Part 15 (1/2)

”She's taken rooms in Putney.”

”Alone?” I asked, with a quick glance at Kitty.

”Oh yes!... Until June or July, that is----”

”It is then that she expects----”

”Yes.... And I thought, Jeff, that perhaps next Sat.u.r.day--we shall be out that way----”

We had arranged a little excursion for the following Sat.u.r.day, the four of us--Evie and Archie, and Kitty and myself. We were to wander on Wimbledon Common.

”I never really knew her well, Jeff, understood her, I mean,” she went on, ”but after all I did see a good deal of her. It's horrible, when I remember the things she used to say.... And--and--you've made such a difference to me, darling--I wasn't going--to be married--before.... I should like to go, Jeff--just once,” she begged.

”You wouldn't commit yourself to anything?”

”Oh no!”

”Does Evie want to go too?” I asked.

”No. She says she couldn't bear it. She cried half last night as it is.”

”Then you'd call on your way next Sat.u.r.day, and meet the three of us later?”

”Yes.”

”Very well,” I concluded. ”You'd better go.”

She threw her arms impulsively about my neck.

Then a change came over her. I think the change began with the failure of the supply of gas from the penny-in-the-slot meter. She had arranged for her little party a pink tissue-paper shade about her milky globe, an idea she had borrowed from Woburn Place; and slowly its colour faded. I had several pennies in my pocket. Quickly I felt for them.

But she moved closer to me. I was still on my knees by her deck-chair.

”Don't bother about it--just for once, Jeff,” she murmured.

She could do it with impunity now. After what had pa.s.sed our situation could hardly be commonplace, and our nearness was as little compromising as nearness ever can be. She luxuriated in her little perilous letting-go--could toy with, and yet be immune from, a danger.

Slowly the gas expired, and the firelight glowed on the blue and white check tablecloth and the disarray of tea-things upon it. On the back wall of the restaurant yard was a square of orange light which the shadow of a waiter's head crossed from time to time. I don't know that with some men--Mackie, for instance--her position would have been all she supposed it to be, but, poor heart, she had had little enough experience from which to surmise that. And I myself could hardly be said to be there at all. She lay in my arms; and in whatever false sweet fancies she lay endrowsed she was not alone. I had my torturing vision too. It was neither of her nor of Louie Causton, that vision. I was trying to persuade myself that she was another than Kitty Windus.

VI

Of our visit to Wimbledon on the following Sat.u.r.day I intend to say as little as may be. When you have read it you will not, I know, ask my reason.

Archie did not appear. This time he had cause enough. The wire which was handed to me at Rixon Tebb & Masters' a little before Sat.u.r.day midday (Polwhele brought it to me with a look that said plainly, ”What next?”) announced that his father had died during the night, and he had despatched it from Victoria Station on his way down to Guildford.

Instantly my heart leaped.

Kitty was going to see Miss Causton. If, this new tidings notwithstanding, Evie would still keep to the engagement, I should have an hour with her alone.

I persuaded Evie to come. At first she obstinately refused, but I had the support of Miss Angela, to whom I privately whispered the desirability of ”taking her mind off it.” We left Woburn Place, the two of us, called for Kitty, and sought the Putney 'bus. Kitty left us at the corner of a street off the New King's Road, and Evie and I pa.s.sed on to the bridge.