She seemed to have regained her composure. "It is about Robin, I suppose?"
"Yes. Could you tell me exactly what the relations between you were?"
"We were engaged," she answered simply, "last summer at Cambridge. He broke off the engagement."
"Yes--but I understand that you intend to keep his letters?"
"That is quite true."
"I have come to ask you to restore them."
"I am sorry. I am afraid that it is a waste of time. I shall not go back on my word."
He could not understand what her game was--he was not sure that she had a game at all; she seemed very helpless, and, at the same time, he felt that there was strength behind her answers. He was at a loss; his experience was of no value to him at all.
"I am going to beg you to alter your decision. I am pleading with you in a matter that is of the utmost importance to me. Robin is my only son. He has behaved abominably, and you can understand that it has been rather a blow to me to return after twenty years" absence and find him engaged in such an affair. But he is very young, and--pardon me--so are you. I am an older man and my experience of the world is greater than yours; believe me when I say that you will regret persistence in your refusal most bitterly in later years. It seems to me a crisis--a crisis, perhaps, for all of us. Take an older man"s word for it; there is only one possible course for you to adopt."
"Really, Mr. Trojan," she said, laughing, "you are intensely serious.
Last week I thought that my heart was broken; but now--well, it takes a lot to break a heart. I am sure that you will be glad to hear that my appet.i.te has returned. As to the letters--why, think how pleasant it will be for me to sentimentalise over them in my old age! Surely, that is sufficient motive."
She was trying to speak lightly, but her lip quivered.
"You are running a serious risk, Miss Feverel," he answered gravely.
"Your intention is, I imagine, to punish Robin. I can a.s.sure you that in a few years" time he will be punished enough. He scarcely realises as yet what he has done. That knowledge will come to him later."
"Poor Robin!" she said. "Yes, he ought to feel rather a worm now; he has written me several very agitated letters. But really I cannot help it. The affair is over--done with. I regard the letters as my personal property. I cannot see that it is any one else"s business at all."
"Of course it is our business," he answered seriously. "Those letters must be destroyed. I do not accuse you of any deliberate malicious intentions, but there is, as far as I can see, only one motive in your keeping them. I have not seen them, but from what I have heard I gather that they contain definite promise of marriage. Your case is a strong one."
"Yes," she laughed. "Poor Robin"s enthusiasm led him to some very violent expressions of affection. But, Mr. Trojan, revenge is sweet.
Every woman, I think, likes it, and I am no exception to my s.e.x.
Aren"t you a little unfair in claiming all the pleasure and none of the pain?"
"No," he answered firmly. "I am not. It is as much for your own sake as for his that I am making my claim. You cannot see things in fair proportion now; you will bitterly regret the step you contemplate taking."
"Well, I am sure," she replied, "it is very good of you to think of me like that. I am deeply touched--you seem to take quite a fatherly interest." She lay back in her chair and watched him with eyes half closed.
He was beginning to believe that it was no pose after all, and his anger rose.
"Come, Miss Feverel," he said, "let"s have done with playing--let us come to terms. It is a matter of vital importance that I should receive the letters. I am ready to go some lengths to obtain them.
What are your terms?"
She flushed a little.
"Isn"t that a little rude, Mr. Trojan?" she said. "It is of course the melodramatic att.i.tude. It was not long ago that I saw a play in which letters figured. Pistols were fired, and the heroine wore red plush.
Is that to be our style now? I am sorry that I cannot oblige you.
There are no pistols, but I will tell you frankly that it is no question of terms. I refuse, under any circ.u.mstances whatever, to return the letters."
"That is your absolute decision?"
"My absolute decision."
He got up and stood, for a moment, by her chair.
"My dear," he said, "you do not know what you are doing. You are disappointed, you are insulted--you think that you will have your revenge at all costs. You do not know now, but you will discover later, that it has been no revenge at all. It will be the most regretted action of your life. You have a great chance; you are going to throw it away. I am sorry, because you are not, I think, at all that sort of girl." He paused a moment. "Well, there is no more to be said. I am sorry as much for your sake as my own. Good-bye."
He moved to the door. The disappointment was almost more than he could bear. He did not know how strong his hopes had been; and now he must return with things as they were before, with the added knowledge that his son had behaved like a cad, and that the world would soon know.
"Good-bye," he said again and turned round towards her.
She rose from her chair and tried to smile. She said something that he could not catch, and then, suddenly, to his intense astonishment, she flung herself back into her chair again, hid her face in her hands, and burst into uncontrollable tears. He stood irresolute, and then came back and waited by the fireplace. He thought it was the most desolate thing that he had ever known--the flapping of the blind against the window, the dry rustling of the leaves on the mantel-piece, only accentuated the sound of her sobbing. He let her cry and then, at last--"I am a brute," he said. "I am sorry--I will go away."
"No." She sat up and began to dry her eyes with her handkerchief.
"Don"t go--it was absurd of me to give way like that; I thought that I had got over all that, but one is so silly--one never can tell----"
He sat down again and waited.
"You see," she went on, "I had liked you, always, from the first moment that I saw you. You were different from the others--quite different--and after Robin had behaved--as he did--I distrusted every one. I thought they were all like that, except you. You do not know what people have done to us here. We have had no friends; they have all despised us, especially your family. And Robin said--well, lots of things that hurt. That I was not good enough and that his aunt would not like me. And then, of course, when I saw that, if I kept the letters, I could make them all unhappy--why, of course, I kept them.
It was natural, wasn"t it? But I didn"t want to hurt you--I felt that all the time; and when I saw you here when I came in, I was afraid, because I hardly knew what to do. I thought I would show you that I wasn"t weak and foolish as you thought me--the kind of girl that Robin could throw over so easily without thinking twice about it--and so I meant to hold out. There--and now, of course, you think me hateful."
He sat down by her and took her hand. "It"s all rather ridiculous, isn"t it?" he said. "I"m old enough to be your father, but I"m just where you are, really. We"ve all been learning this last fortnight--you and Robin, and I--and all learning the same thing. It"s been a case," he hesitated for a word, "of calf-love, for all three of us. Don"t regret Robin; he"s not worth it. Why, you are worth twenty of him, and he"ll know that later on. I"m afraid that sounds patronising," he added, laughing. "But I"m humble really. Never mind the letters. You shall do what you like with them and I will trust you. You are not," he repeated, "that sort of girl. Why, dash it!" he suddenly added, "Robin doesn"t know what he has lost."
"Ah!" she said, blushing, "it wouldn"t have done. I can see that now--but I can see so many things that I couldn"t see before. I wish I had known a man like you--then I might have learnt earlier; but I had n.o.body, n.o.body at all, and I nearly made a mess of things. But it isn"t too late!"
"Too late! Why, no!" he answered. "I"m only beginning now, and I"m forty-five. I, too, have learned a lot in this fortnight."
She looked at him anxiously for a moment. "They don"t like you, do they? Robin and the others?"
"No," he answered; "I don"t think they do."
"I know," she said quickly; "I heard from Robin, and I"m sorry. You must have had a bad time. But why, if they have been like that, do you want the letters? They have treated us both in the same way."
"Why, yes," he answered. "Only Robin is my son. That, you see, is my great affair. I care for him more than for anything in the world, and if I had the letters----"
"Why, of course," she cried, "I see--it gives you the pull. Why, how blind I"ve been! It"s splendid!" She sprang up, and went to a small writing-desk by the window; she unlocked a drawer and returned with a small packet in her hand. "There," she said, "there they are. They are not many, are they, for such a big fuss? But I think that I meant you to have them all the time--from the first moment that I saw you. I had hoped that you would ask for them----"
He took the letters, held them in his hand for a moment, and then slipped them into his pocket.
"Thank you," he said, "I shall not forget."
"Nor I," she answered. "We are, I suppose, ships that pa.s.s in the night. We have just shared for a moment an experience, and it has changed both of us a little. But sometimes remember me, will you?
Perhaps you would write?"
"Why, of course," he answered, "I shall want to know how things turn out. What will you do?"
"I don"t know. We will go away from here, of course. Go back to London, I expect--and I will get some work. There are lots of things to do, and I shall be happy."
"I hope," he said, "that the real thing is just beginning for both of us."