"Only one thing," said I, "I wish I were as alive as that man."
A negligible person proposed a vote of thanks to Milligan, after which the hall began to empty. Campion, caught by a group of his proletariat friends, signalled to me to wait for him. And as I waited I saw Eleanor Faversham come slowly from the platform down the central gangway. Her eyes fixed themselves on me at once--for standing there alone I must have been a conspicuous figure, an intruder from the gorgeous West--and with a little start of pleasure she hurried her pace. I made my way past the chattering loiterers in my row, and met her. We shook hands.
"Well? Saul among the prophets? Who would have thought of seeing you here!"
I waved my hand towards Campion. "We have the same sponsor." She glanced at him for a swift instant and then at me.
"Did you like it?"
"Have you seen Niagara?"
"Yes."
"Did you like it?"
"I"m so glad," she cried. "I thought perhaps----" she broke off. "Why haven"t you tried to see me?"
"There are certain conventions."
"I know," she said. "They"re idiotic."
"There"s also Mrs. Faversham," said I.
"Mother is the dearest thing in life," she replied, "but Mrs. Faversham is a convention." She came nearer to me, in order to allow a freer pa.s.sage down the gangway and also in order to be out of earshot of an elderly woman who was obviously accompanying her. "Simon, I"ve been a good friend to you. I believe in you. Nothing will shake my convictions.
You couldn"t look into my eyes like that if--well--you know."
"I couldn"t," said I.
"Then why can"t two honourable, loyal people meet? We only need meet once. But I want to tell you things I can"t write--things I can"t say here. I also want to hear of things. I think I"ve got a kind of claim--haven"t I?"
"I"ve told you, Eleanor. My letters--"
"Letters are rubbish!" she declared with a laugh. "Where can we meet?"
"Agatha is a good soul," said I.
"Well, fix it up by telephone to-morrow."
"Alas!" said I; "I don"t run to telephones in my eagle"s nest on Himalaya Mansions."
She knitted her brows. "That"s not the last address you wrote from."
"No," I replied, smiling at this glimpse of the matter-of-fact Eleanor.
"It was a joke."
"You"re incorrigible!" she said rebukingly.
"I don"t joke so well in rags as in silken motley," I returned with a smile, "but I do my best."
She disdained a retort. "We"ll arrange, anyhow, with Agatha."
Campion, escaping from his friends, came up and chatted for a minute.
Then he saw Eleanor and her companion to their carriage.
"Now," said he a moment later, "come to Barbara and have some supper.
You won"t mind if Jenkins joins us?"
"Who"s Jenkins?" I asked.
"Jenkins is an intelligent gas-fitter of Sociological tastes. He cla.s.ses Herbert Spencer, Benjamin Kidd, and Lombroso as light literature. He also helps us with our young criminals. I should like you to meet him."
"I should be delighted," I said.
So Jenkins was summoned from a little knot a few yards off and duly presented. Whereupon we proceeded to Campion"s plain but comfortably furnished quarters in Barbara"s Building, where he entertained us till nearly midnight with cold beef and cheese and strenuous conversation.
As I walked across Westminster Bridge on my homeward way it seemed as if London had grown less hostile. Big Ben chimed twelve and there was a distinct d.i.c.k Whittington touch about the music. The light on the tower no longer mocked me. As I pa.s.sed by the gates of Palace Yard, a policeman on duty recognised me and saluted. I strode on with a springier tread and noticed that the next policeman who did not know me, still regarded me with an air of benevolence. A pale moon shone in the heavens and gave me shyly to understand that she was as much my moon as any one else"s. As I turned into Victoria Street, omnibuses pa.s.sed me with a lurch of friendliness. The ban was lifted. I danced (figuratively) along the pavement.
What it portended I did not realise. I was conscious of nothing but a spiritual exhilaration comparable only with the physical exhilaration I experienced in the garden at Algiers when my bodily health had been finally established. As the body then felt the need of expressing itself in violent action--in leaping and running (an impulse which I firmly subdued), so now did my spirit crave some sort of expression in violent emotion. I was in a mood for enraptured converse with an archangel.
Looking back, I see that Campion"s friendly "Hallo" had awakened me from a world of shadows and set me among realities; the impact of Milligan"s vehement personality had changed the conditions of my life from static to dynamic; and that a Providence which is not always as ironical as it pleases us to a.s.sert had sent Eleanor Faversham"s graciousness to mitigate the severity of the shock. I see how just was Lola"s diagnosis.
"You"re not quite alive even yet." I had been going about in a state of suspended spiritual animation.
My recovery dated from that evening.
CHAPTER XIX
Agatha proved herself the good soul I had represented her to be.
"Certainly, dear," she said when I came the following morning with my request. "You can have my boudoir all to yourselves."
"I am grateful," said I, "and for the first time I forgive you for calling it by that abominable name."
It was an old quarrel between us. Every lover of language picks out certain words in common use that he hates with an unreasoning ferocity.
"I"ll change it"s t.i.tle if you like," she said meekly.
"If you do, my dear Agatha, my grat.i.tude will be eternal."
"I remember a certain superior person, when Tom and I were engaged, calling mother"s boudoir--the only quiet place in the house--the osculatorium."
She laughed with the air of a small bird who after long waiting had at last got even with a hawk. But I did not even smile. For the only time in our lives I considered that Agatha had committed a breach of good taste. I said rather stiffly:
"It is not going to be a lovers" meeting, my dear."
She flushed. "It was silly of me. But why shouldn"t it be a lovers"
meeting?" she added audaciously. "If nothing had happened, you two would have been married by this time--"