Part 26 (1/2)

”Because I've got nothing for you to eat, and I think you finished even the whisky! Thanks for my evening, Mr. Purnett.”

He walked through the little court up to the door with her. ”And you look as tired as a dog,” he remarked--with a successful suppression of 'Mrs. Ledstone.' ”What you want is a good sleep, and--and it'll all look brighter in the morning. May I come and see you soon?”

”If I'm here, of course you may. But I haven't made up my mind. I may go back to the country, to the Aikenheads, my cousins--where I met G.o.dfrey, you know.”

He could not resist a question. ”I say, is there trouble? You know how I like you both. Has there been a row?”

She smiled at him. ”G.o.dfrey avoided any danger of that. I don't want to talk about it, but you may as well know. G.o.dfrey has gone away.”

”Oh, but he'll come back, Mrs.----He'll come back, I mean, you know.”

”Never. And I don't want him. Don't ask me any more--to-night, anyhow.”

She gave him her hand with a friendly pressure. ”Good-night.”

”Good Lord! Well, I'm sorry. I say, you won't cut me now, will you?”

”I haven't so many friends that I need cut a good one. Now, if you drive off at once, you'll be back in time to get some supper somewhere else.”

She smiled again, and in a longing for comfort owned to him--and to herself--her childish fears. ”And I want to be snug in bed before the spooks come out! I feel rather lonely. So, again, good-night.” He had a last vision of her small pale face as she slowly, reluctantly it seemed to him, shut the door. A great rattle of bolts followed.

”Well, I'm left outside, anyhow,” Bob reflected philosophically, as he walked back to the cab. But his mind was occupied with the picture of the proud forlorn woman, there alone in the empty house, very much alone in the world too, and rather afraid of 'spooks.' All his natural kindliness of heart was aroused in pity and sympathy for her. ”I should like to give her a really good time,” he thought. In that aspect his impulse was honestly unselfish. But the image of the pale delicate face abode with him also. The two aspects of his impulse mingled; he saw no reason why they should not, if it were really 'all off' between her and G.o.dfrey Ledstone. ”I think she likes me well enough--I wonder if she does!” He did not, to do him justice, ask an extravagant degree of devotion in return for any 'good times' which he might find himself able to offer. When it is so easy for two people with good tempers, sound digestions, and plenty of ready cash to enjoy themselves, why spoil it all by asking too much? Surely he and Winnie could enjoy themselves? The idea stuck in his mind. Again, why--to him--should it not? His scrupulous behaviour hitherto had been based on loyalty to G.o.dfrey Ledstone. It appeared that he was released from the obligation by his friend's own act. ”He can't say I didn't play the game, while the thing lasted,” thought Bob, with justifiable self-satisfaction.

The morrow of a catastrophe is perhaps harder to bear than the hour in which it befalls us. The excitement of battling with fate is gone; but the wounds smart and the bruises ache. Physically refreshed by sleep--a sleep happily unbroken by a.s.saults from without or ghostly visitants within the house--Winnie braced her courage to meet the call on it. Her task, not easy, yet was plain. She would not weep for her G.o.dfrey Ledstone; she would try not to think of him, nor to let her thoughts stray back to the early days with him. She would and must think of the other G.o.dfrey, the one in Woburn Square. What woman would weep for such a man as that--except his mother? On him she would fix her thoughts, until she need think no more of either of them. She had to think of herself--of what she had done and of what she was now to do. On the first head she admitted a blunder, but no disgrace--a mistake not of principle or theory, only a mistake in her man; with regard to the second, she must make a decision.

Just before she had fairly settled down to this task, she had a visitor.

At half-past eleven--early hours for her to be out and about--Mrs.

Lenoir appeared.

”I was supping at the Carlton grill-room last night,” she explained, ”with a couple of girls whom I'd taken to the play, and Bob Purnett came in. He drove me back home, and--I don't know if he ought to have--but he told me about some trouble here. So, as I'm an interfering old woman, I came round to see if I could be of any use.” Her manner to-day was less stately and more cordial. Also she spoke with a certain frankness. ”You see, I know something about this sort of thing, my dear.”

Winnie, of course, distinguished her 'sort of thing' very broadly from 'the sort of thing' to which Mrs. Lenoir must be a.s.sumed to refer, but she made no secret of the state of the case or of her own att.i.tude towards it. ”I accept it absolutely, but I'm bitterly hurt by the way it was done.”

”Oh, you can put it that way, my dear; but you're human like the rest of us, and, of course, you hate having him taken away from you. Now shall I try what I can do?”

”Not for the world! Not a word, nor a sign! It's my mistake, and I stand by it. If he came back, it would never be the same thing. It was beautiful; it would be shameful now.”

Mrs. Lenoir smiled doubtfully; she had an imperfect understanding of the mode of thought.

”Very well, that's settled. And, for my part, I think you're well rid of him. A weak creature! Let him marry a Bloomsbury girl, and I hope she'll keep him in fine order. But what are you going to do?”

”I don't quite know. Stephen and Tora would let me go back to Shaylor's Patch for as long as I liked.”

”Oh, Shaylor's Patch! To talk about it all, over and over again!”

A note of impatience in her friend's voice was amusingly evident to Winnie. ”You mean the less I talk about it, the better?” she asked, smiling.

”Well, you haven't made exactly a success of it, have you?” The manner was kinder than the words.

”And I didn't make exactly a success of my marriage either,” Winnie reflected, in a puzzled dolefulness. Because, if both orthodoxy and unorthodoxy go wrong, what is a poor human woman to do? ”Well, if I mayn't go to Shaylor's Patch--at present, anyhow--I must stay here, Mrs.

Lenoir; that's all. The studio's in my name, because I could give better security than G.o.dfrey, and I can stay if I want to.”