And yet Fanny's image made him uneasy, watching him there, smiling, as
if she knew all about Elise and smiled, pretending not to care. He
didn't want Fanny to watch him with Elise. He didn't want Elise to see
Fanny. When he looked at Fanny's portrait he felt again his old
repugnance to their meeting. He didn't want Elise to sit in the same
room with Fanny, to sit in Fanny's chair. The drawing-room was Fanny's
room. The red dahlia and powder-blue parrot chintz was Fanny's choice;
every table, cabinet and chair was in the place that Fanny had chosen
for it. The book, the frivolous book she had been reading before she
went away, lay on her little table. Fanny was Fanny and Elise was
Elise.

He rang the bell and told Partridge to show Mrs. Levitt into the library
and to bring tea there. The library was _his_ room. He could do what he
liked in it. The girl Fanny laughed at him out of the corners of her
eyes as he went. Suddenly he felt tender and gentle to her, because of
Elise.

When Elise came she found him seated in his armchair absorbed in a book.
He rose in a dreamy attitude, as if he were still dazed and abstracted
with his reading.

Thus, at the very start, he gave himself the advantage; he showed
himself superior to Elise. Intellectually and morally superior.

"You're deep in it? I'm interrupting?" she said.

He came down from his height instantly. He was all hers.

"No. I was only trying to pass the time till you came."

"I'm late then?"

"Ten minutes." He smiled, indulgent

Elise was looking handsomer than ever. The light November chill had
whipped a thin flush into her face. He watched her as she took off her
dark skunk furs and her coat.

How delightful to watch a woman taking off her things, the pretty
gestures of abandonment; the form emerging, slimmer. That was one of the
things you thought and couldn't say. Supposing he had said it to Elise?
Would she have minded?

"What are you thinking of?" she said.

"How did you know I was thinking of anything?"

"Your face. It tells tales."

"Only nice ones to you, my dear lady."

"Ah, but you _didn't_ tell--"

"Would you like me to?"

"Not if it's naughty. Your face looks naughty."

He wheeled, delighted. "Now, how does my face look when it's naughty?"

"Oh, that _would_ be telling. It's just as well you shouldn't know."

"Was it as naughty as all that then?"

"Yes. Or as nice."

They kept it up, lightly, till Partridge and Annie Trinder came,
tinkling and rattling with the tea-things outside the door. As if, Mr.
Waddington thought, they meant to warn them.

"Partridge," he called, as the butler was going, "Partridge, if Sir John
Corbett calls you can show him in here; but I'm not at home to anybody
else."

(Clever idea, that.)

"He isn't coming, is he, the tiresome old thing?"

"No. He isn't. If I thought he was for one minute I wouldn't be at
home."

"Then why--?"

"Why did I say I would be? Because I wanted to make it safe for you,
Elise."

Thus tactfully he let it dawn on her that he might be dangerous.

"We don't want to be interrupted, do we?" he said.

"Not by Sir John Corbett."

He drew up the big, padded sofa square before the fire for Elise. All
his movements were unconscious, innocent of deliberation and design. He
seated himself top-heavily behind the diminutive gate-legged tea-table;
the teapot and cups were like dolls' things in his great hands. She
looked at him, at his slow fingers fumbling with the sugar tongs.

"Would you like me to pour out tea for you?" she said.

He started visibly. He wouldn't like it at all. He wasn't going to allow
Elise to put herself into Fanny's place, pouring out tea for him as if
she was his wife. She wouldn't have suggested it if she had had any tact
or any delicacy.

"No," he said. The "No" sounded hard and ungracious. "You must really
let me have the pleasure of waiting on you."

The sugar dropped from the tongs; he fumbled again, madly, and Elise
smiled. "Damn the tongs," he thought; "damn the sugar."

"Take it in your fingers, goose," she said.

Goose! An endearment, a caress. It softened him. His tenderness for
Elise came back.

"My fingers are all thumbs," he said.

"Your thumbs, then. You don't suppose I mind?"

There was meaning in her voice, and Mr. Waddington conceived himself to
be on the verge of the first exquisite intimacies of love. He left off
thinking about Fanny. He poured out tea and handed bread and butter in a
happy dream. He ate and drank without knowing what he ate and drank. His
whole consciousness was one muzzy, heavy sense of the fullness and
nearness of Elise. He could feel his ears go "vroom-vroom" and his voice
thicken as if he were slightly, very slightly drunk. He wondered how
Elise could go on eating bread and butter.

He heard himself sigh when at last he put her cup down.

He considered the position of the tea-table in relation to the sofa. It
hemmed in that part of it where he was going to sit. Very cramping. He
moved it well back and considered it again. It now stood in his direct
line of retreat from the sofa to the armchair. An obstruction. If
anybody were to come in. He moved it to one side.

"That's better," He said. "Now we can get a clear view of the fire. It
isn't too much for you, Elise?"

He had persuaded himself that he had really moved the tea-table because
of the fire. As yet he had no purpose and no plan. He didn't know what
on earth he was going to say to Elise.

He sat down beside her and there was a sudden hushed pause. Elise had
turned round in her seat and was looking at him; her eyes were steady
behind the light tremor of their lashes, brilliant and profound. He
reflected that her one weak point, the shortness of her legs, was not
noticeable when she was sitting down. He also wondered how he could ever
have thought her mouth hard. It moved with a little tender, sensitive
twitch, like the flutter of her eyelids, and he conceived that she was
drawn to him and held trembling by his fascination.

She spoke first.

"Mr. Waddington, I don't know how to thank you for your kindness about
the rent. But you know it's safe, don't you?"

"Of course I know it. Don't talk about rent. Don't think about it."

"I can't help it. I can't think of anything else until it's paid."

"I'd rather you never paid any rent at all than that you should worry
about it like this. I didn't ask you to come here to talk business,
Elise."

"I'm afraid I must talk it. Just a little."

"Not now," he said firmly. "I won't listen."

It sounded exactly as if he said he wouldn't listen to any more talk
about rent; but he thought: "I don't know what I shall do if she begins
about that five hundred. But she hardly can, after that. Anyhow, I shall
decline to discuss it."

"Tell me what you've been doing with yourself?"

"You can't _do_ much with yourself in Wyck. I trot about my house--my
dear little house that you've made so nice for me. I do my marketing,
and I go out to tea with the parson's wife, or the doctor's wife, or
Mrs. Bostock, or Mrs. Grainger."

"I didn't know you went to the Graingers."

He thought that was not very loyal of Elise.

"You must go somewhere."

"Well?"

"And in the evenings we play bridge."

"Who plays bridge?"

"Mr. Hawtrey, or Mr. Thurston, or young Hawtrey, and Toby, and Major
Markham and me."

"Always Major Markham?"

"Well, he comes a good deal. He likes coming."

"_Does_ he?"

"Do you mind?"

"I should mind very much if I thought it would make any difference."

"Any difference?" She frowned and blinked, as though she were trying
hard to see what he meant, what he possibly _could_ mean by that.
"Difference?" she said. "To what?"

"To you and me."

"Of course it doesn't. Not a scrap. How could it?"

"No. How could it? I don't really believe it could."

"But why should it?" she persisted.

"Why, indeed. Ours is a wonderful relation. A unique relation. And I
think you want as much as I do to--to keep it intact."

"Of course I want to keep it intact. I wouldn't for worlds let anything
come between us, certainly not bridge." She meditated. "I suppose I do
play rather a lot. There's nothing else to do, you see, and you get
carried away."

"I hope, my dear, you don't play for money."

"Oh, well, it isn't much fun for the others if we don't."

"You don't play high, I hope?"

"What do you call high?"

"Well, breaking into pound notes."

"Pound notes! Penny points--well, ten shillings is the very highest
stake when we're reckless and going it. Besides, I always play against
Markham and Hawtrey, because I know _they_ won't be hard on me if I
lose."

"Now, _that's_ what I don't like. I'd a thousand times rather pay your
gambling debts than have you putting yourself under an obligation to
those men."

He couldn't bear it. He couldn't bear to think that Elise could bear it.

"You should have come to me," he said.

"I have come to you, haven't I?" She thought of the five hundred pounds.

He thought of them too. "Ah, that's different. Now, about these debts to
Markham and Hawtrey. How much do they come to--about?"

"Oh, a five-pound note would cover all of it. But I shall only be in
debt to you."

"We'll say nothing about that. If I pay it, Elise, will you promise me
you'll never play higher than penny points again?"

"It's too angelic of you, really."

He smiled. He liked paying her gambling debts. He liked the power it
gave him over her. He liked to think that he could make her promise. He
liked to be told he was angelic. It was all very cheap at five pounds,
and it would enable him to refuse the five hundred with a better grace.

"Come, on your word of honour, only penny points."

"On my word of honour.... But, oh, I don't think I can take it."

She thought of the five hundred. When you wanted five hundred it was
pretty rotten to be put off with a fiver.

"If you can take it from Hawtrey and Markham--"

"That's it. I _can't_ take it from Markham. I haven't done that. I can't
do it."

"Well, Hawtrey then."

"Hawtrey's different"

"Why is he different?"

A faint suspicion, relating to Markham, troubled him, and not for the
first time.

"Well, you see, he's a middle-aged married man. He might be my uncle."

He thought: "And Markham--_he_ might be--"

But Elise was not in love with the fellow. No, no. He was sure of Elise;
he knew the symptoms; you couldn't mistake them. But she might marry
Markham, all the same. Out of boredom, out of uncertainty, out of
desperation. He was not going to let that happen; he would make it
impossible; he would give Elise the certainty she wanted now.

"You said _I_ was different."

Playful reproach. But she would understand.

"So you are. You're a married man, too, aren't you?"

"I thought we'd agreed to forget it."

"Forget it? Forget Mrs. Waddington?"

"Yes, forget her. You knew me long before you knew Fanny. What has she
got to do with you and me?"

"Just this, that she's the only woman in the county who'll know _me_."

"Because you're my friend, Elise."

"You needn't remind me. I'm not likely to forget that any good thing
that's come to me here has come through you."

"I don't want anything but good to come to you through me"

He leaned forward.

"You're not very happy in Wyck, are you?"

"Happy? Oh, yes. But it's not what you'd call wildly exciting. And
Toby's worrying me. He says he can't stand it, and he wants to
emigrate."

"Well, why not?"

Mr. Waddington's heart gave a great thump of hope. He saw it all
clearly. Toby was the great obstruction. Elise might have held out for
ever as long as Toby lived with her. But if Toby went--She saw it
too; that was why she consented to his going.

"It isn't much of a job for him, Bostock's Bank."

"N-no," she assented, "n-no. I've told him he can go if he can get
anything."

He played, stroking the long tails of her fur. It lay between them like
a soft, supine animal.

"Would you like to live in Cheltenham, Elise?"

"Cheltenham?"

"If I took a little house for you?"

(He had calculated that he might just as well lose his rent in
Cheltenham as in Wyck. Better. Besides, he needn't lose it. He could let
the White House. It would partly pay for Cheltenham.)

"One of those little houses in Montpelier Place?"

"It's too sweet of you to think of it." She began playing too, stroking
the fur animal; their hands played together over the sleek softness,
consciously, shyly, without touching.

"But--why Cheltenham?"

"Cheltenham isn't Wyck."

"No. But it's just as dull and stuffy. Stuffier."

"Beautiful little town, Elise."

"What's the good of that when it's crammed full of school children and
school teachers, and decayed army people and old maids? I don't _know_
anybody in Cheltenham."

"Can't you see that that would be the advantage?"

"No. I can't see it. There's only one place I _want_ to live in."

"And that is--?"

"London. And I can't."

"Why not?" After all, London was not such a bad idea. He had thought of
it before now himself.

"Well--I don't know whether I told you that I'm not on very good terms
with my husband's people. They haven't been at all nice to me since poor
Frank's death."

"Poor Elise--"

"They live in London and they want to keep me out of it. My
father-in-law gives me a small allowance on condition I don't live
there. They hate me," she said, smiling, "as much as all that."

"Is it a large allowance?"

"No. It's a very small one. But they know I can't get on without it."

"You ought not to be dependent on such people.... Perhaps in a flat--or
one of those little houses in St. John's Wood--"

"It would be too heavenly. But what's the good of talking about it?"

"You must know what I want to do for you, Elise. I want to make you
happy, to put you safe above all these wretched worries, to take care of
you, dear. You _will_ let me, won't you?"

"My dear Mr. Waddington--my dear friend--" The dark eyes brightened.
She saw a clear prospect of the five hundred. Compared with what old
Waddy was proposing, such a sum, and a mere loan too, represented
moderation. The moment had come, very happily, for reopening this
question. "I can't let you do anything so--so extensive. Really and
truly, all I want is just a temporary loan. If you really could lend me
that five hundred. You said--"

"I didn't say I would. And I didn't say I wouldn't. I said it would
depend."

"I know. But you never said on what. If the securities I offered you
aren't good enough, there's the legacy."

He was silent. He knew now that his condition had had nothing to do with
the securities. He must know, he would know, where he stood.

"My aunt," said Elise gently, "is very old."

"I wouldn't dream of touching your poor little legacy." He said it with
passion. "Won't you drop all this sordid talk about business and trust
me?"

"I do trust you."

The little white hand left off stroking the dark fur and reached out to
him. He took it and held it tight. It struggled to withdraw itself.

"You aren't afraid of me?" he said.

"No, but I'm afraid of Partridge coming in and seeing us. He might think
it rather odd."

"He won't come in. It doesn't matter what Partridge thinks."

"Oh, _doesn't_ it!"

"He won't come in."

He drew a little closer to her.

"He will. He _will_. He'll come and clear away the things. I hear him
coming."

He got up and went to the door of the smoke-room, to the further door,
and looked out.

"There's no one there," he said. "They don't come 'till six and it isn't
five yet.... Elise--abstract your mind one moment from Partridge. If I
get that little house in London, will you live in it?"

"I can't let you. You make me ashamed, after all you've done for me.
It's too much."

"It isn't. If I take it, will you let me come and see you?"

"Oh, yes. But--" She shrank, so far as Elise could be said to shrink,
a little further back into her corner.

"It's rather far from Wyck," he said. "Still, I could run up once
in"--he became pensive--"in three weeks or so."

"For the day--I should be delighted."

"No. _Not_ for the day." He was irritated with this artificial
obtuseness. "For the week-end. For the week, sometimes, when I can
manage it. I shall say it's business."

She drew back and back, as if from his advance, her head tilted, her
eyes glinting at him under lowered lids, taking it all in yet pretending
a paralysis of ignorance. She wanted to see--to see how far he would go,
before she--She wanted him to think she didn't understand him even
now.

It was this half-fascinated, backward gesture that excited him. He drew
himself close, close.

"Elise, it's no use pretending. You know what I mean. You know I want
you."

He stooped over her, covering her with his great chest. He put his arms
round her.

"In my arms. You _know_ you want _me_--"

She felt his mouth pushed out to her mouth as it retreated, trying to
cover it, to press down. She gave a cry: "Oh--oh, you--" and struggled,
beating him off with one hand while the other fumbled madly for her
pocket-handkerchief. His grip slackened. He rose to his feet. But he
still stooped over her, penning her in with his outstretched arms, his
weight propped by his hands laid on the back of the sofa.

"You--old--imbecile--" she spurted.

She could afford it. In one rapid flash of intelligence she had seen
that, whatever happened, she could never get that five hundred pounds
_down_. And to surrender to old Waddy without it, to surrender to old
Waddy at all, when she could marry Freddy Markham, would be too
preposterous. Even if there hadn't been any Freddy Markham, it would
have been preposterous.

At that moment as she said it, while he still held her prisoned and they
stared into each other's faces, she spurting and he panting, Barbara
came in.

He started; jerked himself upright. Mrs. Levitt recovered herself.

"You silly cuckoo," she said. "You don't know how ridiculous you look."

She had found her pocket-handkerchief and was dabbing her eyes and mouth
with it, rubbing off the uncleanness of his impact. "How
ridic--Te-hee--Te-hee--te-hee!" She shook with laughter.

Barbara pretended not to see them. To have gone back at once, closing
the door on them, would have been to admit that she had seen them.
Instead she moved, quickly yet abstractedly, to the writing-table, took
up the photographs and went out again.

Mr. Waddington had turned away and stood leaning against the
chimneypiece, hiding his head ("Poor old ostrich!") in his hands. His
attitude expressed a dignified sorrow and a wronged integrity. Barbara
stood for a collected instant at the door and spoke:

"I'm sorry I forgot the photographs." As if she said: "Cheer up, old
thing. I didn't really see you."

Through the closed door she heard Mrs. Levitt's laughter let loose,
malignant, shrill, hysterical, a horrid sound.

"I'm sorry, Elise. But I thought you cared for me."

"You'd no business to think. And it wasn't likely I'd tell you."

"Oh, you didn't tell me, my dear. How could you? But you made me believe
you wanted me."

"Wanted? Do you suppose I wanted to be made ridiculous?"

"Love isn't ridiculous," said Mr. Waddington.

"It is. It's _the_ most ridiculous thing there is. And when _you_'re
making it.... If you could have seen your face--Oh, dear!"

"If you wouldn't laugh quite so loud. The servants will hear you."

"I mean them to hear me."

"Confound you, Elise!"

"That's right, swear at me. Swear at me."

"I'm sorry I swore. But, hang it all, it's every bit as bad for me as it
is for you."

"Worse, I fancy. You needn't think Miss Madden didn't see you, because
she did."

"It's a pity Miss Madden didn't come in a little sooner."

"Sooner? I think she chose her moment very well."

"If she had heard the whole of our conversation I think she'd have
realized there was something to be said for me."

"There isn't anything to be said for you. And until you've apologized
for insulting me--"

"You've heard me apologize. As for insulting you, no decent woman, in
the circumstances, ever tells a man his love insults her, even if she
can't return it."

"And even if he's another woman's husband?"

"Even if he's another woman's husband, if she's ever given him the
right--"

"Right? Do you think you bought the right to make love to me?" She rose,
confronting him.

"No. I thought you'd given it me.... I was mistaken."

He helped her to put on the coat that she wriggled into with clumsy,
irritated movements. Clumsy. The woman _was_ clumsy. He wondered how he
had never seen it. And vulgar. Noisy and vulgar. You never knew what a
woman was like till you'd seen her angry. He had answered her
appropriately and with admirable tact. He had scored every point; he was
scoring now with his cool, imperturbable politeness. He tried not to
think about Barbara.

"Your fur."

"Thank you."

He rang the bell. Partridge appeared.

"Tell Kimber to bring the car round and drive Mrs. Levitt home."

"Thank you, Mr. Waddington, I'd rather walk."

Partridge retired.

She held out her hand. Mr. Waddington bowed abruptly, not taking it. He
strode behind her to the door, through the smoke-room, to the further
door. In the hall Partridge hovered. He left her to him.

And, as she followed Partridge across the wide lamp-lighted space, he
noticed for the first time that Elise, in her agitation, waddled. Like a
duck--a greedy duck. Like that horrible sister of hers, Bertha
Rickards.

Then he thought of Barbara Madden.


3

When Ralph called for Barbara he told her, first thing, that he had
heard from Mackintyres, the publishers, about his book. He had sent it
them two-thirds finished, and Grevill Burton--"Grevill _Burton_,
Barbara!"--had read it and reported very favourably. Mackintyres had
agreed to publish it if the end was equal to the beginning and the
middle.

It was this exciting news, thrown at her before she could get her hat
on, that had caused Barbara to forget all about Mr. Waddington's
photographs and Mr. Waddington's book and Mr. Waddington, until she and
Ralph were half way between Wyck-on-the-Hill and Lower Speed. There was
nothing for it then but to go on, taking care to get back in time to
take the photographs to Pyecraft's before the shop closed. There hadn't
been very much time, but Barbara said she could just do it if she made a
dash, and it was the dash she made that precipitated her into the scene
of Mr. Waddington's affair.

Ralph waited for her at the white gate.

"We must sprint," she said, "if we're to be in time."

They sprinted.

As they walked slowly back, Barbara became thoughtful.

As long as she lived she would remember Waddington: the stretched-out
arms, the top-heavy body bowed to the caress; the inflamed and startled
face staring at her, like some strange fish, over Mrs. Levitt's
shoulder, the mouth dropping open as if it called out to her "Go back!"
What depths of fatuity he must have sunk to before he could have come to
that! And the sad figure leaning on the chimneypiece, whipped, beaten by
Mrs. Levitt's laughter--the high, coarse, malignant laughter that had
made her run to the smoke-room door to shield him, to shut it off.

What wouldn't Ralph have given to have seen him!

It was all very well for Ralph to talk about making a "study" of him; he
hadn't got further than the merest outside fringe of his great subject.
He didn't know the bare rudiments of Waddington. He had had brilliant
flashes of his own, but no sure sight of the reality. And it had been
given to her, Barbara, to see it, all at once. She had penetrated at one
bound into the thick of him. They had wondered how far he would go; and
he had gone so far, so incredibly far above and beyond himself that all
their estimates were falsified.

And she saw that her seeing was the end--the end of their game, hers
and Ralph's, the end of their compact, the end of the tie that bound
them. She found herself shut in with Waddington; the secret that she
shared with him shut Ralph out. It was intolerable that all this rich,
exciting material should be left on her hands, lodged with her useless,
when she thought of what she and Ralph could have made of it together.

If only she could have given it him. But of course she couldn't. She had
always known there would be things she couldn't give him. She would go
on seeing more and more of them.

Odd that she didn't feel any moral indignation. It had been too funny,
like catching a child in some amusing naughtiness; and, as poor Waddy's
eyes and open mouth had intimated, she had had no business to catch him,
to know anything about it, no business to be there.

"Ralph," she said, "you must let me off the compact."

He turned, laughing. "Why, have you seen something?"

"It doesn't matter whether I have or haven't."

"It was a sacred compact."

"But if I can only keep it by being a perfect pig--"

He looked down at her face, her troubled, unnaturally earnest face.

"Of course, if you feel like that about it--"

"You'd feel like that if you were his confidential secretary and had
all his correspondence."

"Yes, yes. I see, Barbara, it won't work. I'll let you off the compact.
We can go on with him just the same."

"We can't."

"What? Not make a study of him?"

"No. We don't know what we're doing. It isn't safe. We may come on
things any day."

"Like the thing you came on just now."

"I didn't say I'd come on anything."

"All right, you didn't. He shall be our unfinished book, Barbara."

"He'll be _your_ unfinished book. I've finished mine all right. Anything
else will be simply appendix."

"You think you've got him complete?"

"Fairly complete."

"Oh, Barbara--"

"Don't tempt me, Ralph."

"After all," he said, "we were only playing with him."

"Well, we mustn't do it again."

"Never any more?"

"Never any more. I know it's a game for gods; but it's a cruel game. We
must give it up."

"You mean we must give him up?"

"Yes, we've hunted and hounded him enough. We must let him go."

"That's the compact, is it?"

"Yes."

"We shall break it, Barbara; see if we don't. We can't keep off him."


4

Mr. Waddington judged that, after all, owing to his consummate tact, he
had scored in the disagreeable parting with Mrs. Levitt. But when he
thought of Barbara, little Barbara, a flush mounted to his face, his
ears, his forehead; he could feel it--wave after wave of hot, unpleasant
shame.

He went slowly back to the library and shut himself in with the
tea-table, and the sofa, and the cushions crushed, deeply hollowed with
the large pressure of Elise. He wondered how much Barbara had taken in,
at what precise moment she had appeared. He tried to reconstruct the
scene. He had been leaning over Elise; he could see himself leaning over
her, enclosing her, and Elise's head, stiffened, drawing back from his
kiss. Worse than the sting of her repugnance was the thought that
Barbara had seen it and his attitude, his really very compromising
attitude. Had she? Had she? The door now, it was at right angles to the
sofa; perhaps Barbara hadn't caught him fair. He went to the door and
came in from it to make certain. Yes. Yes. From that point it was no
good pretending that he couldn't be seen.

But Barbara had rushed in like a little whirlwind, and she had gone
straight to the writing-table, turning her back. She wouldn't have had
time to take it in. He was at the chimneypiece before she had turned
again, before she could have seen him. He must have recovered himself
when he heard her coming. She couldn't charge in like that without being
heard. He must have been standing up, well apart from Elise, not leaning
over her by the time Barbara came in.

He tried to remember what Barbara had said when she went out. She had
said something. He couldn't remember what it was, but it had sounded
reassuring. Now, surely if Barbara had seen anything she wouldn't have
stopped at the door to say things. She would have gone straight out
without a word. In fact, she wouldn't have come in at all. She would
have drawn back the very instant that she saw. She would simply never
have penetrated as far as the writing-table. He remembered how coolly
she had taken up the photographs and gone out again as if nothing had
happened.

Probably, then, as far as Barbara was concerned, nothing had happened.

Then he remembered the horrible laughing of Elise. Barbara must have
heard that; she must have wondered. She might just have caught him with
the tail of her eye, not enough to swear by, but enough to wonder; and
afterwards she would have put that and that together.

And he would have to dine with her alone that evening, to face her
young, clear, candid eyes.

He didn't know how he was going to get through with it, and yet he did
get through.

To begin with, Barbara was very late for dinner.

She had thought of being late as a way of letting Mr. Waddington down
easily. She would come in, smiling and apologetic, palpably in the
wrong, having kept him waiting, and he would be gracious and forgive
her, and his graciousnees and forgiveness would help to reinstate him.
He would need, she reflected, a lot of reinstating. Barbara considered
that, in the matter of punishment, he had had enough. Mrs. Levitt, with
her "You old imbecile!" had done to him all, and more than all, that
justice could require; there was a point of humiliation beyond which no
human creature should be asked to suffer. To be caught making love to
Mrs. Levitt and being called an old imbecile! And then to be pelted with
indecent laughter. And, in any case, it was not her, Barbara's, place to
punish him or judge him. She had had no business to catch him, no
business, in the first instance, to forget the photographs.

Therefore, as she really wanted him not to know that she had caught him,
she went on behaving as if nothing had happened. All through dinner she
turned the conversation on to topics that would put him in a favourable
or interesting light. She avoided the subject of Fanny. She asked him
all sorts of questions about his war work.

"Tell me," she said, "some of the things you did when you were a special
constable."

And he told her his great story. To be sure, she knew the best part of
it already, because Ralph had told it--it had been one of his scores
over her--but she wanted him to remember it. She judged that it was
precisely the sort of memory that would reinstate him faster than
anything. For really he had played a considerable part.

"Well"--you could see by his face that he was gratified--"one of
the things we had to do was to drive about the villages and farms
after dark to see that there weren't any lights showing. It was
nineteen--yes--nineteen-sixteen, in the winter. Must have been winter,
because I was wearing my British warm with the fur collar. And there was
a regular scare on."

"Air raids?"

"No. Tramps. We'd been fairly terrorized by a nasty, dangerous sort of
tramp. The police were looking for two of these fellows--discharged
soldiers. We'd a warrant out for their arrest. Robbery and assault."

"With violence?"

"Well, you may call it violence. One of 'em had thrown a pint pot at the
landlord of the King's Head and hurt him. And they'd bolted with two
bottles of beer and a tin of Player's Navy Cut. They'd made off,
goodness knows where. We couldn't find 'em.

"I was driving to Daunton on a very nasty, pitch-black night. You know
how beastly dark it is between the woods at Byford Park? Well, I'd just
got there when I passed two fellows skulking along under the wall. They
stood back--it was rather a near shave with no proper lights on--and I
flashed my electric torch full on them. Blest if they weren't the very
chaps we were looking for. And I'd got to run 'em in somehow, all by
myself. And two to one. It wasn't any joke, I can tell you. Goodness
knows what nasty knives and things they might have had on 'em."

"What _did_ you do?"

"Do? I drove on fifty yards ahead, and pulled up the car outside the
porter's lodge at Byford. Then I got out and came on and met 'em. They
were trying to bolt into the wood when I turned my torch on them again
and shouted 'Halt!' in a parade voice.

"They halted, hands up to the salute. I thought the habit would be too
much for 'em when they heard the word of command. I said, 'You've got to
come along with me.' I didn't know how on earth I was going to take them
if they wouldn't go. And they'd started dodging. So I tried it on again:
'Halt!' Regular parade stunt. And they halted again all right. Then I
harangued them. I said, 'Shun, you blighters! I'm a special constable,
and I've got a warrant here for your arrest.'

"I hadn't. I'd nothing but an Inland Revenue Income Tax form. But I
whipped it out of my breast pocket and trained my light on the royal
arms at the top. That was enough for 'em. Then I shouted again in my
parade voice, 'Right about face! Quick march!'

"And I got them marching. I marched them the two miles from Byford,
through Lower Speed, and up the hill to Wyck and into the police
station. And we ran 'em in for robbery and assault."

"It was clever of you."

"No; nothing but presence of mind and bluff, and showing that you
weren't going to stand any nonsense. But I don't suppose Corbett or
Hawtrey or any of those chaps would have thought of it."

Barbara wondered: "Supposing I were to turn on him and say, 'You old
humbug, you know I don't believe a word of it. You know you didn't march
them a hundred yards.' Or '_I_ saw you this afternoon.' What would he
look like?" It was inconceivable that she should say these things. If
she was to go on with her study of him alone she would go on in the
spirit they had begun in, she and Ralph. That spirit admitted nothing
but boundless amusement, boundless joy in him. Moral indignation would
have been a false note; it would have been downright irreverence towards
the God who made him.

What if he did omit to mention that the nasty, dangerous fellows turned
out to be two feeble youths, half imbecile with shell-shock and half
drunk, and that it was Mr. Hawtrey, arriving opportunely in his car, who
took them over the last mile to the police station? As it happened Mr.
Waddington had frankly forgotten these details as inessential to his
story. (He _had_ marched them a mile.)

After telling it he was so far re-established in his own esteem as to
propose their working together on the Ramblings after dinner. He even
ordered coffee to be served in the library, as if nothing had happened
there. Unfortunately, by some culpable oversight of Annie Trinder's, the
cushions still bore the imprint of Elise. Awful realization came to him
when Barbara, with a glance at the sofa, declined to sit on it. He had
turned just in time to catch the flick of what in a bantering mood he
had once called her "Barbaric smile." After all, she might have seen
something. Not Mrs. Levitt's laughter but the thought of what Barbara
might have seen was his punishment--that and being alone with her,
knowing that she knew.


5

All this happened on a Wednesday, and Fanny wouldn't be back before
Saturday. He had three whole days to be alone with Barbara.

He had thought that no punishment could be worse than that, but as the
three days passed and Barbara continued to behave as though nothing had
happened, he got used to it. It was on a Friday night, as he lay awake,
reviewing for the hundredth time the situation, that his conscience
pointed out to him how he really stood. There was a worse punishment
than Barbara's knowing.

If Fanny knew--

There were all sorts of ways in which she might get to know. Barbara
might tell her. The two were as thick as thieves. And if the child
turned jealous and hysterical--She had never liked Elise. Or she might
tell Ralph Bevan and he might tell Fanny, or he might tell somebody who
would tell her. There were always plenty of people about who considered
it their duty to report these things.

Of course, if he threw himself on Barbara's mercy, and exacted a promise
from her not to tell, he knew she would keep it. But supposing all the
time she hadn't seen or suspected anything? Supposing her calm manner
came from a mind innocent of all seeing and suspecting? Then he would
have given himself away for nothing.

Besides, even if Barbara never said anything, there was Elise. No
knowing what Elise might do or say in her vulgar fury. She might tell
Toby or Markham, and the two might make themselves damnably unpleasant.
The story would be all over the county in no time.

And there were the servants. Supposing one of the women took it into her
head to give notice on account of "goings on?"

He couldn't live in peace so long as all or any of these things were
possible.

The only thing was to be beforehand with Barbara and Bevan and Elise and
Toby and Markham and the servants; to tell Fanny himself before any of
them could get in first. The more he thought about it the more he was
persuaded that this was the only right, the only straightforward and
manly thing to do; at the same time it occurred to him that by
suppressing a few unimportant details he could really give a very
satisfactory account of the whole affair. It would not be necessary, for
instance, to tell Fanny what his intentions had been, if indeed he had
ever had any. For, as he went again and again over the whole stupid
business, his intentions--those that related to the little house in
Cheltenham or St. John's Wood--tended to sink back into the dream state
from which they had arisen, clearing his conscience more and more from
any actual offence. He had, in fact, nothing to account for but his
attitude, the rather compromising attitude in which Barbara had found
him. And that could be very easily explained away. Fanny was not one of
those exacting, jealous women; she would be ready to accept a reasonable
explanation of anything. And you could always appease her by a little
attention.

So on Friday afternoon Mr. Waddington himself drove the car down to Wyck
Station and met Fanny on the platform. He made tea for her himself and
waited on her, moving assiduously, and smiling an affectionate yet
rather conscious smile. He was impelled to these acts spontaneously,
because of that gentleness and tenderness towards Fanny which the bare
thought of Elise was always enough to inspire him with.

Thus, by sticking close to Fanny all the evening he contrived that
Barbara should have no opportunity of saying anything to her. And in the
last hour before bed-time, when they were alone together in the
drawing-room, he began.

He closed the door carefully behind Barbara and came back to his place,
scowling like one overpowered by anxious thought. He exaggerated this
expression on purpose, so that Fanny should notice it and give him his
opening, which she did.

"Well, old thing, what are _you_ looking so glum about?"

"Do I look glum?"

"Dismal. What is it?"

He stood upright before the chinmeypiece, his conscience sustained by
this posture of rectitude.

"I'm not quite easy about Barbara," he said.

"Barbara? What on earth has _she_ been doing?"

"She's been doing nothing. It's--it's rather what she may do if you
don't stop her."

"I don't want to stop her," said Fanny, "if you're thinking of Ralph
Bevan."

"Ralph Bevan? I certainly am not thinking of him. Neither is she."

"Well then, what?"

"I was thinking of myself."

"My dear, you surely don't imagine that Barbara's thinking of you?"

"Not--not in the way you imply. The fact is, I was let in for a--a
rather unpleasant scene the other day with Mrs. Levitt."

"I always thought," said Fanny, "that woman would let you in for
something. Well?"

"Well, I hardly know how to tell you about it, my dear."

"Why, was it as bad as all that? Perhaps I'd better not know."

"I want you to know. I'm trying to tell you--because of Barbara."

"I can't see where Barbara comes in."

"She came into the library while it was happening--"

Fanny laughed and it disconcerted him.

"While what was happening?" she said. "You'd better tell me straight
out. I don't suppose it was anything like as bad as you think it was."

"I'm only afraid of what Barbara might think."

"Oh, you can trust Barbara not to think things. She never does."

Dear Fanny. He would have found his job of explaining atrociously
difficult with any other woman. Any other woman would have entangled him
tighter and tighter; but he could see that Fanny was trying to get it
straight, to help him out with all his honour and self-respect and
dignity intact. Every turn she gave to the conversation favoured him.

"My dear, I'm afraid she saw something that I must say was open to
misinterpretation. It wasn't my fault, but--"

No. The better he remembered it the more clearly he saw it was Elise's
fault, not his. And he could see that Fanny thought it was Elise's
fault. This suggested the next step in the course that was only not
perjury because it was so purely instinctive, the subterfuge of
terrified vanity. It seemed to him that he had no plan; that he followed
Fanny.

"Upon my word I'd tell you straight out, Fanny, only I don't like to
give the poor woman away."

"Mrs. Levitt?" said Fanny. "You needn't mind. You may be quite sure that
she'll give _you_ away if you don't."

She was giving him a clear lead.

When he began he had really had some thoughts of owning, somewhere about
this point, that he had lost his head; but when it came to the point he
saw that this admission was unnecessarily quixotic, and that he would
be far safer if he suggested that Elise had lost hers. In fact, it was
Fanny who had suggested it in the first place. It might not be
altogether a fair imputation, but, hang it all, it was the only one that
would really appease Fanny, and he had Fanny to think of and not Elise.
He owed it her. For her sake he must give up the personal luxury of
truthtelling. The thing would go no further with Fanny, and it was only
what Fanny had believed herself in any case and always would believe.
Elise would be no worse off as far as Fanny was concerned. So he fairly
let himself go.

"There's no knowing what she may do," he said. "She was in a thoroughly
hysterical state. She'd come to me with her usual troubles--not able to
pay her rent, and so on--and in talking she became very much upset and
er--er--lost her head and took me completely by surprise."

"That," he thought, "she certainly did."

"You mean you lost yours too?" said Fanny mildly.

"I did nothing of the sort. But I was rather alarmed. Before you could
say 'knife' she'd gone off into a violent fit of hysterics, and I was
just trying to bring her round when Barbara came in." His explanation
was so much more plausible than the reality that he almost believed it
himself. "I think," he said, pensively, "she _must_ have seen me
bending over her."

"And she didn't offer to help?"

"No; she rushed in and she rushed out again. She may not have seen
anything; but in case she did, I wish, my dear, you'd explain."

"I think I'd better not," said Fanny, "in case she didn't."

"No. But it worries me every time I think of it. She came right into the
room. Besides," he said, "we've got to think of Mrs. Levitt."

"Mrs. Levitt?"

"Yes. Put yourself in her place. She wouldn't like it supposed that I
was making love to her. She might consider the whole thing made her look
as ridiculous as it made me."

"I'd forgotten Mrs. Levitt's point of view. You rather gave me to
understand that was what she wanted."

"I never said anything of the sort." Seeing that the explanation was
going so well he could afford to be magnanimous.

"I must have imagined it," said Fanny. "She recovered, I suppose, and
you got rid of her?"

"Yes, I got rid of her all right."

"Well," said Fanny, gathering herself up to go to bed, "I shouldn't
worry any more about it. I'll make it straight with Barbara."

She went up to Barbara's bedroom, where Barbara, still dressed, sat
reading over the fire.

"Come in, you darling," Barbara said. She got up and crouched on the
hearthrug, leaving her chair for Fanny.

Fanny came in and sat down.

"Barbara," she said, "what's all this about Horatio and Mrs. Levitt?"

"I don't know," said Barbara flatly, with sudden presence of mind.

"I said you didn't. But the poor old thing goes on and on about it. He
thinks you saw something the other day. Something you didn't understand.
Did you?"

Barbara said nothing. She stared away from Fanny.

"Did you?"

"Of course I didn't."

"Of course you did. He says you must have seen. And it's worrying him no
end."

"I saw something. But he needn't worry. I understood all right"

"What did you see?"

"Nothing. Nothing that mattered."

"It matters most awfully to me."

"I don't think it need," said Barbara.

"But it _does_. In a sense I don't mind what he does, and in a sense I
do. I still care enough for that."

"I don't think there was anything you need mind so awfully."

"Yes, but there _was_ something. He said there was. He was afraid you'd
misunderstand it. He said he was bending over her when you came in."

"Well, he _was_ bending a bit."

"What was _she_ doing?"

"She was laughing."

"In hysterics?"

She saw it all.

"I suppose you might call it hysterics. They weren't nice hysterics,
though. She isn't a nice woman."

"No. But he was making love to her, and she was laughing at him. She was
nice enough for that."

"If that's nice."

"Why, what else could the poor woman do if she's honest?"

"Oh, she's honest enough in _that_ way," said Barbara.

"And he couldn't see it. He's so intent on his own beautiful
Postlethwaite nose, he can't see anything that goes on under it....
Still, honest or not honest, she's a beast, Barbara. When they'd been
such pals and he'd helped her, to have gone and rounded on the poor
thing like that. She might just as well have pulled his Postlethwaite
nose. It couldn't have hurt more."

"Oh, I think he'll get over it."

"I mean it couldn't have hurt _me_ more."

"She _is_ a beast," said Barbara. "I bet you anything you like it's her
fault. She drove him to it."

"No, Barbara, it was _my_ fault. _I_ drove him. I'm always laughing at
him, and he can't bear being laughed at. It makes him feel all stuffy
and middle-aged. He only goes in for passion because it makes him feel
young."

"It isn't really passion," said Barbara.

"No, you wise thing, it isn't. If it was I could forgive him. I could
forgive it if he really felt young. It's this ghastly affectation I
can't stand.... But it's my fault, Barbara, my fault. I should have kept
him young...."

They sat silent, Barbara at Fanny's feet. Presently Fanny drew the
girl's head down into her lap.

"You'll never be old, Barbara," she said. "And Ralph won't."

"What made you think of Ralph, Fanny?"

"Horatio, of course."




XII


1

If any rumour circulated round Wyck-on-the-Hill, sooner or later it was
bound to reach the old lady at the Dower House. The Dower House was the
redistributing centre for the news of the district.

Thus Mr. Waddington heard that Mrs. Levitt was talking about letting the
White House furnished; that she was in debt to all the tradesmen in the
place; that her rent at Mrs. Trinder's was still owing; that her losses
at bridge were never paid for. He heard that if Major Markham had been
thinking of Mrs. Levitt, he had changed his mind; there was even a
definite rumour about a broken engagement. Anyhow, Major Markham was now
paying unmistakable attentions to the youngest Miss Hawtrey of
Medlicott. But as, engagement or no engagement, his attentions to Mrs.
Levitt had been unmistakable too, their rupture required some
explanation. It was supposed that the letter which the Major's mother,
old Mrs. Markham of Medlicott, received from her daughter, Mrs. Dick
Benham of Tunbridge Wells, did very thoroughly explain it. There had
been "things" in that letter which Mrs. Markham had not been able to
repeat, but you gathered from her singular reticence that they had
something to do with Dick Benham and Mrs. Levitt, and that they showed
conclusively that Elise was not what old Mrs. Waddington called "a nice
woman."

"They say she led Frank Levitt an awful life. The Benhams, my dear,
won't have her in the house."

But all this was trivial compared with the correspondence that now
passed between Mr. Waddington and Elise. He admitted now that old
Corbett had known what he was talking about when he had warned him that
he would be landed--landed, if he didn't take care, to the tune of five
hundred and fifty-five pounds. His letters to Mrs. Levitt, dictated to
Barbara Madden, revealed the care he had to take. From motives which
appeared to him chivalrous he had refrained from showing Barbara Mrs.
Levitt's letters to him. He left her to gather their crude substance
from his admirable replies.

"'MY DEAR MRS. LEVITT:

"'I am afraid I must advise you to give up the scheme if it depends on
my co-operation. I thought I had defined my position--'

"Defined my position is good, I think."

"It sounds good," said Barbara.

"'That position remains what it was. And as your exceptionally fine
intelligence cannot fail to understand it, no more need be said.

"'At least I hope it is so. I should be sorry if our very pleasant
relations terminated in disappointment--'"

For one instant she could see him smile, feeling voluptuously the sharp,
bright edge of his word before it cut him. He drew back, scowling above
a sudden sombre flush of memory.

"Disappointment--" said Barbara, giving him his cue.

"Disappointment is not quite the word. I want something--something more
chivalrous."

His eyes turned away from her, pretending to look for it.

"Ah--now I have it. 'Very pleasant relations terminated on a note--on a
note of--on an unexpected note.

"'With kind regards, very sincerely yours,

"'HORATIO BYSSHE WADDINGTON.'

"You will see, Barbara, that I am saying precisely the same thing, but
saying it inoffensively, as a gentleman should."

Forty-eight hours later he dictated:

"'DEAR MRS. LEVITT:

"'No: I have no suggestion to make except that you curtail your very
considerable expenditure. For the rest, believe me it is as disagreeable
for me to be obliged to refuse your request as I am sure it must be for
you to make it--'

"H'm. Rest--request. That won't do. 'As disagreeable for me to have to
refuse as it must be for you to ask.'