Miss Keating, Mrs. Jurd said, was not at all satisfied with her--er--her present situation.
The Colonel lowered his eyes for one iniquitous instant while Mrs.
Tailleur, disguised as Miss Keating"s present situation, laughed through the veil and trailed before him her unabashed enormity.
He managed to express, with becoming gravity, his approval of the scheme. He only wondered whether it might not be better for Miss Keating to stay where she was until the morning, that her step might not seem so precipitate, so marked.
Miss Keating replied that she thought she had been sufficiently compromised already.
"I don"t think," said the Colonel, "that I should put it that way."
He felt that by putting it that way Miss Keating had brought them a little too near what he called the verge, the verge they were all so dexterously avoiding. He would have been glad if he could have been kept out of this somewhat perilous debate, but, since the women had dragged him into it, it was his business to see that it was confined within the limits of comparative safety. Goodness knew where they would be landed if the women lost their heads.
He looked gravely at Miss Keating.
That look unnerved her, and she took a staggering step that brought her within measurable distance of the verge.
The Colonel might put it any way he liked, she said. There must not be a moment"s doubt as to her att.i.tude.
Now it was not her att.i.tude that the Colonel was thinking of, but his own. It had been an att.i.tude of dignity, of judicial benevolence, of incorruptible reserve. Any sort of unpleasantness was agony to a man who had the habit of perfection. It was dawning on him that unless he exercised considerable caution he would find himself mixed up in an uncommonly disagreeable affair. He might even be held responsible for it, since the dubiousness of the topic need never have emerged if he had not unveiled it to his wife. So that, when Miss Keating, in her unsteadiness, declared that there must not be a moment"s doubt as to her att.i.tude, the Colonel himself was seized with a slight vertigo. He suggested that people (luckily he got no nearer it than that)--people were, after all, ent.i.tled to the benefit of any doubt there might be.
Then, when the danger was sheer in front of them, he drew back. Miss Keating, he said, had n.o.body but herself to please. He had no more light to throw on the--er--the situation. Really, he said to himself, they couldn"t have hit on a more serviceable word.
He considered that he had now led the discussion to its close, on lines of irreproachable symbolism. n.o.body had overstepped the verge. Mrs.
Tailleur had not once been mentioned. She might have disappeared behind the shelter provided by the merciful, silent decencies. Colonel Hankin had shown his unwillingness to pursue her into the dim and undesirable regions whence she came.
Then suddenly Miss Keating cried out her name.
She had felt herself abandoned, left there, all alone on the verge, and before any of them knew where they were she was over it. Happily, she was unaware of the violence with which she went. She seemed to herself to move, downward indeed, but with a sure and slow propulsion. She believed herself challenged to the demonstration by the Colonel"s att.i.tude. The high distinction of it, that was remotely akin to Mr.
Lucy"s, somehow obscured and degraded her. She conceived a dislike to this well-behaved and honourable gentleman, and to his visible perfections, the clean, silver whiteness and the pinkness of him.
His case was clear to her. He was a man, and he had looked at Kitty Tailleur, and his sympathies, like Mr. Lucy"s, had suffered an abominable perversion. His judgment, like Mr. Lucy"s, had surrendered to the horrible charm. She said to herself bitterly, that she could not compete with _that_.
She trembled as she faced the Colonel. "Very well, then," said she, "as there is no one to help me I must protect myself. I shall not sleep another night under the same roof as Mrs. Tailleur."
The three winced as if the name had been a blow struck at them. The Colonel"s silver eyebrows rose bristling. Mrs. Hankin got up and went out of the room. Mrs. Jurd bent her head over her knitting. None of them looked at Miss Keating; not even the Colonel, as he spoke.
"If you feel like that about it," said he, "there is nothing more to be said."
He rose and followed his wife.
Upstairs, when their bedroom door had closed on them, he reproved her very seriously for her indiscretion.
"You asked me," said he, "what I thought of Mrs. Tailleur, and I told you; but I never said you were to go and hand it on. What on earth have you been saying to those women?"
"I didn"t say anything to Miss Keating."
"No, but you must have done to Mrs. What"s-her-name?"
"Not very much. I don"t like talking about unpleasant subjects, as you know."
"Well, somebody"s been talking about them. I shouldn"t wonder, after this, if poor Mrs. Tailleur"s room were wanted to-morrow."
"Oh, do you think they"ll turn her out?"
She was a kind woman and she could not bear to think it would come to that.
The Colonel was silent. He was sitting on the bed, watching his wife as she undid the fastenings of her gown. At that moment a certain brief and sudden sin of his youth rose up before him. It looked at him pitifully, reproachfully, with the eyes of Mrs. Tailleur.
"I wish," said Mrs. Hankin, "we hadn"t said anything at all."
"So do I," said the Colonel. But for the life of him he couldn"t help saying something more. "If she goes," he said, "I rather think that young fellow will go, too."
"And the sister?"
"Oh, the sister, I imagine, will remain."
CHAPTER VIII
Kitty was dressed. She was calling out to her companion, "Bunny, hurry up, you"ll be late." No answer came from the adjoining room. She tapped at the door and there was no answer. She tried to open the door. It was locked on the inside. "Bunny," she cried, "are you there?" She laid her ear to the panel. There was the sound of a box being dragged across the floor.
"You _are_ there, are you? Why don"t you answer? I can"t hear you. Why can"t you open the door?"
Miss Keating unlocked the door. She held it ajar and spoke through the aperture.
"Be good enough," she said, "to leave me alone."
"All right; but you"ll be awfully late for dinner."
"I am not coming down to dinner."
Miss Keating shut the door, but she did not lock it.
Kitty gave a cry of distress.
"Bunny, what _is_ the matter? Let me in--do let me in."
"You can come in if you like."
Kitty opened the door. But instead of going in, she stood fixed upon the threshold, struck dumb by what she saw.
The room was in disorder. Clothes littered the bed. More clothes were heaped on the floor around an open trunk. Miss Keating was kneeling on the floor seizing on things and thrusting them into the trunk. Their strangled, tortured forms witnessed to the violence of her mood.
"What _are_ you doing?"
"You can see what I"m doing. I am packing my things."