Part 15 (2/2)

What can be the matter? Anyway, dear d.u.c.h.ess, _do_ come, and help us through.”

”What, indeed, can be the matter?” repeated Chloe lightly, as she handed back the letter.

”Angela Warton never knows anything. But there's not much need for _you_ to ask, my dear,” said the d.u.c.h.ess quietly.

Mrs. Fairmile turned an astonished face.

”Me?”

The d.u.c.h.ess, more bulky, shapeless and swathed than usual, subsided on a chair, and just raised her small but sharp eyes on Mrs. Fairmile.

”What can you mean?” said Chloe, after a moment, in her gayest voice. ”I can't imagine. And I don't think I'll try.”

She stooped and kissed the untidy lady in the chair. The d.u.c.h.ess bore it again, but the lines of her mouth, with the strong droop at the corners, became a trifle grim. Chloe looked at her, smiled, shook her head. The d.u.c.h.ess shook hers, and then they both began to talk of an engagement announced that morning in the _Times_.

Mrs. Fairmile was soon riding alone, without a groom--she was an excellent horse-woman, and she never gave any unnecessary trouble to her friends' servants--through country lanes chequered with pale sun. As for the d.u.c.h.ess's attack upon her, Chloe smarted. The d.u.c.h.ess had clearly pulled her up, and Chloe was not a person who took it well.

If Roger's American wife was by now wildly jealous of his old _fiancee_, whose fault was it? Had not Mrs. Barnes herself thrown them perpetually together? Dinners at Upcott!--invitations to Heston!--a resolute frequenting of the same festal gatherings with Mrs. Fairmile. None of it with Roger's goodwill, or his mother's,--Chloe admitted it. It had been the wife's doing--all of it. There had been even--rare occurrences--two or three b.a.l.l.s in the neighbourhood. Roger hated dancing, but Daphne had made him go to them all. Merely that she might display her eyes, her diamonds, and her gowns? Not at all. The real psychology of it was plain. ”She wishes to keep us under observation--to give us opportunities--and then torment her husband. Very well then!--_tu l'as voulu, Madame!_”

As to the ”opportunities,” Chloe coolly confessed to herself that she had made rather a scandalous use of them. The gossip of the neighbourhood had been no doubt a good deal roused; and Daphne, it seemed, was discontented. But is it not good for such people to be discontented? The money and the arrogance of Roger's wife had provoked Roger's former _fiancee_ from the beginning; the money to envy, and the arrogance to chastis.e.m.e.nt. Why not? What is society but a discipline?

As for Roger, who is it says there is a little polygamy in all men?

Anyway, a man can always--nearly always--keep a corner for the old love, if the new love will let him. Roger could, at any rate; ”though he is a model husband, far better than she deserves, and anybody not a fool could manage him.”

It was a day of physical delight, especially for riders. After a warm October, the leaves were still thick on the trees; Nature had not yet resigned herself to death and sleep. Here and there an oak stood, fully green, among the tawny reds and golds of a flaming woodland. The gorse was yellow on the commons; and in the damp woody ways through which Chloe pa.s.sed, a few primroses--frail, unseasonable blooms--pushed their pale heads through the moss. The scent of the beech-leaves under foot; the buffeting of a westerly wind; the pleasant yielding of her light frame to the movement of the horse; the glimpses of plain that every here and there showed themselves through the trees that girdled the high ground or edge along which she rode; the white steam-wreath of a train pa.s.sing, far away, through strata of blue or pearly mist; an old windmill black in the middle distance; villages, sheltering among their hedges and uplands: a sky, of shadow below widely brooding over earth, and of a radiant blue flecked with white cloud above:--all the English familiar scene, awoke in Chloe Fairmile a familiar sensuous joy. Life was so good--every minute, every ounce of it!--from the d.u.c.h.ess's _chef_ to these ethereal splendours of autumn--from the warm bath, the luxurious bed, and breakfast, she had but lately enjoyed, to these artistic memories that ran through her brain, as she glanced from side to side, reminded now of Turner, now of DeWint, revelling in the complexity of her own being. Her conscience gave her no trouble; it had never been more friendly. Her husband and she had come to an understanding; they were in truth more than quits. There was to be no divorce--and no scandal. She would be very prudent. A man's face rose before her that was not the face of her husband, and she smiled--indulgently. Yes, life would be interesting when she returned to town. She had taken a house in Chester Square from the New Year; and Tom was going to Teheran. Meanwhile, she was pa.s.sing the time.

A thought suddenly occurred to her. Yes, it was quite possible--probable even--that she might find Roger at the meet! The place appointed was a long way from Heston, but in the old days he had often sent on a fresh horse by train to a local station. They had had many a run together over the fields now coming into sight. Though certainly if he imagined there were the very smallest chance of finding her there, he would give this particular meet a wide berth.

Chloe laughed aloud. His resistance--and his weakness--were both so amusing. She thought of the skill--the peremptory smiling skill--with which she had beguiled him into the garden, on the day when the young couple paid their first call at Upcott. First, the low-spoken words at the back of the drawing-room, while Mrs. Barnes and the d.u.c.h.ess were skirmis.h.i.+ng--

”I _must_ speak to you. Something that concerns another person--something urgent.”

Whereupon, unwilling and rather stern compliance on the man's part--the handsome face darkened with most unnecessary frowns. And in the garden, the short colloquy between them--”Of course, I see--you haven't forgiven me! Never mind! I am doing this for someone else--it's a duty.” Then abruptly--”You still have three of my letters.”

Amusing again--his shock of surprise, his blundering denials! He always was the most unmethodical and unbusiness-like of mortals--poor Roger!

She heard her own voice in reply. ”Oh yes, you have. I don't make mistakes about such things. Do you remember the letter in which I told you about that affair of Theresa Weightman?”

A stare--an astonished admission. Precisely!

”Well, she's in great trouble. Her husband threatens absurdities. She has always confided in me--she trusts me, and I can't have that letter wandering about the world.”

”I certainly sent it back!”

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