"Well, you"re bored."
"No, not at all, it"s quite interesting," said Victoria judicially.
"Come along, Vic," said Cairns sharply. He got up.
She looked up at him. His face was redder, more swollen than it had been half-an-hour before. His eyes followed every movement of her arms and shoulders. With a faint smile of understanding and the patience of those who play lone hands, she got up and let him put on her wrap. As she put it on she made him feel against his fingers the sweep of her arm; she rested for a moment her shoulder against his.
In the cab they did not exchange a word. Victoria"s eyes were fixed on the leaden sky; she was this man"s prey. But, after all, one man"s prey or another? The prey of those who demand bitter toil from the charwoman, the female miner, the P.R.R. girl; or of those who want kisses, soft flesh, pungent scents, what did it all amount to? And, in Oxford Street, a sky sign in the shape of a horse-shoe advertising whisky suddenly reminded her of the half hoop, a step towards that capital which meant freedom. No, she was not the prey--at least not in the sense of the bait which finally captures the salmon.
Cairns had not spoken a word. Victoria looked at him furtively. His hands were clenched before him; in his eyes shone an indomitable purpose. He was going to the feast and he would foot the bill. On arriving at Elm Tree Place he walked at once into his dressing room, while Victoria went into her bedroom. She knew his mood well and knew too that he would not be long. She did not fancy overmuch the scene she could conjure up. In another minute or two he would come in with the culture of a thousand years ground down, smothered beneath the lava-like flow of animalism. He would come with his hands shaking, ready to be cruel in the exaction of his rights. She hovered between repulsion and an anxiety which was almost antic.i.p.ation; Cairns was the known and the unknown at once. But whatever his demands they should be met and satisfied, for business is business and its justification is profits. So Victoria braced herself and, with feverish activity, twisted up her hair, sprayed herself with scent, jumped into bed and turned out the light.
As she did so the door opened. She was conscious for a fraction of a second of the bright quadrilateral of the open door where Cairns stood framed, a broad black silhouette.
CHAPTER III
"YES, I"m a lucky beggar," soliloquised Cairns. He gave a tug to the leads at which two Pekingese spaniels were straining. "Come along, you little brutes," he growled. The spaniels, intent upon a piece of soiled brown paper in the gutter, refused to move.
"Obstinate, sir," said a policeman respectfully.
"Devilish. Simply devilish. Fine day, isn"t it?"
"Blowing up for rain, sir."
"Maybe. Come along, Snoo; that"ll do."
Cairns dragged the dogs up the road. Snoo and Poo, husband and wife, had suddenly fascinated him in Villiers Street that morning. He was on his way to offer them at Victoria"s shrine. Instinctively he liked the smart dog, as he liked the smart woman and the American novel. Snoo and Poo, tiny, fat, curly, khaki-coloured, with their flat Kalmuck faces, unwillingly trundled behind him. They would, thought Cairns, be in keeping with the establishment. A pleasant establishment. A nice little house, in its quiet street where nothing ever seemed to pa.s.s, except every hour or so a cab. It was better than a home, for it offered all that a home offers, soft carpets, discreet servants, nice little lunches among flowers and well-cleaned plate, and beyond, something that no home contains. It was adventurous. Cairns had knocked about the world a good deal and had collected sensations as finer natures collect thoughts. The women of the past met and caressed on steam-boats, in hotels at Cairo, Singapore and Cape Town, the tea gardens of Kobe and the stranger mysteries of Zanzibar, all this had left him weary and sighing for something like the English home. Indeed he grew more sentimental as he thought of Dover cliffs every time his tailor called the measurement of his girth. An extra quarter of an inch invariably coincided with a sentimental pang. Cairns, however, would not yet have been capable of settling down in a hunting county with a well-connected wife, a costly farming experiment and the shilling weeklies. A transition was required; he had no gift of introspection, but his relations with Victoria were expressions of this mood. Thus he was happy.
He never entered the little house in Elm Tree Place without a thrill of pleasure. Under the placid mask of its respectability and all that went with it, clean white steps, half curtains, bulbs in the window boxes, there flowed for him a swift hot stream. And in that stream flourished a beautiful white lily whose petals opened and smiled at will.
"I wonder whether I"m in love with her?" This was a frequent subject for Cairns"s meditations. Victoria was so much more for him than any other woman had been that he always hesitated to answer. She charmed him sensually, but other women had done likewise; she was beautiful, but he could conceive of greater beauty. Her intellect he did not consider, for he was almost unaware of it. For him she was clever, in the sense that women are clever in men"s eyes when they can give a smart answer, understand Bradshaw and order a possible combination at a restaurant.
What impressed him was Victoria"s coolness, the balance of her unhurried mind. Now and then he caught her reading curious books, such as _Smiles"s Self-Help_, _Letters of a Self-Made Merchant to his Son_ and _Thus Spake Zara . . . Something_, by a man with a funny name; but this was all part of her character and of its novelty. He did not worry to scratch the surface of this brain; virgin soils did not interest him in the mental sense. Sometimes, when he enounced a political opinion or generalised on the problems of the day as stated in the morning paper, he would find, a little uneasily, her eyes fixed on him with a strangely interested look. But her eyelids would at once be lowered and her lips would part, showing a little redder and moister, causing his heart to beat quicker, and he would forget his perplexity as he took her hand and stroked her arm with gentle insistence.
Cairns dragged Snoo and Poo up the steps of the little house still grumbling, panting and protesting that, as drawing-room dogs, they objected to exercise in any form. He had a latchkey, but always refrained from using it. He liked to ring the bell, to feel like a guest. It would have been commonplace to enter _his_ hall and hang up _his_ hat on _his_ peg. That would have been home and home only. To ask whether Mrs Ferris was in was more adventurous, for she might be out.
And if she expected him, then it was an a.s.signation; adventure again.
The unimposing Mary let him in. For a fraction of a second she looked at the Major, then at the floor.
"Mrs Ferris in?"
"Yes, sir, Mrs Ferris is in the boudoir." Mary"s voice fell on the last necessary word like a dropgate. She had been asked a question and answered it. That was the end of it. Cairns was the master of her mistress. What respect she owed was paid.
Cairns deposited his hat and coat in Mary"s hands. Then, lifting Snoo under one arm and Poo under the other, both grumbling vigorously and kicking with their hind legs, he walked to the boudoir and pushed it open with his shoulder. Victoria was sitting at the little bureau writing a letter. Cairns watched her for two seconds, rejoicing in the firm white moulding of her neck, in the dark tendrils of hair cl.u.s.tering low, dwindling into the central line of down which tells of breeding and health. Then Victoria turned round sharply.
"Oh," she said, with a little gasp. "Oh, Tom, the ducks!"
Cairns laughed and, walking up to her, dropped Snoo on her lap and Poo, snuffling ferociously, on the floor. Victoria buried her hands in Snoo"s thick coat; the dog gurgled joyfully and rolled over on its side.
Victoria laughed, muzzling Snoo with her hand.
Cairns watched the picture for, a moment. He was absurdly reminded of a girl in Java who nursed a black marmoset against her yellow breast. And as Victoria looked up at him, her chin now resting on Snoo"s brown head, a soft wave of scent rose towards him. He knelt down, throwing his arms round her and the dog, gathering them both into his embrace. As his lips met hers and clung to them, her perfume and the ranker scent of the dog filled his nostrils, burning aphrodisiac into his brain.
Victoria freed herself gently and rose to her feet, still nursing Snoo, and laughingly pushed him into Cairns"s face.
"Kiss him," she said, "no favours here."
Cairns obeyed, then picked up Poo and sat down on the couch.
"This is sweet of you, Tom," said Victoria. "They _are_ lovebirds."
"I"m glad you like them; this is Poo I"m holding, yours is Snoo."
"Odd names," said Victoria.
"Chinese according to the dealer," said Cairns, "but I don"t pretend to know what they mean."
"Never mind," said Victoria, "they"re lovebirds, and so are you, Tom."
Cairns looked at her silently, at her full erect figure and smiling eyes. He was a lucky beggar, a d.a.m.ned lucky beggar.
"And what is this bribe for?" she asked.
"Oh, nothing. Knew you"d like them, beastly tempers and as game as mice.
Women"s dogs, you know."
"Generalising again, Tom. Besides I hate mice."
Cairns drew her down by his side on the couch. Everything in this woman interested and stimulated him. She was always fresh, always young. The touch of her hand, the smell of her hair, the feel of her skirts winding round his ankles, all that was magic; every little act of hers was a taking of possession. Every time he mirrored his face in her eyes and saw the eyelids slowly veil and unveil them, something like love crept into his soul. But every pa.s.sionate embrace left him weak and almost repelled. She was his property; he had paid for her; and, insistent thought, what would she have done if he had not been rich?
Half an hour pa.s.sed away. Victoria lay pa.s.sive in his arms. Snoo and Poo, piled in a heap, were snuffling drowsily. There was a ring at the front door, then a slam. They could hear voices. They started up.
"Who the deuce . . . .?" said Cairns.
Then they heard someone in the dining-room beyond the door. There was a knock at the door of the boudoir.
"Come in," said Victoria.
Mary entered. Her placid eyes pa.s.sed over the Major"s tie which had burst out of his waistcoat, Victoria"s tumbled hair.
"Mr Wren, mum," she said.
Victoria staggered. Her hands knotted themselves together convulsively.
"Good G.o.d," she whispered.
"Who is it? What does he want? What name did you say?" asked Cairns.