Part 30 (1/2)
”Or by not being Vivien's _fiance_ any longer?”
”What, Harry love? What's that about not being Vivien's _fiance_ any longer?” Mrs. Belfield was roused by words admitting of so startling an interpretation.
”Well, we shall be married soon, shan't we, mother?”
”How stupid of me, Harry dear!” Sleep again descended. Harry swore softly; Isobel laughed low.
”This is ridiculous!” she remarked. ”Couldn't you take just one turn with Vivien's companion? Your mother might hear straight just once.”
”I'll be hanged if I chance it to-night,” said Harry. ”I'll take Wellgood on at billiards.”
”Yes, go and do that; it's much better. It may bring back your colour, Harry.”
Harry looked at her in exasperation--and in longing. ”I wish there wasn't a woman in the world!” he growled.
”It's men like you who say that,” she retorted, smiling. ”Go and forget us for an hour.”
He went without more words--with only such a shrug as he had given when he said good-bye to Mrs. Freere. Isobel sat on, by dozing Mrs. Belfield, the picture of a dutiful neglected companion, while Wellgood and Harry played billiards, and Belfield, wheezing over an unread evening paper, honoured her with a tribute of distrustful curiosity. Left alone in the flesh, she could boast that she occupied several minds that evening.
Perhaps she knew it, as she sat silent, thoughtfully gazing across to where Vivien and Andy sat together, their dim figures just visible in enshrouding darkness. ”He saw--but he won't speak!” she was thinking.
”How funny of Harry to say he sighed as a lover!” Vivien remarked to Andy.
Andy had the pride and pleasure of informing her that her lover was indulging in a quotation from another lover, more famous and more temperate.
”'I sighed as a lover. I obeyed as a son.' I see! How funny! Do you think Gibbon was right, Mr. Hayes?”
”The oldest question since men had sons and women had lovers, isn't it?”
”Doesn't love come first--when once it has come?”
”After honour, the poet tells us, Miss Wellgood.”
Vivien knew that quotation, anyhow. ”It's beautiful, but isn't it--just a little priggish?”
”I think we must admit that it's at least a very graceful apology,”
laughed Andy.
Their pleasant banter bred intimacy; she was treating him as an old friend. He felt himself hardly audacious in saying ”How you've grown!”
She understood him--nay, thanked him with a smile and a flash, revealing pleasure, from her eyes, often so reticent. ”Am I different from the days of the lame pony and Curly? Not altogether, I'm afraid, but I hope a little.” She sat silent for a moment. ”I love Harry--well, so do you.”
”Yes, I love Harry.” But he had a sore grudge against Harry at that moment. Who at Halton had once talked about pearls and swine? And in what connection?
”That's why I'm different.” She laughed softly. ”If you'd so far honoured me, Mr. Hayes, and I had--responded, I might never have become different. I should just have relied on the--policeman.”
”The Force is always ready to do its duty,” said Andy.
”Take care; you're nearly flirting!” she admonished him merrily; and Andy, rather proud of himself for a gallant remark, laughed and blushed in answer. She went on more seriously, yet still with her serene smile.
”First I've got to please him; then I've got to help him. He must have both, you know.”