"But I"d like to; I couldn"t let you get wrong ideas."
He halted again, frowning at the lighted end of his cigarette.
"Oh, well, it was like this. About a week ago I had a sort of a brush-up with Therese. She was very angry and so was I, and I laid down the law to her a bit. Since then we"ve scarcely spoken.... I don"t believe I had said a word to her until I found her in my room, early this afternoon. Well, this evening I was on my way to dress, and when I pa.s.sed the sitting-room she was in the doorway. She asked me to come inside, said she wanted to explain something to me."
"Oh! So that was it?"
"She was extraordinarily nice, appealing, and all that. She admitted it was a stupid lie about coming to get a book, that she had tapped on the door and thought she heard me say "Come in." Then when she was inside she found out she was mistaken, and was about to go out again, when I appeared, and frightened the life out of her by the suspicious look on my face, so she just said the first thing that came into her head. She made me feel rather a brute. She said, "You know you always terrify me, Roger, you are so hard, so intolerant. You always think the worst of me." I have to admit that"s true. I may not have given her a chance."
She waited for him to go on. He continued to frown, not looking at her, plainly troubled in his mind.
"I can"t tell you all she said, but she told me something about the scene we"d had that put rather a different light on matters. She told me how sorry she was, and I think she meant it. She was quite upset.
Do you know, Esther, I felt rather ashamed of myself for--for not having tried to make a friend of her. It makes me out a frightful prig. Looking at things from her point of view, I"m sure it hasn"t always been easy."
"No, of course not."
"You see that, don"t you, Esther? I mean a young woman married to an old man--I daresay she didn"t realise what it was going to be like."
He leaned his head on his hands for a moment, his forehead furrowed.
He gave the impression of arguing with himself. Then he looked up suddenly.
"She said to me, "I don"t expect sympathy from you, Roger, but you are a man of the world; you can"t go on for ever so completely misjudging me. You had the wrong idea about me six years ago"..."
He broke off, evidently regretting his last words, but Esther made no comment, and he went quickly on:
"I didn"t know what to say. I was d.a.m.ned uncomfortable. The odd part about it is, Esther, that inside me I don"t like her much better than I did before, only she made me see how unfairly I"ve behaved. I feel I owe it to her to try and be nicer. Can you understand?"
"Of course I can. Why shouldn"t you feel like that? She"s your father"s wife."
"Yes, she"s my father"s wife.... Well, the finish of it was she put her hands on my shoulders, very simply, like a child, and asked if we could be friends. What could I say? And then she put her cheek against me, and--and I put my arms around her; she seemed to expect it, and I didn"t know what else to do. And then you came in. Gad, shall I ever forget your eyes!"
Esther laughed in relief, her companion joined her, and for several seconds they were a prey to helpless merriment. The whole affair was so different now; Roger"s explanation had taken all the sting out of it. She could understand his guilty look; he had been the battle-ground for one of those fights between reason and prejudice, his sense of justice Striving to overcome a deeply rooted aversion.
"S"sh! We mustn"t make a noise! Good-night--I"m off to bed."
He caught hold of her hands, detaining her.
"See here, you don"t think me a hopeless fool, do you?"
"Certainly not; why should I?"
"And you don"t think now that I was making love to her or anything like that, do you?"
"Well, I"m not quite sure! If you keep protesting----"
She broke off with a teasing smile, looking down on him from the step above.
"Esther, you----"
Chalmers entered the hall with a measured step, on his way to bolt the front door. Esther took advantage of the interruption to tear herself away.
"Good-night," she called softly over her shoulder, and vanished up the stairs.
Roger gazed after her with eyes that shone. Then he put his hand to his head and frowned again.
"Bring me a whisky and soda, will you, Chalmers?" he said. "I"ll see if that will do this beastly head any good."
The headache had not gone next morning, though it had subsided into a duller sensation. His aunt at breakfast noticed that he had no appet.i.te, merely trifling with his grapefruit and tasting his coffee.
At once she inquired the reason, remarking at the same time that he had not his usual healthy colour.
"Oh, it"s nothing, Dido. I do feel a bit rotten."
"Does your head pain you?"
"A bit: I shall be all right presently."
He was annoyed to see apprehension cloud the old lady"s eyes.
"My dear, don"t begin bothering about me. Can"t a person have a little ordinary headache without----"
"I know, Roger, darling, only with your father and then Therese...
Don"t you think you"d better see the doctor?"
"I see altogether too much of the doctor, thank you; wherever I go I seem to run into him. He"s a depressing brute."
"Don"t be childish, Roger, that"s only a manner."
"Well, it"s a d.a.m.ned bad manner, and I"ll look after my own headache if it"s just the same to you. It"s not the first I"ve had. Got any aspirin?"
"I"ve got something much better than aspirin--a new French preparation.
If you"ll come upstairs I"ll get it for you."
A little later, having managed to finish his coffee, he joined his aunt in the boudoir, where he found her ineffectually trying to get a stopper out of a bottle.
"It"s a gla.s.s stopper, and absolutely refuses to budge. Why will they make bottles that one can"t open?"
"Give it to me. I"ll put it under the hot tap."
"I"ve done that; it"s no use."
"Then let"s see what a lighted match will do."
He struck a match and held it under the neck of the bottle until a ring of smoke appeared on the gla.s.s.
"Now, here goes."
He gave the stopper a sharp twist, there was a cracking sound, a cry from Miss Clifford, and a pungent odour filled the room as the contents of the bottle gushed over the carpet. The neck was broken away, and the jagged gla.s.s had cut a deep, ugly gash across the base of Roger"s thumb. Blood welled up freely from the wound.