"Hallo!" said Gilbert. "Why haven"t you been to see me, Mr. Conroy? Come under the lamp. Take off your hat. No--no. Sit, you young giant. Ve-ry good. Look here a minute, Johnnie."
A little, round-bellied, hawk-faced person glared at him.
"Gilbert was right about the beauty of the beast," he muttered. "D"you keep it in your glove now?" he went on, and punched Conroy in the short ribs.
"No," said Conroy meekly, but without coughing. "Nowhere--on my honour!
I"ve chucked it for good."
"Wait till you are a sound man before you say _that_, Mr. Conroy." Sir John Chartres stumped out, saying to Gilbert in the corridor, "It"s all very fine, but the question is shall I or we "Sir Pandarus of Troy become," eh? We"re bound to think of the children."
"Have you been vetted?" said Miss Henschil, a few minutes after the train started. "May I sit with you? I--I don"t trust myself yet. I can"t give up as easily as you can, seemingly."
"Can"t you? I never saw any one so improved in a month."
"Look here!" She reached across to the rack, single-handed lifted Conroy"s bag, and held it at arm"s length. "I counted ten slowly. And I didn"t think of hours or minutes," she boasted.
"Don"t remind me," he cried.
"Ah! Now I"ve reminded myself. I wish I hadn"t. Do you think it"ll be easier for us to-night?"
"Oh, don"t." The smell of the carriage had brought back all his last trip to him, and Conroy moved uneasily.
"I"m sorry. I"ve brought some games," she went on. "Draughts and cards--but they all mean counting. I wish I"d brought chess, but I can"t play chess. What can we do? Talk about something."
"Well, how"s Toots, to begin with?" said Conroy.
"Why? Did you see him on the platform?"
"No. Was he there? I didn"t notice."
"Oh yes. He doesn"t understand. He"s desperately jealous. I told him it doesn"t matter. Will you please let me hold your hand? I believe I"m beginning to get the chill."
"Toots ought to envy me," said Conroy.
"He does. He paid you a high compliment the other night. He"s taken to calling again--in spite of all they say."
Conroy inclined his head. He felt cold, and knew surely he would be colder.
"He said," she yawned. "(Beg your pardon.) He said he couldn"t see how I could help falling in love with a man like you; and he called himself a d.a.m.ned little rat, and he beat his head on the piano last night."
"The piano? You play, then?"
"Only to him. He thinks the world of my accomplishments. Then I told him I wouldn"t have you if you were the last man on earth instead of only the best-looking--not with a million in each stocking."
"No, not with a million in each stocking," said Conroy vehemently.
"Isn"t that odd?"
"I suppose so--to any one who doesn"t know. Well, where was I? Oh, George as good as told me I was deceiving him, and he wanted to go away without saying good-night. He hates standing a-tiptoe, but he must if I won"t sit down."
Conroy would have smiled, but the chill that foreran the coming of the Lier-in-Wait was upon him, and his hand closed warningly on hers.
"And--and so--" she was trying to say, when her hour also overtook her, leaving alive only the fear-dilated eyes that turned to Conroy. Hand froze on hand and the body with it as they waited for the horror in the blackness that heralded it. Yet through the worst Conroy saw, at an uncountable distance, one minute glint of light in his night. Thither would he go and escape his fear; and behold, that light was the light in the watch-tower of her eyes, where her locked soul signalled to his soul: "Look at me!"
In time, from him and from her, the Thing sheered aside, that each soul might step down and resume its own concerns. He thought confusedly of people on the skirts of a thunderstorm, withdrawing from windows where the torn night is, to their known and furnished beds. Then he dozed, till in some drowsy turn his hand fell from her warmed hand.
"That"s all. The Faces haven"t come," he heard her say. "All--thank G.o.d!
I don"t feel even I need what Nursey promised me. Do you?"
"No." He rubbed his eyes. "But don"t make too sure."
"Certainly not. We shall have to try again next month. I"m afraid it will be an awful nuisance for you."
"Not to me, I a.s.sure you," said Conroy, and they leaned back and laughed at the flatness of the words, after the h.e.l.ls through which they had just risen.
"And now," she said, strict eyes on Conroy, "_why_ wouldn"t you take me--not with a million in each stocking?"
"I don"t know. That"s what I"ve been puzzling over."
"So have I. We"re as handsome a couple as I"ve ever seen. Are you well off, lad?"
"They call me so," said Conroy, smiling.
"That"s North country." She laughed again. Setting aside my good looks and yours, I"ve four thousand a year of my own, and the rents should make it six. That"s a match some old cats would lap tea all night to fettle up."
"It is. Lucky Toots!" said Conroy.
"Ay," she answered, "he"ll be the luckiest lad in London if I win through. Who"s yours?"
"No--no one, dear. I"ve been in h.e.l.l for years. I only want to get out and be alive and--so on. Isn"t that reason enough?"
"Maybe, for a man. But I never minded things much till George came. I was all stu-upid like."
"So was I, but now I think I can live. It ought to be less next month, oughtn"t it?" he said.
"I hope so. Ye-es. There"s nothing much for a maid except to be married, and I ask no more. Whoever yours is, when you"ve found her, she shall have a wedding present from Mrs. George Skinner that--"
"But she wouldn"t understand it any more than Toots."
"He doesn"t matter--except to me. I can"t keep my eyes open, thank G.o.d!
Good-night, lad."
Conroy followed her with his eyes. Beauty there was, grace there was, strength, and enough of the rest to drive better men than George Skinner to beat their heads on piano-tops--but for the new-found life of him Conroy could not feel one flutter of instinct or emotion that turned to herward. He put up his feet and fell asleep, dreaming of a joyous, normal world recovered--with interest on arrears. There were many things in it, but no one face of any one woman.
Thrice afterward they took the same train, and each time their trouble shrank and weakened. Miss Henschil talked of Toots, his multiplied calls, the things he had said to his sisters, the much worse things his sisters had replied; of the late (he seemed very dead to them) M.
Najdol"s gifts for the soul-weary; of shopping, of house rents, and the cost of really artistic furniture and linen.
Conroy explained the exercises in which he delighted--mighty labours of play undertaken against other mighty men, till he sweated and, having bathed, slept. He had visited his mother, too, in Hereford, and he talked something of her and of the home-life, which his body, cut out of all clean life for five years, innocently and deeply enjoyed. Nurse Blaber was a little interested in Conroy"s mother, but, as a rule, she smoked her cigarette and read her paper-backed novels in her own compartment.