And as he got worse--before he became too ill to think about it at
all--he had a muzzy yet pleasurable sense that everybody in
Wyck-on-the-Hill and in the county for miles round was thinking of him.
He knew that Corbett and Lady Corbett and Markham and Thurston and the
Hawtreys, and the Rector and the Rector's wife and Colonel Grainger had
called repeatedly to inquire for him. He was particularly gratified by
Grainger's calling. He knew that Hitchin had stopped Horry in the street
to ask after him, and he was particularly gratified by that. Old
Susan-Nanna had come up from Medlicott to see him. And Ralph Bevan
called every day. That gratified him, too.

The only person who was not allowed to know anything about his illness
was his mother, for Mr. Waddington was certain it would kill her. Every
evening at medicine time he would ask the same questions: "My mother
doesn't know yet?" And: "Anybody called to-day?" And Fanny would give
him the messages, and he would receive them with a gentle, solemn
sweetness. You wouldn't have believed, Barbara said to herself, that
complacency could take so heartrending a form.

And under it all, a deeper bliss in bliss, was the thought that Barbara
was thinking about him, worrying about him, and being, probably, ten
times more unhappy about him than Fanny. After working so long by his
side, her separation from him would be intolerable to Barbara;
intolerable, very likely, the thought that it was Fanny's turn, now, to
be by his side. Every day she brought him a bunch of snowdrops, and
every day, as the door closed on her little anxious face, he was sorry
for Barbara shut out from his room. Poor little Barbara. Sometimes, when
he was feeling well enough, he would call to her: "Come in, Barbara."
And she would come in and look at him and put her flowers into his hand
and say she hoped he was better. And he would answer: "Not much better,
Barbara. I'm very ill."

He even allowed Ralph to come and look at him. He would hold his hand in
a clasp that he made as limp as possible, on purpose, and would say in a
voice artificially weakened: "I'm very ill, Ralph."

Dr. Ransome said he wasn't; but Mr. Waddington knew better. It was true
that from time to time he rallied sufficiently to comb his own hair
before Barbara was let in with her snowdrops, and that he could give
orders to Partridge in a loud, firm tone; but he was too ill to do more
than whisper huskily to Barbara and Fanny.

Then when he felt a little better the trained nurse came, and with the
sheer excitement of her coming Mr. Waddington's temperature leapt up
again, and the doctor owned that he didn't like that.

And Barbara found Fanny in the library, crying. She had been tidying up
his writing-table, going over all his papers with a feather brush, and
she had come on the manuscript of the Ramblings unfinished.

"Fanny--"

"Barbara, I know I'm an idiot, but I simply cannot bear it. It was all
very well as long as I could nurse him, but now that woman's come
there's nothing I can do for him.... I've--I've never done anything all
my life for him. He's always done everything for me. And I've been a
brute. Always laughing at him.... Think, Barbara, think; for eighteen
years never to have taken him seriously. Never since I married him.... I
believe he's going to die. Just--just to punish me."

"He isn't," said Barbara indignantly, as if she had never believed it
herself. "The doctor says he isn't really very ill. The congestion isn't
spreading. It was better yesterday."

"It'll be worse to-night, you may depend on it. The doctor doesn't
_like_ his temperature flying up and down like that."

"It'll go down again," said Barbara.

"You don't know what it'll do," said Fanny darkly. "Did you ever see
such a lamb, such a _lamb_ as he is when he's ill?"

"No," said Barbara; "he's an angel."

"That's just," said Fanny, "what makes me feel he's going to die.... I
wish I were you, Barbara."

"Me?"

"Yes. You've really helped him. He could never have written his book
without you. His poor book."

She sat stroking it. And suddenly a horrible memory overcame her, and
she cried out:

"Oh, my God! And I've laughed at that, too!"

Barbara put her arm round her. "You didn't, darling. Well, if you
did--it is a little funny, you know. I'm afraid I've laughed a bit."

"Oh, _you_--that doesn't matter. You helped to write it."

Then Barbara broke out. "Oh, don't, Fanny, don't, _don't_ talk about his
poor book. I can't _bear_ it."

"We're both idiots," said Fanny. "Imbeciles."

She paused, drying her eyes.

"He liked the snowdrops you brought him," she said.

Barbara thought: "And the snowdrops he brought _me_." He had caught cold
that day, picking them. They had withered in the glass in her bedroom.

She left Fanny, only to come upon Horry in his agony. Horry stood in the
window of the dining-room, staring out and scowling at the snow.

"Damn the snow!" he said. "It's killed him."

"It hasn't, Horry," she said; "he'll get better."

"He won't get better. If this beastly frost holds he hasn't got a
chance."

"Horry dear, the doctor says he's better."

"He doesn't. He says his temperature's got no business to go up."

"All the same--"

"Supposing he does think him better. Supposing he doesn't know.
Supposing he's a bleating idiot.... I expect the dear old pater knows
how he is a jolly sight better than anybody can tell him.... And you
know you're worrying about him yourself. So's the mater. She's been
crying."

"She's jealous of the nurse. That's what's the matter with her."

"Jealous? Tosh! That nurse is an idiot. She's sent his temperature up
first thing."

"Horry, old thing, you must buck up. You mustn't let your nerve go like
this."

"Nerve? Your nerve would go if you were me. I tell you, Barbara, I
wouldn't care a hang about his being ill--I mean I shouldn't care so
infernally if I'd been decent to him. ... But you were right I was a
cad, a swine. Laughing at him."

"So was I, Horry. I laughed at him. I'd give anything not to have."

"You didn't matter...."

He was silent a moment. Then he swung round, full to her. His face
burned, his eyes flashed tears; he held his head up to stop them
falling.

"Barbara--if he dies, I'll kill myself."

That evening Mr. Waddington's temperature went up another point. Ralph,
calling about nine o'clock, found Barbara alone in the library, huddled
in a corner of the sofa, with her pocket-handkerchief beside her, rolled
in a tight, damp ball. She started as he came in.

"Oh," she said, "I thought you were the doctor."

"Do you want him?"

"Yes. Fanny does. She's frightened."

"Shall I go and get him?"

"No. No. They've sent Kimber. Oh, Ralph, I'm frightened, too."

"But he's getting on all right. He is really. Ransome says so."

"I know. I've told them that. But they won't believe it. And _I_ don't
now. He'll die: you'll see he'll die. Just because we've been such pigs
to him."

"Nonsense; that wouldn't make him--"

"I'm not so sure. It's awful to see him lying there, like a lamb--so
good--when you think how we've hunted and hounded him."

"He didn't know, Barbara. We never let him know."

"You don't know what he knew. He must have seen it."

"He never sees anything."

"I tell you, you don't know what he sees.... I'd give anything, anything
not to have done it."

"So would I."

"It's a lesson to me," she said, "as long as I live, never to laugh at
anybody again. Never to say cruel things."

"We didn't say cruel things."

"Unkind things."

"Not very unkind."

"We did. I did. I said all the really beastly ones."

"No. No, you didn't. Not half as beastly as I and Horry did."

"That's what Horry's thinking now. He's nearly off his head about it."

"Look here, Barbara; you're simply sentimentalizing because he's ill and
you're sorry for him.... You needn't be. I tell you, he's enjoying his
illness. ... I don't suppose," said Ralph thoughtfully, "he's enjoyed
anything so much since the war."

"Doesn't that show what brutes we've been, that he has to be ill in
order to enjoy himself?"

"Oh, no. He enjoys himself--himself, Barbara--all the time. He can't
help enjoying his illness. He likes to have everybody fussing round him
and thinking about him."

"That's what I mean. We never did think of him. Not seriously. We've
done nothing--nothing but laugh. Why, you're laughing now. ... It's
horrible of you, Ralph, when he may be dying. ... It would serve us all
jolly well right if he did die."

To her surprise and indignation, Barbara began to cry. The hard, damp
lump of pocket-handkerchief was not a bit of good, and before she could
reach out for it Ralph's arms were round her and he was kissing the
tears off one by one.

"Darling, I didn't think you really minded--"

"What d-did you th-think, then?" she sobbed.

"I thought you were playing. A sort of variation of the game."

"I told you it was a cruel game."

"Never mind. It's all over. We'll never play it again. And he'll be well
in another week. ... Look here, Barbara, can't you leave off thinking
about him for a minute? You know I love you, most awfully, don't you?"

"Yes. I know now all right."

"And _I_ know."

"How do you know?"

"Because, old thing, you've never ceased to hang on to my collar since
I grabbed you. You can't go back on _that_."

"I don't want to go back on it.... I say, we always said he brought us
together, and he _has_, this time."

When later that night Ralph told Fanny of their engagement the first
thing she said was, "You mustn't tell him. Not till he's well again. In
fact, I'd rather you didn't tell him till just before you're married."

"Why ever not?"

"It might upset him. You see," she said, "he's very fond of Barbara."

The next day Mr. Waddington's temperature went down to normal; and the
next, when Ralph called, Barbara fairly rushed at him with the news.

"He's sitting up," she shouted, "eating a piece of sole."

"Hooray! Now we can be happy."

The sound of Fanny's humming came through the drawing-room door.




XV


1

Mr. Waddington was sitting up in his armchair before the bedroom fire.
By turning his head a little to the right he could command a perfect
view of himself in the long glass by the window. To get up and look at
himself in that glass had been the first act of his convalescence. He
had hardly dared to think what alterations his illness might have made
in him. He remembered the horrible sight that Corbett had presented
after _his_ influenza last year.

Looking earnestly at himself in the glass, he had found that his
appearance was, if anything, improved. Outlines that he had missed for
the last ten years were showing up again. The Postlethwaite nose was
cleaner cut. He was almost slender, and not half so weak as Fanny said
he ought to have been. Immobility in bed, his spiritual attitude of
complacent acquiescence, and the release of his whole organism from the
strain of a restless intellect had set him up more than his influenza
had pulled him down; and it was a distinctly more refined and youthful
Waddington that Barbara found sitting in the armchair, wearing a royal
blue wadded silk dressing-gown and Fanny's motor-scarf, with a grey
mohair shawl over his knees.

Mr. Waddington's convalescence was altogether delightful to him,
admitting, as it did, of sustained companionship with Barbara. As soon
as it reached the armchair stage she sat with him for hours together.
She had finished the Ramblings, and at his request she read them aloud
to him all over again from beginning to end. Mr. Waddington was much
gratified by the impression they made recited in Barbara's charming
voice; the voice that trembled a little now and then with an emotion
that did her credit.

"'Come with me into the little sheltered valley of the Speed. Let us
follow the brown trout stream that goes purling through the lush green
grass of the meadows--'"

"I'd no idea," said Mr. Waddington, "it was anything like so good as it
is. We may congratulate ourselves on having got rid of Ralph Bevan."

And in February, when the frost broke and the spring weather came, and
the green and pink and purple fields showed up again through the mist on
the hillsides, he went out driving with Barbara in his car. He wanted
to look again at the places of his _Ramblings_, and he wanted Barbara to
look at them with him. It was the reward he had promised her for what he
called her dreary, mechanical job of copying and copying.

Barbara noticed the curious, exalted expression of his face as he sat up
beside her in the car, looking noble. She put it down partly to that
everlasting self-satisfaction that made his inward happiness, and partly
to sheer physical exhilaration induced by speed. She felt something like
it herself as they tore switchbacking up and down the hills: an
excitement whipped up on the top of the deep happiness that came from
thinking about Ralph. And there was hardly a moment when she didn't
think about him. It made her eyes shine and her mouth quiver with a
peculiarly blissful smile.

And Mr. Waddington looked at Barbara where she sat tucked up beside him.
He noticed the shining and the quivering, and he thought--what he always
had thought of Barbara. Only now he was certain.

The child loved him. She had been fascinated and frightened, frightened
and fascinated by him from the first hour that she had known him. But
she was not afraid of him any more. She had left off struggling. She was
giving herself up like a child to this feeling, the nature of which, in
her child's innocence, she did not yet know. But he knew. He had always
known it.

So much one half of Mr. Waddington's mind admitted, while the other half
denied that he had known it with any certainty. It went on saying to
itself: "Blind. Blind. Yet I might have known it," as if he hadn't.

He had, of course, kept it before him as a possibility (no part of him
denied that). And he had used tact. He had handled a delicate situation
with a consummate delicacy. He had done everything an honourable man
could do. But there it was. There it had been from the day that he had
come into the house and found her there. And the thing was too strong
for Barbara. Poor child, he might have known it would be. And it was too
strong for Mr. Waddington. It wasn't his fault. It was Fanny's fault,
having the girl there and forcing them to that dangerous intimacy.

Before his illness Mr. Waddington had resisted successfully any little
inclination he might have had to take advantage of the situation. He
conceived his inner life for the last nine months as consisting of a
series of resistances. He conceived the episode of Elise as a safety
valve, natural but unpleasant, for the emotions caused by Barbara: the
substitution of a permissible for an impermissible lapse. It had been
incredible to him that he should make love to Barbara.

But one effect of his influenza was apparent. It had lowered his
resistance, and, lowering it, had altered his whole moral perspective
and his scale of values, till one morning in April, walking with Barbara
in the garden that smelt of wallflowers and violets, he became aware
that Barbara was as necessary to him as he was to Barbara.

Her easel stood in a corner of the lawn with an unfinished water-colour
drawing of the house on it. He paused before it, smiling his tender,
sentimental smile.

"There's one thing I regret, Barbara--that I didn't have your drawings
for my Cotswold book."

The _Ramblings_, thanks to unproclaimed activities of Ralph Bevan, were
at that moment in the press.

"Why should you," she said, "if you didn't care about them?"

"It's inconceivable that I shouldn't have cared. ... I was blind. Blind.
... Well, some day, if we ever have an _Г©dition de luxe_, they shall
appear in that."

"Some day!"

She hadn't the heart to tell him that the drawings had another
destination, for as yet the existence of Ralph's took was a secret.
They had agreed that nothing should disturb Mr. Waddington's pleasure in
the publication of his Ramblings--his poor Ramblings.

"One has to pay for blindness in this world," he said.

"A lot of people'll be let in at that rate. I don't suppose five will
care a rap about my drawings."

"I wasn't thinking only of your drawings, my dear." He pondered. ...
"Fanny tells me you're going to have a birthday. You're quite a little
April girl, aren't you?"


2

It was Barbara's twenty-fourth birthday, and the day of her adoption. It
had begun, unpropitiously, with something very like a dispute between
Horatio and Fanny.

Mr. Waddington had gone up to London the day before, and had returned
with a pearl pendant for Fanny, and a green jade necklace for Barbara
(not yet presented) and a canary yellow waistcoat for himself.

And not only the waistcoat--

On the birthday morning Fanny had called out to Barbara as she passed
her bedroom door:

"Barbara, come here."

Fanny was staring, fascinated, at four pairs of silk pyjamas spread out
before her on the bed. Remarkable pyjamas, of a fierce magenta with
forked lightning in orange running about all over them.

"Good God, Fanny!"

"You may well say 'Good God.' What would you say if you'd got to...?
I'm not a nervous woman, but--"

"It's a mercy he didn't get them eighteen years ago," said Barbara, "or
Horry might have been born an idiot."

"Yellow waistcoats are all very well," said Fanny. "But what _can_ he
have been thinking of?"

"I don't know," said Barbara. Somehow the pattern called up,
irresistibly, the image of Mrs. Levitt.

"Perhaps," she said, "he thinks he's Jupiter."

"Well, I'm not What's-her-name, and I don't want to be blasted. So I'll
put them somewhere where he can't find them."

At that moment they had heard Mr. Waddington coming through his
dressing-room and Barbara had run away by the door into the corridor.

"Who took those things out of my wardrobe?" he said. He was gazing,
dreamily, affectionately almost, at the pyjamas.

"I did."

"And what for?"

"To look at them. Can you wonder? Horatio, if you wear them I'll apply
for a separation."

"You needn't worry."

There was a queer look in his face, significant and furtive. And Fanny's
mind, with one of its rapid flights, darted off from the pyjamas.

"What are you going to do about Barbara?" she said.

"_Do_ about her?"

"Yes. You know we were going to adopt her if we liked her enough. And we
do like her enough, don't we?"

"I have no paternal feeling for Barbara," said Mr. Waddington. "The
parental relation does not appeal to me as desirable or suitable."

"I should have thought, considering her age and your age, it was very
suitable indeed."

"Not if it entails obligations that I might regret."

"You're going to provide for her, aren't you? That isn't an obligation,
surely, you'll regret?"

"I can provide for her without adopting her."

"How? It's no good just leaving her something in your will."

"I shall continue half her salary," said Mr. Waddington, "as an
allowance."

"Yes. But will you give her a marriage portion if she marries?"

He was silent. His mind reeled with the blow.

"If she marries," he said, "with my consent and my approval--yes."

"If that isn't a parental attitude! And supposing she doesn't?"

"She isn't thinking of marrying."

"You don't know what she's thinking of."

"Neither, I venture to say, do you."

"Well--I don't see how I can adopt her, if you don't."

"I didn't say I wouldn't adopt her."

"Then you will?"

He snapped back at her with an incredible ferocity.

"I suppose I shall have to. Don't _worry_ me!"

He then lifted up the pyjamas from the bed and carried them into his
dressing-room. Through the open door she saw him, mounted on a chair,
laying them out, tenderly, on the top shelf of the wardrobe: as if he
were storing them for some mysterious and romantic purpose in which
Fanny was not included.

"Perhaps, after all," she thought, "he only bought them because they
make him feel young."

All the morning, that morning of Barbara's birthday and adoption Mr.
Waddington's thoughtful gloom continued. And in the afternoon he shut
himself up in his library and gave orders that he was not to be
disturbed.


3

Barbara was in the morning-room.

They had given her the morning-room for a study, and she was alone in
it, amusing herself with her pocket sketch-book.

The sketch-book was Barbara's and Ralph's secret. Sometimes it lived for
days with Ralph at the White Hart. Sometimes it lived with Barbara, in
her coat pocket, or in her bureau under lock and key. She was obsessed
with the fear that some day she would leave it about and Fanny would
find it, or Mr. Waddington. Or any minute Mr. Waddington might come on
her and catch her with it. It would be awful if she were caught. For
that remarkable collection contained several pen-and-ink drawings of Mr.
Waddington, and Barbara added to their number daily.

But at the moment, the long interval between an unusually early birthday
tea and an unusually late birthday dinner, she was safe. Fanny had gone
over to Medlicott in the car. Mr. Waddington was tucked away in his
library, reading in perfect innocence and simplicity and peace. It
wasn't even likely that Ralph would turn up, for he had gone over to
Oxford, and it was on his account that the birthday dinner was put off
till half-past eight. There would be hours and hours.

She had just finished the last of three drawings of Mr. Waddington: Mr.
Waddington standing up before the long looking-glass in his new pyjamas;
Mr. Waddington appearing in the doorway of Fanny's bedroom as Jupiter,
with forked lightning zig-zagging out of him into every corner; Mr.
Waddington stooping to climb into his bed, a broad back view with
lightnings blazing out of it.

And it was that moment that Mr. Waddington chose to come in to present
the green jade necklace. He was wearing his canary yellow waistcoat.

Barbara closed her sketch-book hurriedly and laid it on the table. She
kept one arm over it while she received and opened the leather case
where the green necklace lay on its white cushion.

"For _me_? Oh, it's too heavenly. How awfully sweet of you."

"Do you like it, Barbara?"

"I love it."

Compunction stung her when she thought of her drawings, especially the
one where he was getting into bed. She said to herself: "I'll never do
it again. Never again.... And I won't show it to Ralph."

"Put it on," he commanded, "and let me see you in it."

She lifted it from the case. She raised her arms and clasped it round
her neck; she went to the looking-glass. And, after the first rapt
moment of admiration, Mr. Waddington possessed himself of the uncovered
sketch-book. Barbara saw him in the looking-glass. She turned, with a
cry:

"You mustn't! You mustn't look at it."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't let anybody see my sketches."

"You'll let _me_."

"I _won't_!" She dashed at him, clutching his arm and hanging her weight
on it. He shook himself free and raised the sketch-book high above her
head. She jumped up, tearing at it, but his grip held.

He delighted in his power. He laughed.

"Give it me this instant," she said.

"Aha! She's got her little secrets, has she?"

"Yes. Yes. They're all there. You've no business to look at them."

He caracoled heavily, dodging her attack, enjoying the youthful violence
of the struggle.

"Come," he said, "ask me nicely."

"Please, then. _Please_ give it me."

He gave it, bowing profoundly over her hand as she took it.

"I wouldn't look into your dear little secrets for the world," he said.

They sat down amicably.

"You'll let me stay with you a little while?"

"Please do. Won't you have one of my cigarettes?"

He took one, turning it in his fingers and smiling at it--a lingering,
sentimental smile.

"I think I know your secret," he said presently.

"Do you?" Her mind rushed to Ralph.

"I think so. And I think you know mine."

"Yours?"

"Yes. Mine. We can't go on living like this, so close to each other,
without knowing. We may try to keep things from each other, but we
can't. I feel as if you'd seen everything."

She said to herself: "He's thinking of Mrs. Levitt."

"I don't suppose I've seen anything that matters," she said.

"You've seen what my life is here. You can't have helped seeing that
Fanny and I don't hit it off very well together."

"Fanny's an angel."

"You dear little loyal thing.... Yes, she's an angel. Too much of an
angel for a mere man. I made my grand mistake, Barbara, when I married
her."

"She doesn't think so, anyhow."

"I'm not so sure. Fanny knows she's got hold of something that's
too--too big for her. What's wrong with Fanny is that she can't grasp
things. She's afraid of them. And she can't take serious things
seriously. It's no use expecting her to. I've left off expecting."

"You don't understand Fanny one bit."

"My dear child, I've been married to her more than seventeen years, and
I'm not a fool. You've seen for yourself how she takes things. How she
belittles everything with her everlasting laugh, laugh, laugh. In time
it gets on your nerves."

"It would," said Barbara, "if you don't see the fun of it."

"You can't expect me to see the fun of my own funeral."

"Funeral? Is it as bad as all that?"

"It has been as bad as all that--Barbara."

He brooded.

"And then you came, with your sweetness. And your little serious face--"

"_Is_ my face serious?"

"Very. To me. Other people may think you frivolous and amusing. I
daresay you are amusing--to them."

"I hope so."

"You hope so because you want to hide your real self from them. But you
can't hide it from me. I've seen it all the time, Barbara."

"Are you sure?"

"Quite, quite sure."

"I wish I knew what it looked like."

"That's the beauty and charm of you, my dear, that you don't know."

"What a nice waistcoat you've got on," said Barbara.

He looked gratified. "I'm glad you like it I put it on for your
birthday."

"You mean," she said, "my adoption day."

He winced.

"It _is_ good," she said, "of you and Fanny to adopt me. But it won't be
for very long. And I want to earn my own living all the same."

"I can't think of letting you do that."

"I must. It won't make any difference to my adoption."

He scowled. So repugnant to him was this subject that he judged it
would be equally distasteful to Barbara.

"It was Fanny's idea," he said.

"I thought it would be."

"You didn't expect me to have paternal feelings for you, Barbara?"

"I didn't _expect_ you to have any feelings at all."

The wound made him start. "My poor child, what a terrible thing for you
to say."

"Why terrible?"

"Because it shows--it shows--And it isn't true. Do you suppose I don't
know what's been going on inside you? I was blind to myself, my dear,
but I saw through you."

"Saw through me?" She thought again of Ralph.

"Through and through."

"I didn't know I was so transparent. But I don't see that it matters
much if you did."

He smiled at her delicious naivete.

"No. Nothing matters. Nothing matters, Barbara, except our caring. At
least we're wise enough to know that."

"I shouldn't have thought," she said, "it would take much wisdom."

"More than you think, my child; more than you think. You've only got to
be wise for yourself. I've got to be wise for both of us."

She thought: "Heavy parent. That comes of being adopted."

"When it comes to the point," she said, "one can only be wise for
oneself."

"I'm glad you see that. It makes it much easier for me."

"It does. You mustn't think you're responsible for me just because
you've adopted me."

"Don't talk to me about adoption! When you know perfectly well what I
did it for."

"Why--what _did_ you do it for?"

"To make things safe for us. To keep Fanny from knowing. To keep myself
from knowing, Barbara. To keep you.... But it's too late to camouflage
it. We know where we stand now."

"I don't think _I_ do."

"You do. You do."

Mr. Waddington tossed his cigarette into the fire with a passionate
gesture of abandonment. He came to her. She saw his coming. She saw it
chiefly as the approach of a canary yellow waistcoat. She fixed her
attention on the waistcoat as if it were the centre of her own mental
equilibrium.

There was a bend in the waistcoat. Mr. Waddington was stooping over her
with his face peering into hers. She sat motionless, held under his face
by curiosity and fear. The whole phenomenon seemed to her incredible.
Too incredible as yet to call for protest. It was as if it were not
happening; as if she were merely waiting to see it happen before she
cried out. Yet she was frightened.

This state lasted for one instant. The next she was in his arms. His
mouth, thrust out under the big, rough moustache, was running over her
face, like--like--while she pressed her hands hard against the canary
yellow waistcoat, pushing him off, her mind disengaged itself from the
struggle and reported--like a vacuum cleaner. That was it. Vacuum
cleaner.

He gave back. There was no evil violence in him, and she got on her
feet.

"How could you?" she cried. "How could you be such a perfect pig?"

"_Don't_ say that to me, Barbara. Even in fun.... You know you love
me."

"I don't. I don't."

"You do. You know you do. You know you want me to take you in my arms.
Why be so cruel to yourself?"

"To myself? I'd kill myself before I let you.... Why, I'd kill you."

"No. No. No. You only think you would, you little spitfire."

He had given back altogether and now leaned against the chimneypiece,
not beaten, not abashed, but smiling at her in a triumphant certitude.
For so long the glamour of his illusion held him.

"Nothing you can say, Barbara, will persuade me that you don't care for
me."

"Then you must be mad. Mad as a hatter."

"All men go mad at times. You must make allowances. Listen--"

"I won't listen. I don't want to hear another word."

She was going.

He saw her intention; but he was nearer to the door than she was, and by
a quick though ponderous movement he got there first. He stood before
her with his back to the door. (He had the wild thought of locking it,
but chivalry forbade him.)

"You can go in a minute," he said. "But you've got to listen to me
first. You've got to be fair to me. I may be mad; but if I didn't care
for you--madly--I wouldn't have supposed for an instant that you cared
for me. I wouldn't have thought of such a thing."

"But I _don't_, I tell you."

"And I tell you, you do. Do you suppose after all you've done for
me--"

"I haven't done anything."

"Done? Look at the way you've worked for me. I've never known anything
like your devotion, Barbara."

"Oh, _that_! It was only my job."

"Was it your job to save me from that horrible woman?"

"Oh, yes; it was all in the day's work."

"My dear Barbara, no woman ever does a day's work like that for a man
unless she cares for him. And unless she wants him to care for her."

"As it happens, it was Fanny I cared for. I was thinking of Fanny all
the time.... If _you'd_ think about Fanny more and about Mrs. Levitt and
people less, it would be a good thing."

"It's too late to think about Fanny now. That's only your sweetness and
goodness."

"Please don't lie. If you really thought me sweet and good you wouldn't
expect me to be a substitute for Mrs. Levitt."

"Don't talk about Mrs. Levitt. Do you suppose I think of you in the same
sentence? That was a different thing altogether."

"Was it? Was it so very different?"

He saw that she remembered. "It was. A man may lose his head ten times
over without losing his heart once. If it's Mrs. Levitt you're thinking
about, you can put that out of your mind for ever."

"It isn't only Mrs. Levitt. There's Ralph Bevan. You've forgotten Ralph
Bevan."

"What has Ralph Bevan got to do with it?"

"Simply this, that I'm engaged to be married to him."

"To be married? To be married to Ralph Bevan? Oh, Barbara, why didn't
you tell me?"

"Ralph didn't want me to, till nearer the time."

"The time.... Did it come to that?"

"It did," said Barbara.

He moved from the doorway and began walking up and down the room. She
might now have gone out, but she didn't go. She _had_ to see what he
would make of it.

At his last turn he faced her and stood still.

"Poor child," he said, "so that's what I've driven you to?"

Amazement kept her silent.

"Sit down," he said, "we must go through this together."

Amazement made her sit down. Certainly they must go through it, to see
what he would look like at the end. He was unsurpassable. She mustn't
miss him.

"Look here, Barbara." He spoke in a tone of forced, unnatural calm. "I
don't think you quite understand the situation. I'm sure you don't
realize for one moment how serious it is."

"I don't. You mustn't expect me to take it seriously."

"That's because you don't take yourself seriously enough, dear. In some
ways you're singularly humble. I don't believe you really know how deep
this thing has gone with me, or you wouldn't have talked about Mrs.
Levitt....

"... It's life and death, Barbara. Life and death.... I'll make a
confession. It wasn't serious at first. It wasn't love at first sight.
But it's gone all the deeper for that. I didn't know how deep it was
till the other day. And I had so much to think of. So many claims.
Fanny--"

"Yes. Don't forget Fanny."

"I am not forgetting her. Fanny isn't going to mind as you think she
minds. As you would mind yourself if you were in her place. Things don't
go so deep with Fanny as all that.... And she isn't going to hold me
against my will. She's not that sort.... Listen, now. Please listen."

Barbara sat still, listening. She would let him go to the end of his
tether.

"I'll confess. In the beginning I hadn't thought of a divorce. I
couldn't bear the idea of going through all that unpleasantness. But I'd
go through it ten times over rather than that you should marry Ralph
Bevan.... Wait now.... Before I spoke to you to-day I'd made up my
mind to ask Fanny to divorce me. I know she'll do it. Your name shan't
be allowed to appear. The moment I get her consent we'll go off together
somewhere. Italy or the Riviera. I've got everything planned, everything
ready. I saw to that when I was in London. I've bought everything--"

She saw forked lightnings on a magenta Waddington.

"What are you laughing at, Barbara?"

He stood over her, distressed. Was _Barbara_ going to treat him to a fit
of hysterics?

"Don't laugh. Don't be silly, child."

But Barbara went on laughing, with her face in the cushions, abandoned
to her vision. From far up the park they heard the sound of Kimber's
hooter, then the grinding of the car, with Fanny in it, on the gravel
outside. Barbara sat up suddenly and dried her eyes.

They stared at each other, the stare of accomplices.

"Come, child," he said, "pull yourself together."

Barbara got up and looked in the glass and saw the green jade necklace
hanging on her still. She took it off and laid it on the table beside
the forgotten sketch-book.

"I think," she said, "you must have meant this for Mrs. Levitt. But you
may thank your stars it's only me, this time."

He pretended not to hear her, not to see the necklace, not to know that
she was going from him. She stood a moment with her back to the door,
facing him. It was her turn to stand there and be listened to.

"Mr. Waddington," she said, "some people might think you wicked. I only
think you funny."

He drew himself up and looked noble.

"Funny? If that's your idea of me, you had better marry Ralph Bevan."

"I almost think I had."

And she laughed again. Not Mrs. Levitt's laughter, gross with
experience. He had borne that without much pain. Girl's laughter it was,
young and innocent and pure, and ten times more cruel.

"You don't know," she said, "you don't know how funny you are," and left
him.

Mr. Waddington took up the necklace and kissed it. He rubbed it against
his cheek and kissed it. A slip of paper had fallen from the table to
the floor. He knew what was written on it: "From Horatio Bysshe
Waddington to his Little April Girl." He took it up and put it in his
pocket. He took up the sketch-book.

"The little thing," he thought. "Now, if it hadn't been for her
ridiculous jealousy of Elise--if it hadn't been for Fanny--if it hadn't
been for the little thing's sweetness and goodness--" Her goodness. She
was a saint. A saint. It was Barbara's virtue, not Barbara, that had
repulsed him.

This was the only credible explanation of her behaviour, the only one he
could bear to live with.

He opened the sketch-book.

It was Fanny, coming in that instant, who saved him from the worst.

When she had restored the sketch-book to its refuge in the bureau and
locked it in, she turned to him.

"Horatio," she said, "as Ralph's coming to dinner to-night I'd better
tell you that he and Barbara are engaged to be married."

"She has told me herself.... That child, Fanny, is a saint. A little
saint."

"How did you find that out? Do you think it takes a saint to marry
Ralph?"

"I think it takes a saint to--to marry Ralph, since you put it that
way."


4

"Dearest Fanny:

"I'm sorry, but Mr. Waddington and I have had a scrap. It's made things
impossible, and I'm going to Ralph. He'll turn out for me, so there
won't be any scandal.

"You know how awfully I love you, that's why you'll forgive me if I
don't come back.

"Always your loving

"Barbara."

"P.S.--I'm frightfully sorry about my birthday dinner. But I don't feel
birthdayish or dinnerish, either. I want Ralph. Nothing but Ralph."

That would make Fanny think it was Ralph they had quarrelled about.
Barbara put this note on Fanny's dressing-table. Then she went up to the
White Hart, to Ralph Bevan. She waited in his sitting-room till he came
back from Oxford.

"Hallo, old thing, what are _you_ doing here?"

"Ralph--do you awfully mind if we don't dine at the Manor?"

"If we don't--why?"

"Because I've left them. And I don't want to go back. Do you think I
could get a room here?"

"What's up?"

"I've had a simply awful scrap with Waddy, and I can't stick it there.
Between us we've made it impossible."

"What's he been up to?"

"Oh, never mind."

"He's been making love to you."

"If you call it making love."

"The old swine!"

As he said it, he felt the words and his own fury fall short of the
fantastic quality of Waddington.

"No. He isn't." (Barbara felt it.) "He was simply more funny than you
can imagine.... He had on a canary yellow waistcoat."

In spite of his fury he smiled.

"I think he'd bought it for that."

"Oh, Barbara, what he must have looked like!"

"Yes. If only you could have seen him. But that's the worst of all his
best things. They only happen when you're alone with him."

"You remember--we wondered whether he'd do it again, whether he'd go one
better?"

"Yes, Ralph. We little thought it would be me."

"How he does surpass himself!"

"The funniest thing was he thought I was in love with _him_."

"He didn't!"

"He did. Because of the way I'd worked for him. He thought that proved
it."

"Yes. Yes. I suppose he _would_ think it.... Look here--he didn't do
anything, did he?"

"He kissed me. _That_ wasn't funny."

"The putrid old sinner. If he _wasn't_ so old I'd wring his neck for
him."

"No, no. That's all wrong. It's not the way we agreed to take him. We'd
think it funny enough if he'd done it to somebody else. It's pure
accident that it's me."

"No doubt that's the proper philosophic view. I wonder whether Mrs.
Levitt takes it."

"Ralph--it wasn't a bit like his Mrs. Levitt stunt. The awful thing was
he really meant it. He'd planned it all out. We were to go off together
to the Riviera, and he was to wear his canary waistcoat."

"Did he say that?"

"No. But you could see he thought it. And he was going to get Fanny to
divorce him."

"Good God! He went as far as that?"

"As far as that. He was so cocksure, you see. I'm afraid it's been a bit
of a shock to him."

"Well, it's a thundering good thing I've got a job at last."

"_Have_ you?"

"Yes. We can get married the day after tomorrow if we like.
Blackadder's given me the editorship of the _New Review_."

"No? Oh, Ralph, how topping."

"That's what I ran up to Oxford for, to see him and settle everything.
It's a fairly decent screw. The thing's got no end of hacking, and it's
up to me to make it last."

"I say--Fanny'll he pleased."

As they were talking about it, the landlady of the White Hart came in to
tell them that Mrs. Waddington was downstairs and wanted to speak to
Miss Madden.

"All right," Ralph said. "Show Mrs. Waddington up. I'll clear out."

"Oh, Ralph, what am I to say to her?"

"Tell her the truth, if she wants it. She won't mind."

"She will--frightfully."

"Not so frightfully as you think."

"That's what _he_ said."

"Well, he's right there, the old beast."


5

"Barbara _dear_," said Fanny when they were alone together, "what on
earth has happened?"

"Oh, nothing. We just had a bit of a tiff, that's all."

"About Ralph? He told me it was Ralph."

"You might say it was Ralph. He came into it."

"Into what?"

"Oh, the general situation."

"Nonsense. Horatio was making love to you. I could see by his face....
You needn't mind telling me straight out I've seen it coming."

"Since when?"

"I don't know. It must have begun long before I saw it."

"How long do you think?"

"Oh, before Mrs. Levitt."

"Mrs. Levitt?"

"She may have been only a safety valve. That's why I made him adopt you.
I thought it would stop it. In common decency. But it seems it only
brought it to a head."

"No. It was his canary waistcoat did that, Fanny."

The ghost of dead mirth rose up in Fanny's eyes.

"You're muddling cause and effect, my dear. He wasn't in love because he
bought the waistcoat. He bought the waistcoat because he was in love.
And those other things--the romantic pyjamas--because he thought they'd
make him look younger."

"Well then," said Barbara, "it was a vicious circle. The waistcoat put
it into his head that afternoon."

"It doesn't much matter how it happened."

"I'm awfully sorry, Fanny. I wouldn't have let it happen for the world,
if I'd known it was going to. But who could have known?"

"My dear, it wasn't your fault."

"Do you mind frightfully?"

Fanny looked away.

"It depends," she said. "What did you say to him?"

"I said a lot of things, but they weren't a bit of good. Then I'm afraid
I laughed."

"You laughed at him?"

"I couldn't help it, Fanny. He was so funny."

"Oh!" Fanny caught her breath back on a sob. "That's what I can't bear,
Barbara--his being laughed at."

"I know," said Barbara.

"By the way, when you're dying dear, if you should be dying at any time,
it'll be a consolation to you to know that he didn't see your
drawings--"

"Did _you_ see them?"

"Only the one he was looking at when I came in."

"Was it--was it the one where he was getting into bed?"

"No. He was only hunting."

"God has been kinder to me than I deserve then."

"He's been kinder to him, too, I fancy."

She went on. "I want you to see this thing straight. Understand. I don't
mind his being in love with you. I knew he was. Head over ears in love.
And I didn't mind a bit."

"I think he was reckoning on that. He knew you'd forgive him."

"Forgive him? It wasn't even a question of forgiveness. I was _glad_. I
thought: If only he could have one real feeling. If only he could care
for something or somebody that wasn't himself.... I think he cared for
you, Barbara. It wasn't just himself. And I loved him for it."

"You darling! And you don't hate me?"

"You know I don't But I'd love you even more if you'd loved him."

"If I'd loved him?"

"Yes. If you'd gone away with him and made him happy. If you hadn't
laughed at him, Barbara."

"I know. It was awful of me. But what could I do?"

"What could you do? We all do it. I do it. Mrs. Levitt did it."

"I didn't do it like Mrs. Levitt."

"No. But you were just one more. Think of it. All his life to be laughed
at. And when he was making love, too; the most serious thing, Barbara,
that anybody can do. I tell you I can't bear it. I'd have given him to
you ten times first."

"Then," said Barbara, "you _have_ got to forgive me."

"If I don't, it's because it's my own sin and I can't forgive myself....

"... Besides, I let it happen. Because I thought it would cure him."

"Of falling in love?"

"Of trying to be young when he didn't feel it. I thought he'd see how
impossible it was. But that's the sad part of it. He _would_ have felt
young, Barbara, if you'd loved him. If I'd loved him I could have kept
him young. I told you," she said, "it was all my fault."

"You told me Ralph and I would never be old. Is that what you meant?"

"Yes."

They sat silent a moment, looking down through Ralph's window into the
Market Square.

And presently they saw Mr. Waddington pass the corner of the Town Hall
and cross the wide, open space to the Dower House.

"You must come back with me, Barbara. If you don't everybody'll know
what's happened."

"I can't, Fanny."

"He won't be there. You won't see him till your wedding day. He's going
to stay with Granny. He says she isn't very well."

"I'm sorry she isn't well."

"She's perfectly well. That isn't what he's going for."

Across the Square they could see the door of the Dower House open and
receive him. Fanny smiled.

"He's going back to his mother to be made young again," she said.