Part 53 (1/2)

Lorraine had grown calmer, though the dangerous look was still in her eyes, and she moved away to the window, leaving a large s.p.a.ce between them, and half-turned her back to him.

”I have already burnt the epistle I received from Mrs. Hermon - its insults were too utterly foolish to notice. You may go back and tell her her son has never received any harm from me, and I absolutely decline to discuss the question any further. As for yourself - you will doubtless find a taxi on the rank, just outside.”

”But, my dear lady, I cannot go back leaving the matter like that.”

He grew emboldened again, now that he could not see her eyes.

”I am here to plead on Alymer's behalf. If you are fond of him, you must at least listen to reason for his sake.”

”Not from you. And who are his people that they dare to treat me like this? . . . First an insulting letter, and then an emissary such as you - ”

”Alymer is my nephew, and his mother is my sister, and therefore I am a most suitable emissary, except for a certain incident of long ago, which has long been consigned to oblivion by both of us, I am sure. The boy is young. He is on the threshold of life and a great career. What will be the result, do you think, if you refuse to listen, and perhaps ruin his prospects for your own pleasure ?”

She turned back to him a moment, and the smouldering fires leaped up.

”I was young. I was on the treshold of life. What did you care for my youth or my future? What do other men like you care? My mother was lax, and you knew it. I believe you gave her diamonds. And now you come to me and ask me to spare your nephew - _you_ come - _you!_...”

and the scorn in her voice lashed him like a stinging whip.

But lie tried valiantly to stand his ground, though all his fine attire and air of bravado could not save his visible shrinking into a faded, dissipated, worthless-looking old rogue.

”If you won't listen to any plea from me, will you permit me to make one from his mother, and appeal to the woman in you to realise her anxiety ?”

Lorraine turned again to the window and looked out upon the silver, s.h.i.+ning river. And suddenly it was as though all her soul rose up in arms. She felt with swift pa.s.sion that it seemed to matter so much in the world that a young man with a promising future should not run any risk of harm from an older woman.

But if it was a young woman, and an older man, what did it matter then ! Why, the very man who would have hurt her could allow himself to plead for another young thing, if that other were a man.

Doubtless he would argue, as all the rest of them, that years in men craved the freshness and revivifying of youth it was only natural, and a woman mattered so much less. But the mature woman herself, she has no right to indulge in any longing for that same freshness and revivifying.

Ten years ago this man had been l.u.s.t at the age, and with just the handsome, aristocratic appearance, in spite of iron-grey hair, that so often attracts a girl in the early twenties. She scorns boys at that age, and feels the compliment of being chosen by a man of the world before the many older women she cannot choose but see would gladly be in her place. That it is her youth and not herself that holds the attraction is unknown to her, and a clever man may often dupe her young affections.

Lorraine, with her romantic, imaginative temperament, had grown to believe herself in love with him, and then had followed the old, sordid story of insult and her consequent disillusionment. The memories stung her now with a bitter stinging heightened by the feeling that life cared so much more for Alymer's welfare than it had ever done for hers.

And then that appeal to her woman's feeling to sympathise with the perturbed mother.

Well, because she was his mother, surely she was blessed enough. What had she - Lorraines - to place against that great fact ? She felt painfully that in spite of her success her life was pitifully, hopelessly barren, scarred this way and that, torn and rent and damaged by mistake upon mistake which could never now be rectified.

A nausea of it all made her feel in those tense moments, gazing at the serenely flowing river, that had she a child she would be borne away on the smooth silver water with her little one, out of the fret and turmoil, to some quiet nest in the cliffs at its mouth ; and there for the years that were left her she would fill her days with the peaceful, homely joys that had never yet been hers.

But how could she go alone? Only in the uneventful days to find her loneness intensified a thousand times, and without escape.

No; the river would flow on to that serene haven; but never for ever would she and a little one of her own be borne on its motherly bosom to the country of little things and peacefulness.

And the thought only stung her afresh; driving the sting in deep and sharp while this man remained under her roof.

”Well,” he said at last; and in the interval his voice seemed to have regained some of its polished, self-possessed satisfaction. ”I see you are deep in thought. You were always tender-hearted, and I felt I should not appeal to your womans heart in vain.”

Her face was turned away, so that he could not see her expression, nor read what was in her eyes, and purposely she let him go on.

”You will, I know, let me go back with the message Mrs. Hermon is waiting for so anxiously. It will be quite simple. No doubt you have countless admirers, and if you summon another, and let Alymer think he is replaced, after the first hot-headed wrath he will quickly become normal again, and apply all his faculties to his profession. I know you are too clever not too appreciate just everything involved, and too generous not to give the young man his best chance.”

Then he cleared his throat, stroked his moustache, and waited, wondering a little why she did not speak. He squared his shoulders again, and glanced round to catch a reflection of himself in the overmantel, then once more stroked his moustache with a sleek air of growing satisfaction.