He dined with me at the Mary Chilton on the evening of his return, sitting where Larry Strangways had sat only forty-eight hours previously. I was sorry then that I had not changed the table. To be face to face with two men, on exactly the same spot, on occasions so near together, in conditions so alike, gave me a sense of faithlessness.
Though I wanted nothing so much as to be honest with them both, I was afraid of being so with neither; and yet for this I hardly knew where to place the blame. I suffered for Hugh because of Larry Strangways, and I suffered for Larry Strangways because of Hugh. If I suffered for myself I was scarcely aware of it, having to give so much thought to them.
Nevertheless, I regretted that I had not chosen another table, and all the more when Hugh brought the matter up. He had finished telling me of his experiences in Philadelphia. "Now what have you been doing?" he demanded, a smile lighting up his tired face.
"Oh, nothing much--the same old thing."
"Seen anybody in particular?"
I weighed my answer carefully.
"n.o.body in particular, except Mr. Strangways."
He frowned.
"Where did you see that fellow?"
"Right here."
"Right here? What do you mean by that?"
"He came to dine with me."
"Dine with you! And sat where I"m sitting now?"
I tried to take this pleasantly.
"It"s the only place I"ve got to ask any one I want to talk to."
"But why should you want to talk to--to--" I saw him struggling with the word, but it came out--"to that bounder?"
"He"s a friend of mine, Hugh. I"ve asked you already to remember that he"s a gentleman."
"Gentleman! O Lord!" He became kindly and coaxing, leaning across the table with an ingratiating smile. "Look here, little Alix! Don"t you think that for my sake it"s time you were beginning to drop that lot?"
Though I revolted against the expression, I pretended to see nothing amiss.
"You mean just as Libby Jaynes had to drop the barbers and the pages in the hotel when she became Mrs. Tracy Allen."
He laughed nervously.
"Oh, I don"t go as far as that. And yet if I did--"
"It wouldn"t be too far." I gave him the impression that I was thinking the question out. "But you see, Hugh, dear, I don"t see any difference between Mr. Strangways--"
"And me?"
"I wasn"t going to say you, but between Mr. Strangways and the people you"d like me to know. Or rather, if I do see a difference it"s that Mr.
Strangways is so much more a man of the world than--than--"
Perceiving my embarra.s.sment, he broke in:
"Than who?"
I took my courage in both hands.
"Than Mr. Rossiter, for example, or your brother, Mr. Jack Brokenshire, or any of the men I met when I was with your sister. If I hadn"t seen you--the truest gentleman I ever knew--I shouldn"t have supposed that any of them belonged to the real great world at all."
To my relief he took this good-naturedly.
"That"s what we call social inexperience, little Alix. It"s because you don"t know how to distinguish."
"That is, I don"t know a good thing when I see it."
"You don"t know that sort of good thing--the American who counts. But you can learn. And if you learn you"ve got to take as a starting-point the fact that, just as there are things one does and things one doesn"t do, so there are people one knows and people one doesn"t know--and no one can tell you the reason why."
"But if one asked for a reason--"
"It would queer you with the right people. They don"t want a reason. If people do want a reason--well, they"ve got to stay out of it. It was one of the things Libby Jaynes picked up as if she"d been born to it. She knew how to cut; she knew how to cut dead; and she cut as dead as she knew how."
"But, Hugh, darling, I don"t know how."
He was all forbearance.
"You"ll learn, sweet." As for the moment the waitress was absent, he put out his hand and locked his fingers within mine. "You"ve got it in you.
Once you"ve had a chance you"ll knock Libby Jaynes into a c.o.c.ked hat."
I shook my head.
"I"m not sure that you"re right."
"I know I"m right, if you do as I tell you: and to begin with you"ve got to put that fellow Strangways in his place."
I let it go at that, having so many other things to think of that any mere status of my own became of no importance. I was willing that Hugh should marry me as Tracy Allen married Libby Jaynes, or in any other way, so long as I could play my part in the rest of the drama with right-mindedness. But it was precisely that that grew more difficult.
When Mrs. Brokenshire and Mr. Grainger next met under what I can only call my chaperonage they were distinctly more at ease. The first stammering, shamefaced awkwardness was gone. They knew by this time what they had to say and said it. They had also come to understand that if I could not be moved I might be outwitted. By the simple expedient of wandering away on the plea of looking at this or that decorative object they obtained enough solitude to serve their purposes. Without taking themselves beyond my range of vision they got out of earshot.
As far as that went I was relieved. I was not responsible for what they did, but only for what I did myself. I was not their keeper; I didn"t want to be a spy on them. When, at a certain minute, as they returned toward me, I saw him pa.s.s a letter to her, it was entirely by chance. I reflected then that, while she ran no risk in using the mails in writing to him, it was not so with him in writing to her, and that communications of importance might have to pa.s.s between them. It was nothing to me. I was sorry to have surprised the act and tried to dismiss it from my mind.
It was repeated, however, the next time they came and many times after that. Their comings settled into a routine of being twice a week, with fair regularity. Tuesdays and Fridays were their days, though not without variation. It was indeed this variation that saved the situation on a certain afternoon when otherwise all might have been lost.
CHAPTER XV
We had come to February, 1914. During the intervening months the conditions in which I lived and worked underwent little change. My days and nights were pa.s.sed between the library and the Mary Chilton, with few social distractions, though I had some. Larry Strangways"s sister, Mrs. Applegate, had called on me, and her house, a headquarters of New York philanthropies, had opened to me its kindly doors. Through Mrs.
Applegate one or two other women came to relieve my loneliness, and now and then old Halifax friends visiting New York took me to theaters and to dinners at hotels. Ethel Rossiter was as friendly as fear of her father and of social conventions permitted her to be, and once or twice when she was quite alone I lunched with her. On each of these occasions she had something new to tell me.