Well, then, perhaps if Mr. Lucy will excuse us, you will give me a +moment now. It seems a pity not to put things straight while you're +about it." + +"You can't put things straight at eleven o'clock at night. My poor +head's all muddled and aching abominably." + +"To-morrow morning, then." + +"There will be no time to-morrow morning. Robert, has Jane gone to bed?" + +"No, she's sitting up. She wants to speak to you." + +"Will you bring her to me, please?" + +He rose. When he had left the room she turned on Marston in a fury. + +"Wilfrid, you're a beast, a perfect beast." + +"A man of business, my dear Kitty, very often is. He's paid, you know, +for doing beastly things." + +"They come easy to you." + +"Is that all the thanks I get for playing up to you? I gave you every +point, too." + +She raged dumbly. + +"I can't congratulate you on your skill in the game. You'd have given +yourself away ten times over--if I hadn't stopped you." + +"What are you waiting for now, then?" + +"I have not said good night to your friend Mr. Lucy, nor to you." + +"You can say good night to me now, and good bye. I shall not see you +again." + +"Pardon me, you will see me to-morrow morning." + +"No. Never again. I've done with you." + +"My dear girl, you are absurd. Mr. Lucy is not going to marry you +to-morrow morning, is he?" + +"Well?" + +"And until he marries you, you haven't exactly done with me." + +"I see. You want to remind me that the clothes on my back belong to +you." + +He flushed painfully. + +"I don't want to remind you of anything that may be unpleasant to you. +I'm only suggesting that in the circumstances--until you marry him--you +can hardly refuse to see me." + +"Why should I see you? It'll make no difference." + +"To me, none. To you it may possibly make a considerable difference. +There are some points you have evidently not thought of, which it would +be well for us to talk over before you think of marrying." + +She capitulated. + +"If I see you to-morrow, will you go now?" + +"I will go, my dear Kitty, the precise moment I see fit. If I were you I +should wipe that expression from my face before Mr. Lucy comes in. He +might not like it. The pocket-handkerchief might be used with advantage +now--just there." + +In obedience to his indication she passed her hand over the flushed +tear-stain. At that moment Lucy entered with his sister. + +Jane, less guarded than her brother, looked candidly, steadily at +Marston, whose face instantly composed itself to reverence and devotion +before her young half-spiritual presence. + +Kitty's voice was scarcely audible as she murmured the ritual of +introduction. + +Lucy was aware of her emotion. + +"I think," said he, "as Mrs. Tailleur has owned to a bad headache, Mr. +Marston and I had better say good night." + +Marston said it. There was nothing else left for him to say. And as he +went through the door that Lucy opened for him, he cursed him in his +heart. + +"Jane," said Kitty. + +But Jane was looking at the door through which Marston and Robert had +just gone. + +"Robert did that very neatly," said she. "You wanted to get rid of him, +didn't you, Kitty?" + +"I've been trying to get rid of Wilfrid Marston for the last three +weeks." + +She had such wisdom, mothered by fierce necessity, as comes to the +foolish at their call. She was standing over little Jane as she spoke, +looking down into her pure, uplifted eyes. + +"You've been crying," she said. + +"Yes." Jane's eyes were very bright, new-washed with tears. + +"I know why. It's because of me." + +"Yes; but it's all right now, Kitty." + +She did not tell her that ten minutes ago she, too, had been out on the +Cliff-side and had had a battle with herself there, and had won it. For +little Jane there couldn't be a harder thing in the world than to give +Robert up. Of course she had to do it, so there could be no virtue in +that. The hard thing was to do it gracefully, beautifully. + +"What are you going to say to me, Janey? He told you?" + +"Yes; he told me." + +"Oh, don't look at me like that, dear. Say if you hate it for him." + +"I don't hate it. Only, oh, Kitty, dear, do you really love him?" + +"Yes; I love him." + +"But--you've only known him ten days. I don't think I could love a man +I'd only known ten days." + +"It makes no difference." + +"That's what Robert said." + +"Yes; he said it to me. Ah, I know what you mean. You think it's all +very well for him, because men are different. It's me you can't +understand; you think I must be horrid." + +"Oh no, no. It's only--I think _I'm_ different, that's all." + +"_Is_ that all, Janey?" + +"Yes." + +"And will you love me a little if I love him a great deal? Or do you +hate me for loving him?" + +"Kitty--you needn't be afraid. The more you love him the more I shall +love you." + +"Did--did his wife love him? Oh, ought I to have asked you that?" + +Jane shook her head. + +"I'm not sure that I ought to tell you." + +"She didn't, then?" + +"Oh yes, she did, poor little thing. She loved him all she could." + +"And it wasn't enough?" + +"No, I don't think it was, quite. There was something wanting. But I +don't think Robert ever knew it." + +"He knows it now," said Kitty. Her voice lifted with the pride of +passion. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +Marston cancelled that appointment at Whitehall. Somebody else's +business would have to wait another day, that was all. He was wont to +settle affairs as they arose, methodically, punctually, in the order of +their importance. At the moment his own affair and Kitty's was of +supreme importance. Until it was settled he could not attend to anybody +else. + +He was determined not to let her go. He meant to have her. He did not +yet know precisely how he was to achieve this end, but as a first step +to it he engaged a room indefinitely at the Métropole. There was nothing +like being on the spot. He would consider himself defeated when Lucy had +actually married her. Meanwhile, he was uplifted by his supreme distrust +of the event. + +His rival had made a very favourable impression on him, with the +curious effect of heightening Kitty's value in his eyes. Other causes +contributed, her passion for Lucy, and the subtle purification it had +wrought in her (a charm to which Marston was by no means unsusceptible), +the very fact that his own dominion was uncertain and his possession +incomplete. + +Up till now he had been unaware of the grip she had on him. He had never +allowed for the possibility of permanence in his relations with her sex. +The idea of marriage was peculiarly unsupportable to him. Even in his +youth he had had no love affairs, avowed and sanctioned. Though Marston +professed the utmost devotion to women like Miss Lucy, the women whom +his mother and his sisters knew, he had noticed a little sadly that he +soon wearied of their society, that he had no power of sustained +communion with the good. The unfallen were for him the unapproachable. +Therefore he had gravitated by taste and temperament to the women of +the underworld. There his incurable fastidiousness drove him to the +pursuit of a possible perfection, distinction within the limits, the +inherent frailties of the type. + +In Kitty Tailleur he had found even more than he was looking for. Kitty +had certain graces, reminiscent of the upper world; a heritage from +presumably irreproachable parents, that marked her from the women of her +class. She had, moreover, a way of her own, different from the charm of +the unfallen, different, too, from the coarse lures of the underworld. +Kitty was never rank, never insipid. She had a few light brains in her +body, and knew how to use them, woman-like, for the heightening of her +charm. + +There were other good points about Kitty. Marston disliked parting with +his money, and he had found Kitty, so far, inexpensive, as women went. + +For these reasons, so many and so plausible that they disguised the true +kind and degree of his subjection, he had before now returned to Kitty +more than once after he thought that he had tired of her. + +Only three weeks ago, on her return from Matlock, he judged that he had +come to the end of his passion for her; and here he was again at the +very beginning of it. Instead of perishing it had thrived on absence. He +found himself on the verge of a new and unforeseen adventure, with +impulse sharpened by antagonism and frustration. Yet his only chance, he +knew, was not to be impulsive, but cool rather, calculating and +cautious. The fight he was in for would have to be fought with brains; +his against hers. + +He sent a note to her early in the morning asking her to see him at +nine. At nine she saw him. + +"I thought," she said, "you were going up to town early." + +"I'm not going up to town at all, as it happens, to-day." + +"Isn't it rather a pity to neglect your business?" + +"My business, dear Kitty, is not any business of yours." + +"I'm only trying to make you see that it isn't worth your while stopping +out of town because of me." + +He was a little disconcerted at her divination of his motives, her +awareness of her own power. + +"Well, you see, though the affairs of Whitehall are not your affairs, +your affairs, unfortunately, are mine; and, since I have to attend to +them, I prefer to do it at once and get it over. I had some talk with +Lucy last night." + +She turned on him. "Ah, you _have_ given me away." + +"Did you ever know me give any one away?" + +She did not answer all at once. + +He was shocked at her suspicion; at the things she believed it possible +for a man to do. In the upper world, in a set that discussed its women +freely, he had never used his knowledge of a woman to harm her. He had +carried the same scruple into that other world where Kitty lived, where +he himself was most at home, where an amused, contemptuous tolerance +played the part of chivalry. The women there trusted him; they found him +courteous in his very contempt. He had connived at their small deceits, +the preposterous hypocrisies wherewith they protected themselves. He +accepted urbanely their pitiful imitations of the lost innocence. Kitty, +moving reckless and high in her sad circle, had been scornful of her +sisters' methods. Her soul was as much above them as her body, in its +unique, incongruous beauty, was above their rouge and coloured raiment. +It was this superiority of hers that had brought her to her present +pass; caused her to be mistaken for an honest woman. In her contempt +for the underworld's deceptions she had achieved the supreme deceit. + +Her deceit--that was his point. + +"Then," she said presently, "what _did_ you say to him?" + +"I said nothing, my dear child, in your disparagement. On the contrary, +I congratulated him on his engagement. As I'm supposed to be acting as +your agent, or solicitor, or whatever it is I am acting as, I imagine I +did right. Is that so?" + +"Yes; if that's all you said." + +"It is not quite all. I sustained my character by giving him a hint, the +merest hint, that in the event of your marriage your worldly position +would be slightly altered. We must prepare him, you know, for the sudden +collapse of your income." + +He rose and went to the mantelpiece, and lingered there over the +lighting of a cigarette. + +"You hadn't thought of that?" he said as he seated himself again. + +"No; I hadn't thought of it." + +"Well, he didn't appear to have thought of it either." + +"What did he say, when you told him that?" + +"He said it didn't matter in the very least." + +"I knew he would." + +"He said, in fact, that nothing mattered." + +"What did you say then?" + +"Nothing. What could I say?" + +She looked at him, trying to see deep into his design, trusting him no +further than she saw. + +"Look here, Kitty, I think you're making a mistake, even from your own +point of view. You ought to tell him." + +"I--can't." + +"You must. He's such an awfully decent chap, you can't let him in for +marrying you without telling him." That was his point and he meant to +stick to it. "It's what you might call playing it low down on a +guileless and confiding man. Isn't it?" + +"Yes, but I can't tell him." + +"It's the straight thing, Kitty." + +"I know. But it means giving him up." + +"Not at all. He'll respect you all the more for it. He won't go back on +you." + +"He wouldn't if he'd only himself to think of." + +"He isn't bound to tell his people. That's another thing." + +"It isn't his people--it's--it's his children." + +Marston became suddenly attentive. "His children? He's got children, has +he?" + +"Yes, two; two little girls." + +That strengthened his point. + +"Then, my dear girl, you can't--in common decency--not tell him. Hang it +all, you've got to give the man a chance." + +"A chance to escape? You talk as if I'd set a trap for him." + +"My dear child, you haven't sense enough to set a trap. But, since there +are spring-guns in his neighbourhood, I repeat that you ought to inform +him of the fact. I dare say he wouldn't funk a spring-gun on his own +account, but he may not want his children to be hurt." + +"I know. He'd be afraid I should contaminate them. I wouldn't, Wilfrid, +I wouldn't. I wouldn't hurt them for the world." + +"I'm sure you wouldn't. But he might think you would. The fathers of +little girls sometimes have strange prejudices. You see it's all very +well as long as you can keep him in his beautiful innocence. But, if he +finds out that you've deceived him, he--well, he might resent it." + +He never turned his eyes from that livid, vulnerable spot, striking at +it with the sword-thrust of his point. + +"A man can forgive many things in a woman, but not that." + +"I must risk it. He mayn't find out for years and years. If I tell him I +shall lose him now." + +"Not necessarily. Not if he cares for you as much as I should say he +does." + +"It doesn't matter how much he cares. He'd never marry me." + +"No. He might make another and more sensible arrangement." + +"And then?" She faced him with it. + +"Then you'll be satisfied. You'll have had your fling." + +"And--when--I've--had it?" she said slowly. + +"Then, I suppose, I shall have to take you back." + +"I see. That's where you think you'll come in." + +"I wasn't thinking, at the moment, of myself. The suggestion was thrown +out entirely on your behalf, and I may say his. I'm simply telling you +what--knowing you as I do--I consider the wiser course, for both of +you." + +"You don't know. And you don't know him. He wouldn't do it. He isn't +that sort." + +She paused, brooding over it. + +"Besides, I couldn't bear it. I can't go back to that." + +"And how many years do you think you'll stand being proper and +respectable, which is what you'll have to be as long as you're Mrs. +Robert Lucy? It's a stiffish job, my child, for you to tackle. Just +think of the practical difficulties. I've accounted for the sudden, very +singular collapse of your income, but there are all sorts of things that +you won't be able to account for. The disappearance, for instance, of +the entire circle of your acquaintance." + +She smiled. "It would be _much_ more awkward if it didn't disappear." + +"True. Still, a female friend or two is an indispensable part of a +married woman's outfit. The Lucys mayn't mind, but their friends may +regard the omission as peculiar. Then--you have charming manners, I +know--but your speech is apt, at times, to be a little, what shall I +say? Unfettered. The other day, when you were annoyed with me, you +called me a beast." + +"That's nothing. I might have called you something much worse." + +"You might. Happily, you did not. I've no objection to the word; it can +be used as a delicate endearment, but in your mouth it loses any tender +grace it might have had." + +"I'm sorry, Wilfrid." + +"Don't apologise. _I_ didn't mind. But if you call Lucy a beast he won't +like it." + +"I couldn't. Besides, I shall be very careful." + +"You will have to be extremely careful. The Lucys live in Hampstead, I +believe, and Hampstead enjoys the reputation of being the most +respectable suburb of London. You've no idea of the sort of people +you'll have to meet there. You'll terrify them, and they, my poor +Kitten, will exterminate you. You don't know what respectability is +like." + +"I don't care. I can stand anything." + +"You think you can. I _know_ that you won't be able to stand it for a +fortnight. You'll find that the air of Hampstead doesn't agree with you. +And wherever you go it'll be the same thing. You had very much better +stick to me." + +"To you?" + +"You'll be safer and happier. If you'll stay with me----" + +"I never have--stayed--with you." + +"No, but I'd like you to." + +He was not going to make love to her. He was far too clever for that. He +knew that with a woman like Kitty, in Kitty's state of mind, he had +nothing to gain by making love. Neither did he propose to pit his will +against hers. That course had answered well enough in the time of his +possession of her. Passion, which was great in her, greater than her +will, made his will powerless over her. His plan was to match the forces +of her brain with superior, with overwhelming forces. + +He continued coldly. "I'm not satisfied with the present arrangement any +more than you are. If you'll stay with me you shall live where you +choose; only don't choose Park Lane, for I can't afford it. I'll give +you any mortal thing I _can_ afford." + +"You think you can give me what Robert Lucy's giving me?" + +"I can give you a home, Kitty, as long as you'll live in it. I can give +you the advantages of marriage without its drawbacks. You won't be tied +to me a minute longer than you like. Whereas you can't leave Lucy +without a scandal." + +"You think that a safe arrangement, do you? I can leave you when I want +to." + +"You can leave me any day. So the chances are that you won't want to." + +"And when you're tired of me?" + +[Illustration: "'You won't be tied to me a minute longer than you +like.'"] + +"That's it. I shan't be tired of you. I've a different feeling for you +from any I've ever had for any other woman, for the simple reason that +you're a different woman every time I see you. That's the secret of +your fascination. Didn't you know it?" + +She shook her head, but she was not attending to him. + +"If you don't know it there's no harm in telling you that I'm very fond +of you." + +"What earthly use is it, Wilfrid, being fond of me, as long as I'm not +fond of you?" + +Ah, that was a mistake. He was on perilous ground. She was strong there. +She matched his bloodless, unblushing candour with her throbbing, +passionate sincerity. + +"That's all the better," he said. "It wouldn't pay you, Kitty, to be +fond of me. If I thought you were fond of me to-day it would leave me +with nothing to look forward to to-morrow. If you were as fond of me as +you are of Lucy, it would bore me horribly. What's more, it would bore +you. It would tire you out, and you'd bolt in a week's time. As, I can +tell you, you'll bolt from him." + +"You think I shall do that. He doesn't. That's why I'm fond of him." + +"I wouldn't be too fond of him. It never pays. Either you'll tire of him +in a week, or, if you go on being fond of him you'll end by being afraid +of him. You need never be afraid of me." + +"I _am_ afraid of you." + +"Not you. I understand you, Kitty, and he doesn't." + +"You mean you know the worst of me?" + +"Precisely. What's more, I should condone what you call the worst of +you, and he wouldn't." + +"I know you would. That's why I'm afraid of you. You only know the worst +of me, and he--he knows, he understands, the rest. There's something in +me that you've never seen; you couldn't see it; you wouldn't believe in +it; you'd kill it if I stayed with you. It's no use talking, for I +won't." + +"Why not?" he asked as if nothing she had said had been of any moment. + +"I've told you why not. But I don't expect you to understand it." + +"If there's anything in it I shall understand it in the end. I'm not a +fool." + +"No, you're not a fool. I'll say that for you." + +"Unless it's folly to be as fond of you as I am." + +"Oh, no, that's not folly. You'll be fond of me just as long as I'm nice +to look at; as long as it doesn't bore you to talk to me; as long as I +don't give you any trouble." + +"Good God! Why, look at the trouble you're giving me now." + +"Yes, the trouble I'm giving you now, when I'm young and pretty and you +can't have me. But when you _have_ had me; when I'm tired out and ill +and--and thin; will you be fool enough to be fond of me then?" + +"You have been ill, you were ill last night, and--I've got over it." + +"You never came near me when I was ill at Matlock. You call that giving +me what Robert Lucy gives me? Robert has seen me when I've been as ugly +as sin, when my eyes have been bunged up with crying. And it made no +difference. He'll love me when I'm thin and ill and old. When I'm dead +he'll love me." + +He faced her passion as it flamed up before him, faced it with his cold, +meditative smile. + +"That's just what makes it such a beastly shame." + +"My not giving him up? How _can_ I give him up?" + +"I see your point. You think you're exchanging a temporary affection for +a permanent one. You admit that I shall love you as long as you're nice +to look at. Very well. You'll be nice to look at for some considerable +time. I shall therefore love you for some considerable time. Robert Lucy +will love you just as long as he believes in you. How long will that +be?" + +She did not answer. + +"You don't know. Have you calculated the probable effect of gradual +enlightenment on our friend's mind?" + +"I've calculated nothing." + +"No. You are not a calculating woman. I just ask you to consider this +point. I am not, as you know, in the least surprised at any of your +charming little aberrations. But our friend Lucy has not had many +surprises in his life. He'll come to you with an infinite capacity for +astonishment. It's quite uncertain how he'll take--er--anything in the +nature of a surprise. And, if you ask me, I should say he'd take it +hard. Are you going to risk that?" + +He was returning to his point even when he feigned to have lost sight of +it. Tortured and panting she evaded it with pitiful subterfuges. He +urged her back, pressing her tender breast against the prick of it. + +"I'm going to risk everything," she said. + +"Risk it, risk it, then. Tie yourself for life to a man you don't know; +who doesn't really know you, though you think he does; who on your own +showing wouldn't marry you if he did know. You see what a whopping big +risk it is, for he's bound to know in the end." + +She sickened and wearied. "He is not bound to know. Why is he?" + +"Because, my dear girl, you're bound to give yourself away some day. +I know you. I know the perverse little devil that is in you. When +you realise what you've let yourself in for you'll break loose, +suddenly--like that." He threw out his arms as if he burst bonds +asunder. "You can't help yourself. You simply can't live the life. +You may yearn for it, but you can't live it." + +"I don't want to be respectable. It isn't that." + +"What is it then?" + +"Can't you see?" + +He looked at her closely, as if he saw it for the first time. + +"Are you so awfully gone on him?" + +"Yes," she said. "You _won't_ tell him? It'll kill me if he knows." + +"You think it will, but it won't." + +"I shall kill myself, then." + +"Oh no, you won't. You only think you will. It's Lucy I'm sorry for." + +"And it's me you're hard on. You were always hard. You say you condone +things, but you condone nothing, and you're not good yourself." + +"No, I'm not good myself. But there is conduct and conduct. I can +condone everything but the fraud you're practising on this innocent +man." He rose. "It's--well--you see, it's such a beastly shame." + +It was to be a battle of brains, and she had foiled him with the +indomitable stupidity of her passion. But his point--the one point that +he stuck to--was a sword point for her passion. + +"You won't tell him? You won't? It would be a blackguardly thing to do." + +"If Lucy was a friend of mine I'm afraid the blackguardly thing would +be to hold my tongue." + +"You'd tell him then?" she said. "You wouldn't think of me?" + +She came to him. She laid her arms upon his shoulders. Her hands touched +him with dispassionate, deliberate, ineffectual caresses, a pitiful +return to a discarded manner, an outrageous imitation of the old +professional cajoleries. It was so poor a thing that it had no power to +move him. What moved him was the look in her eyes, the look which his +brain told him was the desperate, incredulous appeal of her unhappy +soul. + +"I don't know, Kitty," he said. "Thank heaven, he's not a friend of +mine." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +It was not from Marston, then, that she had to fear betrayal. Neither +was she any more afraid of the rumours of the Cliff Hotel. She was aware +that her engagement to Robert Lucy, unannounced but accepted for the +simple fact it was, had raised her above censure and suspicion. + +It had come just in time to occupy Mrs. Jurd and Miss Keating on their +way to Surbiton. + +When Kitty thought of Grace Keating she said to herself, "How will Bunny +feel now?" But her mortal exultation was checked by her pity for poor +Bunny, who would have been so happy if she had been married. + +Then there were the Hankins. She reflected sanely that they couldn't be +dangerous, for they knew nothing. Still she did feel a little uneasy +when she thought of the Hankins. + +She was thinking of them now as she and Robert sat on the Cliff, making +the most of their last hour together before the arrival of the little +girls. + +"Robert," she said, "the Hankins are probably sitting down there under +the Cliff. Supposing they see us?" + +"They can't, we're over their heads." + +"But if they do what do you suppose they'll think?" + +"If they think at all, they'll have an inkling of the truth. But it +isn't their business. The children will be here soon," he added. + +She looked at him intently. Was he trying, she wondered, to reassure her +that the presence of his children would protect her? Or was he merely +preoccupied with the thought of their arrival? + +"You don't mind," he said presently, "not coming to the station?" + +He had said that already twice before. Why ask, she said, when he knew +perfectly well she didn't mind? + +Of course she didn't mind. She knew his idea, that they were not to be +confronted with her suddenly. He meant to let her dawn on them +beautifully, with the tenderest gradations. He would approach them with +an incomparable cunning. He would tell them that they were going to see +a very pretty lady. And when they were thoroughly inured to the idea of +her, he would announce that the pretty lady was coming to stay with +them, and that she would never go away. + +She looked at her watch. + +"We've got another half-hour before they come." + +"Kitty, I believe you're afraid of them?" + +"Yes, Robert, I'm afraid." + +"What? Of two small children?" + +"What are they like? I haven't asked you that." + +"Well, Janet's a queer, uncanny little person, rather long for her age +and very thin----" + +"Like you?" + +"Like me. At first you think she's all legs. Then you see a little white +face with enormous eyes that look at you as if she was wondering what +you are." + +He smiled. His mind had gone off, away from her, to the contemplation of +his little daughter. + +"I think she is clever, but one never knows. We have to handle her very +carefully. Barbara's all right. You can pitch her about like anything." + +"What is Barbara like?" + +"Barbara? She's round and fat and going to be pretty, like----" + +"Like her mother?" + +"No, like Janey, if Janey was fat. They're both a little difficult to +manage. If you reprove Barbara, she bursts out laughing in your face. If +you even hint to Janet that you disapprove of her, she goes away +somewhere and weeps." + +"Poor little thing. I'm afraid," said Kitty sadly, "they're not so very +small." + +"Well, Janet, I believe, is seven, and Barbara is five." + +"Barbara is five. And, oh dear me, Janet is seven." + +"Is that such a very formidable age?" + +She laughed uneasily. "Yes. That's the age when they begin to take +notice, isn't it?" + +"Oh, no, they do that when they're babies. Even Barbara's grown out of +that. I say, Kitty, what a lot you know." + +"Don't, Robert." She looked at him imploringly and put her hand in his. + +"I won't, if you'll only tell me what I'm not to do." + +"You're not to tease me about the things you think I don't know. I used +to nurse my little sisters, when I wasn't very big myself. I can't nurse +Janet, or Barbara, can I?" + +"Why not?" + +"They wouldn't let me. They're too old. It won't be the same thing at +all." + +"Well," said Robert, and paused, hiding from her the thing that was in +his mind. + +"Oh, Robert, I do wish, I do wish they were really small." + +"I'm sorry, Kitty. But perhaps----" + +He could not hide anything from Kitty. + +"No, Robert," she said, "I'm afraid there won't be any perhaps. That's +one of the things I meant to tell you. But I'm not bothering about that. +I meant--if they were little--little things, I shouldn't be so +dreadfully afraid of them." + +"Why? What do you think they'll do to you, Kitty?" + +"I--don't--know." + +"You needn't be alarmed. I believe they're very well-behaved. Jane has +brought them up quite nicely." + +"What is Jane going to do?" + +"Ah--that's what I wanted to ask you about." + +"You needn't ask me. You want her to stay and look after them just the +same?" + +"No, not just the same. I want her to stay and she won't. She says it +wouldn't be fair to you." + +"But--if she only would, that would make it all so easy. You see, I +could look after you, and she could look after them." + +"You don't want to be bored with them?" + +"You know that isn't what I mean. I don't want them to suffer." + +"Why _should_ they suffer?" There was some irritation in his tone. + +"Because I don't think, Robert, I'm really fit to bring up children." + +"I think you are. And I don't mean anybody else to bring them up. If +you're my wife, Kitty, you're their mother." + +"And they're to be mine as well as yours?" + +"As much yours as you can make them, dear." + +"Oh, how you trust me. That's what makes me so afraid. And--do you +think they'll really love me?" + +"Trust _them_--for that." + +"You asked me if I could care for you, Robert; you never asked me if I +could care for them. You trusted me for that!" + +"I could have forgiven you if you couldn't care for _me_." + +"But you couldn't forgive me if I didn't care for them? Is that it?" + +"No; I simply couldn't understand any woman not caring for them. I think +you _will_ like the little things, when you've seen them." + +"I'll promise you one thing. I won't be jealous of them." + +"Jealous? Why on earth should you be?" + +"Some women are. I was afraid I might be that sort." + +"Why?" + +"Because--oh, because I care for you so awfully. But that's just it. +That's why I can't be jealous of them. They're yours, you see. I can't +separate them from you." + +"Well, well, let's wait until you've seen them." + +"Don't you believe me, Robert? Women _do_ love their children before +they've seen them. I don't need to see them. I _have_ seen them. I saw +them all last night." + +She looked away from him, brooding, as if she still saw them. + +"There's only one person I could be jealous of, and I'm not jealous of +her any more." + +"Poor little Jane." + +"It wasn't Jane. It was their mother. I mean it was your wife." + +He turned and looked at her. There was amazement in his kind, simple +face. + +"I suppose you think that's fiendish of me?" + +He did not reply. + +"But--Robert--I'm not jealous of her any more. I don't care if she was +your wife." + +"Kitty, my dear child----" + +"I don't care if she had ten children and _I_ never had one. It's got +nothing to do with it. She had you for--two years, wasn't it?" + +"Two years, Kitty." + +"Poor thing; and I shall have you all my life." + +"Yes. And so, if you don't mind, dear, I'd rather you didn't talk about +that again." + +"I'm sorry. I won't ever again." + +She sat silent for a moment in a sort of penitential shame. Then she +burst out-- + +"I'm not jealous. But, Robert, if you were to leave me for another woman +it would kill me. I daren't say that to any other man if I cared for +him. It would just make him go and do it. But I believe somehow you'd +think twice before you killed me." + +He only smiled at this, and spoke gently. + +"Yes, Kitty, you're right. I believe I _would_ think twice about it." + +He said to himself that this fierceness, her passionate perversity, all +that was most unintelligible in her, was just Kitty's way--the way of a +woman recklessly, adorably in love. It stirred in him the very depths of +tenderness. When she was married (they must marry very soon) she would +be happy; she would understand him; she would settle down. + +He looked at his watch. "I'm afraid I must be going." + +She glanced at the hands of the watch over his shoulder. "You needn't," +she said. "It isn't really time." + +"Well--five minutes." + +The five minutes went. "Time's up," he said. + +"Oh, no, Robert--not yet." + +"Kitty--don't you want to see them?" + +"I don't want you to go." + +"I'm coming back." + +"Yes, but it won't be the same thing. It never will be the same thing as +now." + +"Poor Kitty--I say, I _must_ go and meet them." + +"Very well." She stood up. "Kiss me," she said. + +She took his kiss as if it were the last that would be given her. + +They went together to the hotel. Jane had started five minutes ago for +the station. + +"It's all right," he said. "I'll catch her up." + +She followed to the gates and looked down the white road where Jane had +gone. + +"Let me come with you--just a little way--to the first lamp-post on the +station road." + +"Well, to the first lamp-post." + +At the lamp-post she let him go. + +She stood looking after him till he swung round the turn of the road, +out of her sight. Then she went back, slowly, sad-eyed, and with a great +terror in her heart. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +It was not the thing she had confessed to him, fear of his little unseen +children, it was terror, unconfessed, uncomprehended, as it were +foreknowledge of the very soul of destiny clothed for her in their +tender flesh and blood. + +Up till now she had been careless of her destiny. She had been so +joyous, so defiant in her sinning. By that charm of hers, younger than +youth, indestructibly childlike, she had carried it through with the +audacity of chartered innocence. She had propitiated, ignored, eluded +the more feminine amenities of fate. Of course, she had had her bad +moments. She had been sorry, sometimes, and she had been sick; but on +the whole her powers had been splendidly recuperative. She had shown +none of those naked tender spots that provoke destiny to strike. And +with it all she had preserved, perhaps too scrupulously, the rules laid +down for such as she. She had kept her own place. She had never +attempted to invade the sanctuaries set apart for other women. + +It was Robert who had tempted her to that transgression. He had opened +the door of the sanctuary for her and shut it behind her and put his +back against it. He had made her believe that if she stayed in there, +with him, it would be all right. She might have known what would happen. +It was for such a moment, of infatuation made perfect, that destiny was +waiting. + +Kitty had no very luminous idea of its intentions. But she bore in her +blood forebodings, older and obscurer than the flashes of the brain; and +her heart had swift immortal instincts, forerunners of the mortal hours. +The powers of pain, infallibly wise, implacably just, would choose their +moment well, striking at her through the hands of the children she had +never borne. + +If Robert found out what she was before he married her, he would have +to give her up because of them. She knew better than he did the hold she +had over him. She had tried to keep him in ignorance of her power, so +great was her terror of what it might do to him, and to her through him. +Yet, with all her sad science, she remained uncertain of his ultimate +behaviour. That was the charm and the danger of him. For fear of some +undiscovered, uncalculated quality in him she had held herself back; she +had been careful how she touched him, how she looked at him, lest her +hands or her eyes should betray her; lest in his heart he should call +her by her name, and fling her from him because of them. Whereas, but +for them, she judged that whatever she was he would not give her up. She +was not quite sure (you couldn't say _what_ a man like Robert would or +wouldn't do), but she felt that if she could have had him to herself, if +there had been only he and she, facing the world, then, for sheer +chivalry, he simply couldn't have left her. Even now, once he was +married to her it would be all right; he couldn't give her up or leave +her; the worst he could do would be to separate her from them. + +There was really no reason then why she should be frightened. He was +going to marry her very soon. She knew that, by her science, though he +had not said so. She would be all right. She would be very careful. It +wasn't as if she didn't want to be nice and to do all the proper things. + +And so Kitty cast off care. + +Only, as she waited in the room prepared for the children, she looked at +herself in the glass, once, to make sure that there was nothing in her +face that could betray her. No; Nature had spared her as yet and her +youth was good to her. Her face looked back at her, triumphantly +reticent, innocent of memory, holding her charm, a secret beyond the +secrets of corruption, as her perfect body held the mystery and the +prophecy of her power. Besides, her face was different now from what it +had been. Wilfrid had intimated to her that it was different. It was the +face that Robert loved; it had the look that told him that she loved +him, a look it never wore for any other man. Even now as she thought of +him it lightened and grew rosy. She saw it herself and wondered and took +hope. "That's how I look when I'm happy, is it? I'm always happy when +I'm with him, so," she reasoned, "he will always see me like that; and +it will be all right." + +Anyhow, there would be no unhappiness about his pretty lady when he came +back with them. + +She smiled softly as she went about the room, putting the touches of +perfection to the festival. There were roses everywhere; on the table, +on the mantelpiece; the room was sweet with the smell of them; there was +a rose on each child's plate. The tremulous movements of her hands +betrayed the immensity and the desperation of her passion to please. +The very waiter was touched by her, and smiled secretly in sympathy as +he saw her laying her pretty lures. When he had gone she arranged the +table all over again and did it better. Then she stood looking at it, +hovering round it, thinking. She would sit here, and the children there, +Janet between her and Robert, Barbara between her and Jane. + +"Poor little things," she said, "poor little things." She yearned to +them even in her fear of them, and when she thought of them sitting +there her lips moved in unspoken, pitiful endearments. + +The light from the south-west streamed into the little room and made it +golden. Everything in it shimmered and shone. The window, flung wide +open to the veranda, framed the green lawn and the shining, shimmering +sea. A wind, small and soft, stirred the thin curtains to and fro, +fanning the warm air. The sunlight and heat oppressed her. She shut her +eyes and put her hands over them to cool them with darkness. It was a +trick she had when she was troubled. + +She sat by the window and waited in the strange, throbbing darkness of +hot eyes closed in daylight, a darkness smitten by the sun and shot with +a fiery fume. + +They were coming now. She heard feet on the gravel outside, round the +corner; she heard Robert's voice and Janey's; and then little shuffling +footsteps at the door, and two voices shrill and sweet. + +Robert came in first and the children with him. They stood all three on +the threshold, looking at her. Robert was smiling, but the little girls +(they were very little) were grave. His eyes drew her and she came +toward them as she was used to come to the things of her desire, swift +and shy, with a trailing, troubling movement; the way that he had seen +her come, swayed by the rhythm of impulse. + +The children stood stock still as she stooped to them. Her fear of them +made her supremely gentle. Little Barbara put up her round rose face +with its soft mouth thrust forward in a premature kiss. Janet gave her a +tiny hand and gazed at her with brooding, irresponsive eyes. Her little +mouth never moved as Kitty's mouth touched it. + +But little Barbara held out her spade and bucket for Kitty to see. +"Look, look," said little Barbara, "Daddy gave them me to build castles +in the sand." Barbara spoke so fast that she panted, and laughed in a +divine superfluity of joy. + +Robert stood looking down from his tremendous height at Barbara, +tenderly as one who contemplates a thing at once heartrending and +absurd. Then his eyes turned to Kitty, smiling quietly as if they said, +"Didn't I tell you to wait until you'd seen them?" Kitty's heart +contracted with a sharp, abominable pang. + +Then Janey took the little girls to the room upstairs where their nurse +was. Barbara looked back at Kitty as she went, but Kitty's eyes +followed Janet. + +"Robert," she said, "will she always look at me like that? Shall I never +know what she is thinking?" + +"None of us know what Janet's thinking." + +He paused. + +"I told you we had to be very careful of her." + +"Is she delicate?" + +"No. Physically, she's far stronger than Barbara. She's what you call +morally delicate." + +She flushed. "What do you mean, Robert?" + +"Well--not able to bear things. For instance, we'd a small child staying +with us once. It turned out that she wasn't a nice child at all. We +didn't know it, though. But Janet had a perfect horror of her. It's as +if she had a sort of intuition. She was so unhappy about it that we had +to send the child away." + +His forehead was drawn into a frown of worry and perplexity. + +"I don't see how she's to grow up. It makes me feel so awfully +responsible. The world isn't an entirely pretty place, you know, and it +seems such a cruel shame to bring a child like that into it. Doesn't +it?" + +"Yes." + +"Somehow I think you'll understand her, Kitty." + +"Yes, Robert, I understand." + +She came to him. She laid her hand on the sleeve of his coat, and stood +by him. Her eyes were shining through some dew that was not tears. + +"What is it, Kitty?" + +"Will you marry me soon?" she said. "Very soon?" she whispered. "I--I +can't wait." She hid her face against his arm. + +He thought it was the motherhood in her that was moved, that pleaded, +impatient for its hour. + +"Why should we wait? Do you suppose I want to?" + +"Hush!" she said. "They're coming." + +They came a little solemnly, as beseemed a festival. Janet, in her long +white pinafore, looked more than ever the spiritual thing she was. Her +long brown hair hung down her cheeks, straight and smooth as a parted +veil, sharpening her small face, that flickered as a flame flickers in +troubled air. Beside her little Barbara bloomed and glowed, with cheeks +full-blown, and cropped head flowering into curls that stood on end in +brown tufts, and tawny feathers, and little crests of gold. They took +their places, pensively, at the table. + +They had beautiful manners, Robert's children; little exquisite, gentle +ways of approaching and of handling things. They held themselves very +erect, with a secure, diminutive distinction. Kitty's heart sank deeper +as she looked at them. Even Barbara, who was so very young, carried her +small perfections intact through all the spontaneities of her behaviour. + +All through tea-time little Barbara, pursued by her dream, talked +incessantly of castles in the sand. And when she was tired of talking +she began to sing. + +"Darling," said Jane, "we don't sing at tea-time." + +"_I_ do," said little Barbara, and laughed. + +Jane laughed too, hysterically. + +Then the spirit of little Barbara entered into Jane, and made her +ungovernably gay. It passed into Kitty, and ran riot in her blood and +nerves. Whenever Barbara laughed Kitty laughed, and when Kitty laughed +Robert laughed too. Even Janet gave a little shriek now and then. The +children thought it was all because they had had strawberries and cream +for tea, and were going down to the sea to build castles in the sand. + +All afternoon, till dinner-time, Kitty laboured on the sands, building +castles as if she had never done anything else in her life. The Hankins +watched her from their seat on the rocks in the angle of the Cliff. + +"We were mistaken. She must be all right. How pretty she is, too, poor +thing," said Mrs. Hankin to her husband. + +"How pretty she is, how absolutely lovable and good," said Robert to +himself as he watched her, while Barbara, a tired little labourer, lay +stretched in her lap. She was sitting on a rock under the Cliff, with +the great brow of it for a canopy. Her eyes were lowered, and hidden by +their deep lids. She was smiling at the child who leaned back in her +arms, crushing a soft cheek against her breast. + +He threw himself down beside her. He had just finished a prodigious +fortress, with earthworks and trenches extending to the sea. + +"Kitty, Kitty," he said, "you're only a child yourself, like Janey. +She's perfectly happy building castles in the sand--so are you. You're a +perfect baby." + +"We're all babies, Robert, building castles in the sand. And you're the +biggest baby of the lot." + +"I don't care. I've built the biggest castle." + +"Look at Janet," said Kitty. "She'll be grown up before any of us." + +The child sat on a rock with Jane. But, from the distance that she kept, +she looked at her father and Kitty from time to time. All afternoon +Janet had clung to Jane. But when bed-time came Robert took her aside +and whispered something to her. Going home she walked by Kitty, and put +her hand in hers. + +"Daddy said I'm to be very kind to you." + +"Did he? That's very kind of daddy." + +"Daddy's always kind to people. Especially when they've not been very +happy. Really and truly I'm going to be kind. But you won't mind if I +don't love you _very_ soon, will you?" + +"Of course I won't. Only don't leave it too late, darling." + +"Well, I don't know," said Janet thoughtfully; "we've lots of time." + +"Have we?" + +"Heaps and heaps. You see, I love Auntie Janey, and it might hurt her +feelings." + +"I see." + +"But I'm going to give you something," said Janet presently. + +"I don't want you to give me anything that belongs to Auntie Janey." + +"No," said Janet; "I shall give you something of my own." + +"Oh! And you can't tell me what it's going to be?" + +"I must think about it." The little girl became lost in thought. +"Barbara likes kissing people. I don't." + +"So I see. It won't be kisses, then?" + +"No; it won't be kisses. It will," she reiterated, "be something of my +own." + +She dropped Kitty's hand. + +"You won't mind if I go to Auntie Janey now?" + +Kitty told Janey about it afterward, as they sat alone in the lounge +before dinner. + +"You mustn't mind, Kitty dear," said Jane. "It only means that she's a +faithful little soul. She'll be just as faithful to you some day." + +"Some day." + +"Don't sigh like that, Kitty." + +"She's like Robert, isn't she?" + +"Very like Robert." + +She brooded. + +"Janey," she said, "let me have him to myself this evening." + +All evening she had him to herself, out on the Cliff, in the place where +nobody came but they. + +"Well," he said, "what do you think of them?" + +"I think they're adorable." + +"Funny little beggars, aren't they? How did you get on with Janet?" + +She told him. + +"That's Janet's little way. To give you something of her own." He smiled +in tender satisfaction, repeating the child's phrase. + +"It's all right, Kitty. She's only holding herself in. You're in for a +big thing." + +She surveyed it. + +"I know, Robert. I know." + +"You're tired? Have the children been too much for you?" + +She shook her head. + +"You're not to make yourself a slave to them, you know." + +She looked at him. + +"Was I all right, Robert?" + +"You were perfect." + +"You said I was only a child myself." + +"So you are. That's why I like you." + +She shook her head again. + +"It's all very well," she said, "but that isn't what you want, +dear--another child." + +"How do you know what I want?" + +"You want somebody much nicer than I am." + +He was silent, looking at her as he had looked at Barbara, enjoying her +absurdity, letting her play, like the child she was, with her +preposterous idea. + +"Oh, Robert, you do _really_ think I'm nice?" She came nearer to him, +crying out like a child in pain. He put his arm round her, and comforted +her as best he could. + +"You child, do you suppose I'd marry you if I didn't think you nice?" + +"You might. You mightn't care." + +"As it happens, I do care, very much. Anyhow, I wouldn't ask you to be a +mother to my children if I didn't think you nice. That's the test." + +"Yes, Robert," she repeated, "that's the test." + +They rose and went back to the hotel. From the lawn they could see the +open window of the children's room. They looked up. + +"Would you like to see them, Kitty?" + +"Yes." + +He took her up to them. They were asleep. Little Barbara lay curled up +in the big bed, right in the middle of it where her dreams had tossed +her. Janet, in the cot beside her, lay very straight and still. + +Robert signed to Kitty to come near, and they stood together and looked +first at the children and then into each other's faces. Kitty was very +quiet. + +"Do you like them?" he whispered. + +Her lips quivered, but she made no sign. + +He stooped over each bed, smoothing the long hair from Janet's forehead, +folding back the blanket that weighed on Barbara's little body. When he +turned, Kitty had gone. She had slipped into her own room. + +She waited till she heard Robert go away. The children were alone in +there. The nurse, she knew, was in Jane's room across the passage. Jane +was probably telling her that her master was to be married very soon. + +She looked out. The door of Jane's room was shut; so was the door of the +children's room through which Robert had gone out. The other, the door +of communication, she had left ajar. She went softly back through it and +stood again by the children's beds. Janet was still sound asleep. Her +fine limbs were still stretched straight and quiet under the blanket. +Her hair was as Robert's hand had left it. + +Kitty was afraid of disturbing Janet's sleep. She was afraid of Janet. + +She stooped over little Barbara, and turned back the bedclothes from the +bed. She laid herself down, half her length, upon it by Barbara's side, +and folded her in arms that scarcely touched her at first, so light they +lay on her. Then some perverse and passionate impulse seized her to wake +the child. She did it gently, tenderly, holding back her passion, +troubling the depths of sleep with fine, feather-like touches, with +kisses soft as sleep. + +The child stirred under the caressing arms. She lay in her divine +beauty, half asleep, half awake, opening her eyes, and shutting them on +the secret of her dream. Then Kitty's troubling hand turned her from her +flight down the ways of sleep. She lay on her back, her eyes glimmered +in the lifting of their lids; they opened under Kitty's eyes that +watched them, luminous, large and clear. Her mouth curled under Kitty's +mouth, in drowsy kisses plucked from the annihilated dream. She drew up +her rosy knees and held out her arms to Kitty's arms and smiled, half +awake and half asleep. + +Kitty rose, lifting the child with her from the bed. She held her close, +pressing the tender body close to her own body with quivering hands, +stroking the adorable little face with her own face, closing her eyes +under the touch of it as she closed them when Robert's face touched +hers. She was aware that she had brought some passionate, earthly +quality of her love for Robert into her love for Robert's child. + +She said to herself, "I'm terrible; there's something wrong with me. +This isn't the way to love a child." + +She laid the little thing down again, freed her neck from the drowsy, +detaining arms, and covered the small body up out of her sight. +Barbara, thus abandoned, cried, and the cry cut through her heart. + +She went into her own room, and threw herself on her bed and writhed +there, torn by many pangs. The pang of the heart and the pang of the +half-born spirit, struggling with the body that held it back from birth; +and through it all the pang of the motherhood she had thwarted and +disowned. Out of the very soil of corruption it pierced, sharp and pure, +infinitely painful. It was almost indiscernible from the fierce +exultation of her heart that had found fulfilment, and from the passion +of her body that yet waited for its own. + +She undressed herself, and crept into her bed and lay there, tortured, +visited by many memories. She gazed with terrified, pitiful eyes into a +darkness that was peopled for her with all the faces she had known in +the short seasons of her sinning; men, and the women who had been her +friends and her companions; and the strangers who had passed her by, or +who had lingered and looked on. The faces of Robert and his children +hung somewhere on the outskirts of her vision, but she could not fix +them or hold them; they were trampled out, obliterated by that +phantasmal procession of her shames. Some faces, more terrible than all, +detached themselves and crowded round her, the faces of those who had +pursued her, and of those whom her own light feet pursued; from the +first who had found her and left her, to the last whom she herself had +held captive and let go. They stood about her bed; they stretched out +their hands and touched her; their faces peered into hers; faces that +she had forgotten. She thrust them from her into the darkness and they +came again. Each bore the same likeness to his fellow; each had the same +looks, the same gestures that defied her to forget. She fell asleep; and +the dreams, the treacherous, perpetually remembering, delivered her into +their hands. + +She waked at dawn, with memory quickened by her dreams. She heard voices +now, all the voices that had accused her. Her mother's voice spoke +first, and it was very sad. It said, "I am sending you away, Kitty, +because of the children." Then her father's voice, very stern, "No, I +will not have you back. You must stay where you are for your little +sisters' sake." And her mother's voice again--afterward--sad and stern, +too, this time, "As you made your bed, Kitty, you must lie. We can't +take you back." + +And there was a third voice. It said very softly, "You can't have it +both ways." It cried out aloud in a fury, "I've always known it. You +can't hide it. You're full of it." And yet another voice, deep and hard, +"You can't _not_ tell him. It's a shame Kitty; it's an awful shame." + +She could not sleep again for listening to them. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +It was morning. She dragged herself up and tried to dress. But her hands +shook and her head ached violently. She stretched herself half-dressed +upon her bed and lay there helpless, surrendered to the bodily pain that +delivered her mercifully from the anguish of her mind. + +She saw no one, not even Jane Lucy. + +Outside, in the passage, and in the inner room she heard the footsteps +of the children and their little shrill voices; each sound accentuated +the stabbing pulse of pain. It was impossible to darken the room, and +the insufferable sunlight poured in unchecked through the thin yellow +blinds and plagued her brain, till the nerves of vision throbbed, beat +for beat, with the nerves of torment. At noon she had only one sensation +of brilliant surging pain. + +She dozed and her headache lifted. When she woke her body was weak as if +it had had a fever, but her mind closed on reality with the impact of a +force delayed. + +There was a thing not yet quite real to her, a thing that seemed to +belong to the region of bodily pain, to be born there as a bad dream +might be born; a thing that had been there last night among other +things, that, as she stared at it, became more prominent, more poignant +than they. And yet, though its air was so beckoning and so familiar, it +was not among the number of things accomplished and irrevocable. It was +simply the thing she had to do. + +It possessed her now; and under its dominion she was uplifted, carried +along. Her mind moved toward it with a reckless rocking speed, the +perilous certainty of the insane. + +At five o'clock she rang the bell and asked the servant to bring her +some tea. She swallowed a little with a jerk of her throat, and put the +cup down, shuddering. It brought her a sickening memory of yesterday. + +At five o'clock she got up and dressed herself and sent a message to +Robert Lucy to see her downstairs in her sitting-room, alone. As she +stood at her glass she said to herself, "How shocking I look. But he +won't mind." + +At six he was with her. + +She drew her hand away from his as if his touch had hurt her. Her smile +was the still, bloodless smile that comes with pain. She drew her chair +back out of the sunlight, in the recess by the fireplace. He stood +beside her then, looking at her with eyes that loved her the more for +the sad hurt to her beauty. His manner recalled the shy, adolescent +uncertainty of his first approaches. + +"Don't you think," he said, "you ought to have stayed in bed?" + +She shook her head and struggled to find her voice. It came +convulsively. + +"No. I'm better. I'm all right now." + +"It was being out in that beastly hot sun yesterday--with those +youngsters. You're not used to it." + +She laughed. "No. I'm not used to it. Robert--you haven't told them, +have you?" + +"What?" + +"About you--and me?" + +"No. Not yet." He smiled. "I say, I shall have to tell them very soon, +shan't I?" + +"You needn't." + +He made some inarticulate sound that questioned her. + +"I've changed my mind. I can't marry you." + +He had to bend his head to catch her low, indistinct murmur; but he +caught it. + +He drew back from her, and leaned against the chimneypiece and looked at +her more intently than before. + +"Do you mean," he said quietly, "because of _them_?" + +"Yes." + +He looked down. + +"Poor Kitty," he said. "You think I'm asking too much of you?" + +She did not answer. + +"You're afraid?" + +"I told you I was afraid." + +"Yes. But I thought it was all right. I thought you liked them." + +She was silent. Tears rose to her eyes and hung on their unsteady +lashes. + +"They like you." + +She bowed her head and the tears fell. + +"Is that what has upset you?" + +"Yes." + +"I see. You've been thinking it over and you find you can't stand it. I +don't wonder. You've let those little monkeys tire you out. You've +nearly got a sunstroke and you feel as if you'd rather die than go +through another day like yesterday? Well, you shan't. There'll never be +another day like yesterday." + +"No. Never," she said; and her sobs choked her. + +"Why should there be? They'll have a governess. You don't suppose I +meant you to have them on your hands all the time?" + +She went on crying softly. He sat on the arm of her chair and put his +arm round her and dried her eyes. + +"Don't be unhappy about it, Kitty. I understand. You're not marrying +them, dear; you're marrying me." + +She broke loose from him. + +"I can't marry you," she cried. "I can't give you what you want." + +"Do you mean that you can't care for me? Is that what you're trying to +tell me all the time?" + +He moved and she cowered back into her chair. + +"I--I _can't_ tell you." + +He had turned from her. He was leaning his arms along the mantelshelf; +he had bowed his head on them. + +They remained for some minutes so; she cowering back; he with his face +hidden from her. + +"Do you mind telling me," he said presently, "if there's anybody else +that you----" + +"That I care for? No, Robert, there's no one." + +"Are you quite sure? Quite honest. Think." + +"Do you mean Wilfrid Marston?" + +"Yes." + +"I certainly do not care for _him_." + +He raised his head at that; but he did not look at her. + +"Thank God!" he said. + +"Do you think as badly of him as all that?" + +"Don't ask me what I think of him." + +"Would you think badly of me if I'd married him?" + +"I--I couldn't have stood it, Kitty." + +"I am not going to marry him." + +"You haven't said yet that you don't care for me?" + +"No. I haven't." + +He turned and stooped over her, compelling her to look at him. + +"Say it then," he said. + +She drew back her face from his and put up her hands between them. He +rose and stood before her and looked down at her. The blue of her eyes +had narrowed, the pupils stared at him, black and feverish. Her mouth, +which had been tight-shut, was open slightly. A thin flush blurred its +edges. Her breath came through, short and sharp. + +"You're ill," he said. "You must go back to bed." + +"No," she said. "I've got to tell you something." + +"If you do I shan't believe it." + +"What won't you believe?" + +"That you don't care for me. I can't believe it." + +"You'd better, Robert." + +"I don't. There's something wrong. You must tell me what it is." + +"There's nothing wrong but that. I--I made a mistake." + +"You only thought you liked me? Or is it worse than that?" + +"It's worse, far worse." + +"I see. You tried to like me, and you couldn't?" + +She was silent. + +"Poor child. I've been a selfish brute. I might have known you couldn't. +You've hardly known me ten days. But if I wait, Kitty--if I give you +time to think?" + +"If you give me ten years it would do no good." + +"I see," he said; "I see." + +He gripped the edge of the mantelpiece with both his hands; his tense +arms trembled from the shoulders to the wrists; his hold relaxed. He +straightened himself and hid his shaking hands in his coat pockets. +There were tears at the edges of his eyelids, the small, difficult tears +that cut their way through the flesh that abhors them. + +She saw them. + +"Ah, Robert--do you care for me like that?" + +"You know how I care for you." + +He stopped as he swung away from her, remembering that he had failed in +courtesy. + +"Thank you," he said, simply, "for telling me the truth." + +He reached the door, and she rose and came after him. He shook his head +as a sign to her not to follow him. She saw that he was going from her +because he was tortured and dumb with suffering and with shame. + +Then she knew what she must do. She called to him, she entreated. + +"Robert--don't go. Come back--come back. I can't bear it." + +He came back at that cry. + +"I haven't told you the truth. I lied." + +"When?" he said sternly. + +"Just now. When I told you that I didn't care for you." + +"Well?" + +"Sit down--here, on the sofa. I'll try and tell you." + +He sat down beside her, but not near. She leaned forward with her +elbows on her knees, and her head propped on her clenched hands. She did +not look at him as she spoke. + +"I said I didn't care, because I thought that was the easiest way out of +it. Easiest for you. So much easier than knowing the truth." + +He smiled grimly. + +"Well, you see how easy it's been." + +"Yes." She paused. "The truth isn't going to be easy either." + +"Let's have it, all the same, Kitty." + +"You're going to have it." She paused again, breathing hard. "Have you +never wondered why the people here avoided me? You know they thought +things." + +"As if it mattered what they thought." + +"They were right. There _was_ something." + +She heard him draw a deep breath. He, too, leaned forward now, in the +same attitude as she, as if he were the participator of her confession, +and the accomplice of her shame. His face was level with hers, but his +eyes looked straight past her, untainted and clear. + +"What if there was?" he said. "It makes no difference." + +She turned her sad face to his. + +"Don't you know, Robert? Don't you know?" + +He frowned impatiently. + +"No, I don't. I don't want to." + +"You'd rather think I didn't care for you?" + +His face set again in its tortured, dumb look. + +"You shan't think that of me." + +She leaned back again out of his sight, and he presented to her his +shoulder, thrust forward, and his profile, immovable, dogged, and +apparently unheeding. + +"It's because I cared for you that I couldn't tell you the truth. I +tried and couldn't. It was so difficult, and you _wouldn't_ understand. +Then Wilfrid Marston said I must--I had to tell you." + +He threw himself back and turned on her. + +"What had Marston to do with it?" + +Her voice and her eyes dropped. + +"You see, he knew." + +"I see." + +He waited. + +"I couldn't tell you." + +His silence conveyed to her that he listened since she desired it, that +he left it to her to tell him as much or as little as she would, and +that thus he trusted her. + +"I was afraid," she said. + +"What? Afraid of _me_, Kitty?" + +"I thought it would make you not care for me." + +"I don't think anything you can tell me will make any difference." + +"You said yourself it would. You said you wouldn't marry me if I wasn't +nice." + +He looked up impatient and surprised. + +"But we've been through all that," he said. + +"No, we haven't. When I said I wasn't nice I meant there were things +I----" + +"Well?" + +"I--I wasn't married to Charley Tailleur." + +He took it in silence; and through the silence she let it sink in. + +"Where is the fellow?" he asked presently. + +"He's dead. I told you _that_." + +"I'd forgotten." + +There was another silence. + +"Did you care for him very much, Kitty?" + +"I don't know. Yes. No, I don't know. It wasn't the same thing." + +"Never mind. It's very good of you to tell me." + +"I didn't mean to." + +"What made you tell me?" + +"Seeing the children. I thought I could go on deceiving you; but when I +saw them I knew I couldn't." + +"I see." His voice softened. "You told me because of them. I'm glad you +told me." He paused on that. + +"Well," he said, "we must make the best of it." + +"That makes no difference?" + +"No. Not now." + +She sighed. + +"How long ago was it?" he asked. + +"Five years. Charley Tailleur was the first." + +"What?" + +"The first. There were others; ever so many others. I'm--that sort." + +"I don't believe you." + +"You've got to believe me. You can't marry me, and you've got to see +why." + +She also paused. Her silences were terrible to him. + +"I thought you did see once. It didn't seem possible that you couldn't. +Do you remember the first time I met you?" + +He remembered. + +"I thought you saw then. And afterward--don't you remember how you +followed me out of the room--another night?" + +"Yes." + +"I thought you understood, and were too shy to say so. But you didn't. +_Then_--do you remember how I waited for you at the end of the +garden?--and how we sat out on the Cliff? I was trying then--the way I +always try. I thought I'd make you--and you--you wouldn't see it. You +only wanted to help me. You were so innocent and dear. That's what made +me love you." + +"Oh," he groaned. "Don't." + +But she went on. "And do you remember how you found me--that night--out +on the Cliff?" + +She drew back her voice softly. + +"I was sure then that you knew, and that when you asked me to come back +with you----" + +"Look here, Kitty, I've had enough of it." + +"You haven't, for you're fond of me still. You are, aren't you?" + +"Oh, my God! how do I know?" + +"_I_ know. It's because you haven't taken it in. What do you think of +this? You've known me ten days, and ten days before that I was with +Wilfrid Marston." + +[Illustration: "'I want to make you loathe me ... never see me again.'"] + +He had taken it in at last. She had made it real to him, clothed it in +flesh and blood. + +"If you don't believe me," she said, "ask him. That's what he came to +see me for. He wanted me to go back to him. In fact, I wasn't supposed +to have left him." + +He put his hand to his forehead as if he were trying to steady his mind +to face the thing that stunned it. + +"And you're telling me all this because----" he said dully. + +"Because I want to make you loathe me, so that you can go away and be +glad that you'll never see me again. And if it hurts you too much to +think of me as I am, to think that you cared for me, just say to +yourself that I cared for _you_, and that I couldn't have done it if I'd +been quite bad." + +She cried out, "It would have been better for me if I had been. I +shouldn't _feel_ then. It wouldn't hurt me to see little children. I +should have got over that long ago; and I shouldn't have cared for you +or them. I shouldn't have been able to. We get like that. And then--I +needn't have let you care for me. That was the worst thing I ever did. +But I was so happy--so happy." + +He could not look at her; he covered his face with his hands, and she +knew that he cared still. + +Then she came and knelt down beside him and whispered. He got up and +broke away from her and she followed him. + +"You can't marry me _now_," she said. + +And he answered, "No." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +He did not leave her. They sat still, separated by the length of the +little room, staring, not at each other, but at some point in the +distance, as if each brain had flung and fixed there the same +unspeakable symbol of its horror. + +Her face was sharp with pain, was strangely purified, spiritualised by +the immortal moment that uplifted her. His face, grown old in a moment, +had lost its look of glad and incorruptible innocence. + +Not that he was yet in full possession of reality. His mind was sunk in +the stupor that follows after torture. It kept its hold by one sense +only, the vague discerning of profound responsibility, and of something +profounder still, some tie binding him to Kitty, immaterial, +indestructible, born of their communion in pain. + +It kept him by its intangible compulsion, sitting there in the same +small room, divided from her, but still there, still wearing that +strange air of participation, of complicity. + +And all the time he kept saying to himself, "What next?" + +There was a knock at the door. + +"It's Jane," he said. "I'll tell her not to come in." His voice sounded +hoarse and unlike his own. + +"Oh, mayn't I see her?" + +He looked up with his clouded eyes. "Do you want to?" + +"Yes." + +He considered. He hesitated. + +"Do you mind?" + +"Mind?" he repeated. As if, after what they had gone through, there +could ever be anything to mind. It seemed to him that things would +always henceforth be insubstantial, and events utterly unimportant. He +tried with an immense effort to grasp this event of Jane's appearance +and of Kitty's attitude to Jane. + +"I thought," he said, "perhaps she would bother you." + +The knock came again. + +"Robert," she said, "I don't want her to know--what I told you." + +"Of course not," he said. "Come in." + +Jane came in and closed the door behind her. She had a letter folded +tightly in her hand. She stood there a moment, looking from one to the +other. It was Kitty who spoke. + +"Come in, Janey," she said. "I want you." + +Jane came forward and stood between them. She looked at Robert who +hardened his face, and at Kitty who was trembling. + +"Has anything happened?" she said. + +And Kitty answered, "No. Nothing will happen now. I've just told him +that it can't." + +"You've given him up?" + +"Yes. I've--given--him up." + +She drew in her breath on the "Yes," so that it sounded like a sob. The +other words came slowly from her, one by one, as if she repeated them by +rote, without knowing what they meant. + +Jane turned to her brother. "And you've let her do it?" + +He was silent, still saying to himself, "What next?" + +"Of course he's let me. He knows it was the only thing I could do." + +"Kitty--what made you do it?" + +Kitty closed her eyes. Robert saw her and gave a low inarticulate sound +of misery. Jane heard it and understood. + +"Kitty," she said, "have you made him believe you don't care for him?" + +She sat down on the couch beside her and covered her hands with her own. + +"It isn't true, Robert," she said. "She doesn't know what she's doing. +Kitty, tell him it isn't true." + +The trembling hands broke loose from her. Kitty sobbed once and was +still. At the sound Robert turned on Jane. + +"Leave her alone," he said, "she doesn't want to be bothered about it +now." + +Kitty's hand moved back along the couch to Jane. "No," she said, "don't +make her leave me. I'm going away soon." + +He started to that answer to his question, "What next?" + +"Tell me what made you do it?" said Jane again. + +"Whatever it was," he said, "she's doing perfectly right." + +"I know what she's doing. And I know why she's doing it. Can't you see +why?" + +Robert, who had stood still looking at her helplessly, turned away at +the direct appeal and walked up and down, up and down, the room. He was +still saying to himself, "And if she goes, what next?" + +"She doesn't mean it, Robert. It's these wretched people who have driven +her to it with the abominable things they've said and thought. You +_can't_ let her give you up. Don't you see that it'll look as if you +didn't believe in her? And he does believe in you, Kitty dear. He +doesn't care what anybody says." + +Kitty spoke. "Leave it alone, Janey. You don't know what you're talking +about. You don't even know what it is they say." + +"I do," said Jane. She rose and went to her brother and thrust the +letter she held into his hand. "Look there, that came just now." + +He glanced at the letter, lit a match and set fire to it and dropped the +ashes into the grate. + +"Look at him, Kitty, look at him," she cried triumphantly. + +"What was in that letter?" + +"Nothing that matters." + +"Who wrote it?" + +"Nobody who matters in the very least." + +"Was it Mr. Marston? Tell me." + +"No." + +"He wouldn't," said Kitty thoughtfully. "It's women who write letters. +It must have been Grace Keating. She hates me." + +"I know she hates you. Do you see now why Kitty's giving you up?" + +"She has told me herself, Janey. She may have more reasons than you +know." + +"She has none, none that I don't know. They're all there in that letter +which you've burnt. Can't you see why it was written?" + +"Does it matter why?" + +"Yes, it does matter. It was written to make you give Kitty up. There's +no reason why I should spare the woman who wrote it. She hates +Kitty--because she wanted you for herself. Kitty knows that she's +slandered her. She did it before she went, to her face, and Kitty +forgave her. And now the poor child thinks that she'll let you go, and +just creep away quietly and hide herself--from _that_. And you'll let +her do it? You believe her when she says she doesn't care for you? If +that isn't caring--Why it's _because_ she cares for you, and cares for +your honour more than she does for her own, poor darling----" + +"I know, Janey. And she knows I know." + +"Then where's your precious honour if you don't stand up for her? She's +got nobody but you, and if you don't defend her from that sort of +thing----" + +She stood before him, flaming, and Kitty rose and put herself between +them. + +"He can't defend me, Janey. It's the truth." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +She had left them to each other. It was eight o'clock. She had crept +back again to the bed that was her refuge, where she had lain for the +last hour, weeping to exhaustion. She had raised herself at the touch of +a hand on her hot forehead. Jane was standing beside her. + +"Kitty," she said, "will you see Robert for a moment? He's waiting for +you downstairs, in your room." + +Kitty dropped back again on her pillow with her arm over her face, +warding off Jane's gaze. + +"No," she said, "I can't see him. I can't go through that again." + +"But, Kitty, there's something he wants to say to you." + +"There's nothing he can say. Nothing--nothing. Tell him I'm going away." + +"You mustn't go without seeing him." + +"I must. It's the only way." + +"For you--yes. How about him?" + +Kitty sighed. She stirred irresolutely on her pillow. + +"No, no," she said. "I've done it once. I can't do it all over again." + +"I suppose," said Jane, "it _is_ easier--not to see him." + +At that Kitty clenched her hands. + +"Easier?" she cried. "I'd give my soul to see him for one minute--one +minute, Janey." + +She turned, stifling her sobs on her pillow. They ceased, and the +passion that was in her had its way then. She lay on her face, +convulsed, biting into the pillow; gripping the sheets, tearing at them +and wringing them in her hands. Her whole body writhed, shaken and +tormented. + +"Oh, go away!" she cried. "Go away. Don't look at me!" + +But Jane did not go. She stood there by the bedside. + +She had come to the end of her adventure. It was as if she had been +brought there blindfold, carried past the border into the terrible, +alien, unpenetrated lands. Her genius for exploration had never taken +her within reasonable distance of them. She had turned back when the +frontier was in sight, refusing all knowledge of the things that lay +beyond. And here she was, in the very thick of it, at the heart of the +unexplored, with her poor terrified eyes uncovered, her face held close +to the thing she feared. And yet she had passed through the initiation +without terror; she had held her hand in the strange fire and it had not +hurt her. She felt only a great penetrating, comprehending, +incorruptible pity for her sister who writhed there, consumed and +tortured in the flame. + +She knelt by the bedside and stretched out her arm and covered her, and +Kitty lay still. + +"You haven't gone?" she said. + +"No, Kitty." + +Kitty moved; she sat up and put her hands to her loosened hair. + +"I'll see him now," she said. + +Kitty slid her feet to the floor. She stood up, steadying herself by the +bedside. + +Jane looked at her, and her heart was wrung with compassion. + +"No," she said, "wait till you're better. I'll tell him." + +But Kitty was before her at the door, leaning against it. + +"I shall never be better," she said. Her smile was ghastly. She turned +to Jane on the open threshold. "He hasn't got the children with him, has +he? I don't want to see them." + +"You won't see them." + +"Can't he come to me?" + +She peered down the passage and drew back, and Jane knew that she was +afraid of being seen. + +"There's nobody about," she said, "they're all in the dining-room." + +Still Kitty hesitated. + +"Will you come with me?" she said. + +Then Jane took her hand and led her to the room where Robert was, and +left her with him. + +He stood by the hearth, waiting for her. His head was bowed, but his +eyes, as she entered, lifted and fixed themselves on her. There had gone +from him that air of radiant and unconquerable youth, of innocence, +expectant and alert. Instead of it he too wore the mark of experience, +of initiation that had meant torture. + +"I hope," he said, "you are rested." + +"Oh yes." + +She stood there, weak and drooping, leaning her weight on one slender +hand, spread palm downward on the table. + +He drew out a chair for her, and removed his own to the other side of +the table, keeping that barrier between them. In his whole manner there +was a terrible constraint. + +"You've eaten nothing," he said. + +Neither had he, she gathered, nor Jane. The trouble she had brought on +them was jarring, dislocating, like the shock of bereavement. They had +behaved as if in the presence of the beloved dead. + +And yet, though he held himself apart, she knew that he had not sent for +her to cast her off; that he was yet bound to her by the mysterious, +infrangible tie; that he seemed to himself, in some way, her partner and +accomplice. + +Their silence was a link that bound them, and she broke it. + +"Well," she said, "you have something to say to me?" + +"Yes"--his hands, spread out on the table between them, trembled--"I +have, only it seems so little----" + +"Does it? Well, of course, there isn't much to be said." + +"Not much. There aren't any words. Only, I don't want you to think that +I don't realise what you've done. It was magnificent." + +He answered her look of stupefied inquiry. + +"Your courage, Kitty, in telling me the truth." + +"Oh, _that_. Don't let's talk about it." + +"I am not going to talk about it. But I want you to understand that what +you told me has made no difference in my--in my feeling for you." + +"It must." + +"It hasn't. And it never will. And I want to know what we're going to do +next." + +"Next?" she repeated. + +"Yes, next. _Now._" + +"I'm going away. There's nothing else left for me to do." + +"And I, Kitty? Do you think I'm going to let you go, without----" + +She stopped him. + +"You can't help yourself." + +"What? You think I'm brute enough to take everything you've given me, +and to--to let you go like this?" + +His hands moved as if they would have taken hers and held them. Then he +drew back. + +"There's one thing I can't do for you, Kitty. I can't marry you, because +it wouldn't be fair to my children." + +"I know, Robert, I know." + +"I know you know. I told you nothing would ever make any difference. If +it weren't for them I'd ask you to marry me to-morrow. I'm only giving +you up as you're giving me up, because of them. But if I can't marry +you, I want you to let me make things a little less hard for you." + +"How?" + +"Well, for one thing, I don't believe you've anything to live on." + +"What makes you think that?" + +"Marston told me that if you married you forfeited your income. I +suppose that meant that you had nothing of your own." + +"It did." + +"You've nothing?" + +"My father would give me fifty pounds a year if I kept straight. But he +can't afford it. It means that my little sisters go without dresses." + +"And you've no home, Kitty?" + +She shook her head. + +"They can't have me at home, you see." + +He sighed. + +"If I looked after you, Kitty, do you think you would keep straight? If +I made a home for you, somewhere, where you won't be too unhappy?" + +"You mean you'd take care of me?" + +"Yes. As far as I can." + +Her face flushed deeply. + +"No," she said. "No. I mustn't let you do that." + +"Why not? It's nothing, Kitty. It's the least that I can do. And you'd +be very lonely." + +"I would. I would be miserable--in between." + +"Between?" + +"When you weren't there." + +"Kitty, dear child, I can't be there." + +She shrank back, the flush died out of her face and left it white. + +"I see. You didn't mean that I was to live with you?" + +"Poor child--no." + +"I--I didn't understand." + +"No," he said gently, "no." + +"You see how hopeless I am?" + +"I see what my responsibility would be if I left you to yourself." + +"And--_what_ do you want to do?" + +"I want to provide for you and your future." + +"Dear Robert, you can't possibly provide--for either." + +"I can. I've got a little house in the country, if you'll take it, and I +can spare enough out of my income." + +She smiled. + +"You can't afford it." + +"If I could afford to marry, I could afford that." + +"I see. It's a beautiful scheme, Robert. And in the little house where +I'm to live, you will come sometimes, and see me?" + +"I think it would be better not." + +"And what am I to do, if--if things are too hard for me? And if you are +the only one----?" + +"_Then_ you're to send for me." + +"I see. I've only to send for you and you'll come?" + +"Of course I'll come." + +"When I can't bear it any longer, am I to send for you?" + +"You're to send for me when you're in any trouble, or any difficulty--or +any danger." + +"And the way out of the trouble--and the difficulty--and the danger?" + +"Between us we shall find the way." + +"No, Robert. Between us we shall lose it. And we shall never, never find +it again." + +"You can't trust me, Kitty?" + +"I can't trust myself. I know how your scheme would work. I let you do +this thing; I go away and live in the dear little house you'll give me; +and I let you keep me there, and give me all my clothes and things. And +you think that's the way to stop me thinking about you and caring for +you? I shall be there, eating my heart out. What else can I do, when +everything I put on or have about me reminds me of you, every minute of +the day? I'm to look to you for everything, but never to see you until I +can bear it no longer. How long do you think I shall bear it? A woman +made like me? You know perfectly well what the trouble and the +difficulty and the danger is. I shall be in it all the time. And some +day I shall send for you and you'll come. Oh yes, you'll come; for +you'll be in it, too. It won't be a bit easier for you than it is for +me." + +She paused. + +"You'll come. And you know what the end of that will be." + +"You think no other end is possible between a man and a woman?" + +"If I do, it's men who have made me think it." + +"Have _I_, Kitty?" + +"No, not you. I don't say your plan wouldn't work with some other woman. +I say it's impossible between you--and me." + +"Because you won't believe that I might behave differently from some +other men?" + +"You _are_ different. And I mean to keep you so." + +She rose. + +"There's only one way," she said. "We must never see each other again. +We mustn't even _think_. I shall go away, and you're not to come after +me." + +"When?" + +"To-morrow. Perhaps to-night." + +"And where, Kitty?" + +"I don't know." + +"You shan't go," he said. "I'll go. You must stay here until we can +think of something." + +She closed her eyes and drew a hard sigh, as if exhausted with the +discussion. + +"Robert, dear, would you mind not talking any more to me? I'm very +tired." + +"If I leave you will you go to bed and rest?" + +"I think so. You can say good night." + +He rose and came toward her. + +"No--don't say it!" she cried. "Don't speak to me!" + +She drew back and put her hands behind her as a sign that he was not to +touch her. + +He stood for a moment looking at her. And as he looked at her he was +afraid, even as she was. He said to himself that in that moment she was +wise and had done well. For his heart hardly knew its pity from its +passion, and its passion from its fear. + +And she, seeing that she stood between him and the door, turned aside +and made his way clear for him. + +And so he left her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +She stared at her own face in the glass without seeing it. Her brain was +filled with the loud, hurried ticking of the clock. It sounded somehow +as if it were out of gear. She felt herself swaying slightly as she +stood. + +She was not going to faint bodily. It seemed to her rather that the +immaterial bonds, the unseen, subtle, intimate connections were letting +go their hold. Her soul was the heart of the danger. It was there that +the travelling powers of dissolution, accelerated, multiplying, had +begun their work and would end it. Its moments were not measured by the +ticking of the clock. + +She had remained standing as Lucy had left her, with her back to the +door he had gone out by. She was thus unaware that a servant of the +hotel had come in, that he had delivered some message and was waiting +for her answer. + +She started as the man spoke to her again. With a great effort her brain +grasped and repeated what he had said. + +"Mr. Marston." + +No; she was certainly not going to faint. There was no receding of +sensation. It was resurgence and invasion, violence shaking the very +doors of life. She heard the light, tremulous tread of the little pulses +of her body, scattered by the ringing hammer strokes of her heart and +brain. She heard the clock ticking out of gear, like the small, +irritable pulse of time. + +She steadied her voice to answer. + +"Very well. Show him in." + +Marston's face, as he approached her, was harder and stiffer than ever; +his bearing more uncompromisingly upright and correct. He greeted her +with that peculiar deference that he showed to women whose acquaintance +he had yet to make. Decency required that he should start on a fresh +and completely purified footing with the future Mrs. Robert Lucy. + +"It's charming of you," he said, "to let me come in." + +"I wanted to see you, Wilfrid." + +Something in her tone made him glance at her with a look that restored +her, for a moment, to her former place. + +"That is still more charming," he replied. + +"I've done what you told me. I've given him up." + +A heavy flush spread over his face and relaxed the hard tension of the +muscles. + +"I thought you'd do it." + +"Well, I have done it." She paused. + +"That's all I had to say to you." + +Her voice struck at him like a blow. But he bore it well, smiling his +hard, reticent smile. + +"I knew you'd do it," he repeated; "but I didn't think you'd do it quite +so soon. Why did you?" + +"You know why." + +"I didn't mean to put pressure on you, Kitty. It was _your_ problem. +Still, I'm glad you've seen it in the right light." + +"You think you made me see it?" + +"I should hope you'd see it for yourself. It was obvious." + +"What was obvious?" + +"The unsuitability of the entire arrangement. Was it likely you'd stick +to it when you saw what you were in for?" + +"You think I tired of him?" + +"I think you saw possibilities of fatigue; and, like a wise child, you +chucked it. It's as well you did it before instead of after. I say, how +did Lucy take it?" + +She did not answer. His smile flickered and died under the oppression of +her silence. + +"Have you done with him altogether? He didn't suggest--er--any +compromise?" + +"He did not." + +"He wouldn't. Compromise is foreign to his nature." + +He sat leaning forward, contemplating, with apparent satisfaction, his +own strong-grained, immaculate hands. From time to time he tapped the +floor with a nervous movement of his foot. + +"Then," he said presently, "if that's so, there's no reason, is there, +why you shouldn't come back to me?" + +"I can't come back to you. I told you so yesterday." + +"Since yesterday the situation has altered considerably; or rather, it +remains precisely where it was before." + +"No, Wilfrid; things can never be as they were before." + +"Why not?--if I choose to ignore this episode, this little aberration on +your part. You must be equally anxious to forget it. In which case we +may consider our relations uninterrupted." + +"Do you think I gave Robert Lucy up to go back to you?" + +"My dear Kitty, if I'm willing to take you back after you gave _me_ up +for him, I think my attitude almost constitutes a claim." + +"A claim?" + +"Well, let's say it entitles me to a hearing. You don't seem to realise, +in the least, my extreme forbearance. I never reproached you. I never +interfered between you and Lucy. You can't say I didn't play the game." + +"I'm not saying it. I know you didn't betray me." + +"Betray you? My dear child, I helped you. I never dreamed of standing in +your way as long as there was a chance of your marrying. Now that there +is none----" + +"That has nothing to do with it. I told you that I wouldn't go back to +you in any case." + +"Come, I don't propose to throw you over for any other woman. Surely it +would be more decent to come back to me than to go off with some other +man, heaven knows whom, which is what you must do--eventually?" + +"It's what I won't do. I'm not going back to _that_. Don't you see +that's why I won't go back to you?" + +Her apathy had become exhaustion. The flat, powerless voice, dying of +its own utterance, gave him a sense of things past and done with, sunk +into the ultimate oblivion. No voice of her energy and defiance could +have touched him so. Her indifference troubled him like passion; in its +completeness, its finality, it stirred him to decision, to acceptance of +its terms. She was ready to fall from his grasp by her own dead weight. +There was only one way in which he could hold her. + +"Kitty," he said, "is that really why you won't come back?" + +"Yes; that's why. Anything--anything but that." + +"I see. You're tired of it? And you want to give it up? Well, I'm not +sure that I don't want you to." + +"Then why," she moaned, "why won't you let me go?" + +"Simply because I can't. I've tried it, Kitty. I can't." + +He came and sat close to her. He leaned his face to hers and spoke +thickly and low. + +"You can't give it up, dear. You're bound to go back." + +"No--no--no. Don't talk about it." + +"I won't. I won't ask you to go back; but I can't do without you." + +"Oh yes, you can. There are other women." + +"I loathe them all. I wouldn't do for one of them what I'll do for you." + +"What will you do for me?" + +"I'll marry you, Kitty." + +She laughed in her tired fashion. "You want to make an honest woman of +me, do you?" + +"No. I think I'm endeavouring to make myself an honest man. If you give +Lucy up for me I don't want you to lose by the transaction. You were to +have been married; but for me perhaps, you would have been. Very well, +I'll marry you." + +"And that," said she, "will make it all right?" + +"Well, won't it?" + +"No, it won't. How could it?" + +"You know how. It will help you to keep straight. That's what you want, +isn't it?" + +"Oh yes, that's what I _want_. And you think I'll keep straight by +marrying you?" + +"I won't swear to it. But I know it's ten to one that you'll go to the +devil if you don't marry me. And you say you don't want to do that." + +"I don't want--to marry you." + +He shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps not; but even marrying me might be +better than the other alternative." + +"It wouldn't," she cried. "It would be worse. If I married you I +couldn't get away from you. I couldn't get away from _it_. You'd keep me +in it. It's what you like me for--what you're marrying me for. You +haven't married, all these years, because you can't stand living with a +decent woman. And you think, if I marry you, it will make it all right. +All right!" + +She rose and defied him. "Why, I'd rather be your mistress. Then I could +get away from you. I shall get away now." + +She turned violently, and he leaped up and caught her in his arms. She +struggled, beating upon his breast, and crying with a sad, inarticulate +cry. She would have sunk to the floor if he had not kept his hold of +her. + +He raised her, and she stood still, breathing hard, while he still +grasped her tightly by the wrists. + +"Let me go," she said faintly. + +"Where are you going to?" + +"I don't know." + +"You've no money. If you're not going back what are you going to do?" + +"I don't know." + +Her eyelids dropped, and he saw mendacity in her eyes' furtive fleeing +under cover. He held her tighter. His arm shook her, not brutally, but +with a nervous movement that he was powerless to control. + +"You lie," he said. "You've been lying to me all the time. You _are_ +going back. You're going to that fellow Lucy." + +"No. I'm going--somewhere--where I shan't see him." + +"Where?" + +"I don't know." + +"Abroad?" + +"I think so." + +"By yourself?" + +Her eyelids quivered, and she panted. "Yes." + +There was a knock at the door. + +"Let me go," she said again. + +He let her go. + +"You're going to live--by yourself--respectably--abroad?" + +She was silent. + +"And how long do you think that will last?" + +"I don't know." + +Jane Lucy's voice called her from the door. He swore under his breath. + +"Let her come in. I want her." + +He laid his hand upon the door. + +"What are you going to do?" he reiterated. + +"Oh, let her come to me." + +"You haven't answered my question." + +"Let me see her first. Leave me alone with her. Janey! Janey!" she +called. + +"Very well," he said. + +He opened the door and bowed to Jane Lucy as she entered. + +"I shall come back," he said, "for my answer." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +"Did Robert send you?" she asked, when she was alone with Jane. + +"Yes." + +"It's no good. I can't do what he wants." + +"What are you going to do, dear?" + +"I don't know. I don't care. The terrible thing is that I've had to hurt +him. I must go away somewhere." + +"I'll come with you and see you through." + +Kitty shook her head. + +"Don't think about it now," said Jane. + +"No; I can't think. I'm too tired, and my head's hot. But if I go away +you'll understand why I did it?" + +"Kitty"--Jane whispered it--"you won't go back?" + +"No. I won't go back. You won't have to think that of me." + +She had not looked at Jane as they talked. Now she turned to her with +eyes of anguish and appeal. + +"Janey--think. I've been wicked for years and years. I've only been good +for one moment. One moment--when I gave Robert up. Do you think it'll +count?" + +"I think that, in the sight of God, such moments last forever." + +"And that's what you'll think of me by?" + +She lifted up her face, haggard and white, flame-spotted where her tears +had scorched it. Jane kissed it. + +"Do you mind kissing me?" + +"My dear, my dear," said Jane, and she drew her closer. + +There was a sound of footsteps in the passage. Kitty drew back and +listened. + +"Where's Robert?" + +"Upstairs with the children." + +"They'll be asleep by this time, won't they?" + +"Fast asleep." + +The footsteps came again, approaching the door. They paused outside it a +moment and turned back. + +"Do you hear that?" said Kitty. "It's Wilfrid Marston walking up and +down. He wants to get hold of me. I think he's mad about me. He asked me +to marry him just now, and I wouldn't. He thinks I didn't mean it, and +he's coming back for his answer. But I'll tell you what I'm going to do. +I shall go out quietly by the window and slip away, and he won't find +me. I want you to be here when he comes, and tell him that he can't see +me. Would you mind doing that?" + +"No." + +"You'll stay here all the time, and you won't let him go out and look +for me?" + +"Yes." + +Kitty listened again for the footsteps. + +"He's still there," she whispered. + +"And you'll go to bed, Kitty?" + +"Yes; of course I will." + +She went out through the window on to the veranda, and so on into the +garden. + +It was cool out there and unutterably peaceful, with a tender, lucid +twilight on the bare grass of the lawn; on the sea beyond it, and on the +white gravel path by the low wall between. She saw it, the world that +had held her and Robert, that, holding them, had taken on the ten days' +splendour of their passion. It stood, divinely still in the perishing +violet light, a world withdrawn and unsubstantial, yet piercingly, +intolerably near. + +Indoors Jane waited. It was not yet the half-hour. She waited till the +clock struck and Marston came for his answer. + +He looked round the room, and his face, under its deference, betrayed +his sharp annoyance at finding himself alone with Miss Lucy. + +"Pardon me," he said, "I thought that Mrs. Tailleur was here." + +"Mrs. Tailleur asked me to tell you that she cannot see you. She has +gone to her room." + +"To her room?" + +He stared at her, and his face loosened in a sudden incredulity and +dismay. + +"Did she tell you she was going there?" + +"Yes. She was very tired." + +"But--she was here not half an hour ago. She couldn't have gone without +my seeing her." + +"She went out," said Jane faintly, "by the window." + +"She couldn't get to her room without going through the hall. I've been +there all the time on the seat by the stairs." + +They looked at each other. The seat by the stairs commanded all ways in +and out, the entrance of the passage, and the door of the sitting-room, +and the portière of the lounge. + +"What do you think?" he said. + +"I think that she has not gone far. But if she goes, it is you who will +have driven her away." + +"Forgive me if I remind you that it is not I who have given her up." + +"It was you," said Jane quietly, "who helped to ruin her." + +His raised eyebrows expressed an urbane surprise at the curious +frankness of her charge. And with a delicate gesture of his hand he +repudiated it and waved it away. + +"My dear lady, you are alarmed and you are angry, consequently you are +unjust. Whatever poor Kitty may have done I am not responsible." + +"You are responsible. It's you, and men like you, who have dragged her +down. You took advantage of her weakness, of her very helplessness. +You've made her so that she can't believe in a man's goodness and trust +herself to it." + +He smiled, still with that untroubled urbanity, on the small flaming +thing as she arraigned him. + +"And you consider me responsible for that?" he said. + +Their eyes met. "My brother is here," said she. "Would you like to see +him?" + +"It might be as well, perhaps. If you can find him." + +She left him, and he waited five minutes, ten minutes, twenty. + +She returned alone. All her defiance had gone from her, and the face +that she turned to him was white with fear. + +"She is not here," she said. "She went out--by that window--and she has +not come in. We've searched the hotel, and we can't find her." + +"And you have _not_ found your brother?" + +"He has gone out to look for her." + +She sat down by the table, turning her face away and screening it from +him with her hand. + +Marston gave one look at her. He stepped out, and crossed the lawn to +the bottom of the garden. The gate at the end of the path there swung +open violently, and he found himself face to face with Robert Lucy. +"What have you done with Mrs. Tailleur?" he said. + +Lucy's head was sunk upon his breast. He did not look at him nor answer. +The two men walked back in silence up the lawn. + +"You don't know where she is?" said Marston presently. + +"No. I thought I did. But--she is not there." + +He paused, steadying his voice to speak again. + +"If I don't find her, I shall go up to town by the midnight train. Can +you give me her address there?" + +"You think she has gone up to town?" Marston spoke calmly. He was +appeased by Lucy's agitation and his manifest ignorance as to Kitty's +movements. + +"There's nothing else she could do. I've got to find her. Will you be +good enough to give me her address?" + +"My dear Mr. Lucy, there's really no reason why I should. If Mrs. +Tailleur has not gone up to town, her address won't help you. If she +has gone, your discreetest course by far, if I may say so----" + +"Is what?" said Lucy sternly. + +"Why, my dear fellow, of course--to let her go." + +Lucy raised his head. "I do not intend," he said, "to let her go." + +"Nor I," said Marston. + +"Then we've neither of us any time to lose. I won't answer for what she +may do, in the state she's in." + +Marston swung slightly round, so that he faced Lucy with his +imperturbable stare. + +"If you'd known Mrs. Tailleur as long as I have you'd have no sort of +doubt as to what she'll do." + +Lucy did not appear to have heard him, so sunk was he in his own +thoughts. + +"What was that?" said Marston suddenly. + +They listened. The gate of the Cliff path creaked on its hinges and fell +back with a sharp click of the latch. Lucy turned and saw a small +woman's figure entering the garden from the Cliff. He strode on toward +the house, unwilling to be observed and overtaken by any guests of the +hotel. + +Marston followed him slowly, pondering at each step of the way. + +He heard footsteps, quick stumbling footsteps, and a sound like a +hoarse, half-suffocating breath behind him. Then a woman's voice, that +sank, stumbling, like the footsteps, as it spoke. + +"Mr. Lucy," it said, "is it you?" + +Marston went on. + +Lucy was in the room with his sister. He was sitting with his back to +the open window as Marston came in by it. + +The voice outside was nearer; it whispered, "Where is Mr. Lucy?" + +"Somebody's looking for you, Lucy," said Marston. + +And the three turned round. + +Mrs. Hankin stood in the window, holding on to the frame of it and +trembling. Her face, her perfect face, was gray, like the face of an +old woman. It was drawn and disfigured with some terrible emotion. + +Lucy went to her. She clung to his arm, and held him on the threshold. + +"Mrs. Tailleur," she said, "Mrs. Tailleur. We found her--down there. +She's killed. She--she fell from the Cliff." + +The three stood still as she spoke to them. + +Then Jane rushed forward to her brother with a cry, and Mrs. Hankin +stretched out her arms and barred the way. + +There were small spots of blood on her hands and on her dress where she +had knelt. + +"Go back, child," she said. "They're carrying her in." + +[Illustration] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Immortal Moment, by May Sinclair + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IMMORTAL MOMENT *** + +***** This file should be named 31416-8.txt or 31416-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/4/1/31416/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Iris Schimandle and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Immortal Moment + The Story of Kitty Tailleur + +Author: May Sinclair + +Illustrator: C. Coles Phillips + +Release Date: February 27, 2010 [EBook #31416] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IMMORTAL MOMENT *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Iris Schimandle and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<hr /> + +<h1><span class="smcap">The Immortal Moment</span></h1> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 386px;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="386" height="600" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/dec01.jpg" width="400" height="255" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/books.jpg" width="400" height="499" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="book center">Books by<br /> +<br /> +<span class="author">MAY SINCLAIR</span><br /> +<br /> +<span class="front">The Helpmate<br /> +The Divine Fire<br /> +Two Sides of a Question<br /> +Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson<br /> +Etc., etc.</span></p> + +<hr /> + +<div><a name="frontis" id="frontis"></a></div> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 408px;"> +<img src="images/icol01.jpg" class="jpg" width="408" height="600" alt=""Kitty's face ... pleaded with the other face in the +glass."" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"Kitty's face ... pleaded with the other face in the +glass."</span> +</div> + +<hr /> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/title.jpg" width="400" height="597" alt="" title="" /> + +<span class="caption smcap">The Immortal Moment</span><br /> + +<span class="caption">The Story of Kitty Tailleur<br /> +<br /> +<em>By</em><br /> +<br /> +MAY SINCLAIR</span><br /> +<br /> + +<span class="front center">ILLUSTRATED AND DECORATED BY</span><br /> +<span class="caption">C. COLES PHILLIPS.</span><br /> + +<span class="front center">NEW YORK</span><br /> +<span class="center">DOUBLEDAY PAGE & CO.<br /> +1908</span> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/copyright.jpg" width="400" height="233" alt="" title="" /> + +<span class="caption front">COPYRIGHT, 1908 BY<br /> + +MAY SINCLAIR<br /> + +PUBLISHED, OCTOBER, 1908<br /> +<br /> +ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION<br /> +INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING<br /> +THE SCANDINAVIAN</span> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/pubnote.jpg" width="400" height="321" alt="" title="" /> + +<span class="caption front">PUBLISHERS' NOTE<br /> +<br /> +THIS STORY APPEARS IN ENGLAND<br /> +UNDER THE TITLE "KITTY TAILLEUR"</span> +</div> + +<hr /> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/illus.jpg" width="400" height="187" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + +<table summary="Illustrations"> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">"Kitty's face ... pleaded with the +other face in the glass"</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#frontis"><span class="front">FRONTISPIECE</span></a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">"She stood there, strangely still ... +before the pitiless stare that went up +to her appealing face"</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#she">10</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">"'You won't be tied to me a minute +longer than you like'"</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#you">208</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">"'I want to make you loathe me ... +never see me again'"</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#want">268</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<hr /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/dec01.jpg" width="400" height="255" alt="THE IMMORTAL MOMENT" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE IMMORTAL MOMENT</span> +</div> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span> +THE IMMORTAL MOMENT</h2> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + + +<p class="cap">THEY came into the hotel dining-room like young persons making their +first entry into life. They carried themselves with an air of subdued +audacity, of innocent inquiry. When the great doors opened to them they +stood still on the threshold, charmed, expectant. There was the magic of +quest, of pure, unspoiled adventure in their very efforts to catch the +head-waiter's eye. It was as if they called from its fantastic +dwelling-place the attendant spirit of delight.</p> + +<p>You could never have guessed how old they were. He, at thirty-five, had +preserved, by some miracle, his alert and slender adolescence. In his +brown, clean-shaven face, keen with pleasure, you saw the clear,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> +serious eyes and the adorable smile of seventeen. She, at thirty, had +kept the wide eyes and tender mouth of childhood. Her face had a child's +immortal, spiritual appeal.</p> + +<p>They were charming with each other. You might have taken them for bride +and bridegroom, his absorption in her was so unimpaired. But their names +in the visitors' book stood as Mr. Robert Lucy and Miss Jane Lucy. They +were brother and sister. You gathered it from something absurdly alike +in their faces, something profound and racial and enduring.</p> + +<p>For they combined it all, the youth, the abandonment, the innocence, +with an indomitable distinction.</p> + +<p>They made their way with easy, unembarrassed movements, and seated +themselves at a table by an open window. They bent their brows together +over the menu. The head-waiter (who had flown at last to their high +summons) made them his peculiar care, and they turned to him with the +helplessness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> of children. He told them what things they would like, +what things (he seemed to say) would be good for them. And when he went +away with their order they looked at each other and laughed, softly and +instantaneously.</p> + +<p>They had done the right thing. They both said it at the same moment, +smiling triumphantly into each other's face. Southbourne was exquisite +in young June, at the dawn of its season. And the Cliff Hotel promised +what they wanted, a gay seclusion, a refined publicity.</p> + +<p>If you were grossly rich, you went to the big Hôtel Métropole, opposite. +If you were a person of fastidious tastes and an attenuated income, you +felt the superior charm of the Cliff Hotel. The little house, the joy of +its proprietor, was hidden in the privacy of its own beautiful grounds, +having its back to the high road and its face to the open sea. They had +taken stock of it that morning, with its clean walls, white as the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> +Cliff it stood on; its bay windows, its long, green-roofed veranda, +looking south; its sharp, slated roofs and gables, all sheltered by the +folding Downs.</p> + +<p>They did not know which of them had first suggested Southbourne. +Probably they had both thought of it at the same moment, as they were +thinking now. But it was she who had voted for the Cliff Hotel, in +preference to lodgings. She thought that in an hotel there would be more +scope, more chance of things happening.</p> + +<p>Jane was always on the look-out for things happening. He saw her now, +with her happy eyes, and her little, tilted nose, sniffing the air, +scanning the horizon.</p> + +<p>He knew Jane and her adventures well. They were purely, pathetically +vicarious. Jane was the thrall of her own sympathy. So was he. At a hint +she was off, and he after her, on wild paths of inference, on perilous +oceans of conjecture. Only he moved more slowly, and he knew the end<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> of +it. He had seen, before now, her joyous leap to land, on shores of +manifest disaster. He protested against that jumping to conclusions. He, +for his part, took conclusions in his stride.</p> + +<p>But Jane was always listening for a call from some foreign country of +the soul. She was always entering surreptitiously into other people's +feelings. They never caught her at it, never suspected her soft-footed, +innocent intrusions.</p> + +<p>She was wondering now whether they would have to make friends with any +of the visitors. She hoped not, because that would spoil it, the +adventure. People had a way of telling her their secrets, and Jane +preferred not to be told. All she wanted was an inkling, a clue; the +slenderer the better.</p> + +<p>The guests as yet assembled were not conspicuously interesting.</p> + +<p>There was a clergyman dining gloomily at a table by himself. There was a +gray group of middle-aged ladies next to him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> There was Colonel Hankin +and his wife. They had arrived with the Lucys in the hotel 'bus, and +their names were entered above Robert's in the visitors' book. They +marked him with manifest approval as one of themselves, and they looked +all pink perfection and silver white propriety. There was the old lady +who did nothing but knit. She had arrived in a fly, knitting. She was +knitting now, between the courses. When she caught sight of the Lucys +she smiled at them over her knitting. They had found her, before dinner, +with her feet entangled in a skein of worsted. Jane had shown tenderness +in disentangling her.</p> + +<p>It was almost as if they had made friends already.</p> + +<p>Jane's eyes roamed and lighted on a fat, wine-faced man. Lucy saw them. +He teased her, challenged her. She didn't think, did she, she could do +anything with him?</p> + +<p>No. Jane thought not. He wasn't interesting. There was nothing that you +could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> take hold of, except that he seemed to be very fond of wine, poor +old thing. But then, you had to be fond of something, and perhaps it was +his only weakness. What did Robert think?</p> + +<p>Robert did not hear her. He was bending forward, looking beyond her, +across the room toward the great doors. They had swung open again, with +a flash of their glass panels, to give passage to a lady.</p> + +<p>She came slowly, with the irresistible motion of creatures that divide +and trouble the medium in which they move. The white, painted wainscot +behind her showed her small, eager head, its waving rolls and crowning +heights of hair, black as her gown. She had a sweet face, curiously +foreshortened by a low forehead and the briefest of chins. It was white +with the same whiteness as her neck, her shoulders, her arms—a +whiteness pure and profound. This face she kept thrust a little forward, +while her eyes looked round, steadily, deliberately, for the place<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> +where she desired to be. She carried on her arm a long tippet of brown +fur. It slipped, and her effort to recover it brought her to a +standstill.</p> + +<p>The large, white room, half empty at this season, gave her up bodily to +what seemed to Lucy the intolerable impudence of the public gaze.</p> + +<p>She was followed by an older lady who had the air of making her way with +difficulty and vexation through an unpleasantly crowded space. This lady +was somewhat oddly attired in a white dress cut high with a Puritan +intention, but otherwise indiscreetly youthful. She kept close to the +tail of her companion's gown, and tracked its charming evolutions with +an irritated eye. Her whole aspect was evidently a protest against the +publicity she was compelled to share.</p> + +<div><a name="she" id="she"></a></div> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 379px;"> +<img src="images/icol02.jpg" class="jpg" width="379" height="600" alt=""She stood there, strangely still ... before the pitiless +stare that went up to her appealing face."" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"She stood there, strangely still ... before the pitiless +stare that went up to her appealing face."</span> +</div> + +<p>Lucy was not interested in her. He was watching the lady in black who +was now standing in the middle of the room. Her elbow touched the +shoulder of a young man <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>on her left. The fur tippet slipped again and +lay at the young man's feet. He picked it up, and as he handed it to her +he stared into her face, and sleeked his little moustache above a +furtive, objectionable smile. His companion (Jane's uninteresting man), +roused from communion with the spirit of Veuve Cliquot, fixed on the +lady a pair of blood-shot eyes in a brutal, wine-dark face.</p> + +<p>She stood there, strangely still, it seemed to Lucy, before the pitiless +stare that went up, right and left, to her appealing face. She was +looking, it seemed to him, for her refuge.</p> + +<p>She moved forward. The Colonel, pinker than ever in his perfection, +lowered his eyes as she approached. She paused again in her progress +beside the clergyman on her right. He looked severely at her, as much as +to say, "Madam, if you drop that thing in <em>my</em> neighbourhood, I shall +not attempt to pick it up."</p> + +<p>An obsequious waiter pointed out a table<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> next to the middle-aged +ladies. She shook her head at the middle-aged ladies. She turned in her +course, and her eyes met Lucy's. He said something to his sister. Jane +rose and changed her seat, thus clearing the way to a table that stood +beside theirs, empty, secluded in the bay of the window.</p> + +<p>The lady in black came swiftly, as if to the place of her desire. The +glance that expressed her gratitude went from Lucy to Jane and from Jane +to Lucy, and rested on him for a moment.</p> + +<p>As the four grouped themselves at their respective tables, the lady in +white, seated with her back to the window, commanded a front and side +view of Jane. The lady in black sat facing Lucy.</p> + +<p>She put her elbows on the table and turned her face (her profile was +remarkably pretty) to her companion.</p> + +<p>"Well," said she, "don't you want to sit here?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh," said the older woman, "what does it matter where we sit?"</p> + +<p>She spoke in a small, crowing voice, the voice, Lucy said to himself, of +a rather terrible person. She shivered.</p> + +<p>"Poor lamb, does it feel a draught down its little back?"</p> + +<p>The lady rose and put her fur tippet on the shivering shoulders. They +shrank from her, and she drew it closer and fastened it with caressing +and cajoling fingers. There was about her something impetuous and +perverse, a wilful, ungovernable tenderness. Her hands had the swiftness +of things moved by sweet, disastrous impulses.</p> + +<p>The white person (she was quite terrible) undid the fastening and shook +her shoulders free of the fur. It slid to the floor for the third time.</p> + +<p>Lucy rose from his place, picked up the fur and restored it to its +owner.</p> + +<p>The quite terrible person flushed with vexation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You see," said the lady, "the trouble you've given that nice man."</p> + +<p>"Oh don't! he'll hear you."</p> + +<p>"If he does, he won't mind," said the lady.</p> + +<p>He did hear her. It was difficult not to hear, not to look at her, not +to be interested in every movement that she made. Her charm, however, +was powerless over her companion.</p> + +<p>Their voices, to Lucy's relief, sank low. Then suddenly the companion +spoke.</p> + +<p>"Of course," said she, "if you <em>want</em> all the men to look at you——"</p> + +<p>Lucy looked no more. He heard the lady draw in her breath with a soft, +sharp sound, and he felt his blood running scarlet to the roots of his +hair.</p> + +<p>"I believe" (the older lady spoke almost vindictively) "you like it."</p> + +<p>The head-waiter, opportune in all his approaches, brought coffee at that +moment. Lucy turned his chair slightly, so that he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> presented his back +to the speaker, and to the lady in black his side-face, shaded by his +hand, conspicuously penitential.</p> + +<p>Jane tried to set everybody at their ease by talking in a clear, cool +voice about the beautiful decorations, the perfect management of the +hotel. The two drank their coffee hastily and left the table. In the +doorway Lucy drew the head-waiter aside.</p> + +<p>"Who," said he, "is that lady in the window?"</p> + +<p>"The lady in the window, sir? Miss Keating, sir."</p> + +<p>"I mean—the other lady."</p> + +<p>The head-waiter looked reproachfully at Lucy and apologetically at Jane.</p> + +<p>"The lady in black, sir? You want to know her name?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Her <em>name</em>, sir, is Mrs. Tailleur."</p> + +<p>His manner intimated respectfully that Lucy would not like Mrs. +Tailleur, and that, if he did, she would not be good for him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span></p> + +<p>The brother and sister went out into the hotel garden. They strolled up +and down the cool, green lawns that overhung the beach.</p> + +<p>Lucy smoked and was silent.</p> + +<p>"Jane," he said presently, "could <em>you</em> see what she did?"</p> + +<p>"I was just going," said Jane, "to ask you that."</p> + +<p>"Upon my soul, I can't see it," said he.</p> + +<p>"Nor I," said Jane.</p> + +<p>"Could you see what <em>I</em> did?"</p> + +<p>"What you did?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I. <em>Did</em> I look at her?"</p> + +<p>"Well, yes; certainly you looked at her."</p> + +<p>"And you think she minded?"</p> + +<p>"No; I don't think she minded very much."</p> + +<p>"Come, she couldn't have liked it, could she?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I don't think she noticed it. You see" (Jane was off on +the adventure) "she's in mourning for her husband. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> has been dead +about two years. He wasn't very kind to her, and she doesn't know +whether to be glad or sorry he's dead. She's unhappy and afraid."</p> + +<p>"I say, how do you know all that?"</p> + +<p>"I know," said Jane, "because I see it in her face; and in her clothes. +I always see things."</p> + +<p>He laughed at that.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + + +<p class="cap">THEY talked a long time as they paced the green lawns, linked arm in +arm, keeping their own path fastidiously.</p> + +<p>Miss Keating, Mrs. Tailleur's companion, watched them from her seat on +the veranda.</p> + +<p>She had made her escape from the great, lighted lounge behind her where +the men were sitting. She had found a corner out of sight of its wide +windows. She knew that Kitty Tailleur was in there somewhere. She could +hear her talking to the men. At the other end of the veranda the old +lady sat with her knitting. From time to time she looked up over her +needles and glanced curiously at Miss Keating.</p> + +<p>On the lawn below, Colonel Hankin walked with his wife. They kept the +same line as the Lucys, so that, in rhythmic instants, the couples made +one group. There was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> an affinity, a harmony in their movements as they +approached each other. They were all obviously nice people, people who +belonged by right to the same group, who might approach each other +without any impropriety.</p> + +<p>Miss Keating wondered how long it would be before Kitty Tailleur would +approach Mr. Lucy. That afternoon, on her arrival, she had approached +the Colonel, and the Colonel had got up and gone away. Kitty had then +laughed. Miss Keating suspected her of a similar social intention with +regard to the younger man. She knew his name. She had looked it up in +the visitors' book. (She was always looking up people's names.) She had +made with determination for the table next to him. Miss Keating, in the +dawn of their acquaintance, had prayed that Mrs. Tailleur might not +elect to sit next anybody who was not nice. Latterly she had found +herself hoping that their place might not be in view of anybody who was.</p> + +<p>For three months they had been living<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> in hotels, in horrifying +publicity. Miss Keating dreaded most the hour they had just passed +through. There was something terrible to her in their entry, in their +passage down the great, white, palm-shaded, exotic room, their threading +of the ways between the tables, with all the men turning round to stare +at Kitty Tailleur. It was all very well for Kitty to pretend that she +saved her by thus diverting and holding fast the public eye. Miss +Keating felt that the tail of it flicked her unpleasantly as she +followed in that troubled, luminous wake.</p> + +<p>It had not been quite so unbearable in Brighton, at Easter, when the big +hotels were crowded, and Mrs. Tailleur was not so indomitably +conspicuous. Or else Miss Keating had not been so painfully alive to +her. But Southbourne was half empty in early June, and the Cliff Hotel, +small as it was, had room for the perfect exhibition of Mrs. Tailleur. +It gave her wide, polished spaces and clean, brilliant backgrounds, +yards<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> of parquetry for the gliding of her feet, and monstrous mirrors +for reflecting her face at unexpected angles. These distances fined her +grace still finer, and lent her a certain pathos, the charm of figures +vanishing and remote.</p> + +<p>Not that you could think of Kitty Tailleur as in the least remote or +vanishing. She seemed to be always approaching, to hover imminently and +dangerously near.</p> + +<p>Mr. Lucy looked fairly unapproachable. His niceness, Miss Keating +imagined, would keep him linked arm in arm with his sister, maintaining, +unconsciously, inoffensively, his distance and distinction. He would +manage better than the Colonel. He would not have to get up and go away. +So Miss Keating thought.</p> + +<p>From the lounge behind the veranda, Kitty's voice came to her again. +Kitty was excited and her voice went winged. It flew upward, touched a +perilous height and shook there. It hung, on its delicate, feminine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> +wings, dominating the male voices that contended, brutally, below. Now +and then it found its lyric mate, a high, adolescent voice that followed +it with frenzy, that broke, pitifully, in sharp, abominable laughter, +like a cry of pain.</p> + +<p>Miss Keating shut her eyes to keep out her vision of Kitty's face with +the look it wore when her voice went high.</p> + +<p>She was roused by the waiter bringing coffee. Kitty Tailleur had come +out on to the veranda. She was pouring out Grace Keating's coffee, and +talking to her in another voice, the one that she kept for children and +for animals, and for all diminutive and helpless things. She was saying +that Miss Keating (whom she called Bunny) was a dear little white +rabbit, and she wanted to stroke her.</p> + +<p>"You see, you are so very small," said Kitty, as she dropped sugar into +Miss Keating's cup. She had ordered cigarettes and a liqueur for +herself.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span></p> + +<p>Miss Keating said nothing. She drank her coffee with a distasteful +movement of her lips.</p> + +<p>Kitty Tailleur stretched herself at full length on a garden chair. She +watched her companion with eyes secretly, profoundly intent under +lowered lids.</p> + +<p>"Do you mind my smoking?" she said presently.</p> + +<p>"No," said Miss Keating.</p> + +<p>"Do you mind my drinking Kümmel?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Do you mind my showing seven inches of stocking?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"What do you mind, then?"</p> + +<p>"I mind your making yourself so very conspicuous."</p> + +<p>"I don't make myself conspicuous. I was born so."</p> + +<p>"You make me conspicuous. Goodness knows what all these people take us +for!"</p> + +<p>"Holy Innocent! As long as you sit tight and do your hair like that, +nobody could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> take you for anything but a dear little bunny with its +ears laid back. But if you get palpitations in your little nose, and +turn up your little white tail at people, and scuttle away when they +look at you, you can't blame them if they wonder what's the matter with +you."</p> + +<p>"With <em>me</em>?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; it's you who give the show away." Kitty smiled into her liqueur +glass. "It doesn't seem to strike you that your behaviour compromises +me."</p> + +<p>Miss Keating's mouth twitched. Her narrow, rather prominent front teeth +lifted an instant, and then closed sharply on her lower lip. Her throat +trembled as if she were swallowing some bitter thing that had been on +the tip of her tongue.</p> + +<p>"If you think that," she said, and her voice crowed no longer, "wouldn't +it be better for us not to be together?"</p> + +<p>Kitty shook her meditative head. "Poor Bunny," said she, "why can't you +be honest?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> Why don't you say plump out that you're sick and tired of +me? <em>I</em> should be. I couldn't stand another woman lugging me about as I +lug you."</p> + +<p>"It isn't <em>that</em>. Only—everywhere we go—there's always some horrible +man."</p> + +<p>"Everywhere you go, dear lamb, there always will be."</p> + +<p>"Yes; but one doesn't have anything to do with them."</p> + +<p>"I don't have anything to do with them."</p> + +<p>"You talk to them."</p> + +<p>"Of course I do," said Kitty. "Why not?"</p> + +<p>"You don't know them."</p> + +<p>"H'm! If you never talk to people you don't know, pray how do you get to +know them?"</p> + +<p>Kitty sat up and began playing with the matches till she held a bunch of +them blazing in her hand. She was blowing out the flame as the Hankins +came up the steps of the veranda. They had a smile for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> old lady in +her corner, and for Miss Keating a look of wonder and curiosity and +pity; but they turned from Mrs. Tailleur with guarded eyes.</p> + +<p>"What do you bet," said Kitty, "that I don't make that long man there +come and talk to me?"</p> + +<p>"If you do——"</p> + +<p>"I'll do it before you count ten. One, two, three, four. I shall ask him +for a light——"</p> + +<p>"Sh-sh! He's coming."</p> + +<p>Kitty slid her feet to the floor and covered them with her skirt. Then +she looked down, fascinated, apparently, by the shining tips of her +shoes. You could have drawn a straight line from her feet to the feet of +the man coming up the lawn.</p> + +<p>"Five, six, seven." Kitty lit her last match. "T-t-t! The jamfounded +thing's gone out."</p> + +<p>The long man's sister came up the steps of the veranda. The long man +followed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> her slowly, with deliberate pauses in his stride.</p> + +<p>"Eight, nine," said Kitty, under her breath. She waited.</p> + +<p>The man's eyes had been upon her; but in the approach he lowered them, +and as he passed her he turned away his head.</p> + +<p>"It's no use," said Miss Keating; "you can't have it both ways."</p> + +<p>Kitty was silent. Suddenly she laughed.</p> + +<p>"Bunny," said she, "would you like to marry the long man?"</p> + +<p>Miss Keating's mouth closed tightly, with an effort, covering her teeth.</p> + +<p>Kitty leaned forward. "Perhaps you can if you want to. Long men +sometimes go crazy about little women. And you'd have such dear little +long babies—little babies with long faces. Why not? You're just the +right size for him. He could make a memorandum of you and put you in his +pocket; or you could hang on his arm like a dear little umbrella. It +would be all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> right. You may take it from me that man is entirely moral. +He wouldn't think of going out without his umbrella. And he'd be so nice +when the little umbrellas came. Dear Bunny, face massage would do +wonders for you. Why ever not? He's heaps nicer than that man at the +Hydro, and you'd have married him, you know you would, if I hadn't told +you he was a commercial traveller. Never mind, ducky; I dare say he +wasn't."</p> + +<p>Kitty curled herself up tight on the long chair and smiled dreamily at +Miss Keating.</p> + +<p>"Do you remember the way you used to talk at Matlock, just after I found +you there? You <em>were</em> such a rum little thing. You said it would be very +much better if we hadn't any bodies, so that people could fall in love +in a prettier way, and only be married spiritually. You said God ought +to have arranged things on that footing. You looked so miserable when +you said it. By the way, I wouldn't go about saying that sort of thing +to people. That's how I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> spotted you. I know men think it's one of the +symptoms."</p> + +<p>"Symptoms of what?"</p> + +<p>"Of that state of mind. When a woman comes to me and talks about being +spiritual, I always know she isn't — at the moment. You asked me, +Bunny—the second time I met you—if I believed in spiritual love, and +all that. I didn't, and I don't. When you're gone on a man all you want +is to get him, and keep him to yourself. I dare say it feels jolly +spiritual—especially, when you're not sure of the man—but it isn't. If +you're gone on him enough to give him up when you've got him, there +might be some spirituality in <em>that</em>. I shall believe in it when I see +it done."</p> + +<p>"Seriously," she continued, "if you'd been married, Bunny, you wouldn't +have had half such a beastly time. You're one of those leaning, clinging +little women who require a strong, safe man to support them. You ought +to be married."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span></p> + +<p>Miss Keating smiled a little sad, spiritual smile, and said that was the +last thing she wanted.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Kitty, "I didn't say it was the first."</p> + +<p>Kitty's smile was neither sad nor spiritual. She uncurled herself, got +up, and stood over her companion, stroking her sleek, thin hair.</p> + +<p>Miss Keating purred under the caress. She held up her hand to Kitty who +took it and gave it a squeeze before she let it go.</p> + +<p>"Poor Bunny. Nice Bunny," she said (as if Miss Keating were an animal). +She stretched out her arms, turned, and disappeared through the lounge +into the billiard-room.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + + +<p class="cap">IT could not be denied that Kitty had a charm. Miss Keating was not +denying it, even now, when she was saying to herself that Kitty had a +way of attracting very disagreeable attention.</p> + +<p>At first she had supposed that this was an effect of Kitty's charm, +disagreeable to Kitty. Then, even in the beginning, she had seen that +there was something deliberate and perpetual in Kitty's challenge of the +public eye. The public eye, so far from pursuing Kitty, was itself +pursued, tracked down and captured. Kitty couldn't let it go. Publicity +was what Kitty coveted.</p> + +<p>She had then supposed that Kitty was used to it; that she was, in some +mysterious way, a personage. There would be temptations, she had +imagined, for any one who had a charm that lived thus in the public +eye.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span></p> + +<p>And Kitty had her good points, too. There was nobody so easy to live +with as Kitty in her private capacity, if she could be said to have one. +She never wanted to be amused, or read to, or sat up with late at night, +like the opulent invalids Miss Keating had been with hitherto. Miss +Keating owed everything she had to Kitty, her health (she was +constitutionally anæmic), her magnificent salary, the luxurious gaiety +in which they lived and moved (moved, perhaps, rather more than lived). +The very combs in her hair were Kitty's. So were the gowns she wore on +occasions of splendour and display. It struck her as odd that they were +all public, these occasions, things they paid to go to.</p> + +<p>It had dawned on her by this time, coldly, disagreeably, that Kitty +Tailleur was nobody, nobody, that is to say, in particular. A person of +no account in the places where they had stayed. In their three months' +wanderings they had never been invited to any private house. Miss +Keating could not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> account for that air of ill-defined celebrity that +hung round Kitty like a scent, and marked her trail.</p> + +<p>Not that any social slur seemed to attach to Kitty. The acquaintances +she had made in her brief and curious fashion were all, or nearly all, +socially immaculate. The friends (they were all men) who came to her of +their own intimate accord, belonged, some of them, to an aristocracy +higher than that represented by Mr. Lucy or the Colonel. And they had +been by no means impervious to Kitty's charm.</p> + +<p>From the sounds that came from the billiard-room she gathered that +Kitty's charm appealed also to her audience in there. Leaning her body +forward so as to listen, Miss Keating became aware that Lucy had +returned to the lounge, and was strolling about in it, as if he were +looking for somebody. He strolled into the veranda.</p> + +<p>The garden was dark now, but a little light fell on the veranda from the +open<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> windows of the lounge. Lucy looked at Mrs. Tailleur's empty chair. +He was about to sit in it when he saw that he was alone with Mrs. +Tailleur's companion. He rose again for flight. Miss Keating rose also +with the same intention.</p> + +<p>Lucy protested. "Please don't let me disturb you. I am not going to sit +here."</p> + +<p>"But I am driving you in."</p> + +<p>"Not at all. I only thought you might object to my smoking."</p> + +<p>"But I don't object."</p> + +<p>"You don't, really?"</p> + +<p>"If I stay," said she, "will that prove it?"</p> + +<p>"Please do," said Lucy.</p> + +<p>Miss Keating pushed her chair as far as possible from his. She seated +herself with a fugitive, sidelong movement; as much as to say she left +him to the sanctuary he sought. He would please to observe the +perfection of her withdrawal. The table with the match-stand on it stood +between them.</p> + +<p>Lucy approached the match-stand tentatively.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> Miss Keating, averted and +effaced, was yet aware of him.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid there are no matches," said she. "Mrs. Tailleur has used +them all." So effaced and so averted was Miss Keating that there was +nothing left of her but a sweet, attenuated, disembodied voice. It was +as if spirit spoke to spirit with the consecrated doors between.</p> + +<p>Lucy smiled. He paused at Mrs. Tailleur's chair.</p> + +<p>"Is your friend coming back again?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I don't think so."</p> + +<p>It might have been an effect of her remoteness, but Miss Keating's tone +conveyed to him ever so slight a repudiation of Mrs. Tailleur.</p> + +<p>He seated himself; and as he did so he searched his coat pockets. There +were no matches there. He knew he would find some in the lounge. Perhaps +he might find Mrs. Tailleur also. He would get up and look.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span></p> + +<p>Miss Keating (still disembodied) rose and withdrew herself completely, +and Lucy thought better of his intention. He lay back and closed his +eyes.</p> + +<p>A light tap on the table roused him. It was Miss Keating laying down a +match-box. He saw her hand poised yet in the delicacy of its +imperceptible approach.</p> + +<p>He stared, stupefied with embarrassment. He stuttered with it. +"Really—I—I—I wish you hadn't." He did not take up the match-box all +at once, lest he should seem prompt in accepting this rather +extraordinary service.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Tailleur's companion slid back into her seat and sat there smiling +to herself and to the incommunicative night.</p> + +<p>"I hope," she said presently, "you are not refraining from smoking +because of me."</p> + +<p>She was very sweet and soft and gentle. But she had not struck him as +gentle or soft or sweet when he had seen her with Mrs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> Tailleur, and he +was not prepared to take that view of her now.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," he said. He could not think of anything else to say. He lit +his cigarette, and smoked in an innocent abstraction.</p> + +<p>A clock indoors struck ten. Miss Keating accounted for her continuance. +"It is the only quiet place in the hotel," said she.</p> + +<p>He assented, wondering if this were meant for a conversational opening.</p> + +<p>"And the night air is so very sweet and pure."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid you find this smoke of mine anything but——"</p> + +<p>"If you are so serious about it," said she, "I shall be afraid either to +stay out or to go in."</p> + +<p>If there were any opening there he missed it. He had turned at the sound +of a skirt trailing, and he saw that Mrs. Tailleur had come back into +the lounge. He was thoughtful for a moment. Then he got up quietly and +went in.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p> + +<p>He did not speak to her or look at her. He sat very still in a corner of +the room where he could see her reflection in a big mirror. It did not +occur to him that Mrs. Tailleur could see his, too.</p> + +<p>Outside in the veranda, Miss Keating sat shuddering in the night air.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + + +<p class="cap">LUCY'S mind was like his body. Superficial people called it narrow, +because the sheer length of it diverted their attention from its +breadth. Visionary, yet eager for the sound impact of the visible, it +was never more alert than when it, so to speak, sat still, absorbed in +its impressions. It was the sport of young and rapid impulses, which it +seemed to obey sluggishly, while, all the time, it moved with immense, +slow strides to incredibly far conclusions. Having reached a conclusion +it was apt to stay there. The very length of its stride made turning +awkward for it.</p> + +<p>He had reached a conclusion now, on his third night in Southbourne. He +must do something, he did not yet know what, for the protection of Mrs. +Tailleur.</p> + +<p>Her face was an appeal to the chivalry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> that sat quiet in Lucy's heart, +nursing young dreams of opportunity.</p> + +<p>Lucy's chivalry had been formed by three weeks of courtship and three +years of wedded incompatibility. The incompatibility had hardly dawned +on him when his wife died. Three years were too short a space for Lucy's +mind to turn in; and so he always thought of her tenderly as dear little +Amy. She had given him two daughters and paid for the younger with her +life.</p> + +<p>Five years of fatherhood finished his training in the school of +chivalry. He had been profoundly moved by little Amy's sacrifice to the +powers of life, and he was further touched by the heartrending spectacle +of Jane. Jane doing all she knew for him; Jane, so engaging in her +innocence, hiding her small, childlike charm under dark airs of assumed +maternity; Jane, whose skirts fluttered wide to all the winds of dream; +Jane with an apron on and two little girls tied to the strings of it; +Jane, adorable in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> disaster, striving to be discreet and comfortable and +competent.</p> + +<p>He had a passionate pity for all creatures troubled and unfortunate. And +Mrs. Tailleur's face called aloud to him for pity. For Lucy Mrs. +Tailleur's face wore, like a veil, the shadow of the incredible past and +of the future; it was reminiscent and prophetic of terrible and tragic +things. Across the great spaces of the public rooms his gaze answered +her call. Then Mrs. Tailleur's face would become dumb. Like all hurt +things, she was manifestly shy of observation and pursuit.</p> + +<p>Pursuit and observation, perpetual, implacable, were what she had to +bear. The women had driven her from the drawing-room; the men made the +smoke-room impossible. A cold, wet mist came with the evenings. It lay +over the sea and drenched the lawns of the hotel garden. Mrs. Tailleur +had no refuge but the lounge.</p> + +<p>To-night the wine-faced man and his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> companion had tracked her there. +Mrs. Tailleur had removed herself from the corner where they had hemmed +her in. She had found an unoccupied sofa near the writing-table. The +pursuer was seized instantly with a desire to write letters. Mrs. +Tailleur went out and shivered on the veranda. His eyes followed her. In +passing she had turned her back on the screened hearth-place where Lucy +and his sister sat alone.</p> + +<p>"Did you see that?" said Lucy.</p> + +<p>"I did indeed," said Jane.</p> + +<p>"It's awful that a woman should be exposed to that sort of thing. What +can her people be thinking of?"</p> + +<p>"Her people?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; to let her go about alone."</p> + +<p>"I go about alone," said Jane pensively.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but she's so good looking."</p> + +<p>"Am <em>I</em> not?"</p> + +<p>"You're all right, Jenny; but you never looked like that. There's +something about her——"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Is that what makes those men horrid to her?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I suppose so. The brutes!" He paused irritably. "It mustn't happen +again."</p> + +<p>"What's the poor lady to do?" said Jane.</p> + +<p>"She can't do anything. <em>We</em> must."</p> + +<p>"We?"</p> + +<p>"I must. You must. Go out to her, Janey, and be nice to her."</p> + +<p>"No, you go and say I sent you."</p> + +<p>He strode out on to the veranda. Mrs. Tailleur sat with her hands in her +lap, motionless, and, to his senses, unaware.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Tailleur."</p> + +<p>She started and looked up at him.</p> + +<p>"My sister asked me to tell you that there's a seat for you in there, if +you don't mind sitting with us."</p> + +<p>"But won't you mind me?"</p> + +<p>"Not—not," said Lucy (he positively stammered), "not if you don't mind +us."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Tailleur looked at him again, wide eyed, with the strange and +pitiful candour of distrust. Then she smiled incomprehensibly.</p> + +<p>Her eyelids dropped as she slid past him to the seat beside Jane. He +noticed that she had the sudden, furtive ways of the wild thing aware of +the hunter.</p> + +<p>"May I really?" said Mrs. Tailleur.</p> + +<p>"Oh, <em>please</em>," said Jane.</p> + +<p>As she spoke the man at the writing-table looked up and stared. Not at +Mrs. Tailleur this time, but at Jane. He stared with a wonder so +spontaneous, so supreme, that it purged him of offence.</p> + +<p>He stared again (with less innocence) at Lucy as the young man gave way, +reverently, to the sweep of Mrs. Tailleur's gown. Lucy's face intimated +to him that he had made a bad mistake. The wretch admitted, by a violent +flush, that it was possible. Then his eyes turned again to Mrs. +Tailleur. It was as much as to say he had only been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> relying on the +incorruptible evidence of his senses.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Tailleur sat down and breathed hard.</p> + +<p>"How sweet of you!" Her voice rang with the labour of her breast.</p> + +<p>Lucy smiled as he caught the word. He would have condemned the stress of +it, but that Mrs. Tailleur's voice pleaded forgiveness for any word she +chose to utter. "Even," he said to himself, "if you could forget her +face."</p> + +<p>He couldn't forget it. As he sat there trying to read, it came between +him and his book. It tormented him to find its meaning. Kitty's face was +a thing both delicate and crude. When she was gay it showed a blurred +edge, a fineness in peril. When she was sad it wore the fixed look of +artificial maturity. It was like a young bud opened by inquisitive +fingers and forced to be a flower. Some day, the day before it withered, +the bruised veins would glow again, and a hectic spot betray, like a +bruise, the violation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> of its bloom. At the moment, repose gave back its +beauty to Kitty's face. Lucy noticed that the large black pupils of her +eyes were ringed with a dark blue iris, spotted with black. There was no +colour about her at all except that blue, and the delicate red of her +mouth. In her black gown she was a revelation of pure form. Colour would +have obscured her, made her ineffectual.</p> + +<p>He sat silent, hardly daring to look at her. So keen was his sense of +her that he could almost have heard the beating of her breast against +her gown. Once she sighed, and Lucy stirred. Once she stirred slightly, +and Lucy, unconsciously responsive, sighed. Then Kitty's glance lit on +him. He turned a page of his book ostentatiously, and Kitty's glance +slunk home again. She closed her eyes and opened them to find Lucy's +eyes looking at her over the top of his book. Poor Lucy was so perturbed +at being detected in that particular atrocity that he rose, drew his +chair to the hearth, and arranged himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> in an attitude that made +these things impossible.</p> + +<p>He was presently aware of Jane launching herself on a gentle tide of +conversation, and of Mrs. Tailleur trembling pathetically on the brink +of it.</p> + +<p>"Do you like Southbourne?" he heard Jane saying.</p> + +<p>Then suddenly Mrs. Tailleur plunged in.</p> + +<p>"No," said she; "I hate it. I hate any place I have to be alone in, if +it's only for five minutes."</p> + +<p>Lucy felt that it was Jane who drew back now, in sheer distress. He +tried to think of something to say, and gave it up, stultified by his +compassion.</p> + +<p>The silence was broken by Jane.</p> + +<p>"Robert," said she, "have you written to the children?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Tailleur's face became suddenly sombre and intent.</p> + +<p>"No; I haven't. I clean forgot it."</p> + +<p>He went off to write his letter. When he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> came back Mrs. Tailleur had +risen and was saying good night to Jane.</p> + +<p>He followed her to the portière and drew it back for her to pass. As she +turned to thank him she glanced up at the hand that held the portière. +It trembled violently. Her eyes, a moment ago dark under her bent +forehead, darted a sudden light sidelong.</p> + +<p>She paused, interrogative, expectant. Lucy bowed.</p> + +<p>As Mrs. Tailleur passed out she looked back over her shoulder, smiling +again her incomprehensible smile.</p> + +<p>The portière dropped behind her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + + +<p class="cap">FIVE days passed. The Lucys had now been a week at Southbourne. They +knew it well by that time, for bad weather kept them from going very far +beyond it. Jane had found, too, that they had to know some of the +visitors. The little Cliff Hotel brought its guests together with a +geniality unknown to its superb rival, the Métropole. Under its roof, in +bad weather, persons not otherwise incompatible became acquainted with +extraordinary rapidity. People had begun already to select each other. +Even Mr. Soutar, the clergyman, had emerged from his lonely gloom, and +dined by preference at the same table with the middle-aged ladies—the +table farthest from the bay window. The Hankins, out of pure kindness, +had taken pity on the old lady, Mrs. Jurd. They had made advances to +the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> Lucys, perceiving an agreeable social affinity, and had afterward +drawn back. For the Lucys were using the opportunity of the weather for +cultivating Mrs. Tailleur.</p> + +<p>It was not easy, they told themselves, to get to know her. She did not +talk much. But as Jane pointed out to Robert, little things came out, +things that proved that she was all right. Her father was a country +parson, very strait-laced, they gathered; and she had little sisters, +years younger than herself. When she talked at all it was in a pretty, +innocent way, like a child's, and all her little legends were, you could +see, transparently consistent. They had, like a child's, a quite funny +reiterance and simplicity. But, like a child, she was easily put off by +any sort of interruption. When she thought she had let herself go too +far, she would take fright and avoid them for the rest of the day, and +they had to begin all over again with her next time.</p> + +<p>The thing, Lucy said, would be for Jane<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> to get her some day all alone. +But Jane said, No; Mrs. Tailleur was ten times more afraid of her than +of him. Besides, they had only another week, and they didn't want, did +they, to see <em>too</em> much of Mrs. Tailleur? At that Lucy got very red, and +promised his sister to take her out somewhere by themselves the next +fine day.</p> + +<p>That was on Wednesday evening, when it was raining hard.</p> + +<p>The weather lifted with the dawn. The heavy smell of the wet earth was +pierced by the fine air of heaven and the sea.</p> + +<p>Jane Lucy leaned out of her bedroom window and looked eastward beyond +the hotel garden to the Cliff. The sea was full of light. Light rolled +on the low waves and broke on their tops like foam. It hung quivering on +the white face of the Cliff. It was like a thin spray thrown from the +heaving light of the sea.</p> + +<p>At breakfast Jane reminded Robert of his promise to take her for a sail +on the first<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> fine day. They turned their backs on the hotel and went +seaward. On their way to the boats they passed Mrs. Tailleur sitting on +the beach in the sun.</p> + +<p>Neither of them enjoyed that expedition. It was the first of all the +things they had done together that had failed. Jane wondered why. If +they were not enjoying themselves on a day like that, when, she argued, +would they enjoy themselves? The day remained as perfect as it had +begun. There was nothing wrong, Robert admitted, with the day. They +sailed in the sun's path and landed in a divine and solitary cove. +Robert was obliged to agree that there was nothing wrong with the cove, +and nothing, no nothing in the least wrong with the lunch. There might, +yes, of course there might, be something very wrong with him.</p> + +<p>Whatever it was, it disappeared as they sighted Southbourne. Robert, +mounting with uneasy haste the steps that led from the beach to the +hotel garden, was unusually gay.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p> + +<p>They were late for dinner, and the table next theirs was empty. Outside, +on the great green lawn in front of the windows, he could see Mrs. +Tailleur walking up and down, alone.</p> + +<p>He dined with the abstraction of a man pursued by the hour of an +appointment. He established Jane in the lounge, with all the magazines +he could lay his hands on, and went out by the veranda on to the lawn +where Mrs. Tailleur was still walking up and down.</p> + +<p>The Colonel and his wife were in the veranda. They made a low sound of +pity as they saw him go.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Tailleur seemed more than ever alone. The green space was bare +around her as if cleared by the sweep of her gown. She moved quietly, +with a long and even undulation, a yielding of her whole body to the +rhythm of her feet. She had reached the far end of the lawn as Lucy +neared her, and he looked for her to turn and face him.</p> + +<p>She did not turn.</p> + +<p>The lawn at this end was bounded by a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> gravel walk. The walk was fenced +by a low stone wall built on the edge of the Cliff. Mrs. Tailleur paused +there and seated herself sideways on the wall. Her face was turned from +Lucy, and he judged her unaware of his approach. In his eyes she gained +a new enchantment from the vast and simple spaces of her background, a +sea of dull purple, a sky of violet, divinely clear. Her face had the +intense, unsubstantial pallor, the magic and stillness of flowers that +stand in the blue dusk before night.</p> + +<p>She turned at the sound of the man's footsteps on the gravel. She smiled +quietly, as if she knew of his coming, and was waiting for it there. He +greeted her. A few words of no moment passed between them, and there was +a silence. He stood by the low wall with his face set seaward, as if all +his sight were fixed on the trail of smoke that marked the far-off +passage of a steamer. Mrs. Tailleur's face was fixed on his. He was +aware of it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span></p> + +<p>Standing beside her, he was aware, too, of something about her alien to +sea and sky; something secret, impenetrable, that held her, as it were, +apart, shut in by her own strange and solitary charm.</p> + +<p>And she sat there in the deep quiet of a woman intent upon her hour. He +had no ear for the call of her silence, for the voice of the instincts +prisoned in blood and brain.</p> + +<p>Presently she rose, shrugging her shoulders and gathering her furs about +her.</p> + +<p>"I want to walk," she said; "will you come?"</p> + +<p>She led the way to the corner where the low wall was joined by a high +one, dividing the hotel garden from the open down. There was a gate +here; it led to a flight of wooden steps that went zig-zag to the beach +below. At the first turn in the flight a narrow path was cut on the +Cliff side. To the right it rose inland, following the slope of the +down. To the left it ran level under the low wall, then climbed higher +yet to the brow of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> headland. There it ended in a square recess, a +small white chamber cut from the chalk and open to the sea and sky. From +the floor of the recess the Cliff dropped sheer to the beach two hundred +feet below.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Tailleur took the path to the left. Lucy followed her.</p> + +<p>The path was stopped by the bend of the great Cliff, the recess roofed +by its bulging forehead. There was a wooden seat set well back under +this cover. Two persons who found themselves alone there might count on +security from interruption.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Tailleur and Lucy were alone.</p> + +<p>Lucy looked at the Cliff wall in front of them.</p> + +<p>"We must go back," said he.</p> + +<p>"Oh no," said she; "don't let's go back."</p> + +<p>"But if you want to walk——"</p> + +<p>"I don't," said she; "do you?"</p> + +<p>He didn't, and they seated themselves. In the charm of this intimate +seclusion Lucy became more than ever dumb. Mrs. Tailleur waited a few +minutes in apparent meditation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p> + +<p>All Lucy said was "May I smoke?"</p> + +<p>"You may." She meditated again.</p> + +<p>"I was wondering," said she, "whether you were ever going to say +anything."</p> + +<p>"I didn't know," said Lucy simply, "whether I might. I thought you were +thinking."</p> + +<p>"So I was. I was thinking of what you were going to say next. I never +met anybody who said less and took so long a time to say it in."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Lucy, "I was thinking too."</p> + +<p>"I know you were. You needn't be so afraid of me unless you like."</p> + +<p>"I am not," said he stiffly, "in the least afraid of you. I'm +desperately afraid of saying the wrong thing."</p> + +<p>"To me? Or everybody?"</p> + +<p>"Not everybody."</p> + +<p>"To me, then. Do you think I might be difficult?"</p> + +<p>"Difficult?"</p> + +<p>"To get on with?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Not in the least. Possibly, if I may say so, a little difficult to +know."</p> + +<p>She smiled. "I don't usually strike people in that light."</p> + +<p>"Well, I think I'm afraid of boring you."</p> + +<p>"You couldn't if you tried from now to midnight."</p> + +<p>"How do you know what I mightn't do?"</p> + +<p>"That's it. I don't know. I never <em>should</em> know. It's only the people +I'm sure of that bore me. Don't they you?"</p> + +<p>He laughed uneasily.</p> + +<p>"The people," she went on, "who are sure of <em>me</em>; who think I'm so easy +to know. They don't know me, and they don't know that I know them. And +they're the only people I've ever, ever met. I can tell what they're +going to say before they've said it. It's always the same thing. +It's—if you like—the inevitable thing. If you can't have anything but +the same thing, at least you like it put a little differently. You'd<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> +think, among them all, they might find it easy to put it a little +differently sometimes; but they never do; and it's the brutal monotony +of it that I cannot stand."</p> + +<p>"I suppose," said Lucy, "people <em>are</em> monotonous."</p> + +<p>"They don't know," said she, evidently ignoring his statement as +inadequate, "they don't know how sick I am of it—how insufferably it +bores me."</p> + +<p>"Ah! there you see—that's what <em>I'm</em> afraid of."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Of saying the wrong thing—the—the same thing."</p> + +<p>"That's it. You'd say it differently, and it wouldn't be the same thing +at all. And what's more, I should never know whether you were going to +say it or not."</p> + +<p>"There's one thing I'd like to say to you if I knew how—if I knew how +you'd take it. You see, though I think I know you——" he hesitated.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You don't really? You don't know who I am? Or where I come from? Or +where I'm going to? I don't know myself."</p> + +<p>"I know," said Lucy, "as much as I've any right to. But unluckily the +thing I want to know——"</p> + +<p>"Is what you haven't any right to?"</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I haven't. The thing I want to know is simply whether I can +help you in any way."</p> + +<p>She smiled. "Ah," said she, "you <em>have</em> said it."</p> + +<p>"Haven't I said it differently?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not sure. You looked different when you said it; that's something."</p> + +<p>"I know I've no right to say it at all. What I mean is that if I could +do anything for you without boring you, without forcing myself on your +acquaintance, I'd be most awfully glad. You know you needn't recognise +me afterward unless you like. Have I put it differently now?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes; I don't think I've ever heard it put quite that way before."</p> + +<p>There was a long pause in which Lucy vainly sought for illumination.</p> + +<p>"No," said Mrs. Tailleur, as if to herself; "I should never know what +you were going to say or do next."</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't you?"</p> + +<p>"No; I didn't know just now whether you were going to speak to me or +not. When I said I wanted to walk I didn't know whether you'd come with +me or not."</p> + +<p>"I came."</p> + +<p>"You came; but when I go——"</p> + +<p>"You're not going?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; to-morrow, perhaps, or the next day. When I go I shall give you my +address and ask you to come and see me; but I shan't know whether you'll +come."</p> + +<p>"Of course I'll come."</p> + +<p>"There's no 'of course' about you; that's the charm of it. I shan't know +until you're actually there."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I shall be there all right."</p> + +<p>"What? You'll come?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; and I'll bring my sister."</p> + +<p>"Your sister?" She drew back slightly. "Turn round, please—this +way—and let me look at you."</p> + +<p>He turned, laughing. Her eyes searched his face.</p> + +<p>"Yes; you meant that. Why do you want to bring your sister?"</p> + +<p>"Because I want you to know her."</p> + +<p>"Are you sure—quite—quite sure—you want her to know me?"</p> + +<p>"Quite—quite sure. If you don't mind—if she won't bore you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, she won't bore me."</p> + +<p>"You're not afraid of that monotony?"</p> + +<p>She turned and looked long at him. "You are very like your sister," she +said.</p> + +<p>"Am I? How? In what way?"</p> + +<p>"In the way we've been talking about. I suppose you know how remarkable +you are?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No; I really don't think I do."</p> + +<p>"Then," said Mrs. Tailleur, "you are all the more remarkable."</p> + +<p>"Don't you think," she added, "we had better go back?"</p> + +<p>They went back. As they mounted the steps to the garden door they saw +Miss Keating approaching it from the inside. She moved along the low +wall that overlooked the path by which they had just come. There was no +crunching of pebbles under her feet. She trod, inaudibly, the soft edge +of the lawn.</p> + +<p>Lucy held the door open for Miss Keating when Mrs. Tailleur had passed +through; but Miss Keating had turned suddenly. She made the pebbles on +the walk scream with the vehemence of her retreat.</p> + +<p>"Dear me," said Lucy, "it must be rather painful to be as shy as that."</p> + +<p>"Mustn't it?" said Mrs. Tailleur.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + + +<p class="cap">THE next day it rained, fitfully at first, at the will of a cold wind +that dragged clouds out of heaven. A gleam of sunshine in the afternoon, +then wild rain driven slantwise by the gusts; and now, at five o'clock, +no wind at all, but a straight, soaking downpour.</p> + +<p>The guests at the Cliff Hotel were all indoors. Colonel Hankin and his +wife were reading in a corner of the lounge. Mr. Soutar, the clergyman, +was dozing over a newspaper by an imaginary fire. The other men drifted +continually from the bar to the billiard-room and back again.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Tailleur and Lucy were sitting in the veranda, with rugs round +them, watching the rain, and watched by Colonel and Mrs. Hankin.</p> + +<p>Jane had gone into the drawing-room to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> write letters. There was nobody +there but the old lady who sat in the bay of the window, everlastingly +knitting, and Miss Keating isolated on a sofa near the door.</p> + +<p>Everybody in the hotel was happy and occupied, except Miss Keating. Her +eyes followed the labour of Miss Lucy's pen, watching for the stroke +that should end it. She had made up her mind that she must speak to her.</p> + +<p>Miss Keating was subject to a passion which circumstances were +perpetually frustrating. She desired to be interesting, profoundly, +personally interesting to people. She disliked publicity partly because +it reduced her to mournful insignificance and silence. The few moments +in her life which counted were those private ones when she found +attention surrendered wholly to her service. She hungered for the +unworn, unwearied sympathy of strangers. Her fancy had followed and +fastened on the Lucys, perceiving this exquisitely virgin<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> quality in +them. And now she was suffering from an oppression of the nerves that +urged her to a supreme outpouring.</p> + +<p>Miss Lucy seemed absorbed in her correspondence. She felt that Miss +Keating's eyes were upon her, and as she wrote she planned a dexterous +retreat. It would, she knew, be difficult, owing to Miss Keating's +complete occupation of the sofa by the door.</p> + +<p>She had made that lady's acquaintance in the morning, having found her +sitting sad and solitary in the lounge. She had then felt that it would +be unkind not to say something to her, and she had spent the greater +part of the morning saying it. Miss Keating had tracked the thin thread +of conversation carefully, as if in search of an unapparent opportunity. +Jane, aware of the watchfulness of her method, had taken fright and left +her. She had had an awful feeling that Miss Keating was about to bestow +a confidence on her; somebody<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> else's confidence, which Miss Keating had +broken badly, she suspected.</p> + +<p>Jane had finished her letters. She was addressing the envelopes. Now she +was stamping them. Now she was crossing the room. Miss Keating lowered +her eyes as the moment came which was to bring her into communion with +the Lucys.</p> + +<p>Jane had made her way very quietly to the door, and thought to pass +through it unobserved, when Miss Keating seemed to leap up from her sofa +as from an ambush.</p> + +<p>"Miss Lucy," she said, and Jane turned at the penetrating sibilants of +her name.</p> + +<p>Miss Keating thrust toward her a face of tragic and imminent appeal. A +nervous vibration passed through her and communicated itself to Jane.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" Jane paused in the doorway.</p> + +<p>"May I speak to you a moment?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly."</p> + +<p>But Miss Keating did not speak. She<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> stood there, clasping and +unclasping her hands. It struck Jane that she was trying to conceal an +eagerness of which she was more than half ashamed.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" she said again.</p> + +<p>Miss Keating sighed. "Will you sit down? Here—I think." She glanced +significantly at the old lady who was betraying unmistakable interest in +the scene. There was no place where they could sit beyond her range of +vision. But the sofa was on the far side of it, and Miss Keating's back +protested against observation.</p> + +<p>She bent forward, her thin arms stretched out to Jane, her hands locked, +as if she still held tight the confidence she offered.</p> + +<p>"Miss Lucy," she said, "you were so kind to me this morning, so kind and +helpful."</p> + +<p>"I didn't know it."</p> + +<p>"No, you didn't know it." Miss Keating looked down, and she smiled as if +at some pleasant secret of her own. "I think when we are really helping +each other we don't<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> know it. You couldn't realise what it meant to me, +your just coming up and speaking to me that way."</p> + +<p>"I'm very glad," said Jane; and thought she meant it.</p> + +<p>Miss Keating smiled again. "I wonder," she said, "if I might ask you to +help me again?"</p> + +<p>"If I can."</p> + +<p>"You look as if you could. I'm in a great difficulty, and I would like +you—if you would—to give me your advice."</p> + +<p>"That," said Jane, "is a very dangerous thing to give."</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't be in this case. If I might only tell you. There's no one +in the hotel whom I can speak to."</p> + +<p>"Surely," said Jane, "there is Mrs. Tailleur, your friend."</p> + +<p>"My friend? Yes, she is my friend; that's why I can't say anything to +her. She <em>is</em> the difficulty."</p> + +<p>"Indeed," said Jane coldly. Nothing in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> Miss Keating appealed to the +spirit of adventurous sympathy.</p> + +<p>"I have received so much kindness from her. She <em>is</em> kind."</p> + +<p>"Evidently," said Jane.</p> + +<p>"That makes my position so very delicate—so very disagreeable."</p> + +<p>"I should think it would."</p> + +<p>Miss Keating felt the antipathy in Miss Lucy's tone. "You <em>do</em> think it +strange of me to come to you when I don't know you?"</p> + +<p>"No, no; people are always coming to me. Perhaps because they don't know +me."</p> + +<p>"Ah, you see, you make them come."</p> + +<p>"Indeed I don't. I try to stop them."</p> + +<p>"Are you trying to stop me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; I think I am."</p> + +<p>"Don't stop me, please."</p> + +<p>"But surely it would be better to consult your own people."</p> + +<p>Miss Keating paused. Miss Lucy had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> suggested the obvious course, which +she had avoided for reasons which were not obvious even to herself.</p> + +<p>"My own people?" she murmured pensively. "They are not here."</p> + +<p>It was not her fault if Miss Lucy jumped to the conclusion that they +were dead.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," she said, "if you see my difficulty?"</p> + +<p>"I see it plainly enough. Mrs. Tailleur has been very kind to you, and +you want to leave her. Why?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not sure that I ought to stay."</p> + +<p>"You must be the best judge of your obligations."</p> + +<p>"There are," said Miss Keating, "other things; I don't know that I'm a +good judge of <em>them</em>. You see, I was brought up very carefully."</p> + +<p>"Were you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I'm not sure that it's wise to be as careful as all that—to keep +young girls in ignorance of things they—things they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> must, sooner or +later——" she paused staring as if at an abyss.</p> + +<p>"What things?" asked Jane bluntly.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what things. I don't <em>know</em> anything. I'm afraid. I'm so +innocent, Miss Lucy, that I'm like a child in the dark. I think I want +some one to hold my hand and tell me there's nothing there."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps there isn't."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but it's so dark that I can't see whether there is or isn't. I'm +just like a little child. Except that it imagines things and I don't."</p> + +<p>"Don't you? Are you sure you don't let your imagination run away with +you sometimes?"</p> + +<p>"Not," said Miss Keating, "not on this subject. Even when I'm brought +into contact"—her shoulder-blades obeyed the suggestion of her brain, +and shuddered. "I don't know whether it's good or bad to refuse to face +things. I can't help it. All that side of life is so intensely +disagreeable to me."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It's not agreeable to me," said Jane. "And what <em>has</em> it got to do with +Mrs. Tailleur?"</p> + +<p>Miss Keating smiled queerly. "I don't know. I wish I did."</p> + +<p>"If you mean you think she isn't nice, I can tell you I'm sure you're +mistaken."</p> + +<p>"It's not what <em>I</em> think. It's what other people think."</p> + +<p>"What people?"</p> + +<p>"The people here."</p> + +<p>Little Jane lifted her head superbly.</p> + +<p>"<em>We</em> think the people here have behaved abominably to Mrs. Tailleur."</p> + +<p>She lifted her voice too. She didn't care who heard her. She rose, +making herself look as tall as possible.</p> + +<p>"And if you're her friend," said she, "you ought to think so too."</p> + +<p>She walked out of the room, still superbly. Miss Keating was left to a +painful meditation on misplaced confidence.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + + +<p class="cap">SHE had had no intention of betraying Kitty. Kitty, she imagined, had +sufficiently betrayed herself. And if she hadn't, as long as Kitty chose +to behave like a dubious person, she could hardly be surprised if +persons by no means dubious refused to be compromised. She, Miss +Keating, was in no way responsible for Kitty Tailleur. Neither was she +responsible for what other people thought of her. That was all, in +effect, that she had intimated to Miss Lucy.</p> + +<p>She did not say what she herself precisely thought, nor when she had +first felt that uncomfortable sensation of exposure, that little shiver +of cold and shame that seized her when in Kitty Tailleur's society. She +had no means of measuring the lengths to which Kitty had gone and might +yet go. She was simply possessed, driven and lashed by her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> vision of +Kitty as she had seen her yesterday; Kitty standing at the end of the +garden, on the watch for Mr. Lucy; Kitty returning, triumphant, with the +young man at her heels.</p> + +<p>She had seen Kitty with other men before, but there was something in +this particular combination that she could not bear to think of. All the +same, she had lain awake half the night thinking of it. She had Kitty +Tailleur and Mr. Lucy on her nerves.</p> + +<p>She had desired a pretext for approaching Miss Lucy, and poor Kitty was +a pretext made to her hand. Nothing could be more appealing than the +spectacle of helpless innocence struggling with a problem as terrible as +Kitty. Miss Keating knew all the time that as far as she was concerned +there was no problem. If she disliked being with Kitty she had nothing +to do but to pack up and go. Kitty had said in the beginning that if she +didn't like her she must go.</p> + +<p>That course was obvious but unattractive. And the most obvious and most +unattractive<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> thing about it was that it would not have brought her any +further with the Lucys. It would, in fact, have removed her altogether +from their view.</p> + +<p>But she had done for herself now with the Lucys. She should have kept +her nerves to herself, rasped, as they were to a treacherous tenuity. +And as the state of her nerves was owing to Kitty, she held Kitty +responsible for the crisis. She writhed as she thought of it. She +writhed as she thought of Mr. Lucy. She writhed as she thought of Kitty; +and writhing, she rubbed her own venom into her hurt.</p> + +<p>Of course she would have to leave Kitty now.</p> + +<p>But, if she did, the alternatives were grim. She would have either to go +back to her own people, or to look after somebody's children, or an +invalid. Her own people were not interested in Miss Keating. Children +and invalids demanded imperatively that she should be interested in +them.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> And Miss Keating, unfortunately, was not interested in anybody +but herself.</p> + +<p>So interested was she that she had forgotten the old lady who sat +knitting in the window, who, distracted by Miss Lucy's outburst, had let +her ball roll on to the floor. It rolled away across the room to Miss +Keating's feet, and there was a great tangle in the wool. Miss Keating +picked up the ball and brought it to the old lady, winding and +disentangling it as she went.</p> + +<p>"Thank you; my wool is a nuisance to everybody," said the old lady. And +she began to talk about her knitting. All the year round she knitted +comforters for the deep-sea fishermen, gray and red and blue. When she +was tired of one colour she went to another. It would be red's turn +next.</p> + +<p>Miss Keating felt as if she were being drawn to the old lady by that +thin thread of wool. And the old lady kept looking at her all the time.</p> + +<p>"Your face is familiar to me," she said. (Oddly enough, the old lady's +face<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> was familiar to Miss Keating.) "I have met you somewhere; I cannot +think where."</p> + +<p>"I wonder," said Miss Keating, "if it was at Wenden, my father's +parish?"</p> + +<p>The old lady's look was sharper. "Your father is the vicar of Wenden?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"I thought so."</p> + +<p>"Do you know him?" The ball slipped from Miss Keating's nervous fingers +and the wool was tangled worse than ever.</p> + +<p>"No, no; but I could tell that you were——" she hesitated. "It was at +Ilkley that I met you. It's coming back to me. You were not then with +Mrs. Tailleur, I think? You were with an invalid lady?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; I was until I broke down."</p> + +<p>"May I ask if you knew Mrs. Tailleur before you came to her?"</p> + +<p>"No. I knew nothing of her. I know nothing now."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said the old lady. It was as if she had said: that settles it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span></p> + +<p>The wool was disentangled. It was winding them nearer and nearer.</p> + +<p>"Have you been with her long?"</p> + +<p>"Not more than three months."</p> + +<p>There were only five inches of wool between them now. "Do you mind +telling me where you picked her up?"</p> + +<p>Miss Keating remembered with compunction that it was Kitty who had +picked <em>her</em> up. Picked her up, as it were, in her arms, and carried her +away from the dreadful northern Hydropathic where she had dropped, +forlorn and exhausted, in the trail of her opulent invalid.</p> + +<p>"It was at Matlock, afterward. Why?"</p> + +<p>"Because, my dear—you must forgive me, but I could not help hearing +what that young lady said. She was so very—so very unrestrained."</p> + +<p>"Very ill-bred, I should say."</p> + +<p>"Well, I should not have said that. You couldn't mistake the Lucys for +anything but gentlepeople. Evidently I was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> meant to hear. I've no doubt +she thinks us all very unkind."</p> + +<p>"Unkind? Why?"</p> + +<p>"Because we have—have not exactly taken to Mrs. Tailleur; if you'll +forgive my saying so."</p> + +<p>Miss Keating's smile forgave her. "People do not always take to her. She +is more a favourite, I think, with men." She gave the ball into the old +lady's hands.</p> + +<p>The old lady coughed slightly. "Thank you, my dear. I dare say <em>you</em> +have thought it strange. We are such a friendly little community here; +and if Mrs. Tailleur had been at all possible——"</p> + +<p>"I believe," said Miss Keating, "she is very well connected. Lord +Matcham is a most intimate friend of hers."</p> + +<p>"That doesn't speak very well for Lord Matcham, I'm afraid."</p> + +<p>"I wish," said Miss Keating, "you would be frank with me."</p> + +<p>"I should like to be, my dear."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Then, please—if there's anything you think I should be told—tell me."</p> + +<p>"I think you ought to be told that we all are wondering a little at your +being seen with Mrs. Tailleur. You are too nice, if I may say so, and +she is—well, not the sort of person you should be going about with."</p> + +<p>Miss Keating's mouth opened slightly.</p> + +<p>"Do you know anything about her?"</p> + +<p>"I know less than you do. I'm only going by what Colonel Hankin says."</p> + +<p>"Colonel Hankin?"</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Hankin, I should say; of course I couldn't speak about Mrs. +Tailleur to <em>him</em>."</p> + +<p>"Has he ever met her?"</p> + +<p>"Met her? In society? My dear!—he has never met her anywhere."</p> + +<p>"Then would he—would he really know?"</p> + +<p>"It isn't only the Colonel. All the men in the hotel say the same thing. +You can see how they stare at her."</p> + +<p>"Oh, those men!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You may depend upon it, they know more than we do."</p> + +<p>"How can they? How—how do they tell?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose they see something."</p> + +<p>Miss Keating saw it, too. She shuddered involuntarily. Her knees shook +under her. She sat down.</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I don't know what it is," said the old lady.</p> + +<p>"Nor I," said Miss Keating faintly.</p> + +<p>"They say you've only got to look at her——"</p> + +<p>A dull flush spread over Miss Keating's face. She was breathing hard. +Her mouth opened to speak; a thick sigh came through it, but no words.</p> + +<p>"I've looked," said the old lady, "and I can't see anything about her +different from other people. She dresses so quietly; but I'm told they +often do. They're very careful that we shouldn't know them."</p> + +<p>"They? Oh, you don't mean that Mrs. Tailleur—is——"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'm only going by what I'm told. Mind you, I get it all from Mrs. +Hankin."</p> + +<p>Miss Keating, who had been leaning forward, sat suddenly bolt upright. +Her whole body was shaking now. Her voice was low but violent.</p> + +<p>"Oh—oh—I knew it—I knew. I always felt there was something about +her."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure, my dear, you didn't <em>know</em>."</p> + +<p>"I didn't. I didn't think it was that; I only thought she wasn't nice. I +thought she was fast, or she'd been divorced, or something—something +terrible of that sort."</p> + +<p>She still sat bolt upright, gazing open-eyed, open-mouthed at the +terror. She was filled with a fierce excitement, a sort of exultation. +Then doubt came to her.</p> + +<p>"But surely—surely the hotel people would know?"</p> + +<p>"Hotel people never know anything that isn't their interest to know. If +there were any complaint, or if any of the guests were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> to leave on +account of her, Mrs. Tailleur would have to go."</p> + +<p>"And has there been any complaint?"</p> + +<p>"I believe Mr. Soutar—the clergyman—has spoken to the manager."</p> + +<p>"And the manager?"</p> + +<p>"Well, you see, Mr. Soutar is always complaining. He complained about +the food, and about his bedroom. He has the cheapest bedroom in the +hotel."</p> + +<p>Miss Keating was thinking hard. Her idea was that Kitty Tailleur should +go, and that she should remain.</p> + +<p>"Don't you think if Colonel Hankin spoke to the manager——"</p> + +<p>"He wouldn't. He's much too kind. Besides, the manager can't do anything +as long as she behaves herself. And now that the Lucys have taken her +up——. And then, there's you. Your being with her is her great +protection. As she very well knew when she engaged you."</p> + +<p>"I was engaged for <em>that</em>?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span></p> + +<p>"There can be very little doubt of it."</p> + +<p>"Oh! then nobody thinks that I knew it? That I'm like her?"</p> + +<p>"Nobody <em>could</em> think that of you."</p> + +<p>"What am I to do? I'm so helpless, and I've no one to advise me. And +it's not as if we really knew anything."</p> + +<p>"My dear, I think you should leave her."</p> + +<p>"Of course I shall leave her. I can't stay another day. But I don't know +how I ought to do it."</p> + +<p>"Would you like to consult Colonel Hankin?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no; I don't think I could bear to speak about it to him."</p> + +<p>"Well—and perhaps he would not like to be brought into it, either."</p> + +<p>"Then what reason can I give her?"</p> + +<p>"Of course you cannot tell her what you've heard."</p> + +<p>Miss Keating was silent.</p> + +<p>"Or if you do, you must please not give me as your informant."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I will not do that."</p> + +<p>"Nor—please—Colonel and Mrs. Hankin. We none of us want to be mixed up +with any unpleasant business."</p> + +<p>"You may trust me," said Miss Keating. "I am very discreet."</p> + +<p>She rose. The old lady held her with detaining eyes.</p> + +<p>"What shall you do when you have left her?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose I shall have to look for another place."</p> + +<p>"You are not going home, then?"</p> + +<p>Miss Keating's half-smile hinted at renunciation. "I have too many +younger sisters."</p> + +<p>"Well, let me see. I shall be going back to Surbiton the day after +to-morrow. How would it be if you were to come with me?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mrs.—Mrs.——" The smile wavered, but it held its place.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Jurd. If we suited each other you might stay with me, at any rate +for a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> week or two. I've been a long time looking out for a companion."</p> + +<p>Miss Keating's smile was now strained with hesitation. Mrs. Jurd was not +an invalid, and she was interested in Miss Keating. These were points in +her favour. On the other hand, nobody who could do better would choose +to live with Mrs. Jurd and wind wool and talk about the deep-sea +fishermen.</p> + +<p>"I am living," said Mrs. Jurd, "with my nephew at Surbiton. I have to +keep his house for him."</p> + +<p>"Then do you think you would really need any one?"</p> + +<p>"Indeed I do. My nephew isn't a companion for me. He's in the city all +day and out most evenings, or he brings his friends in and they get +smoking."</p> + +<p>Miss Keating's smile was now released from its terrible constraint. A +slight tremor, born of that deliverance, passed over her face, and left +it rosy. But having committed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> herself to the policy of hesitation she +had a certain delicacy in departing from it now.</p> + +<p>"Are you quite sure you would care to have <em>me</em>?"</p> + +<p>"My dear, I am quite sure that I don't care to have any one who is not a +lady; and I am quite sure that I am talking to a lady. It is very seldom +in these days that one can be sure."</p> + +<p>Miss Keating made a little bow and blushed.</p> + +<p>After a great deal of conversation it was settled that she should +exchange the Cliff Hotel for the Métropole that night, and that she +should stay there until she left Southbourne for Surbiton, with Mrs. +Jurd.</p> + +<p>When Colonel and Mrs. Hankin looked in to report upon the weather, this +scheme was submitted to them as to supreme judges in a question of +propriety.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Tailleur was not mentioned. Her name stood for things that decorous +persons do not mention, except under certain sanctions and the plea of +privilege. The Colonel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> might mention them to his wife, and his wife +might mention them to Mrs. Jurd, who might pass them on with +unimpeachable propriety to Miss Keating. But these ladies were unable to +discuss Mrs. Tailleur in the presence of the Colonel. Still, as none of +them could do without her, she was permitted to appear in a purified +form, veiled in obscure references, or diminished to an innocent +abstraction.</p> + +<p>Miss Keating, Mrs. Jurd said, was not at all satisfied with her—er—her +present situation.</p> + +<p>The Colonel lowered his eyes for one iniquitous instant while Mrs. +Tailleur, disguised as Miss Keating's present situation, laughed through +the veil and trailed before him her unabashed enormity.</p> + +<p>He managed to express, with becoming gravity, his approval of the +scheme. He only wondered whether it might not be better for Miss Keating +to stay where she was until the morning, that her step might not seem so +precipitate, so marked.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span></p> + +<p>Miss Keating replied that she thought she had been sufficiently +compromised already.</p> + +<p>"I don't think," said the Colonel, "that I should put it that way."</p> + +<p>He felt that by putting it that way Miss Keating had brought them a +little too near what he called the verge, the verge they were all so +dexterously avoiding. He would have been glad if he could have been kept +out of this somewhat perilous debate, but, since the women had dragged +him into it, it was his business to see that it was confined within the +limits of comparative safety. Goodness knew where they would be landed +if the women lost their heads.</p> + +<p>He looked gravely at Miss Keating.</p> + +<p>That look unnerved her, and she took a staggering step that brought her +within measurable distance of the verge.</p> + +<p>The Colonel might put it any way he liked, she said. There must not be a +moment's doubt as to her attitude.</p> + +<p>Now it was not her attitude that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> Colonel was thinking of, but his +own. It had been an attitude of dignity, of judicial benevolence, of +incorruptible reserve. Any sort of unpleasantness was agony to a man who +had the habit of perfection. It was dawning on him that unless he +exercised considerable caution he would find himself mixed up in an +uncommonly disagreeable affair. He might even be held responsible for +it, since the dubiousness of the topic need never have emerged if he had +not unveiled it to his wife. So that, when Miss Keating, in her +unsteadiness, declared that there must not be a moment's doubt as to her +attitude, the Colonel himself was seized with a slight vertigo. He +suggested that people (luckily he got no nearer it than that)—people +were, after all, entitled to the benefit of any doubt there might be.</p> + +<p>Then, when the danger was sheer in front of them, he drew back. Miss +Keating, he said, had nobody but herself to please. He had no more light +to throw on the—er—the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> situation. Really, he said to himself, they +couldn't have hit on a more serviceable word.</p> + +<p>He considered that he had now led the discussion to its close, on lines +of irreproachable symbolism. Nobody had overstepped the verge. Mrs. +Tailleur had not once been mentioned. She might have disappeared behind +the shelter provided by the merciful, silent decencies. Colonel Hankin +had shown his unwillingness to pursue her into the dim and undesirable +regions whence she came.</p> + +<p>Then suddenly Miss Keating cried out her name.</p> + +<p>She had felt herself abandoned, left there, all alone on the verge, and +before any of them knew where they were she was over it. Happily, she +was unaware of the violence with which she went. She seemed to herself +to move, downward indeed, but with a sure and slow propulsion. She +believed herself challenged to the demonstration by the Colonel's +attitude. The high distinction<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> of it, that was remotely akin to Mr. +Lucy's, somehow obscured and degraded her. She conceived a dislike to +this well-behaved and honourable gentleman, and to his visible +perfections, the clean, silver whiteness and the pinkness of him.</p> + +<p>His case was clear to her. He was a man, and he had looked at Kitty +Tailleur, and his sympathies, like Mr. Lucy's, had suffered an +abominable perversion. His judgment, like Mr. Lucy's, had surrendered to +the horrible charm. She said to herself bitterly, that she could not +compete with <em>that</em>.</p> + +<p>She trembled as she faced the Colonel. "Very well, then," said she, "as +there is no one to help me I must protect myself. I shall not sleep +another night under the same roof as Mrs. Tailleur."</p> + +<p>The three winced as if the name had been a blow struck at them. The +Colonel's silver eyebrows rose bristling. Mrs. Hankin got up and went +out of the room. Mrs. Jurd bent her head over her knitting. None of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> +them looked at Miss Keating; not even the Colonel, as he spoke.</p> + +<p>"If you feel like that about it," said he, "there is nothing more to be +said."</p> + +<p>He rose and followed his wife.</p> + +<p>Upstairs, when their bedroom door had closed on them, he reproved her +very seriously for her indiscretion.</p> + +<p>"You asked me," said he, "what I thought of Mrs. Tailleur, and I told +you; but I never said you were to go and hand it on. What on earth have +you been saying to those women?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't say anything to Miss Keating."</p> + +<p>"No, but you must have done to Mrs. What's-her-name?"</p> + +<p>"Not very much. I don't like talking about unpleasant subjects, as you +know."</p> + +<p>"Well, somebody's been talking about them. I shouldn't wonder, after +this, if poor Mrs. Tailleur's room were wanted to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Oh, do you think they'll turn her out?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span></p> + +<p>She was a kind woman and she could not bear to think it would come to +that.</p> + +<p>The Colonel was silent. He was sitting on the bed, watching his wife as +she undid the fastenings of her gown. At that moment a certain brief and +sudden sin of his youth rose up before him. It looked at him pitifully, +reproachfully, with the eyes of Mrs. Tailleur.</p> + +<p>"I wish," said Mrs. Hankin, "we hadn't said anything at all."</p> + +<p>"So do I," said the Colonel. But for the life of him he couldn't help +saying something more. "If she goes," he said, "I rather think that +young fellow will go, too."</p> + +<p>"And the sister?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, the sister, I imagine, will remain."</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + + +<p class="cap">KITTY was dressed. She was calling out to her companion, "Bunny, hurry +up, you'll be late." No answer came from the adjoining room. She tapped +at the door and there was no answer. She tried to open the door. It was +locked on the inside. "Bunny," she cried, "are you there?" She laid her +ear to the panel. There was the sound of a box being dragged across the +floor.</p> + +<p>"You <em>are</em> there, are you? Why don't you answer? I can't hear you. Why +can't you open the door?"</p> + +<p>Miss Keating unlocked the door. She held it ajar and spoke through the +aperture.</p> + +<p>"Be good enough," she said, "to leave me alone."</p> + +<p>"All right; but you'll be awfully late for dinner."</p> + +<p>"I am not coming down to dinner."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>Miss Keating shut the door, but she did not lock it.</p> + +<p>Kitty gave a cry of distress.</p> + +<p>"Bunny, what <em>is</em> the matter? Let me in—do let me in."</p> + +<p>"You can come in if you like."</p> + +<p>Kitty opened the door. But instead of going in, she stood fixed upon the +threshold, struck dumb by what she saw.</p> + +<p>The room was in disorder. Clothes littered the bed. More clothes were +heaped on the floor around an open trunk. Miss Keating was kneeling on +the floor seizing on things and thrusting them into the trunk. Their +strangled, tortured forms witnessed to the violence of her mood.</p> + +<p>"What <em>are</em> you doing?"</p> + +<p>"You can see what I'm doing. I am packing my things."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Because I am going away."</p> + +<p>"Have you had bad news? Is—is anybody dead?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I wouldn't ask any questions if I were you."</p> + +<p>"I must ask some. You know, people <em>don't</em> walk off like this without +giving any reason."</p> + +<p>"I am surprised at your asking for my reason."</p> + +<p>"Sur—prised," said Kitty softly. "Are you going because of me?"</p> + +<p>Miss Keating did not answer.</p> + +<p>"I see. So you don't like me any more?"</p> + +<p>"We won't put it that way."</p> + +<p>Kitty came and stood beside Miss Keating and looked down at her.</p> + +<p>"Bunny, have I been a brute to you?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Have I ever been a brute to any one? Have you ever known me do an +unkind thing, or say an unkind word to any one?"</p> + +<p>"N—no."</p> + +<p>"Then why do you listen when people say unkind things about me?"</p> + +<p>Miss Keating stooped very low over the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> trunk. Her attitude no doubt +accounted for the redness of her face which Kitty noticed. "I think I +know what they've been saying. Did you or did you not listen?"</p> + +<p>"Listen?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I don't mean behind doors and things. But you let them talk to +you?"</p> + +<p>"You cannot stop people talking."</p> + +<p>"Can't you? I'd have stopped them pretty soon if they'd talked to me +about you. What did they say?"</p> + +<p>"You've said just now you knew."</p> + +<p>"Very well. Who said it?"</p> + +<p>"You've no reason to assume that anybody has said anything."</p> + +<p>"Was it Mr. Lucy, or his sister?"</p> + +<p>Miss Keating became agitated.</p> + +<p>"I have never discussed you with Mr. Lucy. Or his sister." There was a +little click in Miss Keating's throat where the lie stuck.</p> + +<p>"I know you haven't. They wouldn't let you."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p> + +<p>Kitty smiled. Miss Keating saw the smile. She trembled. Tears started to +her eyes. She rose and began sorting the pile of clothing on the bed.</p> + +<p>Something in her action inspired Kitty with an intolerable passion of +wonder and of pity. She came to her and laid her hand on her hair, +lightly and with a certain fear.</p> + +<p>Miss Keating had once purred under Kitty's caresses. Now she jerked back +suddenly and beat off the timid hand.</p> + +<p>"I wish you wouldn't touch me."</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"Because it makes me loathe you."</p> + +<p>Kitty sat down on the bed. She had wrapped her hand in her +pocket-handkerchief as if it had been hurt.</p> + +<p>"Poor Bunny," she said; "are you feeling as bad as all that? You must +want dreadfully to marry that long man. But you needn't loathe me. I'm +not going to make him marry <em>me</em>."</p> + +<p>"Can you not think of anything but that?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I can <em>think</em> of all sorts of things. At present I'm thinking of that. +It does seem such an awful pity that you haven't married. A dear little, +sweet little, good little thing like you—for you <em>are</em> good, Bunny. +It's a shame that you should have to live in rage and fury, and be very +miserable, and—and rather cruel, just because of that."</p> + +<p>"If every word you said of me was true, I'd rather be myself than you, +Mrs. Tailleur."</p> + +<p>"That, Miss Keating, is purely a matter of taste. Unhappiness is all +that's the matter with you. You'd be quite a kind woman if it wasn't for +that. You see, I do understand you, Bunny. So it isn't very wise of you +to leave me. Think what an awful time you'll have if you go and live +with somebody who doesn't understand and won't make allowances. And +you're not strong. You never will be as long as you're miserable. You'll +go and live with ill old ladies and get into that state you were in at +Matlock. And there won't be anybody to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> look after you. And, Bunny, +you'll never marry—never; and it'll be simply awful. You'll go getting +older and older and nervier and nervier, till you're <em>so</em> nervy that +even the old ladies won't have you any more. Bad as I am, you'd better +stop with me."</p> + +<p>"Stop with you? How can I stop with you?"</p> + +<p>"Well, you haven't told me yet why you can't."</p> + +<p>"I can't tell you. I—I've written you a letter. It's there on the +dressing-table."</p> + +<p>Kitty went to the dressing-table.</p> + +<p>"I am returning you my salary for the quarter I have been with you."</p> + +<p>Kitty took up the letter.</p> + +<p>"I'd rather you did not read it until after I am gone."</p> + +<p>"That's not fair, Bunny."</p> + +<p>"Please—I've written what I had to say because I wished to avoid a +scene."</p> + +<p>"There won't be any scene. I'm not going to read your beastly letter."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span></p> + +<p>She opened the envelope and removed the notes and laid them on the +dressing-table. Then she tore up the letter and the envelope together +and tossed them into the grate.</p> + +<p>"And I'm not going to take those notes."</p> + +<p>"Nor am I."</p> + +<p>"You'll have to." She found her companion's purse and tucked the notes +inside it. Miss Keating turned on her. "Mrs. Tailleur, you shall not +thrust your money on me. I will not take it."</p> + +<p>"You little fool, you've got to."</p> + +<p>Miss Keating closed her eyes. It was a way she had. "I can't. And you +must please take back the things you've given me. They are all there; in +that heap on the bed."</p> + +<p>Kitty turned and looked at them. They were all there; everything she had +ever given to her, the dresses, the combs, the little trinkets. She took +some of these and stared at them as she held them in her hand.</p> + +<p>"Won't you keep anything?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I won't keep a thing."</p> + +<p>"Not even the little chain I gave you? Oh, Bunny, you liked your little +chain."</p> + +<p>Miss Keating took the chain from her and laid it with the rest.</p> + +<p>"Please leave me to pack."</p> + +<p>"Presently. Bunny—look at me—straight. Why are you doing this?"</p> + +<p>"I wish to be spared the unpleasantness of speaking."</p> + +<p>"But you've got to speak. Out with it. What have I done?"</p> + +<p>"You know better than I do what your life has been."</p> + +<p>"My life? I should think I did. Rather."</p> + +<p>Kitty crossed the room to the bell.</p> + +<p>"What time does your train go?"</p> + +<p>"My——? I—must leave this at seven-thirty."</p> + +<p>Kitty rang the bell. A housemaid appeared.</p> + +<p>"I want a fly at seven-thirty. Please see that Miss Keating's luggage is +downstairs by then. Her room will not be wanted."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span></p> + +<p>Miss Keating's face was livid.</p> + +<p>"You wish," said she, "the hotel people to think that it is you who have +given <em>me</em> notice?"</p> + +<p>"You poor thing. I only wanted the fly to go down to my account."</p> + +<p>"You expect me to believe that?"</p> + +<p>"I don't expect anything of you—now. I suppose it's Colonel Hankin who +has been talking about my life? It wasn't Mr. Lucy, though you'd like to +make me think so."</p> + +<p>"There's no need for anybody to talk. Do you suppose I don't know what +you are? You can't hide what's in you. You're—you're full of it. And +you've no shame about it. You can stand there, knowing that I know, and +ask me what you've done. How do I know what you've done? I don't want to +know it. It's bad enough to know what you are. And to know that I've +been living with it for three months. You got hold of me, an innocent +woman,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> and used me as a cover for your evil life. That's all you wanted +me for."</p> + +<p>"Whatever I've done, I've done nothing to deserve that."</p> + +<p>"You think not? Have you any idea what you've done—to me?"</p> + +<p>"No; I haven't. What have I done?"</p> + +<p>"I'm going to tell you. You've never ceased casting it up to me that I'm +not married, that I haven't your attractions—I thank heaven I have +not—I am not the sort of woman you take me for. I never have wanted to +be married, but if—if ever I had, I shouldn't want it now. You've +spoilt all that for me. I shall never see a man without thinking of +<em>you</em>. I shall hate every man I meet because of you."</p> + +<p>"Well, hate them, hate them. It's better than loving them. Let me strap +that box. You'll tear your poor heart out."</p> + +<p>Miss Keating wrenched the strap from Kitty's hands.</p> + +<p>"Ah, how you hate me! Hate the men,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> dear, that can't do you any harm; +but don't hate the other women. At my worst I never did that."</p> + +<p>Miss Keating shrugged her shoulders, for she was putting on her coat. +Kitty looked at her and sighed.</p> + +<p>"Bunny," said she, "I want to make it quite clear to you why you're +going. You think it's because you know something horrible about me. But +it isn't. You don't know anything about me. You've only been listening +to some of the people in the hotel. They don't know anything about me +either. They've never met me in their lives before. But they've been +thinking things and saying things, and you've swallowed it all because +you wanted to. You're so desperately keen on making out there's +something bad about me. Of course, you might have made it out; you might +have proved all sorts of things against me. But you haven't. That's my +whole point. You haven't proved a thing, have you? If you were my +husband,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> and wanted to get rid of me, you'd have to trump up some +evidence, wouldn't you?"</p> + +<p>"There is no need to trump up evidence. I'm acting on my instinct and +belief."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know you believe it all right."</p> + +<p>"I can't help what I believe."</p> + +<p>"No, you can't help it. You can't help what you want. And you wouldn't +have wanted it if you hadn't been so furiously unhappy. I was furiously +unhappy myself once. That's why I understand you."</p> + +<p>"It is five-and-twenty minutes past seven, Mrs. Tailleur."</p> + +<p>"And in five minutes you'll go. And you won't hear a word in my defence? +You won't? Why, if I'd murdered somebody and they were going to hang me, +they'd let me defend myself before they did it. All I was going to say +was—supposing everything you said was true, I think <em>you</em> might have +made allowances for me. You can't? I was harder driven than you."</p> + +<p>"No two cases could well be more different."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Once they were the same. Only it was worse for me. All your temptations +are bottled up inside you. Mine rushed at me from inside and outside +too. I've had all the things you had. I had a strait-laced parson for my +father—so had you. I was poked away in a hole in the country—so were +you. I had little sisters—so had you. My mother sent me away from home +for fear I should harm them." Her voice shook. "I wouldn't have harmed +them for the world. I was sent to live with an old lady—so were you. I +was shut up with her all day, till I got ill and couldn't sleep at +night. I never saw a soul but one or two other old ladies. They were +quite fond of me—I made them. I should have died of it if it hadn't +been for that. Then—do listen, Bunny—something happened, and I broke +loose, and got away. You never had a chance to get away, so you don't +know what it feels like. Perhaps, I think, when it came to the point, +you'd have been afraid,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> or something. I wasn't. And I was young. I'm +young still. You can't judge me. Anyhow, I know what you've been +through. That's what made me sorry for you. Can't you be a little sorry +for me?"</p> + +<p>Miss Keating said nothing. She was putting on her hat, and her mouth at +the moment was closed tight over a long hat-pin. She drew it out slowly +between her shut lips. Meeting Kitty's eyes she blinked.</p> + +<p>"You needn't be sorry," said Kitty. "I've had things that you haven't."</p> + +<p>Miss Keating turned to the looking-glass and put on her veil. Her back +was toward Kitty. The two women's faces were in the glass, the young and +the middle-aged, each searching for the other. Kitty's face was tearful +and piteous; it pleaded with the other face in the glass, a face furtive +with hate, that hung between two lifted arms behind a veil.</p> + +<p>Miss Keating's hands struggled with her veil.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I mayn't tie it for you?" said Kitty.</p> + +<p>"No, thank you."</p> + +<p>There was a knock at the door, and Miss Keating started.</p> + +<p>"It's the men for your boxes. Come into my room and say good bye."</p> + +<p>"I prefer to say good bye here, if it's all the same to you. Good bye."</p> + +<p>"You won't even shake hands with me? Well, if you won't—why should +you?"</p> + +<p>"I am holding out my hand. If you won't take it——"</p> + +<p>"No, no. I don't want to take it."</p> + +<p>Kitty was crying.</p> + +<p>"I must let those men in," said Miss Keating. "You are not going to make +a scene?"</p> + +<p>"I? Oh Lord, no. You needn't mind me. I'll go."</p> + +<p>She went into her own room and flung herself, face downward, on to her +pillow, and slid by the bedside, kneeling, to the floor.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + + +<p class="cap">AT eight o'clock Mrs. Tailleur was not to be found in her room, or in +any other part of the hotel. By nine Lucy was out on the Cliff-side +looking for her. He was not able to account for the instinct that told +him she would be there.</p> + +<p>The rain had ceased earlier in the evening. Now it was falling again in +torrents. He could see that the path was pitted with small, sharp +footprints. They turned and returned, obliterating each other.</p> + +<p>At the end of the path, in the white chamber under the brow of the +Cliff, he made out first a queer, irregular, trailing black mass, then +the peak of a hood against the wall, and the long train of a woman's +gown upon the floor, and then, between the loops of the hood, the edge +of Mrs. Tailleur's white face, dim, but discernible. She sat<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> sideways, +leaning against the wall, in the slack, childlike attitude of exhausted +misery.</p> + +<p>He came close. She did not stir at the sound of his feet trampling the +slush. Her eyes were shut, her mouth open; she breathed, like a child, +the half-suffocated breath that comes after long crying. He stood +looking at her, tongue-tied with pity. Every now and then her throat +shook like a child's with guileless hiccoughing sobs.</p> + +<p>He stooped over her and called her name.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Tailleur."</p> + +<p>She turned from him and sank sidelong into the corner, hiding her face. +The long wings of her cloak parted and hung back from her cowering body. +Her thin garments, beaten smooth by the rain, clung like one tissue to +the long slope above her knees. Lucy laid his hand gently on her gown. +She was drenched to the skin. It struck through, cold and shuddering, to +his touch. She pushed his hand away and sat up.</p> + +<p>"I think," she said, "you'd better go away."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Do you want me to go?"</p> + +<p>"I don't want you to see me like this. I'm—I'm not pretty to look at."</p> + +<p>"That doesn't matter in the very least. Besides, I can hardly see you in +this light."</p> + +<p>He drew her cloak about her and fastened it. He could feel, from the +nearness of her flushed mouth, the heat and the taste of grief. She +flung her head back to the wall away from him. Her hood slipped, and he +put his arm behind her shoulders and raised it, and drew it gently +forward to shelter her head from the rough wall. His hand was wet with +the rain from her loose hair.</p> + +<p>"How long have you been walking about in the rain before you came here?"</p> + +<p>She tried to speak, and with the effort her sobs broke out in violence. +It struck him again, and with another pang of pity, how like a child she +was in the completeness of her abandonment! He sat down beside her, +leaning forward, his face hidden<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> in his hands. He felt that to hide his +own face was somehow to screen her.</p> + +<p>Her sobbing went on, and her hand, stretched toward him unawares, +clutched at the top of the wooden seat.</p> + +<p>"Would you like me to go away and come back again?" he said presently.</p> + +<p>"No!" she cried. And at her own cry a terrible convulsion shook her. He +could feel her whole body strain and stiffen with the effort to control +it. Then she was calm.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon," she said. "I told you, didn't I, that you'd better +go away?"</p> + +<p>"Do you suppose that I'm going to leave you here? Just when I've found +you?"</p> + +<p>"Miss Keating's left me. Did you know?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I heard. Is it—is it a great trouble to you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes." She shook again.</p> + +<p>"Surely," he began, and hesitated, and grew bold. "Surely it needn't be? +She wasn't, was she, such a particularly amiable person?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span></p> + +<p>"She couldn't help it. She was so unhappy."</p> + +<p>His voice softened. "You were very fond of her?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. How did you know she'd gone?"</p> + +<p>It was too dark in there for him to see the fear in her eyes as she +turned them to him.</p> + +<p>"Oh," he said, "we heard she'd left. I suppose she had to go."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Mrs. Tailleur, "she had to go."</p> + +<p>"Well, I shouldn't distress myself any more about it. Tell me, have you +been walking about in the rain ever since she left?"</p> + +<p>"I—I think so."</p> + +<p>"And my little sister was looking for you everywhere. She wanted you to +dine with us. We thought you would, perhaps, as you were free."</p> + +<p>"That was very good of you."</p> + +<p>"We couldn't find you anywhere in the hotel. Then I came out here."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What made you come?"</p> + +<p>"I came to look for you."</p> + +<p>"To look for me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. You don't mind, do you?"</p> + +<p>"How did you know I should be here?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't. It was the last place I tried. Do you know it's past nine +o'clock? You must come in now."</p> + +<p>"I—can't."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes," he said, "you can. You're coming back with me."</p> + +<p>He talked as he would to a frightened child, to one of his own children.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid to go back."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Because of Bunny. She told me people were saying dreadful things about +me. That's why she left. She couldn't bear it."</p> + +<p>Lucy ground his teeth. "<em>She</em> couldn't bear it? That shows what she was, +doesn't it? But you—you don't mind what people say?"</p> + +<p>"No," she said, "I don't mind."</p> + +<p>"Well——"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes!" she cried passionately. "I do mind. I've always minded. It's just +the one thing I can't get over."</p> + +<p>"It's the one thing," said Lucy, "we have to learn to get over. When +you've lived to be as old as I am, you'll see how very little it matters +what people say of us. Especially when we know what other people think."</p> + +<p>"Other people?"</p> + +<p>"Friends," he said, "the people who really care."</p> + +<p>"Ah, if we only could know what they think. That's the most horrible +thing of all—what they think."</p> + +<p>"Is that why you don't want to go back?"</p> + +<p>Lucy's voice was unsteady and very low.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she whispered.</p> + +<p>There was a brief silence.</p> + +<p>"But if you go back with <em>me</em>," he said, "it will be all right, won't +it?"</p> + +<p>The look in her eyes almost reached him through the darkness, it was so +intense.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No," she said out loud, "it won't. It will be all wrong."</p> + +<p>"I don't agree with you. Anyhow, I'm going to take you back. Come."</p> + +<p>"No," she said, "not yet. Mayn't we stay here a little longer?"</p> + +<p>"No, we mayn't. You've got your death of cold as it is."</p> + +<p>"I'm not cold, now. I'm warm. Feel my hands."</p> + +<p>She held them out to him. He did not touch them. But he put his arm +round her and raised her to her feet. And they went back together along +the narrow Cliff-path. It was dangerous in the perishing light. He took +her hands in his now, and led her sidelong. When her feet slipped in the +slimy chalk, he held her up with his arm.</p> + +<p>At the little gate she turned to him.</p> + +<p>"I was kind to Bunny," she said, "I was really."</p> + +<p>"I am sure," he said gently, "you are kind to everybody."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That's something, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not sure that it isn't everything."</p> + +<p>They went up the side of the garden, along the shrubbery, by a path that +led to the main entrance of the hotel. A great ring of white light lay +on the wet ground before the porch, thrown from the electric lamps +within.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Tailleur stepped back into the darkness by the shrubbery. "Look +here," she said, "I'm going in by myself. You are going round another +way. You have not seen me. You don't know where I am. You don't know +anything about me."</p> + +<p>"I know," said Lucy, "you are coming in with me."</p> + +<p>She drew farther back. "I'm not thinking of myself," she said, "I'm +thinking of you."</p> + +<p>She was no longer like a child. Her voice had suddenly grown older.</p> + +<p>"Are you?" he said. "Then you'll do what I ask you." He held her with +his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> arm and drew her, resisting and unresisting, close to him.</p> + +<p>"Ah," she cried, "what are you going to do with me?"</p> + +<p>"I am going," he said, "to take you to my sister."</p> + +<p>And he went with her, up the steps and into the lighted vestibule, past +the hall-porter and the clerk in his bureau and the manager's wife in +hers, straight into the lounge, before the Colonel and his wife, and he +led her to Jane where she sat in her place beside the hearth.</p> + +<p>"It isn't half such a bad night as it looks," said he in a clear voice. +"Is it, Mrs. Tailleur?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><a name="X" id="X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + + +<p class="cap">FIVE minutes later Lucy was talking to Colonel and Mrs. Hankin, with +genial unconcern. They never knew that he knew what they had been +saying, or how their tongues had scourged Mrs. Tailleur out into the +lash of the rain. They never knew that the young man who conversed with +them so amiably was longing to take the Colonel by his pink throat and +throttle him, nor that it was only a higher chivalry that held him from +this disastrous deed. The Colonel merely felt himself in the presence of +an incomparable innocence; but whether it was Lucy who was innocent, or +Mrs. Tailleur, or the two of them together, he really could not say.</p> + +<p>Upstairs, in Mrs. Tailleur's bedroom, Jane Lucy was talking to Mrs. +Tailleur. They were sitting by the hearth while Kitty,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> clothed in warm +garments, shook out her drenched hair before the fire. She had just told +Jane how Miss Keating had left her, and she had become tearful again +over the telling.</p> + +<p>"Need you mind so much? Is she worth it?" said Jane, very much as Robert +had said.</p> + +<p>"I don't mind her leaving. I can get over that. But you don't know the +awful things she said."</p> + +<p>"No, I don't; but I dare say she didn't mean half of them."</p> + +<p>"Didn't she though! I'll show you."</p> + +<p>Kitty got up and opened the door into the other room. It was as Miss +Keating had left it.</p> + +<p>"Look there," she said, "what she's done."</p> + +<p>Jane looked. "I'm not surprised. You did everything for her, so I +suppose she expected you to pack and send her things after her."</p> + +<p>"It isn't that. Don't you see? It's—it's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> the things I gave her. She +flung them back in my face. She wouldn't take one of them. See, that's +the white frock she was wearing, and the fur-lined coal (she'll be so +cold without it), and look, that's the little chain I gave her on her +birthday. She wouldn't even keep the chain."</p> + +<p>"Well, I dare say she would feel rather bad about it after she's behaved +in this way."</p> + +<p>"It isn't that. It's because they were mine—because I wore them." Kitty +began to sob.</p> + +<p>"No, no, dear Mrs. Tailleur——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes. She—she thought they'd c—c—contaminate her."</p> + +<p>Kitty's sobs broke into the shrill laugh of hysteria. Jane led her to +the couch and sat beside her. Kitty leaned forward, staring at the +floor. Now and then she pressed her handkerchief to her mouth, stifling. +Suddenly she looked up into Jane's face.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Would <em>you</em> mind wearing a frock I'd worn?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I wouldn't."</p> + +<p>Kitty's handkerchief dropped on to her lap, a soaked ball, an +insufficient dam.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she cried, "the beast!—the little, little beast!"</p> + +<p>She looked again at Jane, but with a glance half cowed, half candid; +like a child that has proved, indubitably, its predestined naughtiness.</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean to use that word."</p> + +<p>"I want to use it myself," said Jane. "It's not a bit too much."</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean it."</p> + +<p>She added softly, reminiscently. "She was such a little thing."</p> + +<p>"Much too little for you to care about."</p> + +<p>"That's why I cared. I know it was. She was just like a little, lonely +child; and she clung to me at first."</p> + +<p>"She certainly seems to have clung."</p> + +<p>"That's why it's so awful to think that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> she couldn't bear it—couldn't +bear to live with me."</p> + +<p>"We wondered how you could bear to live with her."</p> + +<p>"Did you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Why did you have her?"</p> + +<p>"You see, I had to have some one; and she was nice."</p> + +<p>"I don't think she was nice at all."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes," said Kitty, solemnly, "you could see <em>that</em>."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you mean she was a lady?"</p> + +<p>"Ye—es." Kitty was not by any means certain that that was what she did +mean. It was so difficult to find words for what she meant.</p> + +<p>"That," said Jane, "is the least you can be."</p> + +<p>"Anyhow, she <em>was</em>."</p> + +<p>"Well, if you take a charitable view of her. Her people are probably +nicer than she is. Perhaps that's why she doesn't live with them."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Her father," said Kitty, "is the vicar of Wenden. I suppose that's all +right."</p> + +<p>"Probably; but <em>we</em> don't care what peoples' fathers are like, provided +they're nice themselves."</p> + +<p>"Do you think I'm nice?"</p> + +<p>Jane laughed. "Yes, as it happens, I do."</p> + +<p>"Ah, <em>you</em>—<em>you</em>——"</p> + +<p>"We both do," said Jane boldly.</p> + +<p>"You're the first nice woman I've known who hasn't been horrid to me. +And he——" Kitty had been playing with a button of her dressing-gown. +Her fingers now began tearing, passionately, convulsively, at the +button. "He is the first nice man who—who hasn't been what men are."</p> + +<p>"You don't mean that," said Jane calmly. She was holding Mrs. Tailleur's +hand in hers and caressing it, soothing its pathetic violence.</p> + +<p>"I do. I do. That's why I like you so."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you like us."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'd give anything to know what you really think of me."</p> + +<p>"May I say what I think?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"I think you're too good to be so unhappy."</p> + +<p>"That's a new view of me. Most people think I'm too unhappy to be very +good."</p> + +<p>"You <em>are</em> good; but if you'd been happier you'd have known that other +people are what you call good, too."</p> + +<p>"That's what I said to Bunny. <em>She</em> was unhappy."</p> + +<p>"Never mind her. If you'd been happier you'd have known, for instance, +that my brother isn't an exception. There are a great many men like him. +All the men I've known have been more or less like Robert."</p> + +<p>"They would be, dear; all the men <em>you've</em> known. But, you see, +something happened. Nothing ever happened to you."</p> + +<p>"No. Nothing very much has happened to me. Nothing very much ever +will."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You never wanted things to happen, did you?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. Perhaps I'm interested most in the things that happen to +other people."</p> + +<p>"You dear! If I'd been like you——"</p> + +<p>"I wish," said Jane, "you'd known Robert sooner."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Tailleur's lips parted, but no voice came through them.</p> + +<p>"Then," said Jane, "whatever happened never would have happened, +probably."</p> + +<p>"I wonder. What do you suppose happened?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I've no business to know."</p> + +<p>"What do you think? Tell me—tell me!"</p> + +<p>"I think you've been very badly handled."</p> + +<p>"Yes. You may think so."</p> + +<p>"When you were young—too young to understand it."</p> + +<p>"Ah, I was never too young to understand.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> That's the difference between +you and me."</p> + +<p>"That makes it all the worse, then."</p> + +<p>"All the worse! So that's what you think? How does it make you feel to +me?"</p> + +<p>"It makes me feel that I want to take you away, and warm you and wrap +you round, so that nothing could ever touch you and hurt you any more."</p> + +<p>"That's how it makes you feel?"</p> + +<p>"That's how it makes us both feel."</p> + +<p>"<em>He</em> takes it that way, too?"</p> + +<p>"Of course he does. Any nice man would."</p> + +<p>"If <em>I</em> were nice——"</p> + +<p>"You <em>are</em> nice."</p> + +<p>"You don't know, my child; you don't know."</p> + +<p>"Do you suppose Robert doesn't know?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Tailleur rose suddenly and turned away.</p> + +<p>"I was nice once," she said, "and at times I can be now."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + + +<p class="cap">COLONEL HANKIN was mistaken. Mrs. Tailleur's room was not wanted the +next day. The point had been fiercely disputed in those obscure quarters +of the hotel inhabited by the management. The manager's wife was for +turning Mrs. Tailleur out on the bare suspicion of her impropriety. The +idea in the head of the manager's wife was that there should be no +suspicion as to the reputation of the Cliff Hotel. The manager, on his +side, contended that the Cliff Hotel must not acquire a reputation for +suspicion; that any lady whom Miss Lucy had made visibly her friend was +herself in the position so desirable for the Cliff Hotel; that, in any +case, unless Mrs. Tailleur's conduct became such as to justify an +extreme step, the scandal of the ejection would be more damaging to the +Cliff Hotel than her present transparently<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> innocent and peaceful +occupation of the best room in it. He wished to know how a scandal was +to be avoided when the place was swarming with old women. And, after +all, what had they got against Mrs. Tailleur except that she was better +looking by a long chalk, and better turned-out, than any of 'em? Of +course, he couldn't undertake to say—offhand—whether she was or wasn't +any better than she should be. But, in the absence of complaints, he +didn't consider the question a profitable one for a manager to go into +in the slack season.</p> + +<p>All the manager's intelligence was concentrated in the small commercial +eye which winked, absurdly, in the solitude of his solemn and enormous +face. You must take people as you found them, said he, and for his part +he had always found Mrs. Tailleur——</p> + +<p>But how the manager had found Mrs. Tailleur was never known to his wife, +for at this point she walked out of the private<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> sitting-room and shut +herself into her bureau. Her opinion, more private even than that +sitting-room, consecrated to intimate dispute, was that where women were +concerned the manager was a perfect fool.</p> + +<p>The window of the bureau looked out on to the vestibule and the big +staircase. And full in sight of the window Mrs. Tailleur was sitting on +a seat set under the stair. She had her hat on and carried a sunshade in +her hand, for the day was fine and warm. She was waiting for somebody. +And as she waited she amused herself by smiling at the little +four-year-old son of the management who played in the vestibule, it +being the slack season. He was running up and down the flagged floor, +dragging a little cart after him. And as he ran he never took his eyes +off the pretty lady. They said, every time, with the charming vanity of +childhood, "Look at me!" And Kitty looked at him, every time, and made, +every time, the right sort of smile that says to a little boy, "I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> see +you." Just then nobody was there to see Kitty but the manager's wife, +who stood at the window of the bureau and saw it all. And as the little +boy was not looking in the least where he was going, his feet were +presently snared in the rug where the pretty lady sat, and he would have +tumbled on his little nose if Kitty had not caught him.</p> + +<p>He was going to cry, but Kitty stopped him just in time by lifting him +on to her lap and giving him her watch to look at. A marvellous watch +that was gold and blue and bordered with a ring of little sparkling +stones.</p> + +<p>At that moment Robert Lucy came down the stairs. He came very quietly +and leaned over the banister behind Kitty's back and watched her, while +he listened shamelessly to the conversation. The pretty lady looked +prettier than ever.</p> + +<p>"My daddy gave my mummy her watch on her birthday," said the little boy. +"Who gave you your watch?"</p> + +<p>"It wasn't your daddy, dear."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Of course it wasn't my daddy."</p> + +<p>"Of course not."</p> + +<p>"What is your name?"</p> + +<p>"My name is Mrs. Tailleur."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Ty-loor. My name is Stanley. That gentleman's name is Mr. Lucy. I +like him."</p> + +<p>Lucy came down and seated himself beside her. She made him a sign with +her mouth, as much as to say she was under a charm and he wasn't to +break it.</p> + +<p>"Do you like him, Mrs. Tyloor?"</p> + +<p>"Well—what do you think?"</p> + +<p>"I think you like him very much."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Tailleur laughed softly.</p> + +<p>"What makes you laugh?"</p> + +<p>"You. You're so funny."</p> + +<p>"<em>You're</em> funny. Your eyelashes curl up when you laugh, and your eyes +curl, too. And your mouth!" he crowed with the joy of it. "Such a funny +mouth."</p> + +<p>The mouth hid itself in the child's soft neck among his hair. The woman +in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> bureau saw that, and her face became curiously contracted.</p> + +<p>"I remember the day you came. My daddy said you was very pretty."</p> + +<p>"And what did your mummy say?"</p> + +<p>Kitty had caught sight of the fierce face in the window, and a little +daring devil had entered into her.</p> + +<p>"Mummy said she couldn't tell if she wasn't allowed to look."</p> + +<p>"And why," said Lucy, "wasn't she allowed to look?"</p> + +<p>"Daddy said she wasn't to."</p> + +<p>"Of course he did," said Lucy. "It's very rude to look at people."</p> + +<p>"Daddy looked. I saw him."</p> + +<p>The door of the bureau opened and the manager's wife came out. She had a +slight flush on her face and her mouth was tighter than ever.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Tailleur saw her coming and slipped the child from her lap. The +manager's wife put out her hand to take him, but he turned from her and +clung to the pretty lady.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span></p> + +<p>The woman seized him by the arm and tore him from her, and dragged him +toward the apartments of the management. The child screamed as he went.</p> + +<p>"Women like that," said Lucy, "shouldn't be allowed to have children."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Tailleur turned to him though she had not heard him.</p> + +<p>"What have I done? What harm could I do the little thing?"</p> + +<p>"What have you done?" It was hard for him to follow the workings of her +mind. "You don't mean to say you minded that?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I minded. I minded awfully."</p> + +<p>"That dreadful woman?"</p> + +<p>"Do you think she really was dreadful?"</p> + +<p>"Quite terrible."</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I suppose," she said, "they're all like that. Yet they +can't all be dreadful."</p> + +<p>Lucy laughed. He couldn't see her point. "I don't understand who 'they' +are."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The women who are—the women who've got children."</p> + +<p>She stooped down and picked up something from the floor. It was the +little man out of the cart that the child had been playing with, that +lay there, smashed, at her feet. The manager's wife had stepped on it. +Kitty set the little man upon the seat and smiled at him sadly. And Lucy +smiled at her out of a great and sudden tenderness.</p> + +<p>He thought he saw it now.</p> + +<p>"I think," said he, "you must allow for a little maternal jealousy."</p> + +<p>"Jealousy? I can understand jealousy."</p> + +<p>"So can I," said Lucy.</p> + +<p>"And you think that was jealousy?"</p> + +<p>"Well, you know, that little boy was making barefaced love to you."</p> + +<p>She laughed. "I suppose," she said, "you <em>would</em> feel like that about +it."</p> + +<p>She got up and they went out, past the hotel front and down the lawn, in +sight of the veranda, where at this hour everybody<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> was there to see +them. Lucy meant everybody to see. He had chosen that place, and that +hour, also, which wore, appropriately, the innocence of morning. He knew +her pitiful belief that he was defying public opinion in being seen with +her; but from her ultimate consent, from her continuous trust in him, +and from the heartrending way she clung to him, he gathered that she +knew him, she knew that defiance, from him, would be a vindication of +her.</p> + +<p>He did not yet know how dear she had become to him. Only, as he looked +at her moving close beside him, so beautiful and so defenceless, he +thanked God that he had kept his manhood clean, so that nothing that he +did for her could hurt her.</p> + +<p>And so, holding himself very upright, and with his head in the air, he +went slowly past the veranda and the Hankins, and, turning to Mrs. +Tailleur, gave them the full spectacle of his gladness and his pride in +her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span></p> + +<p>"How good you are to me," she said. "I know why you did that."</p> + +<p>"Do you?"</p> + +<p>He smiled, guarding his secret, holding it back a little while longer.</p> + +<p>"Where are we going to?"</p> + +<p>"Anywhere you choose to take me."</p> + +<p>He took her through the gate that led them to the freedom of the Cliff.</p> + +<p>"Do you see that?" He pointed to the path which was now baked hard and +white by the sun.</p> + +<p>"What is it?"</p> + +<p>"Your little footprints, and my great hoofmarks beside them. I believe +nobody comes this way but you and me."</p> + +<p>"You see, it leads nowhere," said she.</p> + +<p>"Doesn't it?" said he.</p> + +<p>The little room in the Cliff-side was whiter than ever, burning white, +it was, where the sun faced it. But the east side of it was in shadow, +and they sat there, under the great forehead of the Cliff.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p> + +<p>They were both silent. Lucy was thinking of how he had found her there, +and of the fear and trouble of last night. He vowed that if he could +help it there should be no more fear and no more trouble for her. In +their silence, voices thin and sweet with distance, came to them from +below, where children played on the beach among the rocks that, washed +by water-springs from the Cliff's forehead to its foot, lay heaped where +they had fallen. She listened and laughed.</p> + +<p>She was happy now. He watched her as she stretched her adorable feet to +the sun. A little wind came from the sea and played with her, taking +from her a slight scent of violets for its salt. Every nerve in his body +was aware of her nearness.</p> + +<p>Only last night he had seen her crouching just there, in the darkness, +convulsed, her face wet with rain and tears. It was good that the place +they had chosen should be changed and cleansed for them by sunlight and +wind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> from the sea and the sweet voices of children.</p> + +<p>She did not break the silence. She only looked at him once with eyes +whose pupils, black and dilated, narrowed the blue ring of the iris.</p> + +<p>Then he spoke. "I was going to say something to you last night, but I +didn't. There was something I wanted to know first, something I wasn't +quite sure about."</p> + +<p>She turned her face from him. The light struck it, and it quivered and +grew white.</p> + +<p>"Well, do you know now?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "I know now."</p> + +<p>But her lips scarcely moved as she answered him. "Of course you know."</p> + +<p>She faced him with her sad white courage.</p> + +<p>"Everybody knows. I'd rather you knew. I—I meant you to."</p> + +<p>"Oh please"—he protested. "I wonder if I may say what it is?"</p> + +<p>"It's something about me?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes. It's something about you. If I may say it."</p> + +<p>"You may say anything you please. You know that."</p> + +<p>"Well, I wanted very much to know whether—whether you were fond of +children."</p> + +<p>"Oh——" She drew a long breath, as if released from torture. Then she +laughed the indescribable half-sobbing laugh of a child tormented and +suddenly set free.</p> + +<p>"Whether I were fond of children. Do you honestly mean it? Was that what +you weren't sure of?"</p> + +<p>"Well, of course, in a way I knew—but I couldn't tell, you know, till +I'd seen you with one."</p> + +<p>"Well, and so you can tell now?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I can tell now."</p> + +<p>"And if I am fond of children, what difference does that make?"</p> + +<p>"It makes all the difference. You see, I've got two little girls——"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Two little girls." She repeated it after him smiling, as if she played +with the vision of them.</p> + +<p>"You see—they've no mother. My wife——"</p> + +<p>"I know," she said softly.</p> + +<p>"How did you know?"</p> + +<p>"I can't tell you."</p> + +<p>"My wife died five years ago when my youngest little girl was born."</p> + +<p>"And I thought," she said, "you were so young."</p> + +<p>"I'm thirty-five."</p> + +<p>"Still I was right. You're young. Very young."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, don't you know, they say a woman's as young as she looks, and +a man's as young as he feels. I <em>feel</em> all right."</p> + +<p>"You dear." Her mouth and eyes said it without a sound.</p> + +<p>"Are you quite sure that's all you want to know?"</p> + +<p>"I had to know it."</p> + +<p>"It was so important?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes. Because of <em>them</em>."</p> + +<p>"And now you know all about me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Now I know all about you."</p> + +<p>"Don't you want to know something about—about Mr. Tailleur?"</p> + +<p>Lucy's face hardened. "No, I don't think I want to know anything about +him."</p> + +<p>He had made up his mind that Mr. Tailleur had been a brute to her.</p> + +<p>"He <em>is</em> dead."</p> + +<p>"Well, yes. I supposed he would be."</p> + +<p>"He died four years ago. I was married very young."</p> + +<p>"I supposed that too."</p> + +<p>"You don't feel that he's important?"</p> + +<p>"Not in the very least."</p> + +<p>She laughed.</p> + +<p>"When I said that I knew all about you, I only meant that I knew—I'd +the sense to see—what you were. You mustn't think that I take anything +for granted."</p> + +<p>"Ah, Mr. Lucy, dear, I'm afraid you're taking everything for granted."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span></p> + +<p>"On my soul I'm not. I'm not that sort. There's one thing about you I +don't know yet, and I'm afraid to ask, and it's the only thing I really +want to know. It's the only thing that matters."</p> + +<p>"Then ask me, ask me straight, whatever it is, and let's get it over. +Can't you trust me to tell you the truth?"</p> + +<p>"I trust you—to tell me the truth. I want to know where I am—where we +are."</p> + +<p>"Is it for me to say?"</p> + +<p>"It's for you to say whether you think you can ever care for me."</p> + +<p>"Can't you see that I care for you?"</p> + +<p>"No, I'd give anything to see."</p> + +<p>"Ah, it's so like you not to. And I thought I'd shown you—everything."</p> + +<p>"You haven't shown me yet whether you care enough to—to——"</p> + +<p>He checked himself, while his love for her drew its first breath, as if +it had been born but that instant, in an agony of desire and fear.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span></p> + +<p>"To do what?" she said. "Why won't you tell me?"</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid," he said simply.</p> + +<p>"Afraid of <em>me</em>! Why should you be?"</p> + +<p>"Because, if you really cared for me, I think you'd know what I want."</p> + +<p>"It's because I care so much that I don't know. Unless you tell me."</p> + +<p>She put her small fingers lightly on the sleeve of his coat; they slid +till they found his hands that hung clenched before him.</p> + +<p>At her touch he trembled.</p> + +<p>"Don't you know," she said, "that there's nothing I wouldn't do for you? +Tell me what you want me to do."</p> + +<p>He spoke so low that she strained to hear him.</p> + +<p>"To marry me—to be my wife."</p> + +<p>Her hand still lay on his, but she herself seemed to draw back and +pause.</p> + +<p>"Your wife?" she said at last. "My dear, you've only known me ten days."</p> + +<p>"It makes no difference."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span></p> + +<p>He took her hand in his and kissed it, bowing his head.</p> + +<p>She twisted herself away from him, and drew back her face from his. They +rose.</p> + +<p>"Ah," she said, "you're cold. You don't know how. Let me look at you. +It's not me you want. You want a mother for your children."</p> + +<p>"Not I. I want you—you—for myself."</p> + +<p>She moved toward him with a low cry, and he took her in his arms and +stood still by her without a word. And to his joy, she whom he held +(gently, lest he should hurt her) laid her face to his face, and held +him with a grip tighter than his own, as if she feared that he would +loose himself and leave her. Her eyes closed as he kissed her forehead, +and opened as her mouth found his.</p> + +<p>Then she drew herself slowly from him.</p> + +<p>"You love me then?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Kitty, I love you."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + + +<p class="cap">THE awkward thing was telling Jane about it. Jane had been his dead +wife's friend before he married her, and she had known her better then +than she knew Kitty. Yet he remembered, acutely, how he had gone to her +eight years ago, and told her that he was going to marry Amy, and how +she had kissed him and said nothing, and how, when he asked her if she +had any objection, she had said "No, none. But isn't it a little +sudden?"</p> + +<p>He wondered how Jane would look when he told her he was going to marry +Kitty. That was bound to strike her as very sudden indeed.</p> + +<p>It was wonderful to him that this thing should have happened to him. He +was aware that it was a new thing. Nothing in his previous experience +had prepared him for it. He had been very young eight years<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> ago, and a +gayer, lighter-hearted chivalry had gone to his courtship of poor Amy. +Poor Amy, though he would not own it, had been a rather ineffectual +woman, with a prodigious opinion of her small self and a fretting +passion for dominion. She had had a crowd of friends and relations whom +she had allowed to come between them. Poor Amy had never understood him. +There were heights and depths in him to which she had made no appeal.</p> + +<p>But Kitty—she had brought something out of him that had been hidden and +unknown to him before. Something that answered to the fear with which +she had drawn back from him and to the tremendous and tragic passion +with which she had given herself to him at the last. Poor little Amy had +never held him so. She had never loved him like that in all her poor +little life. And so his very tenderness for Kitty had terror in it, lest +he should fail her, lest he should in any way justify her prescience of +disaster.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></p> + +<p>Somebody was coming along the Cliff-path, somebody with a telegram for +Mrs. Tailleur. She rose, moving away from Lucy as she opened it.</p> + +<p>"There is no answer," she said. And she came to him again and sat beside +him, very still, with hands spread over the telegram that lay open in +her lap.</p> + +<p>"Has anything happened?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head. He took the hand that she held out to him by way of +reassurance and possession.</p> + +<p>"Then why do you look like that?"</p> + +<p>She smiled.</p> + +<p>"Kitty—that was an unconvincing smile."</p> + +<p>"Was it? I'm sorry to say there's a tiresome man coming to see me."</p> + +<p>"Say you can't see him. Send him a wire."</p> + +<p>"I must. He's coming on business. I don't <em>want</em> to see him."</p> + +<p>"Can't I see him for you, if you feel like that?"</p> + +<p>"No, dear. He must see me."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span></p> + +<p>"When is he due?"</p> + +<p>"At seven-thirty."</p> + +<p>"Oh—only in the evening. How long do you think he'll stay?"</p> + +<p>Kitty hardened her face. "Not a minute longer than I can help."</p> + +<p>"An hour? Two hours?"</p> + +<p>"I shall have to give him dinner. He's—he's that sort of man."</p> + +<p>"Two hours, probably. I think I'll take Janey for a stroll while he's +here. You see, I've got to tell her, and I shall tell her then."</p> + +<p>She put her hands on his shoulders. "And what will—Janey—say?"</p> + +<p>"She'll say she's glad I'm going to be happy."</p> + +<p>He became thoughtful. "And there are the children," he said. "I've got +to tell them, too."</p> + +<p>She was silent. She did not ask him as he had half expected, "What will +<em>they</em> say?"</p> + +<p>"I think," he said, "I'd better send for them and let them stay here a +bit. Could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> you stand another week of Southbourne? You said you hated +it."</p> + +<p>"Yes. I hated it. I shouldn't have stayed if it hadn't been for you."</p> + +<p>"Do you mind staying a little longer now?"</p> + +<p>"I don't mind staying anywhere where you are."</p> + +<p>"Well—just a little longer."</p> + +<p>She saw the workings of his mind. The people here had been saying awful +things about her. If he took her away they would continue to say them. +He couldn't stop them. He couldn't for instance, go up to Colonel Hankin +before leaving, and tell him that he lied, and that Mrs. Tailleur, +though appearances might be against her, was as innocent a lady as Mrs. +Hankin. He couldn't even announce his engagement to her by way of +accounting for their simultaneous departure. They were not accountable +to these people. But, if they stayed on as if nothing had happened, he +could demonstrate to everybody's satisfaction that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> he had no other +intention with regard to Mrs. Tailleur than to make her his wife and a +mother to his children. That was why he was sending for them. Evidently +the idea he had—poor lamb—was that he could shelter her innocence with +theirs.</p> + +<p>And so she told him that she adored Southbourne now and didn't care how +long they stopped there.</p> + +<p>Lucy's idea had really gone more or less on those lines, though they +remained rather more obscure to him than they were to Kitty.</p> + +<p>His scheme was so far successful that there were people in the Cliff +Hotel who knew about his engagement before Jane did.</p> + +<p>It was clear to the management, at any rate, that some consecrating seal +had been set to the very interesting relations of Mrs. Tailleur and Mr. +Lucy. The manager was more inclined than ever to take a favourable view +of Mrs. Tailleur. To begin with, Mrs. Tailleur had ordered a private +sitting-room. Then Mr. Lucy presented himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> at the bureau with Mrs. +Tailleur and inquired whether he could have a room for his two little +girls and their nurse. The manager's wife looked dubious. The best +rooms, she said, were taken. And Mrs. Tailleur said, looking at Mr. +Lucy, "How about poor Bunny's room? The one leading out of mine?"</p> + +<p>A fine flush appeared on Mr. Lucy's face as he said he would have that +room.</p> + +<p>He then announced that he would wire for the little girls to come at +once, and that they would arrive at four o'clock to-morrow. It was +further arranged that they were to have their meals in Mrs. Tailleur's +private sitting-room. And please, there was to be lots of jam for tea, +Mrs. Tailleur said. The manager's wife looked humble before her lord as +she booked that order.</p> + +<p>That was at twelve o'clock of the tenth day.</p> + +<p>Seven hours later Mrs. Tailleur was alone in her private sitting-room, +preparing with some agitation for the appointment that she had.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + + +<p class="cap">HER tense, flushed mind recorded automatically, and with acute +vividness, every detail of the room; the pattern of the gray French +wall-paper, with the watered stripe, and of the hot, velvet upholstery, +buff on a crimson ground; the architecture of the stained walnut +sideboard and overmantel, with their ridiculous pediments and little +shelves and bevelled mirrors; the tapestry curtains, the palms in +shining turquoise blue pots, and the engraved picture of Grace Darling +over the sideboard.</p> + +<p>It was absolutely necessary that she should have this place to see him +in, without Robert seeing him. Beyond that immediate purpose she +discerned its use as a play-room for Robert's children.</p> + +<p>To-morrow, at four o clock, she would be waiting there for them. They +had settled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> that, she and Robert. She was to have everything ready, and +the table laid for tea. To-morrow they would all be sitting there, round +the table. To-morrow she would see Robert's children, and hold them in +her arms.</p> + +<p>Her heart gave a sudden leap, as if something had quickened in it. Her +brain glowed. Her pulses throbbed with the race of the glad blood in her +veins. Her whole being moved, trembling and yearning, toward an +incredible joy. Till that moment she had hardly realised Robert's +children. A strange unquietness, not yet recognised as fear, had kept +her from asking him many questions about them. Even now, their forms +were like the forms of children seen in the twilight of dreams, the +dreams of women who have never had children; forms that hover and +torture and pursue; that hide their faces, half seen; that will not come +to the call, nor be held by the hand, nor gathered to the heart.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>That + she should really see them, and hear their voices, and hold them in +her arms, to-morrow, seemed to her a thing impossible, beyond +credibility or dream. Then she said to herself that it all depended on +what happened between to-morrow and to-day.</p> + +<p>It was not long past seven and she had still a good twenty minutes +before her. She spent it in pacing up and down the room, and looking at +the clock every time she turned and confronted it. At the half-hour she +arranged herself on the sofa, with a book, in an attitude of +carelessness as to the event. As a material appearance the attitude was +perfect.</p> + +<p>She rose as the servant announced "Mr. Wilfrid Marston." She stood as +she had risen, waiting for her visitor to advance. Her eyes were fixed +on her book which she laid down, deliberately marking the page, and yet +she was aware of his little pause at the door as it closed behind him, +and of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> his little smile that took her in. She had no need to look at +him.</p> + +<p>He was a man of middle size, who held himself so well that he appeared +taller and slenderer than he was. You saw that he had been fair and +florid and slender enough in his youth, and that all his good points had +worn somewhat to hardness. His face was hard and of a fast-hardening, +reddish-sallow colour, showing a light network of veins about the +cheekbones. Hard, wiry wrinkles were about the outer corners of his +eyes. He kept his small reddish-gold moustache close clipped, so that it +made his mouth look extraordinarily straight and hard. People who didn't +know him were apt to mistake him for a soldier. (He was in the War +Office, rather high up.) He had several manners, his official manner to +persons calling at the War Office; his social manner, inimitably devout +to women whom he respected; and his natural manner, known only in its +perfection to women whom he did not respect.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> And under both of these +he conveyed a curious and disagreeable impression of stern sensuality, +as if the animal in him had worn to hardness, too.</p> + +<p>"Kitty, my dear girl!" His voice, unlike the rest of him, could be thick +and soft and fluid. He put his arm round her, and she offered him her +mouth, curled forward, obedient but unsmiling. Her hand, surrendered to +his, lay limp in the hard clasp of it. He raised it as if weighing the +powerless, subservient thing.</p> + +<p>"Kitty," he said, "you're still getting thin. My last orders were, if +you remember, that you were to put on another stone before I saw you +again."</p> + +<p>He bared her wrist, pressing it slightly, to show how its round curves +were sunken.</p> + +<p>"Do you call that putting on another stone?"</p> + +<p>She drew back her arm.</p> + +<p>"What have you been doing to yourself?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Nothing. There hasn't been anything<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> to do. It's not very amusing +being left all by yourself for weeks and weeks, you know."</p> + +<p>"All by yourself?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Bunny doesn't count."</p> + +<p>"No, she certainly doesn't. Poor Kitten, you must have been very badly +bored."</p> + +<p>He looked round the room.</p> + +<p>"Do they do you well at this place?"</p> + +<p>"It isn't <em>very</em> comfortable. I think you'd be better off at the +Métropole."</p> + +<p>"What possessed you to stay at the place if you're not comfortable?"</p> + +<p>"Well, you see, I didn't expect you for another week."</p> + +<p>"What's that got to do with it?"</p> + +<p>"I mean it did well enough for Bunny and me."</p> + +<p>"Where is that woman?"</p> + +<p>"She's gone. She left yesterday."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Well, you know, Wilfrid, Bunny was very respectable."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span></p> + +<p>He laughed. "It's just as well she went, then, before I came, isn't it? +I say, what have you done to your eyes? They used to be black, now +they're blue. Bright blue."</p> + +<p>There was a look in them he did not understand.</p> + +<p>"I think," she said, "you would be much more comfortable at the +Métropole."</p> + +<p>"Oh no; I'll try this place for one night." She veiled her eyes.</p> + +<p>"We can move on if I can't stand it. When are we going to dine?"</p> + +<p>"At eight. It's twenty to, now. You'd like it up here, wouldn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Rather. I say, where's my room?"</p> + +<p>She flushed and turned from him with an unaccountable emotion.</p> + +<p>"I—I don't know."</p> + +<p>"Didn't you order one for me?"</p> + +<p>"No; I don't think I did."</p> + +<p>"I suppose I can get one, can't I?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose so. But don't you think<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> you'd better go over to the +Métropole? You see, this is a very small hotel."</p> + +<p>He looked at her sharply.</p> + +<p>"I don't care how small it is."</p> + +<p>He summoned a waiter and inquired irascibly for his room.</p> + +<p>Kitty was relieved when the room was got for him, because he went to it +instantly, and that gave her time. She said to herself that it would be +all right if she could be alone for a minute or two and could think. She +thought continuously through the act of dressing, and in the moment of +waiting till he appeared again. He would be hungry, and his first +thought would be for his dinner.</p> + +<p>It was. But his second thought was for Kitty, who refused to eat.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with you?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing. I've got a headache."</p> + +<p>Again he looked sharply at her.</p> + +<p>"A headache, have you? It'll be better if you eat something."</p> + +<p>But Kitty shook her head.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What's the good of my sending you to Matlock and those places if you +come back in this state? You know, if you once get really thin, Kitty, +you're done for."</p> + +<p>"Am I?" Her mouth trembled, not grossly, but with a small, fine quiver +of the upper lip. The man had trained her well. She knew better than to +cry before him.</p> + +<p>The slender sign of emotion touched him, since it was not disfiguring.</p> + +<p>"How long have you been starving yourself?" he asked more gently.</p> + +<p>"I've not been starving myself. I've got a headache."</p> + +<p>He poured out some wine for her.</p> + +<p>"You must either eat <em>or</em> drink."</p> + +<p>"I don't want any."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense."</p> + +<p>"I—I can't. I feel sick."</p> + +<p>He raised his eyebrows.</p> + +<p>"Need you mention it?"</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't if you hadn't teased me so."</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span></p> + +<p>She began playing with some salted almonds.</p> + +<p>"My <em>dear</em> girl, I wouldn't eat those things if I were you."</p> + +<p>"I'm not eating them." She pushed the dish from her. "I'm afraid," said +she, "it isn't a very nice dinner."</p> + +<p>He was looking at the <em>entrée</em> with interest and a slight suspicion.</p> + +<p>"What is this?"</p> + +<p>"Curried chicken."</p> + +<p>"Oh." He helped himself fastidiously to curried chicken, tasted it with +delicate deliberation, and left it on his plate.</p> + +<p>"You are wise," said he. "There is a certain crude, unsatisfying +simplicity about this repast."</p> + +<p>"Didn't I tell you?"</p> + +<p>"You did."</p> + +<p>"You see now why I said you'd better go to the Métropole?"</p> + +<p>"I do indeed."</p> + +<p>An admirable joint of mutton, cheese, coffee and a liqueur effaced the +painful impression<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> made by the <em>entrée</em>. By nine o'clock Marston +declared himself inured to the hardships of the Cliff Hotel.</p> + +<p>"How long can you stay?" she asked. The question had been burning in her +for two hours.</p> + +<p>"Well, over the week end, I think."</p> + +<p>Her heart, that had fluttered like a bird, sank, as a bird sinks in +terror with wings tight shut.</p> + +<p>"Have you got to go up to town to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>"I have, worse luck. How do the trains go from this godforsaken place?"</p> + +<p>"About every two hours. What sort of train do you want? An early one?"</p> + +<p>"Rather. Got to be at Whitehall by twelve."</p> + +<p>"Will the nine-fifteen do?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; that's all right."</p> + +<p>The wings of her heart loosened. It rose light, as if air, not blood, +flowed from its chambers.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span></p> + +<p>The Lucys were never by any chance down before nine. Robert would not +meet him.</p> + +<p>He sat down in the chair opposite her, with his eyes fixed on her as she +leaned back in the corner of the sofa. He settled himself in comfort, +crossing his legs and thrusting out one foot, defined under a delicate +silk sock, in an attitude that was almost contemptuous of Kitty's +presence.</p> + +<p>Kitty's face was innocent of any perception of these shades. He drew the +long breath of ease and smiled at her again, a smile that intimated how +thoroughly he approved of her personal appearance.</p> + +<p>"Ye—es," he said, "you're different, but I think you're almost as +pretty as you were."</p> + +<p>"Am I?" she said. "What did you expect?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't expect anything. I never do. It's my scheme for avoiding +disappointment. Is your head better?"</p> + +<p>"No; it's aching abominably."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>"Sorry. But it's rather hard lines for me, isn't it? I wish you <em>could</em> +have chosen some other time to be ill in."</p> + +<p>"What does it matter whether I'm ill or not, if I'm not pretty?"</p> + +<p>He smiled again.</p> + +<p>"I don't mean, child, that you're ever not pretty."</p> + +<p>"Thank you. I know exactly how pretty I am."</p> + +<p>"Do you? How pretty do you think you are now?"</p> + +<p>"Not half as pretty as Dora Nicholson. You know exactly how pretty she +is."</p> + +<p>"I do. And I know exactly how pretty she'll be in five years' time. +That's the worst of those thin women with little, delicate, pink faces. +You know the precise minute when a girl like Dora'll go off. You know +the pinkness will begin to run when she's once past thirty. You can see +the crows' feet coming, and you know exactly how far they'll have got by +the time she's thirty-five.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> You know that when she's forty there'll be +two little lines like thumb-nail marks beside her ears, just here, and +you know that when she's forty-five the dear little lobes will begin to +shrivel up, and that when she's fifty the corners of her mouth will +collapse."</p> + +<p>"And then?"</p> + +<p>"Then, if you're a wise man you don't know any more."</p> + +<p>"Poor little Dora. You <em>are</em> a brute, Wilfrid."</p> + +<p>"I'm not a brute. I was going to say that the best of you, dear, is that +I don't know how you'll look at fifty. I don't know how you'll look +to-morrow—to-night. You're never the same for ten minutes together. +When you get one of those abominable headaches you look perhaps as old +as you are. You're twenty-seven, aren't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Well, I dare say you'll look twenty-seven<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> when you are fifty. There's +something awfully nice about that sort of prettiness. It leaves things +delightfully vague. I can't <em>see</em> you fifty."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I never shall be."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps not. That's just it. You leave it open to me to think so. I +don't seriously contemplate your ever being forty. In fact your being +thirty is one of those melancholy and disastrous events that need not +actually occur. It's very tactful of you, Kitty."</p> + +<p>"All the same, I'm not as pretty as Dora Nicholson."</p> + +<p>"Dora Nicholson!"</p> + +<p>"You can't say she isn't awfully pretty."</p> + +<p>"I don't say it." His voice rose to an excited falsetto. "She <em>is</em> +awfully pretty—extravagantly, preposterously pretty. And she'll have to +pay for it."</p> + +<p>"Oh—we all have to pay for it."</p> + +<p>"Sooner <em>or</em> later."</p> + +<p>"Poor Dora——"</p> + +<p>"Poor Dora. Perhaps we have been rather<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> brutal to her. She's good for +another five years."</p> + +<p>"Only five years? And what will she do then?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, she'll be all right. She'll rouge a bit, and powder a bit, and +dress like anything. You needn't be unhappy about Dora. I can tell you +Dora isn't going to be unhappy about you. Unhappiness would be extremely +unbecoming to her, and she knows it. It isn't particularly becoming to +any woman. You would be less damaged by it than most perhaps."</p> + +<p>"You've never seen me unhappy."</p> + +<p>"I hope to God I never shall."</p> + +<p>"You needn't be afraid, Wilfrid, you never will."</p> + +<p>"I wish," she said presently, "I wish you liked Dora Nicholson."</p> + +<p>"I do like her."</p> + +<p>"I wish you liked her as much as me."</p> + +<p>"That's very noble of you, Kitty. But may I ask, why?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Because it would make things simpler."</p> + +<p>"Simpler? I should have said myself that that was just where +complications might occur. Supposing I liked Dolly better than you, what +then?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, that would make it simpler still."</p> + +<p>"It certainly would be simpler than the other situation you suggest."</p> + +<p>"It would for both of us."</p> + +<p>"But why this sudden yearning for simplicity? And why Dora Nicholson?"</p> + +<p>"There isn't any why. Anybody else would do, provided you liked them +better than me. It's only a question of time, you know. You're bound to +tire of me sooner or later."</p> + +<p>"Later, Kitty, later. Barring jealousy. If you're going in for that, I +may as well tell you at once that I shall tire of it very soon."</p> + +<p>"You think that's what's the matter with me?"</p> + +<p>"Well, something's the matter with you.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> I suppose it's that. I should +drop it, Kitty. It really isn't worth while. It only makes you thin, +and—and I can't be bored with it, d'you see?"</p> + +<p>"I don't want—to be bored—with it—either." She spoke very slowly. "If +you wanted to leave me for Dora Nicholson, I should be a fool to try and +keep you, shouldn't I?"</p> + +<p>"Well—you're not a fool."</p> + +<p>"You're not a fool either, Wilfrid."</p> + +<p>"If I am I take some pains to conceal it."</p> + +<p>"If a woman wanted to leave you for another man, would you try and keep +her?"</p> + +<p>He looked at her attentively. "It depends on the woman, and on some +other things besides. For instance, if I were married to her, I might +make a considerable effort, not to keep <em>her</em>, but—to keep up +appearances."</p> + +<p>"And if—you were not married to her?"</p> + +<p>"There again it would depend on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> woman. I might take it that she'd +left me already."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but if you knew she wasn't that sort—if you knew she'd always +been straight with you?"</p> + +<p>"Well, then perhaps I might take the trouble to find out whether there +really was another man. Or I might have reason to suppose she was only +trying it on. In which case I should say to her 'My dear Kitty, you're a +very clever woman and it's a brilliant idea you've got. But it's been +tried before and it won't work. You can't draw me that way.'"</p> + +<p>"But, Wilfrid—if there <em>was</em> another man?"</p> + +<p>"Well, it's possible that I might not consider it worth while to dispute +his claim. That would depend altogether on the woman."</p> + +<p>"If you cared for her?"</p> + +<p>"If I cared enough for her I might be able to convince her that it would +at any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> rate be prudent, from a worldly point of view, to stick to me. +But <em>that</em> would depend, wouldn't it, on the amount of the other +fellow's income?"</p> + +<p>"And if all that didn't matter in the very least to her, if she didn't +care a rap about anybody's income, if she cared for the other fellow +more than she'd ever cared for you, if she didn't care for your caring, +if she cared for nothing except <em>his</em> caring, and nothing you could do +could move her—what would you do then?"</p> + +<p>He paused to light another cigarette before he answered her. "I should +probably tell her, first of all, that for all I cared she might go to +the devil, I mean to the other fellow, and stay there as long as he +wanted her."</p> + +<p>"Well"—she said placably.</p> + +<p>"That's what I should say first. Afterward, when we were both a little +calmer—if I cared for her, Kitty—I should ask her to think a moment +before she did anything<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> rash, to be quite sure that she would really be +happier with the other fellow. And I should point out to her very +clearly that, in any case, if she once went, it would not be open to her +to come back."</p> + +<p>"But you wouldn't try and keep her?"</p> + +<p>"I couldn't keep her, my dear child, by trying."</p> + +<p>"No—you couldn't keep her. Not for yourself. But, if you could keep her +from the other man, would you?"</p> + +<p>"I dare say I should do my best."</p> + +<p>"Would you do your worst? No, Wilfrid, you've been very good to me—I +don't believe you'd do your worst."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean," he said sharply.</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't tell him what she was, what she had been—if he didn't +know it. Would you?"</p> + +<p>He was silent.</p> + +<p>"Would you?" she cried.</p> + +<p>"No, Kitty, I wouldn't do that. I'm not a cad."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span></p> + +<p>He pondered.</p> + +<p>"But my dear girl, do you suppose for a moment that he doesn't know?"</p> + +<p>"He doesn't know a thing."</p> + +<p>"Then what in heaven's name are you talking about?"</p> + +<p>"I'm trying to tell you. It isn't what you think. I—I'm going to be +married."</p> + +<p>Marston took his cigarette out of his mouth, and stared at it. There was +no expression in his face beyond that concentrated, attentive stare.</p> + +<p>"Good Lord. Why," he said, "couldn't you tell me that before I came +down?"</p> + +<p>"I was going to. I was going to write to you and ask you not to come."</p> + +<p>"<em>Good</em> God."</p> + +<p>He said it softly, and with calm incredulity rather than amazement.</p> + +<p>"Who is it, Kitty? Do I know him?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Do you know him yourself?"</p> + +<p>She smiled. "Yes I know him."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well—but how long?"</p> + +<p>"Ten days."</p> + +<p>"You met him here? In this hotel?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"That's why you were so anxious for me to go to the Métropole, was it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Look here. I don't want to be unkind, but it doesn't do to blink facts. +Are you quite sure he means to marry you?"</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't he?"</p> + +<p>"Well, these marriages do happen, but—I don't want to be unkind +again—but you know they are, to say the least of it, a little unusual."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"You've seen some of them?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And you know, you know as well as I do, the sort of man who—who——"</p> + +<p>"Who marries the sort of woman I am? Yes, I know him, perfectly well. +He's horrible."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span></p> + +<p>"There are exceptions, but he's generally pretty bad. You think he's +horrible. You'll be miserable when you find yourself tied to him for +life. You see, however awful he was, you wouldn't be exactly in a +position to get rid of him."</p> + +<p>"Wilfrid," her voice was very low and tender, "he isn't like that. He's +good——"</p> + +<p>"Good, is he?" He laughed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't laugh. He <em>is</em> good."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't say he isn't—only——" he smiled.</p> + +<p>"You forget," she said. "He doesn't know."</p> + +<p>"Are you quite sure he doesn't know?"</p> + +<p>"Quite—quite sure."</p> + +<p>"And you are not going to enlighten him?"</p> + +<p>She drew back before his penetrating gaze. "I can't. I couldn't bear him +to know."</p> + +<p>"How do you propose to prevent his knowing? Do you think you're clever +enough to keep him in the dark for ever?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Why not? He hasn't seen things in the broad daylight, under his very +nose. There were plenty of things to see."</p> + +<p>"You mean he's stupid?"</p> + +<p>"I mean I haven't been clever, if that's what you think. Once I did +nearly tell him."</p> + +<p>"Supposing somebody else tells him?"</p> + +<p>"If they do it'll only be their word against mine. And he'd take my word +against anybody's."</p> + +<p>"Poor devil!"</p> + +<p>He seemed to meditate, dispassionately, on the poor devil's case, and +hers.</p> + +<p>"You little fool. It isn't a question of people's words. How are you +going to get rid of the facts?"</p> + +<p>"He needn't know them."</p> + +<p>"You forget. I'm one of them. How are you going to get rid of me?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Wilfrid—you're not going to tell him? You said you wouldn't."</p> + +<p>"Of course I said I wouldn't—I'd even be glad to get rid of myself to +oblige you,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> Kitty, but I can't. Here I am. How are you going to account +for me?"</p> + +<p>"I've thought of that. He needn't see you. It'll be all right, Wilfrid, +if you'll go away."</p> + +<p>"No doubt. But I haven't gone away."</p> + +<p>He emphasised his point by rising and taking up a commanding position on +the hearthrug.</p> + +<p>Some one knocked at the door, and she started violently.</p> + +<p>It was only a servant, bringing a note for her.</p> + +<p>She read it and handed it to Marston, looking piteously at him as he +stood his ground.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Lucy can come up," she said. "We have finished all we had to say."</p> + +<p>"I think there are one or two points," he replied, "still unsettled."</p> + +<p>She turned to the servant.</p> + +<p>"Will you tell Mr. Lucy I'm engaged for the present. I will see him +later."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No, my dear Mrs. Tailleur, not on my account. There's no reason why you +shouldn't see Mr. Lucy now. No reason at all."</p> + +<p>She stood tortured with indecision.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Tailleur will see Mr. Lucy now."</p> + +<p>"I will see him in ten minutes."</p> + +<p>"Very good, ma'am."</p> + +<p>The servant withdrew.</p> + +<p>Marston shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"There you are. Here we both are. Here we are all three in the same +hotel. An uncomfortably small hotel. How are you—or rather, how is +he—going to get over that?"</p> + +<p>"It would be all right if you'd only go. I've told him you were a man +coming on business."</p> + +<p>"My dear Kitty, that was quite unworthy of you."</p> + +<p>"Well, what could I do? It's not as if I was in the habit of telling +lies."</p> + +<p>"I won't criticise it if it was a first<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> attempt. But in telling a lie, +my child, it's as well to select one that bears some resemblance to the +truth. Do I look like a man who comes on business?"</p> + +<p>"You will go before he comes, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"No, I don't think I will."</p> + +<p>"You have nothing," she said, "to gain by staying."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you think you have everything to gain by my going?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Wilfrid, give me my chance."</p> + +<p>"I'm giving you your chance, you little fool. I wouldn't produce that +pocket-handkerchief if I were you. It's quite the most damaging thing +about you."</p> + +<p>She gave a hysterical laugh, and put the pocket-handkerchief away.</p> + +<p>"You are utterly unfit," he commented, "to manage your own affairs."</p> + +<p>They sat silent, while the clock ticked out the last minutes of her +torture.</p> + +<p>"You'd better make up your mind what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> you're going to do when he +arrives," he said finally.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said Kitty, "what I'm going to do."</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you, then. You are going to introduce me as you would any +ordinary man of your acquaintance."</p> + +<p>"By your own name?"</p> + +<p>"By my own name, of course."</p> + +<p>They waited. Lucy's stride was heard along the corridor. She looked up +at her tormentor.</p> + +<p>"Is my nose red, Wilfrid?"</p> + +<p>"No," he said, smiling grimly, "my dear Mrs. Tailleur," he added as Lucy +entered.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + + +<p class="cap">SHE came to meet him, keeping her back to Marston, her face thrust a +little forward in the way it had, looking for the protection of Robert's +kind eyes. Only when she had his hand in hers she turned.</p> + +<p>"May I introduce Mr. Wilfrid Marston?"</p> + +<p>The two men bowed, glancing at each other with eyes urbanely innocent of +curiosity.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry to have had to keep you waiting," said Kitty.</p> + +<p>"So am I," said Marston. "Our business took rather longer than we +thought."</p> + +<p>"Business generally does," said Lucy.</p> + +<p>"It need not have taken quite so long if I could have persuaded Mrs. +Tailleur to think a little of her own advantage."</p> + +<p>"I have," said Kitty, "an admirable adviser in Mr. Marston."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You are always kind. Even if you don't always act on my advice."</p> + +<p>"Sometimes you think you know your own affairs best."</p> + +<p>"And sometimes," said Lucy, "it's just possible you do."</p> + +<p>"Sometimes. I've been telling Mrs. Tailleur that she's incapable of +managing her own affairs when it's a question of her own advantage. If +you know anything of Mrs. Tailleur, you will agree with me there."</p> + +<p>"I certainly agree with you, if Mrs. Tailleur will forgive my saying so. +I hope I've not come too soon."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no. Mr. Marston has missed the last train up."</p> + +<p>"And Mrs. Tailleur has been kind enough to ask me to stop the night."</p> + +<p>"If you don't prefer the Métropole. Mr. Lucy is not going. Don't—it's +all right, Robert."</p> + +<p>"Are you sure?"</p> + +<p>"Quite sure. Our business is finished."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span></p> + +<p>"All except one or two details which we may perhaps arrange later," said +Marston, who preserved a perfect suavity.</p> + +<p>"How much later?" said Kitty. "<em>I'm</em> not going to arrange anything more +to-night."</p> + +<p>"To-morrow night."</p> + +<p>"There won't be any to-morrow night—if you're going up to town."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, perhaps if Mr. Lucy will excuse us, you will give me a +moment now. It seems a pity not to put things straight while you're +about it."</p> + +<p>"You can't put things straight at eleven o'clock at night. My poor +head's all muddled and aching abominably."</p> + +<p>"To-morrow morning, then."</p> + +<p>"There will be no time to-morrow morning. Robert, has Jane gone to bed?"</p> + +<p>"No, she's sitting up. She wants to speak to you."</p> + +<p>"Will you bring her to me, please?"</p> + +<p>He rose. When he had left the room she turned on Marston in a fury.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Wilfrid, you're a beast, a perfect beast."</p> + +<p>"A man of business, my dear Kitty, very often is. He's paid, you know, +for doing beastly things."</p> + +<p>"They come easy to you."</p> + +<p>"Is that all the thanks I get for playing up to you? I gave you every +point, too."</p> + +<p>She raged dumbly.</p> + +<p>"I can't congratulate you on your skill in the game. You'd have given +yourself away ten times over—if I hadn't stopped you."</p> + +<p>"What are you waiting for now, then?"</p> + +<p>"I have not said good night to your friend Mr. Lucy, nor to you."</p> + +<p>"You can say good night to me now, and good bye. I shall not see you +again."</p> + +<p>"Pardon me, you will see me to-morrow morning."</p> + +<p>"No. Never again. I've done with you."</p> + +<p>"My dear girl, you are absurd. Mr. Lucy is not going to marry you +to-morrow morning, is he?"</p> + +<p>"Well?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And until he marries you, you haven't exactly done with me."</p> + +<p>"I see. You want to remind me that the clothes on my back belong to +you."</p> + +<p>He flushed painfully.</p> + +<p>"I don't want to remind you of anything that may be unpleasant to you. +I'm only suggesting that in the circumstances—until you marry him—you +can hardly refuse to see me."</p> + +<p>"Why should I see you? It'll make no difference."</p> + +<p>"To me, none. To you it may possibly make a considerable difference. +There are some points you have evidently not thought of, which it would +be well for us to talk over before you think of marrying."</p> + +<p>She capitulated.</p> + +<p>"If I see you to-morrow, will you go now?"</p> + +<p>"I will go, my dear Kitty, the precise moment I see fit. If I were you I +should wipe that expression from my face before Mr. Lucy comes in. He +might not like it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> The pocket-handkerchief might be used with advantage +now—just there."</p> + +<p>In obedience to his indication she passed her hand over the flushed +tear-stain. At that moment Lucy entered with his sister.</p> + +<p>Jane, less guarded than her brother, looked candidly, steadily at +Marston, whose face instantly composed itself to reverence and devotion +before her young half-spiritual presence.</p> + +<p>Kitty's voice was scarcely audible as she murmured the ritual of +introduction.</p> + +<p>Lucy was aware of her emotion.</p> + +<p>"I think," said he, "as Mrs. Tailleur has owned to a bad headache, Mr. +Marston and I had better say good night."</p> + +<p>Marston said it. There was nothing else left for him to say. And as he +went through the door that Lucy opened for him, he cursed him in his +heart.</p> + +<p>"Jane," said Kitty.</p> + +<p>But Jane was looking at the door through which Marston and Robert had +just gone.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Robert did that very neatly," said she. "You wanted to get rid of him, +didn't you, Kitty?"</p> + +<p>"I've been trying to get rid of Wilfrid Marston for the last three +weeks."</p> + +<p>She had such wisdom, mothered by fierce necessity, as comes to the +foolish at their call. She was standing over little Jane as she spoke, +looking down into her pure, uplifted eyes.</p> + +<p>"You've been crying," she said.</p> + +<p>"Yes." Jane's eyes were very bright, new-washed with tears.</p> + +<p>"I know why. It's because of me."</p> + +<p>"Yes; but it's all right now, Kitty."</p> + +<p>She did not tell her that ten minutes ago she, too, had been out on the +Cliff-side and had had a battle with herself there, and had won it. For +little Jane there couldn't be a harder thing in the world than to give +Robert up. Of course she had to do it, so there could be no virtue in +that. The hard thing was to do it gracefully, beautifully.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What are you going to say to me, Janey? He told you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; he told me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't look at me like that, dear. Say if you hate it for him."</p> + +<p>"I don't hate it. Only, oh, Kitty, dear, do you really love him?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; I love him."</p> + +<p>"But—you've only known him ten days. I don't think I could love a man +I'd only known ten days."</p> + +<p>"It makes no difference."</p> + +<p>"That's what Robert said."</p> + +<p>"Yes; he said it to me. Ah, I know what you mean. You think it's all +very well for him, because men are different. It's me you can't +understand; you think I must be horrid."</p> + +<p>"Oh no, no. It's only—I think <em>I'm</em> different, that's all."</p> + +<p>"<em>Is</em> that all, Janey?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And will you love me a little if I love<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> him a great deal? Or do you +hate me for loving him?"</p> + +<p>"Kitty—you needn't be afraid. The more you love him the more I shall +love you."</p> + +<p>"Did—did his wife love him? Oh, ought I to have asked you that?"</p> + +<p>Jane shook her head.</p> + +<p>"I'm not sure that I ought to tell you."</p> + +<p>"She didn't, then?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, she did, poor little thing. She loved him all she could."</p> + +<p>"And it wasn't enough?"</p> + +<p>"No, I don't think it was, quite. There was something wanting. But I +don't think Robert ever knew it."</p> + +<p>"He knows it now," said Kitty. Her voice lifted with the pride of +passion.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><a name="XV" id="XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + + +<p class="cap">MARSTON cancelled that appointment at Whitehall. Somebody else's +business would have to wait another day, that was all. He was wont to +settle affairs as they arose, methodically, punctually, in the order of +their importance. At the moment his own affair and Kitty's was of +supreme importance. Until it was settled he could not attend to anybody +else.</p> + +<p>He was determined not to let her go. He meant to have her. He did not +yet know precisely how he was to achieve this end, but as a first step +to it he engaged a room indefinitely at the Métropole. There was nothing +like being on the spot. He would consider himself defeated when Lucy had +actually married her. Meanwhile, he was uplifted by his supreme distrust +of the event.</p> + +<p>His rival had made a very favourable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> impression on him, with the +curious effect of heightening Kitty's value in his eyes. Other causes +contributed, her passion for Lucy, and the subtle purification it had +wrought in her (a charm to which Marston was by no means unsusceptible), +the very fact that his own dominion was uncertain and his possession +incomplete.</p> + +<p>Up till now he had been unaware of the grip she had on him. He had never +allowed for the possibility of permanence in his relations with her sex. +The idea of marriage was peculiarly unsupportable to him. Even in his +youth he had had no love affairs, avowed and sanctioned. Though Marston +professed the utmost devotion to women like Miss Lucy, the women whom +his mother and his sisters knew, he had noticed a little sadly that he +soon wearied of their society, that he had no power of sustained +communion with the good. The unfallen were for him the unapproachable. +Therefore he had gravitated by taste and temperament<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> to the women of +the underworld. There his incurable fastidiousness drove him to the +pursuit of a possible perfection, distinction within the limits, the +inherent frailties of the type.</p> + +<p>In Kitty Tailleur he had found even more than he was looking for. Kitty +had certain graces, reminiscent of the upper world; a heritage from +presumably irreproachable parents, that marked her from the women of her +class. She had, moreover, a way of her own, different from the charm of +the unfallen, different, too, from the coarse lures of the underworld. +Kitty was never rank, never insipid. She had a few light brains in her +body, and knew how to use them, woman-like, for the heightening of her +charm.</p> + +<p>There were other good points about Kitty. Marston disliked parting with +his money, and he had found Kitty, so far, inexpensive, as women went.</p> + +<p>For these reasons, so many and so plausible that they disguised the true +kind and degree<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> of his subjection, he had before now returned to Kitty +more than once after he thought that he had tired of her.</p> + +<p>Only three weeks ago, on her return from Matlock, he judged that he had +come to the end of his passion for her; and here he was again at the +very beginning of it. Instead of perishing it had thrived on absence. He +found himself on the verge of a new and unforeseen adventure, with +impulse sharpened by antagonism and frustration. Yet his only chance, he +knew, was not to be impulsive, but cool rather, calculating and +cautious. The fight he was in for would have to be fought with brains; +his against hers.</p> + +<p>He sent a note to her early in the morning asking her to see him at +nine. At nine she saw him.</p> + +<p>"I thought," she said, "you were going up to town early."</p> + +<p>"I'm not going up to town at all, as it happens, to-day."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Isn't it rather a pity to neglect your business?"</p> + +<p>"My business, dear Kitty, is not any business of yours."</p> + +<p>"I'm only trying to make you see that it isn't worth your while stopping +out of town because of me."</p> + +<p>He was a little disconcerted at her divination of his motives, her +awareness of her own power.</p> + +<p>"Well, you see, though the affairs of Whitehall are not your affairs, +your affairs, unfortunately, are mine; and, since I have to attend to +them, I prefer to do it at once and get it over. I had some talk with +Lucy last night."</p> + +<p>She turned on him. "Ah, you <em>have</em> given me away."</p> + +<p>"Did you ever know me give any one away?"</p> + +<p>She did not answer all at once.</p> + +<p>He was shocked at her suspicion; at the things she believed it possible +for a man to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> do. In the upper world, in a set that discussed its women +freely, he had never used his knowledge of a woman to harm her. He had +carried the same scruple into that other world where Kitty lived, where +he himself was most at home, where an amused, contemptuous tolerance +played the part of chivalry. The women there trusted him; they found him +courteous in his very contempt. He had connived at their small deceits, +the preposterous hypocrisies wherewith they protected themselves. He +accepted urbanely their pitiful imitations of the lost innocence. Kitty, +moving reckless and high in her sad circle, had been scornful of her +sisters' methods. Her soul was as much above them as her body, in its +unique, incongruous beauty, was above their rouge and coloured raiment. +It was this superiority of hers that had brought her to her present +pass; caused her to be mistaken for an honest woman. In her contempt for +the underworld's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> deceptions she had achieved the supreme deceit.</p> + +<p>Her deceit—that was his point.</p> + +<p>"Then," she said presently, "what <em>did</em> you say to him?"</p> + +<p>"I said nothing, my dear child, in your disparagement. On the contrary, +I congratulated him on his engagement. As I'm supposed to be acting as +your agent, or solicitor, or whatever it is I am acting as, I imagine I +did right. Is that so?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; if that's all you said."</p> + +<p>"It is not quite all. I sustained my character by giving him a hint, the +merest hint, that in the event of your marriage your worldly position +would be slightly altered. We must prepare him, you know, for the sudden +collapse of your income."</p> + +<p>He rose and went to the mantelpiece, and lingered there over the +lighting of a cigarette.</p> + +<p>"You hadn't thought of that?" he said as he seated himself again.</p> + +<p>"No; I hadn't thought of it."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, he didn't appear to have thought of it either."</p> + +<p>"What did he say, when you told him that?"</p> + +<p>"He said it didn't matter in the very least."</p> + +<p>"I knew he would."</p> + +<p>"He said, in fact, that nothing mattered."</p> + +<p>"What did you say then?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing. What could I say?"</p> + +<p>She looked at him, trying to see deep into his design, trusting him no +further than she saw.</p> + +<p>"Look here, Kitty, I think you're making a mistake, even from your own +point of view. You ought to tell him."</p> + +<p>"I—can't."</p> + +<p>"You must. He's such an awfully decent chap, you can't let him in for +marrying you without telling him." That was his point and he meant to +stick to it. "It's what you might call playing it low down on a +guileless and confiding man. Isn't it?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes, but I can't tell him."</p> + +<p>"It's the straight thing, Kitty."</p> + +<p>"I know. But it means giving him up."</p> + +<p>"Not at all. He'll respect you all the more for it. He won't go back on +you."</p> + +<p>"He wouldn't if he'd only himself to think of."</p> + +<p>"He isn't bound to tell his people. That's another thing."</p> + +<p>"It isn't his people—it's—it's his children."</p> + +<p>Marston became suddenly attentive. "His children? He's got children, has +he?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, two; two little girls."</p> + +<p>That strengthened his point.</p> + +<p>"Then, my dear girl, you can't—in common decency—not tell him. Hang it +all, you've got to give the man a chance."</p> + +<p>"A chance to escape? You talk as if I'd set a trap for him."</p> + +<p>"My dear child, you haven't sense enough to set a trap. But, since there +are spring-guns in his neighbourhood, I repeat that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> you ought to inform +him of the fact. I dare say he wouldn't funk a spring-gun on his own +account, but he may not want his children to be hurt."</p> + +<p>"I know. He'd be afraid I should contaminate them. I wouldn't, Wilfrid, +I wouldn't. I wouldn't hurt them for the world."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure you wouldn't. But he might think you would. The fathers of +little girls sometimes have strange prejudices. You see it's all very +well as long as you can keep him in his beautiful innocence. But, if he +finds out that you've deceived him, he—well, he might resent it."</p> + +<p>He never turned his eyes from that livid, vulnerable spot, striking at +it with the sword-thrust of his point.</p> + +<p>"A man can forgive many things in a woman, but not that."</p> + +<p>"I must risk it. He mayn't find out for years and years. If I tell him I +shall lose him now."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Not necessarily. Not if he cares for you as much as I should say he +does."</p> + +<p>"It doesn't matter how much he cares. He'd never marry me."</p> + +<p>"No. He might make another and more sensible arrangement."</p> + +<p>"And then?" She faced him with it.</p> + +<p>"Then you'll be satisfied. You'll have had your fling."</p> + +<p>"And—when—I've—had it?" she said slowly.</p> + +<p>"Then, I suppose, I shall have to take you back."</p> + +<p>"I see. That's where you think you'll come in."</p> + +<p>"I wasn't thinking, at the moment, of myself. The suggestion was thrown +out entirely on your behalf, and I may say his. I'm simply telling you +what—knowing you as I do—I consider the wiser course, for both of +you."</p> + +<p>"You don't know. And you don't know him. He wouldn't do it. He isn't +that sort."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>She paused, brooding over it.</p> + +<p>"Besides, I couldn't bear it. I can't go back to that."</p> + +<p>"And how many years do you think you'll stand being proper and +respectable, which is what you'll have to be as long as you're Mrs. +Robert Lucy? It's a stiffish job, my child, for you to tackle. Just +think of the practical difficulties. I've accounted for the sudden, very +singular collapse of your income, but there are all sorts of things that +you won't be able to account for. The disappearance, for instance, of +the entire circle of your acquaintance."</p> + +<p>She smiled. "It would be <em>much</em> more awkward if it didn't disappear."</p> + +<p>"True. Still, a female friend or two is an indispensable part of a +married woman's outfit. The Lucys mayn't mind, but their friends may +regard the omission as peculiar. Then—you have charming manners, I +know—but your speech is apt, at times, to be a little, what shall I +say? Unfettered.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> The other day, when you were annoyed with me, you +called me a beast."</p> + +<p>"That's nothing. I might have called you something much worse."</p> + +<p>"You might. Happily, you did not. I've no objection to the word; it can +be used as a delicate endearment, but in your mouth it loses any tender +grace it might have had."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, Wilfrid."</p> + +<p>"Don't apologise. <em>I</em> didn't mind. But if you call Lucy a beast he won't +like it."</p> + +<p>"I couldn't. Besides, I shall be very careful."</p> + +<p>"You will have to be extremely careful. The Lucys live in Hampstead, I +believe, and Hampstead enjoys the reputation of being the most +respectable suburb of London. You've no idea of the sort of people +you'll have to meet there. You'll terrify them, and they, my poor +Kitten, will exterminate you. You don't know what respectability is +like."</p> + +<p>"I don't care. I can stand anything."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You think you can. I <em>know</em> that you won't be able to stand it for a +fortnight. You'll find that the air of Hampstead doesn't agree with you. +And wherever you go it'll be the same thing. You had very much better +stick to me."</p> + +<p>"To you?"</p> + +<p>"You'll be safer and happier. If you'll stay with me——"</p> + +<p>"I never have—stayed—with you."</p> + +<p>"No, but I'd like you to."</p> + +<p>He was not going to make love to her. He was far too clever for that. He +knew that with a woman like Kitty, in Kitty's state of mind, he had +nothing to gain by making love. Neither did he propose to pit his will +against hers. That course had answered well enough in the time of his +possession of her. Passion, which was great in her, greater than her +will, made his will powerless over her. His plan was to match the forces +of her brain with superior, with overwhelming forces.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span></p> + +<p>He continued coldly. "I'm not satisfied with the present arrangement any +more than you are. If you'll stay with me you shall live where you +choose; only don't choose Park Lane, for I can't afford it. I'll give +you any mortal thing I <em>can</em> afford."</p> + +<p>"You think you can give me what Robert Lucy's giving me?"</p> + +<p>"I can give you a home, Kitty, as long as you'll live in it. I can give +you the advantages of marriage without its drawbacks. You won't be tied +to me a minute longer than you like. Whereas you can't leave Lucy +without a scandal."</p> + +<p>"You think that a safe arrangement, do you? I can leave you when I want +to."</p> + +<p>"You can leave me any day. So the chances are that you won't want to."</p> + +<p>"And when you're tired of me?"</p> + +<div><a name="you" id="you"></a></div> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 380px;"> +<img src="images/icol3.jpg" class="jpg" width="380" height="600" alt=""'You won't be tied to me a minute longer than you +like.'"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"'You won't be tied to me a minute longer than you +like.'"</span> +</div> + +<p>"That's it. I shan't be tired of you. I've a different feeling for you +from any I've ever had for any other woman, for the simple reason that +you're a different woman every <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>time I see you. That's the secret of +your fascination. Didn't you know it?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head, but she was not attending to him.</p> + +<p>"If you don't know it there's no harm in telling you that I'm very fond +of you."</p> + +<p>"What earthly use is it, Wilfrid, being fond of me, as long as I'm not +fond of you?"</p> + +<p>Ah, that was a mistake. He was on perilous ground. She was strong there. +She matched his bloodless, unblushing candour with her throbbing, +passionate sincerity.</p> + +<p>"That's all the better," he said. "It wouldn't pay you, Kitty, to be +fond of me. If I thought you were fond of me to-day it would leave me +with nothing to look forward to to-morrow. If you were as fond of me as +you are of Lucy, it would bore me horribly. What's more, it would bore +you. It would tire you out, and you'd bolt in a week's time. As, I can +tell you, you'll bolt from him."</p> + +<p>"You think I shall do that. He doesn't. That's why I'm fond of him."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I wouldn't be too fond of him. It never pays. Either you'll tire of him +in a week, or, if you go on being fond of him you'll end by being afraid +of him. You need never be afraid of me."</p> + +<p>"I <em>am</em> afraid of you."</p> + +<p>"Not you. I understand you, Kitty, and he doesn't."</p> + +<p>"You mean you know the worst of me?"</p> + +<p>"Precisely. What's more, I should condone what you call the worst of +you, and he wouldn't."</p> + +<p>"I know you would. That's why I'm afraid of you. You only know the worst +of me, and he—he knows, he understands, the rest. There's something in +me that you've never seen; you couldn't see it; you wouldn't believe in +it; you'd kill it if I stayed with you. It's no use talking, for I +won't."</p> + +<p>"Why not?" he asked as if nothing she had said had been of any moment.</p> + +<p>"I've told you why not. But I don't expect you to understand it."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span></p> + +<p>"If there's anything in it I shall understand it in the end. I'm not a +fool."</p> + +<p>"No, you're not a fool. I'll say that for you."</p> + +<p>"Unless it's folly to be as fond of you as I am."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, that's not folly. You'll be fond of me just as long as I'm nice +to look at; as long as it doesn't bore you to talk to me; as long as I +don't give you any trouble."</p> + +<p>"Good God! Why, look at the trouble you're giving me now."</p> + +<p>"Yes, the trouble I'm giving you now, when I'm young and pretty and you +can't have me. But when you <em>have</em> had me; when I'm tired out and ill +and—and thin; will you be fool enough to be fond of me then?"</p> + +<p>"You have been ill, you were ill last night, and—I've got over it."</p> + +<p>"You never came near me when I was ill at Matlock. You call that giving +me what Robert Lucy gives me? Robert has seen me<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> when I've been as ugly +as sin, when my eyes have been bunged up with crying. And it made no +difference. He'll love me when I'm thin and ill and old. When I'm dead +he'll love me."</p> + +<p>He faced her passion as it flamed up before him, faced it with his cold, +meditative smile.</p> + +<p>"That's just what makes it such a beastly shame."</p> + +<p>"My not giving him up? How <em>can</em> I give him up?"</p> + +<p>"I see your point. You think you're exchanging a temporary affection for +a permanent one. You admit that I shall love you as long as you're nice +to look at. Very well. You'll be nice to look at for some considerable +time. I shall therefore love you for some considerable time. Robert Lucy +will love you just as long as he believes in you. How long will that +be?"</p> + +<p>She did not answer.</p> + +<p>"You don't know. Have you calculated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span> the probable effect of gradual +enlightenment on our friend's mind?"</p> + +<p>"I've calculated nothing."</p> + +<p>"No. You are not a calculating woman. I just ask you to consider this +point. I am not, as you know, in the least surprised at any of your +charming little aberrations. But our friend Lucy has not had many +surprises in his life. He'll come to you with an infinite capacity for +astonishment. It's quite uncertain how he'll take—er—anything in the +nature of a surprise. And, if you ask me, I should say he'd take it +hard. Are you going to risk that?"</p> + +<p>He was returning to his point even when he feigned to have lost sight of +it. Tortured and panting she evaded it with pitiful subterfuges. He +urged her back, pressing her tender breast against the prick of it.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to risk everything," she said.</p> + +<p>"Risk it, risk it, then. Tie yourself for life to a man you don't know; +who doesn't really know you, though you think he does;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> who on your own +showing wouldn't marry you if he did know. You see what a whopping big +risk it is, for he's bound to know in the end."</p> + +<p>She sickened and wearied. "He is not bound to know. Why is he?"</p> + +<p>"Because, my dear girl, you're bound to give yourself away some day. I +know you. I know the perverse little devil that is in you. When you +realise what you've let yourself in for you'll break loose, +suddenly—like that." He threw out his arms as if he burst bonds +asunder. "You can't help yourself. You simply can't live the life. You +may yearn for it, but you can't live it."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to be respectable. It isn't that."</p> + +<p>"What is it then?"</p> + +<p>"Can't you see?"</p> + +<p>He looked at her closely, as if he saw it for the first time.</p> + +<p>"Are you so awfully gone on him?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes," she said. "You <em>won't</em> tell him? It'll kill me if he knows."</p> + +<p>"You think it will, but it won't."</p> + +<p>"I shall kill myself, then."</p> + +<p>"Oh no, you won't. You only think you will. It's Lucy I'm sorry for."</p> + +<p>"And it's me you're hard on. You were always hard. You say you condone +things, but you condone nothing, and you're not good yourself."</p> + +<p>"No, I'm not good myself. But there is conduct and conduct. I can +condone everything but the fraud you're practising on this innocent +man." He rose. "It's—well—you see, it's such a beastly shame."</p> + +<p>It was to be a battle of brains, and she had foiled him with the +indomitable stupidity of her passion. But his point—the one point that +he stuck to—was a sword point for her passion.</p> + +<p>"You won't tell him? You won't? It would be a blackguardly thing to do."</p> + +<p>"If Lucy was a friend of mine I'm afraid<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> the blackguardly thing would +be to hold my tongue."</p> + +<p>"You'd tell him then?" she said. "You wouldn't think of me?"</p> + +<p>She came to him. She laid her arms upon his shoulders. Her hands touched +him with dispassionate, deliberate, ineffectual caresses, a pitiful +return to a discarded manner, an outrageous imitation of the old +professional cajoleries. It was so poor a thing that it had no power to +move him. What moved him was the look in her eyes, the look which his +brain told him was the desperate, incredulous appeal of her unhappy +soul.</p> + +<p>"I don't know, Kitty," he said. "Thank heaven, he's not a friend of +mine."</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span><a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + + +<p class="cap">IT was not from Marston, then, that she had to fear betrayal. Neither +was she any more afraid of the rumours of the Cliff Hotel. She was aware +that her engagement to Robert Lucy, unannounced but accepted for the +simple fact it was, had raised her above censure and suspicion.</p> + +<p>It had come just in time to occupy Mrs. Jurd and Miss Keating on their +way to Surbiton.</p> + +<p>When Kitty thought of Grace Keating she said to herself, "How will Bunny +feel now?" But her mortal exultation was checked by her pity for poor +Bunny, who would have been so happy if she had been married.</p> + +<p>Then there were the Hankins. She reflected sanely that they couldn't be +dangerous, for they knew nothing. Still she did feel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> a little uneasy +when she thought of the Hankins.</p> + +<p>She was thinking of them now as she and Robert sat on the Cliff, making +the most of their last hour together before the arrival of the little +girls.</p> + +<p>"Robert," she said, "the Hankins are probably sitting down there under +the Cliff. Supposing they see us?"</p> + +<p>"They can't, we're over their heads."</p> + +<p>"But if they do what do you suppose they'll think?"</p> + +<p>"If they think at all, they'll have an inkling of the truth. But it +isn't their business. The children will be here soon," he added.</p> + +<p>She looked at him intently. Was he trying, she wondered, to reassure her +that the presence of his children would protect her? Or was he merely +preoccupied with the thought of their arrival?</p> + +<p>"You don't mind," he said presently, "not coming to the station?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>He had said that already twice before. Why ask, she said, when he knew +perfectly well she didn't mind?</p> + +<p>Of course she didn't mind. She knew his idea, that they were not to be +confronted with her suddenly. He meant to let her dawn on them +beautifully, with the tenderest gradations. He would approach them with +an incomparable cunning. He would tell them that they were going to see +a very pretty lady. And when they were thoroughly inured to the idea of +her, he would announce that the pretty lady was coming to stay with +them, and that she would never go away.</p> + +<p>She looked at her watch.</p> + +<p>"We've got another half-hour before they come."</p> + +<p>"Kitty, I believe you're afraid of them?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Robert, I'm afraid."</p> + +<p>"What? Of two small children?"</p> + +<p>"What are they like? I haven't asked you that."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>"Well, Janet's a queer, uncanny little person, rather long for her age +and very thin——"</p> + +<p>"Like you?"</p> + +<p>"Like me. At first you think she's all legs. Then you see a little white +face with enormous eyes that look at you as if she was wondering what +you are."</p> + +<p>He smiled. His mind had gone off, away from her, to the contemplation of +his little daughter.</p> + +<p>"I think she is clever, but one never knows. We have to handle her very +carefully. Barbara's all right. You can pitch her about like anything."</p> + +<p>"What is Barbara like?"</p> + +<p>"Barbara? She's round and fat and going to be pretty, like——"</p> + +<p>"Like her mother?"</p> + +<p>"No, like Janey, if Janey was fat. They're both a little difficult to +manage. If you reprove Barbara, she bursts out laughing in your face. If +you even hint to Janet that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> you disapprove of her, she goes away +somewhere and weeps."</p> + +<p>"Poor little thing. I'm afraid," said Kitty sadly, "they're not so very +small."</p> + +<p>"Well, Janet, I believe, is seven, and Barbara is five."</p> + +<p>"Barbara is five. And, oh dear me, Janet is seven."</p> + +<p>"Is that such a very formidable age?"</p> + +<p>She laughed uneasily. "Yes. That's the age when they begin to take +notice, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, they do that when they're babies. Even Barbara's grown out of +that. I say, Kitty, what a lot you know."</p> + +<p>"Don't, Robert." She looked at him imploringly and put her hand in his.</p> + +<p>"I won't, if you'll only tell me what I'm not to do."</p> + +<p>"You're not to tease me about the things you think I don't know. I used +to nurse my little sisters, when I wasn't very big myself. I can't nurse +Janet, or Barbara, can I?"</p> + +<p>"Why not?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span></p> + +<p>"They wouldn't let me. They're too old. It won't be the same thing at +all."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Robert, and paused, hiding from her the thing that was in +his mind.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Robert, I do wish, I do wish they were really small."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, Kitty. But perhaps——"</p> + +<p>He could not hide anything from Kitty.</p> + +<p>"No, Robert," she said, "I'm afraid there won't be any perhaps. That's +one of the things I meant to tell you. But I'm not bothering about that. +I meant—if they were little—little things, I shouldn't be so +dreadfully afraid of them."</p> + +<p>"Why? What do you think they'll do to you, Kitty?"</p> + +<p>"I—don't—know."</p> + +<p>"You needn't be alarmed. I believe they're very well-behaved. Jane has +brought them up quite nicely."</p> + +<p>"What is Jane going to do?"</p> + +<p>"Ah—that's what I wanted to ask you about."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You needn't ask me. You want her to stay and look after them just the +same?"</p> + +<p>"No, not just the same. I want her to stay and she won't. She says it +wouldn't be fair to you."</p> + +<p>"But—if she only would, that would make it all so easy. You see, I +could look after you, and she could look after them."</p> + +<p>"You don't want to be bored with them?"</p> + +<p>"You know that isn't what I mean. I don't want them to suffer."</p> + +<p>"Why <em>should</em> they suffer?" There was some irritation in his tone.</p> + +<p>"Because I don't think, Robert, I'm really fit to bring up children."</p> + +<p>"I think you are. And I don't mean anybody else to bring them up. If +you're my wife, Kitty, you're their mother."</p> + +<p>"And they're to be mine as well as yours?"</p> + +<p>"As much yours as you can make them, dear."</p> + +<p>"Oh, how you trust me. That's what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> makes me so afraid. And—do you +think they'll really love me?"</p> + +<p>"Trust <em>them</em>—for that."</p> + +<p>"You asked me if I could care for you, Robert; you never asked me if I +could care for them. You trusted me for that!"</p> + +<p>"I could have forgiven you if you couldn't care for <em>me</em>."</p> + +<p>"But you couldn't forgive me if I didn't care for them? Is that it?"</p> + +<p>"No; I simply couldn't understand any woman not caring for them. I think +you <em>will</em> like the little things, when you've seen them."</p> + +<p>"I'll promise you one thing. I won't be jealous of them."</p> + +<p>"Jealous? Why on earth should you be?"</p> + +<p>"Some women are. I was afraid I might be that sort."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Because—oh, because I care for you so awfully. But that's just it. +That's why I can't be jealous of them. They're yours, you see. I can't +separate them from you."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, well, let's wait until you've seen them."</p> + +<p>"Don't you believe me, Robert? Women <em>do</em> love their children before +they've seen them. I don't need to see them. I <em>have</em> seen them. I saw +them all last night."</p> + +<p>She looked away from him, brooding, as if she still saw them.</p> + +<p>"There's only one person I could be jealous of, and I'm not jealous of +her any more."</p> + +<p>"Poor little Jane."</p> + +<p>"It wasn't Jane. It was their mother. I mean it was your wife."</p> + +<p>He turned and looked at her. There was amazement in his kind, simple +face.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you think that's fiendish of me?"</p> + +<p>He did not reply.</p> + +<p>"But—Robert—I'm not jealous of her any more. I don't care if she was +your wife."</p> + +<p>"Kitty, my dear child——"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I don't care if she had ten children and <em>I</em> never had one. It's got +nothing to do with it. She had you for—two years, wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Two years, Kitty."</p> + +<p>"Poor thing; and I shall have you all my life."</p> + +<p>"Yes. And so, if you don't mind, dear, I'd rather you didn't talk about +that again."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry. I won't ever again."</p> + +<p>She sat silent for a moment in a sort of penitential shame. Then she +burst out—</p> + +<p>"I'm not jealous. But, Robert, if you were to leave me for another woman +it would kill me. I daren't say that to any other man if I cared for +him. It would just make him go and do it. But I believe somehow you'd +think twice before you killed me."</p> + +<p>He only smiled at this, and spoke gently.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Kitty, you're right. I believe I <em>would</em> think twice about it."</p> + +<p>He said to himself that this fierceness,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> her passionate perversity, all +that was most unintelligible in her, was just Kitty's way—the way of a +woman recklessly, adorably in love. It stirred in him the very depths of +tenderness. When she was married (they must marry very soon) she would +be happy; she would understand him; she would settle down.</p> + +<p>He looked at his watch. "I'm afraid I must be going."</p> + +<p>She glanced at the hands of the watch over his shoulder. "You needn't," +she said. "It isn't really time."</p> + +<p>"Well—five minutes."</p> + +<p>The five minutes went. "Time's up," he said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, Robert—not yet."</p> + +<p>"Kitty—don't you want to see them?"</p> + +<p>"I don't want you to go."</p> + +<p>"I'm coming back."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but it won't be the same thing. It never will be the same thing as +now."</p> + +<p>"Poor Kitty—I say, I <em>must</em> go and meet them."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Very well." She stood up. "Kiss me," she said.</p> + +<p>She took his kiss as if it were the last that would be given her.</p> + +<p>They went together to the hotel. Jane had started five minutes ago for +the station.</p> + +<p>"It's all right," he said. "I'll catch her up."</p> + +<p>She followed to the gates and looked down the white road where Jane had +gone.</p> + +<p>"Let me come with you—just a little way—to the first lamp-post on the +station road."</p> + +<p>"Well, to the first lamp-post."</p> + +<p>At the lamp-post she let him go.</p> + +<p>She stood looking after him till he swung round the turn of the road, +out of her sight. Then she went back, slowly, sad-eyed, and with a great +terror in her heart.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + + +<p class="cap">IT was not the thing she had confessed to him, fear of his little unseen +children, it was terror, unconfessed, uncomprehended, as it were +foreknowledge of the very soul of destiny clothed for her in their +tender flesh and blood.</p> + +<p>Up till now she had been careless of her destiny. She had been so +joyous, so defiant in her sinning. By that charm of hers, younger than +youth, indestructibly childlike, she had carried it through with the +audacity of chartered innocence. She had propitiated, ignored, eluded +the more feminine amenities of fate. Of course, she had had her bad +moments. She had been sorry, sometimes, and she had been sick; but on +the whole her powers had been splendidly recuperative. She had shown +none of those naked tender spots that provoke destiny to strike. And +with it all she had preserved, perhaps too<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> scrupulously, the rules laid +down for such as she. She had kept her own place. She had never +attempted to invade the sanctuaries set apart for other women.</p> + +<p>It was Robert who had tempted her to that transgression. He had opened +the door of the sanctuary for her and shut it behind her and put his +back against it. He had made her believe that if she stayed in there, +with him, it would be all right. She might have known what would happen. +It was for such a moment, of infatuation made perfect, that destiny was +waiting.</p> + +<p>Kitty had no very luminous idea of its intentions. But she bore in her +blood forebodings, older and obscurer than the flashes of the brain; and +her heart had swift immortal instincts, forerunners of the mortal hours. +The powers of pain, infallibly wise, implacably just, would choose their +moment well, striking at her through the hands of the children she had +never borne.</p> + +<p>If Robert found out what she was before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> he married her, he would have +to give her up because of them. She knew better than he did the hold she +had over him. She had tried to keep him in ignorance of her power, so +great was her terror of what it might do to him, and to her through him. +Yet, with all her sad science, she remained uncertain of his ultimate +behaviour. That was the charm and the danger of him. For fear of some +undiscovered, uncalculated quality in him she had held herself back; she +had been careful how she touched him, how she looked at him, lest her +hands or her eyes should betray her; lest in his heart he should call +her by her name, and fling her from him because of them. Whereas, but +for them, she judged that whatever she was he would not give her up. She +was not quite sure (you couldn't say <em>what</em> a man like Robert would or +wouldn't do), but she felt that if she could have had him to herself, if +there had been only he and she, facing the world, then, for sheer +chivalry,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span> he simply couldn't have left her. Even now, once he was +married to her it would be all right; he couldn't give her up or leave +her; the worst he could do would be to separate her from them.</p> + +<p>There was really no reason then why she should be frightened. He was +going to marry her very soon. She knew that, by her science, though he +had not said so. She would be all right. She would be very careful. It +wasn't as if she didn't want to be nice and to do all the proper things.</p> + +<p>And so Kitty cast off care.</p> + +<p>Only, as she waited in the room prepared for the children, she looked at +herself in the glass, once, to make sure that there was nothing in her +face that could betray her. No; Nature had spared her as yet and her +youth was good to her. Her face looked back at her, triumphantly +reticent, innocent of memory, holding her charm, a secret beyond the +secrets of corruption, as her perfect body held the mystery and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span> +prophecy of her power. Besides, her face was different now from what it +had been. Wilfrid had intimated to her that it was different. It was the +face that Robert loved; it had the look that told him that she loved +him, a look it never wore for any other man. Even now as she thought of +him it lightened and grew rosy. She saw it herself and wondered and took +hope. "That's how I look when I'm happy, is it? I'm always happy when +I'm with him, so," she reasoned, "he will always see me like that; and +it will be all right."</p> + +<p>Anyhow, there would be no unhappiness about his pretty lady when he came +back with them.</p> + +<p>She smiled softly as she went about the room, putting the touches of +perfection to the festival. There were roses everywhere; on the table, +on the mantelpiece; the room was sweet with the smell of them; there was +a rose on each child's plate. The tremulous movements of her hands +betrayed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> the immensity and the desperation of her passion to please. +The very waiter was touched by her, and smiled secretly in sympathy as +he saw her laying her pretty lures. When he had gone she arranged the +table all over again and did it better. Then she stood looking at it, +hovering round it, thinking. She would sit here, and the children there, +Janet between her and Robert, Barbara between her and Jane.</p> + +<p>"Poor little things," she said, "poor little things." She yearned to +them even in her fear of them, and when she thought of them sitting +there her lips moved in unspoken, pitiful endearments.</p> + +<p>The light from the south-west streamed into the little room and made it +golden. Everything in it shimmered and shone. The window, flung wide +open to the veranda, framed the green lawn and the shining, shimmering +sea. A wind, small and soft, stirred the thin curtains to and fro, +fanning the warm air. The sunlight and heat oppressed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span> her. She shut her +eyes and put her hands over them to cool them with darkness. It was a +trick she had when she was troubled.</p> + +<p>She sat by the window and waited in the strange, throbbing darkness of +hot eyes closed in daylight, a darkness smitten by the sun and shot with +a fiery fume.</p> + +<p>They were coming now. She heard feet on the gravel outside, round the +corner; she heard Robert's voice and Janey's; and then little shuffling +footsteps at the door, and two voices shrill and sweet.</p> + +<p>Robert came in first and the children with him. They stood all three on +the threshold, looking at her. Robert was smiling, but the little girls +(they were very little) were grave. His eyes drew her and she came +toward them as she was used to come to the things of her desire, swift +and shy, with a trailing, troubling movement; the way that he had seen +her come, swayed by the rhythm of impulse.</p> + +<p>The children stood stock still as she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> stooped to them. Her fear of them +made her supremely gentle. Little Barbara put up her round rose face +with its soft mouth thrust forward in a premature kiss. Janet gave her a +tiny hand and gazed at her with brooding, irresponsive eyes. Her little +mouth never moved as Kitty's mouth touched it.</p> + +<p>But little Barbara held out her spade and bucket for Kitty to see. +"Look, look," said little Barbara, "Daddy gave them me to build castles +in the sand." Barbara spoke so fast that she panted, and laughed in a +divine superfluity of joy.</p> + +<p>Robert stood looking down from his tremendous height at Barbara, +tenderly as one who contemplates a thing at once heartrending and +absurd. Then his eyes turned to Kitty, smiling quietly as if they said, +"Didn't I tell you to wait until you'd seen them?" Kitty's heart +contracted with a sharp, abominable pang.</p> + +<p>Then Janey took the little girls to the room upstairs where their nurse +was. Barbara<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> looked back at Kitty as she went, but Kitty's eyes +followed Janet.</p> + +<p>"Robert," she said, "will she always look at me like that? Shall I never +know what she is thinking?"</p> + +<p>"None of us know what Janet's thinking."</p> + +<p>He paused.</p> + +<p>"I told you we had to be very careful of her."</p> + +<p>"Is she delicate?"</p> + +<p>"No. Physically, she's far stronger than Barbara. She's what you call +morally delicate."</p> + +<p>She flushed. "What do you mean, Robert?"</p> + +<p>"Well—not able to bear things. For instance, we'd a small child staying +with us once. It turned out that she wasn't a nice child at all. We +didn't know it, though. But Janet had a perfect horror of her. It's as +if she had a sort of intuition. She was so unhappy about it that we had +to send the child away."</p> + +<p>His forehead was drawn into a frown of worry and perplexity.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I don't see how she's to grow up. It makes me feel so awfully +responsible. The world isn't an entirely pretty place, you know, and it +seems such a cruel shame to bring a child like that into it. Doesn't +it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Somehow I think you'll understand her, Kitty."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Robert, I understand."</p> + +<p>She came to him. She laid her hand on the sleeve of his coat, and stood +by him. Her eyes were shining through some dew that was not tears.</p> + +<p>"What is it, Kitty?"</p> + +<p>"Will you marry me soon?" she said. "Very soon?" she whispered. "I—I +can't wait." She hid her face against his arm.</p> + +<p>He thought it was the motherhood in her that was moved, that pleaded, +impatient for its hour.</p> + +<p>"Why should we wait? Do you suppose I want to?"</p> + +<p>"Hush!" she said. "They're coming."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span></p> + +<p>They came a little solemnly, as beseemed a festival. Janet, in her long +white pinafore, looked more than ever the spiritual thing she was. Her +long brown hair hung down her cheeks, straight and smooth as a parted +veil, sharpening her small face, that flickered as a flame flickers in +troubled air. Beside her little Barbara bloomed and glowed, with cheeks +full-blown, and cropped head flowering into curls that stood on end in +brown tufts, and tawny feathers, and little crests of gold. They took +their places, pensively, at the table.</p> + +<p>They had beautiful manners, Robert's children; little exquisite, gentle +ways of approaching and of handling things. They held themselves very +erect, with a secure, diminutive distinction. Kitty's heart sank deeper +as she looked at them. Even Barbara, who was so very young, carried her +small perfections intact through all the spontaneities of her behaviour.</p> + +<p>All through tea-time little Barbara, pursued<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> by her dream, talked +incessantly of castles in the sand. And when she was tired of talking +she began to sing.</p> + +<p>"Darling," said Jane, "we don't sing at tea-time."</p> + +<p>"<em>I</em> do," said little Barbara, and laughed.</p> + +<p>Jane laughed too, hysterically.</p> + +<p>Then the spirit of little Barbara entered into Jane, and made her +ungovernably gay. It passed into Kitty, and ran riot in her blood and +nerves. Whenever Barbara laughed Kitty laughed, and when Kitty laughed +Robert laughed too. Even Janet gave a little shriek now and then. The +children thought it was all because they had had strawberries and cream +for tea, and were going down to the sea to build castles in the sand.</p> + +<p>All afternoon, till dinner-time, Kitty laboured on the sands, building +castles as if she had never done anything else in her life. The Hankins +watched her from their seat on the rocks in the angle of the Cliff.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span></p> + +<p>"We were mistaken. She must be all right. How pretty she is, too, poor +thing," said Mrs. Hankin to her husband.</p> + +<p>"How pretty she is, how absolutely lovable and good," said Robert to +himself as he watched her, while Barbara, a tired little labourer, lay +stretched in her lap. She was sitting on a rock under the Cliff, with +the great brow of it for a canopy. Her eyes were lowered, and hidden by +their deep lids. She was smiling at the child who leaned back in her +arms, crushing a soft cheek against her breast.</p> + +<p>He threw himself down beside her. He had just finished a prodigious +fortress, with earthworks and trenches extending to the sea.</p> + +<p>"Kitty, Kitty," he said, "you're only a child yourself, like Janey. +She's perfectly happy building castles in the sand—so are you. You're a +perfect baby."</p> + +<p>"We're all babies, Robert, building castles in the sand. And you're the +biggest baby of the lot."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I don't care. I've built the biggest castle."</p> + +<p>"Look at Janet," said Kitty. "She'll be grown up before any of us."</p> + +<p>The child sat on a rock with Jane. But, from the distance that she kept, +she looked at her father and Kitty from time to time. All afternoon +Janet had clung to Jane. But when bed-time came Robert took her aside +and whispered something to her. Going home she walked by Kitty, and put +her hand in hers.</p> + +<p>"Daddy said I'm to be very kind to you."</p> + +<p>"Did he? That's very kind of daddy."</p> + +<p>"Daddy's always kind to people. Especially when they've not been very +happy. Really and truly I'm going to be kind. But you won't mind if I +don't love you <em>very</em> soon, will you?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I won't. Only don't leave it too late, darling."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know," said Janet thoughtfully; "we've lots of time."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Have we?"</p> + +<p>"Heaps and heaps. You see, I love Auntie Janey, and it might hurt her +feelings."</p> + +<p>"I see."</p> + +<p>"But I'm going to give you something," said Janet presently.</p> + +<p>"I don't want you to give me anything that belongs to Auntie Janey."</p> + +<p>"No," said Janet; "I shall give you something of my own."</p> + +<p>"Oh! And you can't tell me what it's going to be?"</p> + +<p>"I must think about it." The little girl became lost in thought. +"Barbara likes kissing people. I don't."</p> + +<p>"So I see. It won't be kisses, then?"</p> + +<p>"No; it won't be kisses. It will," she reiterated, "be something of my +own."</p> + +<p>She dropped Kitty's hand.</p> + +<p>"You won't mind if I go to Auntie Janey now?"</p> + +<p>Kitty told Janey about it afterward, as they sat alone in the lounge +before dinner.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You mustn't mind, Kitty dear," said Jane. "It only means that she's a +faithful little soul. She'll be just as faithful to you some day."</p> + +<p>"Some day."</p> + +<p>"Don't sigh like that, Kitty."</p> + +<p>"She's like Robert, isn't she?"</p> + +<p>"Very like Robert."</p> + +<p>She brooded.</p> + +<p>"Janey," she said, "let me have him to myself this evening."</p> + +<p>All evening she had him to herself, out on the Cliff, in the place where +nobody came but they.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "what do you think of them?"</p> + +<p>"I think they're adorable."</p> + +<p>"Funny little beggars, aren't they? How did you get on with Janet?"</p> + +<p>She told him.</p> + +<p>"That's Janet's little way. To give you something of her own." He smiled +in tender satisfaction, repeating the child's phrase.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It's all right, Kitty. She's only holding herself in. You're in for a +big thing."</p> + +<p>She surveyed it.</p> + +<p>"I know, Robert. I know."</p> + +<p>"You're tired? Have the children been too much for you?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head.</p> + +<p>"You're not to make yourself a slave to them, you know."</p> + +<p>She looked at him.</p> + +<p>"Was I all right, Robert?"</p> + +<p>"You were perfect."</p> + +<p>"You said I was only a child myself."</p> + +<p>"So you are. That's why I like you."</p> + +<p>She shook her head again.</p> + +<p>"It's all very well," she said, "but that isn't what you want, +dear—another child."</p> + +<p>"How do you know what I want?"</p> + +<p>"You want somebody much nicer than I am."</p> + +<p>He was silent, looking at her as he had looked at Barbara, enjoying her +absurdity, letting her play, like the child she was, with her +preposterous idea.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, Robert, you do <em>really</em> think I'm nice?" She came nearer to him, +crying out like a child in pain. He put his arm round her, and comforted +her as best he could.</p> + +<p>"You child, do you suppose I'd marry you if I didn't think you nice?"</p> + +<p>"You might. You mightn't care."</p> + +<p>"As it happens, I do care, very much. Anyhow, I wouldn't ask you to be a +mother to my children if I didn't think you nice. That's the test."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Robert," she repeated, "that's the test."</p> + +<p>They rose and went back to the hotel. From the lawn they could see the +open window of the children's room. They looked up.</p> + +<p>"Would you like to see them, Kitty?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>He took her up to them. They were asleep. Little Barbara lay curled up +in the big bed, right in the middle of it where her dreams had tossed +her. Janet, in the cot beside her, lay very straight and still.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span></p> + +<p>Robert signed to Kitty to come near, and they stood together and looked +first at the children and then into each other's faces. Kitty was very +quiet.</p> + +<p>"Do you like them?" he whispered.</p> + +<p>Her lips quivered, but she made no sign.</p> + +<p>He stooped over each bed, smoothing the long hair from Janet's forehead, +folding back the blanket that weighed on Barbara's little body. When he +turned, Kitty had gone. She had slipped into her own room.</p> + +<p>She waited till she heard Robert go away. The children were alone in +there. The nurse, she knew, was in Jane's room across the passage. Jane +was probably telling her that her master was to be married very soon.</p> + +<p>She looked out. The door of Jane's room was shut; so was the door of the +children's room through which Robert had gone out. The other, the door +of communication, she had left ajar. She went softly back through it and +stood again by the children's beds. Janet was still sound asleep. Her +fine limbs<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span> were still stretched straight and quiet under the blanket. +Her hair was as Robert's hand had left it.</p> + +<p>Kitty was afraid of disturbing Janet's sleep. She was afraid of Janet.</p> + +<p>She stooped over little Barbara, and turned back the bedclothes from the +bed. She laid herself down, half her length, upon it by Barbara's side, +and folded her in arms that scarcely touched her at first, so light they +lay on her. Then some perverse and passionate impulse seized her to wake +the child. She did it gently, tenderly, holding back her passion, +troubling the depths of sleep with fine, feather-like touches, with +kisses soft as sleep.</p> + +<p>The child stirred under the caressing arms. She lay in her divine +beauty, half asleep, half awake, opening her eyes, and shutting them on +the secret of her dream. Then Kitty's troubling hand turned her from her +flight down the ways of sleep. She lay on her back, her eyes glimmered +in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span> the lifting of their lids; they opened under Kitty's eyes that +watched them, luminous, large and clear. Her mouth curled under Kitty's +mouth, in drowsy kisses plucked from the annihilated dream. She drew up +her rosy knees and held out her arms to Kitty's arms and smiled, half +awake and half asleep.</p> + +<p>Kitty rose, lifting the child with her from the bed. She held her close, +pressing the tender body close to her own body with quivering hands, +stroking the adorable little face with her own face, closing her eyes +under the touch of it as she closed them when Robert's face touched +hers. She was aware that she had brought some passionate, earthly +quality of her love for Robert into her love for Robert's child.</p> + +<p>She said to herself, "I'm terrible; there's something wrong with me. +This isn't the way to love a child."</p> + +<p>She laid the little thing down again, freed her neck from the drowsy, +detaining arms,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span> and covered the small body up out of her sight. +Barbara, thus abandoned, cried, and the cry cut through her heart.</p> + +<p>She went into her own room, and threw herself on her bed and writhed +there, torn by many pangs. The pang of the heart and the pang of the +half-born spirit, struggling with the body that held it back from birth; +and through it all the pang of the motherhood she had thwarted and +disowned. Out of the very soil of corruption it pierced, sharp and pure, +infinitely painful. It was almost indiscernible from the fierce +exultation of her heart that had found fulfilment, and from the passion +of her body that yet waited for its own.</p> + +<p>She undressed herself, and crept into her bed and lay there, tortured, +visited by many memories. She gazed with terrified, pitiful eyes into a +darkness that was peopled for her with all the faces she had known in +the short seasons of her sinning; men, and the women who had been her +friends and her companions;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span> and the strangers who had passed her by, or +who had lingered and looked on. The faces of Robert and his children +hung somewhere on the outskirts of her vision, but she could not fix +them or hold them; they were trampled out, obliterated by that +phantasmal procession of her shames. Some faces, more terrible than all, +detached themselves and crowded round her, the faces of those who had +pursued her, and of those whom her own light feet pursued; from the +first who had found her and left her, to the last whom she herself had +held captive and let go. They stood about her bed; they stretched out +their hands and touched her; their faces peered into hers; faces that +she had forgotten. She thrust them from her into the darkness and they +came again. Each bore the same likeness to his fellow; each had the same +looks, the same gestures that defied her to forget. She fell asleep; and +the dreams, the treacherous, perpetually remembering, delivered her into +their hands.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span></p> + +<p>She waked at dawn, with memory quickened by her dreams. She heard voices +now, all the voices that had accused her. Her mother's voice spoke +first, and it was very sad. It said, "I am sending you away, Kitty, +because of the children." Then her father's voice, very stern, "No, I +will not have you back. You must stay where you are for your little +sisters' sake." And her mother's voice again—afterward—sad and stern, +too, this time, "As you made your bed, Kitty, you must lie. We can't +take you back."</p> + +<p>And there was a third voice. It said very softly, "You can't have it +both ways." It cried out aloud in a fury, "I've always known it. You +can't hide it. You're full of it." And yet another voice, deep and hard, +"You can't <em>not</em> tell him. It's a shame Kitty; it's an awful shame."</p> + +<p>She could not sleep again for listening to them.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + + +<p class="cap">IT was morning. She dragged herself up and tried to dress. But her hands +shook and her head ached violently. She stretched herself half-dressed +upon her bed and lay there helpless, surrendered to the bodily pain that +delivered her mercifully from the anguish of her mind.</p> + +<p>She saw no one, not even Jane Lucy.</p> + +<p>Outside, in the passage, and in the inner room she heard the footsteps +of the children and their little shrill voices; each sound accentuated +the stabbing pulse of pain. It was impossible to darken the room, and +the insufferable sunlight poured in unchecked through the thin yellow +blinds and plagued her brain, till the nerves of vision throbbed, beat +for beat, with the nerves of torment. At noon she had only one sensation +of brilliant surging pain.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span></p> + +<p>She dozed and her headache lifted. When she woke her body was weak as if +it had had a fever, but her mind closed on reality with the impact of a +force delayed.</p> + +<p>There was a thing not yet quite real to her, a thing that seemed to +belong to the region of bodily pain, to be born there as a bad dream +might be born; a thing that had been there last night among other +things, that, as she stared at it, became more prominent, more poignant +than they. And yet, though its air was so beckoning and so familiar, it +was not among the number of things accomplished and irrevocable. It was +simply the thing she had to do.</p> + +<p>It possessed her now; and under its dominion she was uplifted, carried +along. Her mind moved toward it with a reckless rocking speed, the +perilous certainty of the insane.</p> + +<p>At five o'clock she rang the bell and asked the servant to bring her +some tea. She swallowed a little with a jerk of her throat,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span> and put the +cup down, shuddering. It brought her a sickening memory of yesterday.</p> + +<p>At five o'clock she got up and dressed herself and sent a message to +Robert Lucy to see her downstairs in her sitting-room, alone. As she +stood at her glass she said to herself, "How shocking I look. But he +won't mind."</p> + +<p>At six he was with her.</p> + +<p>She drew her hand away from his as if his touch had hurt her. Her smile +was the still, bloodless smile that comes with pain. She drew her chair +back out of the sunlight, in the recess by the fireplace. He stood +beside her then, looking at her with eyes that loved her the more for +the sad hurt to her beauty. His manner recalled the shy, adolescent +uncertainty of his first approaches.</p> + +<p>"Don't you think," he said, "you ought to have stayed in bed?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head and struggled to find her voice. It came +convulsively.</p> + +<p>"No. I'm better. I'm all right now."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It was being out in that beastly hot sun yesterday—with those +youngsters. You're not used to it."</p> + +<p>She laughed. "No. I'm not used to it. Robert—you haven't told them, +have you?"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"About you—and me?"</p> + +<p>"No. Not yet." He smiled. "I say, I shall have to tell them very soon, +shan't I?"</p> + +<p>"You needn't."</p> + +<p>He made some inarticulate sound that questioned her.</p> + +<p>"I've changed my mind. I can't marry you."</p> + +<p>He had to bend his head to catch her low, indistinct murmur; but he +caught it.</p> + +<p>He drew back from her, and leaned against the chimneypiece and looked at +her more intently than before.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean," he said quietly, "because of <em>them</em>?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>He looked down.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Poor Kitty," he said. "You think I'm asking too much of you?"</p> + +<p>She did not answer.</p> + +<p>"You're afraid?"</p> + +<p>"I told you I was afraid."</p> + +<p>"Yes. But I thought it was all right. I thought you liked them."</p> + +<p>She was silent. Tears rose to her eyes and hung on their unsteady +lashes.</p> + +<p>"They like you."</p> + +<p>She bowed her head and the tears fell.</p> + +<p>"Is that what has upset you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"I see. You've been thinking it over and you find you can't stand it. I +don't wonder. You've let those little monkeys tire you out. You've +nearly got a sunstroke and you feel as if you'd rather die than go +through another day like yesterday? Well, you shan't. There'll never be +another day like yesterday."</p> + +<p>"No. Never," she said; and her sobs choked her.</p> + +<p>"Why should there be? They'll have a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span> governess. You don't suppose I +meant you to have them on your hands all the time?"</p> + +<p>She went on crying softly. He sat on the arm of her chair and put his +arm round her and dried her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Don't be unhappy about it, Kitty. I understand. You're not marrying +them, dear; you're marrying me."</p> + +<p>She broke loose from him.</p> + +<p>"I can't marry you," she cried. "I can't give you what you want."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean that you can't care for me? Is that what you're trying to +tell me all the time?"</p> + +<p>He moved and she cowered back into her chair.</p> + +<p>"I—I <em>can't</em> tell you."</p> + +<p>He had turned from her. He was leaning his arms along the mantelshelf; +he had bowed his head on them.</p> + +<p>They remained for some minutes so; she cowering back; he with his face +hidden from her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Do you mind telling me," he said presently, "if there's anybody else +that you——"</p> + +<p>"That I care for? No, Robert, there's no one."</p> + +<p>"Are you quite sure? Quite honest. Think."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean Wilfrid Marston?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"I certainly do not care for <em>him</em>."</p> + +<p>He raised his head at that; but he did not look at her.</p> + +<p>"Thank God!" he said.</p> + +<p>"Do you think as badly of him as all that?"</p> + +<p>"Don't ask me what I think of him."</p> + +<p>"Would you think badly of me if I'd married him?"</p> + +<p>"I—I couldn't have stood it, Kitty."</p> + +<p>"I am not going to marry him."</p> + +<p>"You haven't said yet that you don't care for me?"</p> + +<p>"No. I haven't."</p> + +<p>He turned and stooped over her, compelling her to look at him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Say it then," he said.</p> + +<p>She drew back her face from his and put up her hands between them. He +rose and stood before her and looked down at her. The blue of her eyes +had narrowed, the pupils stared at him, black and feverish. Her mouth, +which had been tight-shut, was open slightly. A thin flush blurred its +edges. Her breath came through, short and sharp.</p> + +<p>"You're ill," he said. "You must go back to bed."</p> + +<p>"No," she said. "I've got to tell you something."</p> + +<p>"If you do I shan't believe it."</p> + +<p>"What won't you believe?"</p> + +<p>"That you don't care for me. I can't believe it."</p> + +<p>"You'd better, Robert."</p> + +<p>"I don't. There's something wrong. You must tell me what it is."</p> + +<p>"There's nothing wrong but that. I—I made a mistake."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You only thought you liked me? Or is it worse than that?"</p> + +<p>"It's worse, far worse."</p> + +<p>"I see. You tried to like me, and you couldn't?"</p> + +<p>She was silent.</p> + +<p>"Poor child. I've been a selfish brute. I might have known you couldn't. +You've hardly known me ten days. But if I wait, Kitty—if I give you +time to think?"</p> + +<p>"If you give me ten years it would do no good."</p> + +<p>"I see," he said; "I see."</p> + +<p>He gripped the edge of the mantelpiece with both his hands; his tense +arms trembled from the shoulders to the wrists; his hold relaxed. He +straightened himself and hid his shaking hands in his coat pockets. +There were tears at the edges of his eyelids, the small, difficult tears +that cut their way through the flesh that abhors them.</p> + +<p>She saw them.</p> + +<p>"Ah, Robert—do you care for me like that?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You know how I care for you."</p> + +<p>He stopped as he swung away from her, remembering that he had failed in +courtesy.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," he said, simply, "for telling me the truth."</p> + +<p>He reached the door, and she rose and came after him. He shook his head +as a sign to her not to follow him. She saw that he was going from her +because he was tortured and dumb with suffering and with shame.</p> + +<p>Then she knew what she must do. She called to him, she entreated.</p> + +<p>"Robert—don't go. Come back—come back. I can't bear it."</p> + +<p>He came back at that cry.</p> + +<p>"I haven't told you the truth. I lied."</p> + +<p>"When?" he said sternly.</p> + +<p>"Just now. When I told you that I didn't care for you."</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"Sit down—here, on the sofa. I'll try and tell you."</p> + +<p>He sat down beside her, but not near.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span> She leaned forward with her +elbows on her knees, and her head propped on her clenched hands. She did +not look at him as she spoke.</p> + +<p>"I said I didn't care, because I thought that was the easiest way out of +it. Easiest for you. So much easier than knowing the truth."</p> + +<p>He smiled grimly.</p> + +<p>"Well, you see how easy it's been."</p> + +<p>"Yes." She paused. "The truth isn't going to be easy either."</p> + +<p>"Let's have it, all the same, Kitty."</p> + +<p>"You're going to have it." She paused again, breathing hard. "Have you +never wondered why the people here avoided me? You know they thought +things."</p> + +<p>"As if it mattered what they thought."</p> + +<p>"They were right. There <em>was</em> something."</p> + +<p>She heard him draw a deep breath. He, too, leaned forward now, in the +same attitude as she, as if he were the participator of her confession, +and the accomplice of her shame. His face was level with hers, but his +eyes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span> looked straight past her, untainted and clear.</p> + +<p>"What if there was?" he said. "It makes no difference."</p> + +<p>She turned her sad face to his.</p> + +<p>"Don't you know, Robert? Don't you know?"</p> + +<p>He frowned impatiently.</p> + +<p>"No, I don't. I don't want to."</p> + +<p>"You'd rather think I didn't care for you?"</p> + +<p>His face set again in its tortured, dumb look.</p> + +<p>"You shan't think that of me."</p> + +<p>She leaned back again out of his sight, and he presented to her his +shoulder, thrust forward, and his profile, immovable, dogged, and +apparently unheeding.</p> + +<p>"It's because I cared for you that I couldn't tell you the truth. I +tried and couldn't. It was so difficult, and you <em>wouldn't</em> understand. +Then Wilfrid Marston said I must—I had to tell you."</p> + +<p>He threw himself back and turned on her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What had Marston to do with it?"</p> + +<p>Her voice and her eyes dropped.</p> + +<p>"You see, he knew."</p> + +<p>"I see."</p> + +<p>He waited.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't tell you."</p> + +<p>His silence conveyed to her that he listened since she desired it, that +he left it to her to tell him as much or as little as she would, and +that thus he trusted her.</p> + +<p>"I was afraid," she said.</p> + +<p>"What? Afraid of <em>me</em>, Kitty?"</p> + +<p>"I thought it would make you not care for me."</p> + +<p>"I don't think anything you can tell me will make any difference."</p> + +<p>"You said yourself it would. You said you wouldn't marry me if I wasn't +nice."</p> + +<p>He looked up impatient and surprised.</p> + +<p>"But we've been through all that," he said.</p> + +<p>"No, we haven't. When I said I wasn't nice I meant there were things +I——"</p> + +<p>"Well?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I—I wasn't married to Charley Tailleur."</p> + +<p>He took it in silence; and through the silence she let it sink in.</p> + +<p>"Where is the fellow?" he asked presently.</p> + +<p>"He's dead. I told you <em>that</em>."</p> + +<p>"I'd forgotten."</p> + +<p>There was another silence.</p> + +<p>"Did you care for him very much, Kitty?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. Yes. No, I don't know. It wasn't the same thing."</p> + +<p>"Never mind. It's very good of you to tell me."</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean to."</p> + +<p>"What made you tell me?"</p> + +<p>"Seeing the children. I thought I could go on deceiving you; but when I +saw them I knew I couldn't."</p> + +<p>"I see." His voice softened. "You told me because of them. I'm glad you +told me." He paused on that.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "we must make the best of it."</p> + +<p>"That makes no difference?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No. Not now."</p> + +<p>She sighed.</p> + +<p>"How long ago was it?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Five years. Charley Tailleur was the first."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"The first. There were others; ever so many others. I'm—that sort."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe you."</p> + +<p>"You've got to believe me. You can't marry me, and you've got to see +why."</p> + +<p>She also paused. Her silences were terrible to him.</p> + +<p>"I thought you did see once. It didn't seem possible that you couldn't. +Do you remember the first time I met you?"</p> + +<p>He remembered.</p> + +<p>"I thought you saw then. And afterward—don't you remember how you +followed me out of the room—another night?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"I thought you understood, and were too shy to say so. But you didn't. +<em>Then</em>—do<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span> you remember how I waited for you at the end of the +garden?—and how we sat out on the Cliff? I was trying then—the way I +always try. I thought I'd make you—and you—you wouldn't see it. You +only wanted to help me. You were so innocent and dear. That's what made +me love you."</p> + +<p>"Oh," he groaned. "Don't."</p> + +<p>But she went on. "And do you remember how you found me—that night—out +on the Cliff?"</p> + +<p>She drew back her voice softly.</p> + +<p>"I was sure then that you knew, and that when you asked me to come back +with you——"</p> + +<p>"Look here, Kitty, I've had enough of it."</p> + +<p>"You haven't, for you're fond of me still. You are, aren't you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, my God! how do I know?"</p> + +<p>"<em>I</em> know. It's because you haven't taken it in. What do you think of +this? You've known me ten days, and ten days before that I was with +Wilfrid Marston."</p> + +<div><a name="want" id="want"></a></div> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 406px;"> +<img src="images/icol4.jpg" class="jpg" width="406" height="600" alt=""'I want to make you loathe me ... never see me +again.'"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"'I want to make you loathe me ... never see me +again.'"</span> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span>He had taken it in at last. She had made it real to him, clothed it in +flesh and blood.</p> + +<p>"If you don't believe me," she said, "ask him. That's what he came to +see me for. He wanted me to go back to him. In fact, I wasn't supposed +to have left him."</p> + +<p>He put his hand to his forehead as if he were trying to steady his mind +to face the thing that stunned it.</p> + +<p>"And you're telling me all this because——" he said dully.</p> + +<p>"Because I want to make you loathe me, so that you can go away and be +glad that you'll never see me again. And if it hurts you too much to +think of me as I am, to think that you cared for me, just say to +yourself that I cared for <em>you</em>, and that I couldn't have done it if I'd +been quite bad."</p> + +<p>She cried out, "It would have been better for me if I had been. I +shouldn't <em>feel</em> then. It wouldn't hurt me to see little children. I +should have got over that long ago; and I shouldn't have cared for you +or them. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span> shouldn't have been able to. We get like that. And then—I +needn't have let you care for me. That was the worst thing I ever did. +But I was so happy—so happy."</p> + +<p>He could not look at her; he covered his face with his hands, and she +knew that he cared still.</p> + +<p>Then she came and knelt down beside him and whispered. He got up and +broke away from her and she followed him.</p> + +<p>"You can't marry me <em>now</em>," she said.</p> + +<p>And he answered, "No."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><a name="XIX" id="XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + + +<p class="cap">HE did not leave her. They sat still, separated by the length of the +little room, staring, not at each other, but at some point in the +distance, as if each brain had flung and fixed there the same +unspeakable symbol of its horror.</p> + +<p>Her face was sharp with pain, was strangely purified, spiritualised by +the immortal moment that uplifted her. His face, grown old in a moment, +had lost its look of glad and incorruptible innocence.</p> + +<p>Not that he was yet in full possession of reality. His mind was sunk in +the stupor that follows after torture. It kept its hold by one sense +only, the vague discerning of profound responsibility, and of something +profounder still, some tie binding him to Kitty, immaterial, +indestructible, born of their communion in pain.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span></p> + +<p>It kept him by its intangible compulsion, sitting there in the same +small room, divided from her, but still there, still wearing that +strange air of participation, of complicity.</p> + +<p>And all the time he kept saying to himself, "What next?"</p> + +<p>There was a knock at the door.</p> + +<p>"It's Jane," he said. "I'll tell her not to come in." His voice sounded +hoarse and unlike his own.</p> + +<p>"Oh, mayn't I see her?"</p> + +<p>He looked up with his clouded eyes. "Do you want to?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>He considered. He hesitated.</p> + +<p>"Do you mind?"</p> + +<p>"Mind?" he repeated. As if, after what they had gone through, there +could ever be anything to mind. It seemed to him that things would +always henceforth be insubstantial, and events utterly unimportant. He +tried with an immense effort to grasp<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span> this event of Jane's appearance +and of Kitty's attitude to Jane.</p> + +<p>"I thought," he said, "perhaps she would bother you."</p> + +<p>The knock came again.</p> + +<p>"Robert," she said, "I don't want her to know—what I told you."</p> + +<p>"Of course not," he said. "Come in."</p> + +<p>Jane came in and closed the door behind her. She had a letter folded +tightly in her hand. She stood there a moment, looking from one to the +other. It was Kitty who spoke.</p> + +<p>"Come in, Janey," she said. "I want you."</p> + +<p>Jane came forward and stood between them. She looked at Robert who +hardened his face, and at Kitty who was trembling.</p> + +<p>"Has anything happened?" she said.</p> + +<p>And Kitty answered, "No. Nothing will happen now. I've just told him +that it can't."</p> + +<p>"You've given him up?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes. I've—given—him up."</p> + +<p>She drew in her breath on the "Yes," so that it sounded like a sob. The +other words came slowly from her, one by one, as if she repeated them by +rote, without knowing what they meant.</p> + +<p>Jane turned to her brother. "And you've let her do it?"</p> + +<p>He was silent, still saying to himself, "What next?"</p> + +<p>"Of course he's let me. He knows it was the only thing I could do."</p> + +<p>"Kitty—what made you do it?"</p> + +<p>Kitty closed her eyes. Robert saw her and gave a low inarticulate sound +of misery. Jane heard it and understood.</p> + +<p>"Kitty," she said, "have you made him believe you don't care for him?"</p> + +<p>She sat down on the couch beside her and covered her hands with her own.</p> + +<p>"It isn't true, Robert," she said. "She doesn't know what she's doing. +Kitty, tell him it isn't true."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span></p> + +<p>The trembling hands broke loose from her. Kitty sobbed once and was +still. At the sound Robert turned on Jane.</p> + +<p>"Leave her alone," he said, "she doesn't want to be bothered about it +now."</p> + +<p>Kitty's hand moved back along the couch to Jane. "No," she said, "don't +make her leave me. I'm going away soon."</p> + +<p>He started to that answer to his question, "What next?"</p> + +<p>"Tell me what made you do it?" said Jane again.</p> + +<p>"Whatever it was," he said, "she's doing perfectly right."</p> + +<p>"I know what she's doing. And I know why she's doing it. Can't you see +why?"</p> + +<p>Robert, who had stood still looking at her helplessly, turned away at +the direct appeal and walked up and down, up and down, the room. He was +still saying to himself, "And if she goes, what next?"</p> + +<p>"She doesn't mean it, Robert. It's these wretched people who have driven +her to it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span> with the abominable things they've said and thought. You +<em>can't</em> let her give you up. Don't you see that it'll look as if you +didn't believe in her? And he does believe in you, Kitty dear. He +doesn't care what anybody says."</p> + +<p>Kitty spoke. "Leave it alone, Janey. You don't know what you're talking +about. You don't even know what it is they say."</p> + +<p>"I do," said Jane. She rose and went to her brother and thrust the +letter she held into his hand. "Look there, that came just now."</p> + +<p>He glanced at the letter, lit a match and set fire to it and dropped the +ashes into the grate.</p> + +<p>"Look at him, Kitty, look at him," she cried triumphantly.</p> + +<p>"What was in that letter?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing that matters."</p> + +<p>"Who wrote it?"</p> + +<p>"Nobody who matters in the very least."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Was it Mr. Marston? Tell me."</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"He wouldn't," said Kitty thoughtfully. "It's women who write letters. +It must have been Grace Keating. She hates me."</p> + +<p>"I know she hates you. Do you see now why Kitty's giving you up?"</p> + +<p>"She has told me herself, Janey. She may have more reasons than you +know."</p> + +<p>"She has none, none that I don't know. They're all there in that letter +which you've burnt. Can't you see why it was written?"</p> + +<p>"Does it matter why?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it does matter. It was written to make you give Kitty up. There's +no reason why I should spare the woman who wrote it. She hates +Kitty—because she wanted you for herself. Kitty knows that she's +slandered her. She did it before she went, to her face, and Kitty +forgave her. And now the poor child thinks that she'll let you go, and +just creep away quietly and hide herself—from <em>that</em>. And you'll let +her do<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span> it? You believe her when she says she doesn't care for you? If +that isn't caring— Why it's <em>because</em> she cares for you, and cares for +your honour more than she does for her own, poor darling——"</p> + +<p>"I know, Janey. And she knows I know."</p> + +<p>"Then where's your precious honour if you don't stand up for her? She's +got nobody but you, and if you don't defend her from that sort of +thing——"</p> + +<p>She stood before him, flaming, and Kitty rose and put herself between +them.</p> + +<p>"He can't defend me, Janey. It's the truth."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><a name="XX" id="XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> + + +<p class="cap">SHE had left them to each other. It was eight o'clock. She had crept +back again to the bed that was her refuge, where she had lain for the +last hour, weeping to exhaustion. She had raised herself at the touch of +a hand on her hot forehead. Jane was standing beside her.</p> + +<p>"Kitty," she said, "will you see Robert for a moment? He's waiting for +you downstairs, in your room."</p> + +<p>Kitty dropped back again on her pillow with her arm over her face, +warding off Jane's gaze.</p> + +<p>"No," she said, "I can't see him. I can't go through that again."</p> + +<p>"But, Kitty, there's something he wants to say to you."</p> + +<p>"There's nothing he can say. Nothing—nothing. Tell him I'm going +away."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You mustn't go without seeing him."</p> + +<p>"I must. It's the only way."</p> + +<p>"For you—yes. How about him?"</p> + +<p>Kitty sighed. She stirred irresolutely on her pillow.</p> + +<p>"No, no," she said. "I've done it once. I can't do it all over again."</p> + +<p>"I suppose," said Jane, "it <em>is</em> easier—not to see him."</p> + +<p>At that Kitty clenched her hands.</p> + +<p>"Easier?" she cried. "I'd give my soul to see him for one minute—one +minute, Janey."</p> + +<p>She turned, stifling her sobs on her pillow. They ceased, and the +passion that was in her had its way then. She lay on her face, +convulsed, biting into the pillow; gripping the sheets, tearing at them +and wringing them in her hands. Her whole body writhed, shaken and +tormented.</p> + +<p>"Oh, go away!" she cried. "Go away. Don't look at me!"</p> + +<p>But Jane did not go. She stood there by the bedside.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span>She had come to the end of her adventure. It was as if she had been +brought there blindfold, carried past the border into the terrible, +alien, unpenetrated lands. Her genius for exploration had never taken +her within reasonable distance of them. She had turned back when the +frontier was in sight, refusing all knowledge of the things that lay +beyond. And here she was, in the very thick of it, at the heart of the +unexplored, with her poor terrified eyes uncovered, her face held close +to the thing she feared. And yet she had passed through the initiation +without terror; she had held her hand in the strange fire and it had not +hurt her. She felt only a great penetrating, comprehending, +incorruptible pity for her sister who writhed there, consumed and +tortured in the flame.</p> + +<p>She knelt by the bedside and stretched out her arm and covered her, and +Kitty lay still.</p> + +<p>"You haven't gone?" she said.</p> + +<p>"No, Kitty."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span></p> + +<p>Kitty moved; she sat up and put her hands to her loosened hair.</p> + +<p>"I'll see him now," she said.</p> + +<p>Kitty slid her feet to the floor. She stood up, steadying herself by the +bedside.</p> + +<p>Jane looked at her, and her heart was wrung with compassion.</p> + +<p>"No," she said, "wait till you're better. I'll tell him."</p> + +<p>But Kitty was before her at the door, leaning against it.</p> + +<p>"I shall never be better," she said. Her smile was ghastly. She turned +to Jane on the open threshold. "He hasn't got the children with him, has +he? I don't want to see them."</p> + +<p>"You won't see them."</p> + +<p>"Can't he come to me?"</p> + +<p>She peered down the passage and drew back, and Jane knew that she was +afraid of being seen.</p> + +<p>"There's nobody about," she said, "they're all in the dining-room."</p> + +<p>Still Kitty hesitated.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Will you come with me?" she said.</p> + +<p>Then Jane took her hand and led her to the room where Robert was, and +left her with him.</p> + +<p>He stood by the hearth, waiting for her. His head was bowed, but his +eyes, as she entered, lifted and fixed themselves on her. There had gone +from him that air of radiant and unconquerable youth, of innocence, +expectant and alert. Instead of it he too wore the mark of experience, +of initiation that had meant torture.</p> + +<p>"I hope," he said, "you are rested."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes."</p> + +<p>She stood there, weak and drooping, leaning her weight on one slender +hand, spread palm downward on the table.</p> + +<p>He drew out a chair for her, and removed his own to the other side of +the table, keeping that barrier between them. In his whole manner there +was a terrible constraint.</p> + +<p>"You've eaten nothing," he said.</p> + +<p>Neither had he, she gathered, nor Jane.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span> The trouble she had brought on +them was jarring, dislocating, like the shock of bereavement. They had +behaved as if in the presence of the beloved dead.</p> + +<p>And yet, though he held himself apart, she knew that he had not sent for +her to cast her off; that he was yet bound to her by the mysterious, +infrangible tie; that he seemed to himself, in some way, her partner and +accomplice.</p> + +<p>Their silence was a link that bound them, and she broke it.</p> + +<p>"Well," she said, "you have something to say to me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes"—his hands, spread out on the table between them, trembled—"I +have, only it seems so little——"</p> + +<p>"Does it? Well, of course, there isn't much to be said."</p> + +<p>"Not much. There aren't any words. Only, I don't want you to think that +I don't realise what you've done. It was magnificent."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span></p> + +<p>He answered her look of stupefied inquiry.</p> + +<p>"Your courage, Kitty, in telling me the truth."</p> + +<p>"Oh, <em>that</em>. Don't let's talk about it."</p> + +<p>"I am not going to talk about it. But I want you to understand that what +you told me has made no difference in my—in my feeling for you."</p> + +<p>"It must."</p> + +<p>"It hasn't. And it never will. And I want to know what we're going to do +next."</p> + +<p>"Next?" she repeated.</p> + +<p>"Yes, next. <em>Now.</em>"</p> + +<p>"I'm going away. There's nothing else left for me to do."</p> + +<p>"And I, Kitty? Do you think I'm going to let you go, without——"</p> + +<p>She stopped him.</p> + +<p>"You can't help yourself."</p> + +<p>"What? You think I'm brute enough to take everything you've given me, +and to—to let you go like this?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span></p> + +<p>His hands moved as if they would have taken hers and held them. Then he +drew back.</p> + +<p>"There's one thing I can't do for you, Kitty. I can't marry you, because +it wouldn't be fair to my children."</p> + +<p>"I know, Robert, I know."</p> + +<p>"I know you know. I told you nothing would ever make any difference. If +it weren't for them I'd ask you to marry me to-morrow. I'm only giving +you up as you're giving me up, because of them. But if I can't marry +you, I want you to let me make things a little less hard for you."</p> + +<p>"How?"</p> + +<p>"Well, for one thing, I don't believe you've anything to live on."</p> + +<p>"What makes you think that?"</p> + +<p>"Marston told me that if you married you forfeited your income. I +suppose that meant that you had nothing of your own."</p> + +<p>"It did."</p> + +<p>"You've nothing?"</p> + +<p>"My father would give me fifty pounds<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span> a year if I kept straight. But he +can't afford it. It means that my little sisters go without dresses."</p> + +<p>"And you've no home, Kitty?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head.</p> + +<p>"They can't have me at home, you see."</p> + +<p>He sighed.</p> + +<p>"If I looked after you, Kitty, do you think you would keep straight? If +I made a home for you, somewhere, where you won't be too unhappy?"</p> + +<p>"You mean you'd take care of me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. As far as I can."</p> + +<p>Her face flushed deeply.</p> + +<p>"No," she said. "No. I mustn't let you do that."</p> + +<p>"Why not? It's nothing, Kitty. It's the least that I can do. And you'd +be very lonely."</p> + +<p>"I would. I would be miserable—in between."</p> + +<p>"Between?"</p> + +<p>"When you weren't there."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Kitty, dear child, I can't be there."</p> + +<p>She shrank back, the flush died out of her face and left it white.</p> + +<p>"I see. You didn't mean that I was to live with you?"</p> + +<p>"Poor child—no."</p> + +<p>"I—I didn't understand."</p> + +<p>"No," he said gently, "no."</p> + +<p>"You see how hopeless I am?"</p> + +<p>"I see what my responsibility would be if I left you to yourself."</p> + +<p>"And—<em>what</em> do you want to do?"</p> + +<p>"I want to provide for you and your future."</p> + +<p>"Dear Robert, you can't possibly provide—for either."</p> + +<p>"I can. I've got a little house in the country, if you'll take it, and I +can spare enough out of my income."</p> + +<p>She smiled.</p> + +<p>"You can't afford it."</p> + +<p>"If I could afford to marry, I could afford that."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I see. It's a beautiful scheme, Robert. And in the little house where +I'm to live, you will come sometimes, and see me?"</p> + +<p>"I think it would be better not."</p> + +<p>"And what am I to do, if—if things are too hard for me? And if you are +the only one——?"</p> + +<p>"<em>Then</em> you're to send for me."</p> + +<p>"I see. I've only to send for you and you'll come?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I'll come."</p> + +<p>"When I can't bear it any longer, am I to send for you?"</p> + +<p>"You're to send for me when you're in any trouble, or any difficulty—or +any danger."</p> + +<p>"And the way out of the trouble—and the difficulty—and the danger?"</p> + +<p>"Between us we shall find the way."</p> + +<p>"No, Robert. Between us we shall lose it. And we shall never, never find +it again."</p> + +<p>"You can't trust me, Kitty?"</p> + +<p>"I can't trust myself. I know how your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span> scheme would work. I let you do +this thing; I go away and live in the dear little house you'll give me; +and I let you keep me there, and give me all my clothes and things. And +you think that's the way to stop me thinking about you and caring for +you? I shall be there, eating my heart out. What else can I do, when +everything I put on or have about me reminds me of you, every minute of +the day? I'm to look to you for everything, but never to see you until I +can bear it no longer. How long do you think I shall bear it? A woman +made like me? You know perfectly well what the trouble and the +difficulty and the danger is. I shall be in it all the time. And some +day I shall send for you and you'll come. Oh yes, you'll come; for +you'll be in it, too. It won't be a bit easier for you than it is for +me."</p> + +<p>She paused.</p> + +<p>"You'll come. And you know what the end of that will be."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You think no other end is possible between a man and a woman?"</p> + +<p>"If I do, it's men who have made me think it."</p> + +<p>"Have <em>I</em>, Kitty?"</p> + +<p>"No, not you. I don't say your plan wouldn't work with some other woman. +I say it's impossible between you—and me."</p> + +<p>"Because you won't believe that I might behave differently from some +other men?"</p> + +<p>"You <em>are</em> different. And I mean to keep you so."</p> + +<p>She rose.</p> + +<p>"There's only one way," she said. "We must never see each other again. +We mustn't even <em>think</em>. I shall go away, and you're not to come after +me."</p> + +<p>"When?"</p> + +<p>"To-morrow. Perhaps to-night."</p> + +<p>"And where, Kitty?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"You shan't go," he said. "I'll go.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span> You must stay here until we can +think of something."</p> + +<p>She closed her eyes and drew a hard sigh, as if exhausted with the +discussion.</p> + +<p>"Robert, dear, would you mind not talking any more to me? I'm very +tired."</p> + +<p>"If I leave you will you go to bed and rest?"</p> + +<p>"I think so. You can say good night."</p> + +<p>He rose and came toward her.</p> + +<p>"No—don't say it!" she cried. "Don't speak to me!"</p> + +<p>She drew back and put her hands behind her as a sign that he was not to +touch her.</p> + +<p>He stood for a moment looking at her. And as he looked at her he was +afraid, even as she was. He said to himself that in that moment she was +wise and had done well. For his heart hardly knew its pity from its +passion, and its passion from its fear.</p> + +<p>And she, seeing that she stood between him and the door, turned aside +and made his way clear for him.</p> + +<p>And so he left her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><a name="XXI" id="XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + + +<p class="cap">SHE stared at her own face in the glass without seeing it. Her brain was +filled with the loud, hurried ticking of the clock. It sounded somehow +as if it were out of gear. She felt herself swaying slightly as she +stood.</p> + +<p>She was not going to faint bodily. It seemed to her rather that the +immaterial bonds, the unseen, subtle, intimate connections were letting +go their hold. Her soul was the heart of the danger. It was there that +the travelling powers of dissolution, accelerated, multiplying, had +begun their work and would end it. Its moments were not measured by the +ticking of the clock.</p> + +<p>She had remained standing as Lucy had left her, with her back to the +door he had gone out by. She was thus unaware that a servant of the +hotel had come in, that he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span> had delivered some message and was waiting +for her answer.</p> + +<p>She started as the man spoke to her again. With a great effort her brain +grasped and repeated what he had said.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Marston."</p> + +<p>No; she was certainly not going to faint. There was no receding of +sensation. It was resurgence and invasion, violence shaking the very +doors of life. She heard the light, tremulous tread of the little pulses +of her body, scattered by the ringing hammer strokes of her heart and +brain. She heard the clock ticking out of gear, like the small, +irritable pulse of time.</p> + +<p>She steadied her voice to answer.</p> + +<p>"Very well. Show him in."</p> + +<p>Marston's face, as he approached her, was harder and stiffer than ever; +his bearing more uncompromisingly upright and correct. He greeted her +with that peculiar deference that he showed to women whose acquaintance +he had yet to make. Decency<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span> required that he should start on a fresh +and completely purified footing with the future Mrs. Robert Lucy.</p> + +<p>"It's charming of you," he said, "to let me come in."</p> + +<p>"I wanted to see you, Wilfrid."</p> + +<p>Something in her tone made him glance at her with a look that restored +her, for a moment, to her former place.</p> + +<p>"That is still more charming," he replied.</p> + +<p>"I've done what you told me. I've given him up."</p> + +<p>A heavy flush spread over his face and relaxed the hard tension of the +muscles.</p> + +<p>"I thought you'd do it."</p> + +<p>"Well, I have done it." She paused.</p> + +<p>"That's all I had to say to you."</p> + +<p>Her voice struck at him like a blow. But he bore it well, smiling his +hard, reticent smile.</p> + +<p>"I knew you'd do it," he repeated; "but I didn't think you'd do it quite +so soon. Why did you?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You know why."</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean to put pressure on you, Kitty. It was <em>your</em> problem. +Still, I'm glad you've seen it in the right light."</p> + +<p>"You think you made me see it?"</p> + +<p>"I should hope you'd see it for yourself. It was obvious."</p> + +<p>"What was obvious?"</p> + +<p>"The unsuitability of the entire arrangement. Was it likely you'd stick +to it when you saw what you were in for?"</p> + +<p>"You think I tired of him?"</p> + +<p>"I think you saw possibilities of fatigue; and, like a wise child, you +chucked it. It's as well you did it before instead of after. I say, how +did Lucy take it?"</p> + +<p>She did not answer. His smile flickered and died under the oppression of +her silence.</p> + +<p>"Have you done with him altogether? He didn't suggest—er—any +compromise?"</p> + +<p>"He did not."</p> + +<p>"He wouldn't. Compromise is foreign to his nature."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span></p> + +<p>He sat leaning forward, contemplating, with apparent satisfaction, his +own strong-grained, immaculate hands. From time to time he tapped the +floor with a nervous movement of his foot.</p> + +<p>"Then," he said presently, "if that's so, there's no reason, is there, +why you shouldn't come back to me?"</p> + +<p>"I can't come back to you. I told you so yesterday."</p> + +<p>"Since yesterday the situation has altered considerably; or rather, it +remains precisely where it was before."</p> + +<p>"No, Wilfrid; things can never be as they were before."</p> + +<p>"Why not?—if I choose to ignore this episode, this little aberration on +your part. You must be equally anxious to forget it. In which case we +may consider our relations uninterrupted."</p> + +<p>"Do you think I gave Robert Lucy up to go back to you?"</p> + +<p>"My dear Kitty, if I'm willing to take<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span> you back after you gave <em>me</em> up +for him, I think my attitude almost constitutes a claim."</p> + +<p>"A claim?"</p> + +<p>"Well, let's say it entitles me to a hearing. You don't seem to realise, +in the least, my extreme forbearance. I never reproached you. I never +interfered between you and Lucy. You can't say I didn't play the game."</p> + +<p>"I'm not saying it. I know you didn't betray me."</p> + +<p>"Betray you? My dear child, I helped you. I never dreamed of standing in +your way as long as there was a chance of your marrying. Now that there +is none——"</p> + +<p>"That has nothing to do with it. I told you that I wouldn't go back to +you in any case."</p> + +<p>"Come, I don't propose to throw you over for any other woman. Surely it +would be more decent to come back to me than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span> to go off with some other +man, heaven knows whom, which is what you must do—eventually?"</p> + +<p>"It's what I won't do. I'm not going back to <em>that</em>. Don't you see +that's why I won't go back to you?"</p> + +<p>Her apathy had become exhaustion. The flat, powerless voice, dying of +its own utterance, gave him a sense of things past and done with, sunk +into the ultimate oblivion. No voice of her energy and defiance could +have touched him so. Her indifference troubled him like passion; in its +completeness, its finality, it stirred him to decision, to acceptance of +its terms. She was ready to fall from his grasp by her own dead weight. +There was only one way in which he could hold her.</p> + +<p>"Kitty," he said, "is that really why you won't come back?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; that's why. Anything—anything but that."</p> + +<p>"I see. You're tired of it? And you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span> want to give it up? Well, I'm not +sure that I don't want you to."</p> + +<p>"Then why," she moaned, "why won't you let me go?"</p> + +<p>"Simply because I can't. I've tried it, Kitty. I can't."</p> + +<p>He came and sat close to her. He leaned his face to hers and spoke +thickly and low.</p> + +<p>"You can't give it up, dear. You're bound to go back."</p> + +<p>"No—no—no. Don't talk about it."</p> + +<p>"I won't. I won't ask you to go back; but I can't do without you."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, you can. There are other women."</p> + +<p>"I loathe them all. I wouldn't do for one of them what I'll do for you."</p> + +<p>"What will you do for me?"</p> + +<p>"I'll marry you, Kitty."</p> + +<p>She laughed in her tired fashion. "You want to make an honest woman of +me, do you?"</p> + +<p>"No. I think I'm endeavouring to make<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span> myself an honest man. If you give +Lucy up for me I don't want you to lose by the transaction. You were to +have been married; but for me perhaps, you would have been. Very well, +I'll marry you."</p> + +<p>"And that," said she, "will make it all right?"</p> + +<p>"Well, won't it?"</p> + +<p>"No, it won't. How could it?"</p> + +<p>"You know how. It will help you to keep straight. That's what you want, +isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, that's what I <em>want</em>. And you think I'll keep straight by +marrying you?"</p> + +<p>"I won't swear to it. But I know it's ten to one that you'll go to the +devil if you don't marry me. And you say you don't want to do that."</p> + +<p>"I don't want—to marry you."</p> + +<p>He shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps not; but even marrying me might be +better than the other alternative."</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't," she cried. "It would be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span> worse. If I married you I +couldn't get away from you. I couldn't get away from <em>it</em>. You'd keep me +in it. It's what you like me for—what you're marrying me for. You +haven't married, all these years, because you can't stand living with a +decent woman. And you think, if I marry you, it will make it all right. +All right!"</p> + +<p>She rose and defied him. "Why, I'd rather be your mistress. Then I could +get away from you. I shall get away now."</p> + +<p>She turned violently, and he leaped up and caught her in his arms. She +struggled, beating upon his breast, and crying with a sad, inarticulate +cry. She would have sunk to the floor if he had not kept his hold of +her.</p> + +<p>He raised her, and she stood still, breathing hard, while he still +grasped her tightly by the wrists.</p> + +<p>"Let me go," she said faintly.</p> + +<p>"Where are you going to?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span>"You've no money. If you're not going back what are you going to do?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>Her eyelids dropped, and he saw mendacity in her eyes' furtive fleeing +under cover. He held her tighter. His arm shook her, not brutally, but +with a nervous movement that he was powerless to control.</p> + +<p>"You lie," he said. "You've been lying to me all the time. You <em>are</em> +going back. You're going to that fellow Lucy."</p> + +<p>"No. I'm going—somewhere—where I shan't see him."</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"Abroad?"</p> + +<p>"I think so."</p> + +<p>"By yourself?"</p> + +<p>Her eyelids quivered, and she panted. "Yes."</p> + +<p>There was a knock at the door.</p> + +<p>"Let me go," she said again.</p> + +<p>He let her go.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You're going to live—by yourself—respectably—abroad?"</p> + +<p>She was silent.</p> + +<p>"And how long do you think that will last?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>Jane Lucy's voice called her from the door. He swore under his breath.</p> + +<p>"Let her come in. I want her."</p> + +<p>He laid his hand upon the door.</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do?" he reiterated.</p> + +<p>"Oh, let her come to me."</p> + +<p>"You haven't answered my question."</p> + +<p>"Let me see her first. Leave me alone with her. Janey! Janey!" she +called.</p> + +<p>"Very well," he said.</p> + +<p>He opened the door and bowed to Jane Lucy as she entered.</p> + +<p>"I shall come back," he said, "for my answer."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><a name="XXII" id="XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 8px;"> +<img src="images/quote.png" width="8" height="7" alt="Open quotation mark" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="cap2">DID Robert send you?" she asked, when she was alone with Jane.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"It's no good. I can't do what he wants."</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do, dear?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I don't care. The terrible thing is that I've had to hurt +him. I must go away somewhere."</p> + +<p>"I'll come with you and see you through."</p> + +<p>Kitty shook her head.</p> + +<p>"Don't think about it now," said Jane.</p> + +<p>"No; I can't think. I'm too tired, and my head's hot. But if I go away +you'll understand why I did it?"</p> + +<p>"Kitty"—Jane whispered it—"you won't go back?"</p> + +<p>"No. I won't go back. You won't have to think that of me."</p> + +<p>She had not looked at Jane as they talked.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span> Now she turned to her with +eyes of anguish and appeal.</p> + +<p>"Janey—think. I've been wicked for years and years. I've only been good +for one moment. One moment—when I gave Robert up. Do you think it'll +count?"</p> + +<p>"I think that, in the sight of God, such moments last forever."</p> + +<p>"And that's what you'll think of me by?"</p> + +<p>She lifted up her face, haggard and white, flame-spotted where her tears +had scorched it. Jane kissed it.</p> + +<p>"Do you mind kissing me?"</p> + +<p>"My dear, my dear," said Jane, and she drew her closer.</p> + +<p>There was a sound of footsteps in the passage. Kitty drew back and +listened.</p> + +<p>"Where's Robert?"</p> + +<p>"Upstairs with the children."</p> + +<p>"They'll be asleep by this time, won't they?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Fast asleep."</p> + +<p>The footsteps came again, approaching the door. They paused outside it a +moment and turned back.</p> + +<p>"Do you hear that?" said Kitty. "It's Wilfrid Marston walking up and +down. He wants to get hold of me. I think he's mad about me. He asked me +to marry him just now, and I wouldn't. He thinks I didn't mean it, and +he's coming back for his answer. But I'll tell you what I'm going to do. +I shall go out quietly by the window and slip away, and he won't find +me. I want you to be here when he comes, and tell him that he can't see +me. Would you mind doing that?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"You'll stay here all the time, and you won't let him go out and look +for me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Kitty listened again for the footsteps.</p> + +<p>"He's still there," she whispered.</p> + +<p>"And you'll go to bed, Kitty?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span>"Yes; of course I will."</p> + +<p>She went out through the window on to the veranda, and so on into the +garden.</p> + +<p>It was cool out there and unutterably peaceful, with a tender, lucid +twilight on the bare grass of the lawn; on the sea beyond it, and on the +white gravel path by the low wall between. She saw it, the world that +had held her and Robert, that, holding them, had taken on the ten days' +splendour of their passion. It stood, divinely still in the perishing +violet light, a world withdrawn and unsubstantial, yet piercingly, +intolerably near.</p> + +<p>Indoors Jane waited. It was not yet the half-hour. She waited till the +clock struck and Marston came for his answer.</p> + +<p>He looked round the room, and his face, under its deference, betrayed +his sharp annoyance at finding himself alone with Miss Lucy.</p> + +<p>"Pardon me," he said, "I thought that Mrs. Tailleur was here."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Tailleur asked me to tell you that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span> she cannot see you. She has +gone to her room."</p> + +<p>"To her room?"</p> + +<p>He stared at her, and his face loosened in a sudden incredulity and +dismay.</p> + +<p>"Did she tell you she was going there?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. She was very tired."</p> + +<p>"But—she was here not half an hour ago. She couldn't have gone without +my seeing her."</p> + +<p>"She went out," said Jane faintly, "by the window."</p> + +<p>"She couldn't get to her room without going through the hall. I've been +there all the time on the seat by the stairs."</p> + +<p>They looked at each other. The seat by the stairs commanded all ways in +and out, the entrance of the passage, and the door of the sitting-room, +and the portière of the lounge.</p> + +<p>"What do you think?" he said.</p> + +<p>"I think that she has not gone far. But if she goes, it is you who will +have driven her away."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Forgive me if I remind you that it is not I who have given her up."</p> + +<p>"It was you," said Jane quietly, "who helped to ruin her."</p> + +<p>His raised eyebrows expressed an urbane surprise at the curious +frankness of her charge. And with a delicate gesture of his hand he +repudiated it and waved it away.</p> + +<p>"My dear lady, you are alarmed and you are angry, consequently you are +unjust. Whatever poor Kitty may have done I am not responsible."</p> + +<p>"You are responsible. It's you, and men like you, who have dragged her +down. You took advantage of her weakness, of her very helplessness. +You've made her so that she can't believe in a man's goodness and trust +herself to it."</p> + +<p>He smiled, still with that untroubled urbanity, on the small flaming +thing as she arraigned him.</p> + +<p>"And you consider me responsible for that?" he said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span></p> + +<p>Their eyes met. "My brother is here," said she. "Would you like to see +him?"</p> + +<p>"It might be as well, perhaps. If you can find him."</p> + +<p>She left him, and he waited five minutes, ten minutes, twenty.</p> + +<p>She returned alone. All her defiance had gone from her, and the face +that she turned to him was white with fear.</p> + +<p>"She is not here," she said. "She went out—by that window—and she has +not come in. We've searched the hotel, and we can't find her."</p> + +<p>"And you have <em>not</em> found your brother?"</p> + +<p>"He has gone out to look for her."</p> + +<p>She sat down by the table, turning her face away and screening it from +him with her hand.</p> + +<p>Marston gave one look at her. He stepped out, and crossed the lawn to +the bottom of the garden. The gate at the end of the path there swung +open violently, and he found himself face to face with Robert Lucy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span> +"What have you done with Mrs. Tailleur?" he said.</p> + +<p>Lucy's head was sunk upon his breast. He did not look at him nor answer. +The two men walked back in silence up the lawn.</p> + +<p>"You don't know where she is?" said Marston presently.</p> + +<p>"No. I thought I did. But—she is not there."</p> + +<p>He paused, steadying his voice to speak again.</p> + +<p>"If I don't find her, I shall go up to town by the midnight train. Can +you give me her address there?"</p> + +<p>"You think she has gone up to town?" Marston spoke calmly. He was +appeased by Lucy's agitation and his manifest ignorance as to Kitty's +movements.</p> + +<p>"There's nothing else she could do. I've got to find her. Will you be +good enough to give me her address?"</p> + +<p>"My dear Mr. Lucy, there's really no reason why I should. If Mrs. +Tailleur has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span> not gone up to town, her address won't help you. If she +has gone, your discreetest course by far, if I may say so——"</p> + +<p>"Is what?" said Lucy sternly.</p> + +<p>"Why, my dear fellow, of course—to let her go."</p> + +<p>Lucy raised his head. "I do not intend," he said, "to let her go."</p> + +<p>"Nor I," said Marston.</p> + +<p>"Then we've neither of us any time to lose. I won't answer for what she +may do, in the state she's in."</p> + +<p>Marston swung slightly round, so that he faced Lucy with his +imperturbable stare.</p> + +<p>"If you'd known Mrs. Tailleur as long as I have you'd have no sort of +doubt as to what she'll do."</p> + +<p>Lucy did not appear to have heard him, so sunk was he in his own +thoughts.</p> + +<p>"What was that?" said Marston suddenly.</p> + +<p>They listened. The gate of the Cliff path creaked on its hinges and fell +back with a sharp click of the latch. Lucy turned and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span> saw a small +woman's figure entering the garden from the Cliff. He strode on toward +the house, unwilling to be observed and overtaken by any guests of the +hotel.</p> + +<p>Marston followed him slowly, pondering at each step of the way.</p> + +<p>He heard footsteps, quick stumbling footsteps, and a sound like a +hoarse, half-suffocating breath behind him. Then a woman's voice, that +sank, stumbling, like the footsteps, as it spoke.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Lucy," it said, "is it you?"</p> + +<p>Marston went on.</p> + +<p>Lucy was in the room with his sister. He was sitting with his back to +the open window as Marston came in by it.</p> + +<p>The voice outside was nearer; it whispered, "Where is Mr. Lucy?"</p> + +<p>"Somebody's looking for you, Lucy," said Marston.</p> + +<p>And the three turned round.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Hankin stood in the window, holding on to the frame of it and +trembling.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span> Her face, her perfect face, was gray, like the face of an +old woman. It was drawn and disfigured with some terrible emotion.</p> + +<p>Lucy went to her. She clung to his arm, and held him on the threshold.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Tailleur," she said, "Mrs. Tailleur. We found her—down there. +She's killed. She—she fell from the Cliff."</p> + +<p>The three stood still as she spoke to them.</p> + +<p>Then Jane rushed forward to her brother with a cry, and Mrs. Hankin +stretched out her arms and barred the way.</p> + +<p>There were small spots of blood on her hands and on her dress where she +had knelt.</p> + +<p>"Go back, child," she said. "They're carrying her in."</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/banner.jpg" width="400" height="141" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Immortal Moment, by May Sinclair + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IMMORTAL MOMENT *** + +***** This file should be named 31416-h.htm or 31416-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/4/1/31416/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Iris Schimandle and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Immortal Moment + The Story of Kitty Tailleur + +Author: May Sinclair + +Illustrator: C. Coles Phillips + +Release Date: February 27, 2010 [EBook #31416] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IMMORTAL MOMENT *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Iris Schimandle and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +THE IMMORTAL MOMENT + + + + +Books by + +MAY SINCLAIR + + The Helpmate + The Divine Fire + Two Sides of a Question + Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson + Etc., etc. + + + + +[Illustration: "Kitty's face ... pleaded with the other face in the +glass."] + + + + +THE IMMORTAL MOMENT + +The Story of Kitty Tailleur + +_By_ + +MAY SINCLAIR + +ILLUSTRATED AND DECORATED BY + +C. COLES PHILLIPS. + + NEW YORK + DOUBLEDAY PAGE & CO. + 1908 + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1908 BY + +MAY SINCLAIR + +PUBLISHED, OCTOBER, 1908 + + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION + INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING + THE SCANDINAVIAN + + + + +PUBLISHERS' NOTE + + THIS STORY APPEARS IN ENGLAND + UNDER THE TITLE "KITTY TAILLEUR" + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + "Kitty's face ... pleaded with the other face + in the glass" FRONTISPIECE + + "She stood there, strangely still ... before the + pitiless stare that went up to her appealing face" 10 + + "'You won't be tied to me a minute longer than + you like'" 208 + + "'I want to make you loathe me ... never see me + again'" 268 + + + + +[Illustration: THE IMMORTAL MOMENT] + + + + +THE IMMORTAL MOMENT + +CHAPTER I + + +They came into the hotel dining-room like young persons making their +first entry into life. They carried themselves with an air of subdued +audacity, of innocent inquiry. When the great doors opened to them they +stood still on the threshold, charmed, expectant. There was the magic of +quest, of pure, unspoiled adventure in their very efforts to catch the +head-waiter's eye. It was as if they called from its fantastic +dwelling-place the attendant spirit of delight. + +You could never have guessed how old they were. He, at thirty-five, had +preserved, by some miracle, his alert and slender adolescence. In his +brown, clean-shaven face, keen with pleasure, you saw the clear, +serious eyes and the adorable smile of seventeen. She, at thirty, had +kept the wide eyes and tender mouth of childhood. Her face had a child's +immortal, spiritual appeal. + +They were charming with each other. You might have taken them for bride +and bridegroom, his absorption in her was so unimpaired. But their names +in the visitors' book stood as Mr. Robert Lucy and Miss Jane Lucy. They +were brother and sister. You gathered it from something absurdly alike +in their faces, something profound and racial and enduring. + +For they combined it all, the youth, the abandonment, the innocence, +with an indomitable distinction. + +They made their way with easy, unembarrassed movements, and seated +themselves at a table by an open window. They bent their brows together +over the menu. The head-waiter (who had flown at last to their high +summons) made them his peculiar care, and they turned to him with the +helplessness of children. He told them what things they would like, +what things (he seemed to say) would be good for them. And when he went +away with their order they looked at each other and laughed, softly and +instantaneously. + +They had done the right thing. They both said it at the same moment, +smiling triumphantly into each other's face. Southbourne was exquisite +in young June, at the dawn of its season. And the Cliff Hotel promised +what they wanted, a gay seclusion, a refined publicity. + +If you were grossly rich, you went to the big Hotel Metropole, opposite. +If you were a person of fastidious tastes and an attenuated income, you +felt the superior charm of the Cliff Hotel. The little house, the joy of +its proprietor, was hidden in the privacy of its own beautiful grounds, +having its back to the high road and its face to the open sea. They had +taken stock of it that morning, with its clean walls, white as the +Cliff it stood on; its bay windows, its long, green-roofed veranda, +looking south; its sharp, slated roofs and gables, all sheltered by the +folding Downs. + +They did not know which of them had first suggested Southbourne. +Probably they had both thought of it at the same moment, as they were +thinking now. But it was she who had voted for the Cliff Hotel, in +preference to lodgings. She thought that in an hotel there would be more +scope, more chance of things happening. + +Jane was always on the look-out for things happening. He saw her now, +with her happy eyes, and her little, tilted nose, sniffing the air, +scanning the horizon. + +He knew Jane and her adventures well. They were purely, pathetically +vicarious. Jane was the thrall of her own sympathy. So was he. At a hint +she was off, and he after her, on wild paths of inference, on perilous +oceans of conjecture. Only he moved more slowly, and he knew the end of +it. He had seen, before now, her joyous leap to land, on shores of +manifest disaster. He protested against that jumping to conclusions. He, +for his part, took conclusions in his stride. + +But Jane was always listening for a call from some foreign country of +the soul. She was always entering surreptitiously into other people's +feelings. They never caught her at it, never suspected her soft-footed, +innocent intrusions. + +She was wondering now whether they would have to make friends with any +of the visitors. She hoped not, because that would spoil it, the +adventure. People had a way of telling her their secrets, and Jane +preferred not to be told. All she wanted was an inkling, a clue; the +slenderer the better. + +The guests as yet assembled were not conspicuously interesting. + +There was a clergyman dining gloomily at a table by himself. There was a +gray group of middle-aged ladies next to him. There was Colonel Hankin +and his wife. They had arrived with the Lucys in the hotel 'bus, and +their names were entered above Robert's in the visitors' book. They +marked him with manifest approval as one of themselves, and they looked +all pink perfection and silver white propriety. There was the old lady +who did nothing but knit. She had arrived in a fly, knitting. She was +knitting now, between the courses. When she caught sight of the Lucys +she smiled at them over her knitting. They had found her, before dinner, +with her feet entangled in a skein of worsted. Jane had shown tenderness +in disentangling her. + +It was almost as if they had made friends already. + +Jane's eyes roamed and lighted on a fat, wine-faced man. Lucy saw them. +He teased her, challenged her. She didn't think, did she, she could do +anything with him? + +No. Jane thought not. He wasn't interesting. There was nothing that you +could take hold of, except that he seemed to be very fond of wine, poor +old thing. But then, you had to be fond of something, and perhaps it was +his only weakness. What did Robert think? + +Robert did not hear her. He was bending forward, looking beyond her, +across the room toward the great doors. They had swung open again, with +a flash of their glass panels, to give passage to a lady. + +She came slowly, with the irresistible motion of creatures that divide +and trouble the medium in which they move. The white, painted wainscot +behind her showed her small, eager head, its waving rolls and crowning +heights of hair, black as her gown. She had a sweet face, curiously +foreshortened by a low forehead and the briefest of chins. It was white +with the same whiteness as her neck, her shoulders, her arms--a +whiteness pure and profound. This face she kept thrust a little forward, +while her eyes looked round, steadily, deliberately, for the place where +she desired to be. She carried on her arm a long tippet of brown fur. It +slipped, and her effort to recover it brought her to a standstill. + +The large, white room, half empty at this season, gave her up bodily to +what seemed to Lucy the intolerable impudence of the public gaze. + +She was followed by an older lady who had the air of making her way with +difficulty and vexation through an unpleasantly crowded space. This lady +was somewhat oddly attired in a white dress cut high with a Puritan +intention, but otherwise indiscreetly youthful. She kept close to the +tail of her companion's gown, and tracked its charming evolutions with +an irritated eye. Her whole aspect was evidently a protest against the +publicity she was compelled to share. + +[Illustration: "She stood there, strangely still ... before the pitiless +stare that went up to her appealing face."] + +Lucy was not interested in her. He was watching the lady in black who +was now standing in the middle of the room. Her elbow touched the +shoulder of a young man on her left. The fur tippet slipped again and +lay at the young man's feet. He picked it up, and as he handed it to her +he stared into her face, and sleeked his little moustache above a +furtive, objectionable smile. His companion (Jane's uninteresting man), +roused from communion with the spirit of Veuve Cliquot, fixed on the +lady a pair of blood-shot eyes in a brutal, wine-dark face. + +She stood there, strangely still, it seemed to Lucy, before the pitiless +stare that went up, right and left, to her appealing face. She was +looking, it seemed to him, for her refuge. + +She moved forward. The Colonel, pinker than ever in his perfection, +lowered his eyes as she approached. She paused again in her progress +beside the clergyman on her right. He looked severely at her, as much as +to say, "Madam, if you drop that thing in _my_ neighbourhood, I shall +not attempt to pick it up." + +An obsequious waiter pointed out a table next to the middle-aged +ladies. She shook her head at the middle-aged ladies. She turned in her +course, and her eyes met Lucy's. He said something to his sister. Jane +rose and changed her seat, thus clearing the way to a table that stood +beside theirs, empty, secluded in the bay of the window. + +The lady in black came swiftly, as if to the place of her desire. The +glance that expressed her gratitude went from Lucy to Jane and from Jane +to Lucy, and rested on him for a moment. + +As the four grouped themselves at their respective tables, the lady in +white, seated with her back to the window, commanded a front and side +view of Jane. The lady in black sat facing Lucy. + +She put her elbows on the table and turned her face (her profile was +remarkably pretty) to her companion. + +"Well," said she, "don't you want to sit here?" + +"Oh," said the older woman, "what does it matter where we sit?" + +She spoke in a small, crowing voice, the voice, Lucy said to himself, of +a rather terrible person. She shivered. + +"Poor lamb, does it feel a draught down its little back?" + +The lady rose and put her fur tippet on the shivering shoulders. They +shrank from her, and she drew it closer and fastened it with caressing +and cajoling fingers. There was about her something impetuous and +perverse, a wilful, ungovernable tenderness. Her hands had the swiftness +of things moved by sweet, disastrous impulses. + +The white person (she was quite terrible) undid the fastening and shook +her shoulders free of the fur. It slid to the floor for the third time. + +Lucy rose from his place, picked up the fur and restored it to its +owner. + +The quite terrible person flushed with vexation. + +"You see," said the lady, "the trouble you've given that nice man." + +"Oh don't! he'll hear you." + +"If he does, he won't mind," said the lady. + +He did hear her. It was difficult not to hear, not to look at her, not +to be interested in every movement that she made. Her charm, however, +was powerless over her companion. + +Their voices, to Lucy's relief, sank low. Then suddenly the companion +spoke. + +"Of course," said she, "if you _want_ all the men to look at you----" + +Lucy looked no more. He heard the lady draw in her breath with a soft, +sharp sound, and he felt his blood running scarlet to the roots of his +hair. + +"I believe" (the older lady spoke almost vindictively) "you like it." + +The head-waiter, opportune in all his approaches, brought coffee at that +moment. Lucy turned his chair slightly, so that he presented his back +to the speaker, and to the lady in black his side-face, shaded by his +hand, conspicuously penitential. + +Jane tried to set everybody at their ease by talking in a clear, cool +voice about the beautiful decorations, the perfect management of the +hotel. The two drank their coffee hastily and left the table. In the +doorway Lucy drew the head-waiter aside. + +"Who," said he, "is that lady in the window?" + +"The lady in the window, sir? Miss Keating, sir." + +"I mean--the other lady." + +The head-waiter looked reproachfully at Lucy and apologetically at Jane. + +"The lady in black, sir? You want to know her name?" + +"Yes." + +"Her _name_, sir, is Mrs. Tailleur." + +His manner intimated respectfully that Lucy would not like Mrs. +Tailleur, and that, if he did, she would not be good for him. + +The brother and sister went out into the hotel garden. They strolled up +and down the cool, green lawns that overhung the beach. + +Lucy smoked and was silent. + +"Jane," he said presently, "could _you_ see what she did?" + +"I was just going," said Jane, "to ask you that." + +"Upon my soul, I can't see it," said he. + +"Nor I," said Jane. + +"Could you see what _I_ did?" + +"What you did?" + +"Yes, I. _Did_ I look at her?" + +"Well, yes; certainly you looked at her." + +"And you think she minded?" + +"No; I don't think she minded very much." + +"Come, she couldn't have liked it, could she?" + +"I don't know. I don't think she noticed it. You see" (Jane was off on +the adventure) "she's in mourning for her husband. He has been dead +about two years. He wasn't very kind to her, and she doesn't know +whether to be glad or sorry he's dead. She's unhappy and afraid." + +"I say, how do you know all that?" + +"I know," said Jane, "because I see it in her face; and in her clothes. +I always see things." + +He laughed at that. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +They talked a long time as they paced the green lawns, linked arm in +arm, keeping their own path fastidiously. + +Miss Keating, Mrs. Tailleur's companion, watched them from her seat on +the veranda. + +She had made her escape from the great, lighted lounge behind her where +the men were sitting. She had found a corner out of sight of its wide +windows. She knew that Kitty Tailleur was in there somewhere. She could +hear her talking to the men. At the other end of the veranda the old +lady sat with her knitting. From time to time she looked up over her +needles and glanced curiously at Miss Keating. + +On the lawn below, Colonel Hankin walked with his wife. They kept the +same line as the Lucys, so that, in rhythmic instants, the couples made +one group. There was an affinity, a harmony in their movements as they +approached each other. They were all obviously nice people, people who +belonged by right to the same group, who might approach each other +without any impropriety. + +Miss Keating wondered how long it would be before Kitty Tailleur would +approach Mr. Lucy. That afternoon, on her arrival, she had approached +the Colonel, and the Colonel had got up and gone away. Kitty had then +laughed. Miss Keating suspected her of a similar social intention with +regard to the younger man. She knew his name. She had looked it up in +the visitors' book. (She was always looking up people's names.) She had +made with determination for the table next to him. Miss Keating, in the +dawn of their acquaintance, had prayed that Mrs. Tailleur might not +elect to sit next anybody who was not nice. Latterly she had found +herself hoping that their place might not be in view of anybody who was. + +For three months they had been living in hotels, in horrifying +publicity. Miss Keating dreaded most the hour they had just passed +through. There was something terrible to her in their entry, in their +passage down the great, white, palm-shaded, exotic room, their threading +of the ways between the tables, with all the men turning round to stare +at Kitty Tailleur. It was all very well for Kitty to pretend that she +saved her by thus diverting and holding fast the public eye. Miss +Keating felt that the tail of it flicked her unpleasantly as she +followed in that troubled, luminous wake. + +It had not been quite so unbearable in Brighton, at Easter, when the big +hotels were crowded, and Mrs. Tailleur was not so indomitably +conspicuous. Or else Miss Keating had not been so painfully alive to +her. But Southbourne was half empty in early June, and the Cliff Hotel, +small as it was, had room for the perfect exhibition of Mrs. Tailleur. +It gave her wide, polished spaces and clean, brilliant backgrounds, +yards of parquetry for the gliding of her feet, and monstrous mirrors +for reflecting her face at unexpected angles. These distances fined her +grace still finer, and lent her a certain pathos, the charm of figures +vanishing and remote. + +Not that you could think of Kitty Tailleur as in the least remote or +vanishing. She seemed to be always approaching, to hover imminently and +dangerously near. + +Mr. Lucy looked fairly unapproachable. His niceness, Miss Keating +imagined, would keep him linked arm in arm with his sister, maintaining, +unconsciously, inoffensively, his distance and distinction. He would +manage better than the Colonel. He would not have to get up and go away. +So Miss Keating thought. + +From the lounge behind the veranda, Kitty's voice came to her again. +Kitty was excited and her voice went winged. It flew upward, touched a +perilous height and shook there. It hung, on its delicate, feminine +wings, dominating the male voices that contended, brutally, below. Now +and then it found its lyric mate, a high, adolescent voice that followed +it with frenzy, that broke, pitifully, in sharp, abominable laughter, +like a cry of pain. + +Miss Keating shut her eyes to keep out her vision of Kitty's face with +the look it wore when her voice went high. + +She was roused by the waiter bringing coffee. Kitty Tailleur had come +out on to the veranda. She was pouring out Grace Keating's coffee, and +talking to her in another voice, the one that she kept for children and +for animals, and for all diminutive and helpless things. She was saying +that Miss Keating (whom she called Bunny) was a dear little white +rabbit, and she wanted to stroke her. + +"You see, you are so very small," said Kitty, as she dropped sugar into +Miss Keating's cup. She had ordered cigarettes and a liqueur for +herself. + +Miss Keating said nothing. She drank her coffee with a distasteful +movement of her lips. + +Kitty Tailleur stretched herself at full length on a garden chair. She +watched her companion with eyes secretly, profoundly intent under +lowered lids. + +"Do you mind my smoking?" she said presently. + +"No," said Miss Keating. + +"Do you mind my drinking Kuemmel?" + +"No." + +"Do you mind my showing seven inches of stocking?" + +"No." + +"What do you mind, then?" + +"I mind your making yourself so very conspicuous." + +"I don't make myself conspicuous. I was born so." + +"You make me conspicuous. Goodness knows what all these people take us +for!" + +"Holy Innocent! As long as you sit tight and do your hair like that, +nobody could take you for anything but a dear little bunny with its ears +laid back. But if you get palpitations in your little nose, and turn up +your little white tail at people, and scuttle away when they look at +you, you can't blame them if they wonder what's the matter with you." + +"With _me_?" + +"Yes; it's you who give the show away." Kitty smiled into her liqueur +glass. "It doesn't seem to strike you that your behaviour compromises +me." + +Miss Keating's mouth twitched. Her narrow, rather prominent front teeth +lifted an instant, and then closed sharply on her lower lip. Her throat +trembled as if she were swallowing some bitter thing that had been on +the tip of her tongue. + +"If you think that," she said, and her voice crowed no longer, "wouldn't +it be better for us not to be together?" + +Kitty shook her meditative head. "Poor Bunny," said she, "why can't you +be honest? Why don't you say plump out that you're sick and tired of +me? _I_ should be. I couldn't stand another woman lugging me about as I +lug you." + +"It isn't _that_. Only--everywhere we go--there's always some horrible +man." + +"Everywhere you go, dear lamb, there always will be." + +"Yes; but one doesn't have anything to do with them." + +"I don't have anything to do with them." + +"You talk to them." + +"Of course I do," said Kitty. "Why not?" + +"You don't know them." + +"H'm! If you never talk to people you don't know, pray how do you get to +know them?" + +Kitty sat up and began playing with the matches till she held a bunch of +them blazing in her hand. She was blowing out the flame as the Hankins +came up the steps of the veranda. They had a smile for the old lady in +her corner, and for Miss Keating a look of wonder and curiosity and +pity; but they turned from Mrs. Tailleur with guarded eyes. + +"What do you bet," said Kitty, "that I don't make that long man there +come and talk to me?" + +"If you do----" + +"I'll do it before you count ten. One, two, three, four. I shall ask him +for a light----" + +"Sh-sh! He's coming." + +Kitty slid her feet to the floor and covered them with her skirt. Then +she looked down, fascinated, apparently, by the shining tips of her +shoes. You could have drawn a straight line from her feet to the feet of +the man coming up the lawn. + +"Five, six, seven." Kitty lit her last match. "T-t-t! The jamfounded +thing's gone out." + +The long man's sister came up the steps of the veranda. The long man +followed her slowly, with deliberate pauses in his stride. + +"Eight, nine," said Kitty, under her breath. She waited. + +The man's eyes had been upon her; but in the approach he lowered them, +and as he passed her he turned away his head. + +"It's no use," said Miss Keating; "you can't have it both ways." + +Kitty was silent. Suddenly she laughed. + +"Bunny," said she, "would you like to marry the long man?" + +Miss Keating's mouth closed tightly, with an effort, covering her teeth. + +Kitty leaned forward. "Perhaps you can if you want to. Long men +sometimes go crazy about little women. And you'd have such dear little +long babies--little babies with long faces. Why not? You're just the +right size for him. He could make a memorandum of you and put you in his +pocket; or you could hang on his arm like a dear little umbrella. It +would be all right. You may take it from me that man is entirely moral. +He wouldn't think of going out without his umbrella. And he'd be so nice +when the little umbrellas came. Dear Bunny, face massage would do +wonders for you. Why ever not? He's heaps nicer than that man at the +Hydro, and you'd have married him, you know you would, if I hadn't told +you he was a commercial traveller. Never mind, ducky; I dare say he +wasn't." + +Kitty curled herself up tight on the long chair and smiled dreamily at +Miss Keating. + +"Do you remember the way you used to talk at Matlock, just after I found +you there? You _were_ such a rum little thing. You said it would be very +much better if we hadn't any bodies, so that people could fall in love +in a prettier way, and only be married spiritually. You said God ought +to have arranged things on that footing. You looked so miserable when +you said it. By the way, I wouldn't go about saying that sort of thing +to people. That's how I spotted you. I know men think it's one of the +symptoms." + +"Symptoms of what?" + +"Of that state of mind. When a woman comes to me and talks about being +spiritual, I always know she isn't--at the moment. You asked me, +Bunny--the second time I met you--if I believed in spiritual love, and +all that. I didn't, and I don't. When you're gone on a man all you want +is to get him, and keep him to yourself. I dare say it feels jolly +spiritual--especially, when you're not sure of the man--but it isn't. If +you're gone on him enough to give him up when you've got him, there +might be some spirituality in _that_. I shall believe in it when I see +it done." + +"Seriously," she continued, "if you'd been married, Bunny, you wouldn't +have had half such a beastly time. You're one of those leaning, clinging +little women who require a strong, safe man to support them. You ought +to be married." + +Miss Keating smiled a little sad, spiritual smile, and said that was the +last thing she wanted. + +"Well," said Kitty, "I didn't say it was the first." + +Kitty's smile was neither sad nor spiritual. She uncurled herself, got +up, and stood over her companion, stroking her sleek, thin hair. + +Miss Keating purred under the caress. She held up her hand to Kitty who +took it and gave it a squeeze before she let it go. + +"Poor Bunny. Nice Bunny," she said (as if Miss Keating were an animal). +She stretched out her arms, turned, and disappeared through the lounge +into the billiard-room. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +It could not be denied that Kitty had a charm. Miss Keating was not +denying it, even now, when she was saying to herself that Kitty had a +way of attracting very disagreeable attention. + +At first she had supposed that this was an effect of Kitty's charm, +disagreeable to Kitty. Then, even in the beginning, she had seen that +there was something deliberate and perpetual in Kitty's challenge of the +public eye. The public eye, so far from pursuing Kitty, was itself +pursued, tracked down and captured. Kitty couldn't let it go. Publicity +was what Kitty coveted. + +She had then supposed that Kitty was used to it; that she was, in some +mysterious way, a personage. There would be temptations, she had +imagined, for any one who had a charm that lived thus in the public eye. + +And Kitty had her good points, too. There was nobody so easy to live +with as Kitty in her private capacity, if she could be said to have one. +She never wanted to be amused, or read to, or sat up with late at night, +like the opulent invalids Miss Keating had been with hitherto. Miss +Keating owed everything she had to Kitty, her health (she was +constitutionally anaemic), her magnificent salary, the luxurious gaiety +in which they lived and moved (moved, perhaps, rather more than lived). +The very combs in her hair were Kitty's. So were the gowns she wore on +occasions of splendour and display. It struck her as odd that they were +all public, these occasions, things they paid to go to. + +It had dawned on her by this time, coldly, disagreeably, that Kitty +Tailleur was nobody, nobody, that is to say, in particular. A person of +no account in the places where they had stayed. In their three months' +wanderings they had never been invited to any private house. Miss +Keating could not account for that air of ill-defined celebrity that +hung round Kitty like a scent, and marked her trail. + +Not that any social slur seemed to attach to Kitty. The acquaintances +she had made in her brief and curious fashion were all, or nearly all, +socially immaculate. The friends (they were all men) who came to her of +their own intimate accord, belonged, some of them, to an aristocracy +higher than that represented by Mr. Lucy or the Colonel. And they had +been by no means impervious to Kitty's charm. + +From the sounds that came from the billiard-room she gathered that +Kitty's charm appealed also to her audience in there. Leaning her body +forward so as to listen, Miss Keating became aware that Lucy had +returned to the lounge, and was strolling about in it, as if he were +looking for somebody. He strolled into the veranda. + +The garden was dark now, but a little light fell on the veranda from the +open windows of the lounge. Lucy looked at Mrs. Tailleur's empty chair. +He was about to sit in it when he saw that he was alone with Mrs. +Tailleur's companion. He rose again for flight. Miss Keating rose also +with the same intention. + +Lucy protested. "Please don't let me disturb you. I am not going to sit +here." + +"But I am driving you in." + +"Not at all. I only thought you might object to my smoking." + +"But I don't object." + +"You don't, really?" + +"If I stay," said she, "will that prove it?" + +"Please do," said Lucy. + +Miss Keating pushed her chair as far as possible from his. She seated +herself with a fugitive, sidelong movement; as much as to say she left +him to the sanctuary he sought. He would please to observe the +perfection of her withdrawal. The table with the match-stand on it stood +between them. + +Lucy approached the match-stand tentatively. Miss Keating, averted and +effaced, was yet aware of him. + +"I'm afraid there are no matches," said she. "Mrs. Tailleur has used +them all." So effaced and so averted was Miss Keating that there was +nothing left of her but a sweet, attenuated, disembodied voice. It was +as if spirit spoke to spirit with the consecrated doors between. + +Lucy smiled. He paused at Mrs. Tailleur's chair. + +"Is your friend coming back again?" he asked. + +"I don't think so." + +It might have been an effect of her remoteness, but Miss Keating's tone +conveyed to him ever so slight a repudiation of Mrs. Tailleur. + +He seated himself; and as he did so he searched his coat pockets. There +were no matches there. He knew he would find some in the lounge. Perhaps +he might find Mrs. Tailleur also. He would get up and look. + +Miss Keating (still disembodied) rose and withdrew herself completely, +and Lucy thought better of his intention. He lay back and closed his +eyes. + +A light tap on the table roused him. It was Miss Keating laying down a +match-box. He saw her hand poised yet in the delicacy of its +imperceptible approach. + +He stared, stupefied with embarrassment. He stuttered with it. +"Really--I--I--I wish you hadn't." He did not take up the match-box all +at once, lest he should seem prompt in accepting this rather +extraordinary service. + +Mrs. Tailleur's companion slid back into her seat and sat there smiling +to herself and to the incommunicative night. + +"I hope," she said presently, "you are not refraining from smoking +because of me." + +She was very sweet and soft and gentle. But she had not struck him as +gentle or soft or sweet when he had seen her with Mrs. Tailleur, and he +was not prepared to take that view of her now. + +"Thank you," he said. He could not think of anything else to say. He lit +his cigarette, and smoked in an innocent abstraction. + +A clock indoors struck ten. Miss Keating accounted for her continuance. +"It is the only quiet place in the hotel," said she. + +He assented, wondering if this were meant for a conversational opening. + +"And the night air is so very sweet and pure." + +"I'm afraid you find this smoke of mine anything but----" + +"If you are so serious about it," said she, "I shall be afraid either to +stay out or to go in." + +If there were any opening there he missed it. He had turned at the sound +of a skirt trailing, and he saw that Mrs. Tailleur had come back into +the lounge. He was thoughtful for a moment. Then he got up quietly and +went in. + +He did not speak to her or look at her. He sat very still in a corner of +the room where he could see her reflection in a big mirror. It did not +occur to him that Mrs. Tailleur could see his, too. + +Outside in the veranda, Miss Keating sat shuddering in the night air. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Lucy's mind was like his body. Superficial people called it narrow, +because the sheer length of it diverted their attention from its +breadth. Visionary, yet eager for the sound impact of the visible, it +was never more alert than when it, so to speak, sat still, absorbed in +its impressions. It was the sport of young and rapid impulses, which it +seemed to obey sluggishly, while, all the time, it moved with immense, +slow strides to incredibly far conclusions. Having reached a conclusion +it was apt to stay there. The very length of its stride made turning +awkward for it. + +He had reached a conclusion now, on his third night in Southbourne. He +must do something, he did not yet know what, for the protection of Mrs. +Tailleur. + +Her face was an appeal to the chivalry that sat quiet in Lucy's heart, +nursing young dreams of opportunity. + +Lucy's chivalry had been formed by three weeks of courtship and three +years of wedded incompatibility. The incompatibility had hardly dawned +on him when his wife died. Three years were too short a space for Lucy's +mind to turn in; and so he always thought of her tenderly as dear little +Amy. She had given him two daughters and paid for the younger with her +life. + +Five years of fatherhood finished his training in the school of +chivalry. He had been profoundly moved by little Amy's sacrifice to the +powers of life, and he was further touched by the heartrending spectacle +of Jane. Jane doing all she knew for him; Jane, so engaging in her +innocence, hiding her small, childlike charm under dark airs of assumed +maternity; Jane, whose skirts fluttered wide to all the winds of dream; +Jane with an apron on and two little girls tied to the strings of it; +Jane, adorable in disaster, striving to be discreet and comfortable and +competent. + +He had a passionate pity for all creatures troubled and unfortunate. And +Mrs. Tailleur's face called aloud to him for pity. For Lucy Mrs. +Tailleur's face wore, like a veil, the shadow of the incredible past and +of the future; it was reminiscent and prophetic of terrible and tragic +things. Across the great spaces of the public rooms his gaze answered +her call. Then Mrs. Tailleur's face would become dumb. Like all hurt +things, she was manifestly shy of observation and pursuit. + +Pursuit and observation, perpetual, implacable, were what she had to +bear. The women had driven her from the drawing-room; the men made the +smoke-room impossible. A cold, wet mist came with the evenings. It lay +over the sea and drenched the lawns of the hotel garden. Mrs. Tailleur +had no refuge but the lounge. + +To-night the wine-faced man and his companion had tracked her there. +Mrs. Tailleur had removed herself from the corner where they had hemmed +her in. She had found an unoccupied sofa near the writing-table. The +pursuer was seized instantly with a desire to write letters. Mrs. +Tailleur went out and shivered on the veranda. His eyes followed her. In +passing she had turned her back on the screened hearth-place where Lucy +and his sister sat alone. + +"Did you see that?" said Lucy. + +"I did indeed," said Jane. + +"It's awful that a woman should be exposed to that sort of thing. What +can her people be thinking of?" + +"Her people?" + +"Yes; to let her go about alone." + +"I go about alone," said Jane pensively. + +"Yes, but she's so good looking." + +"Am _I_ not?" + +"You're all right, Jenny; but you never looked like that. There's +something about her----" + +"Is that what makes those men horrid to her?" + +"Yes, I suppose so. The brutes!" He paused irritably. "It mustn't happen +again." + +"What's the poor lady to do?" said Jane. + +"She can't do anything. _We_ must." + +"We?" + +"I must. You must. Go out to her, Janey, and be nice to her." + +"No, you go and say I sent you." + +He strode out on to the veranda. Mrs. Tailleur sat with her hands in her +lap, motionless, and, to his senses, unaware. + +"Mrs. Tailleur." + +She started and looked up at him. + +"My sister asked me to tell you that there's a seat for you in there, if +you don't mind sitting with us." + +"But won't you mind me?" + +"Not--not," said Lucy (he positively stammered), "not if you don't mind +us." + +Mrs. Tailleur looked at him again, wide eyed, with the strange and +pitiful candour of distrust. Then she smiled incomprehensibly. + +Her eyelids dropped as she slid past him to the seat beside Jane. He +noticed that she had the sudden, furtive ways of the wild thing aware of +the hunter. + +"May I really?" said Mrs. Tailleur. + +"Oh, _please_," said Jane. + +As she spoke the man at the writing-table looked up and stared. Not at +Mrs. Tailleur this time, but at Jane. He stared with a wonder so +spontaneous, so supreme, that it purged him of offence. + +He stared again (with less innocence) at Lucy as the young man gave way, +reverently, to the sweep of Mrs. Tailleur's gown. Lucy's face intimated +to him that he had made a bad mistake. The wretch admitted, by a violent +flush, that it was possible. Then his eyes turned again to Mrs. +Tailleur. It was as much as to say he had only been relying on the +incorruptible evidence of his senses. + +Mrs. Tailleur sat down and breathed hard. + +"How sweet of you!" Her voice rang with the labour of her breast. + +Lucy smiled as he caught the word. He would have condemned the stress of +it, but that Mrs. Tailleur's voice pleaded forgiveness for any word she +chose to utter. "Even," he said to himself, "if you could forget her +face." + +He couldn't forget it. As he sat there trying to read, it came between +him and his book. It tormented him to find its meaning. Kitty's face was +a thing both delicate and crude. When she was gay it showed a blurred +edge, a fineness in peril. When she was sad it wore the fixed look of +artificial maturity. It was like a young bud opened by inquisitive +fingers and forced to be a flower. Some day, the day before it withered, +the bruised veins would glow again, and a hectic spot betray, like a +bruise, the violation of its bloom. At the moment, repose gave back its +beauty to Kitty's face. Lucy noticed that the large black pupils of her +eyes were ringed with a dark blue iris, spotted with black. There was no +colour about her at all except that blue, and the delicate red of her +mouth. In her black gown she was a revelation of pure form. Colour would +have obscured her, made her ineffectual. + +He sat silent, hardly daring to look at her. So keen was his sense of +her that he could almost have heard the beating of her breast against +her gown. Once she sighed, and Lucy stirred. Once she stirred slightly, +and Lucy, unconsciously responsive, sighed. Then Kitty's glance lit on +him. He turned a page of his book ostentatiously, and Kitty's glance +slunk home again. She closed her eyes and opened them to find Lucy's +eyes looking at her over the top of his book. Poor Lucy was so perturbed +at being detected in that particular atrocity that he rose, drew his +chair to the hearth, and arranged himself in an attitude that made +these things impossible. + +He was presently aware of Jane launching herself on a gentle tide of +conversation, and of Mrs. Tailleur trembling pathetically on the brink +of it. + +"Do you like Southbourne?" he heard Jane saying. + +Then suddenly Mrs. Tailleur plunged in. + +"No," said she; "I hate it. I hate any place I have to be alone in, if +it's only for five minutes." + +Lucy felt that it was Jane who drew back now, in sheer distress. He +tried to think of something to say, and gave it up, stultified by his +compassion. + +The silence was broken by Jane. + +"Robert," said she, "have you written to the children?" + +Mrs. Tailleur's face became suddenly sombre and intent. + +"No; I haven't. I clean forgot it." + +He went off to write his letter. When he came back Mrs. Tailleur had +risen and was saying good night to Jane. + +He followed her to the portiere and drew it back for her to pass. As she +turned to thank him she glanced up at the hand that held the portiere. +It trembled violently. Her eyes, a moment ago dark under her bent +forehead, darted a sudden light sidelong. + +She paused, interrogative, expectant. Lucy bowed. + +As Mrs. Tailleur passed out she looked back over her shoulder, smiling +again her incomprehensible smile. + +The portiere dropped behind her. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Five days passed. The Lucys had now been a week at Southbourne. They +knew it well by that time, for bad weather kept them from going very far +beyond it. Jane had found, too, that they had to know some of the +visitors. The little Cliff Hotel brought its guests together with a +geniality unknown to its superb rival, the Metropole. Under its roof, in +bad weather, persons not otherwise incompatible became acquainted with +extraordinary rapidity. People had begun already to select each other. +Even Mr. Soutar, the clergyman, had emerged from his lonely gloom, and +dined by preference at the same table with the middle-aged ladies--the +table farthest from the bay window. The Hankins, out of pure kindness, +had taken pity on the old lady, Mrs. Jurd. They had made advances to +the Lucys, perceiving an agreeable social affinity, and had afterward +drawn back. For the Lucys were using the opportunity of the weather for +cultivating Mrs. Tailleur. + +It was not easy, they told themselves, to get to know her. She did not +talk much. But as Jane pointed out to Robert, little things came out, +things that proved that she was all right. Her father was a country +parson, very strait-laced, they gathered; and she had little sisters, +years younger than herself. When she talked at all it was in a pretty, +innocent way, like a child's, and all her little legends were, you could +see, transparently consistent. They had, like a child's, a quite funny +reiterance and simplicity. But, like a child, she was easily put off by +any sort of interruption. When she thought she had let herself go too +far, she would take fright and avoid them for the rest of the day, and +they had to begin all over again with her next time. + +The thing, Lucy said, would be for Jane to get her some day all alone. +But Jane said, No; Mrs. Tailleur was ten times more afraid of her than +of him. Besides, they had only another week, and they didn't want, did +they, to see _too_ much of Mrs. Tailleur? At that Lucy got very red, and +promised his sister to take her out somewhere by themselves the next +fine day. + +That was on Wednesday evening, when it was raining hard. + +The weather lifted with the dawn. The heavy smell of the wet earth was +pierced by the fine air of heaven and the sea. + +Jane Lucy leaned out of her bedroom window and looked eastward beyond +the hotel garden to the Cliff. The sea was full of light. Light rolled +on the low waves and broke on their tops like foam. It hung quivering on +the white face of the Cliff. It was like a thin spray thrown from the +heaving light of the sea. + +At breakfast Jane reminded Robert of his promise to take her for a sail +on the first fine day. They turned their backs on the hotel and went +seaward. On their way to the boats they passed Mrs. Tailleur sitting on +the beach in the sun. + +Neither of them enjoyed that expedition. It was the first of all the +things they had done together that had failed. Jane wondered why. If +they were not enjoying themselves on a day like that, when, she argued, +would they enjoy themselves? The day remained as perfect as it had +begun. There was nothing wrong, Robert admitted, with the day. They +sailed in the sun's path and landed in a divine and solitary cove. +Robert was obliged to agree that there was nothing wrong with the cove, +and nothing, no nothing in the least wrong with the lunch. There might, +yes, of course there might, be something very wrong with him. + +Whatever it was, it disappeared as they sighted Southbourne. Robert, +mounting with uneasy haste the steps that led from the beach to the +hotel garden, was unusually gay. + +They were late for dinner, and the table next theirs was empty. Outside, +on the great green lawn in front of the windows, he could see Mrs. +Tailleur walking up and down, alone. + +He dined with the abstraction of a man pursued by the hour of an +appointment. He established Jane in the lounge, with all the magazines +he could lay his hands on, and went out by the veranda on to the lawn +where Mrs. Tailleur was still walking up and down. + +The Colonel and his wife were in the veranda. They made a low sound of +pity as they saw him go. + +Mrs. Tailleur seemed more than ever alone. The green space was bare +around her as if cleared by the sweep of her gown. She moved quietly, +with a long and even undulation, a yielding of her whole body to the +rhythm of her feet. She had reached the far end of the lawn as Lucy +neared her, and he looked for her to turn and face him. + +She did not turn. + +The lawn at this end was bounded by a gravel walk. The walk was fenced +by a low stone wall built on the edge of the Cliff. Mrs. Tailleur paused +there and seated herself sideways on the wall. Her face was turned from +Lucy, and he judged her unaware of his approach. In his eyes she gained +a new enchantment from the vast and simple spaces of her background, a +sea of dull purple, a sky of violet, divinely clear. Her face had the +intense, unsubstantial pallor, the magic and stillness of flowers that +stand in the blue dusk before night. + +She turned at the sound of the man's footsteps on the gravel. She smiled +quietly, as if she knew of his coming, and was waiting for it there. He +greeted her. A few words of no moment passed between them, and there was +a silence. He stood by the low wall with his face set seaward, as if all +his sight were fixed on the trail of smoke that marked the far-off +passage of a steamer. Mrs. Tailleur's face was fixed on his. He was +aware of it. + +Standing beside her, he was aware, too, of something about her alien to +sea and sky; something secret, impenetrable, that held her, as it were, +apart, shut in by her own strange and solitary charm. + +And she sat there in the deep quiet of a woman intent upon her hour. He +had no ear for the call of her silence, for the voice of the instincts +prisoned in blood and brain. + +Presently she rose, shrugging her shoulders and gathering her furs about +her. + +"I want to walk," she said; "will you come?" + +She led the way to the corner where the low wall was joined by a high +one, dividing the hotel garden from the open down. There was a gate +here; it led to a flight of wooden steps that went zig-zag to the beach +below. At the first turn in the flight a narrow path was cut on the +Cliff side. To the right it rose inland, following the slope of the +down. To the left it ran level under the low wall, then climbed higher +yet to the brow of the headland. There it ended in a square recess, a +small white chamber cut from the chalk and open to the sea and sky. From +the floor of the recess the Cliff dropped sheer to the beach two hundred +feet below. + +Mrs. Tailleur took the path to the left. Lucy followed her. + +The path was stopped by the bend of the great Cliff, the recess roofed +by its bulging forehead. There was a wooden seat set well back under +this cover. Two persons who found themselves alone there might count on +security from interruption. + +Mrs. Tailleur and Lucy were alone. + +Lucy looked at the Cliff wall in front of them. + +"We must go back," said he. + +"Oh no," said she; "don't let's go back." + +"But if you want to walk----" + +"I don't," said she; "do you?" + +He didn't, and they seated themselves. In the charm of this intimate +seclusion Lucy became more than ever dumb. Mrs. Tailleur waited a few +minutes in apparent meditation. + +All Lucy said was "May I smoke?" + +"You may." She meditated again. + +"I was wondering," said she, "whether you were ever going to say +anything." + +"I didn't know," said Lucy simply, "whether I might. I thought you were +thinking." + +"So I was. I was thinking of what you were going to say next. I never +met anybody who said less and took so long a time to say it in." + +"Well," said Lucy, "I was thinking too." + +"I know you were. You needn't be so afraid of me unless you like." + +"I am not," said he stiffly, "in the least afraid of you. I'm +desperately afraid of saying the wrong thing." + +"To me? Or everybody?" + +"Not everybody." + +"To me, then. Do you think I might be difficult?" + +"Difficult?" + +"To get on with?" + +"Not in the least. Possibly, if I may say so, a little difficult to +know." + +She smiled. "I don't usually strike people in that light." + +"Well, I think I'm afraid of boring you." + +"You couldn't if you tried from now to midnight." + +"How do you know what I mightn't do?" + +"That's it. I don't know. I never _should_ know. It's only the people +I'm sure of that bore me. Don't they you?" + +He laughed uneasily. + +"The people," she went on, "who are sure of _me_; who think I'm so easy +to know. They don't know me, and they don't know that I know them. And +they're the only people I've ever, ever met. I can tell what they're +going to say before they've said it. It's always the same thing. +It's--if you like--the inevitable thing. If you can't have anything but +the same thing, at least you like it put a little differently. You'd +think, among them all, they might find it easy to put it a little +differently sometimes; but they never do; and it's the brutal monotony +of it that I cannot stand." + +"I suppose," said Lucy, "people _are_ monotonous." + +"They don't know," said she, evidently ignoring his statement as +inadequate, "they don't know how sick I am of it--how insufferably it +bores me." + +"Ah! there you see--that's what _I'm_ afraid of." + +"What?" + +"Of saying the wrong thing--the--the same thing." + +"That's it. You'd say it differently, and it wouldn't be the same thing +at all. And what's more, I should never know whether you were going to +say it or not." + +"There's one thing I'd like to say to you if I knew how--if I knew how +you'd take it. You see, though I think I know you----" he hesitated. + +"You don't really? You don't know who I am? Or where I come from? Or +where I'm going to? I don't know myself." + +"I know," said Lucy, "as much as I've any right to. But unluckily the +thing I want to know----" + +"Is what you haven't any right to?" + +"I'm afraid I haven't. The thing I want to know is simply whether I can +help you in any way." + +She smiled. "Ah," said she, "you _have_ said it." + +"Haven't I said it differently?" + +"I'm not sure. You looked different when you said it; that's something." + +"I know I've no right to say it at all. What I mean is that if I could +do anything for you without boring you, without forcing myself on your +acquaintance, I'd be most awfully glad. You know you needn't recognise +me afterward unless you like. Have I put it differently now?" + +"Yes; I don't think I've ever heard it put quite that way before." + +There was a long pause in which Lucy vainly sought for illumination. + +"No," said Mrs. Tailleur, as if to herself; "I should never know what +you were going to say or do next." + +"Wouldn't you?" + +"No; I didn't know just now whether you were going to speak to me or +not. When I said I wanted to walk I didn't know whether you'd come with +me or not." + +"I came." + +"You came; but when I go----" + +"You're not going?" + +"Yes; to-morrow, perhaps, or the next day. When I go I shall give you my +address and ask you to come and see me; but I shan't know whether you'll +come." + +"Of course I'll come." + +"There's no 'of course' about you; that's the charm of it. I shan't know +until you're actually there." + +"I shall be there all right." + +"What? You'll come?" + +"Yes; and I'll bring my sister." + +"Your sister?" She drew back slightly. "Turn round, please--this +way--and let me look at you." + +He turned, laughing. Her eyes searched his face. + +"Yes; you meant that. Why do you want to bring your sister?" + +"Because I want you to know her." + +"Are you sure--quite--quite sure--you want her to know me?" + +"Quite--quite sure. If you don't mind--if she won't bore you." + +"Oh, she won't bore me." + +"You're not afraid of that monotony?" + +She turned and looked long at him. "You are very like your sister," she +said. + +"Am I? How? In what way?" + +"In the way we've been talking about. I suppose you know how remarkable +you are?" + +"No; I really don't think I do." + +"Then," said Mrs. Tailleur, "you are all the more remarkable." + +"Don't you think," she added, "we had better go back?" + +They went back. As they mounted the steps to the garden door they saw +Miss Keating approaching it from the inside. She moved along the low +wall that overlooked the path by which they had just come. There was no +crunching of pebbles under her feet. She trod, inaudibly, the soft edge +of the lawn. + +Lucy held the door open for Miss Keating when Mrs. Tailleur had passed +through; but Miss Keating had turned suddenly. She made the pebbles on +the walk scream with the vehemence of her retreat. + +"Dear me," said Lucy, "it must be rather painful to be as shy as that." + +"Mustn't it?" said Mrs. Tailleur. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +The next day it rained, fitfully at first, at the will of a cold wind +that dragged clouds out of heaven. A gleam of sunshine in the afternoon, +then wild rain driven slantwise by the gusts; and now, at five o'clock, +no wind at all, but a straight, soaking downpour. + +The guests at the Cliff Hotel were all indoors. Colonel Hankin and his +wife were reading in a corner of the lounge. Mr. Soutar, the clergyman, +was dozing over a newspaper by an imaginary fire. The other men drifted +continually from the bar to the billiard-room and back again. + +Mrs. Tailleur and Lucy were sitting in the veranda, with rugs round +them, watching the rain, and watched by Colonel and Mrs. Hankin. + +Jane had gone into the drawing-room to write letters. There was nobody +there but the old lady who sat in the bay of the window, everlastingly +knitting, and Miss Keating isolated on a sofa near the door. + +Everybody in the hotel was happy and occupied, except Miss Keating. Her +eyes followed the labour of Miss Lucy's pen, watching for the stroke +that should end it. She had made up her mind that she must speak to her. + +Miss Keating was subject to a passion which circumstances were +perpetually frustrating. She desired to be interesting, profoundly, +personally interesting to people. She disliked publicity partly because +it reduced her to mournful insignificance and silence. The few moments +in her life which counted were those private ones when she found +attention surrendered wholly to her service. She hungered for the +unworn, unwearied sympathy of strangers. Her fancy had followed and +fastened on the Lucys, perceiving this exquisitely virgin quality in +them. And now she was suffering from an oppression of the nerves that +urged her to a supreme outpouring. + +Miss Lucy seemed absorbed in her correspondence. She felt that Miss +Keating's eyes were upon her, and as she wrote she planned a dexterous +retreat. It would, she knew, be difficult, owing to Miss Keating's +complete occupation of the sofa by the door. + +She had made that lady's acquaintance in the morning, having found her +sitting sad and solitary in the lounge. She had then felt that it would +be unkind not to say something to her, and she had spent the greater +part of the morning saying it. Miss Keating had tracked the thin thread +of conversation carefully, as if in search of an unapparent opportunity. +Jane, aware of the watchfulness of her method, had taken fright and left +her. She had had an awful feeling that Miss Keating was about to bestow +a confidence on her; somebody else's confidence, which Miss Keating had +broken badly, she suspected. + +Jane had finished her letters. She was addressing the envelopes. Now she +was stamping them. Now she was crossing the room. Miss Keating lowered +her eyes as the moment came which was to bring her into communion with +the Lucys. + +Jane had made her way very quietly to the door, and thought to pass +through it unobserved, when Miss Keating seemed to leap up from her sofa +as from an ambush. + +"Miss Lucy," she said, and Jane turned at the penetrating sibilants of +her name. + +Miss Keating thrust toward her a face of tragic and imminent appeal. A +nervous vibration passed through her and communicated itself to Jane. + +"What is it?" Jane paused in the doorway. + +"May I speak to you a moment?" + +"Certainly." + +But Miss Keating did not speak. She stood there, clasping and +unclasping her hands. It struck Jane that she was trying to conceal an +eagerness of which she was more than half ashamed. + +"What is it?" she said again. + +Miss Keating sighed. "Will you sit down? Here--I think." She glanced +significantly at the old lady who was betraying unmistakable interest in +the scene. There was no place where they could sit beyond her range of +vision. But the sofa was on the far side of it, and Miss Keating's back +protested against observation. + +She bent forward, her thin arms stretched out to Jane, her hands locked, +as if she still held tight the confidence she offered. + +"Miss Lucy," she said, "you were so kind to me this morning, so kind and +helpful." + +"I didn't know it." + +"No, you didn't know it." Miss Keating looked down, and she smiled as if +at some pleasant secret of her own. "I think when we are really helping +each other we don't know it. You couldn't realise what it meant to me, +your just coming up and speaking to me that way." + +"I'm very glad," said Jane; and thought she meant it. + +Miss Keating smiled again. "I wonder," she said, "if I might ask you to +help me again?" + +"If I can." + +"You look as if you could. I'm in a great difficulty, and I would like +you--if you would--to give me your advice." + +"That," said Jane, "is a very dangerous thing to give." + +"It wouldn't be in this case. If I might only tell you. There's no one +in the hotel whom I can speak to." + +"Surely," said Jane, "there is Mrs. Tailleur, your friend." + +"My friend? Yes, she is my friend; that's why I can't say anything to +her. She _is_ the difficulty." + +"Indeed," said Jane coldly. Nothing in Miss Keating appealed to the +spirit of adventurous sympathy. + +"I have received so much kindness from her. She _is_ kind." + +"Evidently," said Jane. + +"That makes my position so very delicate--so very disagreeable." + +"I should think it would." + +Miss Keating felt the antipathy in Miss Lucy's tone. "You _do_ think it +strange of me to come to you when I don't know you?" + +"No, no; people are always coming to me. Perhaps because they don't know +me." + +"Ah, you see, you make them come." + +"Indeed I don't. I try to stop them." + +"Are you trying to stop me?" + +"Yes; I think I am." + +"Don't stop me, please." + +"But surely it would be better to consult your own people." + +Miss Keating paused. Miss Lucy had suggested the obvious course, which +she had avoided for reasons which were not obvious even to herself. + +"My own people?" she murmured pensively. "They are not here." + +It was not her fault if Miss Lucy jumped to the conclusion that they +were dead. + +"I wonder," she said, "if you see my difficulty?" + +"I see it plainly enough. Mrs. Tailleur has been very kind to you, and +you want to leave her. Why?" + +"I'm not sure that I ought to stay." + +"You must be the best judge of your obligations." + +"There are," said Miss Keating, "other things; I don't know that I'm a +good judge of _them_. You see, I was brought up very carefully." + +"Were you?" + +"Yes. I'm not sure that it's wise to be as careful as all that--to keep +young girls in ignorance of things they--things they must, sooner or +later----" she paused staring as if at an abyss. + +"What things?" asked Jane bluntly. + +"I don't know what things. I don't _know_ anything. I'm afraid. I'm so +innocent, Miss Lucy, that I'm like a child in the dark. I think I want +some one to hold my hand and tell me there's nothing there." + +"Perhaps there isn't." + +"Yes, but it's so dark that I can't see whether there is or isn't. I'm +just like a little child. Except that it imagines things and I don't." + +"Don't you? Are you sure you don't let your imagination run away with +you sometimes?" + +"Not," said Miss Keating, "not on this subject. Even when I'm brought +into contact"--her shoulder-blades obeyed the suggestion of her brain, +and shuddered. "I don't know whether it's good or bad to refuse to face +things. I can't help it. All that side of life is so intensely +disagreeable to me." + +"It's not agreeable to me," said Jane. "And what _has_ it got to do with +Mrs. Tailleur?" + +Miss Keating smiled queerly. "I don't know. I wish I did." + +"If you mean you think she isn't nice, I can tell you I'm sure you're +mistaken." + +"It's not what _I_ think. It's what other people think." + +"What people?" + +"The people here." + +Little Jane lifted her head superbly. + +"_We_ think the people here have behaved abominably to Mrs. Tailleur." + +She lifted her voice too. She didn't care who heard her. She rose, +making herself look as tall as possible. + +"And if you're her friend," said she, "you ought to think so too." + +She walked out of the room, still superbly. Miss Keating was left to a +painful meditation on misplaced confidence. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +She had had no intention of betraying Kitty. Kitty, she imagined, had +sufficiently betrayed herself. And if she hadn't, as long as Kitty chose +to behave like a dubious person, she could hardly be surprised if +persons by no means dubious refused to be compromised. She, Miss +Keating, was in no way responsible for Kitty Tailleur. Neither was she +responsible for what other people thought of her. That was all, in +effect, that she had intimated to Miss Lucy. + +She did not say what she herself precisely thought, nor when she had +first felt that uncomfortable sensation of exposure, that little shiver +of cold and shame that seized her when in Kitty Tailleur's society. She +had no means of measuring the lengths to which Kitty had gone and might +yet go. She was simply possessed, driven and lashed by her vision of +Kitty as she had seen her yesterday; Kitty standing at the end of the +garden, on the watch for Mr. Lucy; Kitty returning, triumphant, with the +young man at her heels. + +She had seen Kitty with other men before, but there was something in +this particular combination that she could not bear to think of. All the +same, she had lain awake half the night thinking of it. She had Kitty +Tailleur and Mr. Lucy on her nerves. + +She had desired a pretext for approaching Miss Lucy, and poor Kitty was +a pretext made to her hand. Nothing could be more appealing than the +spectacle of helpless innocence struggling with a problem as terrible as +Kitty. Miss Keating knew all the time that as far as she was concerned +there was no problem. If she disliked being with Kitty she had nothing +to do but to pack up and go. Kitty had said in the beginning that if she +didn't like her she must go. + +That course was obvious but unattractive. And the most obvious and most +unattractive thing about it was that it would not have brought her any +further with the Lucys. It would, in fact, have removed her altogether +from their view. + +But she had done for herself now with the Lucys. She should have kept +her nerves to herself, rasped, as they were to a treacherous tenuity. +And as the state of her nerves was owing to Kitty, she held Kitty +responsible for the crisis. She writhed as she thought of it. She +writhed as she thought of Mr. Lucy. She writhed as she thought of Kitty; +and writhing, she rubbed her own venom into her hurt. + +Of course she would have to leave Kitty now. + +But, if she did, the alternatives were grim. She would have either to go +back to her own people, or to look after somebody's children, or an +invalid. Her own people were not interested in Miss Keating. Children +and invalids demanded imperatively that she should be interested in +them. And Miss Keating, unfortunately, was not interested in anybody +but herself. + +So interested was she that she had forgotten the old lady who sat +knitting in the window, who, distracted by Miss Lucy's outburst, had let +her ball roll on to the floor. It rolled away across the room to Miss +Keating's feet, and there was a great tangle in the wool. Miss Keating +picked up the ball and brought it to the old lady, winding and +disentangling it as she went. + +"Thank you; my wool is a nuisance to everybody," said the old lady. And +she began to talk about her knitting. All the year round she knitted +comforters for the deep-sea fishermen, gray and red and blue. When she +was tired of one colour she went to another. It would be red's turn +next. + +Miss Keating felt as if she were being drawn to the old lady by that +thin thread of wool. And the old lady kept looking at her all the time. + +"Your face is familiar to me," she said. (Oddly enough, the old lady's +face was familiar to Miss Keating.) "I have met you somewhere; I cannot +think where." + +"I wonder," said Miss Keating, "if it was at Wenden, my father's +parish?" + +The old lady's look was sharper. "Your father is the vicar of Wenden?" + +"Yes." + +"I thought so." + +"Do you know him?" The ball slipped from Miss Keating's nervous fingers +and the wool was tangled worse than ever. + +"No, no; but I could tell that you were----" she hesitated. "It was at +Ilkley that I met you. It's coming back to me. You were not then with +Mrs. Tailleur, I think? You were with an invalid lady?" + +"Yes; I was until I broke down." + +"May I ask if you knew Mrs. Tailleur before you came to her?" + +"No. I knew nothing of her. I know nothing now." + +"Oh," said the old lady. It was as if she had said: that settles it. + +The wool was disentangled. It was winding them nearer and nearer. + +"Have you been with her long?" + +"Not more than three months." + +There were only five inches of wool between them now. "Do you mind +telling me where you picked her up?" + +Miss Keating remembered with compunction that it was Kitty who had +picked _her_ up. Picked her up, as it were, in her arms, and carried her +away from the dreadful northern Hydropathic where she had dropped, +forlorn and exhausted, in the trail of her opulent invalid. + +"It was at Matlock, afterward. Why?" + +"Because, my dear--you must forgive me, but I could not help hearing +what that young lady said. She was so very--so very unrestrained." + +"Very ill-bred, I should say." + +"Well, I should not have said that. You couldn't mistake the Lucys for +anything but gentlepeople. Evidently I was meant to hear. I've no doubt +she thinks us all very unkind." + +"Unkind? Why?" + +"Because we have--have not exactly taken to Mrs. Tailleur; if you'll +forgive my saying so." + +Miss Keating's smile forgave her. "People do not always take to her. She +is more a favourite, I think, with men." She gave the ball into the old +lady's hands. + +The old lady coughed slightly. "Thank you, my dear. I dare say _you_ +have thought it strange. We are such a friendly little community here; +and if Mrs. Tailleur had been at all possible----" + +"I believe," said Miss Keating, "she is very well connected. Lord +Matcham is a most intimate friend of hers." + +"That doesn't speak very well for Lord Matcham, I'm afraid." + +"I wish," said Miss Keating, "you would be frank with me." + +"I should like to be, my dear." + +"Then, please--if there's anything you think I should be told--tell me." + +"I think you ought to be told that we all are wondering a little at your +being seen with Mrs. Tailleur. You are too nice, if I may say so, and +she is--well, not the sort of person you should be going about with." + +Miss Keating's mouth opened slightly. + +"Do you know anything about her?" + +"I know less than you do. I'm only going by what Colonel Hankin says." + +"Colonel Hankin?" + +"Mrs. Hankin, I should say; of course I couldn't speak about Mrs. +Tailleur to _him_." + +"Has he ever met her?" + +"Met her? In society? My dear!--he has never met her anywhere." + +"Then would he--would he really know?" + +"It isn't only the Colonel. All the men in the hotel say the same thing. +You can see how they stare at her." + +"Oh, those men!" + +"You may depend upon it, they know more than we do." + +"How can they? How--how do they tell?" + +"I suppose they see something." + +Miss Keating saw it, too. She shuddered involuntarily. Her knees shook +under her. She sat down. + +"I'm sure I don't know what it is," said the old lady. + +"Nor I," said Miss Keating faintly. + +"They say you've only got to look at her----" + +A dull flush spread over Miss Keating's face. She was breathing hard. +Her mouth opened to speak; a thick sigh came through it, but no words. + +"I've looked," said the old lady, "and I can't see anything about her +different from other people. She dresses so quietly; but I'm told they +often do. They're very careful that we shouldn't know them." + +"They? Oh, you don't mean that Mrs. Tailleur--is----" + +"I'm only going by what I'm told. Mind you, I get it all from Mrs. +Hankin." + +Miss Keating, who had been leaning forward, sat suddenly bolt upright. +Her whole body was shaking now. Her voice was low but violent. + +"Oh--oh--I knew it--I knew. I always felt there was something about +her." + +"I'm sure, my dear, you didn't _know_." + +"I didn't. I didn't think it was that; I only thought she wasn't nice. I +thought she was fast, or she'd been divorced, or something--something +terrible of that sort." + +She still sat bolt upright, gazing open-eyed, open-mouthed at the +terror. She was filled with a fierce excitement, a sort of exultation. +Then doubt came to her. + +"But surely--surely the hotel people would know?" + +"Hotel people never know anything that isn't their interest to know. If +there were any complaint, or if any of the guests were to leave on +account of her, Mrs. Tailleur would have to go." + +"And has there been any complaint?" + +"I believe Mr. Soutar--the clergyman--has spoken to the manager." + +"And the manager?" + +"Well, you see, Mr. Soutar is always complaining. He complained about +the food, and about his bedroom. He has the cheapest bedroom in the +hotel." + +Miss Keating was thinking hard. Her idea was that Kitty Tailleur should +go, and that she should remain. + +"Don't you think if Colonel Hankin spoke to the manager----" + +"He wouldn't. He's much too kind. Besides, the manager can't do anything +as long as she behaves herself. And now that the Lucys have taken her +up----. And then, there's you. Your being with her is her great +protection. As she very well knew when she engaged you." + +"I was engaged for _that_?" + +"There can be very little doubt of it." + +"Oh! then nobody thinks that I knew it? That I'm like her?" + +"Nobody _could_ think that of you." + +"What am I to do? I'm so helpless, and I've no one to advise me. And +it's not as if we really knew anything." + +"My dear, I think you should leave her." + +"Of course I shall leave her. I can't stay another day. But I don't know +how I ought to do it." + +"Would you like to consult Colonel Hankin?" + +"Oh no; I don't think I could bear to speak about it to him." + +"Well--and perhaps he would not like to be brought into it, either." + +"Then what reason can I give her?" + +"Of course you cannot tell her what you've heard." + +Miss Keating was silent. + +"Or if you do, you must please not give me as your informant." + +"I will not do that." + +"Nor--please--Colonel and Mrs. Hankin. We none of us want to be mixed up +with any unpleasant business." + +"You may trust me," said Miss Keating. "I am very discreet." + +She rose. The old lady held her with detaining eyes. + +"What shall you do when you have left her?" + +"I suppose I shall have to look for another place." + +"You are not going home, then?" + +Miss Keating's half-smile hinted at renunciation. "I have too many +younger sisters." + +"Well, let me see. I shall be going back to Surbiton the day after +to-morrow. How would it be if you were to come with me?" + +"Oh, Mrs.--Mrs.----" The smile wavered, but it held its place. + +"Mrs. Jurd. If we suited each other you might stay with me, at any rate +for a week or two. I've been a long time looking out for a companion." + +Miss Keating's smile was now strained with hesitation. Mrs. Jurd was not +an invalid, and she was interested in Miss Keating. These were points in +her favour. On the other hand, nobody who could do better would choose +to live with Mrs. Jurd and wind wool and talk about the deep-sea +fishermen. + +"I am living," said Mrs. Jurd, "with my nephew at Surbiton. I have to +keep his house for him." + +"Then do you think you would really need any one?" + +"Indeed I do. My nephew isn't a companion for me. He's in the city all +day and out most evenings, or he brings his friends in and they get +smoking." + +Miss Keating's smile was now released from its terrible constraint. A +slight tremor, born of that deliverance, passed over her face, and left +it rosy. But having committed herself to the policy of hesitation she +had a certain delicacy in departing from it now. + +"Are you quite sure you would care to have _me_?" + +"My dear, I am quite sure that I don't care to have any one who is not a +lady; and I am quite sure that I am talking to a lady. It is very seldom +in these days that one can be sure." + +Miss Keating made a little bow and blushed. + +After a great deal of conversation it was settled that she should +exchange the Cliff Hotel for the Metropole that night, and that she +should stay there until she left Southbourne for Surbiton, with Mrs. +Jurd. + +When Colonel and Mrs. Hankin looked in to report upon the weather, this +scheme was submitted to them as to supreme judges in a question of +propriety. + +Mrs. Tailleur was not mentioned. Her name stood for things that decorous +persons do not mention, except under certain sanctions and the plea of +privilege. The Colonel might mention them to his wife, and his wife +might mention them to Mrs. Jurd, who might pass them on with +unimpeachable propriety to Miss Keating. But these ladies were unable to +discuss Mrs. Tailleur in the presence of the Colonel. Still, as none of +them could do without her, she was permitted to appear in a purified +form, veiled in obscure references, or diminished to an innocent +abstraction. + +Miss Keating, Mrs. Jurd said, was not at all satisfied with her--er--her +present situation. + +The Colonel lowered his eyes for one iniquitous instant while Mrs. +Tailleur, disguised as Miss Keating's present situation, laughed through +the veil and trailed before him her unabashed enormity. + +He managed to express, with becoming gravity, his approval of the +scheme. He only wondered whether it might not be better for Miss Keating +to stay where she was until the morning, that her step might not seem so +precipitate, so marked. + +Miss Keating replied that she thought she had been sufficiently +compromised already. + +"I don't think," said the Colonel, "that I should put it that way." + +He felt that by putting it that way Miss Keating had brought them a +little too near what he called the verge, the verge they were all so +dexterously avoiding. He would have been glad if he could have been kept +out of this somewhat perilous debate, but, since the women had dragged +him into it, it was his business to see that it was confined within the +limits of comparative safety. Goodness knew where they would be landed +if the women lost their heads. + +He looked gravely at Miss Keating. + +That look unnerved her, and she took a staggering step that brought her +within measurable distance of the verge. + +The Colonel might put it any way he liked, she said. There must not be a +moment's doubt as to her attitude. + +Now it was not her attitude that the Colonel was thinking of, but his +own. It had been an attitude of dignity, of judicial benevolence, of +incorruptible reserve. Any sort of unpleasantness was agony to a man who +had the habit of perfection. It was dawning on him that unless he +exercised considerable caution he would find himself mixed up in an +uncommonly disagreeable affair. He might even be held responsible for +it, since the dubiousness of the topic need never have emerged if he had +not unveiled it to his wife. So that, when Miss Keating, in her +unsteadiness, declared that there must not be a moment's doubt as to her +attitude, the Colonel himself was seized with a slight vertigo. He +suggested that people (luckily he got no nearer it than that)--people +were, after all, entitled to the benefit of any doubt there might be. + +Then, when the danger was sheer in front of them, he drew back. Miss +Keating, he said, had nobody but herself to please. He had no more light +to throw on the--er--the situation. Really, he said to himself, they +couldn't have hit on a more serviceable word. + +He considered that he had now led the discussion to its close, on lines +of irreproachable symbolism. Nobody had overstepped the verge. Mrs. +Tailleur had not once been mentioned. She might have disappeared behind +the shelter provided by the merciful, silent decencies. Colonel Hankin +had shown his unwillingness to pursue her into the dim and undesirable +regions whence she came. + +Then suddenly Miss Keating cried out her name. + +She had felt herself abandoned, left there, all alone on the verge, and +before any of them knew where they were she was over it. Happily, she +was unaware of the violence with which she went. She seemed to herself +to move, downward indeed, but with a sure and slow propulsion. She +believed herself challenged to the demonstration by the Colonel's +attitude. The high distinction of it, that was remotely akin to Mr. +Lucy's, somehow obscured and degraded her. She conceived a dislike to +this well-behaved and honourable gentleman, and to his visible +perfections, the clean, silver whiteness and the pinkness of him. + +His case was clear to her. He was a man, and he had looked at Kitty +Tailleur, and his sympathies, like Mr. Lucy's, had suffered an +abominable perversion. His judgment, like Mr. Lucy's, had surrendered to +the horrible charm. She said to herself bitterly, that she could not +compete with _that_. + +She trembled as she faced the Colonel. "Very well, then," said she, "as +there is no one to help me I must protect myself. I shall not sleep +another night under the same roof as Mrs. Tailleur." + +The three winced as if the name had been a blow struck at them. The +Colonel's silver eyebrows rose bristling. Mrs. Hankin got up and went +out of the room. Mrs. Jurd bent her head over her knitting. None of +them looked at Miss Keating; not even the Colonel, as he spoke. + +"If you feel like that about it," said he, "there is nothing more to be +said." + +He rose and followed his wife. + +Upstairs, when their bedroom door had closed on them, he reproved her +very seriously for her indiscretion. + +"You asked me," said he, "what I thought of Mrs. Tailleur, and I told +you; but I never said you were to go and hand it on. What on earth have +you been saying to those women?" + +"I didn't say anything to Miss Keating." + +"No, but you must have done to Mrs. What's-her-name?" + +"Not very much. I don't like talking about unpleasant subjects, as you +know." + +"Well, somebody's been talking about them. I shouldn't wonder, after +this, if poor Mrs. Tailleur's room were wanted to-morrow." + +"Oh, do you think they'll turn her out?" + +She was a kind woman and she could not bear to think it would come to +that. + +The Colonel was silent. He was sitting on the bed, watching his wife as +she undid the fastenings of her gown. At that moment a certain brief and +sudden sin of his youth rose up before him. It looked at him pitifully, +reproachfully, with the eyes of Mrs. Tailleur. + +"I wish," said Mrs. Hankin, "we hadn't said anything at all." + +"So do I," said the Colonel. But for the life of him he couldn't help +saying something more. "If she goes," he said, "I rather think that +young fellow will go, too." + +"And the sister?" + +"Oh, the sister, I imagine, will remain." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Kitty was dressed. She was calling out to her companion, "Bunny, hurry +up, you'll be late." No answer came from the adjoining room. She tapped +at the door and there was no answer. She tried to open the door. It was +locked on the inside. "Bunny," she cried, "are you there?" She laid her +ear to the panel. There was the sound of a box being dragged across the +floor. + +"You _are_ there, are you? Why don't you answer? I can't hear you. Why +can't you open the door?" + +Miss Keating unlocked the door. She held it ajar and spoke through the +aperture. + +"Be good enough," she said, "to leave me alone." + +"All right; but you'll be awfully late for dinner." + +"I am not coming down to dinner." + +Miss Keating shut the door, but she did not lock it. + +Kitty gave a cry of distress. + +"Bunny, what _is_ the matter? Let me in--do let me in." + +"You can come in if you like." + +Kitty opened the door. But instead of going in, she stood fixed upon the +threshold, struck dumb by what she saw. + +The room was in disorder. Clothes littered the bed. More clothes were +heaped on the floor around an open trunk. Miss Keating was kneeling on +the floor seizing on things and thrusting them into the trunk. Their +strangled, tortured forms witnessed to the violence of her mood. + +"What _are_ you doing?" + +"You can see what I'm doing. I am packing my things." + +"Why?" + +"Because I am going away." + +"Have you had bad news? Is--is anybody dead?" + +"I wouldn't ask any questions if I were you." + +"I must ask some. You know, people _don't_ walk off like this without +giving any reason." + +"I am surprised at your asking for my reason." + +"Sur--prised," said Kitty softly. "Are you going because of me?" + +Miss Keating did not answer. + +"I see. So you don't like me any more?" + +"We won't put it that way." + +Kitty came and stood beside Miss Keating and looked down at her. + +"Bunny, have I been a brute to you?" + +"No." + +"Have I ever been a brute to any one? Have you ever known me do an +unkind thing, or say an unkind word to any one?" + +"N--no." + +"Then why do you listen when people say unkind things about me?" + +Miss Keating stooped very low over the trunk. Her attitude no doubt +accounted for the redness of her face which Kitty noticed. "I think I +know what they've been saying. Did you or did you not listen?" + +"Listen?" + +"Yes. I don't mean behind doors and things. But you let them talk to +you?" + +"You cannot stop people talking." + +"Can't you? I'd have stopped them pretty soon if they'd talked to me +about you. What did they say?" + +"You've said just now you knew." + +"Very well. Who said it?" + +"You've no reason to assume that anybody has said anything." + +"Was it Mr. Lucy, or his sister?" + +Miss Keating became agitated. + +"I have never discussed you with Mr. Lucy. Or his sister." There was a +little click in Miss Keating's throat where the lie stuck. + +"I know you haven't. They wouldn't let you." + +Kitty smiled. Miss Keating saw the smile. She trembled. Tears started to +her eyes. She rose and began sorting the pile of clothing on the bed. + +Something in her action inspired Kitty with an intolerable passion of +wonder and of pity. She came to her and laid her hand on her hair, +lightly and with a certain fear. + +Miss Keating had once purred under Kitty's caresses. Now she jerked back +suddenly and beat off the timid hand. + +"I wish you wouldn't touch me." + +"Why not?" + +"Because it makes me loathe you." + +Kitty sat down on the bed. She had wrapped her hand in her +pocket-handkerchief as if it had been hurt. + +"Poor Bunny," she said; "are you feeling as bad as all that? You must +want dreadfully to marry that long man. But you needn't loathe me. I'm +not going to make him marry _me_." + +"Can you not think of anything but that?" + +"I can _think_ of all sorts of things. At present I'm thinking of that. +It does seem such an awful pity that you haven't married. A dear little, +sweet little, good little thing like you--for you _are_ good, Bunny. +It's a shame that you should have to live in rage and fury, and be very +miserable, and--and rather cruel, just because of that." + +"If every word you said of me was true, I'd rather be myself than you, +Mrs. Tailleur." + +"That, Miss Keating, is purely a matter of taste. Unhappiness is all +that's the matter with you. You'd be quite a kind woman if it wasn't for +that. You see, I do understand you, Bunny. So it isn't very wise of you +to leave me. Think what an awful time you'll have if you go and live +with somebody who doesn't understand and won't make allowances. And +you're not strong. You never will be as long as you're miserable. You'll +go and live with ill old ladies and get into that state you were in at +Matlock. And there won't be anybody to look after you. And, Bunny, +you'll never marry--never; and it'll be simply awful. You'll go getting +older and older and nervier and nervier, till you're _so_ nervy that +even the old ladies won't have you any more. Bad as I am, you'd better +stop with me." + +"Stop with you? How can I stop with you?" + +"Well, you haven't told me yet why you can't." + +"I can't tell you. I--I've written you a letter. It's there on the +dressing-table." + +Kitty went to the dressing-table. + +"I am returning you my salary for the quarter I have been with you." + +Kitty took up the letter. + +"I'd rather you did not read it until after I am gone." + +"That's not fair, Bunny." + +"Please--I've written what I had to say because I wished to avoid a +scene." + +"There won't be any scene. I'm not going to read your beastly letter." + +She opened the envelope and removed the notes and laid them on the +dressing-table. Then she tore up the letter and the envelope together +and tossed them into the grate. + +"And I'm not going to take those notes." + +"Nor am I." + +"You'll have to." She found her companion's purse and tucked the notes +inside it. Miss Keating turned on her. "Mrs. Tailleur, you shall not +thrust your money on me. I will not take it." + +"You little fool, you've got to." + +Miss Keating closed her eyes. It was a way she had. "I can't. And you +must please take back the things you've given me. They are all there; in +that heap on the bed." + +Kitty turned and looked at them. They were all there; everything she had +ever given to her, the dresses, the combs, the little trinkets. She took +some of these and stared at them as she held them in her hand. + +"Won't you keep anything?" + +"I won't keep a thing." + +"Not even the little chain I gave you? Oh, Bunny, you liked your little +chain." + +Miss Keating took the chain from her and laid it with the rest. + +"Please leave me to pack." + +"Presently. Bunny--look at me--straight. Why are you doing this?" + +"I wish to be spared the unpleasantness of speaking." + +"But you've got to speak. Out with it. What have I done?" + +"You know better than I do what your life has been." + +"My life? I should think I did. Rather." + +Kitty crossed the room to the bell. + +"What time does your train go?" + +"My----? I--must leave this at seven-thirty." + +Kitty rang the bell. A housemaid appeared. + +"I want a fly at seven-thirty. Please see that Miss Keating's luggage is +downstairs by then. Her room will not be wanted." + +Miss Keating's face was livid. + +"You wish," said she, "the hotel people to think that it is you who have +given _me_ notice?" + +"You poor thing. I only wanted the fly to go down to my account." + +"You expect me to believe that?" + +"I don't expect anything of you--now. I suppose it's Colonel Hankin who +has been talking about my life? It wasn't Mr. Lucy, though you'd like to +make me think so." + +"There's no need for anybody to talk. Do you suppose I don't know what +you are? You can't hide what's in you. You're--you're full of it. And +you've no shame about it. You can stand there, knowing that I know, and +ask me what you've done. How do I know what you've done? I don't want to +know it. It's bad enough to know what you are. And to know that I've +been living with it for three months. You got hold of me, an innocent +woman, and used me as a cover for your evil life. That's all you wanted +me for." + +"Whatever I've done, I've done nothing to deserve that." + +"You think not? Have you any idea what you've done--to me?" + +"No; I haven't. What have I done?" + +"I'm going to tell you. You've never ceased casting it up to me that I'm +not married, that I haven't your attractions--I thank heaven I have +not--I am not the sort of woman you take me for. I never have wanted to +be married, but if--if ever I had, I shouldn't want it now. You've +spoilt all that for me. I shall never see a man without thinking of +_you_. I shall hate every man I meet because of you." + +"Well, hate them, hate them. It's better than loving them. Let me strap +that box. You'll tear your poor heart out." + +Miss Keating wrenched the strap from Kitty's hands. + +"Ah, how you hate me! Hate the men, dear, that can't do you any harm; +but don't hate the other women. At my worst I never did that." + +Miss Keating shrugged her shoulders, for she was putting on her coat. +Kitty looked at her and sighed. + +"Bunny," said she, "I want to make it quite clear to you why you're +going. You think it's because you know something horrible about me. But +it isn't. You don't know anything about me. You've only been listening +to some of the people in the hotel. They don't know anything about me +either. They've never met me in their lives before. But they've been +thinking things and saying things, and you've swallowed it all because +you wanted to. You're so desperately keen on making out there's +something bad about me. Of course, you might have made it out; you might +have proved all sorts of things against me. But you haven't. That's my +whole point. You haven't proved a thing, have you? If you were my +husband, and wanted to get rid of me, you'd have to trump up some +evidence, wouldn't you?" + +"There is no need to trump up evidence. I'm acting on my instinct and +belief." + +"Oh, I know you believe it all right." + +"I can't help what I believe." + +"No, you can't help it. You can't help what you want. And you wouldn't +have wanted it if you hadn't been so furiously unhappy. I was furiously +unhappy myself once. That's why I understand you." + +"It is five-and-twenty minutes past seven, Mrs. Tailleur." + +"And in five minutes you'll go. And you won't hear a word in my defence? +You won't? Why, if I'd murdered somebody and they were going to hang me, +they'd let me defend myself before they did it. All I was going to say +was--supposing everything you said was true, I think _you_ might have +made allowances for me. You can't? I was harder driven than you." + +"No two cases could well be more different." + +"Once they were the same. Only it was worse for me. All your temptations +are bottled up inside you. Mine rushed at me from inside and outside +too. I've had all the things you had. I had a strait-laced parson for my +father--so had you. I was poked away in a hole in the country--so were +you. I had little sisters--so had you. My mother sent me away from home +for fear I should harm them." Her voice shook. "I wouldn't have harmed +them for the world. I was sent to live with an old lady--so were you. I +was shut up with her all day, till I got ill and couldn't sleep at +night. I never saw a soul but one or two other old ladies. They were +quite fond of me--I made them. I should have died of it if it hadn't +been for that. Then--do listen, Bunny--something happened, and I broke +loose, and got away. You never had a chance to get away, so you don't +know what it feels like. Perhaps, I think, when it came to the point, +you'd have been afraid, or something. I wasn't. And I was young. I'm +young still. You can't judge me. Anyhow, I know what you've been +through. That's what made me sorry for you. Can't you be a little sorry +for me?" + +Miss Keating said nothing. She was putting on her hat, and her mouth at +the moment was closed tight over a long hat-pin. She drew it out slowly +between her shut lips. Meeting Kitty's eyes she blinked. + +"You needn't be sorry," said Kitty. "I've had things that you haven't." + +Miss Keating turned to the looking-glass and put on her veil. Her back +was toward Kitty. The two women's faces were in the glass, the young and +the middle-aged, each searching for the other. Kitty's face was tearful +and piteous; it pleaded with the other face in the glass, a face furtive +with hate, that hung between two lifted arms behind a veil. + +Miss Keating's hands struggled with her veil. + +"I mayn't tie it for you?" said Kitty. + +"No, thank you." + +There was a knock at the door, and Miss Keating started. + +"It's the men for your boxes. Come into my room and say good bye." + +"I prefer to say good bye here, if it's all the same to you. Good bye." + +"You won't even shake hands with me? Well, if you won't--why should +you?" + +"I am holding out my hand. If you won't take it----" + +"No, no. I don't want to take it." + +Kitty was crying. + +"I must let those men in," said Miss Keating. "You are not going to make +a scene?" + +"I? Oh Lord, no. You needn't mind me. I'll go." + +She went into her own room and flung herself, face downward, on to her +pillow, and slid by the bedside, kneeling, to the floor. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +At eight o'clock Mrs. Tailleur was not to be found in her room, or in +any other part of the hotel. By nine Lucy was out on the Cliff-side +looking for her. He was not able to account for the instinct that told +him she would be there. + +The rain had ceased earlier in the evening. Now it was falling again in +torrents. He could see that the path was pitted with small, sharp +footprints. They turned and returned, obliterating each other. + +At the end of the path, in the white chamber under the brow of the +Cliff, he made out first a queer, irregular, trailing black mass, then +the peak of a hood against the wall, and the long train of a woman's +gown upon the floor, and then, between the loops of the hood, the edge +of Mrs. Tailleur's white face, dim, but discernible. She sat sideways, +leaning against the wall, in the slack, childlike attitude of exhausted +misery. + +He came close. She did not stir at the sound of his feet trampling the +slush. Her eyes were shut, her mouth open; she breathed, like a child, +the half-suffocated breath that comes after long crying. He stood +looking at her, tongue-tied with pity. Every now and then her throat +shook like a child's with guileless hiccoughing sobs. + +He stooped over her and called her name. + +"Mrs. Tailleur." + +She turned from him and sank sidelong into the corner, hiding her face. +The long wings of her cloak parted and hung back from her cowering body. +Her thin garments, beaten smooth by the rain, clung like one tissue to +the long slope above her knees. Lucy laid his hand gently on her gown. +She was drenched to the skin. It struck through, cold and shuddering, to +his touch. She pushed his hand away and sat up. + +"I think," she said, "you'd better go away." + +"Do you want me to go?" + +"I don't want you to see me like this. I'm--I'm not pretty to look at." + +"That doesn't matter in the very least. Besides, I can hardly see you in +this light." + +He drew her cloak about her and fastened it. He could feel, from the +nearness of her flushed mouth, the heat and the taste of grief. She +flung her head back to the wall away from him. Her hood slipped, and he +put his arm behind her shoulders and raised it, and drew it gently +forward to shelter her head from the rough wall. His hand was wet with +the rain from her loose hair. + +"How long have you been walking about in the rain before you came here?" + +She tried to speak, and with the effort her sobs broke out in violence. +It struck him again, and with another pang of pity, how like a child she +was in the completeness of her abandonment! He sat down beside her, +leaning forward, his face hidden in his hands. He felt that to hide his +own face was somehow to screen her. + +Her sobbing went on, and her hand, stretched toward him unawares, +clutched at the top of the wooden seat. + +"Would you like me to go away and come back again?" he said presently. + +"No!" she cried. And at her own cry a terrible convulsion shook her. He +could feel her whole body strain and stiffen with the effort to control +it. Then she was calm. + +"I beg your pardon," she said. "I told you, didn't I, that you'd better +go away?" + +"Do you suppose that I'm going to leave you here? Just when I've found +you?" + +"Miss Keating's left me. Did you know?" + +"Yes, I heard. Is it--is it a great trouble to you?" + +"Yes." She shook again. + +"Surely," he began, and hesitated, and grew bold. "Surely it needn't be? +She wasn't, was she, such a particularly amiable person?" + +"She couldn't help it. She was so unhappy." + +His voice softened. "You were very fond of her?" + +"Yes. How did you know she'd gone?" + +It was too dark in there for him to see the fear in her eyes as she +turned them to him. + +"Oh," he said, "we heard she'd left. I suppose she had to go." + +"Yes," said Mrs. Tailleur, "she had to go." + +"Well, I shouldn't distress myself any more about it. Tell me, have you +been walking about in the rain ever since she left?" + +"I--I think so." + +"And my little sister was looking for you everywhere. She wanted you to +dine with us. We thought you would, perhaps, as you were free." + +"That was very good of you." + +"We couldn't find you anywhere in the hotel. Then I came out here." + +"What made you come?" + +"I came to look for you." + +"To look for me?" + +"Yes. You don't mind, do you?" + +"How did you know I should be here?" + +"I didn't. It was the last place I tried. Do you know it's past nine +o'clock? You must come in now." + +"I--can't." + +"Oh yes," he said, "you can. You're coming back with me." + +He talked as he would to a frightened child, to one of his own children. + +"I'm afraid to go back." + +"Why?" + +"Because of Bunny. She told me people were saying dreadful things about +me. That's why she left. She couldn't bear it." + +Lucy ground his teeth. "_She_ couldn't bear it? That shows what she was, +doesn't it? But you--you don't mind what people say?" + +"No," she said, "I don't mind." + +"Well----" + +"Yes!" she cried passionately. "I do mind. I've always minded. It's just +the one thing I can't get over." + +"It's the one thing," said Lucy, "we have to learn to get over. When +you've lived to be as old as I am, you'll see how very little it matters +what people say of us. Especially when we know what other people think." + +"Other people?" + +"Friends," he said, "the people who really care." + +"Ah, if we only could know what they think. That's the most horrible +thing of all--what they think." + +"Is that why you don't want to go back?" + +Lucy's voice was unsteady and very low. + +"Yes," she whispered. + +There was a brief silence. + +"But if you go back with _me_," he said, "it will be all right, won't +it?" + +The look in her eyes almost reached him through the darkness, it was so +intense. + +"No," she said out loud, "it won't. It will be all wrong." + +"I don't agree with you. Anyhow, I'm going to take you back. Come." + +"No," she said, "not yet. Mayn't we stay here a little longer?" + +"No, we mayn't. You've got your death of cold as it is." + +"I'm not cold, now. I'm warm. Feel my hands." + +She held them out to him. He did not touch them. But he put his arm +round her and raised her to her feet. And they went back together along +the narrow Cliff-path. It was dangerous in the perishing light. He took +her hands in his now, and led her sidelong. When her feet slipped in the +slimy chalk, he held her up with his arm. + +At the little gate she turned to him. + +"I was kind to Bunny," she said, "I was really." + +"I am sure," he said gently, "you are kind to everybody." + +"That's something, isn't it?" + +"I'm not sure that it isn't everything." + +They went up the side of the garden, along the shrubbery, by a path that +led to the main entrance of the hotel. A great ring of white light lay +on the wet ground before the porch, thrown from the electric lamps +within. + +Mrs. Tailleur stepped back into the darkness by the shrubbery. "Look +here," she said, "I'm going in by myself. You are going round another +way. You have not seen me. You don't know where I am. You don't know +anything about me." + +"I know," said Lucy, "you are coming in with me." + +She drew farther back. "I'm not thinking of myself," she said, "I'm +thinking of you." + +She was no longer like a child. Her voice had suddenly grown older. + +"Are you?" he said. "Then you'll do what I ask you." He held her with +his arm and drew her, resisting and unresisting, close to him. + +"Ah," she cried, "what are you going to do with me?" + +"I am going," he said, "to take you to my sister." + +And he went with her, up the steps and into the lighted vestibule, past +the hall-porter and the clerk in his bureau and the manager's wife in +hers, straight into the lounge, before the Colonel and his wife, and he +led her to Jane where she sat in her place beside the hearth. + +"It isn't half such a bad night as it looks," said he in a clear voice. +"Is it, Mrs. Tailleur?" + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +Five minutes later Lucy was talking to Colonel and Mrs. Hankin, with +genial unconcern. They never knew that he knew what they had been +saying, or how their tongues had scourged Mrs. Tailleur out into the +lash of the rain. They never knew that the young man who conversed with +them so amiably was longing to take the Colonel by his pink throat and +throttle him, nor that it was only a higher chivalry that held him from +this disastrous deed. The Colonel merely felt himself in the presence of +an incomparable innocence; but whether it was Lucy who was innocent, or +Mrs. Tailleur, or the two of them together, he really could not say. + +Upstairs, in Mrs. Tailleur's bedroom, Jane Lucy was talking to Mrs. +Tailleur. They were sitting by the hearth while Kitty, clothed in warm +garments, shook out her drenched hair before the fire. She had just told +Jane how Miss Keating had left her, and she had become tearful again +over the telling. + +"Need you mind so much? Is she worth it?" said Jane, very much as Robert +had said. + +"I don't mind her leaving. I can get over that. But you don't know the +awful things she said." + +"No, I don't; but I dare say she didn't mean half of them." + +"Didn't she though! I'll show you." + +Kitty got up and opened the door into the other room. It was as Miss +Keating had left it. + +"Look there," she said, "what she's done." + +Jane looked. "I'm not surprised. You did everything for her, so I +suppose she expected you to pack and send her things after her." + +"It isn't that. Don't you see? It's--it's the things I gave her. She +flung them back in my face. She wouldn't take one of them. See, that's +the white frock she was wearing, and the fur-lined coal (she'll be so +cold without it), and look, that's the little chain I gave her on her +birthday. She wouldn't even keep the chain." + +"Well, I dare say she would feel rather bad about it after she's behaved +in this way." + +"It isn't that. It's because they were mine--because I wore them." Kitty +began to sob. + +"No, no, dear Mrs. Tailleur----" + +"Yes, yes. She--she thought they'd c--c--contaminate her." + +Kitty's sobs broke into the shrill laugh of hysteria. Jane led her to +the couch and sat beside her. Kitty leaned forward, staring at the +floor. Now and then she pressed her handkerchief to her mouth, stifling. +Suddenly she looked up into Jane's face. + +"Would _you_ mind wearing a frock I'd worn?" + +"Of course I wouldn't." + +Kitty's handkerchief dropped on to her lap, a soaked ball, an +insufficient dam. + +"Oh," she cried, "the beast!--the little, little beast!" + +She looked again at Jane, but with a glance half cowed, half candid; +like a child that has proved, indubitably, its predestined naughtiness. + +"I didn't mean to use that word." + +"I want to use it myself," said Jane. "It's not a bit too much." + +"I didn't mean it." + +She added softly, reminiscently. "She was such a little thing." + +"Much too little for you to care about." + +"That's why I cared. I know it was. She was just like a little, lonely +child; and she clung to me at first." + +"She certainly seems to have clung." + +"That's why it's so awful to think that she couldn't bear it--couldn't +bear to live with me." + +"We wondered how you could bear to live with her." + +"Did you?" + +"Yes. Why did you have her?" + +"You see, I had to have some one; and she was nice." + +"I don't think she was nice at all." + +"Oh yes," said Kitty, solemnly, "you could see _that_." + +"I suppose you mean she was a lady?" + +"Ye--es." Kitty was not by any means certain that that was what she did +mean. It was so difficult to find words for what she meant. + +"That," said Jane, "is the least you can be." + +"Anyhow, she _was_." + +"Well, if you take a charitable view of her. Her people are probably +nicer than she is. Perhaps that's why she doesn't live with them." + +"Her father," said Kitty, "is the vicar of Wenden. I suppose that's all +right." + +"Probably; but _we_ don't care what peoples' fathers are like, provided +they're nice themselves." + +"Do you think I'm nice?" + +Jane laughed. "Yes, as it happens, I do." + +"Ah, _you_--_you_----" + +"We both do," said Jane boldly. + +"You're the first nice woman I've known who hasn't been horrid to me. +And he----" Kitty had been playing with a button of her dressing-gown. +Her fingers now began tearing, passionately, convulsively, at the +button. "He is the first nice man who--who hasn't been what men are." + +"You don't mean that," said Jane calmly. She was holding Mrs. Tailleur's +hand in hers and caressing it, soothing its pathetic violence. + +"I do. I do. That's why I like you so." + +"I'm glad you like us." + +"I'd give anything to know what you really think of me." + +"May I say what I think?" + +"Yes." + +"I think you're too good to be so unhappy." + +"That's a new view of me. Most people think I'm too unhappy to be very +good." + +"You _are_ good; but if you'd been happier you'd have known that other +people are what you call good, too." + +"That's what I said to Bunny. _She_ was unhappy." + +"Never mind her. If you'd been happier you'd have known, for instance, +that my brother isn't an exception. There are a great many men like him. +All the men I've known have been more or less like Robert." + +"They would be, dear; all the men _you've_ known. But, you see, +something happened. Nothing ever happened to you." + +"No. Nothing very much has happened to me. Nothing very much ever will." + +"You never wanted things to happen, did you?" + +"I don't know. Perhaps I'm interested most in the things that happen to +other people." + +"You dear! If I'd been like you----" + +"I wish," said Jane, "you'd known Robert sooner." + +Mrs. Tailleur's lips parted, but no voice came through them. + +"Then," said Jane, "whatever happened never would have happened, +probably." + +"I wonder. What do you suppose happened?" + +"I don't know. I've no business to know." + +"What do you think? Tell me--tell me!" + +"I think you've been very badly handled." + +"Yes. You may think so." + +"When you were young--too young to understand it." + +"Ah, I was never too young to understand. That's the difference between +you and me." + +"That makes it all the worse, then." + +"All the worse! So that's what you think? How does it make you feel to +me?" + +"It makes me feel that I want to take you away, and warm you and wrap +you round, so that nothing could ever touch you and hurt you any more." + +"That's how it makes you feel?" + +"That's how it makes us both feel." + +"_He_ takes it that way, too?" + +"Of course he does. Any nice man would." + +"If _I_ were nice----" + +"You _are_ nice." + +"You don't know, my child; you don't know." + +"Do you suppose Robert doesn't know?" + +Mrs. Tailleur rose suddenly and turned away. + +"I was nice once," she said, "and at times I can be now." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Colonel Hankin was mistaken. Mrs. Tailleur's room was not wanted the +next day. The point had been fiercely disputed in those obscure quarters +of the hotel inhabited by the management. The manager's wife was for +turning Mrs. Tailleur out on the bare suspicion of her impropriety. The +idea in the head of the manager's wife was that there should be no +suspicion as to the reputation of the Cliff Hotel. The manager, on his +side, contended that the Cliff Hotel must not acquire a reputation for +suspicion; that any lady whom Miss Lucy had made visibly her friend was +herself in the position so desirable for the Cliff Hotel; that, in any +case, unless Mrs. Tailleur's conduct became such as to justify an +extreme step, the scandal of the ejection would be more damaging to the +Cliff Hotel than her present transparently innocent and peaceful +occupation of the best room in it. He wished to know how a scandal was +to be avoided when the place was swarming with old women. And, after +all, what had they got against Mrs. Tailleur except that she was better +looking by a long chalk, and better turned-out, than any of 'em? Of +course, he couldn't undertake to say--offhand--whether she was or wasn't +any better than she should be. But, in the absence of complaints, he +didn't consider the question a profitable one for a manager to go into +in the slack season. + +All the manager's intelligence was concentrated in the small commercial +eye which winked, absurdly, in the solitude of his solemn and enormous +face. You must take people as you found them, said he, and for his part +he had always found Mrs. Tailleur---- + +But how the manager had found Mrs. Tailleur was never known to his wife, +for at this point she walked out of the private sitting-room and shut +herself into her bureau. Her opinion, more private even than that +sitting-room, consecrated to intimate dispute, was that where women were +concerned the manager was a perfect fool. + +The window of the bureau looked out on to the vestibule and the big +staircase. And full in sight of the window Mrs. Tailleur was sitting on +a seat set under the stair. She had her hat on and carried a sunshade in +her hand, for the day was fine and warm. She was waiting for somebody. +And as she waited she amused herself by smiling at the little +four-year-old son of the management who played in the vestibule, it +being the slack season. He was running up and down the flagged floor, +dragging a little cart after him. And as he ran he never took his eyes +off the pretty lady. They said, every time, with the charming vanity of +childhood, "Look at me!" And Kitty looked at him, every time, and made, +every time, the right sort of smile that says to a little boy, "I see +you." Just then nobody was there to see Kitty but the manager's wife, +who stood at the window of the bureau and saw it all. And as the little +boy was not looking in the least where he was going, his feet were +presently snared in the rug where the pretty lady sat, and he would have +tumbled on his little nose if Kitty had not caught him. + +He was going to cry, but Kitty stopped him just in time by lifting him +on to her lap and giving him her watch to look at. A marvellous watch +that was gold and blue and bordered with a ring of little sparkling +stones. + +At that moment Robert Lucy came down the stairs. He came very quietly +and leaned over the banister behind Kitty's back and watched her, while +he listened shamelessly to the conversation. The pretty lady looked +prettier than ever. + +"My daddy gave my mummy her watch on her birthday," said the little boy. +"Who gave you your watch?" + +"It wasn't your daddy, dear." + +"Of course it wasn't my daddy." + +"Of course not." + +"What is your name?" + +"My name is Mrs. Tailleur." + +"Mrs. Ty-loor. My name is Stanley. That gentleman's name is Mr. Lucy. I +like him." + +Lucy came down and seated himself beside her. She made him a sign with +her mouth, as much as to say she was under a charm and he wasn't to +break it. + +"Do you like him, Mrs. Tyloor?" + +"Well--what do you think?" + +"I think you like him very much." + +Mrs. Tailleur laughed softly. + +"What makes you laugh?" + +"You. You're so funny." + +"_You're_ funny. Your eyelashes curl up when you laugh, and your eyes +curl, too. And your mouth!" he crowed with the joy of it. "Such a funny +mouth." + +The mouth hid itself in the child's soft neck among his hair. The woman +in the bureau saw that, and her face became curiously contracted. + +"I remember the day you came. My daddy said you was very pretty." + +"And what did your mummy say?" + +Kitty had caught sight of the fierce face in the window, and a little +daring devil had entered into her. + +"Mummy said she couldn't tell if she wasn't allowed to look." + +"And why," said Lucy, "wasn't she allowed to look?" + +"Daddy said she wasn't to." + +"Of course he did," said Lucy. "It's very rude to look at people." + +"Daddy looked. I saw him." + +The door of the bureau opened and the manager's wife came out. She had a +slight flush on her face and her mouth was tighter than ever. + +Mrs. Tailleur saw her coming and slipped the child from her lap. The +manager's wife put out her hand to take him, but he turned from her and +clung to the pretty lady. + +The woman seized him by the arm and tore him from her, and dragged him +toward the apartments of the management. The child screamed as he went. + +"Women like that," said Lucy, "shouldn't be allowed to have children." + +Mrs. Tailleur turned to him though she had not heard him. + +"What have I done? What harm could I do the little thing?" + +"What have you done?" It was hard for him to follow the workings of her +mind. "You don't mean to say you minded that?" + +"Yes, I minded. I minded awfully." + +"That dreadful woman?" + +"Do you think she really was dreadful?" + +"Quite terrible." + +"I don't know. I suppose," she said, "they're all like that. Yet they +can't all be dreadful." + +Lucy laughed. He couldn't see her point. "I don't understand who 'they' +are." + +"The women who are--the women who've got children." + +She stooped down and picked up something from the floor. It was the +little man out of the cart that the child had been playing with, that +lay there, smashed, at her feet. The manager's wife had stepped on it. +Kitty set the little man upon the seat and smiled at him sadly. And Lucy +smiled at her out of a great and sudden tenderness. + +He thought he saw it now. + +"I think," said he, "you must allow for a little maternal jealousy." + +"Jealousy? I can understand jealousy." + +"So can I," said Lucy. + +"And you think that was jealousy?" + +"Well, you know, that little boy was making barefaced love to you." + +She laughed. "I suppose," she said, "you _would_ feel like that about +it." + +She got up and they went out, past the hotel front and down the lawn, in +sight of the veranda, where at this hour everybody was there to see +them. Lucy meant everybody to see. He had chosen that place, and that +hour, also, which wore, appropriately, the innocence of morning. He knew +her pitiful belief that he was defying public opinion in being seen with +her; but from her ultimate consent, from her continuous trust in him, +and from the heartrending way she clung to him, he gathered that she +knew him, she knew that defiance, from him, would be a vindication of +her. + +He did not yet know how dear she had become to him. Only, as he looked +at her moving close beside him, so beautiful and so defenceless, he +thanked God that he had kept his manhood clean, so that nothing that he +did for her could hurt her. + +And so, holding himself very upright, and with his head in the air, he +went slowly past the veranda and the Hankins, and, turning to Mrs. +Tailleur, gave them the full spectacle of his gladness and his pride in +her. + +"How good you are to me," she said. "I know why you did that." + +"Do you?" + +He smiled, guarding his secret, holding it back a little while longer. + +"Where are we going to?" + +"Anywhere you choose to take me." + +He took her through the gate that led them to the freedom of the Cliff. + +"Do you see that?" He pointed to the path which was now baked hard and +white by the sun. + +"What is it?" + +"Your little footprints, and my great hoofmarks beside them. I believe +nobody comes this way but you and me." + +"You see, it leads nowhere," said she. + +"Doesn't it?" said he. + +The little room in the Cliff-side was whiter than ever, burning white, +it was, where the sun faced it. But the east side of it was in shadow, +and they sat there, under the great forehead of the Cliff. + +They were both silent. Lucy was thinking of how he had found her there, +and of the fear and trouble of last night. He vowed that if he could +help it there should be no more fear and no more trouble for her. In +their silence, voices thin and sweet with distance, came to them from +below, where children played on the beach among the rocks that, washed +by water-springs from the Cliff's forehead to its foot, lay heaped where +they had fallen. She listened and laughed. + +She was happy now. He watched her as she stretched her adorable feet to +the sun. A little wind came from the sea and played with her, taking +from her a slight scent of violets for its salt. Every nerve in his body +was aware of her nearness. + +Only last night he had seen her crouching just there, in the darkness, +convulsed, her face wet with rain and tears. It was good that the place +they had chosen should be changed and cleansed for them by sunlight and +wind from the sea and the sweet voices of children. + +She did not break the silence. She only looked at him once with eyes +whose pupils, black and dilated, narrowed the blue ring of the iris. + +Then he spoke. "I was going to say something to you last night, but I +didn't. There was something I wanted to know first, something I wasn't +quite sure about." + +She turned her face from him. The light struck it, and it quivered and +grew white. + +"Well, do you know now?" + +"Yes," he said, "I know now." + +But her lips scarcely moved as she answered him. "Of course you know." + +She faced him with her sad white courage. + +"Everybody knows. I'd rather you knew. I--I meant you to." + +"Oh please"--he protested. "I wonder if I may say what it is?" + +"It's something about me?" + +"Yes. It's something about you. If I may say it." + +"You may say anything you please. You know that." + +"Well, I wanted very much to know whether--whether you were fond of +children." + +"Oh----" She drew a long breath, as if released from torture. Then she +laughed the indescribable half-sobbing laugh of a child tormented and +suddenly set free. + +"Whether I were fond of children. Do you honestly mean it? Was that what +you weren't sure of?" + +"Well, of course, in a way I knew--but I couldn't tell, you know, till +I'd seen you with one." + +"Well, and so you can tell now?" + +"Yes. I can tell now." + +"And if I am fond of children, what difference does that make?" + +"It makes all the difference. You see, I've got two little girls----" + +"Two little girls." She repeated it after him smiling, as if she played +with the vision of them. + +"You see--they've no mother. My wife----" + +"I know," she said softly. + +"How did you know?" + +"I can't tell you." + +"My wife died five years ago when my youngest little girl was born." + +"And I thought," she said, "you were so young." + +"I'm thirty-five." + +"Still I was right. You're young. Very young." + +"Oh, well, don't you know, they say a woman's as young as she looks, and +a man's as young as he feels. I _feel_ all right." + +"You dear." Her mouth and eyes said it without a sound. + +"Are you quite sure that's all you want to know?" + +"I had to know it." + +"It was so important?" + +"Yes. Because of _them_." + +"And now you know all about me?" + +"Yes. Now I know all about you." + +"Don't you want to know something about--about Mr. Tailleur?" + +Lucy's face hardened. "No, I don't think I want to know anything about +him." + +He had made up his mind that Mr. Tailleur had been a brute to her. + +"He _is_ dead." + +"Well, yes. I supposed he would be." + +"He died four years ago. I was married very young." + +"I supposed that too." + +"You don't feel that he's important?" + +"Not in the very least." + +She laughed. + +"When I said that I knew all about you, I only meant that I knew--I'd +the sense to see--what you were. You mustn't think that I take anything +for granted." + +"Ah, Mr. Lucy, dear, I'm afraid you're taking everything for granted." + +"On my soul I'm not. I'm not that sort. There's one thing about you I +don't know yet, and I'm afraid to ask, and it's the only thing I really +want to know. It's the only thing that matters." + +"Then ask me, ask me straight, whatever it is, and let's get it over. +Can't you trust me to tell you the truth?" + +"I trust you--to tell me the truth. I want to know where I am--where we +are." + +"Is it for me to say?" + +"It's for you to say whether you think you can ever care for me." + +"Can't you see that I care for you?" + +"No, I'd give anything to see." + +"Ah, it's so like you not to. And I thought I'd shown you--everything." + +"You haven't shown me yet whether you care enough to--to----" + +He checked himself, while his love for her drew its first breath, as if +it had been born but that instant, in an agony of desire and fear. + +"To do what?" she said. "Why won't you tell me?" + +"I'm afraid," he said simply. + +"Afraid of _me_! Why should you be?" + +"Because, if you really cared for me, I think you'd know what I want." + +"It's because I care so much that I don't know. Unless you tell me." + +She put her small fingers lightly on the sleeve of his coat; they slid +till they found his hands that hung clenched before him. + +At her touch he trembled. + +"Don't you know," she said, "that there's nothing I wouldn't do for you? +Tell me what you want me to do." + +He spoke so low that she strained to hear him. + +"To marry me--to be my wife." + +Her hand still lay on his, but she herself seemed to draw back and +pause. + +"Your wife?" she said at last. "My dear, you've only known me ten days." + +"It makes no difference." + +He took her hand in his and kissed it, bowing his head. + +She twisted herself away from him, and drew back her face from his. They +rose. + +"Ah," she said, "you're cold. You don't know how. Let me look at you. +It's not me you want. You want a mother for your children." + +"Not I. I want you--you--for myself." + +She moved toward him with a low cry, and he took her in his arms and +stood still by her without a word. And to his joy, she whom he held +(gently, lest he should hurt her) laid her face to his face, and held +him with a grip tighter than his own, as if she feared that he would +loose himself and leave her. Her eyes closed as he kissed her forehead, +and opened as her mouth found his. + +Then she drew herself slowly from him. + +"You love me then?" she said. + +"Yes, Kitty, I love you." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +The awkward thing was telling Jane about it. Jane had been his dead +wife's friend before he married her, and she had known her better then +than she knew Kitty. Yet he remembered, acutely, how he had gone to her +eight years ago, and told her that he was going to marry Amy, and how +she had kissed him and said nothing, and how, when he asked her if she +had any objection, she had said "No, none. But isn't it a little +sudden?" + +He wondered how Jane would look when he told her he was going to marry +Kitty. That was bound to strike her as very sudden indeed. + +It was wonderful to him that this thing should have happened to him. He +was aware that it was a new thing. Nothing in his previous experience +had prepared him for it. He had been very young eight years ago, and a +gayer, lighter-hearted chivalry had gone to his courtship of poor Amy. +Poor Amy, though he would not own it, had been a rather ineffectual +woman, with a prodigious opinion of her small self and a fretting +passion for dominion. She had had a crowd of friends and relations whom +she had allowed to come between them. Poor Amy had never understood him. +There were heights and depths in him to which she had made no appeal. + +But Kitty--she had brought something out of him that had been hidden and +unknown to him before. Something that answered to the fear with which +she had drawn back from him and to the tremendous and tragic passion +with which she had given herself to him at the last. Poor little Amy had +never held him so. She had never loved him like that in all her poor +little life. And so his very tenderness for Kitty had terror in it, lest +he should fail her, lest he should in any way justify her prescience of +disaster. + +Somebody was coming along the Cliff-path, somebody with a telegram for +Mrs. Tailleur. She rose, moving away from Lucy as she opened it. + +"There is no answer," she said. And she came to him again and sat beside +him, very still, with hands spread over the telegram that lay open in +her lap. + +"Has anything happened?" + +She shook her head. He took the hand that she held out to him by way of +reassurance and possession. + +"Then why do you look like that?" + +She smiled. + +"Kitty--that was an unconvincing smile." + +"Was it? I'm sorry to say there's a tiresome man coming to see me." + +"Say you can't see him. Send him a wire." + +"I must. He's coming on business. I don't _want_ to see him." + +"Can't I see him for you, if you feel like that?" + +"No, dear. He must see me." + +"When is he due?" + +"At seven-thirty." + +"Oh--only in the evening. How long do you think he'll stay?" + +Kitty hardened her face. "Not a minute longer than I can help." + +"An hour? Two hours?" + +"I shall have to give him dinner. He's--he's that sort of man." + +"Two hours, probably. I think I'll take Janey for a stroll while he's +here. You see, I've got to tell her, and I shall tell her then." + +She put her hands on his shoulders. "And what will--Janey--say?" + +"She'll say she's glad I'm going to be happy." + +He became thoughtful. "And there are the children," he said. "I've got +to tell them, too." + +She was silent. She did not ask him as he had half expected, "What will +_they_ say?" + +"I think," he said, "I'd better send for them and let them stay here a +bit. Could you stand another week of Southbourne? You said you hated +it." + +"Yes. I hated it. I shouldn't have stayed if it hadn't been for you." + +"Do you mind staying a little longer now?" + +"I don't mind staying anywhere where you are." + +"Well--just a little longer." + +She saw the workings of his mind. The people here had been saying awful +things about her. If he took her away they would continue to say them. +He couldn't stop them. He couldn't for instance, go up to Colonel Hankin +before leaving, and tell him that he lied, and that Mrs. Tailleur, +though appearances might be against her, was as innocent a lady as Mrs. +Hankin. He couldn't even announce his engagement to her by way of +accounting for their simultaneous departure. They were not accountable +to these people. But, if they stayed on as if nothing had happened, he +could demonstrate to everybody's satisfaction that he had no other +intention with regard to Mrs. Tailleur than to make her his wife and a +mother to his children. That was why he was sending for them. Evidently +the idea he had--poor lamb--was that he could shelter her innocence with +theirs. + +And so she told him that she adored Southbourne now and didn't care how +long they stopped there. + +Lucy's idea had really gone more or less on those lines, though they +remained rather more obscure to him than they were to Kitty. + +His scheme was so far successful that there were people in the Cliff +Hotel who knew about his engagement before Jane did. + +It was clear to the management, at any rate, that some consecrating seal +had been set to the very interesting relations of Mrs. Tailleur and Mr. +Lucy. The manager was more inclined than ever to take a favourable view +of Mrs. Tailleur. To begin with, Mrs. Tailleur had ordered a private +sitting-room. Then Mr. Lucy presented himself at the bureau with Mrs. +Tailleur and inquired whether he could have a room for his two little +girls and their nurse. The manager's wife looked dubious. The best +rooms, she said, were taken. And Mrs. Tailleur said, looking at Mr. +Lucy, "How about poor Bunny's room? The one leading out of mine?" + +A fine flush appeared on Mr. Lucy's face as he said he would have that +room. + +He then announced that he would wire for the little girls to come at +once, and that they would arrive at four o'clock to-morrow. It was +further arranged that they were to have their meals in Mrs. Tailleur's +private sitting-room. And please, there was to be lots of jam for tea, +Mrs. Tailleur said. The manager's wife looked humble before her lord as +she booked that order. + +That was at twelve o'clock of the tenth day. + +Seven hours later Mrs. Tailleur was alone in her private sitting-room, +preparing with some agitation for the appointment that she had. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Her tense, flushed mind recorded automatically, and with acute +vividness, every detail of the room; the pattern of the gray French +wall-paper, with the watered stripe, and of the hot, velvet upholstery, +buff on a crimson ground; the architecture of the stained walnut +sideboard and overmantel, with their ridiculous pediments and little +shelves and bevelled mirrors; the tapestry curtains, the palms in +shining turquoise blue pots, and the engraved picture of Grace Darling +over the sideboard. + +It was absolutely necessary that she should have this place to see him +in, without Robert seeing him. Beyond that immediate purpose she +discerned its use as a play-room for Robert's children. + +To-morrow, at four o clock, she would be waiting there for them. They +had settled that, she and Robert. She was to have everything ready, and +the table laid for tea. To-morrow they would all be sitting there, round +the table. To-morrow she would see Robert's children, and hold them in +her arms. + +Her heart gave a sudden leap, as if something had quickened in it. Her +brain glowed. Her pulses throbbed with the race of the glad blood in her +veins. Her whole being moved, trembling and yearning, toward an +incredible joy. Till that moment she had hardly realised Robert's +children. A strange unquietness, not yet recognised as fear, had kept +her from asking him many questions about them. Even now, their forms +were like the forms of children seen in the twilight of dreams, the +dreams of women who have never had children; forms that hover and +torture and pursue; that hide their faces, half seen; that will not come +to the call, nor be held by the hand, nor gathered to the heart. + +That she should really see them, and hear their voices, and hold them in +her arms, to-morrow, seemed to her a thing impossible, beyond +credibility or dream. Then she said to herself that it all depended on +what happened between to-morrow and to-day. + +It was not long past seven and she had still a good twenty minutes +before her. She spent it in pacing up and down the room, and looking at +the clock every time she turned and confronted it. At the half-hour she +arranged herself on the sofa, with a book, in an attitude of +carelessness as to the event. As a material appearance the attitude was +perfect. + +She rose as the servant announced "Mr. Wilfrid Marston." She stood as +she had risen, waiting for her visitor to advance. Her eyes were fixed +on her book which she laid down, deliberately marking the page, and yet +she was aware of his little pause at the door as it closed behind him, +and of his little smile that took her in. She had no need to look at +him. + +He was a man of middle size, who held himself so well that he appeared +taller and slenderer than he was. You saw that he had been fair and +florid and slender enough in his youth, and that all his good points had +worn somewhat to hardness. His face was hard and of a fast-hardening, +reddish-sallow colour, showing a light network of veins about the +cheekbones. Hard, wiry wrinkles were about the outer corners of his +eyes. He kept his small reddish-gold moustache close clipped, so that it +made his mouth look extraordinarily straight and hard. People who didn't +know him were apt to mistake him for a soldier. (He was in the War +Office, rather high up.) He had several manners, his official manner to +persons calling at the War Office; his social manner, inimitably devout +to women whom he respected; and his natural manner, known only in its +perfection to women whom he did not respect. And under both of these +he conveyed a curious and disagreeable impression of stern sensuality, +as if the animal in him had worn to hardness, too. + +"Kitty, my dear girl!" His voice, unlike the rest of him, could be thick +and soft and fluid. He put his arm round her, and she offered him her +mouth, curled forward, obedient but unsmiling. Her hand, surrendered to +his, lay limp in the hard clasp of it. He raised it as if weighing the +powerless, subservient thing. + +"Kitty," he said, "you're still getting thin. My last orders were, if +you remember, that you were to put on another stone before I saw you +again." + +He bared her wrist, pressing it slightly, to show how its round curves +were sunken. + +"Do you call that putting on another stone?" + +She drew back her arm. + +"What have you been doing to yourself?" he said. + +"Nothing. There hasn't been anything to do. It's not very amusing +being left all by yourself for weeks and weeks, you know." + +"All by yourself?" + +"Yes. Bunny doesn't count." + +"No, she certainly doesn't. Poor Kitten, you must have been very badly +bored." + +He looked round the room. + +"Do they do you well at this place?" + +"It isn't _very_ comfortable. I think you'd be better off at the +Metropole." + +"What possessed you to stay at the place if you're not comfortable?" + +"Well, you see, I didn't expect you for another week." + +"What's that got to do with it?" + +"I mean it did well enough for Bunny and me." + +"Where is that woman?" + +"She's gone. She left yesterday." + +"Why?" + +"Well, you know, Wilfrid, Bunny was very respectable." + +He laughed. "It's just as well she went, then, before I came, isn't it? +I say, what have you done to your eyes? They used to be black, now +they're blue. Bright blue." + +There was a look in them he did not understand. + +"I think," she said, "you would be much more comfortable at the +Metropole." + +"Oh no; I'll try this place for one night." She veiled her eyes. + +"We can move on if I can't stand it. When are we going to dine?" + +"At eight. It's twenty to, now. You'd like it up here, wouldn't you?" + +"Rather. I say, where's my room?" + +She flushed and turned from him with an unaccountable emotion. + +"I--I don't know." + +"Didn't you order one for me?" + +"No; I don't think I did." + +"I suppose I can get one, can't I?" + +"I suppose so. But don't you think you'd better go over to the +Metropole? You see, this is a very small hotel." + +He looked at her sharply. + +"I don't care how small it is." + +He summoned a waiter and inquired irascibly for his room. + +Kitty was relieved when the room was got for him, because he went to it +instantly, and that gave her time. She said to herself that it would be +all right if she could be alone for a minute or two and could think. She +thought continuously through the act of dressing, and in the moment of +waiting till he appeared again. He would be hungry, and his first +thought would be for his dinner. + +It was. But his second thought was for Kitty, who refused to eat. + +"What's the matter with you?" + +"Nothing. I've got a headache." + +Again he looked sharply at her. + +"A headache, have you? It'll be better if you eat something." + +But Kitty shook her head. + +"What's the good of my sending you to Matlock and those places if you +come back in this state? You know, if you once get really thin, Kitty, +you're done for." + +"Am I?" Her mouth trembled, not grossly, but with a small, fine quiver +of the upper lip. The man had trained her well. She knew better than to +cry before him. + +The slender sign of emotion touched him, since it was not disfiguring. + +"How long have you been starving yourself?" he asked more gently. + +"I've not been starving myself. I've got a headache." + +He poured out some wine for her. + +"You must either eat _or_ drink." + +"I don't want any." + +"Nonsense." + +"I--I can't. I feel sick." + +He raised his eyebrows. + +"Need you mention it?" + +"I wouldn't if you hadn't teased me so." + +"I beg your pardon." + +She began playing with some salted almonds. + +"My _dear_ girl, I wouldn't eat those things if I were you." + +"I'm not eating them." She pushed the dish from her. "I'm afraid," said +she, "it isn't a very nice dinner." + +He was looking at the _entree_ with interest and a slight suspicion. + +"What is this?" + +"Curried chicken." + +"Oh." He helped himself fastidiously to curried chicken, tasted it with +delicate deliberation, and left it on his plate. + +"You are wise," said he. "There is a certain crude, unsatisfying +simplicity about this repast." + +"Didn't I tell you?" + +"You did." + +"You see now why I said you'd better go to the Metropole?" + +"I do indeed." + +An admirable joint of mutton, cheese, coffee and a liqueur effaced the +painful impression made by the _entree_. By nine o'clock Marston +declared himself inured to the hardships of the Cliff Hotel. + +"How long can you stay?" she asked. The question had been burning in her +for two hours. + +"Well, over the week end, I think." + +Her heart, that had fluttered like a bird, sank, as a bird sinks in +terror with wings tight shut. + +"Have you got to go up to town to-morrow?" + +"I have, worse luck. How do the trains go from this godforsaken place?" + +"About every two hours. What sort of train do you want? An early one?" + +"Rather. Got to be at Whitehall by twelve." + +"Will the nine-fifteen do?" + +"Yes; that's all right." + +The wings of her heart loosened. It rose light, as if air, not blood, +flowed from its chambers. + +The Lucys were never by any chance down before nine. Robert would not +meet him. + +He sat down in the chair opposite her, with his eyes fixed on her as she +leaned back in the corner of the sofa. He settled himself in comfort, +crossing his legs and thrusting out one foot, defined under a delicate +silk sock, in an attitude that was almost contemptuous of Kitty's +presence. + +Kitty's face was innocent of any perception of these shades. He drew the +long breath of ease and smiled at her again, a smile that intimated how +thoroughly he approved of her personal appearance. + +"Ye--es," he said, "you're different, but I think you're almost as +pretty as you were." + +"Am I?" she said. "What did you expect?" + +"I didn't expect anything. I never do. It's my scheme for avoiding +disappointment. Is your head better?" + +"No; it's aching abominably." + +"Sorry. But it's rather hard lines for me, isn't it? I wish you _could_ +have chosen some other time to be ill in." + +"What does it matter whether I'm ill or not, if I'm not pretty?" + +He smiled again. + +"I don't mean, child, that you're ever not pretty." + +"Thank you. I know exactly how pretty I am." + +"Do you? How pretty do you think you are now?" + +"Not half as pretty as Dora Nicholson. You know exactly how pretty she +is." + +"I do. And I know exactly how pretty she'll be in five years' time. +That's the worst of those thin women with little, delicate, pink faces. +You know the precise minute when a girl like Dora'll go off. You know +the pinkness will begin to run when she's once past thirty. You can see +the crows' feet coming, and you know exactly how far they'll have got by +the time she's thirty-five. You know that when she's forty there'll be +two little lines like thumb-nail marks beside her ears, just here, and +you know that when she's forty-five the dear little lobes will begin to +shrivel up, and that when she's fifty the corners of her mouth will +collapse." + +"And then?" + +"Then, if you're a wise man you don't know any more." + +"Poor little Dora. You _are_ a brute, Wilfrid." + +"I'm not a brute. I was going to say that the best of you, dear, is that +I don't know how you'll look at fifty. I don't know how you'll look +to-morrow--to-night. You're never the same for ten minutes together. +When you get one of those abominable headaches you look perhaps as old +as you are. You're twenty-seven, aren't you?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, I dare say you'll look twenty-seven when you are fifty. There's +something awfully nice about that sort of prettiness. It leaves things +delightfully vague. I can't _see_ you fifty." + +"Perhaps I never shall be." + +"Perhaps not. That's just it. You leave it open to me to think so. I +don't seriously contemplate your ever being forty. In fact your being +thirty is one of those melancholy and disastrous events that need not +actually occur. It's very tactful of you, Kitty." + +"All the same, I'm not as pretty as Dora Nicholson." + +"Dora Nicholson!" + +"You can't say she isn't awfully pretty." + +"I don't say it." His voice rose to an excited falsetto. "She _is_ +awfully pretty--extravagantly, preposterously pretty. And she'll have to +pay for it." + +"Oh--we all have to pay for it." + +"Sooner _or_ later." + +"Poor Dora----" + +"Poor Dora. Perhaps we have been rather brutal to her. She's good for +another five years." + +"Only five years? And what will she do then?" + +"Oh, she'll be all right. She'll rouge a bit, and powder a bit, and +dress like anything. You needn't be unhappy about Dora. I can tell you +Dora isn't going to be unhappy about you. Unhappiness would be extremely +unbecoming to her, and she knows it. It isn't particularly becoming to +any woman. You would be less damaged by it than most perhaps." + +"You've never seen me unhappy." + +"I hope to God I never shall." + +"You needn't be afraid, Wilfrid, you never will." + +"I wish," she said presently, "I wish you liked Dora Nicholson." + +"I do like her." + +"I wish you liked her as much as me." + +"That's very noble of you, Kitty. But may I ask, why?" + +"Because it would make things simpler." + +"Simpler? I should have said myself that that was just where +complications might occur. Supposing I liked Dolly better than you, what +then?" + +"Oh, that would make it simpler still." + +"It certainly would be simpler than the other situation you suggest." + +"It would for both of us." + +"But why this sudden yearning for simplicity? And why Dora Nicholson?" + +"There isn't any why. Anybody else would do, provided you liked them +better than me. It's only a question of time, you know. You're bound to +tire of me sooner or later." + +"Later, Kitty, later. Barring jealousy. If you're going in for that, I +may as well tell you at once that I shall tire of it very soon." + +"You think that's what's the matter with me?" + +"Well, something's the matter with you. I suppose it's that. I should +drop it, Kitty. It really isn't worth while. It only makes you thin, +and--and I can't be bored with it, d'you see?" + +"I don't want--to be bored--with it--either." She spoke very slowly. "If +you wanted to leave me for Dora Nicholson, I should be a fool to try and +keep you, shouldn't I?" + +"Well--you're not a fool." + +"You're not a fool either, Wilfrid." + +"If I am I take some pains to conceal it." + +"If a woman wanted to leave you for another man, would you try and keep +her?" + +He looked at her attentively. "It depends on the woman, and on some +other things besides. For instance, if I were married to her, I might +make a considerable effort, not to keep _her_, but--to keep up +appearances." + +"And if--you were not married to her?" + +"There again it would depend on the woman. I might take it that she'd +left me already." + +"Yes, but if you knew she wasn't that sort--if you knew she'd always +been straight with you?" + +"Well, then perhaps I might take the trouble to find out whether there +really was another man. Or I might have reason to suppose she was only +trying it on. In which case I should say to her 'My dear Kitty, you're a +very clever woman and it's a brilliant idea you've got. But it's been +tried before and it won't work. You can't draw me that way.'" + +"But, Wilfrid--if there _was_ another man?" + +"Well, it's possible that I might not consider it worth while to dispute +his claim. That would depend altogether on the woman." + +"If you cared for her?" + +"If I cared enough for her I might be able to convince her that it would +at any rate be prudent, from a worldly point of view, to stick to me. +But _that_ would depend, wouldn't it, on the amount of the other +fellow's income?" + +"And if all that didn't matter in the very least to her, if she didn't +care a rap about anybody's income, if she cared for the other fellow +more than she'd ever cared for you, if she didn't care for your caring, +if she cared for nothing except _his_ caring, and nothing you could do +could move her--what would you do then?" + +He paused to light another cigarette before he answered her. "I should +probably tell her, first of all, that for all I cared she might go to +the devil, I mean to the other fellow, and stay there as long as he +wanted her." + +"Well"--she said placably. + +"That's what I should say first. Afterward, when we were both a little +calmer--if I cared for her, Kitty--I should ask her to think a moment +before she did anything rash, to be quite sure that she would really be +happier with the other fellow. And I should point out to her very +clearly that, in any case, if she once went, it would not be open to her +to come back." + +"But you wouldn't try and keep her?" + +"I couldn't keep her, my dear child, by trying." + +"No--you couldn't keep her. Not for yourself. But, if you could keep her +from the other man, would you?" + +"I dare say I should do my best." + +"Would you do your worst? No, Wilfrid, you've been very good to me--I +don't believe you'd do your worst." + +"What do you mean," he said sharply. + +"You wouldn't tell him what she was, what she had been--if he didn't +know it. Would you?" + +He was silent. + +"Would you?" she cried. + +"No, Kitty, I wouldn't do that. I'm not a cad." + +He pondered. + +"But my dear girl, do you suppose for a moment that he doesn't know?" + +"He doesn't know a thing." + +"Then what in heaven's name are you talking about?" + +"I'm trying to tell you. It isn't what you think. I--I'm going to be +married." + +Marston took his cigarette out of his mouth, and stared at it. There was +no expression in his face beyond that concentrated, attentive stare. + +"Good Lord. Why," he said, "couldn't you tell me that before I came +down?" + +"I was going to. I was going to write to you and ask you not to come." + +"_Good_ God." + +He said it softly, and with calm incredulity rather than amazement. + +"Who is it, Kitty? Do I know him?" + +"No." + +"Do you know him yourself?" + +She smiled. "Yes I know him." + +"Well--but how long?" + +"Ten days." + +"You met him here? In this hotel?" + +"Yes." + +"That's why you were so anxious for me to go to the Metropole, was it?" + +"Yes." + +"Look here. I don't want to be unkind, but it doesn't do to blink facts. +Are you quite sure he means to marry you?" + +"Why shouldn't he?" + +"Well, these marriages do happen, but--I don't want to be unkind +again--but you know they are, to say the least of it, a little unusual." + +"Yes." + +"You've seen some of them?" + +"Yes." + +"And you know, you know as well as I do, the sort of man who--who----" + +"Who marries the sort of woman I am? Yes, I know him, perfectly well. +He's horrible." + +"There are exceptions, but he's generally pretty bad. You think he's +horrible. You'll be miserable when you find yourself tied to him for +life. You see, however awful he was, you wouldn't be exactly in a +position to get rid of him." + +"Wilfrid," her voice was very low and tender, "he isn't like that. He's +good----" + +"Good, is he?" He laughed. + +"Oh, don't laugh. He _is_ good." + +"Well, I don't say he isn't--only----" he smiled. + +"You forget," she said. "He doesn't know." + +"Are you quite sure he doesn't know?" + +"Quite--quite sure." + +"And you are not going to enlighten him?" + +She drew back before his penetrating gaze. "I can't. I couldn't bear him +to know." + +"How do you propose to prevent his knowing? Do you think you're clever +enough to keep him in the dark for ever?" + +"Why not? He hasn't seen things in the broad daylight, under his very +nose. There were plenty of things to see." + +"You mean he's stupid?" + +"I mean I haven't been clever, if that's what you think. Once I did +nearly tell him." + +"Supposing somebody else tells him?" + +"If they do it'll only be their word against mine. And he'd take my word +against anybody's." + +"Poor devil!" + +He seemed to meditate, dispassionately, on the poor devil's case, and +hers. + +"You little fool. It isn't a question of people's words. How are you +going to get rid of the facts?" + +"He needn't know them." + +"You forget. I'm one of them. How are you going to get rid of me?" + +"Oh, Wilfrid--you're not going to tell him? You said you wouldn't." + +"Of course I said I wouldn't--I'd even be glad to get rid of myself to +oblige you, Kitty, but I can't. Here I am. How are you going to account +for me?" + +"I've thought of that. He needn't see you. It'll be all right, Wilfrid, +if you'll go away." + +"No doubt. But I haven't gone away." + +He emphasised his point by rising and taking up a commanding position on +the hearthrug. + +Some one knocked at the door, and she started violently. + +It was only a servant, bringing a note for her. + +She read it and handed it to Marston, looking piteously at him as he +stood his ground. + +"Mr. Lucy can come up," she said. "We have finished all we had to say." + +"I think there are one or two points," he replied, "still unsettled." + +She turned to the servant. + +"Will you tell Mr. Lucy I'm engaged for the present. I will see him +later." + +"No, my dear Mrs. Tailleur, not on my account. There's no reason why you +shouldn't see Mr. Lucy now. No reason at all." + +She stood tortured with indecision. + +"Mrs. Tailleur will see Mr. Lucy now." + +"I will see him in ten minutes." + +"Very good, ma'am." + +The servant withdrew. + +Marston shrugged his shoulders. + +"There you are. Here we both are. Here we are all three in the same +hotel. An uncomfortably small hotel. How are you--or rather, how is +he--going to get over that?" + +"It would be all right if you'd only go. I've told him you were a man +coming on business." + +"My dear Kitty, that was quite unworthy of you." + +"Well, what could I do? It's not as if I was in the habit of telling +lies." + +"I won't criticise it if it was a first attempt. But in telling a lie, +my child, it's as well to select one that bears some resemblance to the +truth. Do I look like a man who comes on business?" + +"You will go before he comes, won't you?" + +"No, I don't think I will." + +"You have nothing," she said, "to gain by staying." + +"I suppose you think you have everything to gain by my going?" + +"Oh, Wilfrid, give me my chance." + +"I'm giving you your chance, you little fool. I wouldn't produce that +pocket-handkerchief if I were you. It's quite the most damaging thing +about you." + +She gave a hysterical laugh, and put the pocket-handkerchief away. + +"You are utterly unfit," he commented, "to manage your own affairs." + +They sat silent, while the clock ticked out the last minutes of her +torture. + +"You'd better make up your mind what you're going to do when he +arrives," he said finally. + +"I don't know," said Kitty, "what I'm going to do." + +"I'll tell you, then. You are going to introduce me as you would any +ordinary man of your acquaintance." + +"By your own name?" + +"By my own name, of course." + +They waited. Lucy's stride was heard along the corridor. She looked up +at her tormentor. + +"Is my nose red, Wilfrid?" + +"No," he said, smiling grimly, "my dear Mrs. Tailleur," he added as Lucy +entered. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +She came to meet him, keeping her back to Marston, her face thrust a +little forward in the way it had, looking for the protection of Robert's +kind eyes. Only when she had his hand in hers she turned. + +"May I introduce Mr. Wilfrid Marston?" + +The two men bowed, glancing at each other with eyes urbanely innocent of +curiosity. + +"I'm sorry to have had to keep you waiting," said Kitty. + +"So am I," said Marston. "Our business took rather longer than we +thought." + +"Business generally does," said Lucy. + +"It need not have taken quite so long if I could have persuaded Mrs. +Tailleur to think a little of her own advantage." + +"I have," said Kitty, "an admirable adviser in Mr. Marston." + +"You are always kind. Even if you don't always act on my advice." + +"Sometimes you think you know your own affairs best." + +"And sometimes," said Lucy, "it's just possible you do." + +"Sometimes. I've been telling Mrs. Tailleur that she's incapable of +managing her own affairs when it's a question of her own advantage. If +you know anything of Mrs. Tailleur, you will agree with me there." + +"I certainly agree with you, if Mrs. Tailleur will forgive my saying so. +I hope I've not come too soon." + +"Oh, no. Mr. Marston has missed the last train up." + +"And Mrs. Tailleur has been kind enough to ask me to stop the night." + +"If you don't prefer the Metropole. Mr. Lucy is not going. Don't--it's +all right, Robert." + +"Are you sure?" + +"Quite sure. Our business is finished." + +"All except one or two details which we may perhaps arrange later," said +Marston, who preserved a perfect suavity. + +"How much later?" said Kitty. "_I'm_ not going to arrange anything more +to-night." + +"To-morrow night." + +"There won't be any to-morrow night--if you're going up to town." + +"Well, then, perhaps if Mr. Lucy will excuse us, you will give me a +moment now. It seems a pity not to put things straight while you're +about it." + +"You can't put things straight at eleven o'clock at night. My poor +head's all muddled and aching abominably." + +"To-morrow morning, then." + +"There will be no time to-morrow morning. Robert, has Jane gone to bed?" + +"No, she's sitting up. She wants to speak to you." + +"Will you bring her to me, please?" + +He rose. When he had left the room she turned on Marston in a fury. + +"Wilfrid, you're a beast, a perfect beast." + +"A man of business, my dear Kitty, very often is. He's paid, you know, +for doing beastly things." + +"They come easy to you." + +"Is that all the thanks I get for playing up to you? I gave you every +point, too." + +She raged dumbly. + +"I can't congratulate you on your skill in the game. You'd have given +yourself away ten times over--if I hadn't stopped you." + +"What are you waiting for now, then?" + +"I have not said good night to your friend Mr. Lucy, nor to you." + +"You can say good night to me now, and good bye. I shall not see you +again." + +"Pardon me, you will see me to-morrow morning." + +"No. Never again. I've done with you." + +"My dear girl, you are absurd. Mr. Lucy is not going to marry you +to-morrow morning, is he?" + +"Well?" + +"And until he marries you, you haven't exactly done with me." + +"I see. You want to remind me that the clothes on my back belong to +you." + +He flushed painfully. + +"I don't want to remind you of anything that may be unpleasant to you. +I'm only suggesting that in the circumstances--until you marry him--you +can hardly refuse to see me." + +"Why should I see you? It'll make no difference." + +"To me, none. To you it may possibly make a considerable difference. +There are some points you have evidently not thought of, which it would +be well for us to talk over before you think of marrying." + +She capitulated. + +"If I see you to-morrow, will you go now?" + +"I will go, my dear Kitty, the precise moment I see fit. If I were you I +should wipe that expression from my face before Mr. Lucy comes in. He +might not like it. The pocket-handkerchief might be used with advantage +now--just there." + +In obedience to his indication she passed her hand over the flushed +tear-stain. At that moment Lucy entered with his sister. + +Jane, less guarded than her brother, looked candidly, steadily at +Marston, whose face instantly composed itself to reverence and devotion +before her young half-spiritual presence. + +Kitty's voice was scarcely audible as she murmured the ritual of +introduction. + +Lucy was aware of her emotion. + +"I think," said he, "as Mrs. Tailleur has owned to a bad headache, Mr. +Marston and I had better say good night." + +Marston said it. There was nothing else left for him to say. And as he +went through the door that Lucy opened for him, he cursed him in his +heart. + +"Jane," said Kitty. + +But Jane was looking at the door through which Marston and Robert had +just gone. + +"Robert did that very neatly," said she. "You wanted to get rid of him, +didn't you, Kitty?" + +"I've been trying to get rid of Wilfrid Marston for the last three +weeks." + +She had such wisdom, mothered by fierce necessity, as comes to the +foolish at their call. She was standing over little Jane as she spoke, +looking down into her pure, uplifted eyes. + +"You've been crying," she said. + +"Yes." Jane's eyes were very bright, new-washed with tears. + +"I know why. It's because of me." + +"Yes; but it's all right now, Kitty." + +She did not tell her that ten minutes ago she, too, had been out on the +Cliff-side and had had a battle with herself there, and had won it. For +little Jane there couldn't be a harder thing in the world than to give +Robert up. Of course she had to do it, so there could be no virtue in +that. The hard thing was to do it gracefully, beautifully. + +"What are you going to say to me, Janey? He told you?" + +"Yes; he told me." + +"Oh, don't look at me like that, dear. Say if you hate it for him." + +"I don't hate it. Only, oh, Kitty, dear, do you really love him?" + +"Yes; I love him." + +"But--you've only known him ten days. I don't think I could love a man +I'd only known ten days." + +"It makes no difference." + +"That's what Robert said." + +"Yes; he said it to me. Ah, I know what you mean. You think it's all +very well for him, because men are different. It's me you can't +understand; you think I must be horrid." + +"Oh no, no. It's only--I think _I'm_ different, that's all." + +"_Is_ that all, Janey?" + +"Yes." + +"And will you love me a little if I love him a great deal? Or do you +hate me for loving him?" + +"Kitty--you needn't be afraid. The more you love him the more I shall +love you." + +"Did--did his wife love him? Oh, ought I to have asked you that?" + +Jane shook her head. + +"I'm not sure that I ought to tell you." + +"She didn't, then?" + +"Oh yes, she did, poor little thing. She loved him all she could." + +"And it wasn't enough?" + +"No, I don't think it was, quite. There was something wanting. But I +don't think Robert ever knew it." + +"He knows it now," said Kitty. Her voice lifted with the pride of +passion. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +Marston cancelled that appointment at Whitehall. Somebody else's +business would have to wait another day, that was all. He was wont to +settle affairs as they arose, methodically, punctually, in the order of +their importance. At the moment his own affair and Kitty's was of +supreme importance. Until it was settled he could not attend to anybody +else. + +He was determined not to let her go. He meant to have her. He did not +yet know precisely how he was to achieve this end, but as a first step +to it he engaged a room indefinitely at the Metropole. There was nothing +like being on the spot. He would consider himself defeated when Lucy had +actually married her. Meanwhile, he was uplifted by his supreme distrust +of the event. + +His rival had made a very favourable impression on him, with the +curious effect of heightening Kitty's value in his eyes. Other causes +contributed, her passion for Lucy, and the subtle purification it had +wrought in her (a charm to which Marston was by no means unsusceptible), +the very fact that his own dominion was uncertain and his possession +incomplete. + +Up till now he had been unaware of the grip she had on him. He had never +allowed for the possibility of permanence in his relations with her sex. +The idea of marriage was peculiarly unsupportable to him. Even in his +youth he had had no love affairs, avowed and sanctioned. Though Marston +professed the utmost devotion to women like Miss Lucy, the women whom +his mother and his sisters knew, he had noticed a little sadly that he +soon wearied of their society, that he had no power of sustained +communion with the good. The unfallen were for him the unapproachable. +Therefore he had gravitated by taste and temperament to the women of +the underworld. There his incurable fastidiousness drove him to the +pursuit of a possible perfection, distinction within the limits, the +inherent frailties of the type. + +In Kitty Tailleur he had found even more than he was looking for. Kitty +had certain graces, reminiscent of the upper world; a heritage from +presumably irreproachable parents, that marked her from the women of her +class. She had, moreover, a way of her own, different from the charm of +the unfallen, different, too, from the coarse lures of the underworld. +Kitty was never rank, never insipid. She had a few light brains in her +body, and knew how to use them, woman-like, for the heightening of her +charm. + +There were other good points about Kitty. Marston disliked parting with +his money, and he had found Kitty, so far, inexpensive, as women went. + +For these reasons, so many and so plausible that they disguised the true +kind and degree of his subjection, he had before now returned to Kitty +more than once after he thought that he had tired of her. + +Only three weeks ago, on her return from Matlock, he judged that he had +come to the end of his passion for her; and here he was again at the +very beginning of it. Instead of perishing it had thrived on absence. He +found himself on the verge of a new and unforeseen adventure, with +impulse sharpened by antagonism and frustration. Yet his only chance, he +knew, was not to be impulsive, but cool rather, calculating and +cautious. The fight he was in for would have to be fought with brains; +his against hers. + +He sent a note to her early in the morning asking her to see him at +nine. At nine she saw him. + +"I thought," she said, "you were going up to town early." + +"I'm not going up to town at all, as it happens, to-day." + +"Isn't it rather a pity to neglect your business?" + +"My business, dear Kitty, is not any business of yours." + +"I'm only trying to make you see that it isn't worth your while stopping +out of town because of me." + +He was a little disconcerted at her divination of his motives, her +awareness of her own power. + +"Well, you see, though the affairs of Whitehall are not your affairs, +your affairs, unfortunately, are mine; and, since I have to attend to +them, I prefer to do it at once and get it over. I had some talk with +Lucy last night." + +She turned on him. "Ah, you _have_ given me away." + +"Did you ever know me give any one away?" + +She did not answer all at once. + +He was shocked at her suspicion; at the things she believed it possible +for a man to do. In the upper world, in a set that discussed its women +freely, he had never used his knowledge of a woman to harm her. He had +carried the same scruple into that other world where Kitty lived, where +he himself was most at home, where an amused, contemptuous tolerance +played the part of chivalry. The women there trusted him; they found him +courteous in his very contempt. He had connived at their small deceits, +the preposterous hypocrisies wherewith they protected themselves. He +accepted urbanely their pitiful imitations of the lost innocence. Kitty, +moving reckless and high in her sad circle, had been scornful of her +sisters' methods. Her soul was as much above them as her body, in its +unique, incongruous beauty, was above their rouge and coloured raiment. +It was this superiority of hers that had brought her to her present +pass; caused her to be mistaken for an honest woman. In her contempt +for the underworld's deceptions she had achieved the supreme deceit. + +Her deceit--that was his point. + +"Then," she said presently, "what _did_ you say to him?" + +"I said nothing, my dear child, in your disparagement. On the contrary, +I congratulated him on his engagement. As I'm supposed to be acting as +your agent, or solicitor, or whatever it is I am acting as, I imagine I +did right. Is that so?" + +"Yes; if that's all you said." + +"It is not quite all. I sustained my character by giving him a hint, the +merest hint, that in the event of your marriage your worldly position +would be slightly altered. We must prepare him, you know, for the sudden +collapse of your income." + +He rose and went to the mantelpiece, and lingered there over the +lighting of a cigarette. + +"You hadn't thought of that?" he said as he seated himself again. + +"No; I hadn't thought of it." + +"Well, he didn't appear to have thought of it either." + +"What did he say, when you told him that?" + +"He said it didn't matter in the very least." + +"I knew he would." + +"He said, in fact, that nothing mattered." + +"What did you say then?" + +"Nothing. What could I say?" + +She looked at him, trying to see deep into his design, trusting him no +further than she saw. + +"Look here, Kitty, I think you're making a mistake, even from your own +point of view. You ought to tell him." + +"I--can't." + +"You must. He's such an awfully decent chap, you can't let him in for +marrying you without telling him." That was his point and he meant to +stick to it. "It's what you might call playing it low down on a +guileless and confiding man. Isn't it?" + +"Yes, but I can't tell him." + +"It's the straight thing, Kitty." + +"I know. But it means giving him up." + +"Not at all. He'll respect you all the more for it. He won't go back on +you." + +"He wouldn't if he'd only himself to think of." + +"He isn't bound to tell his people. That's another thing." + +"It isn't his people--it's--it's his children." + +Marston became suddenly attentive. "His children? He's got children, has +he?" + +"Yes, two; two little girls." + +That strengthened his point. + +"Then, my dear girl, you can't--in common decency--not tell him. Hang it +all, you've got to give the man a chance." + +"A chance to escape? You talk as if I'd set a trap for him." + +"My dear child, you haven't sense enough to set a trap. But, since there +are spring-guns in his neighbourhood, I repeat that you ought to inform +him of the fact. I dare say he wouldn't funk a spring-gun on his own +account, but he may not want his children to be hurt." + +"I know. He'd be afraid I should contaminate them. I wouldn't, Wilfrid, +I wouldn't. I wouldn't hurt them for the world." + +"I'm sure you wouldn't. But he might think you would. The fathers of +little girls sometimes have strange prejudices. You see it's all very +well as long as you can keep him in his beautiful innocence. But, if he +finds out that you've deceived him, he--well, he might resent it." + +He never turned his eyes from that livid, vulnerable spot, striking at +it with the sword-thrust of his point. + +"A man can forgive many things in a woman, but not that." + +"I must risk it. He mayn't find out for years and years. If I tell him I +shall lose him now." + +"Not necessarily. Not if he cares for you as much as I should say he +does." + +"It doesn't matter how much he cares. He'd never marry me." + +"No. He might make another and more sensible arrangement." + +"And then?" She faced him with it. + +"Then you'll be satisfied. You'll have had your fling." + +"And--when--I've--had it?" she said slowly. + +"Then, I suppose, I shall have to take you back." + +"I see. That's where you think you'll come in." + +"I wasn't thinking, at the moment, of myself. The suggestion was thrown +out entirely on your behalf, and I may say his. I'm simply telling you +what--knowing you as I do--I consider the wiser course, for both of +you." + +"You don't know. And you don't know him. He wouldn't do it. He isn't +that sort." + +She paused, brooding over it. + +"Besides, I couldn't bear it. I can't go back to that." + +"And how many years do you think you'll stand being proper and +respectable, which is what you'll have to be as long as you're Mrs. +Robert Lucy? It's a stiffish job, my child, for you to tackle. Just +think of the practical difficulties. I've accounted for the sudden, very +singular collapse of your income, but there are all sorts of things that +you won't be able to account for. The disappearance, for instance, of +the entire circle of your acquaintance." + +She smiled. "It would be _much_ more awkward if it didn't disappear." + +"True. Still, a female friend or two is an indispensable part of a +married woman's outfit. The Lucys mayn't mind, but their friends may +regard the omission as peculiar. Then--you have charming manners, I +know--but your speech is apt, at times, to be a little, what shall I +say? Unfettered. The other day, when you were annoyed with me, you +called me a beast." + +"That's nothing. I might have called you something much worse." + +"You might. Happily, you did not. I've no objection to the word; it can +be used as a delicate endearment, but in your mouth it loses any tender +grace it might have had." + +"I'm sorry, Wilfrid." + +"Don't apologise. _I_ didn't mind. But if you call Lucy a beast he won't +like it." + +"I couldn't. Besides, I shall be very careful." + +"You will have to be extremely careful. The Lucys live in Hampstead, I +believe, and Hampstead enjoys the reputation of being the most +respectable suburb of London. You've no idea of the sort of people +you'll have to meet there. You'll terrify them, and they, my poor +Kitten, will exterminate you. You don't know what respectability is +like." + +"I don't care. I can stand anything." + +"You think you can. I _know_ that you won't be able to stand it for a +fortnight. You'll find that the air of Hampstead doesn't agree with you. +And wherever you go it'll be the same thing. You had very much better +stick to me." + +"To you?" + +"You'll be safer and happier. If you'll stay with me----" + +"I never have--stayed--with you." + +"No, but I'd like you to." + +He was not going to make love to her. He was far too clever for that. He +knew that with a woman like Kitty, in Kitty's state of mind, he had +nothing to gain by making love. Neither did he propose to pit his will +against hers. That course had answered well enough in the time of his +possession of her. Passion, which was great in her, greater than her +will, made his will powerless over her. His plan was to match the forces +of her brain with superior, with overwhelming forces. + +He continued coldly. "I'm not satisfied with the present arrangement any +more than you are. If you'll stay with me you shall live where you +choose; only don't choose Park Lane, for I can't afford it. I'll give +you any mortal thing I _can_ afford." + +"You think you can give me what Robert Lucy's giving me?" + +"I can give you a home, Kitty, as long as you'll live in it. I can give +you the advantages of marriage without its drawbacks. You won't be tied +to me a minute longer than you like. Whereas you can't leave Lucy +without a scandal." + +"You think that a safe arrangement, do you? I can leave you when I want +to." + +"You can leave me any day. So the chances are that you won't want to." + +"And when you're tired of me?" + +[Illustration: "'You won't be tied to me a minute longer than you +like.'"] + +"That's it. I shan't be tired of you. I've a different feeling for you +from any I've ever had for any other woman, for the simple reason that +you're a different woman every time I see you. That's the secret of +your fascination. Didn't you know it?" + +She shook her head, but she was not attending to him. + +"If you don't know it there's no harm in telling you that I'm very fond +of you." + +"What earthly use is it, Wilfrid, being fond of me, as long as I'm not +fond of you?" + +Ah, that was a mistake. He was on perilous ground. She was strong there. +She matched his bloodless, unblushing candour with her throbbing, +passionate sincerity. + +"That's all the better," he said. "It wouldn't pay you, Kitty, to be +fond of me. If I thought you were fond of me to-day it would leave me +with nothing to look forward to to-morrow. If you were as fond of me as +you are of Lucy, it would bore me horribly. What's more, it would bore +you. It would tire you out, and you'd bolt in a week's time. As, I can +tell you, you'll bolt from him." + +"You think I shall do that. He doesn't. That's why I'm fond of him." + +"I wouldn't be too fond of him. It never pays. Either you'll tire of him +in a week, or, if you go on being fond of him you'll end by being afraid +of him. You need never be afraid of me." + +"I _am_ afraid of you." + +"Not you. I understand you, Kitty, and he doesn't." + +"You mean you know the worst of me?" + +"Precisely. What's more, I should condone what you call the worst of +you, and he wouldn't." + +"I know you would. That's why I'm afraid of you. You only know the worst +of me, and he--he knows, he understands, the rest. There's something in +me that you've never seen; you couldn't see it; you wouldn't believe in +it; you'd kill it if I stayed with you. It's no use talking, for I +won't." + +"Why not?" he asked as if nothing she had said had been of any moment. + +"I've told you why not. But I don't expect you to understand it." + +"If there's anything in it I shall understand it in the end. I'm not a +fool." + +"No, you're not a fool. I'll say that for you." + +"Unless it's folly to be as fond of you as I am." + +"Oh, no, that's not folly. You'll be fond of me just as long as I'm nice +to look at; as long as it doesn't bore you to talk to me; as long as I +don't give you any trouble." + +"Good God! Why, look at the trouble you're giving me now." + +"Yes, the trouble I'm giving you now, when I'm young and pretty and you +can't have me. But when you _have_ had me; when I'm tired out and ill +and--and thin; will you be fool enough to be fond of me then?" + +"You have been ill, you were ill last night, and--I've got over it." + +"You never came near me when I was ill at Matlock. You call that giving +me what Robert Lucy gives me? Robert has seen me when I've been as ugly +as sin, when my eyes have been bunged up with crying. And it made no +difference. He'll love me when I'm thin and ill and old. When I'm dead +he'll love me." + +He faced her passion as it flamed up before him, faced it with his cold, +meditative smile. + +"That's just what makes it such a beastly shame." + +"My not giving him up? How _can_ I give him up?" + +"I see your point. You think you're exchanging a temporary affection for +a permanent one. You admit that I shall love you as long as you're nice +to look at. Very well. You'll be nice to look at for some considerable +time. I shall therefore love you for some considerable time. Robert Lucy +will love you just as long as he believes in you. How long will that +be?" + +She did not answer. + +"You don't know. Have you calculated the probable effect of gradual +enlightenment on our friend's mind?" + +"I've calculated nothing." + +"No. You are not a calculating woman. I just ask you to consider this +point. I am not, as you know, in the least surprised at any of your +charming little aberrations. But our friend Lucy has not had many +surprises in his life. He'll come to you with an infinite capacity for +astonishment. It's quite uncertain how he'll take--er--anything in the +nature of a surprise. And, if you ask me, I should say he'd take it +hard. Are you going to risk that?" + +He was returning to his point even when he feigned to have lost sight of +it. Tortured and panting she evaded it with pitiful subterfuges. He +urged her back, pressing her tender breast against the prick of it. + +"I'm going to risk everything," she said. + +"Risk it, risk it, then. Tie yourself for life to a man you don't know; +who doesn't really know you, though you think he does; who on your own +showing wouldn't marry you if he did know. You see what a whopping big +risk it is, for he's bound to know in the end." + +She sickened and wearied. "He is not bound to know. Why is he?" + +"Because, my dear girl, you're bound to give yourself away some day. +I know you. I know the perverse little devil that is in you. When +you realise what you've let yourself in for you'll break loose, +suddenly--like that." He threw out his arms as if he burst bonds +asunder. "You can't help yourself. You simply can't live the life. +You may yearn for it, but you can't live it." + +"I don't want to be respectable. It isn't that." + +"What is it then?" + +"Can't you see?" + +He looked at her closely, as if he saw it for the first time. + +"Are you so awfully gone on him?" + +"Yes," she said. "You _won't_ tell him? It'll kill me if he knows." + +"You think it will, but it won't." + +"I shall kill myself, then." + +"Oh no, you won't. You only think you will. It's Lucy I'm sorry for." + +"And it's me you're hard on. You were always hard. You say you condone +things, but you condone nothing, and you're not good yourself." + +"No, I'm not good myself. But there is conduct and conduct. I can +condone everything but the fraud you're practising on this innocent +man." He rose. "It's--well--you see, it's such a beastly shame." + +It was to be a battle of brains, and she had foiled him with the +indomitable stupidity of her passion. But his point--the one point that +he stuck to--was a sword point for her passion. + +"You won't tell him? You won't? It would be a blackguardly thing to do." + +"If Lucy was a friend of mine I'm afraid the blackguardly thing would +be to hold my tongue." + +"You'd tell him then?" she said. "You wouldn't think of me?" + +She came to him. She laid her arms upon his shoulders. Her hands touched +him with dispassionate, deliberate, ineffectual caresses, a pitiful +return to a discarded manner, an outrageous imitation of the old +professional cajoleries. It was so poor a thing that it had no power to +move him. What moved him was the look in her eyes, the look which his +brain told him was the desperate, incredulous appeal of her unhappy +soul. + +"I don't know, Kitty," he said. "Thank heaven, he's not a friend of +mine." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +It was not from Marston, then, that she had to fear betrayal. Neither +was she any more afraid of the rumours of the Cliff Hotel. She was aware +that her engagement to Robert Lucy, unannounced but accepted for the +simple fact it was, had raised her above censure and suspicion. + +It had come just in time to occupy Mrs. Jurd and Miss Keating on their +way to Surbiton. + +When Kitty thought of Grace Keating she said to herself, "How will Bunny +feel now?" But her mortal exultation was checked by her pity for poor +Bunny, who would have been so happy if she had been married. + +Then there were the Hankins. She reflected sanely that they couldn't be +dangerous, for they knew nothing. Still she did feel a little uneasy +when she thought of the Hankins. + +She was thinking of them now as she and Robert sat on the Cliff, making +the most of their last hour together before the arrival of the little +girls. + +"Robert," she said, "the Hankins are probably sitting down there under +the Cliff. Supposing they see us?" + +"They can't, we're over their heads." + +"But if they do what do you suppose they'll think?" + +"If they think at all, they'll have an inkling of the truth. But it +isn't their business. The children will be here soon," he added. + +She looked at him intently. Was he trying, she wondered, to reassure her +that the presence of his children would protect her? Or was he merely +preoccupied with the thought of their arrival? + +"You don't mind," he said presently, "not coming to the station?" + +He had said that already twice before. Why ask, she said, when he knew +perfectly well she didn't mind? + +Of course she didn't mind. She knew his idea, that they were not to be +confronted with her suddenly. He meant to let her dawn on them +beautifully, with the tenderest gradations. He would approach them with +an incomparable cunning. He would tell them that they were going to see +a very pretty lady. And when they were thoroughly inured to the idea of +her, he would announce that the pretty lady was coming to stay with +them, and that she would never go away. + +She looked at her watch. + +"We've got another half-hour before they come." + +"Kitty, I believe you're afraid of them?" + +"Yes, Robert, I'm afraid." + +"What? Of two small children?" + +"What are they like? I haven't asked you that." + +"Well, Janet's a queer, uncanny little person, rather long for her age +and very thin----" + +"Like you?" + +"Like me. At first you think she's all legs. Then you see a little white +face with enormous eyes that look at you as if she was wondering what +you are." + +He smiled. His mind had gone off, away from her, to the contemplation of +his little daughter. + +"I think she is clever, but one never knows. We have to handle her very +carefully. Barbara's all right. You can pitch her about like anything." + +"What is Barbara like?" + +"Barbara? She's round and fat and going to be pretty, like----" + +"Like her mother?" + +"No, like Janey, if Janey was fat. They're both a little difficult to +manage. If you reprove Barbara, she bursts out laughing in your face. If +you even hint to Janet that you disapprove of her, she goes away +somewhere and weeps." + +"Poor little thing. I'm afraid," said Kitty sadly, "they're not so very +small." + +"Well, Janet, I believe, is seven, and Barbara is five." + +"Barbara is five. And, oh dear me, Janet is seven." + +"Is that such a very formidable age?" + +She laughed uneasily. "Yes. That's the age when they begin to take +notice, isn't it?" + +"Oh, no, they do that when they're babies. Even Barbara's grown out of +that. I say, Kitty, what a lot you know." + +"Don't, Robert." She looked at him imploringly and put her hand in his. + +"I won't, if you'll only tell me what I'm not to do." + +"You're not to tease me about the things you think I don't know. I used +to nurse my little sisters, when I wasn't very big myself. I can't nurse +Janet, or Barbara, can I?" + +"Why not?" + +"They wouldn't let me. They're too old. It won't be the same thing at +all." + +"Well," said Robert, and paused, hiding from her the thing that was in +his mind. + +"Oh, Robert, I do wish, I do wish they were really small." + +"I'm sorry, Kitty. But perhaps----" + +He could not hide anything from Kitty. + +"No, Robert," she said, "I'm afraid there won't be any perhaps. That's +one of the things I meant to tell you. But I'm not bothering about that. +I meant--if they were little--little things, I shouldn't be so +dreadfully afraid of them." + +"Why? What do you think they'll do to you, Kitty?" + +"I--don't--know." + +"You needn't be alarmed. I believe they're very well-behaved. Jane has +brought them up quite nicely." + +"What is Jane going to do?" + +"Ah--that's what I wanted to ask you about." + +"You needn't ask me. You want her to stay and look after them just the +same?" + +"No, not just the same. I want her to stay and she won't. She says it +wouldn't be fair to you." + +"But--if she only would, that would make it all so easy. You see, I +could look after you, and she could look after them." + +"You don't want to be bored with them?" + +"You know that isn't what I mean. I don't want them to suffer." + +"Why _should_ they suffer?" There was some irritation in his tone. + +"Because I don't think, Robert, I'm really fit to bring up children." + +"I think you are. And I don't mean anybody else to bring them up. If +you're my wife, Kitty, you're their mother." + +"And they're to be mine as well as yours?" + +"As much yours as you can make them, dear." + +"Oh, how you trust me. That's what makes me so afraid. And--do you +think they'll really love me?" + +"Trust _them_--for that." + +"You asked me if I could care for you, Robert; you never asked me if I +could care for them. You trusted me for that!" + +"I could have forgiven you if you couldn't care for _me_." + +"But you couldn't forgive me if I didn't care for them? Is that it?" + +"No; I simply couldn't understand any woman not caring for them. I think +you _will_ like the little things, when you've seen them." + +"I'll promise you one thing. I won't be jealous of them." + +"Jealous? Why on earth should you be?" + +"Some women are. I was afraid I might be that sort." + +"Why?" + +"Because--oh, because I care for you so awfully. But that's just it. +That's why I can't be jealous of them. They're yours, you see. I can't +separate them from you." + +"Well, well, let's wait until you've seen them." + +"Don't you believe me, Robert? Women _do_ love their children before +they've seen them. I don't need to see them. I _have_ seen them. I saw +them all last night." + +She looked away from him, brooding, as if she still saw them. + +"There's only one person I could be jealous of, and I'm not jealous of +her any more." + +"Poor little Jane." + +"It wasn't Jane. It was their mother. I mean it was your wife." + +He turned and looked at her. There was amazement in his kind, simple +face. + +"I suppose you think that's fiendish of me?" + +He did not reply. + +"But--Robert--I'm not jealous of her any more. I don't care if she was +your wife." + +"Kitty, my dear child----" + +"I don't care if she had ten children and _I_ never had one. It's got +nothing to do with it. She had you for--two years, wasn't it?" + +"Two years, Kitty." + +"Poor thing; and I shall have you all my life." + +"Yes. And so, if you don't mind, dear, I'd rather you didn't talk about +that again." + +"I'm sorry. I won't ever again." + +She sat silent for a moment in a sort of penitential shame. Then she +burst out-- + +"I'm not jealous. But, Robert, if you were to leave me for another woman +it would kill me. I daren't say that to any other man if I cared for +him. It would just make him go and do it. But I believe somehow you'd +think twice before you killed me." + +He only smiled at this, and spoke gently. + +"Yes, Kitty, you're right. I believe I _would_ think twice about it." + +He said to himself that this fierceness, her passionate perversity, all +that was most unintelligible in her, was just Kitty's way--the way of a +woman recklessly, adorably in love. It stirred in him the very depths of +tenderness. When she was married (they must marry very soon) she would +be happy; she would understand him; she would settle down. + +He looked at his watch. "I'm afraid I must be going." + +She glanced at the hands of the watch over his shoulder. "You needn't," +she said. "It isn't really time." + +"Well--five minutes." + +The five minutes went. "Time's up," he said. + +"Oh, no, Robert--not yet." + +"Kitty--don't you want to see them?" + +"I don't want you to go." + +"I'm coming back." + +"Yes, but it won't be the same thing. It never will be the same thing as +now." + +"Poor Kitty--I say, I _must_ go and meet them." + +"Very well." She stood up. "Kiss me," she said. + +She took his kiss as if it were the last that would be given her. + +They went together to the hotel. Jane had started five minutes ago for +the station. + +"It's all right," he said. "I'll catch her up." + +She followed to the gates and looked down the white road where Jane had +gone. + +"Let me come with you--just a little way--to the first lamp-post on the +station road." + +"Well, to the first lamp-post." + +At the lamp-post she let him go. + +She stood looking after him till he swung round the turn of the road, +out of her sight. Then she went back, slowly, sad-eyed, and with a great +terror in her heart. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +It was not the thing she had confessed to him, fear of his little unseen +children, it was terror, unconfessed, uncomprehended, as it were +foreknowledge of the very soul of destiny clothed for her in their +tender flesh and blood. + +Up till now she had been careless of her destiny. She had been so +joyous, so defiant in her sinning. By that charm of hers, younger than +youth, indestructibly childlike, she had carried it through with the +audacity of chartered innocence. She had propitiated, ignored, eluded +the more feminine amenities of fate. Of course, she had had her bad +moments. She had been sorry, sometimes, and she had been sick; but on +the whole her powers had been splendidly recuperative. She had shown +none of those naked tender spots that provoke destiny to strike. And +with it all she had preserved, perhaps too scrupulously, the rules laid +down for such as she. She had kept her own place. She had never +attempted to invade the sanctuaries set apart for other women. + +It was Robert who had tempted her to that transgression. He had opened +the door of the sanctuary for her and shut it behind her and put his +back against it. He had made her believe that if she stayed in there, +with him, it would be all right. She might have known what would happen. +It was for such a moment, of infatuation made perfect, that destiny was +waiting. + +Kitty had no very luminous idea of its intentions. But she bore in her +blood forebodings, older and obscurer than the flashes of the brain; and +her heart had swift immortal instincts, forerunners of the mortal hours. +The powers of pain, infallibly wise, implacably just, would choose their +moment well, striking at her through the hands of the children she had +never borne. + +If Robert found out what she was before he married her, he would have +to give her up because of them. She knew better than he did the hold she +had over him. She had tried to keep him in ignorance of her power, so +great was her terror of what it might do to him, and to her through him. +Yet, with all her sad science, she remained uncertain of his ultimate +behaviour. That was the charm and the danger of him. For fear of some +undiscovered, uncalculated quality in him she had held herself back; she +had been careful how she touched him, how she looked at him, lest her +hands or her eyes should betray her; lest in his heart he should call +her by her name, and fling her from him because of them. Whereas, but +for them, she judged that whatever she was he would not give her up. She +was not quite sure (you couldn't say _what_ a man like Robert would or +wouldn't do), but she felt that if she could have had him to herself, if +there had been only he and she, facing the world, then, for sheer +chivalry, he simply couldn't have left her. Even now, once he was +married to her it would be all right; he couldn't give her up or leave +her; the worst he could do would be to separate her from them. + +There was really no reason then why she should be frightened. He was +going to marry her very soon. She knew that, by her science, though he +had not said so. She would be all right. She would be very careful. It +wasn't as if she didn't want to be nice and to do all the proper things. + +And so Kitty cast off care. + +Only, as she waited in the room prepared for the children, she looked at +herself in the glass, once, to make sure that there was nothing in her +face that could betray her. No; Nature had spared her as yet and her +youth was good to her. Her face looked back at her, triumphantly +reticent, innocent of memory, holding her charm, a secret beyond the +secrets of corruption, as her perfect body held the mystery and the +prophecy of her power. Besides, her face was different now from what it +had been. Wilfrid had intimated to her that it was different. It was the +face that Robert loved; it had the look that told him that she loved +him, a look it never wore for any other man. Even now as she thought of +him it lightened and grew rosy. She saw it herself and wondered and took +hope. "That's how I look when I'm happy, is it? I'm always happy when +I'm with him, so," she reasoned, "he will always see me like that; and +it will be all right." + +Anyhow, there would be no unhappiness about his pretty lady when he came +back with them. + +She smiled softly as she went about the room, putting the touches of +perfection to the festival. There were roses everywhere; on the table, +on the mantelpiece; the room was sweet with the smell of them; there was +a rose on each child's plate. The tremulous movements of her hands +betrayed the immensity and the desperation of her passion to please. +The very waiter was touched by her, and smiled secretly in sympathy as +he saw her laying her pretty lures. When he had gone she arranged the +table all over again and did it better. Then she stood looking at it, +hovering round it, thinking. She would sit here, and the children there, +Janet between her and Robert, Barbara between her and Jane. + +"Poor little things," she said, "poor little things." She yearned to +them even in her fear of them, and when she thought of them sitting +there her lips moved in unspoken, pitiful endearments. + +The light from the south-west streamed into the little room and made it +golden. Everything in it shimmered and shone. The window, flung wide +open to the veranda, framed the green lawn and the shining, shimmering +sea. A wind, small and soft, stirred the thin curtains to and fro, +fanning the warm air. The sunlight and heat oppressed her. She shut her +eyes and put her hands over them to cool them with darkness. It was a +trick she had when she was troubled. + +She sat by the window and waited in the strange, throbbing darkness of +hot eyes closed in daylight, a darkness smitten by the sun and shot with +a fiery fume. + +They were coming now. She heard feet on the gravel outside, round the +corner; she heard Robert's voice and Janey's; and then little shuffling +footsteps at the door, and two voices shrill and sweet. + +Robert came in first and the children with him. They stood all three on +the threshold, looking at her. Robert was smiling, but the little girls +(they were very little) were grave. His eyes drew her and she came +toward them as she was used to come to the things of her desire, swift +and shy, with a trailing, troubling movement; the way that he had seen +her come, swayed by the rhythm of impulse. + +The children stood stock still as she stooped to them. Her fear of them +made her supremely gentle. Little Barbara put up her round rose face +with its soft mouth thrust forward in a premature kiss. Janet gave her a +tiny hand and gazed at her with brooding, irresponsive eyes. Her little +mouth never moved as Kitty's mouth touched it. + +But little Barbara held out her spade and bucket for Kitty to see. +"Look, look," said little Barbara, "Daddy gave them me to build castles +in the sand." Barbara spoke so fast that she panted, and laughed in a +divine superfluity of joy. + +Robert stood looking down from his tremendous height at Barbara, +tenderly as one who contemplates a thing at once heartrending and +absurd. Then his eyes turned to Kitty, smiling quietly as if they said, +"Didn't I tell you to wait until you'd seen them?" Kitty's heart +contracted with a sharp, abominable pang. + +Then Janey took the little girls to the room upstairs where their nurse +was. Barbara looked back at Kitty as she went, but Kitty's eyes +followed Janet. + +"Robert," she said, "will she always look at me like that? Shall I never +know what she is thinking?" + +"None of us know what Janet's thinking." + +He paused. + +"I told you we had to be very careful of her." + +"Is she delicate?" + +"No. Physically, she's far stronger than Barbara. She's what you call +morally delicate." + +She flushed. "What do you mean, Robert?" + +"Well--not able to bear things. For instance, we'd a small child staying +with us once. It turned out that she wasn't a nice child at all. We +didn't know it, though. But Janet had a perfect horror of her. It's as +if she had a sort of intuition. She was so unhappy about it that we had +to send the child away." + +His forehead was drawn into a frown of worry and perplexity. + +"I don't see how she's to grow up. It makes me feel so awfully +responsible. The world isn't an entirely pretty place, you know, and it +seems such a cruel shame to bring a child like that into it. Doesn't +it?" + +"Yes." + +"Somehow I think you'll understand her, Kitty." + +"Yes, Robert, I understand." + +She came to him. She laid her hand on the sleeve of his coat, and stood +by him. Her eyes were shining through some dew that was not tears. + +"What is it, Kitty?" + +"Will you marry me soon?" she said. "Very soon?" she whispered. "I--I +can't wait." She hid her face against his arm. + +He thought it was the motherhood in her that was moved, that pleaded, +impatient for its hour. + +"Why should we wait? Do you suppose I want to?" + +"Hush!" she said. "They're coming." + +They came a little solemnly, as beseemed a festival. Janet, in her long +white pinafore, looked more than ever the spiritual thing she was. Her +long brown hair hung down her cheeks, straight and smooth as a parted +veil, sharpening her small face, that flickered as a flame flickers in +troubled air. Beside her little Barbara bloomed and glowed, with cheeks +full-blown, and cropped head flowering into curls that stood on end in +brown tufts, and tawny feathers, and little crests of gold. They took +their places, pensively, at the table. + +They had beautiful manners, Robert's children; little exquisite, gentle +ways of approaching and of handling things. They held themselves very +erect, with a secure, diminutive distinction. Kitty's heart sank deeper +as she looked at them. Even Barbara, who was so very young, carried her +small perfections intact through all the spontaneities of her behaviour. + +All through tea-time little Barbara, pursued by her dream, talked +incessantly of castles in the sand. And when she was tired of talking +she began to sing. + +"Darling," said Jane, "we don't sing at tea-time." + +"_I_ do," said little Barbara, and laughed. + +Jane laughed too, hysterically. + +Then the spirit of little Barbara entered into Jane, and made her +ungovernably gay. It passed into Kitty, and ran riot in her blood and +nerves. Whenever Barbara laughed Kitty laughed, and when Kitty laughed +Robert laughed too. Even Janet gave a little shriek now and then. The +children thought it was all because they had had strawberries and cream +for tea, and were going down to the sea to build castles in the sand. + +All afternoon, till dinner-time, Kitty laboured on the sands, building +castles as if she had never done anything else in her life. The Hankins +watched her from their seat on the rocks in the angle of the Cliff. + +"We were mistaken. She must be all right. How pretty she is, too, poor +thing," said Mrs. Hankin to her husband. + +"How pretty she is, how absolutely lovable and good," said Robert to +himself as he watched her, while Barbara, a tired little labourer, lay +stretched in her lap. She was sitting on a rock under the Cliff, with +the great brow of it for a canopy. Her eyes were lowered, and hidden by +their deep lids. She was smiling at the child who leaned back in her +arms, crushing a soft cheek against her breast. + +He threw himself down beside her. He had just finished a prodigious +fortress, with earthworks and trenches extending to the sea. + +"Kitty, Kitty," he said, "you're only a child yourself, like Janey. +She's perfectly happy building castles in the sand--so are you. You're a +perfect baby." + +"We're all babies, Robert, building castles in the sand. And you're the +biggest baby of the lot." + +"I don't care. I've built the biggest castle." + +"Look at Janet," said Kitty. "She'll be grown up before any of us." + +The child sat on a rock with Jane. But, from the distance that she kept, +she looked at her father and Kitty from time to time. All afternoon +Janet had clung to Jane. But when bed-time came Robert took her aside +and whispered something to her. Going home she walked by Kitty, and put +her hand in hers. + +"Daddy said I'm to be very kind to you." + +"Did he? That's very kind of daddy." + +"Daddy's always kind to people. Especially when they've not been very +happy. Really and truly I'm going to be kind. But you won't mind if I +don't love you _very_ soon, will you?" + +"Of course I won't. Only don't leave it too late, darling." + +"Well, I don't know," said Janet thoughtfully; "we've lots of time." + +"Have we?" + +"Heaps and heaps. You see, I love Auntie Janey, and it might hurt her +feelings." + +"I see." + +"But I'm going to give you something," said Janet presently. + +"I don't want you to give me anything that belongs to Auntie Janey." + +"No," said Janet; "I shall give you something of my own." + +"Oh! And you can't tell me what it's going to be?" + +"I must think about it." The little girl became lost in thought. +"Barbara likes kissing people. I don't." + +"So I see. It won't be kisses, then?" + +"No; it won't be kisses. It will," she reiterated, "be something of my +own." + +She dropped Kitty's hand. + +"You won't mind if I go to Auntie Janey now?" + +Kitty told Janey about it afterward, as they sat alone in the lounge +before dinner. + +"You mustn't mind, Kitty dear," said Jane. "It only means that she's a +faithful little soul. She'll be just as faithful to you some day." + +"Some day." + +"Don't sigh like that, Kitty." + +"She's like Robert, isn't she?" + +"Very like Robert." + +She brooded. + +"Janey," she said, "let me have him to myself this evening." + +All evening she had him to herself, out on the Cliff, in the place where +nobody came but they. + +"Well," he said, "what do you think of them?" + +"I think they're adorable." + +"Funny little beggars, aren't they? How did you get on with Janet?" + +She told him. + +"That's Janet's little way. To give you something of her own." He smiled +in tender satisfaction, repeating the child's phrase. + +"It's all right, Kitty. She's only holding herself in. You're in for a +big thing." + +She surveyed it. + +"I know, Robert. I know." + +"You're tired? Have the children been too much for you?" + +She shook her head. + +"You're not to make yourself a slave to them, you know." + +She looked at him. + +"Was I all right, Robert?" + +"You were perfect." + +"You said I was only a child myself." + +"So you are. That's why I like you." + +She shook her head again. + +"It's all very well," she said, "but that isn't what you want, +dear--another child." + +"How do you know what I want?" + +"You want somebody much nicer than I am." + +He was silent, looking at her as he had looked at Barbara, enjoying her +absurdity, letting her play, like the child she was, with her +preposterous idea. + +"Oh, Robert, you do _really_ think I'm nice?" She came nearer to him, +crying out like a child in pain. He put his arm round her, and comforted +her as best he could. + +"You child, do you suppose I'd marry you if I didn't think you nice?" + +"You might. You mightn't care." + +"As it happens, I do care, very much. Anyhow, I wouldn't ask you to be a +mother to my children if I didn't think you nice. That's the test." + +"Yes, Robert," she repeated, "that's the test." + +They rose and went back to the hotel. From the lawn they could see the +open window of the children's room. They looked up. + +"Would you like to see them, Kitty?" + +"Yes." + +He took her up to them. They were asleep. Little Barbara lay curled up +in the big bed, right in the middle of it where her dreams had tossed +her. Janet, in the cot beside her, lay very straight and still. + +Robert signed to Kitty to come near, and they stood together and looked +first at the children and then into each other's faces. Kitty was very +quiet. + +"Do you like them?" he whispered. + +Her lips quivered, but she made no sign. + +He stooped over each bed, smoothing the long hair from Janet's forehead, +folding back the blanket that weighed on Barbara's little body. When he +turned, Kitty had gone. She had slipped into her own room. + +She waited till she heard Robert go away. The children were alone in +there. The nurse, she knew, was in Jane's room across the passage. Jane +was probably telling her that her master was to be married very soon. + +She looked out. The door of Jane's room was shut; so was the door of the +children's room through which Robert had gone out. The other, the door +of communication, she had left ajar. She went softly back through it and +stood again by the children's beds. Janet was still sound asleep. Her +fine limbs were still stretched straight and quiet under the blanket. +Her hair was as Robert's hand had left it. + +Kitty was afraid of disturbing Janet's sleep. She was afraid of Janet. + +She stooped over little Barbara, and turned back the bedclothes from the +bed. She laid herself down, half her length, upon it by Barbara's side, +and folded her in arms that scarcely touched her at first, so light they +lay on her. Then some perverse and passionate impulse seized her to wake +the child. She did it gently, tenderly, holding back her passion, +troubling the depths of sleep with fine, feather-like touches, with +kisses soft as sleep. + +The child stirred under the caressing arms. She lay in her divine +beauty, half asleep, half awake, opening her eyes, and shutting them on +the secret of her dream. Then Kitty's troubling hand turned her from her +flight down the ways of sleep. She lay on her back, her eyes glimmered +in the lifting of their lids; they opened under Kitty's eyes that +watched them, luminous, large and clear. Her mouth curled under Kitty's +mouth, in drowsy kisses plucked from the annihilated dream. She drew up +her rosy knees and held out her arms to Kitty's arms and smiled, half +awake and half asleep. + +Kitty rose, lifting the child with her from the bed. She held her close, +pressing the tender body close to her own body with quivering hands, +stroking the adorable little face with her own face, closing her eyes +under the touch of it as she closed them when Robert's face touched +hers. She was aware that she had brought some passionate, earthly +quality of her love for Robert into her love for Robert's child. + +She said to herself, "I'm terrible; there's something wrong with me. +This isn't the way to love a child." + +She laid the little thing down again, freed her neck from the drowsy, +detaining arms, and covered the small body up out of her sight. +Barbara, thus abandoned, cried, and the cry cut through her heart. + +She went into her own room, and threw herself on her bed and writhed +there, torn by many pangs. The pang of the heart and the pang of the +half-born spirit, struggling with the body that held it back from birth; +and through it all the pang of the motherhood she had thwarted and +disowned. Out of the very soil of corruption it pierced, sharp and pure, +infinitely painful. It was almost indiscernible from the fierce +exultation of her heart that had found fulfilment, and from the passion +of her body that yet waited for its own. + +She undressed herself, and crept into her bed and lay there, tortured, +visited by many memories. She gazed with terrified, pitiful eyes into a +darkness that was peopled for her with all the faces she had known in +the short seasons of her sinning; men, and the women who had been her +friends and her companions; and the strangers who had passed her by, or +who had lingered and looked on. The faces of Robert and his children +hung somewhere on the outskirts of her vision, but she could not fix +them or hold them; they were trampled out, obliterated by that +phantasmal procession of her shames. Some faces, more terrible than all, +detached themselves and crowded round her, the faces of those who had +pursued her, and of those whom her own light feet pursued; from the +first who had found her and left her, to the last whom she herself had +held captive and let go. They stood about her bed; they stretched out +their hands and touched her; their faces peered into hers; faces that +she had forgotten. She thrust them from her into the darkness and they +came again. Each bore the same likeness to his fellow; each had the same +looks, the same gestures that defied her to forget. She fell asleep; and +the dreams, the treacherous, perpetually remembering, delivered her into +their hands. + +She waked at dawn, with memory quickened by her dreams. She heard voices +now, all the voices that had accused her. Her mother's voice spoke +first, and it was very sad. It said, "I am sending you away, Kitty, +because of the children." Then her father's voice, very stern, "No, I +will not have you back. You must stay where you are for your little +sisters' sake." And her mother's voice again--afterward--sad and stern, +too, this time, "As you made your bed, Kitty, you must lie. We can't +take you back." + +And there was a third voice. It said very softly, "You can't have it +both ways." It cried out aloud in a fury, "I've always known it. You +can't hide it. You're full of it." And yet another voice, deep and hard, +"You can't _not_ tell him. It's a shame Kitty; it's an awful shame." + +She could not sleep again for listening to them. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +It was morning. She dragged herself up and tried to dress. But her hands +shook and her head ached violently. She stretched herself half-dressed +upon her bed and lay there helpless, surrendered to the bodily pain that +delivered her mercifully from the anguish of her mind. + +She saw no one, not even Jane Lucy. + +Outside, in the passage, and in the inner room she heard the footsteps +of the children and their little shrill voices; each sound accentuated +the stabbing pulse of pain. It was impossible to darken the room, and +the insufferable sunlight poured in unchecked through the thin yellow +blinds and plagued her brain, till the nerves of vision throbbed, beat +for beat, with the nerves of torment. At noon she had only one sensation +of brilliant surging pain. + +She dozed and her headache lifted. When she woke her body was weak as if +it had had a fever, but her mind closed on reality with the impact of a +force delayed. + +There was a thing not yet quite real to her, a thing that seemed to +belong to the region of bodily pain, to be born there as a bad dream +might be born; a thing that had been there last night among other +things, that, as she stared at it, became more prominent, more poignant +than they. And yet, though its air was so beckoning and so familiar, it +was not among the number of things accomplished and irrevocable. It was +simply the thing she had to do. + +It possessed her now; and under its dominion she was uplifted, carried +along. Her mind moved toward it with a reckless rocking speed, the +perilous certainty of the insane. + +At five o'clock she rang the bell and asked the servant to bring her +some tea. She swallowed a little with a jerk of her throat, and put the +cup down, shuddering. It brought her a sickening memory of yesterday. + +At five o'clock she got up and dressed herself and sent a message to +Robert Lucy to see her downstairs in her sitting-room, alone. As she +stood at her glass she said to herself, "How shocking I look. But he +won't mind." + +At six he was with her. + +She drew her hand away from his as if his touch had hurt her. Her smile +was the still, bloodless smile that comes with pain. She drew her chair +back out of the sunlight, in the recess by the fireplace. He stood +beside her then, looking at her with eyes that loved her the more for +the sad hurt to her beauty. His manner recalled the shy, adolescent +uncertainty of his first approaches. + +"Don't you think," he said, "you ought to have stayed in bed?" + +She shook her head and struggled to find her voice. It came +convulsively. + +"No. I'm better. I'm all right now." + +"It was being out in that beastly hot sun yesterday--with those +youngsters. You're not used to it." + +She laughed. "No. I'm not used to it. Robert--you haven't told them, +have you?" + +"What?" + +"About you--and me?" + +"No. Not yet." He smiled. "I say, I shall have to tell them very soon, +shan't I?" + +"You needn't." + +He made some inarticulate sound that questioned her. + +"I've changed my mind. I can't marry you." + +He had to bend his head to catch her low, indistinct murmur; but he +caught it. + +He drew back from her, and leaned against the chimneypiece and looked at +her more intently than before. + +"Do you mean," he said quietly, "because of _them_?" + +"Yes." + +He looked down. + +"Poor Kitty," he said. "You think I'm asking too much of you?" + +She did not answer. + +"You're afraid?" + +"I told you I was afraid." + +"Yes. But I thought it was all right. I thought you liked them." + +She was silent. Tears rose to her eyes and hung on their unsteady +lashes. + +"They like you." + +She bowed her head and the tears fell. + +"Is that what has upset you?" + +"Yes." + +"I see. You've been thinking it over and you find you can't stand it. I +don't wonder. You've let those little monkeys tire you out. You've +nearly got a sunstroke and you feel as if you'd rather die than go +through another day like yesterday? Well, you shan't. There'll never be +another day like yesterday." + +"No. Never," she said; and her sobs choked her. + +"Why should there be? They'll have a governess. You don't suppose I +meant you to have them on your hands all the time?" + +She went on crying softly. He sat on the arm of her chair and put his +arm round her and dried her eyes. + +"Don't be unhappy about it, Kitty. I understand. You're not marrying +them, dear; you're marrying me." + +She broke loose from him. + +"I can't marry you," she cried. "I can't give you what you want." + +"Do you mean that you can't care for me? Is that what you're trying to +tell me all the time?" + +He moved and she cowered back into her chair. + +"I--I _can't_ tell you." + +He had turned from her. He was leaning his arms along the mantelshelf; +he had bowed his head on them. + +They remained for some minutes so; she cowering back; he with his face +hidden from her. + +"Do you mind telling me," he said presently, "if there's anybody else +that you----" + +"That I care for? No, Robert, there's no one." + +"Are you quite sure? Quite honest. Think." + +"Do you mean Wilfrid Marston?" + +"Yes." + +"I certainly do not care for _him_." + +He raised his head at that; but he did not look at her. + +"Thank God!" he said. + +"Do you think as badly of him as all that?" + +"Don't ask me what I think of him." + +"Would you think badly of me if I'd married him?" + +"I--I couldn't have stood it, Kitty." + +"I am not going to marry him." + +"You haven't said yet that you don't care for me?" + +"No. I haven't." + +He turned and stooped over her, compelling her to look at him. + +"Say it then," he said. + +She drew back her face from his and put up her hands between them. He +rose and stood before her and looked down at her. The blue of her eyes +had narrowed, the pupils stared at him, black and feverish. Her mouth, +which had been tight-shut, was open slightly. A thin flush blurred its +edges. Her breath came through, short and sharp. + +"You're ill," he said. "You must go back to bed." + +"No," she said. "I've got to tell you something." + +"If you do I shan't believe it." + +"What won't you believe?" + +"That you don't care for me. I can't believe it." + +"You'd better, Robert." + +"I don't. There's something wrong. You must tell me what it is." + +"There's nothing wrong but that. I--I made a mistake." + +"You only thought you liked me? Or is it worse than that?" + +"It's worse, far worse." + +"I see. You tried to like me, and you couldn't?" + +She was silent. + +"Poor child. I've been a selfish brute. I might have known you couldn't. +You've hardly known me ten days. But if I wait, Kitty--if I give you +time to think?" + +"If you give me ten years it would do no good." + +"I see," he said; "I see." + +He gripped the edge of the mantelpiece with both his hands; his tense +arms trembled from the shoulders to the wrists; his hold relaxed. He +straightened himself and hid his shaking hands in his coat pockets. +There were tears at the edges of his eyelids, the small, difficult tears +that cut their way through the flesh that abhors them. + +She saw them. + +"Ah, Robert--do you care for me like that?" + +"You know how I care for you." + +He stopped as he swung away from her, remembering that he had failed in +courtesy. + +"Thank you," he said, simply, "for telling me the truth." + +He reached the door, and she rose and came after him. He shook his head +as a sign to her not to follow him. She saw that he was going from her +because he was tortured and dumb with suffering and with shame. + +Then she knew what she must do. She called to him, she entreated. + +"Robert--don't go. Come back--come back. I can't bear it." + +He came back at that cry. + +"I haven't told you the truth. I lied." + +"When?" he said sternly. + +"Just now. When I told you that I didn't care for you." + +"Well?" + +"Sit down--here, on the sofa. I'll try and tell you." + +He sat down beside her, but not near. She leaned forward with her +elbows on her knees, and her head propped on her clenched hands. She did +not look at him as she spoke. + +"I said I didn't care, because I thought that was the easiest way out of +it. Easiest for you. So much easier than knowing the truth." + +He smiled grimly. + +"Well, you see how easy it's been." + +"Yes." She paused. "The truth isn't going to be easy either." + +"Let's have it, all the same, Kitty." + +"You're going to have it." She paused again, breathing hard. "Have you +never wondered why the people here avoided me? You know they thought +things." + +"As if it mattered what they thought." + +"They were right. There _was_ something." + +She heard him draw a deep breath. He, too, leaned forward now, in the +same attitude as she, as if he were the participator of her confession, +and the accomplice of her shame. His face was level with hers, but his +eyes looked straight past her, untainted and clear. + +"What if there was?" he said. "It makes no difference." + +She turned her sad face to his. + +"Don't you know, Robert? Don't you know?" + +He frowned impatiently. + +"No, I don't. I don't want to." + +"You'd rather think I didn't care for you?" + +His face set again in its tortured, dumb look. + +"You shan't think that of me." + +She leaned back again out of his sight, and he presented to her his +shoulder, thrust forward, and his profile, immovable, dogged, and +apparently unheeding. + +"It's because I cared for you that I couldn't tell you the truth. I +tried and couldn't. It was so difficult, and you _wouldn't_ understand. +Then Wilfrid Marston said I must--I had to tell you." + +He threw himself back and turned on her. + +"What had Marston to do with it?" + +Her voice and her eyes dropped. + +"You see, he knew." + +"I see." + +He waited. + +"I couldn't tell you." + +His silence conveyed to her that he listened since she desired it, that +he left it to her to tell him as much or as little as she would, and +that thus he trusted her. + +"I was afraid," she said. + +"What? Afraid of _me_, Kitty?" + +"I thought it would make you not care for me." + +"I don't think anything you can tell me will make any difference." + +"You said yourself it would. You said you wouldn't marry me if I wasn't +nice." + +He looked up impatient and surprised. + +"But we've been through all that," he said. + +"No, we haven't. When I said I wasn't nice I meant there were things +I----" + +"Well?" + +"I--I wasn't married to Charley Tailleur." + +He took it in silence; and through the silence she let it sink in. + +"Where is the fellow?" he asked presently. + +"He's dead. I told you _that_." + +"I'd forgotten." + +There was another silence. + +"Did you care for him very much, Kitty?" + +"I don't know. Yes. No, I don't know. It wasn't the same thing." + +"Never mind. It's very good of you to tell me." + +"I didn't mean to." + +"What made you tell me?" + +"Seeing the children. I thought I could go on deceiving you; but when I +saw them I knew I couldn't." + +"I see." His voice softened. "You told me because of them. I'm glad you +told me." He paused on that. + +"Well," he said, "we must make the best of it." + +"That makes no difference?" + +"No. Not now." + +She sighed. + +"How long ago was it?" he asked. + +"Five years. Charley Tailleur was the first." + +"What?" + +"The first. There were others; ever so many others. I'm--that sort." + +"I don't believe you." + +"You've got to believe me. You can't marry me, and you've got to see +why." + +She also paused. Her silences were terrible to him. + +"I thought you did see once. It didn't seem possible that you couldn't. +Do you remember the first time I met you?" + +He remembered. + +"I thought you saw then. And afterward--don't you remember how you +followed me out of the room--another night?" + +"Yes." + +"I thought you understood, and were too shy to say so. But you didn't. +_Then_--do you remember how I waited for you at the end of the +garden?--and how we sat out on the Cliff? I was trying then--the way I +always try. I thought I'd make you--and you--you wouldn't see it. You +only wanted to help me. You were so innocent and dear. That's what made +me love you." + +"Oh," he groaned. "Don't." + +But she went on. "And do you remember how you found me--that night--out +on the Cliff?" + +She drew back her voice softly. + +"I was sure then that you knew, and that when you asked me to come back +with you----" + +"Look here, Kitty, I've had enough of it." + +"You haven't, for you're fond of me still. You are, aren't you?" + +"Oh, my God! how do I know?" + +"_I_ know. It's because you haven't taken it in. What do you think of +this? You've known me ten days, and ten days before that I was with +Wilfrid Marston." + +[Illustration: "'I want to make you loathe me ... never see me again.'"] + +He had taken it in at last. She had made it real to him, clothed it in +flesh and blood. + +"If you don't believe me," she said, "ask him. That's what he came to +see me for. He wanted me to go back to him. In fact, I wasn't supposed +to have left him." + +He put his hand to his forehead as if he were trying to steady his mind +to face the thing that stunned it. + +"And you're telling me all this because----" he said dully. + +"Because I want to make you loathe me, so that you can go away and be +glad that you'll never see me again. And if it hurts you too much to +think of me as I am, to think that you cared for me, just say to +yourself that I cared for _you_, and that I couldn't have done it if I'd +been quite bad." + +She cried out, "It would have been better for me if I had been. I +shouldn't _feel_ then. It wouldn't hurt me to see little children. I +should have got over that long ago; and I shouldn't have cared for you +or them. I shouldn't have been able to. We get like that. And then--I +needn't have let you care for me. That was the worst thing I ever did. +But I was so happy--so happy." + +He could not look at her; he covered his face with his hands, and she +knew that he cared still. + +Then she came and knelt down beside him and whispered. He got up and +broke away from her and she followed him. + +"You can't marry me _now_," she said. + +And he answered, "No." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +He did not leave her. They sat still, separated by the length of the +little room, staring, not at each other, but at some point in the +distance, as if each brain had flung and fixed there the same +unspeakable symbol of its horror. + +Her face was sharp with pain, was strangely purified, spiritualised by +the immortal moment that uplifted her. His face, grown old in a moment, +had lost its look of glad and incorruptible innocence. + +Not that he was yet in full possession of reality. His mind was sunk in +the stupor that follows after torture. It kept its hold by one sense +only, the vague discerning of profound responsibility, and of something +profounder still, some tie binding him to Kitty, immaterial, +indestructible, born of their communion in pain. + +It kept him by its intangible compulsion, sitting there in the same +small room, divided from her, but still there, still wearing that +strange air of participation, of complicity. + +And all the time he kept saying to himself, "What next?" + +There was a knock at the door. + +"It's Jane," he said. "I'll tell her not to come in." His voice sounded +hoarse and unlike his own. + +"Oh, mayn't I see her?" + +He looked up with his clouded eyes. "Do you want to?" + +"Yes." + +He considered. He hesitated. + +"Do you mind?" + +"Mind?" he repeated. As if, after what they had gone through, there +could ever be anything to mind. It seemed to him that things would +always henceforth be insubstantial, and events utterly unimportant. He +tried with an immense effort to grasp this event of Jane's appearance +and of Kitty's attitude to Jane. + +"I thought," he said, "perhaps she would bother you." + +The knock came again. + +"Robert," she said, "I don't want her to know--what I told you." + +"Of course not," he said. "Come in." + +Jane came in and closed the door behind her. She had a letter folded +tightly in her hand. She stood there a moment, looking from one to the +other. It was Kitty who spoke. + +"Come in, Janey," she said. "I want you." + +Jane came forward and stood between them. She looked at Robert who +hardened his face, and at Kitty who was trembling. + +"Has anything happened?" she said. + +And Kitty answered, "No. Nothing will happen now. I've just told him +that it can't." + +"You've given him up?" + +"Yes. I've--given--him up." + +She drew in her breath on the "Yes," so that it sounded like a sob. The +other words came slowly from her, one by one, as if she repeated them by +rote, without knowing what they meant. + +Jane turned to her brother. "And you've let her do it?" + +He was silent, still saying to himself, "What next?" + +"Of course he's let me. He knows it was the only thing I could do." + +"Kitty--what made you do it?" + +Kitty closed her eyes. Robert saw her and gave a low inarticulate sound +of misery. Jane heard it and understood. + +"Kitty," she said, "have you made him believe you don't care for him?" + +She sat down on the couch beside her and covered her hands with her own. + +"It isn't true, Robert," she said. "She doesn't know what she's doing. +Kitty, tell him it isn't true." + +The trembling hands broke loose from her. Kitty sobbed once and was +still. At the sound Robert turned on Jane. + +"Leave her alone," he said, "she doesn't want to be bothered about it +now." + +Kitty's hand moved back along the couch to Jane. "No," she said, "don't +make her leave me. I'm going away soon." + +He started to that answer to his question, "What next?" + +"Tell me what made you do it?" said Jane again. + +"Whatever it was," he said, "she's doing perfectly right." + +"I know what she's doing. And I know why she's doing it. Can't you see +why?" + +Robert, who had stood still looking at her helplessly, turned away at +the direct appeal and walked up and down, up and down, the room. He was +still saying to himself, "And if she goes, what next?" + +"She doesn't mean it, Robert. It's these wretched people who have driven +her to it with the abominable things they've said and thought. You +_can't_ let her give you up. Don't you see that it'll look as if you +didn't believe in her? And he does believe in you, Kitty dear. He +doesn't care what anybody says." + +Kitty spoke. "Leave it alone, Janey. You don't know what you're talking +about. You don't even know what it is they say." + +"I do," said Jane. She rose and went to her brother and thrust the +letter she held into his hand. "Look there, that came just now." + +He glanced at the letter, lit a match and set fire to it and dropped the +ashes into the grate. + +"Look at him, Kitty, look at him," she cried triumphantly. + +"What was in that letter?" + +"Nothing that matters." + +"Who wrote it?" + +"Nobody who matters in the very least." + +"Was it Mr. Marston? Tell me." + +"No." + +"He wouldn't," said Kitty thoughtfully. "It's women who write letters. +It must have been Grace Keating. She hates me." + +"I know she hates you. Do you see now why Kitty's giving you up?" + +"She has told me herself, Janey. She may have more reasons than you +know." + +"She has none, none that I don't know. They're all there in that letter +which you've burnt. Can't you see why it was written?" + +"Does it matter why?" + +"Yes, it does matter. It was written to make you give Kitty up. There's +no reason why I should spare the woman who wrote it. She hates +Kitty--because she wanted you for herself. Kitty knows that she's +slandered her. She did it before she went, to her face, and Kitty +forgave her. And now the poor child thinks that she'll let you go, and +just creep away quietly and hide herself--from _that_. And you'll let +her do it? You believe her when she says she doesn't care for you? If +that isn't caring--Why it's _because_ she cares for you, and cares for +your honour more than she does for her own, poor darling----" + +"I know, Janey. And she knows I know." + +"Then where's your precious honour if you don't stand up for her? She's +got nobody but you, and if you don't defend her from that sort of +thing----" + +She stood before him, flaming, and Kitty rose and put herself between +them. + +"He can't defend me, Janey. It's the truth." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +She had left them to each other. It was eight o'clock. She had crept +back again to the bed that was her refuge, where she had lain for the +last hour, weeping to exhaustion. She had raised herself at the touch of +a hand on her hot forehead. Jane was standing beside her. + +"Kitty," she said, "will you see Robert for a moment? He's waiting for +you downstairs, in your room." + +Kitty dropped back again on her pillow with her arm over her face, +warding off Jane's gaze. + +"No," she said, "I can't see him. I can't go through that again." + +"But, Kitty, there's something he wants to say to you." + +"There's nothing he can say. Nothing--nothing. Tell him I'm going away." + +"You mustn't go without seeing him." + +"I must. It's the only way." + +"For you--yes. How about him?" + +Kitty sighed. She stirred irresolutely on her pillow. + +"No, no," she said. "I've done it once. I can't do it all over again." + +"I suppose," said Jane, "it _is_ easier--not to see him." + +At that Kitty clenched her hands. + +"Easier?" she cried. "I'd give my soul to see him for one minute--one +minute, Janey." + +She turned, stifling her sobs on her pillow. They ceased, and the +passion that was in her had its way then. She lay on her face, +convulsed, biting into the pillow; gripping the sheets, tearing at them +and wringing them in her hands. Her whole body writhed, shaken and +tormented. + +"Oh, go away!" she cried. "Go away. Don't look at me!" + +But Jane did not go. She stood there by the bedside. + +She had come to the end of her adventure. It was as if she had been +brought there blindfold, carried past the border into the terrible, +alien, unpenetrated lands. Her genius for exploration had never taken +her within reasonable distance of them. She had turned back when the +frontier was in sight, refusing all knowledge of the things that lay +beyond. And here she was, in the very thick of it, at the heart of the +unexplored, with her poor terrified eyes uncovered, her face held close +to the thing she feared. And yet she had passed through the initiation +without terror; she had held her hand in the strange fire and it had not +hurt her. She felt only a great penetrating, comprehending, +incorruptible pity for her sister who writhed there, consumed and +tortured in the flame. + +She knelt by the bedside and stretched out her arm and covered her, and +Kitty lay still. + +"You haven't gone?" she said. + +"No, Kitty." + +Kitty moved; she sat up and put her hands to her loosened hair. + +"I'll see him now," she said. + +Kitty slid her feet to the floor. She stood up, steadying herself by the +bedside. + +Jane looked at her, and her heart was wrung with compassion. + +"No," she said, "wait till you're better. I'll tell him." + +But Kitty was before her at the door, leaning against it. + +"I shall never be better," she said. Her smile was ghastly. She turned +to Jane on the open threshold. "He hasn't got the children with him, has +he? I don't want to see them." + +"You won't see them." + +"Can't he come to me?" + +She peered down the passage and drew back, and Jane knew that she was +afraid of being seen. + +"There's nobody about," she said, "they're all in the dining-room." + +Still Kitty hesitated. + +"Will you come with me?" she said. + +Then Jane took her hand and led her to the room where Robert was, and +left her with him. + +He stood by the hearth, waiting for her. His head was bowed, but his +eyes, as she entered, lifted and fixed themselves on her. There had gone +from him that air of radiant and unconquerable youth, of innocence, +expectant and alert. Instead of it he too wore the mark of experience, +of initiation that had meant torture. + +"I hope," he said, "you are rested." + +"Oh yes." + +She stood there, weak and drooping, leaning her weight on one slender +hand, spread palm downward on the table. + +He drew out a chair for her, and removed his own to the other side of +the table, keeping that barrier between them. In his whole manner there +was a terrible constraint. + +"You've eaten nothing," he said. + +Neither had he, she gathered, nor Jane. The trouble she had brought on +them was jarring, dislocating, like the shock of bereavement. They had +behaved as if in the presence of the beloved dead. + +And yet, though he held himself apart, she knew that he had not sent for +her to cast her off; that he was yet bound to her by the mysterious, +infrangible tie; that he seemed to himself, in some way, her partner and +accomplice. + +Their silence was a link that bound them, and she broke it. + +"Well," she said, "you have something to say to me?" + +"Yes"--his hands, spread out on the table between them, trembled--"I +have, only it seems so little----" + +"Does it? Well, of course, there isn't much to be said." + +"Not much. There aren't any words. Only, I don't want you to think that +I don't realise what you've done. It was magnificent." + +He answered her look of stupefied inquiry. + +"Your courage, Kitty, in telling me the truth." + +"Oh, _that_. Don't let's talk about it." + +"I am not going to talk about it. But I want you to understand that what +you told me has made no difference in my--in my feeling for you." + +"It must." + +"It hasn't. And it never will. And I want to know what we're going to do +next." + +"Next?" she repeated. + +"Yes, next. _Now._" + +"I'm going away. There's nothing else left for me to do." + +"And I, Kitty? Do you think I'm going to let you go, without----" + +She stopped him. + +"You can't help yourself." + +"What? You think I'm brute enough to take everything you've given me, +and to--to let you go like this?" + +His hands moved as if they would have taken hers and held them. Then he +drew back. + +"There's one thing I can't do for you, Kitty. I can't marry you, because +it wouldn't be fair to my children." + +"I know, Robert, I know." + +"I know you know. I told you nothing would ever make any difference. If +it weren't for them I'd ask you to marry me to-morrow. I'm only giving +you up as you're giving me up, because of them. But if I can't marry +you, I want you to let me make things a little less hard for you." + +"How?" + +"Well, for one thing, I don't believe you've anything to live on." + +"What makes you think that?" + +"Marston told me that if you married you forfeited your income. I +suppose that meant that you had nothing of your own." + +"It did." + +"You've nothing?" + +"My father would give me fifty pounds a year if I kept straight. But he +can't afford it. It means that my little sisters go without dresses." + +"And you've no home, Kitty?" + +She shook her head. + +"They can't have me at home, you see." + +He sighed. + +"If I looked after you, Kitty, do you think you would keep straight? If +I made a home for you, somewhere, where you won't be too unhappy?" + +"You mean you'd take care of me?" + +"Yes. As far as I can." + +Her face flushed deeply. + +"No," she said. "No. I mustn't let you do that." + +"Why not? It's nothing, Kitty. It's the least that I can do. And you'd +be very lonely." + +"I would. I would be miserable--in between." + +"Between?" + +"When you weren't there." + +"Kitty, dear child, I can't be there." + +She shrank back, the flush died out of her face and left it white. + +"I see. You didn't mean that I was to live with you?" + +"Poor child--no." + +"I--I didn't understand." + +"No," he said gently, "no." + +"You see how hopeless I am?" + +"I see what my responsibility would be if I left you to yourself." + +"And--_what_ do you want to do?" + +"I want to provide for you and your future." + +"Dear Robert, you can't possibly provide--for either." + +"I can. I've got a little house in the country, if you'll take it, and I +can spare enough out of my income." + +She smiled. + +"You can't afford it." + +"If I could afford to marry, I could afford that." + +"I see. It's a beautiful scheme, Robert. And in the little house where +I'm to live, you will come sometimes, and see me?" + +"I think it would be better not." + +"And what am I to do, if--if things are too hard for me? And if you are +the only one----?" + +"_Then_ you're to send for me." + +"I see. I've only to send for you and you'll come?" + +"Of course I'll come." + +"When I can't bear it any longer, am I to send for you?" + +"You're to send for me when you're in any trouble, or any difficulty--or +any danger." + +"And the way out of the trouble--and the difficulty--and the danger?" + +"Between us we shall find the way." + +"No, Robert. Between us we shall lose it. And we shall never, never find +it again." + +"You can't trust me, Kitty?" + +"I can't trust myself. I know how your scheme would work. I let you do +this thing; I go away and live in the dear little house you'll give me; +and I let you keep me there, and give me all my clothes and things. And +you think that's the way to stop me thinking about you and caring for +you? I shall be there, eating my heart out. What else can I do, when +everything I put on or have about me reminds me of you, every minute of +the day? I'm to look to you for everything, but never to see you until I +can bear it no longer. How long do you think I shall bear it? A woman +made like me? You know perfectly well what the trouble and the +difficulty and the danger is. I shall be in it all the time. And some +day I shall send for you and you'll come. Oh yes, you'll come; for +you'll be in it, too. It won't be a bit easier for you than it is for +me." + +She paused. + +"You'll come. And you know what the end of that will be." + +"You think no other end is possible between a man and a woman?" + +"If I do, it's men who have made me think it." + +"Have _I_, Kitty?" + +"No, not you. I don't say your plan wouldn't work with some other woman. +I say it's impossible between you--and me." + +"Because you won't believe that I might behave differently from some +other men?" + +"You _are_ different. And I mean to keep you so." + +She rose. + +"There's only one way," she said. "We must never see each other again. +We mustn't even _think_. I shall go away, and you're not to come after +me." + +"When?" + +"To-morrow. Perhaps to-night." + +"And where, Kitty?" + +"I don't know." + +"You shan't go," he said. "I'll go. You must stay here until we can +think of something." + +She closed her eyes and drew a hard sigh, as if exhausted with the +discussion. + +"Robert, dear, would you mind not talking any more to me? I'm very +tired." + +"If I leave you will you go to bed and rest?" + +"I think so. You can say good night." + +He rose and came toward her. + +"No--don't say it!" she cried. "Don't speak to me!" + +She drew back and put her hands behind her as a sign that he was not to +touch her. + +He stood for a moment looking at her. And as he looked at her he was +afraid, even as she was. He said to himself that in that moment she was +wise and had done well. For his heart hardly knew its pity from its +passion, and its passion from its fear. + +And she, seeing that she stood between him and the door, turned aside +and made his way clear for him. + +And so he left her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +She stared at her own face in the glass without seeing it. Her brain was +filled with the loud, hurried ticking of the clock. It sounded somehow +as if it were out of gear. She felt herself swaying slightly as she +stood. + +She was not going to faint bodily. It seemed to her rather that the +immaterial bonds, the unseen, subtle, intimate connections were letting +go their hold. Her soul was the heart of the danger. It was there that +the travelling powers of dissolution, accelerated, multiplying, had +begun their work and would end it. Its moments were not measured by the +ticking of the clock. + +She had remained standing as Lucy had left her, with her back to the +door he had gone out by. She was thus unaware that a servant of the +hotel had come in, that he had delivered some message and was waiting +for her answer. + +She started as the man spoke to her again. With a great effort her brain +grasped and repeated what he had said. + +"Mr. Marston." + +No; she was certainly not going to faint. There was no receding of +sensation. It was resurgence and invasion, violence shaking the very +doors of life. She heard the light, tremulous tread of the little pulses +of her body, scattered by the ringing hammer strokes of her heart and +brain. She heard the clock ticking out of gear, like the small, +irritable pulse of time. + +She steadied her voice to answer. + +"Very well. Show him in." + +Marston's face, as he approached her, was harder and stiffer than ever; +his bearing more uncompromisingly upright and correct. He greeted her +with that peculiar deference that he showed to women whose acquaintance +he had yet to make. Decency required that he should start on a fresh +and completely purified footing with the future Mrs. Robert Lucy. + +"It's charming of you," he said, "to let me come in." + +"I wanted to see you, Wilfrid." + +Something in her tone made him glance at her with a look that restored +her, for a moment, to her former place. + +"That is still more charming," he replied. + +"I've done what you told me. I've given him up." + +A heavy flush spread over his face and relaxed the hard tension of the +muscles. + +"I thought you'd do it." + +"Well, I have done it." She paused. + +"That's all I had to say to you." + +Her voice struck at him like a blow. But he bore it well, smiling his +hard, reticent smile. + +"I knew you'd do it," he repeated; "but I didn't think you'd do it quite +so soon. Why did you?" + +"You know why." + +"I didn't mean to put pressure on you, Kitty. It was _your_ problem. +Still, I'm glad you've seen it in the right light." + +"You think you made me see it?" + +"I should hope you'd see it for yourself. It was obvious." + +"What was obvious?" + +"The unsuitability of the entire arrangement. Was it likely you'd stick +to it when you saw what you were in for?" + +"You think I tired of him?" + +"I think you saw possibilities of fatigue; and, like a wise child, you +chucked it. It's as well you did it before instead of after. I say, how +did Lucy take it?" + +She did not answer. His smile flickered and died under the oppression of +her silence. + +"Have you done with him altogether? He didn't suggest--er--any +compromise?" + +"He did not." + +"He wouldn't. Compromise is foreign to his nature." + +He sat leaning forward, contemplating, with apparent satisfaction, his +own strong-grained, immaculate hands. From time to time he tapped the +floor with a nervous movement of his foot. + +"Then," he said presently, "if that's so, there's no reason, is there, +why you shouldn't come back to me?" + +"I can't come back to you. I told you so yesterday." + +"Since yesterday the situation has altered considerably; or rather, it +remains precisely where it was before." + +"No, Wilfrid; things can never be as they were before." + +"Why not?--if I choose to ignore this episode, this little aberration on +your part. You must be equally anxious to forget it. In which case we +may consider our relations uninterrupted." + +"Do you think I gave Robert Lucy up to go back to you?" + +"My dear Kitty, if I'm willing to take you back after you gave _me_ up +for him, I think my attitude almost constitutes a claim." + +"A claim?" + +"Well, let's say it entitles me to a hearing. You don't seem to realise, +in the least, my extreme forbearance. I never reproached you. I never +interfered between you and Lucy. You can't say I didn't play the game." + +"I'm not saying it. I know you didn't betray me." + +"Betray you? My dear child, I helped you. I never dreamed of standing in +your way as long as there was a chance of your marrying. Now that there +is none----" + +"That has nothing to do with it. I told you that I wouldn't go back to +you in any case." + +"Come, I don't propose to throw you over for any other woman. Surely it +would be more decent to come back to me than to go off with some other +man, heaven knows whom, which is what you must do--eventually?" + +"It's what I won't do. I'm not going back to _that_. Don't you see +that's why I won't go back to you?" + +Her apathy had become exhaustion. The flat, powerless voice, dying of +its own utterance, gave him a sense of things past and done with, sunk +into the ultimate oblivion. No voice of her energy and defiance could +have touched him so. Her indifference troubled him like passion; in its +completeness, its finality, it stirred him to decision, to acceptance of +its terms. She was ready to fall from his grasp by her own dead weight. +There was only one way in which he could hold her. + +"Kitty," he said, "is that really why you won't come back?" + +"Yes; that's why. Anything--anything but that." + +"I see. You're tired of it? And you want to give it up? Well, I'm not +sure that I don't want you to." + +"Then why," she moaned, "why won't you let me go?" + +"Simply because I can't. I've tried it, Kitty. I can't." + +He came and sat close to her. He leaned his face to hers and spoke +thickly and low. + +"You can't give it up, dear. You're bound to go back." + +"No--no--no. Don't talk about it." + +"I won't. I won't ask you to go back; but I can't do without you." + +"Oh yes, you can. There are other women." + +"I loathe them all. I wouldn't do for one of them what I'll do for you." + +"What will you do for me?" + +"I'll marry you, Kitty." + +She laughed in her tired fashion. "You want to make an honest woman of +me, do you?" + +"No. I think I'm endeavouring to make myself an honest man. If you give +Lucy up for me I don't want you to lose by the transaction. You were to +have been married; but for me perhaps, you would have been. Very well, +I'll marry you." + +"And that," said she, "will make it all right?" + +"Well, won't it?" + +"No, it won't. How could it?" + +"You know how. It will help you to keep straight. That's what you want, +isn't it?" + +"Oh yes, that's what I _want_. And you think I'll keep straight by +marrying you?" + +"I won't swear to it. But I know it's ten to one that you'll go to the +devil if you don't marry me. And you say you don't want to do that." + +"I don't want--to marry you." + +He shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps not; but even marrying me might be +better than the other alternative." + +"It wouldn't," she cried. "It would be worse. If I married you I +couldn't get away from you. I couldn't get away from _it_. You'd keep me +in it. It's what you like me for--what you're marrying me for. You +haven't married, all these years, because you can't stand living with a +decent woman. And you think, if I marry you, it will make it all right. +All right!" + +She rose and defied him. "Why, I'd rather be your mistress. Then I could +get away from you. I shall get away now." + +She turned violently, and he leaped up and caught her in his arms. She +struggled, beating upon his breast, and crying with a sad, inarticulate +cry. She would have sunk to the floor if he had not kept his hold of +her. + +He raised her, and she stood still, breathing hard, while he still +grasped her tightly by the wrists. + +"Let me go," she said faintly. + +"Where are you going to?" + +"I don't know." + +"You've no money. If you're not going back what are you going to do?" + +"I don't know." + +Her eyelids dropped, and he saw mendacity in her eyes' furtive fleeing +under cover. He held her tighter. His arm shook her, not brutally, but +with a nervous movement that he was powerless to control. + +"You lie," he said. "You've been lying to me all the time. You _are_ +going back. You're going to that fellow Lucy." + +"No. I'm going--somewhere--where I shan't see him." + +"Where?" + +"I don't know." + +"Abroad?" + +"I think so." + +"By yourself?" + +Her eyelids quivered, and she panted. "Yes." + +There was a knock at the door. + +"Let me go," she said again. + +He let her go. + +"You're going to live--by yourself--respectably--abroad?" + +She was silent. + +"And how long do you think that will last?" + +"I don't know." + +Jane Lucy's voice called her from the door. He swore under his breath. + +"Let her come in. I want her." + +He laid his hand upon the door. + +"What are you going to do?" he reiterated. + +"Oh, let her come to me." + +"You haven't answered my question." + +"Let me see her first. Leave me alone with her. Janey! Janey!" she +called. + +"Very well," he said. + +He opened the door and bowed to Jane Lucy as she entered. + +"I shall come back," he said, "for my answer." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +"Did Robert send you?" she asked, when she was alone with Jane. + +"Yes." + +"It's no good. I can't do what he wants." + +"What are you going to do, dear?" + +"I don't know. I don't care. The terrible thing is that I've had to hurt +him. I must go away somewhere." + +"I'll come with you and see you through." + +Kitty shook her head. + +"Don't think about it now," said Jane. + +"No; I can't think. I'm too tired, and my head's hot. But if I go away +you'll understand why I did it?" + +"Kitty"--Jane whispered it--"you won't go back?" + +"No. I won't go back. You won't have to think that of me." + +She had not looked at Jane as they talked. Now she turned to her with +eyes of anguish and appeal. + +"Janey--think. I've been wicked for years and years. I've only been good +for one moment. One moment--when I gave Robert up. Do you think it'll +count?" + +"I think that, in the sight of God, such moments last forever." + +"And that's what you'll think of me by?" + +She lifted up her face, haggard and white, flame-spotted where her tears +had scorched it. Jane kissed it. + +"Do you mind kissing me?" + +"My dear, my dear," said Jane, and she drew her closer. + +There was a sound of footsteps in the passage. Kitty drew back and +listened. + +"Where's Robert?" + +"Upstairs with the children." + +"They'll be asleep by this time, won't they?" + +"Fast asleep." + +The footsteps came again, approaching the door. They paused outside it a +moment and turned back. + +"Do you hear that?" said Kitty. "It's Wilfrid Marston walking up and +down. He wants to get hold of me. I think he's mad about me. He asked me +to marry him just now, and I wouldn't. He thinks I didn't mean it, and +he's coming back for his answer. But I'll tell you what I'm going to do. +I shall go out quietly by the window and slip away, and he won't find +me. I want you to be here when he comes, and tell him that he can't see +me. Would you mind doing that?" + +"No." + +"You'll stay here all the time, and you won't let him go out and look +for me?" + +"Yes." + +Kitty listened again for the footsteps. + +"He's still there," she whispered. + +"And you'll go to bed, Kitty?" + +"Yes; of course I will." + +She went out through the window on to the veranda, and so on into the +garden. + +It was cool out there and unutterably peaceful, with a tender, lucid +twilight on the bare grass of the lawn; on the sea beyond it, and on the +white gravel path by the low wall between. She saw it, the world that +had held her and Robert, that, holding them, had taken on the ten days' +splendour of their passion. It stood, divinely still in the perishing +violet light, a world withdrawn and unsubstantial, yet piercingly, +intolerably near. + +Indoors Jane waited. It was not yet the half-hour. She waited till the +clock struck and Marston came for his answer. + +He looked round the room, and his face, under its deference, betrayed +his sharp annoyance at finding himself alone with Miss Lucy. + +"Pardon me," he said, "I thought that Mrs. Tailleur was here." + +"Mrs. Tailleur asked me to tell you that she cannot see you. She has +gone to her room." + +"To her room?" + +He stared at her, and his face loosened in a sudden incredulity and +dismay. + +"Did she tell you she was going there?" + +"Yes. She was very tired." + +"But--she was here not half an hour ago. She couldn't have gone without +my seeing her." + +"She went out," said Jane faintly, "by the window." + +"She couldn't get to her room without going through the hall. I've been +there all the time on the seat by the stairs." + +They looked at each other. The seat by the stairs commanded all ways in +and out, the entrance of the passage, and the door of the sitting-room, +and the portiere of the lounge. + +"What do you think?" he said. + +"I think that she has not gone far. But if she goes, it is you who will +have driven her away." + +"Forgive me if I remind you that it is not I who have given her up." + +"It was you," said Jane quietly, "who helped to ruin her." + +His raised eyebrows expressed an urbane surprise at the curious +frankness of her charge. And with a delicate gesture of his hand he +repudiated it and waved it away. + +"My dear lady, you are alarmed and you are angry, consequently you are +unjust. Whatever poor Kitty may have done I am not responsible." + +"You are responsible. It's you, and men like you, who have dragged her +down. You took advantage of her weakness, of her very helplessness. +You've made her so that she can't believe in a man's goodness and trust +herself to it." + +He smiled, still with that untroubled urbanity, on the small flaming +thing as she arraigned him. + +"And you consider me responsible for that?" he said. + +Their eyes met. "My brother is here," said she. "Would you like to see +him?" + +"It might be as well, perhaps. If you can find him." + +She left him, and he waited five minutes, ten minutes, twenty. + +She returned alone. All her defiance had gone from her, and the face +that she turned to him was white with fear. + +"She is not here," she said. "She went out--by that window--and she has +not come in. We've searched the hotel, and we can't find her." + +"And you have _not_ found your brother?" + +"He has gone out to look for her." + +She sat down by the table, turning her face away and screening it from +him with her hand. + +Marston gave one look at her. He stepped out, and crossed the lawn to +the bottom of the garden. The gate at the end of the path there swung +open violently, and he found himself face to face with Robert Lucy. +"What have you done with Mrs. Tailleur?" he said. + +Lucy's head was sunk upon his breast. He did not look at him nor answer. +The two men walked back in silence up the lawn. + +"You don't know where she is?" said Marston presently. + +"No. I thought I did. But--she is not there." + +He paused, steadying his voice to speak again. + +"If I don't find her, I shall go up to town by the midnight train. Can +you give me her address there?" + +"You think she has gone up to town?" Marston spoke calmly. He was +appeased by Lucy's agitation and his manifest ignorance as to Kitty's +movements. + +"There's nothing else she could do. I've got to find her. Will you be +good enough to give me her address?" + +"My dear Mr. Lucy, there's really no reason why I should. If Mrs. +Tailleur has not gone up to town, her address won't help you. If she +has gone, your discreetest course by far, if I may say so----" + +"Is what?" said Lucy sternly. + +"Why, my dear fellow, of course--to let her go." + +Lucy raised his head. "I do not intend," he said, "to let her go." + +"Nor I," said Marston. + +"Then we've neither of us any time to lose. I won't answer for what she +may do, in the state she's in." + +Marston swung slightly round, so that he faced Lucy with his +imperturbable stare. + +"If you'd known Mrs. Tailleur as long as I have you'd have no sort of +doubt as to what she'll do." + +Lucy did not appear to have heard him, so sunk was he in his own +thoughts. + +"What was that?" said Marston suddenly. + +They listened. The gate of the Cliff path creaked on its hinges and fell +back with a sharp click of the latch. Lucy turned and saw a small +woman's figure entering the garden from the Cliff. He strode on toward +the house, unwilling to be observed and overtaken by any guests of the +hotel. + +Marston followed him slowly, pondering at each step of the way. + +He heard footsteps, quick stumbling footsteps, and a sound like a +hoarse, half-suffocating breath behind him. Then a woman's voice, that +sank, stumbling, like the footsteps, as it spoke. + +"Mr. Lucy," it said, "is it you?" + +Marston went on. + +Lucy was in the room with his sister. He was sitting with his back to +the open window as Marston came in by it. + +The voice outside was nearer; it whispered, "Where is Mr. Lucy?" + +"Somebody's looking for you, Lucy," said Marston. + +And the three turned round. + +Mrs. Hankin stood in the window, holding on to the frame of it and +trembling. Her face, her perfect face, was gray, like the face of an +old woman. It was drawn and disfigured with some terrible emotion. + +Lucy went to her. She clung to his arm, and held him on the threshold. + +"Mrs. Tailleur," she said, "Mrs. Tailleur. We found her--down there. +She's killed. She--she fell from the Cliff." + +The three stood still as she spoke to them. + +Then Jane rushed forward to her brother with a cry, and Mrs. Hankin +stretched out her arms and barred the way. + +There were small spots of blood on her hands and on her dress where she +had knelt. + +"Go back, child," she said. "They're carrying her in." + +[Illustration] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Immortal Moment, by May Sinclair + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IMMORTAL MOMENT *** + +***** This file should be named 31416.txt or 31416.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/4/1/31416/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Iris Schimandle and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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