Part 32 (1/2)

”I have another idea,” Elizabeth remarked, after a brief pause. ”She will not come to me; very well, I must go to her. You must take me there.”

”I cannot do that,” Tavernake answered.

”Why not?”

”Beatrice has refused absolutely to permit me to tell you or any one else of her whereabouts,” he declared. ”Without her permission I cannot do it.”

”Do you mean that?” she asked.

”Of course,” he answered uncomfortably.

There was another silence. When she spoke again, her voice had changed for the second time. Tavernake felt his heart sink as he listened.

”Very well,” she said. ”I thought that you were my friend, that you wished to help me.”

”I do,” he replied, ”but you would not have me break my word?”

”You are breaking your word with me,” she told him.

”It is a different thing,” he insisted.

”You will not take me there?” she said once more.

”I cannot,” Tavernake answered.

”Very well, good-bye!”

”Don't go,” he begged. ”Can't I see you somewhere for a few minutes this evening?”

”I am afraid not,” Elizabeth replied coolly.

”Are you going out?” he persisted.

”I am going to the Duke of York's Theatre with some friends,” she answered. ”I am sorry. You have disappointed me.”

She rang off and he turned away from the telephone booth into the street. It seemed to him, as he walked down the crowded thoroughfare, that some reflection of his own self-contempt was visible in the countenances of the men and women who were hurrying past him. Wherever he looked, he was acutely conscious of it. In his heart he felt the bitter sense of shame of a man who wilfully succ.u.mbs to weakness. Yet that night he made his efforts.

For four hours he sat in his lonely rooms and worked. Then the unequal struggle was ended. With a groan he caught up his hat and coat and left the house. Half an hour later, he was among the little crowd of loiterers and footmen standing outside the doors of the Duke of York's Theatre.

It was still some time before the termination of the performance. As the slow minutes dragged by, he grew to hate himself, to hate this new thing in his life which had torn down his everyday standards, which had carried him off his feet in this strange and detestable fas.h.i.+on. It was a dormant sense, without a doubt, which Elizabeth had stirred into life--the sense of s.e.x, quiescent in him so long, chiefly through his perfect physical sanity; perhaps, too, in some measure, from his half-starved imagination. It was significant, though, that once aroused it burned with surprising and unwavering fidelity. The whole world of women now were different creatures to him, but they left him as utterly unmoved as in his unawakened days. It was Elizabeth only he wanted, craved for fiercely, with all this late-born pa.s.sion of mingled sentiment and desire. He felt himself, as he hung round there upon the pavement, rubbing shoulders with the liveried servants, the loafers, and the pa.s.sers-by, a thing to be despised. He was like a whipped dog fawning back to his master. Yet if only he could persuade her to come with him, if it were but for an hour! If only she would sit opposite him in that wonderful little restaurant, where the lights and the music, the laughter and the wine, were all outward symbols of this new life from before which her fingers seemed to have torn aside the curtains! His heart beat with a fierce impatience. He watched the thin stream of people who left before the play was over, suburbanites mostly, in a hurry for their trains. Very soon the whole audience followed, commissionaires were busy with their whistles, the servants eagerly looking right and left for their masters. And then Elizabeth! She came out in the midst of half-a-dozen others, brilliant in a wonderful cloak and dress of turquoise blue, laughing with her friends, to all appearance the gayest of the party. Tavernake stepped quickly forward, but at that moment there was a crush and he could not advance. She pa.s.sed within a yard of him, escorted by a couple of men, and for a moment their eyes met. She raised her eyebrows, as though in surprise, and her recognition was of the slightest. She pa.s.sed on and entered a waiting motorcar, accompanied by the two men. Tavernake stood and looked after it. She did not even glance round. Except for that little gesture of cold surprise, she had ignored him. Tavernake, scarcely knowing what he did, turned slowly towards the Strand.

He was face to face now with a crisis before which he seemed powerless.

Men were there in the world to be bullied, cajoled, or swept out of the way. What did one do with a woman who was kind one moment and insolent the next, who raised her eyebrows and pa.s.sed on when he wanted her, when he was there longing for her? Those old solid dreams of his--wealth, power, his name on great prospectuses, a position in the world--these things now appeared like the day fancies of a child. He had seen his way towards them. Already he had felt his feet upon the rungs of the ladder which leads to material success. This was something different, something greater. Then a sense of despair chilled his heart. He felt how ignorant, how helpless he was. He had not even studied the first text-book of life. Those very qualities which had served him so well before were hopeless here. Persistence, Beatrice had told him once, only annoys a woman.

He came to a standstill outside the entrance to the Milan Court, and retraced his steps. The thought of Beatrice had brought something soothing with it. He felt that he must see her, see her at once. He walked back along the Strand and entered the restaurant where Beatrice and he had had their memorable supper. From the vestibule he could just see Grier's back as he stood talking to a waiter by the side of a round table in the middle of the room. Tavernake slowly withdrew and made his way upstairs. There were one or two little tables there in the balcony, hidden from the lower part of the room. He seated himself at one, handing his coat and hat mechanically to the waiter who came hurrying up.

”But, Monsieur,” the man explained, with a deprecating gesture, ”these tables are all taken.”

Tavernake, who kept an account book in which he registered even his car fares, put five s.h.i.+llings in the man's hand.

”This one I will have,” he said, firmly, and sat down.