She turned away to the table, but stopped at the sound of laughter from Eric. He had hesitated a moment before taking the risk, but laughter seemed the only corrective for her theatrical dignity.
"I spend hours each day watching people rehearsing this sort of thing,"
he murmured.
"Why do you _imagine_ I ask you to see me home?" she demanded, with a petulant stamp.
"Partly because you"re enjoying me; partly because you know I want to work and you think it will be such fun to upset my arrangements even by ten minutes."
Barbara smiled at him over her shoulder.
"We"re a game all," she pleaded, motioning him back to the sofa.
Eric smiled and lit a cigarette from the stump of his cigar.
Ten minutes later they were driving along Piccadilly towards Berkeley Square, Eric rather tired, Barbara excited and restlessly voluble.
"Is Mr. Lane going to forget our second meeting as quickly and completely as he forgot the first?" she asked.
"The first?" Eric echoed. "This is the first time I"ve set eyes on you--except in the distance at theatres and places."
"It"s the first time I"ve ever seen your face; but I recognized your voice and, if you will come into the house for a moment, I can restore a certain flask."
Eric turned on her in amazement.
"Was that _you_? Well . . . Good . . . Good Heavens!"
Barbara laughed softly.
"Try not to forget me so quickly again! I"ve still to apologize for being such a beast when we met to-night. I was ill . . . and miserable----"
"I had no idea!" Eric cried. "And I stared at you for an hour on end--trying to count your pulse by a watch without a second-hand. . . .
But you"ve changed so! I used to catch sight of you before the war----"
"I"ve travelled a lot since then," she interrupted. "The whole way through Purgatory to h.e.l.l."
Eric tried to remember whether the war had robbed her of any one but Jim Loring.
"_Since_ that day you"ve changed so much again."
"Perhaps I"m taking a holiday from h.e.l.l. And, as you know, I"m not a good traveller."
He let down the window and threw away the end of his cigarette.
"I thought you were going to die that day," he murmured half to himself.
"When I handed you over to your maid. . . . Lady Barbara, why don"t you take a little more care of yourself?"
"D"you think I should be missed?"
"I can well imagine---- Here! He"s going wrong!"
The carriage had overshot Berkeley Street; but, as Eric leaned towards the open window, Barbara caught him suddenly by the wrist and shoulder until she had turned him to face her.
"Where d"you live?" she demanded peremptorily; and, when he had told her, "Put your head out and tell him to go there."
"But we"re almost in Berkeley Square now."
"Do as I tell you! I"m coming to pay you a call."
He disengaged her hands and lay back in his corner.
"It"s a little late for you to be calling on me," he said.
With a quick tug and push she had opened the window on her own side before he could stop her.
"Oh, will you drive to 89 Ryder Street first, please," he heard her say.
Then she sank back with a pursed-up smile of triumph. "I"ve _no_ intention of going to bed yet," she explained.
"I"ve no intention of opening the door till I"ve taken you home," he rejoined.
She made no answer till the carriage drew up opposite his flat.
"It would be deplorable if you made a scene on the pavement," she observed carelessly.
Then she stepped out and told the driver to go back to Belgrave Square for Mrs. O"Rane.
It was a moon-lit night between half-past eleven and twelve. Ryder Street had roused to life with a widely-s.p.a.ced but steady stream of men returning to bed from Pall Mall and sparing the f.a.g-end of their attention for the unexpected tall girl who stood wrapped in a long silk shawl in the shadow of a bachelor door-way. The brougham turned round and drove away. Eric lighted another cigarette.
"Am I right in thinking that you"re being obstinate?" Barbara enquired after some moments of silence.
"If you want me to take you home, I"ll take you home. Otherwise I shall leave you here, go round to the club, explain that I"ve lost my latch-key and get a bed there."
"You"re almost oriental in your hospitality," she laughed.
"I"ve no hospitality to spare for a girl of twenty-two at this hour of the night."
She stretched out her arm to him. In observing the beauty of her slender, long fingers and the whiteness of her arm against the long fringe of the shawl, Eric forgot his guard. She twitched the cigarette from his lips and laughed like a child, as she blew out a cloud of smoke. Cigarette, shawl and manner suddenly reminded him of Carmen.
"You"re so conventional," she sighed.
Eric became suddenly irritable.
"Lady Barbara, you"re behaving idiotically!" he cried. "I know you"d do anything for a new sensation, but I"m not going to help. Possibly I"m old-fashioned. If you think----"
"I"m so thirsty," she interrupted. "Have you any soda-water?"
"You"re sure to find plenty in Berkeley Square."
"But you"re _afraid_ to give me any, afraid of being compromised?"