Part 28 (1/2)

She glanced at him as she uttered the last name. Drake understood that she was drawing a distinction between him and the fas.h.i.+onable lounger of the play.

'Besides,' she went on, dropping her voice, 'Gilberte left a child behind her. Her unhappiness turned on that.'

'In a way, no doubt, but the loss of friends, station, home, counts for something--for enough to destroy her liking for De Valreas at all events.'

'For De Valreas!' insisted Clarice. 'He was not worth the sacrifice.' She paused for a moment, and then continued diffidently. 'There's something else; I hardly like to tell you it. You wouldn't notice it from seeing the play. I didn't; but it came to me when I read the book. I think the play's absolutely untrue, yes, even to those characters, in one respect.'

'And what's that?' asked Drake.

Clarice glanced round. Her neighbours, she perceived, were talking.

Mrs. Willoughby was too far off to hear. She dropped her voice to a yet lower key and said, 'They make the husband kill the lover in the duel.

It's always the end in books and plays; but really the opposite of that would happen.'

Drake leant back in his chair and stared at her. 'What do you mean?'

'Hus.h.!.+' she said warningly, and turning away she spoke for a little to the man on the other side of her. Then she turned back. 'I mean,'

she said, 'if two people really care for one another, their love would triumph over everything--everything. De Valreas would have killed the husband.' She spoke with an intense conviction of the truth of what she said.

'But, my dear child!' replied Drake. 'You--oh, you don't really believe that.'

'I do,' she answered. 'You see, there are so few people who really care for one another. If you find two who do, I am sure they would conquer, whatever stood in the way.'

The conversation was interrupted, to Drake's relief, by Captain Le Mesurier. He rose from the corner of the table to propose the health of the guest of the evening. He said that he was proud to be represented in Parliament by a man of Stephen Drake's calibre. If there was anything of which he was prouder, it was the way in which the election had been fought at Bentbridge. That election was the triumph not merely of a man or a cause, but of a method; and that method was honesty and fair-play.

'We never indulged in personalities,' he continued, with shameless sincerity. 'I have always myself been very strong on that point. Fight of course for all you're worth, but never indulge in personalities. It's a good rule. It's a rule that helped Stephen Drake to win his seat. We followed it. We left the lies for the opponent to tell, and he told them.

But we never did and never will indulge in contemptible personalities.'

The Captain subsided to a gentle rapping of forks and spoons upon the table, while Fielding said pointedly, 'Yes, Captain, you deserve your holidays,' and he emphasised the word. The Captain caught the allusion and laughed heartily. It was evident that he saw no inconsistency between the epigram and his professed method of contesting an election.

Drake replied shortly, and the ladies retired. Mallinson moved round the table, and seated himself in the chair which Clarice had left.

'Do you think of speaking at all during this session?' he asked.

'I am not quite sure,' replied Drake; 'but I rather think I shall on the colonial vote. You see there's first-cla.s.s wheat-growing land in Africa, quite near to the west coast. We import practically all that we use in England. Well, why shouldn't we import it from our own dominions?

Besides, the route would be so much safer in times of war, unless, of course, we were at war with France. s.h.i.+ps could slip up the coast of Africa, across the bay and into Plymouth with much less risk than if they have to sail from the Argentines or some place like that. I believe, if the Colonial Office could be induced to move in the matter, the idea might be carried out. What do you think?'

Mallinson carelessly a.s.sented and returned to his seat.

For the remainder of the evening Drake avoided Clarice. As he was taking his leave, however, she came up to him. He shook her by the hand and she whispered one word to him, 'Matanga.' Drake could not mistake the note of longing in her voice, and as he drove to his chambers the temptation with which he had wrestled at the gates of Garples a.s.sailed him again, and with double force. He had but to speak, he knew, and she would come. The loneliness of his rooms made the struggle yet harder, yet more doubtful.

He pictured to himself what he had never had, a home, and he located that home in Matanga. The arid plain blossomed in his imagination, for he saw the weariness die out of Clarice's face.

He tossed restlessly through the night, until one thought emerged from the turmoil of his ideas, fas.h.i.+oned itself into a fact, and stood framed there before his eyes. He held the future of Clarice in the hollow of his hand. Her fate rested upon his decision, and he must decide.

Drake rose and walked out on to the balcony, as the dawn was breaking over London. A white mist was crawling above the Thames; he could see a glimpse of the water here and there as the mist shredded. He turned to the west and looked towards Westminster, recollecting how his name and purposes had centred there as though drawn by a magnet. But in that clear morning light they seemed unreal and purposeless. One immediate responsibility invaded him, and, contrasted with that, his ambitions dwindled into vanities. He filled no place, he realised, which would be vacant unless he occupied it. He had to decide for Clarice and solely for her.

Drake took up his hat and walked out of London to Elm Tree Hill. There, gazing down upon its spires asparkle in the early sunlight, while the city gradually awoke and the hum of its stirring began to swell through the air, he came to his decision. Clarice belonged to London; he did not.