She moved towards the door. He did not turn. She waited an instant looking at him. A smile was on her lips, and a tear trickled down her cheeks.
"It"s like shutting the door on life, Willie," she said.
He sprang forward, but she raised her hand to stay him.
"No. It is--settled," said she; and she opened the door of the room and walked out into the little entrance-hall.
It was a wet evening, and the rain pattered on the roof of the projecting porch. They stood there a moment, till her cabman, who had taken refuge in the lee of the garden wall, brought his vehicle up to the door. They heard a step creak behind them in the hall, and then recede. Carlin was treading on tip-toe away.
Maggie Dennison put out her hand and met Ruston"s. She pressed his hand with strength more than her own, and she said, very low,
"I am dying now--this way--for my king, Willie," and she stepped out into the rain, and climbed into the cab.
"Back to where you brought me from," she called to the man, and leaning forward, where the cab lamps caught her face, so that it gleamed like the face of some marble statue, she looked on Willie Ruston. Her lips moved, but he heard no word. The wheels turned and the lamps flashed, and she was carried away.
Willie started forward a step or two, then ran to the gate and, leaning on it, watched the red lights as they fled away; and long after they were gone, he stood there, bareheaded, in the drenching rain. He did not think; he still saw her, still heard her voice, and watched her broad low brow. She still stood before him, not the fairest of women, but the woman who was for him. And the rumble of retreating wheels sounded again in his ears. She was gone.
How long he stood he did not know. Presently he felt an arm pa.s.sed through his, and he was led back to the house.
Old Carlin took him through the hall into his own little study, where a bright fire blazed, and gave him brandy, which he drank, and helped him off with his wet coat, and put a cricketing jacket on him, and pushed him into an arm-chair, and hunted for a pair of slippers for him.
All this while neither spoke; and at last Carlin, his tasks done, stood and warmed himself at the fire, looking steadily in front of him, and never at his friend.
"You dear old fool," said Willie Ruston.
"Ah, well, well, you mustn"t take cold. If you were laid up now, what the deuce would become of Omof.a.ga?"
His small, sharp, shrewd eyes blinked as he spoke, and he glanced at Willie Ruston as he named Omof.a.ga.
Willie sprang to his feet with an oath.
"My G.o.d!" he cried, "why do you do this for me? Who"ll do anything for her?"
Carlin blinked again, keeping his gaze aloof. Then he held out his hand, and Willie seized it, saying,
"I"m--I"m precious hard hit, old man."
The other nodded and, as Willie sank back in his chair, stole quietly out of the room, shutting the door close behind him.
Willie Ruston drew his chair nearer the fire, and spread out his hands to the blaze. And as the heat warmed his frame, the stupor of his mind pa.s.sed, and he saw some of what was true--a glimpse of his naked self thrown up against the light of the love that others found for him. And he turned away his eyes, for it seemed to him that he could not look long and endure to live. And he groaned that he had won love and made for himself so mighty an accuser of debts that it lay not in him to pay.
For even then, while he cursed himself, and cursed the nature that would not be changed in him; even while the words of his love were in his ears, and her presence near with him; even while life seemed naught for the emptiness her going made, and himself nothing but longing for her; even then, behind regret, behind remorse, behind agony, behind self-contempt and self-disgust, lay hidden, and deeper hidden as he thrust it down, the knowledge that he was glad--glad that his life was his own again, to lead and make and shape; wherein to take and hold, to play and win, to fasten on what was his, and to beat down his enemies before his face. That no man could rob him of, and the woman who could would not. So, as Maggie Dennison had said, in the pa.s.sing of an hour he was glad; and in the pa.s.sing of a week he had learnt to look in the face of the gladness which he had and loathed.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE RETURN OF A FRIEND.
About a week later, Tom Loring sat at work in his rooms. The table was strewn with books of blue and of less alarming colours. Tom was smoking a short pipe, and when he paused for a fresh idea, the smoke welled out of his mouth, aye, and out of his nose, thick and fast. For a while he wrote busily; then a dash of his pen proclaimed a finished task, and he lay back in the luxury of accomplishment. Presently he pushed back his chair, knocked out his pipe, refilled it, and stretched himself on the sofa. After the day"s work came the day"s dream; and the day"s dream dwelt on the coming of the evening hour, when Tom was to take tea with Adela Ferrars at half-past five. When he had an appointment like that, it coloured his whole day, and made his hard labour pa.s.s lightly. Also it helped him to forget what there was in his own life and his friends"
to trouble him; and he nursed with quiet patience a love that did not expect, that hardly hoped for, any issue. As he had been content to be Harry Dennison"s secretary, so he seemed satisfied to be an undeclared lover; finding enough for his modesty in what most men would have felt only a spur to urge them to press further.
He was roused by a step on the stair. A moment later, Harry Dennison burst into the room. Tom had seen him a few days before, uneasy, troubled, apologetic, talking of Maggie"s strange indisposition--she was terribly out of sorts, he had said, and appeared to find all company and all talk irksome. He had spoken with a meek compa.s.sion that exasperated Tom--an unconsciousness of any hardship laid on him. Tom sat up, glad to console him for an hour; glad, perhaps, of any company that would trick an hour into the past. But to-day Harry"s step was light; there was a smile on his lips, a gleam of hope in his eyes; he rushed to Tom, seized his hand, and, before he sat down or took off his hat, blurted out,
"Tom, old boy, she wants you to come back."
Tom started.
"What?" he cried, "Mrs. Dennison wants----"
"Yes," Harry went on, "she sent for me to-day, and told me that she saw how I missed you, and that she was sorry that she had--well--sorry for all the trouble, you know. Then she said, "I wonder if Tom (she called you Tom) bears malice. Tell him Omof.a.ga is quite gone, and I want him to come back, and if he"ll come here, I"ll go on my knees to him.""
Harry stopped, smiling joyfully at his wonderful news. Tom wore a doubtful look.
"I can"t tell you," said Harry, "what it means to me. It"s not only your coming, old chap, though, heaven knows, I"m gladder of that than I"ve been of anything for months--but you see what it means, Tom? It means--why, it means that we"re to be as we were before that fellow came. Tom, she spoke to me more as she used to-day."
His voice faltered; he spoke as an innocent loyal man might of a pardon from some loved capricious Sovereign. He had not understood the disfavour--he had dimly discerned inexplicable anger. Now it was past, and the sun shone again. Tom found himself saying,
"I wish there were more fellows in the world like you, Harry."
Harry"s eyes opened in momentary astonishment at the irrelevance, but he was too full of his news and his request to stay for wonder.
"You"ll come, Tom?" he asked. "You won"t refuse her?" "Could anyone refuse her anything?" was what his tone said. "We want you, Tom," he went on. "Hang it, I"ve had no one to speak to lately but that Cormack woman. I hate that woman. She"s always hinting something--some lie or other, you know."
"Don"t be too hard on little Mrs. Cormack," said Tom.
He remembered certain words which had shown a soft spot in Mrs.
Cormack"s heart. Harry did not know that she had grieved to hear him pacing up and down.
"You"ll come, Tom? I know, of course, that you"ve a right to be angry, and to say you won"t, and all that. But I know you won"t do it. She"s not well, Tom; and I--I can"t always understand her. You used to understand her, Tom. She used to like your chaff, you know."
Tom would not enter on that. He pressed Harry"s hand, answering,
"Of course, I"ll come."
"Bring all this with you," cried Harry. "I shan"t take up your time. You must stick to your own work as much as you like. When"ll you come, Tom?"
"Why, to-morrow," said Tom Loring.
"Not now?"
"I might, if you like," smiled Tom.
"That"s right, old chap. You can send round for your things. Bring a bag, and come to-night. Your room"s there for you. I told them to keep it ready. d.a.m.n it, Tom, I thought things would come straight some day, and I kept it ready."
Had things come straight? Tom did not know.
"I say," pursued Harry, "I met Ruston to-day. He was very kind about my cutting the Omof.a.ga. I wonder if I"ve been unjust to him!"