Part 17 (1/2)

All, all gone now was the hour of exaltation in which I had heard the nightingale sing and had felt my glowing girl's breast heaving against my own. I was a hungry, desperate man, living a life against which I knew I should not be able to bear up indefinitely, and already glancing into the public-house as I entered by my side door and beginning to wonder whether they were not wiser than I who made use of the anodyne of drink. Why not drink, and forget for at least an hour? And one night, meeting Mackie again, and having eaten little, I did succ.u.mb, and for the first time in my life got drunk. I got drunk at his expense. He had heard the news of Louie Causton, and wanted to talk about it. I, like a cur, let him.... I broke away from him at last, but not until my loosened tongue had said I know not what.

My relation with Evie during this time is difficult to define. She never quite put me back again into the place I had occupied before that Sat.u.r.day when we had heard the nightingale together, but newer preoccupations overlay this relation. Archie now had money (I never knew quite how much) at his command; but he still showed no sign of putting it to the use Miss Angela, if not I, had expected--that of entering into a formal engagement with Evie. Miss Angela found excuses for this out of her own imagination--that his father had only lately died, and so on; but I could have set her right even then. I knew how things were drifting. From the little I remembered of my talk with Mackie, Archie had found in his coming into money quite another opportunity. What might have facilitated his marriage with Evie actually delayed it. He was getting rid of his money in Leicester Square again.

So Evie's name was a.s.sociated with his, and yet there was no plighting between them, and Evie swayed, now happy but with a fear, now despairing, but not hopelessly so. There was no trouble she could have brought openly to me even had she wished, but nevertheless she often turned to me significantly full of silence. She, Kitty and I often walked homewards together through the sweltering streets, and when Evie had left us Kitty would speak her mind freely about Archie Merridew.

”He's one of the Jewness Dorey now!” she exclaimed one evening, taking the phrase, I don't doubt, from one of her ”better cla.s.s” novels. ”And it's no good saying it's got nothing to do with us! I think _you_ ought to give him a talking-to!”

This was in the typewriting-room of the college, within ten minutes of the close of an advertis.e.m.e.nt-writing evening.

”What can I say to him?” I asked. ”It's no business of mine.” She little knew how much I had made it my business.

”Oh, that's just like a man!” she said impatiently, all aglow with the _esprit de s.e.xe_. ”The poor child's moping and fretting, and you say it's no business of yours! Of course it's the business of _all_ her friends!”

”Of all her women friends, maybe,” I answered. ”Well, if that's so, why don't you and Miss Angela have a talk about it?”

”As if we hadn't--twenty!” she cried. ”You and your bright ideas. It isn't fair--it _isn't_ fair to Evie!”

”But what is it you hope for?” I asked.

She stared. ”Why, that he'll marry her, of course!”

”Quite so. But I don't mean that. I mean, do you and Miss Angela think you can bring any pressure to bear?”

”Yes, I do--young idiot!” she broke out. ”He ought to be ashamed of himself!”

And I didn't doubt that a certain amount of pressure might be brought to bear. If it was made less trouble for Archie to marry than not to marry, he would probably marry. He had not manhood enough, if it was clearly shown that marriage was expected of him, to hold out. And I knew how those marriages turned out.... I meditated.

”But,” I objected, ”why meddle? You know what a marriage of that kind would be! You see what he is anyway!”

But here I had touched Kitty's limitation. For her, as for her novels, marriage was the end of the story. If joybells closed it nothing after that mattered, and the look she gave me was a personal confirmation.

”But,” she went on presently, ”you could help, Jeff. We women can't talk to him--though he's not getting very many smiles from _me_ just now!”

I smiled. ”You're an unscrupulous crew,” I remarked.

”Will you see him?”

”Well--I won't say I won't.”

”But _will_ you?”

”Perhaps--if I see a fitting opportunity.”

”A fitting. Look!” Her voice dropped. Evie had just come into the typewriting-room on her way to wash her hands before leaving. ”I'll tell you what,” Kitty said quickly; ”you go along with her now. See if it isn't as I say. Then tell me whether you won't give that little idiot a dressing-down at once.”

She had quite forgotten that twinge of jealousy that had been the cause of our recent scene. If she hadn't, the more honour to her sense of s.e.x comrades.h.i.+p. It was about this time that I was beginning quite frequently to forget that our relation was that of lovers, and as long as I could forget that, she had pathetic little magnanimities that I even admired.

”All right, if you wish it,” I said.