"You have the advantage of me then"; his laugh was embarra.s.sed, but not amicable; "for I am afraid I have no idea what you have been doing since Easter!"
"I have been at home, flirting with the Curate," said Alicia, with a laugh. As she sat, with her head thrown back against the chair, the light sparkling on her white skin, on her necklace of yellow topazes, and the jewelled fan in her hands, the folds of blue chiffon billowing round her, there could be no doubt of her effectiveness. Marsham could not help laughing, too.
"Charming for the Curate! Did he propose to you?"
"Certainly. I think we were engaged for twenty-four hours."
"That you might see what it was like? _Et apres?_"
"He was afraid he had mistaken my character"
Marsham laughed out.
"Poor victim! May I ask what you did it for?"
He found himself looking at her with curiosity and a certain anger. To be engaged, even for twenty-four hours, means that you allow your betrothed the privileges of betrothal. And in the case of Alicia no man was likely to forego them. She was really a little too unscrupulous!
"What I did it for? He was so nice and good-looking!"
"And there was n.o.body else?"
"n.o.body. Home was a desert."
"H"m!" said Marsham. "Is he broken-hearted?"
Alicia shrugged her shoulders a little.
"I don"t think so. I write him such charming letters. It is all simmering down beautifully."
Marsham moved restlessly to and fro, first putting down a lamp, then fidgeting with an evening paper. Alicia never failed to stir in him the instinct of s.e.x, in its combative and critical form; and hostile as he believed he was to her, her advent had certainly shaken him out of his depression.
She meanwhile watched him with her teasing eyes, apparently enjoying his disapproval.
"I know exactly what you are thinking," she said, presently.
"I doubt it."
"Heartless coquette!" she said, mimicking his voice. "Never mind--her turn will come presently!"
"You don"t allow my thoughts much originality."
"Why should I? Confess!--you did think that?"
Her small white teeth flashed in the smile she gave him. There was an exuberance of life and spirits about her that was rather disarming. But he did not mean to be disarmed.
"I did not think anything of the kind," he said, returning to the fire and looking down upon her; "simply because I know you too well."
Alicia reddened a little. It was one of her attractions that she flushed so easily.
"Because you know me too well?" she repeated. "Let me see. That means that you don"t believe my turn will ever come?"
Marsham smiled.
"Your turn for what?" he said, dryly.
"I think we are getting mixed up!" Her laugh was as musical as he remembered it. "Let"s begin again. Ah! here comes Cousin Lucy!"
Lady Lucy entered, ushering in an elderly relation, a Miss Falloden, dwelling also in Eaton Square: a comfortable lady with a comfortable income; a social stopper of c.h.i.n.ks, moreover, kind and talkative; who was always welcome on occasions when life was not too strenuous or the company too critical. Marsham offered her his arm, and the little party made its way to the dining-room.
"Do you go back to the House, Oliver, to-night?" asked his mother, as the entree went round.
He replied in the affirmative, and resumed his conversation with Alicia.
She was teasing him on the subject of some of his Labor friends in the House of Commons. It appeared that she had made the Curate, who was a Christian Socialist, take her to a Labor Conference at Bristol, where all the leaders were present, and her account of the proceedings and the types was both amusing and malicious. It was the first time that Marsham had known her attempt any conversation of the kind, and he recognized that her cleverness was developing. But many of the remarks she made on persons well known to him annoyed him extremely, and he could not help trying to punish her for them. Alicia, however, was not easily punished.
She evaded him with a mosquito-like quickness, returning to the charge as soon as he imagined himself to have scored with an irrelevance or an absurdity which would have been exasperating in a man, but had somehow to be answered and politely handled from a woman. He lost his footing continually; and as she had none to lose, she had, on the whole, the best of it.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "ALICIA UPRIGHT IN HER CORNER--OLIVER, DEEP IN HIS ARMCHAIR"]
Then--in the very midst of it--he remembered, with a pang, another skirmish, another battle of words--with another adversary, in a different scene. The thrill of that moment in the Tallyn drawing-room, when he had felt himself Diana"s conqueror; delighting in her rosy surrender, which was the mere sweet admission of a girl"s limitations; and in its implied appeal, timid and yet proud, to a victor who was also a friend--all this he was conscious of, by a.s.sociation, while the sparring with Alicia still went on. His tongue moved under the stimulus of hers; but in the background of the mind rose the images and sensations of the past.
Lady Lucy, meanwhile, looked on, well pleased. She had not seen Oliver so cheerful, or so much inclined to talk, since "that unfortunate affair," and she was proportionately grateful to Alicia.
Marsham returned to the drawing-room with the ladies, declaring that he must be off in twenty minutes. Alicia settled herself in a corner of the sofa, and played with Lady Lucy"s dog. Marsham endeavored, for a little, to do his duty by Miss Falloden; but in a few minutes he had drifted back to Alicia. This time she made him talk of Parliament, and the two or three measures in which he was particularly interested. She showed, indeed, a rather astonishing acquaintance with the details of those measures, and the thought crossed Marsham"s mind: "Has she been getting them up?--and why?" But the idea did not make the conversation she offered him any the less pleasant. Quite the contrary. The mixture of teasing and deference which she showed him, in the course of it, had been the secret of her old hold upon him. She rea.s.serted something of it now, and he was not unwilling. During the morose and taciturn phase through which he had been pa.s.sing there had been no opportunity or desire to talk of himself, especially to a woman. But Alicia had always made him talk of himself, and he had forgotten how agreeable it might be.
He threw himself down beside her, and the time pa.s.sed. Lady Lucy and Miss Falloden had retired into the back drawing-room, where the one knitted and the other gossiped. But as the clock struck a quarter to eleven Lady Lucy called, in some astonishment: "So you are not going back to the House, Oliver?"
He sprang to his feet.
"Heavens!" He looked at the clock, irresolute. "Well, there"s nothing much on, mother. I don"t think I need."
And he subsided again into his chair beside Alicia.
Miss Falloden looked at Lady Lucy with a meaning smile.
"I didn"t know they were such friends!" she said, under her breath.
Lady Lucy made no reply. But her eyes travelled through the archway dividing the two rooms to the distant figures framed within it--Alicia, upright in her corner, the red gold of her hair shining against the background of a white azalea; Oliver, deep in his arm-chair, his long legs crossed, his hands gesticulating.
Lady Niton"s sarcasms recurred to her. She was not sure whether she welcomed or disliked the idea. But, after all, why not?
CHAPTER XVI
"Ecco, Signorina! il Convento!"