"Look into things?" He rose trembling. "You mind your own business. I can look into things myself. There"d "ave been no need to look into them at all if you "adn"t robbed and deceived me. Robbed and deceived me, I said. You took your education--which _I_ gave _you_ to put into _my_ business--you took it out of the business, and set up with it on your own account. And I tell you you might as well "ave made off with a few thousands out of my till. Robbing"s wot _you"ve_ been guilty of in the sight of G.o.d; and you can come and talk to me about your conscience. I don"t understand your kind of conscience--Keith." There was still a touch of appeal in his utterance of his son"s name.
"Perhaps not," said Keith sorrowfully. "I don"t understand it myself."
He walked with his father to Holborn, silently, through the drizzling rain. He held an umbrella over him, while they waited, still silently, for the Liverpool Street omnibus. He noticed with some anxiety that the old man walked queerly, shuffling and trailing his left foot, that he had difficulty in mounting the step of the omnibus, and was got into his seat only after much heaving and harrying on the part of the conductor. His face and att.i.tude, as he sank crouching into his seat, were those of a man returning from the funeral of his last hope.
And in Keith"s heart there was sorrow, too, as for something dead and departed.
CHAPTER XLIX
If, much to Rickman"s regret, Flossie did not take kindly to Miss Roots, very soon after her engagement she discovered her bosom friend in Miss Ada Bishop. The friendship was not founded, as are so many feminine attachments, upon fantasy or caprice, but rested securely on the enduring commonplace. If Flossie respected Ada because of her knowledge of dress, and her remarkable insight into the ways of gentlemen, Ada admired Flossie because of the engagement, which, after all, was not (like some girls" engagements) an airy possibility or a fiction, but an accomplished fact.
This attachment, together with the firm possession of Keith, helped to tide Flossie over the tedium of waiting. Only one thing was wanting to complete her happiness, and even that the thoughtful G.o.ds provided.
About six o"clock one evening, as Rickman was going out of the house, he was thrust violently back into the pa.s.sage by some one coming in.
It was young Spinks; and the luggage that he carried in his hand gave a frightful impetus to his entry. At the sight of Rickman he let go a hat-box, an umbrella and a portmanteau, and laid hold of him by both hands.
"Razors--what luck! I say, I"ve gone and done it. Chucked them--hooked it. Stood it eighteen months--couldn"t stand it any longer. On my soul I couldn"t. But it"s all right--I"ll explain."
"Explain what? To whom, you G.o.d-forsaken lunatic?"
"Sh--sh--sh! To you. For Heaven"s syke don"t talk so loud. They"ll hear you. You haven"t got a train you want to catch, or an appointment, have you?"
"I haven"t got a train, but I have got an appointment."
"You might spare a fellow five minutes, ten minutes, can"t you? I shan"t keep you more than ten at the outside. There"s something I must tell you; but I can"t do it here. And _not there_!" As Rickman opened the dining-room door Spinks drew back with a gesture of abhorrence. He then made a dash for the adjoining room; but retired precipitately backwards. "Oh d.a.m.n! That"s somebody"s bedroom, now. How could _I_ tell?"
"Look here, if you"re going to make an a.s.s of yourself, you"d better come up to my room and do it quietly."
"Thanks, I"ve got a room somewhere; but I don"t know which it is yet."
Rickman could only think that the youth had broken his habit of sobriety. He closed the study door discreetly, lit the lamp and took a good look at him. He fancied he caught a suggestion of melancholy in the corners of his mouth and the lines of his high angular nose. But there was no sign of intoxication in Sidney"s clear grey eye, nor trace of wasting emotion in his smooth shaven cheek. Under the searching lamp-light he looked almost as fresh, as pink, as callow, as he had done four years ago. He dropped helplessly into a low chair.
Rickman took a seat opposite him and waited. While not under the direct stimulus of nervous excitement, young Spinks had some difficulty in finding utterance. At last he spoke.
"I say, you must think I"ve acted in a very queer way."
"Queer isn"t the word for it. It"s astounding."
"D"you really think so? You mean I "adn"t any rights--it--it wasn"t fair to you--to come back as I"ve done?"
"Well, I don"t know about its being very fair; it certainly wasn"t very safe."
"Safe? Safe? Ah--I was afraid you"d think that. Won"t you let me explain?"
"Certainly. I should like to know your reasons for running into me like a giddy locomotive."
"Well, but I can"t explain anything if you go on rotting like that."
"All right. Only look sharp. I"ve got to meet a fellow in Baker Street at seven. If you"ll get under weigh we might finish off the explanation outside, if you"re going back that way."
"Going back. Oh Lord--don"t you know that I"ve come back here to stay.
I"ve got a room--"
"Oh, that"s the explanation, is it?"
"No, that"s the thing I"ve got to explain. I thought you"d think I"d acted dishonourably in--in following her like this. But I couldn"t stand it over there without her. I tried, but on my soul I couldn"t. I shall be all right if I can only see her sometimes, at meals and--and so forth. I shan"t say a word. I haven"t said a word. I don"t even think she knows; and if she did--So it"s perfectly safe, you know, Rickman, it"s perfectly safe."
"Who doesn"t know what? And if who did?" roared Rickman, overcome with laughter.
"Sh--sh--sh--Flossie. I mean--M--miss Walker."
Rickman stopped laughing and looked at young Spinks with something like compa.s.sion. "I say, old chap, what do you mean?"
"I mean that I should have gone off my chump if I"d hung on at that place. I couldn"t get her out of my mind, not even in the shop. I used to lie awake at nights, thinking of her. And then, you know--I couldn"t eat."
"In fact, you were pretty bad, were you?"
"Oh, well, I just chucked it up and came here. It"s all right, Razors; you needn"t mind. I never had a chance with her. She never gave me so much as a thought. Not a thought. It"s the queerest thing. I couldn"t tell you how I got into this state--I don"t know myself. Only now she"s engaged and so forth, you might think that--well, you might think"--young Spinks had evidently come to the most delicate and complicated part of his explanation--"well, that I"d no right to go on getting into states. But when it doesn"t make any difference to her, and it can"t matter to you--" He paused; but Rickman gathered that what he wished to plead was that in those circ.u.mstances he was clearly welcome to his "state." "I mean that if it"s all up with me, you know, it"s all right--I mean, it"s safe enough--for you."
Poor Spinks became lost in the maze of his own beautiful sentiments.
Adoration for Rickman (himself the soul of honour) struggled blindly with his pa.s.sion for Flossie Walker. But the thought, which his brain had formed, which his tongue refused to utter, was that the hopelessness of his pa.s.sion made it no disloyalty to his friend. "It can make no difference to her, my being here," he said simply.
"Nonsense, you"ve as much right to be here as I have."
"Yes, but under the circ.u.mstances, it mightn"t have been perfectly fair to you. See?"
"My dear Spinky, it"s perfectly fair to me; but is it--you won"t mind me suggesting it--is it perfectly fair to yourself?"
Spinks sat silent for a minute, laying his hand upon the place of, thought, as if trying to take that idea in. "Yes," he said deliberately. "That"s all right. In fact, nothing else will do my business. It sounds queer; but that"s the only way to get her out of my head. You see, when I see her I don"t think about her; but when I don"t see her I can"t think of anything else."
Rickman was interested. It struck him that latterly he had been affected in precisely the opposite way. It was curious to compare young Sidney"s sensations with his own. He forgot all about the man in Baker Street.
"I don"t mean to say I shall ever get over it. When a man goes through this sort of business it leaves its mark on him somewhere." And indeed it seemed to have stamped an expression of permanent foolishness on Spinks"s comely face.
Rickman smiled even while he sympathized. "Yes, I daresay. I"m sorry, old man; but if I were you I wouldn"t be too down in the mouth. It"s not worth it--I mean; after all, there are other things besides women in the world. It wouldn"t be a bad place even if there weren"t any women in it. Life is good," said the engaged man. "You had better dress for dinner." He could give no richer consolation without seeming to depreciate the unique value of Flossie. As for Spinks"s present determination, he thought it decidedly risky for Spinks; but if Spinks enjoyed balancing himself in this way on the edge of perdition it was no business of his.
As it happened, the event seemed to prove that Spinks knew very well what he was about. The callow youth had evidently hit on the right treatment for his own disease. In one point, however, his modesty had deceived him. His presence was far from being a matter of indifference to Flossie. A rejected lover is useful in so many ways. It may be a triumph to make one man supremely happy; but the effect is considerably heightened if you have at the same time made another man supremely wretched. Flossie found that the spectacle of young Sidney"s dejection restored all its first fresh piquancy to her engagement. At Tavistock Place he more than justified his existence. True, he did not remain depressed for very long, and there was something not altogether flattering in the high rebound of his elastic youth; but, as Miss Bishop was careful to point out, his joyous presence would have a most salutary effect in disturbing that prosaic sense of security in which gentlemen"s affections have been known to sleep.
But Spinks was destined to serve the object of his infatuation in yet another way.
It was in the second spring after Rickman"s engagement. Flossie and Ada were in the drawing-room one half hour before dinner, putting their heads together over a new fashion-book.
"Shouldn"t wonder," said Miss Bishop, "if you saw me coming out in one of these Gloriana coats this spring. I shall get a fawn. Fawn"s my colour."
"I must say I love blue. I think I"m almost mad about blue; any shade of blue, I don"t care what it is. I know I can"t go wrong about a colour. But then there"s the style--" Flossie"s fingers turned over the pages with soft lingering touches, while her face expressed the gravest hesitation. "Keith likes me best in these stiff tailor-made things; but I can"t bear them. I like more of a fancy style."