"Do you," said Adela, sinking far into the recesses of the arm-chair, and holding up the screen again, "like being there better than anywhere else? I suppose Maggie is very charming?"
"You know just what she is."
"I"m sure I don"t. I"m a woman."
There was a long pause. Tom felt absurd, standing there in the middle of the room. Suddenly Adela leapt to her feet.
"Oh, go away! Yes, you"re right to go back. Oh, yes, you"re quite right.
Good-bye, Mr. Loring."
For a moment longer Tom stood still; then he moved, not towards the door, but towards Adela. When he spoke to her it was in a husky voice.
There were no sweet seducing tones in his voice.
"There"s only one place in the world I really care to be," he said.
She did not speak.
"Harry and Mrs. Dennison are my friends," he said, "and as long as my time"s my own, I"ll give it to them. But you don"t suppose I go there for happiness?"
"I don"t suppose you ever did anything for happiness," said Adela, as though she were advancing a heinous charge. "Really, nothing makes me so impatient as an unselfish man."
Tom smiled, but his smile was still a nervous one. Nevertheless he felt less absurd. A distant presage of triumph stole into his mind.
"Don"t you want me to go?" he asked.
"You may go wherever you like," said she.
Tom came still nearer. Adela held out her hand and said "good-bye." Tom took the hand and held it.
"You see," he said, "I didn"t think I had anywhere else to go. I did know a charming lady who was very witty and--very rich----!"
"I--I"ll put some more in Omof.a.ga and lose it. Oh, you are stupid, Tom!
I really thought I should have to ask you myself, Tom. I"d have done it sooner than let you go."
It was not, happily, in the end necessary, and Adela said with a sigh,
"I believe that I"ve something to thank Mr. Ruston for, after all."
"What"s that?"
"Why, he made me resolved to marry the man who of all the world was most unlike him."
"Then I"ve something to thank him for too."
"Tom," she said, "I don"t know what I said to you. I--I was jealous of Maggie Dennison."
It was later by an hour when Tom Loring took his way, not to his rooms for a bag, but straight to Curzon Street. Adela had consented not to wait ("In one"s eleventh season one does not want to wait," she said), and Tom considered that it was now hardly worth while to move. So he broke into Harry Dennison"s study with a radiant face, crying,
"Harry, I"m not coming to you after all, old fellow."
Harry started up in dismay, but a short explanation turned his sorrow into rejoicing. Again and again he shook Tom"s hand, telling him that the man who won a good wife won the greatest treasure earth could offer--and (he added) "by Jove, Tom, I believe the best chance of heaven too," and Tom gripped Harry"s hand and cleared his own throat. Then they both felt very much ashamed, and, by way of forgetting this deplorable outburst of emotion (which Tom felt was quite un-English, and smacked indeed of Mrs. Cormack), agreed to go upstairs and announce the news to Maggie.
"She"ll be delighted," said Harry.
Tom followed him upstairs to the drawing-room. Mrs. Dennison was sitting by the fire, doing nothing. But she sprang up when they came in, and advanced to meet Tom. He also felt like an ill-used subject as she gave him her hand and said,
"How forgiving you are, Tom!"
He looked in her face, and found her smiling under sad eyes. And he muttered some confused words about "all that" not mattering "tuppence."
And indeed Mrs. Dennison seemed content to take the same view, for she smiled again and said,
"Ah, well, there"s an end of it, anyhow."
Then Harry, who had been wondering why Tom delayed his tidings, burst out with them, and Tom added lamely,
"Yes, it"s true, Mrs. Dennison. So you see I can"t come."
She laughed.
"I must accept your excuse," she said, and added a few kind words. "As for Adela," she went on, "she"s never been to see me lately, but for your sake I"ll be humble and go and see her to-morrow."
Harry, as though suddenly remembering, exclaimed that he must tell the children; in fact, he had an idea that a man liked to talk about his engagement to a woman alone, and plumed himself on getting out of the room with some dexterity. So Tom and Maggie Dennison were left for a little while together.
At first they talked of Adela, but it was on Tom"s mind to say something else, and at last he contrived to give it utterance.
"I can"t tell you," he said, looking away from her, "how glad I was to get your message. This--this trouble--has been horrible. I know I behaved like a sulky fool. I was quite wrong. It"s awfully good of you to forget it."
"Don"t talk like that," she said in a low, slow voice. "How do you think Harry"s looking?"
"Oh, better than I have seen him for a long time. But you"re not looking very blooming, Mrs. Dennison."
She leant forward.
"Do you think he"s happy, or is he worrying? He talks to you, you know."
"I think he"s happier than he"s been for months."
She lay back with a sigh.
"I hope so," she said.
"And you?" he asked, timidly yet urgently.
It seemed useless to pretend complete ignorance, yet impossible to a.s.sert any knowledge.
"Oh, why talk about me? Talk about Adela."
"I love Adela," he said gravely, "as I"ve never loved any other woman.
But when I was a young man and came here, you were very kind to me. And I--no, I"ll go on now--I looked up to you, and thought you the--the grandest woman I knew; and to us young men you were a sort of queen.