"So I do. What"s that got to do with it?" asked Pamela.
It was beyond question that Chillington enjoyed Miss Liston"s society; the interest she showed in him was incense to his nostrils. I used to overhear fragments of his ideas about himself which he was revealing in answer to her tactful inquiries. But neither was it doubtful that he had by no means lost his relish for Pamela"s lighter talk; in fact, he seemed to turn to her with some relief--perhaps it is refreshing to escape from self-a.n.a.lysis, even when the process is conducted in the pleasantest possible manner--and the hours which Miss Liston gave to work were devoted by Chillington to maintaining his cordial relations with the lady whose comfortable and not over-tragical disposal was taxing Miss Liston"s skill. For she had definitely decided all her plot--she told me so a few days later.
It was all planned out; nay, the scene in which the truth as to his own feelings bursts on Sir Gilbert (I forget at the moment what name the novel gave him) was, I understood, actually written; the shallow girl was to experience nothing worse than a wound to her vanity, and was to turn, with as much alacrity as decency allowed, to the subst.i.tute whom Miss Liston had now provided. All this was poured into my sympathetic ear, and I say sympathetic in all sincerity; for, although I may occasionally treat Miss Liston"s literary efforts with less than proper respect, she herself was my friend, and the conviction under which she was now living would, I knew, unless it were justified, bring her into much of that unhappiness in which one generally found her heroine plunged about the end of Volume II. The heroine generally got out all right, and the knowledge that she would enabled the reader to preserve cheerfulness. But would poor little Miss Liston get out? I was none too sure of it.
Suddenly a change came in the state of affairs. Pamela produced it.
It must have struck her that the increasing intimacy of Miss Liston and Chillington might become something other than "funny."
To put it briefly and metaphorically, she whistled her dog back to her heels. I am not skilled in understanding or describing the artifices of ladies; but even I saw the transformation in Pamela. She put forth her strength and put on her prettiest gowns; she refused to take her place in the sea-saw of society which Chillington had recently established for his pleasure. If he spent an hour with Miss Liston, Pamela would have nothing of him for a day; she met his attentions with scorn unless they were undivided. Chillington seemed at first puzzled; I believe that he never regarded his talks with Miss Liston in other than a business point of view, but directly he understood that Pamela claimed him, and that she was prepared, in case he did not obey her call, to establish a grievance against him, he lost no time in manifesting his obedience. A whole day pa.s.sed in which, to my certain knowledge, he was not alone a moment with Miss Liston, and did not, save at the family meals, exchange a word with her. As he walked off with Pamela, Miss Liston"s eyes followed him in wistful longing; she stole away upstairs and did not come down till five o"clock. Then, finding me strolling about with a cigarette, she joined me.
"Well, how goes the book?" I asked.
"I haven"t done much to it just lately," she answered, in a low voice.
"I--it"s--I don"t quite know what to do with it."
"I thought you"d settled?"
"So I had, but--oh, don"t let"s talk about it, Mr. Wynne!"
But a moment later she went on talking about it.
"I don"t know why I should make it end happily," she said. "I"m sure life isn"t always happy, is it?"
"Certainly not," I answered. "You mean your man might stick to the shallow girl after all?"
"Yes," I just heard her whisper.
"And be miserable afterward?" I pursued.
"I don"t know," said Miss Liston. "Perhaps he wouldn"t."
"Then you must make him shallow himself."
"I can"t do that," she said quickly. "Oh, how difficult it is!"
She may have meant merely the art of writing--when I cordially agree with--but I think she meant also the way of the world--which does not make me withdraw my a.s.sent. I left her walking up and down in front of the drawing-room windows, a rather forlorn little figure, thrown into distinctness by the cold rays of the setting sun.
All was not over yet. That evening Chillington broke away. Led by vanity, or interest, or friendliness, I know not which--tired may be of paying court (the att.i.tude in which Pamela kept him), and thinking it would be pleasant to play the other part for a while--after dinner he went straight to Miss Liston, talked to her while we had coffee on the terrace, and then walked about with her. Pamela sat by me; she was very silent; she did not appear to be angry, but her handsome mouth wore a resolute expression. Chillington and Miss Liston wandered on into the shrubbery, and did not come into sight again for nearly half an hour.
"I think it"s cold," said Pamela, in her cool, quiet tones. "And it"s also, Mr. Wynne, rather slow. I shall go to bed."
I thought it a little impertinent of Pamela to attribute the "slowness"
(which had undoubtedly existed) to me, so I took my revenge by saying with an a.s.sumption of innocence purposely and obviously unreal:
"Oh, but won"t you wait and bid Miss Liston and Chillington goodnight?"
Pamela looked at me for a moment. I made bold to smile.
Pamela"s face broke slowly into an answering smile.
"I don"t know what you mean, Mr. Wynne," said she.
"No?" said I.
"No," said Pamela, and she turned away. But before she went she looked over her shoulder, and still smiling, said, "Wish Miss Liston good-night for me, Mr. Wynne. Anything I have to say to Sir Gilbert will wait very well till to-morrow."
She had hardly gone in when the wanderers came out of the shrubbery and rejoined me. Chillington wore his usual pa.s.sive look, but Miss Liston"s face was happy and radiant. Chillington pa.s.sed on into the drawing room. Miss Liston lingered a moment by me.
"Why, you look," said I, "as if you"d invented the finest scene ever written."
She did not answer me directly, but stood looking up at the stars.
Then she said, in a dreamy tone:
"I think I shall stick to my old idea in the book."
As she spoke, Chillington came out. Even in the dim light I saw a frown on his face.
"I say, Wynne," said he, "where"s Miss Myles?"
"She"s gone to bed," I answered. "She told me to wish you good night for her, Miss Liston. No message for you, Chillington."
Miss Liston"s eyes were on him. He took no notice of her; he stood frowning for an instant, then, with some muttered e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, he strode back into the house. We heard his heavy tread across the drawing room; we heard the door slammed behind him, and I found myself looking on Miss Liston"s altered face.
"What does he want her for, I wonder!" she said, in an agitation that made my presence, my thoughts, my suspicions, nothing to her. "He said nothing to me about wanting to speak to her to-night." And she walked slowly into the house, her eyes on the ground, and all the light gone from her face, and the joy dead in it. Whereupon I, left alone, began to rail at the G.o.ds that a dear, silly little soul like Miss Liston should bother her poor, silly little head about a hulking fool; in which reflections I did, of course, immense injustice not only to an eminent author, but also to a perfectly honorable, though somewhat dense and decidedly conceited, gentleman.
The next morning Sir Gilbert Chillington ate dirt--there is no other way of expressing it--in great quant.i.ties and with infinite humility.
My admirable friend Miss Pamela was severe. I saw him walk six yards behind her for the length of the terrace: not a look nor a turn of her head gave him leave to join her. Miss Liston had gone upstairs, and I watched the scene from the window of the smoking room. At last, at the end of the long walk, just where the laurel-bushes mark the beginning of the shrubberies--on the threshold of the scene of his crime--Pamela turned round suddenly and faced the repentant sinner. The most interesting things in life are those which, perhaps by the inevitable nature of the case, one does not hear; and I did not hear the scene which followed. For a while they stood talking--rather, he talked and she listened. Then she turned again and walked slowly into the shrubbery. Chillington followed. It was the end of a chapter, and I laid down the book.
How and from whom Miss Liston heard the news which Chillington himself told me, without a glimmer of shame or a touch of embarra.s.sment, some two hours later, I do not know; but hear it she did before luncheon; for she came down, ready armed with the neatest little speeches for both the happy lovers.
I did not expect Pamela to show an ounce more feeling than the strictest canons of propriety demanded, and she fulfilled my expectations to the letter; but I had hoped, I confess, that Chillington would have displayed some little consciousness. He did not; and it is my belief that, throughout the events which I have recorded, he retained, and that he still retains, the conviction that Miss Liston"s interest in him was purely literary and artistic, and that she devoted herself to his society simply because he offered an interesting problem and an inspiring theme.
An ingenious charity may find in that att.i.tude evidence of modesty; to my thinking, it argues a more subtle and magnificent conceit than if he had fathomed the truth, as many humbler men in his place would have done.
On the day after the engagement was accomplished Miss Liston left us to return to London. She came out in her hat and jacket and sat down by me; the carriage was to be round in ten minutes. She put on her gloves slowly and b.u.t.toned them carefully. This done, she said:
"By the way, Mr. Wynne, I"ve adopted your suggestion. The man doesn"t find out."
"Then you"ve made him a fool?" I asked bluntly.
"No," she answered. "I--I think it might happen though he wasn"t a fool."
She sat with her hands in her lap for a moment or two, then she went on, in a lower voice:
"I"m going to make him find out afterward."
I felt her glance on me, but I looked straight in front of me.