"Nothing comes well from me. But, if I can"t undo the harm I"ve done, I may at least stop adding to it. If you don"t come back . . . When it"s too late, you"ll never forgive yourself."
He shook his head and looked at her defiantly.
"You should have thought of that when we first met in this room. Only one thing will bring me back or keep me from going."
"Dear Eric, don"t start that again!"
"Thanks! It doesn"t amuse _me_ to be strung up and cut down and strung up again. . . . I was facing things--till Lady Poynter shewed the devilish irony to arrange this meeting."
"Won"t you come back for my sake?" she whispered.
"To be told that you"re going to marry some one else?"
"You may not be told that. I don"t know."
Eric was filled with a blaze of anger; he had to pause long before he could be sure of his voice.
"You _still_ don"t want to let me go? The pathetic invocation of my mother----"
Barbara tried to speak and then turned away with a helpless shrug. Eric woke from a trance to a thunder of opposing voices. Lady Poynter was retailing the secret history of the latest political crisis and the fall of the Coalition Government. His wheezing, well-fed host was attacking the Board of Trade with ill-disguised venom. "They"ve cut down imports to such an extent," he was saying, "that in six months" time you won"t be able to get a cigar fit to smoke. I went to my man this morning--he"s a fellow I"ve dealt with all my life, and my father before me--he promised me _half_ a cabinet--and then made a favour of it!"
Another voice enquired in a drawl: "What is it exactly that you"re lecturing on, Mr. Lane?"
Barbara"s head was still turned from him, and he resigned himself to the reshuffle, noticing with surprise that a finger-bowl had been placed in front of him. He could not remember having eaten anything since the fish. And he had been drinking the rather sickly Gabarnac without tasting it.
"You asked my opinion of this wine, sir," he said to Lord Poynter, belatedly attentive; in a moment he was swallowed up in a discussion which dragged its way through dessert until Lady Poynter pushed back her chair and rustled majestically to the door.
She was hardly outside the room before his host sidled conspiratorially into the empty chair next him.
"Do you know anything of still champagne?" he enquired darkly, as though he were giving a pa.s.s-word.
"I"ve _drunk_ it, of course," answered Eric.
"Of course?" Lord Poynter echoed. "My dear friend, not one man in twenty thousand of your generation has even _heard_ of still champagne. . . ."
It was all wonderfully like that first night fifteen months before. Lord Poynter explained for the tenth time that he never allowed coffee to be brought in until the port wine had circulated for twenty minutes. Not for the first time he apologized for his brandy, retailed the tragedy of the last bottle of Waterloo and, like a sluggard dragging himself from bed, reluctantly moved the adjournment.
They arrived in the drawing-room to find three tables set for bridge.
Though he had asked her to talk to him, Eric was relieved to find Barbara already playing; he had nothing more to say. There was nothing, indeed, to keep a man whose train left Euston before noon next day. He waited till Lady Poynter was dummy and then asked her to excuse him.
"Well, I expect you"ve a great deal to do," she said, shaking hands reluctantly.
"Oh, Eric, aren"t you going to take me home?"
Barbara threw out the question casually, but she found time to look up and beseech him with her eyes.
"Are you going to be long?" he asked in the same tone.
"They"re a game and sixteen. If you"ll smoke _one_ cigarette . . ."
In the next hand Barbara was dummy. After spreading out her cards, she looked round the room, picked up a review and two library novels from a side table and, after a cursory glance, walked to the piano. The bridge-players looked up, as she began to sing; an impatient, "It"s you to play, Lady Poynter," pa.s.sed unheeded; and, one after another, they laid down their hands.
"_One fine day, we"ll notice A thread of smoke arising on the sea In the far horizon, And then the ship appearing;-- Then the trim white vessel Glides into the harbour, thunders forth her cannon.
See you? He is coming!
I do not go to meet him. Not I. I stay Upon the brow of the hillock and wait, and wait For a long time, but never weary Of the long waiting.
From out the crowded city, There is coming a man-- A little speck in the distance, climbing the hillock.
Can you guess who it is?
And when he"s reached the summit Can you guess what he"ll say?
He will call "b.u.t.terfly" from the distance.
I, without answering, Hold myself quietly concealed, A bit to tease him, and a bit so as not to die At our first meeting: and then, a little troubled, He will call, he will call: "Dear baby-wife of mine, dear little orange-blossom!"
The names he used to call me when he came here_. . . ."
"My dear, why don"t you use that beautiful voice of yours more?" asked Lady Poynter, as she ended.
Barbara"s face was in shadow, but Eric could see that she was looking across the room at him.
"Oh, not one person in ten million ever wants me to sing," she laughed, as she came back to the table.
Five minutes later she opened her purse, pushed a note across to Lady Poynter and came up to Eric with a smile of grat.i.tude.
"I hope I haven"t been long," she said. "Shall we see if we can find a taxi?"
5
They crossed Belgrave Square and reached Hyde Park Corner in silence.
Then Eric felt a drag at his arm, and Barbara whispered: "I"m so tired!"
"I"m afraid there"s not a taxi in sight," he said. "Shall we go by tube to Dover Street?"
"We may meet a taxi. Eric, d"you remember the first time----"
He shook free of her arm, as though it were eating into his flesh.
"You felt the evening wouldn"t be complete without that--after "b.u.t.terfly"?" he asked.
Barbara stood still, swaying slightly until he caught her wrist.
"I"m shutting my eyes and thinking of the past, the time when we were happy," she gasped. "I can"t face the present."
"You can face it as philosophically as I can," he answered. "If love were stronger than vanity . . . I don"t blame you. I only blame myself because I was fool enough to believe a woman"s word, fool enough to think that, if I gave her everything, she might give me something in return; that, if I shewed her enough magnanimity, I might shame her into being magnanimous. I was hopelessly uneducated in those days."
Barbara held up her hands as though each word struck her in the face.
"D"you _want_ to part like this?" she whispered. "Wouldn"t you rather remember the times when I came to you and cried--and you made me happy?
I came to you when I was ill; and you just kissed me or stroked my forehead, and I was better. And once or twice, when you were ill, I came to you and laid your head on my breast. . . . Wouldn"t you rather remember _that_, darling?"
"If I could only forget it, I shouldn"t regret so bitterly the day when we first met."
She swayed again and caught hold of the wooden standard of a porter"s rest. There was still no taxi in sight; Eric felt her pulse and dived into his pocket for a flask. He had never before noticed the rest of its inscription in honour of R. A. Slaney, for twenty-six years Member of Parliament for Shrewsbury. . . .