Chevenix tilted back his chair. "Oh, you had it pretty badly--at the time.
The trouble with you is that you are such a chap for accepting things.
You"re like a hall-porter in a Swiss hotel. You take things for granted.
Do nothing--hold out your hand--and get your perks. Perks! Why, they ain"t perks at all. They"re bounty--what you get from a girl like Sancie."
All this Ingram took as his due--as due, that is, to a man of pa.s.sion and reasonable desires. He fell into a reverie. "Yes, yes, I know. She was devilish fond of me."
Chevenix gritted his teeth, but Ingram went on. "It was a false position, I know, and I never ought to have looked at her twice. But she was awfully queer or awfully deep--one never knew which. Why, when we got thick together--always meeting out, always reading poetry and philosophy-- Sh.e.l.ley, Dante, Keats (I forget half their names now)--I take my oath I hadn"t a suspicion that she was getting to like me, in that sort of way, as we call it. She made all the difference in the world to me, I can tell you. You know what I was doing after Claire bolted with that swine: killing time and killing myself--that"s what I was doing. It was like going into church out of the sun to hear her at her poetry, and see her.
Oh, a lovely girl she was!"
"She"s a lovelier woman than you and I are fit to look at," said Chevenix, "if you ask me."
"d.a.m.n you, I know all about that. D"you think I want telling, now that I can"t get her? Well, then I found out what was the matter with me--and then we cleared the air."
"Who had stuffed it up to begin with?" Chevenix murmured; but Ingram ignored him.
"I told her the whole thing--"
"After she had found it out!" cried Chevenix with energy. "Let"s have cards on the table. I told Vicky all about it at a dance--and Vicky told her."
"I told her," Ingram said, "that I was in love with her, and promised to behave--and so I should have, only--"
"Only you didn"t, old chap."
"She loved me--there was no stopping it then. The thing was done. Mind you, her people knew it all, too."
"The mother always was a fool," Chevenix agreed. "And she liked you."
"I know she did. I took care of that."
"Not a bit of it, my boy," the other objected. "That"s just what you didn"t do. She liked you because she thought you didn"t care a curse whether she liked you or not."
Ingram raised his eyebrows at such _naivete_. "That"s what I mean, of course. So it went on all that summer. We used to shake when we met each other, and be speechless. By heavens, what a time that was! Do you remember the tea-party?"
Chevenix blinked. "I wasn"t there; but I remember what happened afterwards. The poor child--as white as a sheet--and every hand lifted against her. By G.o.d, Nevile, what girls--mere chits--will go through!"
"I know," said Ingram dreamily. "Isn"t it awful?" Chevenix looked at him.
He was quite serious. What can you do with such a man as this?
"They left us alone in the room, you know," Ingram continued. "Vicky went out last and left us in there--and the whole place was charged with electricity. You could feel it, smell it, hear it crackling all about. My heart going like a drum; my ears buzzing with it all. I hadn"t been able to speak when they spoke to me. I don"t know what the devil they must have thought of me--and I didn"t care a d.a.m.n. And over across the tea-table, on a low chair--there she sat--my girl! Her eyes downcast, her mouth adroop."
He shut his eyes for a moment. "And Vicky went out, and left us there!"
"You had it badly, old chap," Chevenix said. "Go slow. Take your time. Or chuck it, if you"d rather."
Ingram appeared not to hear him; he was staring at the tablecloth, at his two hands locked in front of him, and at his knuckles white under the strain.
"I don"t know how long I stood gaping at the window, I don"t indeed. I could feel her sitting shaking in her chair; but neither of us said anything. Somebody came to take the tea out--and then I turned and looked at her; and she turned and looked at me. Something drew me--set me on the move. It was all over with me then. I went straight across the room to her; I stood above her, I stooped and took her hands. I don"t know what I said: she looked at me all the time in a strange, clear way. She got up--I was beside her, and took her. Not a word said. I had her lips. Honey of flowers! Her soul came forth from them: new wine. Oh, G.o.d! I thought so, anyhow. And so did she. Chevenix, she meant giving."
Chevenix nodded shortly. He believed that. Ingram had covered his eyes.
He drained a gla.s.s before he went on with his account. "I suppose you know the rest as well as I do. I never had the details out of her. One of them --that Mrs. King--Philippa, it was--came slam into the room; and what was there to do? I stuck it as long as I could--until I was practically kicked out. The mother came back and turned me out. I had to leave her to brave them all--and I never saw her again until I found out where she was in London."
"Don"t you trouble to tell me all that part," said Chevenix frowning at him. "I know more about that than you do. I was in it. My head, how they treated her! What I never did understand, you know, was how you found out where she was."
Ingram smiled. His memories now amused him. He looked straight at his friend. "I"ll tell you that. It was rather neat. You remember that chap Senhouse--loafing kind of artist? Anarchist, gypsy-looking chap, who wore no hat?"
Chevenix opened his eyes. "By George, I do!"
Ingram nodded. "She thought no end of him. He took her affair with me very much to heart."
"As well he might," said Chevenix. "I fancy that you were the only person who took it easy."
"Sancie used to tell him everything," Ingram went on, "and she told him all the trouble. She"d been turned adrift with fifty pounds to her name."
"Not quite so bad as that," Chevenix put in. "They locked her up with an aunt, and she bolted."
"Same thing," said Ingram. "Well, this chap Senhouse comes here one day in a mighty hurry--turns up at breakfast, and makes a row. Wants me to swear I"ll divorce and marry Sancie. Says he thinks I"m a blackguard and all that, but that, on the whole, I"d better marry her. Refuses to give me her address, all the same. We had a row, I remember, because he began to tell me what he thought about her. The man was a bore, you know."
Chevenix screwed up one leg. "All men are, if they"re sweet on your sweetheart, I suppose. He was worth fifty of you, all the same--but go on."
Ingram laughed. "I set my wits against his," he said, "and found out that he"d come straight from seeing her--in London. That was good enough for me. I got rid of Master Senhouse, and went off to town. He had no promises out of _me_, you may believe."
Chevenix felt very sick, and looked it. "The less you say about your promises, my good chap, the better I"ll take it." But Ingram by now had got back to his holier reminiscences:--
"I hunted for her high and low for three months--advertised, turned on detectives, I had even dared her friends" eyes and their cold shoulders-- couldn"t hear anything ... I was walking in h.e.l.l for three months....
"Then, one day, I met her--in Chancery Lane. Of all squalid places on earth--there...."
"I"d been to my lawyer"s, in Lincoln"s Inn. I"d settled money on her--in case anything happened to me while I was abroad. I was going to travel, because I"d given it up. And then I met her. Chancery Lane!
"I was pa.s.sing some school or another--Commercial Academy--book-keeping, shorthand, typewriting--that sort of place; a lot of ogling, giggling girls, and boys after "em, came tumbling down the steps--all sun-bonnets and fluffy hair; and down the steps she came, too--Sanchia came--like a princess. She was in white, my dear man--as fresh and dainty as a rose, I remember. Daisies round a broad-brimmed straw: some books under her arm.
The sun was on her, lit the gold in her hair. She looked neither right nor left, spoke to no one, had no one with her, or after her. She was never showy. You had to know her well to see how lovely she was. She never showed off well, and was always silent in company. Oh, but what a girl!
"When she saw me she flushed all over, and stood. She stood on the last step, and looked at me. Looked at me straight, as if she waited. I went directly to her, and took her hand. She let me. I couldn"t speak sense. I said, "You!" and she said, "I knew I should see you like this." It sounded all right. I never questioned it." ... He stared, then broke out. "Good G.o.d, Bill! To think of her then--and to see her now! She won"t look at me!
I don"t exist." He plunged his face between his hands, and rocked himself about. Chevenix watched him without a word. Suddenly he lifted his pinched face, and complained bitterly.
"I can"t understand it--I don"t know what"s changed her. Why, it"s awful to make a chap suffer like this!" He stared about him. "Why, Bill," he said, hushing down his voice, "is she going to drop me, d"you think--let me go to the devil?"
Chevenix rose and stood with his back to the fire. "I"ll trouble you not to whine, Nevile; I"ve got something to say to all this tale of yours.
I"ve got to ask you a thing or two. When you found her, now; and when you knew all that she"d gone through--a child like that! You brought her up here--hey?"
Without shifting his head to face his cross-examination, Ingram answered between his hands--"No, I didn"t. She wouldn"t budge from her school till she"d finished her course. I courted her for a month. It took me all that to make her listen to reason."
"Reason!" Chevenix rated him. "You call it reason!"
"It was what _she_ called it--not I," said Ingram from between his fists.
Then he looked up. "She refused the idea of going abroad. Said she wasn"t at all afraid of people talking. Said she wanted to work for me. Must be doing something, she said. I tell you, it was her idea from the beginning.
And I do say, myself, that it was reasonable." He searched for agreement in his friend"s face, but got none. "It suited better," he said presently, with indifference. "It suited better--in every way. I had to be here."
"Why had you to be here, man?" Chevenix raised his voice. "What the devil did it matter to you, having her, where you were?"