"A person of my sort ought to be glad to live anywhere; especially after some of the places in which I have resided."
"I know all about it."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, I"ve been told; but would you mind leaving all that sort of thing until we get to your--wretched rooms? Let us, while we are in the cab, be frivolous; couldn"t you be frivolous?"
"I"ve forgotten how to be."
"I believe you smiled."
"If I did it was the sort of smile with which you meet the dentist when he"s going to play tricks with your teeth."
"It"s some time since I was frivolous; it"s rather hard that now, after all this time, I"m in a mood to frivol, you won"t. Couldn"t you try?
For instance, you seem to have forgotten that I possess a name; couldn"t you start by calling me Violet? I suppose it would be too much to expect you to get as far, at the start, as Vi?" There was silence.
"Well, are you trying?"
"I"m trying not to."
"Thank you very much; does it require much effort?"
"All my strength."
"Have you got much?"
"Very little."
"Indeed? Then, if you"re going to use it in that direction, I hope you"ve none at all. It"s rather fine weather for the time of the year, isn"t it? Is that the sort of remark you would like me to make? Will it need all your strength to enable you to answer that?"
"I wish you"d let me stop the cab and get out."
"I shall do nothing of the sort. How dare you suggest it? I suppose you think you"re going to keep on behaving to me like this. My dear Sydney--you see, I call you by your Christian name, and it doesn"t need much trying--my darling Sydney, my well-beloved Sydney--I"m going to be Mary Janeish--do you think I don"t know what is going on inside you?
You"d give--shall I say twopence?--to put out your hand and touch mine which is lying there upon the seat. You can see it, although you"re not looking and you pretend you can"t. Sydney, won"t you touch it--just once?"
"I won"t."
"Thank you; that is frank, and so sweet of you. You think you are as hard--oh, harder than that; and I believe that you have got much harder than you used to be, but when I"ve really made up my mind you shall, you"ll melt and become--oh, yes, much softer than that. How far is Lavender Sweep? I don"t seem to find it easy to get much out of you in this silly cab; perhaps I may have better fortune when we get to your wretched rooms. Is it much farther?"
"Let"s say all that there is to be said now. I wanted to say it before we got into the cab; it will only make it worse for both of us if we wait till we get to my rooms. You shan"t go there. I won"t have you."
"Won"t you? How are you going to stop me?"
"By giving myself up to the next policeman we meet, if there is no other way; he"d think himself in luck to get me."
"Sydney!"
"It"s the truth, and you know it. What"s the good of either of us pretending that you don"t?"
"Will you please say nothing else until we reach your rooms? I won"t, and I"d rather you didn"t either. I"m going with you to your rooms, and nothing you can say or do will stop me. Now will you please be silent till we get to 97 Lavender Sweep? I think that, while we"re in this cab, I prefer your silence to your conversation."
She had her way; not a word was spoken on either side until the cab drew up in front of one of a long terrace of houses.
CHAPTER x.x.xIII
"Vi!"
Miss Forster looked about the room into which he had ushered her, the first room on the right when you had come through the front door. It was the usual ground-floor front apartment of the 45 a year suburban "modern residence," a fair size, as a habitation for a "single gentleman," with a sufficiency of light, and air, and s.p.a.ce.
"If this is one of your "wretched rooms," I don"t think it"s very wretched, don"t you know; it compares not at all unfavourably with my best parlour."
Standing before the empty fireplace, he was observing her with singular intentness, brows knit, head bowed between his shoulders.
"You understand where the money to pay for this palatial apartment has come from; how it has been--earned? You saw me engaged in the practice of my profession that night at Avonham."
"Did I? Dear me! How terrible! Why should I mind?"
"You ought to mind; you do mind; at least it is certain that you would mind if you understood."
"It is because I do understand that I don"t mind; unfortunately the understanding is all on one side; you do seem to be so slow in grasping the true inwardness of things. I want you to answer me one or two questions--will you?"
She had placed herself in an old arm-chair, and was looking up at him with the tip of a first finger touching either cheek. Her pallor had given way to a faint pink flush, which kept coming and going. Her whole face was lighted with laughter, as if challenging the persistent gravity which was on his.
"I will answer any questions you like to put, to the best of my ability."
"That"s right, that"s the proper tone in which to speak; as if you were faced by the rack and the thumb-screw, and similar pretty things. To begin with--I will make a statement; I was at Avonham that night."
"As if I didn"t know it."
"I was wondering if you might have forgotten it." This was said with a little air of malice. "I saw poor Mr. Draycott lying on the floor, and I, as well as Major Reith, thought that he was dead. I"ve been asking myself how, during the very few minutes I was out of the room, you managed to take him away."
"You remember that I ran up against you in the hall?"
"Am I likely to forget? You did surprise me."
"And you surprised me; I hadn"t a notion that you were in the house, or I shouldn"t have been there."
"You might have stayed to say good-night, or ask me how I was; I had hurt my foot most frightfully. You didn"t show the slightest sympathy."
"How was I to know?"
"That"s just it. If you"d only said how-do-you-do, you"d have known. In your hurry you even left your bag behind you."
One could see the man wince; the woman"s pause was perhaps to enable him to recover himself.