"I"m sorry, Elise. But I thought you cared for me."
"You"d no business to think. And it wasn"t likely I"d tell you."
"Oh, you didn"t tell me, my dear. How could you? But you made me believe you wanted me."
"Wanted? Do you suppose I wanted to be made ridiculous?"
"Love isn"t ridiculous," said Mr. Waddington.
"It is. It"s _the_ most ridiculous thing there is. And when _you_"re making it.... If you could have seen your face--Oh, dear!"
"If you wouldn"t laugh quite so loud. The servants will hear you."
"I mean them to hear me."
"Confound you, Elise!"
"That"s right, swear at me. Swear at me."
"I"m sorry I swore. But, hang it all, it"s every bit as bad for me as it is for you."
"Worse, I fancy. You needn"t think Miss Madden didn"t see you, because she did."
"It"s a pity Miss Madden didn"t come in a little sooner."
"Sooner? I think she chose her moment very well."
"If she had heard the whole of our conversation I think she"d have realized there was something to be said for me."
"There isn"t anything to be said for you. And until you"ve apologized for insulting me--"
"You"ve heard me apologize. As for insulting you, no decent woman, in the circ.u.mstances, ever tells a man his love insults her, even if she can"t return it."
"And even if he"s another woman"s husband?"
"Even if he"s another woman"s husband, if she"s ever given him the right--"
"Right? Do you think you bought the right to make love to me?" She rose, confronting him.
"No. I thought you"d given it me.... I was mistaken."
He helped her to put on the coat that she wriggled into with clumsy, irritated movements. Clumsy. The woman _was_ clumsy. He wondered how he had never seen it. And vulgar. Noisy and vulgar. You never knew what a woman was like till you"d seen her angry. He had answered her appropriately and with admirable tact. He had scored every point; he was scoring now with his cool, imperturbable politeness. He tried not to think about Barbara.
"Your fur."
"Thank you."
He rang the bell. Partridge appeared.
"Tell Kimber to bring the car round and drive Mrs. Levitt home."
"Thank you, Mr. Waddington, I"d rather walk."
Partridge retired.
She held out her hand. Mr. Waddington bowed abruptly, not taking it. He strode behind her to the door, through the smoke-room, to the further door. In the hall Partridge hovered. He left her to him.
And, as she followed Partridge across the wide lamp-lighted s.p.a.ce, he noticed for the first time that Elise, in her agitation, waddled. Like a duck--a greedy duck. Like that horrible sister of hers, Bertha Rickards.
Then he thought of Barbara Madden.
3
When Ralph called for Barbara he told her, first thing, that he had heard from Mackintyres, the publishers, about his book. He had sent it them two-thirds finished, and Grevill Burton--"Grevill _Burton_, Barbara!"--had read it and reported very favourably. Mackintyres had agreed to publish it if the end was equal to the beginning and the middle.
It was this exciting news, thrown at her before she could get her hat on, that had caused Barbara to forget all about Mr. Waddington"s photographs and Mr. Waddington"s book and Mr. Waddington, until she and Ralph were half way between Wyck-on-the-Hill and Lower Speed. There was nothing for it then but to go on, taking care to get back in time to take the photographs to Pyecraft"s before the shop closed. There hadn"t been very much time, but Barbara said she could just do it if she made a dash, and it was the dash she made that precipitated her into the scene of Mr. Waddington"s affair.
Ralph waited for her at the white gate.
"We must sprint," she said, "if we"re to be in time."
They sprinted.
As they walked slowly back, Barbara became thoughtful.
As long as she lived she would remember Waddington: the stretched-out arms, the top-heavy body bowed to the caress; the inflamed and startled face staring at her, like some strange fish, over Mrs. Levitt"s shoulder, the mouth dropping open as if it called out to her "Go back!"
What depths of fatuity he must have sunk to before he could have come to that! And the sad figure leaning on the chimneypiece, whipped, beaten by Mrs. Levitt"s laughter--the high, coa.r.s.e, malignant laughter that had made her run to the smoke-room door to shield him, to shut it off.
What wouldn"t Ralph have given to have seen him!
It was all very well for Ralph to talk about making a "study" of him; he hadn"t got further than the merest outside fringe of his great subject.
He didn"t know the bare rudiments of Waddington. He had had brilliant flashes of his own, but no sure sight of the reality. And it had been given to her, Barbara, to see it, all at once. She had penetrated at one bound into the thick of him. They had wondered how far he would go; and he had gone so far, so incredibly far above and beyond himself that all their estimates were falsified.
And she saw that her seeing was the end--the end of their game, hers and Ralph"s, the end of their compact, the end of the tie that bound them. She found herself shut in with Waddington; the secret that she shared with him shut Ralph out. It was intolerable that all this rich, exciting material should be left on her hands, lodged with her useless, when she thought of what she and Ralph could have made of it together.
If only she could have given it him. But of course she couldn"t. She had always known there would be things she couldn"t give him. She would go on seeing more and more of them.
Odd that she didn"t feel any moral indignation. It had been too funny, like catching a child in some amusing naughtiness; and, as poor Waddy"s eyes and open mouth had intimated, she had had no business to catch him, to know anything about it, no business to be there.
"Ralph," she said, "you must let me off the compact."
He turned, laughing. "Why, have you seen something?"
"It doesn"t matter whether I have or haven"t."
"It was a sacred compact."