"And I don"t count at all. After all our love, you could forget me----"
"I could never forget you, sweetheart."
"But--you"re willing to _try_?"
"What else can I do? Oh, what a muddle I"ve made of our lives!"
Eric had determined to be patient and restrained; but his voice, uncontrolled and scornful, seemed to come from a distance.
"Will you make it any better by keeping faith with Jack and breaking it with me? You"ll be unhappy all your life, you"ll never forgive yourself, you"ll never forget the wrong you"ve done me, if you marry any one else!"
Barbara"s eyes filled with fear.
"You speak as if you were putting a curse on me!"
"I don"t believe in curses or blessings or luck or your other superst.i.tions. I"m warning you--and I"ll add this. You once undertook my education, but I think I can teach you one thing, one thing about love: it has to be whole-hearted. . . ."
He flung away and stood with his arm on the mantel-piece, fumbling the lock of a cigar-cabinet with clumsy fingers. Barbara made no sound, and after some moments he stole a look at her.
"I know," she answered quietly.
"Well----" He hesitated and then took his plunge. "You"ve got to decide, Babs."
"You must wait till we"ve heard something definite."
"No! If we heard to-morrow, to-night, in five minutes" time, it would make no difference. I want the whole of your love, I want to stand first." He waited, but she said nothing. "You"ve very often told me how much you loved me," he went on, ironical at her silence. "You"ve told me how you need me, how grateful you are to me, how much you want to make me happy----"
He had dropped into unconscious parody, and its technical excellence set her writhing.
"_Don"t_, Eric! _Please!_"
"You must decide, Babs."
"_No!_"
She buried her face in her hands and sobbed so wildly that he expected at any moment to see his maid"s head at the door. For a while he was stoically unmoved; then the crying gave him a pain at the heart, and he stepped forward, only to pull up before he threw away his victory.
"Eric, _don"t_," she cried, as soon as she had mastery of her voice.
"You must decide," he repeated.
"And if I say "no"?"
"I"ve said you were under no obligation to me."
"But--you"ll turn me away? If I came to you to-morrow and said I"d changed my mind----"
"It would be too late."
She steadied herself and turned round, bending for her gloves and then drawing herself upright to face him.
"I . . . can"t . . . now, Eric. . . . Is it still raining? If it is, I"d better have a taxi."
"I"ll see if I can get you one."
He had seen this gesture before; and Barbara had followed it with a stream of notes and messages; begging him to come back. Eric walked slowly into the street, giving her generous time for consideration. A taxi stood idle at the top of St. James" Street; and, when he returned with it, she was in the hall, white-faced but collected, turning over the pages of a review.
"Good-bye, Eric," she said quietly. "I"m afraid I"ve only brought you unhappiness. And my love doesn"t seem much use to any one. . . . Don"t bother to come down with me."
He went into the smoking-room and dropped limply onto a sofa, waiting for the telephone to ring, waiting for her to confess defeat. A hideous evening--almost as bad as that night before Christmas. His cheeks were burning, and his head ached savagely. Suddenly his theatrical composure and stoicism left him; his body trembled, and he was amazed to feel tears coursing down his cheeks. This, then--he was quite detached about it--was the nervous break-down which Gaisford had prophesied. He had not cried for twenty years . . . and now he could not stop. His heart seemed to have broken loose and to be hammering in s.p.a.ce, like the engine of a disabled clock-work toy.
It was still absurdly early, for their scene had taken place among the nut-sh.e.l.ls and coffee-cups of dinner. There was time for her to come back, to telephone; she knew by harrowing experience what a parting like this meant. And, while he waited, he must do something! Perhaps she would not break silence till the morning. He would see that she did not wait longer than that. . . .
"_Darling Babs_," he began. A hot tear splashed on to the paper, and he reached for a fresh sheet. "_Darling Babs, It was your choice. I pray G.o.d that you will find greater happiness elsewhere._ . . ."
He strung sentence to sentence, not knowing what he wrote. Was it not weakness that he should be writing the first letter? But Barbara was probably writing to him at this moment, writing or asking for his number. . . . The night lift-man was bribed to post the letter, because Eric dared not leave the telephone. He sat by it trembling as though with fever, while eleven o"clock struck . . . and midnight . . . and one . . . and three . . . and five. . . .
In the morning he was called at his usual time--to sink back on to the bed almost before he had risen from it. While he waited for his secretary, he telephoned to ask a colleague to shoulder double work for the day and began to think wearily what other engagements he must break.
In an interlude of their over-night discussion Barbara had asked him to lunch with her. . . .
With a strangely uncontrolled hand he wrote--"_I"m afraid I can"t remember what I said in my letter last night. I was feeling too much upset. Didn"t you ask me to lunch with you to-day? I"m afraid I"m feeling so ill that I"ve had to stay in bed._ . . ."
When his secretary arrived, he sent her to Berkeley Square with the note. While she was gone, his parlour-maid came in with a swaying ma.s.s of White Enchantress carnations and a pencilled note. "_May G.o.d make you happier than I"ve been able to do!_"
Eric tried to divert his thoughts from the note by giving elaborate instructions about the flowers and his meals for the day. Before he had done, his secretary returned, and he was still dictating when a sound in the hall froze his voice and set his heart thumping.
"I hear Mr. Lane"s not well. Do you think he could see me for a moment?"
"I"ll enquire, my lady."
As Barbara came into the room, Eric saw that her face was grey with suffering and that she seemed hardly able to keep her heavy lids open.
"Eric, what"s the matter?" she asked, coming to his bedside.
In trying to speak softly her voice, already hoa.r.s.e, disappeared altogether and she rubbed her throat wonderingly.
"What"s the matter with us both?" he asked weakly. "Babs . . ." His voice broke. "You look like death!"
Before she turned her face, he could see that she was biting her lip.
"Hush, darling child! I"m only tired; I didn"t sleep very well. I kept on remembering that I"d lost some one I loved better than any one in the world," she cried tremulously.
He raised himself on his pillows, stretching out hands that twitched.
"You _haven"t_, Babs! If you want me----"
"Not at that price, darling. If my love for you were everything--there"s something else. I don"t know what it is. . . . But I"ve not come to upset you again. Last night I told you that I"d come to you from the ends of the world, if you were ill. Tell me what"s the matter, Eric."
She pulled a chair to the bed and gave him her hand, which he covered with kisses.