Part 17 (2/2)

Was everybody in a plot to badger him about those wretched Ballingers?

He was getting sick of it. And he wanted to speak a word to Mrs. Levitt.

Mrs. Levitt had come up in the tail of the procession. She had given in her name and her subscription to Barbara Madden; but she lingered, waiting no doubt for a word with him. If only Corbett and the rest of them would go.

”Of course. Of course it was. .h.i.tchin's fault,” said the Rector, with imperishable geniality. ”Well.... Good night, Waddington, and thank you for a most--a most stimulating evening.”

They had gone now, all but Sir John and Lady Corbett. (He could hear her talking to f.a.n.n.y at the back of the platform.) Mrs. Levitt was gathering her scarf round her; in another minute she would be gone. And Corbett wouldn't go.

”I say, Waddington, that's a splendid young cub of yours. See him go over the top? He'd have taken them all on. Licked 'em, too, I shouldn't wonder.”

Mr. Waddington resented this diversion of the stream of admiration. And he was acutely aware of Mrs. Levitt standing there, detached but waiting.

”Was I really all right, Corbett?” He wasn't satisfied with his speech.

If only he could remember what he had left out of it.

”Absolutely, my dear chap. Absolutely top-hole. You ought to make that boy a soldier.”

He wished that young Horace could be a soldier at that moment, stationed in a remote part of the Empire, without any likelihood of leave for the next five years. He wanted--he wanted intolerably to speak to Mrs.

Levitt, to spread himself voluptuously in her rejuvenating smile.

Sir John retreated before his manifest indifference. He could hear him at the back of the platform, congratulating f.a.n.n.y.

Mrs. Levitt advanced towards him.

”At last,” she said, ”I may add my congratulations. That speech was magnificent.”

”Nothing, my dear lady, nothing but a little necessary plain speaking.”

”Oh, but you were wonderful. You carried us off our feet.”

”I hope,” he said, ”we've enrolled you as a member?” (He knew they had.)

”Of course I'm enrolled. And I've paid in my poor little guinea to that delightful Miss Madden.”

”Ah, that is _too_ good of you.”

It was. The amount of the subscription was purely a matter of individual fancy.

”It's the least I could do in such a splendid cause.”

”Well, dear Mrs. Levitt, we're delighted to have you with us.

Delighted.”

There was a pause. He was looking down at her from the height of his six feet. The faint, sweet scent of orris root rose up from her warm skin.

She was very attractive, dressed in a low-necked gown of that dull, satiny stuff women were wearing now. A thin band of white net was stretched across the top of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s; through it he could see the shadowy, arrow-headed groove between; her pendant--pearl bistre and paste--pointed, pointed down to it.

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