Part 38 (2/2)

Behind the counter was Miss Molly Palmer, the barmaid of the hotel, and, behind her, the alcove was lined with mirrors and gla.s.s shelves on which were rows of liqueur flasks, bottles of brandy and dummy boxes of chocolates tied up with scarlet ribands.

”Now tell me, d.i.c.ker,” Lothian said, lighting a cigarette, ”how do you mean about Toftrees?”

The glamour of the past was on the unstable youth now, the same influence which had made him--at some possible risk to himself--defend Lothian so warmly in the drawing room at Bryanstone Square.

The splendour of Toftrees was far away, dim in Lancaster Gate.

”Oh, he's jealous of you because you really can write, Gilbert! That must be it. But he really has got his knife into you!”

Internally, Lothian winced. ”Oh, but I a.s.sure you he has not,” was all that he said.

Ingworth finished his whiskey and soda. ”Well, you know what I mean, old chap,” he replied. ”He's going about saying that you aren't sincere, that you're really fluffed when you write your poems, don't you know. The other night, at a supper at the Savoy, where I was, he said you were making a trade of Christianity, that you didn't really believe in what you wrote, and couldn't possibly.”

Lothian laughed. ”Have another whiskey,” he said. ”And what did you say, d.i.c.ker?”

There was a sneer in Lothian's voice which the other was quite quick to hear and to resent. On that occasion he had not defended his friend, as it happened.

”Oh, I said you meant well,” Ingworth answered with quick impertinence, and then, afraid of what he had done hurriedly drained the second gla.s.s which the barmaid had just brought him.

”Well, I do, really,” Lothian replied, so calmly that the younger man was deceived, and once more angry that his shaft had glanced upon what seemed to be impenetrable armour.

Yet, below the unruffled surface, the poet's mind was sick with loathing and disgust. He was not angry with Ingworth, against Toftrees he felt no rancour. He was sick, deadly sick with himself, inasmuch as he had descended so low as to be touched by such paws as these.

”I'll get through his d.a.m.ned high-and-mighty att.i.tude yet,” Ingworth thought to himself.

”I say,” he remarked, ”did you enjoy your trip to Brighton with Rita Wallace? Toftrees saw you there, you know. He was dining at the Metropole the same night.”

He had pierced--right through--though he did not know it.

”Rather dangerous, wasn't it?” he continued. ”Suppose your wife got to know, Gilbert?”

Something, those letters, near his heart, began to throb like a pulse in Lothian's pocket. One of the letters had arrived that very morning.

”Look here, Ingworth,” he said, and his face became menacing, ”you rather forget yourself, I think, in speaking to me in this way. You're a good sort of boy--at least I've thought so--and I've taken you up rather. But I don't allow impudence from people like you. Remember!”

The ice-cold voice frightened the other, but he had to the full that ape-like semi-courage which gibbers on till the last moment of a greater animal's patience.

The whiskey had affected him also. His brain was becoming heated.

”Well, I don't know about impudence,” he answered pertly and with a red face. ”Anyhow, Rita dined with _me_ last week!”

He brought it out with a little note of triumph.

Lothian nodded.

”Yes, and you took her to that disgusting little cafe Marechale in Soho. You ought not to take a lady to such a place as that. You've been long enough in London to know. Don't be such a babe. If you ever get a nice girl to go out with you again try and think things out a little more.”

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