Part 4 (1/2)
”Who did, then?”
”Not her, though I gave her _every_ chance! Six months ago she'd have told me like a shot, but we're getting so blessed artful these days!...
He told me.”
”Then it doesn't look as if it _was_ the Baboon?”
”Oh, I daresay she'll leave you your Baboon if you want him.”
”Thanks. I think I should know which way to turn in _that_ case,” Miss Causton replied evenly. ”Coming?”
And they left the bay together.
It was by this admirable piece of Rixon Tebb & Masters' work that I learned what, it appeared, I had been watching too closely to see.
VI
I had intended in any case to spend the remainder of that evening with Archie Merridew. Mingled with my restlessness there had been a tremulous sensitiveness that had culminated half-an-hour before in a fit of satanic pride. Lately (I had decided) it had come to be taken rather too much as a matter of course that our frequent adjournments after the evening cla.s.s should be always to his quarters and never, or hardly ever, to mine. I had quite enough to bear without further gratuitous rubs of that kind, and I had resolved that I would make myself his host that evening though he had lived in a mansion and I in a sty.
But after what I had so altogether discreditably overheard now I had fifty other reasons for wis.h.i.+ng him to come along with me. Almost every sentence that had been spoken on the other side of that bay of books had contained a reason. But I realised that before I could trust myself to face him I must swallow the anger that crowded thickly into my throat.
There was nothing to gain and everything to lose by letting him see my rage. So I walked back into the empty senior cla.s.sroom, there to remain until I should have got the worst of it over.
By half-past nine I had got myself in hand. I gathered my work together.
Students were coming to the row of washbowls in the small compartment at the end of the senior cla.s.sroom to wash their hands, and Evie gave me the smile that was to be my nourishment for three whole days as she pa.s.sed with her towel and the cake of soap in the new celluloid box.
Archie had been working all the evening in the typewriting-room; now was my chance, before he could make (supposing him to want to make) any appointment with her, to secure this myself, and I hurried for my hat and coat and sought him.
”Ready?” I said.
”Right-oh; just a minute,” he replied. ”I told 'em to keep my fire in--I'm going to swot like blazes to-night.”
”Oh no--you're coming along with me this time,” I laughed. ”I shall be ashamed to show my face at your place much oftener ... unless,” I added lest he should shake me off, ”you love me merely for what I have----”
He laughed too. He was at the young and squab-like stage that takes a pride in scorning appearances, and even finds the heart more rather than less honest when the waistcoat over it is shabby. He accepted with quite a good grace, got his hat and coat, and we went out together, I giving Miss Windus an unimpeachable ”Good-night” as I pa.s.sed her, hardly a yard from the spot where I had peeped on her less than an hour before.
The electrograph opposite my abode was an advertis.e.m.e.nt of ”_Sarcey's Fluid_,” some sort of a disinfectant; and as we approached it Archie looked up.
”Phew!... Needs it rather, to-night, doesn't it?” he laughed.
It did not seem to me to ”need it” quite so badly that evening as it had on some other evenings--warm summer evenings, for example--I had known.
December had come in rawly, and the chestnut stoves and baked-potato engine were out. The poorer streets have no pleasanter smell than that of baked potatoes, broken up, sprinkled with salt from the big tin caster, and closed together again like a South Sea face with a mealy smiling mouth, and I had slipped a couple of these into my pocket for our supper. I suppose Archie meant the fried fish papers in the gutters and (as we entered by my side door) the acrid smell of the public-house; but it was part of my fiendish pride to rub those things in a little that evening, and I made light of them as we mounted the stairs.
”Oh, you're pampered, Master Archie,” said I. ”I had thought of asking you round to supper next Sat.u.r.day evening--not to-morrow, a week to-morrow--but I think I shall save my hospitality.”
You see what I was already angling for. Well, I caught my fish. Of course he couldn't take Evie down to his folks at Guildford without my knowing of it, but I wanted to see the fas.h.i.+on in which he would make his avowal. We had left the carpeted corner of the stairs that the great ornamental public-house lamp illuminated brightly and were standing on the bare landing outside my room. He answered without an instant's hesitation.
”Afraid you'll have to, Jeff--twice over,” he replied. ”I've got to go down home that week-end; beastly nuisance! I was going with some fellows over to Richmond--stag-party; but the mater writes that she's asked Miss Soames, so I suppose I shall have to be there to help out--confound it!”
I opened my door and let him into the red and green.
”Oh?” I remarked casually. ”Nice change for you. You'll be all the fitter for the exams. Don't tell _me_ about your stag-parties though. I know 'em; you'd take jolly good care not to pick the place with the plainest waitresses for tea, what? _I_ know you!... But if I were you I'd go steady for a week or two, my boy, that Method paper'll be harder than you think, I warn you!”