Part 105 (1/2)

”But what am I to do? I'm afraid of him. Oh, do help me.”

”Hush, Beryl! What can he do? There's nothing to be afraid of.”

”But I've n.o.body. I'm all alone. f.a.n.n.y is no use. And he means--he won't give it up. I know he won't give it up. I was always afraid in a way. I always had suspicions, but I trampled them down. d.i.c.k Garstin told me, but I would not listen. d.i.c.k Garstin showed me what he was.”

”How could he?”

”He did. It's there in the studio--that horrible picture, the real man, the man I couldn't see. But I must always have known what he was.

Something in me must always have known!”

She seemed to make a violent effort to recover her self-control. She dropped her hands, took out a handkerchief and wiped the tears from her eyes. Then she went to the sofa where her m.u.f.f was lying, drew out the letter that was in it, went over to the fireplace and threw the letter into the flames.

”Adela,” she said, ”I've been a beast to you. You know--my last visit to you. You're brave. I suppose I always felt there was something fine in you, but I didn't know how fine you could be. All I can do in return is this--never to tell. It isn't much, is it?”

”It's quite enough, Beryl.”

”There isn't anything else I can do, is there?”

Her eyes were asking a question. Lady Sellingworth met them calmly, earnestly. She knew what the girl was thinking at that moment. She was thinking of Alick Craven.

”No, there isn't anything else.”

”Are you quite sure, Adela? I owe you a great deal. I may forget it.

One never knows. And I suppose I'm horribly selfish. But if I make you a promise now I'll keep it. If you want me to promise anything, tell me now.”

”But I don't want anything from you,” said Lady Sellingworth.

She said it very quietly, without emotion. There was even a coldness in her voice.

The great effort she had just made seemed to have changed her. By making it she felt as if, unwittingly, she had built up an insurmountable barrier between herself and youth. She had not known, perhaps, what she was doing, but now, suddenly, she knew.

_I grow too old a comrade, let us part. Pa.s.s thou away!_

The words ran in her mind. How often she had thought of them! How often she had struggled with that wild heart which G.o.d had given her, which in a way she clung to desperately, and yet which, as she had long known, she ought to give up. She was too old a comrade for that wild heart, and now surely she was saying farewell to it--this time a final farewell.

But she had felt, had really felt as if in her very entrails, for a moment the appeal of youth. And she could never forget that, and, having responded, she knew that she could never struggle against youth again.

Beryl had conquered her without knowing it.

CHAPTER VII

The winter night was dark when Miss Van Tuyn stood in the hall of Lady Sellingworth's house waiting for the footman to find a taxicab for her.

A big fire was burning on the hearth; the old-fas.h.i.+oned hooded chair stood beside it; and presently, as no taxicab came, she went to the chair and sat down in it. She felt very tired. Her whole body seemed to have been weakened by what she had just been through. But her mind was charged with intense vitality. The thoughts galloped through it, and they were dark as the night. The cold air of winter stole in through the doorway of the hall. She felt it and s.h.i.+vered as she lay back in the great chair which, with its walls and roof, was like a hiding-place; and for the first time in her life she longed to hide herself. She had never before known acute fear--fear that was based on ascertained facts. But she knew it now.

The young footman stood on the doorstep bareheaded, looking this way and that into the blackness, and she sat waiting. In her independence she had never before known what it was to feel abandoned to loneliness. She had always enjoyed her freedom. Now she felt a great longing to cling to someone, to be protected, to lean on somebody who was much stronger than herself, and who would defend her against any attack. At that moment she envied Lady Sellingworth safe above stairs in this silent and beautiful house, which was like a stronghold. She even envied, or thought she did, Lady Sellingworth for her years. In old age there was surely a security that youth could never have. For the riot of life was over and the greatest dangers were past.

She longed to stay with Adela that night. She thought of her as security. But she dared not expect anything more from Adela. She had already received a gift which she had surely not deserved, a gift which few women, if indeed any other woman, would have given her.

She looked towards the open door and saw the footman's flat back, and narrow head covered with carefully plastered hair. He was calling now with both hands to his mouth: ”Taxi! Taxi!”