The Revoke

by H. B. Marriott Watson

 

THE REVOKE.

By H. B. MARRIOTT WATSON

I CONFESS that I still look back upon the Whitwell affair with a sense of chagrin, if not of humiliation, tempered with a feeling of amusement, which, thank Heaven, I can still get out of life. When I cease to see the humour of a situation, or lose my appreciation of the ironic, it will be time for me to close the shutters. I shall have no business in life. There was a ludicrous aspect to the Whitwell affair.

Mrs. Whitwell had no hand in conveying that herself. She was indeed a woman who seemed to check laughter at its source—a passionate, weak, wilful creature of remarkable, if rather exotic, looks, and no sense of rest. How she came to be mated to Whitwell I never could guess. But the longer one lives the more insoluble such problems are. When I made their acquaintance they had been married ten years, were childless, and lived in a fringe of smart society with nothing particular to do and plenty of money to do it on. Mrs. Whitwell received admiration and inhaled it as incense; she made an appeal to artistic and semi-Bohemian tastes rather than to those of the average sensual man; which was one of the reasons why I was surprised to find her so much with Carew. Carew was obviously a fine, healthy animal, with good lungs, clear blue eyes, and little or no conscience. I don’t think he knew one division of art from another, and if he was to be accounted Bohemian, it could only be on the score of his late hours and some of his habits. But the fact is that they did take to each other astonishingly.

I had evidence of this thrust upon me in what one must always regard as an unpleasant manner. To be an unwilling eavesdropper is one of the rôles in life which I least envy; and the discomfort is intensified when it is plain to all parties that you are what you are. Carew knew I heard and saw; Mrs. Whitwell knew; and I knew they knew. There was the awkwardness. We all had to pretend that no one knew anything, and look at each other as innocently as kittens. Both of them managed this. I think, as a matter of fact, that it was I only who showed myself embarrassed. Mrs. Whitwell was too intense in her flame, Carew was too indifferent to opinion. At least, he had the merit of courage, the saving quality of his defects. I never cared for him, and I was sorry for the embroglio thus discovered to me in Farmer’s studio. They had relied upon the huge protection of the easels and the canvases; it was only a stupid blunder on my part that made their blunder stupider. I was interested, not in Farmer’s rich oils which he was exhibiting to admiring guests in that elegant and fashionable way of his which marks him down for a future Academician, but I did want to examine a pretty water-colour that caught my eye on the wall. So I separated from the personally conducted gang, as Mrs. Whitwell and Carew had done before me. There was a Venetian painting on the easel which hid all but their toes, and I had to pass it to reach my water-colour. Eyes and ears were the avenues of that rapid impression which was a mere affair of seconds. Carew recovered instantaneously.

“Seen this?” he asked, boldly challenging. “It’s thundering good.”

I paused and admired with the two looking on, and probably at me, and, as I have said, I alone seemed to display any awkwardness. Carew had passed it off like a gentleman, anyway.

The discovery rendered me slightly uncomfortable, and, moreover, I felt somewhat responsible. I could not now but be conscious of a drama developing darkly under my nose, so to speak. I liked Whitwell. He was very ordinary, but very decent. He had plenty of money, but did not use it like a “bounder,” as many rich folk do. He had the correct tastes, and was a little too much under the influence of his surroundings. To sum him up, he lacked character, but was very friendly, and without a vice that mattered socially. I pondered the point at odd moments, as to whether Whitwell ought to be acquainted with the situation. I had an idea that he ought, that it was someone’s duty to lay the facts before him. Whether other people had discovered I didn’t know, but it was pretty clear to me that I had, and it looked as if the burden was, to speak colloquially, “up to me.” I shrank from it.

And yet I had an excellent opportunity, one fallen by mere chance into my hands. Whitwell invited me to dine over the telephone.

“I wish you’d come over,” he said, “if you’ve nothing better to do. I’m a bachelor to-night.”

As luck had it, I was at a loose end myself, and I joined him in his comfortable bijou house, as the agents would call it. Whitwell had an excellent ménage, and his dinners never spoiled their perfection by undue length. We had quite a pleasant talk on politics and metal-work. Oddly enough, Whitwell had a genuine taste and skill in metal work, which was his particular hobby. A little later I got the opening from him, of which I did not take advantage. He had told me his wife was at the opera at the outset, and he did not mention her again until we had the port on the table.

“My wife’s with the Clares,” he said casually then, “Know them? They’ve got a box.”

“I’ve met them,” I said, with my mind on the fact that the Clares were cousins of Carew.

“Not bad,” said Whitwell, eyeing his cigar, “but a bit too raffish for me.”

“The sort of people who make a trail for themselves anywhere,” I said. “Well, that’s individuality, and has its qualities,”

It was precisely the individuality, I knew, at which Whitwell winced; his unventuresome spirit took fright at perfect freedom.

“They’ve got a nice place in Berkshire, Carew tells me,” said Whitwell next.

There was my opening, you will see; and I did take actually one single step towards it.

“Is Carew with them?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Whitwell cheerfully.

I paused at that. I shied away. I felt the momentary silence between us rather awkward. But in reality there was no reason for my sense of awkwardness. Whitwell poured himself out half a glass of port and sipped it.

“How tobacco ruins it!” he exclaimed. “Shall we have a game of billiards?”

The opportunity had gone, but I got it again just before I left. Over a little whisky and soda in his smoking-room we were discussing the merits of a current play which had provoked some consideration of a moral problem.

“I don’t know,” said Whitwell, breaking a pause, “I fancy he wasn’t right. After all, he couldn’t know what she was doing, however much he might—well, wonder.”

Of a sudden I was struck with horror. The thing hadn’t any real relation to his case, but what he said seemed to invest it with particularity, and with a particularity that was personal to him.

“Of course not,” I said uncomfortably.

“Things are not always what they seem,” said poor Whitwell with a smile, and I knew that he had himself connected up the thought by his next words, which followed after another silence. He looked at his watch.

“Peggy will be here soon. I expect Carew will be bringing her. You'll wait, won’t you?”

As I have told you, I was scared off the chance. I rose and mumbled my regrets. Carew was to bring her home. He accepted the situation thus. Was it blind faith, I asked myself, or was it a shameless lack of spirit? Perhaps it was neither altogether, but a little of both. Anyhow, since I had “funked” it, Whitwell’s problem, as it concerned him, might be dismissed. It was of no use to vex my cowardly soul about it. No doubt a thousand cases of some relationship to this were engaged in solving themselves even at that very moment. I must consider myself in the light of a spectator, of one who sits in the stalls in a very good seat, as it chanced, with a full view of everything, and no need to employ opera-glasses.

I thought most of this rather bitterly, and for my own enfranchisement as I went home, without having seen Mrs. Whitwell or Carew. But I did not succeed altogether in banishing the ridiculous sense of responsibility I experienced. I felt it was impossible now to return to Whitwell; but fortune, a capricious jade with a tragic sense of humour sometimes, offered me a further chance—with the woman.

I went to a very frivolous play a few weeks later, one in which people appear unexpectedly from doors and collide with other people who are on a similar errand. I was tired of problems and Shakespeare {whom I prefer to read) and of musical comedy, which is only fit for boys and girls and old roués. But the incessant misunderstandings and entanglement of a farce make one feel quite young again. I believe I wiped my streaming eyes when the sentimental hero fell into the bath. However, that is of minor and only personal importance. What matters to this narrative is that I saw away by the left Mrs. Whitwell and Carew, the former laughing with as hearty a gusto as myself. Probably I should not have given the fact more than a moment’s thought in those distracting circumstances. Indeed, I only shook the idea from myself as something which wanted to interfere with my enjoyment. But what brought it back to me was my little supper at the Savoy. I had been seated ten minutes when Carew bustled past me without seeing me, and a lady rustled after him to a table not very far away. Of course, they were bound to recognise me some time or other, and Mrs. Whitwell smiled pleasantly as she bowed from the middle distance. There was, or might have been, nothing in it from my point of view, if I had not had that awkward sense of responsibility. I also had in my pocket a letter from Whitwell, received that morning, giving me an address which I had asked for in connection with a cameo. The letter had been dispatched from Scotland. Of course, Whitwell might have got back by this time, or might, indeed, have travelled by the day express and be awaiting his wife at the moment. But well, anyway, I don’t think I responded over-cordially to Carew’s greeting, as he passed at midnight. They melted away into the London night in a cab. What affair was it of mine?

Lucretius remarks that it is sweet to stand on the shore in safety and watch ships in trouble at sea. I don’t see eye to eye with him in this. I wish I did. Moreover, I have a notion that his statement was merely brag. The man who wrote those memorable and most tragic lines, which embody the sorrows of the world—

Insatiabiliter deflebimus ærnumque
Nulla dies nobis mærorem e pectore demet

the man who wrote that could never have laughed at the tides tossing its victims in the spume of the waves.

I called at the “bijou residence” in Mayfair the following afternoon, and was admitted to Mrs. Whitwell’s presence. She was blithe, friendly, and absolutely at her ease. I had an excuse in the letter Whitwell had written—I forget what it was. I made my first point within the first few minutes. Whitwell was still in Scotland. She said so frankly, disarmingly frankly. I was rather staggered. You see I had come out for a reconnaissance in force, so to speak. We touched on several subjects, and it was she herself who introduced the play and the supper.

“How funny you should have been both at the theatre and the restaurant with us!” I somehow detected, or, at any rate, suspected, a delicious relish of the “us.”

“Yes,” said I, emboldened and rather reckless in my plunge, “I saw you enjoying it. Carew didn’t seem to be amused. I suppose musical comedy is more in his line.”

“How should it be? What do you mean?” She ceased smiling and was abrupt.

“Oh, he’s the kind of man who enjoys that kind of thing,” I said vaguely, retreating a little.

“I certainly shouldn’t say that,” she said at once. “I daresay he would like the music——”

“Oh, the nymphs, the Bath buns, the seraglio beauties, the sweet houris!” I ejaculated laughing. “All young men——”

She rang the bell sharply. “You'll have some tea,” she said almost hostilely.

As I wanted to remain, I assented. The truce lasted a few minutes, during which the tea was brought in; then I advanced to the assault.

“Carew always reminds me of the typical Gaiety young man,” I said reflectively.

She jerked the sugar into my cup. “Indeed!” she remarked icily.

“He has a sharp eye for beauty,” I continued.

For some reason or other this seemed to mollify her.

“I shouldn’t say that many of the chorus girls were really good-looking off the stage,” she replied.

“Certainly not,” I hastened to admit. “But you see people like Carew don’t know that, and I don’t think they care about that.”

“Your position is interesting, if rather unintelligible.” She was glacial again.

“What I mean is that the glamour matters, the make-up, the advertisement in the public eye.”

She pondered. “It is attributing a rather vulgar feeling for réclame to Mr. Carew, isn’t it?” she asked.

I made a point of demurring. “No,” I said, “I don’t think so. All young men are influenced to some extent by the hoardings. It takes middle age to know its own mind and tastes.”

“Meaning yourself, Mr. Tyrwhitt?” she said rather rudely.

I had no doubt I was trying her; what I was in doubt about was whether I was pursuing the right policy in doing so.

“Yes,” I replied to her, “I believe I'm old enough to know what I want now. I’m also old enough to know that you can’t have everything you want; that there are, so to speak, boundaries.”

She was looking at me defiantly. I have said she was of a neurotic temperament, and I judge that she was emotionally inclined by circumstances just then. We had been fencing, and she took off the buttons.

“I believe,” she said coldly, but she was breathing hard, “that you are being impertinent enough to lecture me.”

I had hardly expected this. “I have said nothing,” I began, and then realised my cowardice and my chance. “I ought to say something,” I said, “in the circumstances. I see you perhaps know——”

“I know this,” said she, “that no one, certainly no stranger, interferes with my actions or my life.”

There was something in the last two words that alarmed me. They had a critical and even ominous sound. Yet I hastened to say that I claimed no right or wish to interfere with anyone’s life.

She replied excitedly, “Oh, I understand! You have never liked me. Ever since. You think because——”

We both knew what she was thinking of; it was the occasion in Farmer’s studio.

“You must believe one thing,” said I firmly, “that I have never done anything but wish you well.”

“You have never liked me,” she repeated defiantly.

There was just enough of truth in that contention to embarrass me, but I manfully met the thrust.

“I have always considered you a very attractive personality,” I said, “even perhaps dangerously attractive.”

She was not to be mollified; she flamed. “Why do you suppose that because people are interested in each other, frankly interested, they are dangerous? Do you judge all people by your own standards?” she demanded scornfully. “I know you have watched me ever since—for ever so long. I will not have it, do you hear? I will not suffer this indignity, to be spied upon—to—to——”

She trailed off into an incoherent splutter of indignation, leaving me abashed. She had fired the mine herself; and though I did not enjoy the explosion, I clung desperately to the chances it opened.

“I have never yet played eavesdropper with intent,” I said, aware of my flushed face. “I can assure you, my dear lady, that never in this world have I kept any watch upon you. It was by accident I was at the Savoy last night; it was——”

“By accident you are here now with a trumpery excuse,” she interjected in scorn.

She had got inside my guard then with a vengeance. I had come of set purpose, and with a trumpery excuse. Anyone overlooking this scene would have decided that I was the culprit in it, and I don’t know that he would have been far wrong. I anathematised my silly blunder in taking a hand in an affair which didn’t concern me. But I had to get out, to get away with as many rags of my self-respect and honour as I could save, and so I said with an air of determination:

“I am here, not because I am a Paul Pry or an intermeddler with other people’s affairs, but because of my sincere regard for you. We have been talking till now with the veil on, and I don’t think it is necessary to discard it. I’m pretty much of a worldling, I daresay, but I don’t know how far I should like to stand in the way of a grand passion of elemental feelings. Their force and influence are, I think, a little outside my comprehension, outside, at any rate, my sphere. I say I don’t know whether I should hold myself justified in blocking the road. But, my dear lady, I know, I will swear, that it is incumbent on us all not to mistake catspaws for gales, or puddles for mountain lakes. Do you remember that advice that we should be guided by the light that is in us, but make sure that the light was not darkness?”

I felt rather like a revivalist preacher as I said it, but somehow it came out. I hope I did not look shamefaced, as I felt. I did not even want to meet her eyes, which were wide and stormy.

“Thank you,” she said tensely, and rose. She did not offer her hand, and seemed to quiver. I had an idea that she was on the verge of a “scene.” I hastened from the room, having thus irretrievably ruined my cause. I took some champagne at dinner to drown the remembrance of the ignominious retreat, and next day, of course, I had a headache.

Whitwell wrote to me from Scotland a few days later. He mentioned “Peggy” in connection with a sunset. There had been strange hues mingling in it which had given him an idea for a setting of jewels. It was odd how his small corner of art appealed to this rather ordinary and distinctly dull gentleman at leisure. He would like to design a ring for “Peggy” after his famous sunset. He wrote of it quite casually, quite naturally. Somehow it sounded like the days of Benvenuto Cellini and other great artificers and craftsmen. He enclosed a drawing for my approval or criticism, for somehow or another he had an absurd notion of my authority as a virtuoso; and he begged me to submit it with my criticism, favourable or otherwise, to “Peggy.”

The request left me, as you may conceive, aghast. That I who had been practically turned out of her house by outraged innocence should dare to return! On the other hand, I couldn’t write to Whitwell and let him know that I was no longer on Mrs. Whitwell’s visiting list. I began to see strange awkwardnesses open up. The long and short of it was that I had insulted my friend’s wife!

I forwarded Whitwell’s letter to Mrs. Whitwell, and the design, together with a covering note informing her that I had no criticism to pass upon a masterpiece—and I left it at that. I received no answer, and I breathed more freely and thought I had washed my hands of the affair.

Yet I will confess that I had what I believe is called a sub-consciousness of responsibility still, and when it got the chance it captured me. The chance was Mrs. Whitwell in a cab. Mrs. Whitwell with a tragic face flashed for a moment into the low, mellow lights of a spring night in Piccadilly, and as swiftly vanishing. The cab turned into St. James’s Street sharply, and I realised that I had stopped to watch it. I thought I saw it go up Jermyn Street. Carew’s quarters were in Jermyn Street.

I retraced my steps, crossed the road, and made my way to Jermyn Street. I had failed with my two previous chances. Should I fail also with the last? That last was Carew himself.

There was no cab before the door of his chambers, but it might easily have been dismissed. As I knocked I heard a church clock striking nine. I came into an ante-chamber, where I was asked to halt. Voices issued from a room beyond great folding doors. Carew’s rooms were luxurious; he had what is called a half-house: that is, all above the shopping floor on the street. Presently he emerged from the larger room, a cigarette between his fingers.

“Hulloa!” said he, not genially, but rather, I took it, as an invitation for me to get on, and state my business.

He was dressed in a lounge suit, and looked very large and handsome in the animal way. As the door had opened to admit him the stream of voices flowing in had rid me of one obsession; Mrs. Whitwell was not there. But I was, and it seemed as if Fate had decided that I should go on.

“I see you have a party, Carew,” said I. “I really came to see you about a private matter.”

He hesitated a moment before he answered. “Oh, well, fire away! It’s all right here! Smoke?”

He sat down with a gesture of brusque hospitality.

I followed suit, but I didn’t smoke.

“I thought that a lady had entered these rooms,” I said, beginning with a bold frontal attack.

“What business of yours was it if she had?” he asked, meeting me as all frontal attacks are met, with brutal effectiveness.

“I was, however, mistaken,” I pursued, ignoring this, “so I thought I should like a small talk with you.”

“Very good of you,” said Carew with a laugh. “May I ask what all this is about?”

“If names are necessary, you can have them,” I retorted; “but I think you will understand without resorting to them. What I want to do is to make an appeal to you. I want you, in fact, to sheer off. I am blunt, because I am in earnest.”

He made no further pretence of not comprehending, but pulled his moustache a little. “What the devil has it got to do with you?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” said I frankly. “Nothing, in one sense; yes, this, I think—that I hate pain and suffering constitutionally, and I don’t like to see people on their way to it.”

I was glad I had not talked of duty and moral obligation. It would never have done with one of Carew’s fibre. His tone was not so harsh in his reply.

“You're mighty solicitous for others at your time of life.”

I didn’t mind the sneer at my years, for, after all, he could not give me ten years, and I pressed what I thought was my advantage.

“If you could put your hand on your heart, as the phrase goes, Carew, and assure me that this thing mattered, mattered a whole heap in your life, I believe I would put on my hat and go downstairs quite quietly. It would not be moral of me, and I should not approve. But I should realise that it was hopeless, and shrug my shoulders. It is precisely because I don’t believe it matters to you, anything that amounts to a lot, that I am here, risking a snub for my impertinent interference.”

“Yes, it is damnably impertinent,” he said, “I ought to kick you out. Hang it, man, I don’t come slouching round after you and your affairs. I suppose it would be said you meant well. People who mean well are the devil of a nuisance. Why didn’t you go in for the Church?”

He spoke angrily, but somehow I felt easier than I had hitherto felt. There was something in his eyes. He laughed angrily.

“You come here and ask me to give up a—well, hang it, to turn my back on a woman to please you! Lord, it’s funny, Tyrwhitt, it’s really funny.”

“I suppose everything has a ridiculous aspect,” I replied. “I’m not saying my interference hasn’t. But there’s tragedy in it also, believe me. There’s tragedy for three people, anyway. If it mattered—if it was worth it——”

“Confound you, man, how do you know it isn’t worth it, and that it doesn’t matter?” he cried sharply.

In that moment, looking at him, if I had ever doubted before, I doubted no longer. I knew that it did not matter, however much it came near to mattering.

“Tell me it does,” I said quietly.

He was silent, and the hand on which he leant his bronzed face moved restlessly in the cheek.

“Look here, Tyrwhitt,” he said abruptly, “I think you’d better clear out before we get any further. I’ve a card party on, and I want to get back to my guests. Let me remind you that you're not one.”

This was more like the Carew I had always conceived and conjectured; but there was that pause to explain. I believe he was troubled, but I daren’t believe that my words had stirred in him a scruple. I rose. I think it was the trouble in his mind, revealed, so to speak, by this bubble in his eyes, and not any scruple that instigated his next words. I had given up hope, and was preparing for eviction like any unwelcome beggar.

“I daresay I oughtn’t to have said that. Show there’s no ill-feeling, and have a drink.”

He spoke with a certain obvious, bluff jocosity. “Thank you, Carew,” said I, “I should prefer to go out more as if I had been a guest. It would feel more comfortable.”

He laughed, left the room and me to my reflections, returning presently with a bottle of champagne half filled. He poured out two glasses. “Anyway, drink and wish me luck,” he said with a snort of laughter.

“I wish you all the luck you deserve,” I said, lifting the glass to him.

“Oh, I daresay I shall have better luck than that! Don’t you disturb yourself.” He laughed again. “What a cautious bird you are!”

He drained his glass, fingered it, filled it again, and once more tossed it off. “Tell you what,” said he suddenly. “I’m in a mood to sport with Fate. In fact, I’m doing it in there.” He nodded to the other room. “Boleyn and Paraway play high stakes, you know. Well, I'll go nap—kill two birds with one stone, don’t you know? After all, my boy, we are the sport of Fortune. We are short of a man. It's Fate. I'll play you for the negative.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, bewildered.

“Man, you play Bridge,” said he. “Cut in with us and that’ll be our stakes between you and me. I'll play you for yes or no. Damn the score. Yes or no. Do you take me?”

I was dumbfounded. I stared; and then I got room in my mind for reflection. He had given me a chance. I could have sworn he was troubled.

“Done!” said I. “I like a sporting wager.”

He opened the folding doors. Two card tables were in play, and two men stood idly against the mantelpiece smoking and in murmurous conversation.

“We won’t wait for Bevis any longer,” said Carew. “I’ve got a fourth. Do you know Tyrwhitt?”

I had a slight acquaintance with one of the men, Tothill; but Marshall, the second, was strange to me. They both had an identic air of good breeding and friendly indifference about them. We cut, and Fate, the Fate to which he had appealed and surrendered, gave me Carew as a partner. He grinned.

“A preliminary canter,” he said, as he dealt.

I watched his play carefully, and found it good. We won the first two games, but the pace was slow, and our opponents drew up. Carew rang the bell, and ordered a fresh supply of drinks for his guests. He himself had recourse to the whisky frequently. He was a little noisy for the etiquette of the card-room. We won the rubber, and he laughed.

“We do pretty well together, Tyrwhitt,” he said. “It’s a pity——” the cut shifted us, and I found Marshall, my partner, a somewhat imperturbable young man. “Well, now we're at it,” said Carew, tossing off the remains of a draught. He turned to the table with the air of one who had taken off his coat. Tothill dealt——

I don’t think I shall ever forget that rubber! My partner and I opened badly, but we struggled gamely uphill. An amused smile played on Carew’s face. It angered me. It was, I said to myself, bad form; it was unsportsmanlike. Besides, the game was not over yet, the battle was undecided. We struggled up to twenty-two, being a couple of points under them. The cards were mine, and I made it diamonds. Carew poured out more whisky, and I saw his partner look at him. Tothill was nervous and fidgetty.

I should like to set that game down for the edification of bridge-players, but I refrain.

We reached a critical point, and Carew played. I was looking at dummy’s hand at the moment, and I heard a click from Tothill. I glanced at him, and saw some emotion in his face as he fingered his cards feverishly. Then my eyes fell on the table, and I knew. Carew had revoked.

The absence of that diamond had troubled me. Here it was. I put my hand on it. Carew uttered an exclamation and an oath.

“Sorry, partner! What an infernal ass I am! It must have got stuck.” He spoke rather thickly, I thought. I think the three of us had the same impression. Tothill frankly and contemptuously looked at the decanter. “If you’ve finished with the whisky, I think I'll have some now,” he said significantly.

Carew was examining his hand and frowning, Tothill threw his down.

“That gives us the two points, I think,” I said quietly.

He shrugged his shoulders, and rose. Carew rose also. “Awfully sorry,” he repeated. His face, always of a high colour, was flushed scarlet. Tothill, without reply, sauntered away to the other tables; Marshall followed. Carew emitted a rather unpleasant snorting laugh, and turned to me.

“You want to be paid?” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

He stepped to a writing-table in the window, and, snapping on the electric lamp, wrote on a sheet of paper, put it in an envelope and handed it to me. Then he looked at his watch and laughed, still unpleasantly. “Ten-forty! You’d better take my car.”

I didn’t understand. He looked round; we were in a corner remote from the others. “You will find her at the ‘Bull,’ at Dartford. I was to pick her up there. We were going to Dover and France. Give her this, and—rescue her,” he said harshly, and with a sneer.

He turned on his heel to the players, and I, having got what I wanted, went out silently, and with a tumult of new feelings. The car was before the door, and I stepped into it, giving the necessary explanations to the chauffeur. I was aware that the window was opened and that someone was leaning out. But I did not look up. The car started, and, gathering pace, slipped into a comfortable speed, and I settled to my reflections. So the affair had reached the stage of elopement! I now understood Mrs. Whitwell’s frightened face in the cab. She had been driving to the station. I seemed to be beginning to understand other things also. Fate had made use of several instruments that evening.

I wondered what he had said, how he had explained himself, on what pretext he had withdrawn. Had it been on the plea of safeguarding her, of considerations for Whitwell, of——

In the speculations which followed time went swiftly past, and I was at Dartford. The “Bull” is an old hostelry, famed and galleried, with an air which suggested that it had housed many eloping lovers. I got out of the car and entered, and looked at the letter in my hand. It was addressed to Mrs. Mortimer. Until that moment I had not realised that it would not be Mrs. Whitwell for whom I should ask. I could have sent the note in by a chambermaid, and have fled, but I did not. I was committed now to the whole drama, and I braced myself up to face it. I resolved to see her and give her the letter. I did not suppose that she would take advantage of the car after that; but, at least, it was my duty to offer it. I could leave it to her, and get back somehow myself.

I inquired of a waiter who ambled up to me.

“Is Mrs. Mortimer here?” I asked.

“Yes, sir. A lady’s come, sir,” he returned, examining me civilly, but with interest. I hesitated a moment.

“Will you tell her,” said I, “that a gentleman wishes to see her?”

The hour was late; the waiter was indubitably interested in me. The engine of the car was whining in the street. It got on my nerves. “For goodness’ sake, stop it,” I cried, going to the door. In the calm that ensued I had time to get uncomfortable. The waiter had shown me into a small and empty reception room. The door creaked suddenly, and opened. I turned my head, pulling myself together to “face the music.” A woman entered, tall, buoyant, and gracefully erect.

“It’s right that you should know that your journey is fruitless,” she said coldly.

For the life of me I could not understand. I was staggered; I thought I had fallen into a Palais Royal farce or a madhouse.

“Fruitless!” I stammered.

She was a woman of thirty, handsome and stately, and with a remarkable gift of facial expression. That expression was now one of mingled contempt, dislike, and triumph.

“You will not find your victim here,” she said, with judicial severity.

Something of an explanation dawned on me. “Mrs. Whit——, Mrs. Mortimer is not here?” I asked.

“No; at my persuasion she did not come.”

I gave vent to a sigh of relief. “I am heartily glad,” I said.

Her expression changed to one of marked hatred and anger. Her coldness vanished. “You dare to say that!” she cried. “You dare to play the hypocrite like that! Ah, believe me, I know the story. It’s only too old a story, and will be, alas, until our sex—— You trick an unfortunate, helpless woman into believing she cares for you, and get her to throw over all her obligations and duties for your sake. And then you dare to say that you are glad she sees wisdom at the eleventh hour. Oh, it’s abominable! You are detestable!”

“But pardon me,” I began. “I——”

“I know your sort,” she declared, interrupting me, and looking very handsome in her indignation. “You lie in wait for your prey. You are without moral sense. The look of you is enough. Anyone could tell from your appearance what you were. You are satyrs in your pursuit of—of——”

“But,” I managed to get in through this moment of uncertainty. “I am not Carew.”

For a second she was taken aback; then she recovered. “It doesn’t matter,’ she said. “You are his creature; you are in his confidence. I think, if anything, that makes you worse.”

I held out the note, writhing under this biting denunciation. “Will you please read that?” I said.

She looked at the superscription. “It is not for me,” she said scornfully. Honestly I had in my alarm clean forgotten the fact.

“Anyway, it is for Mrs.—Mrs. Mortimer,” I explained meekly, “and I have every reason to believe that it announces his withdrawal from a position which would have been disastrous for all concerned.”

There was silence while she examined me, and I tried to recall what she had said about my personal appearance.

“Is this true?” she asked at last.

I assured her it was. “I have just come from Carew, with whom I hope my remonstrances had some effect.”

Her stage attitude had collapsed altogether. “I had it out with Peggy,” she blurted forth. “I saw something was wrong; I dissuaded her at the last moment—caught her at the station—and came on to meet you—I mean him.”

I wondered how Carew would have met her.

The silence between us being a little awkward; “I have a car outside,” I said. “Can I be of service in taking you back to town?”

She thanked me, rather diffidently now. She was no longer her outraged sex rampant, but a mere woman feeling the embarrassments of a difficult situation. If she had not assented she would have had to remain there all night. We drove through a dark night, and I forbore to turn on the electric light in the limousine. We could not see each other’s faces, and we talked perfunctorily. I think she was exhausted with the emotions of her part; and I was heartily tired of mine. We threw them up together, almost as if by mutual agreement, when we reached London. The flashing lights of the streets revealed to me then a tremulous lip, and a collapsed courage. She was really very beautiful, and had been badly shaken. I got her upon the subject of roses which she adored, and her garden which she cultivated in a beautiful country valley. It was thence I gathered that she had dropped upon London and her friend’s crisis unexpectedly. She was charming about gardens, and had a delicate taste in poetry. She was smiling ere we reached Charing Cross.

“There is one thing I want to ask you before you leave me,” I said timidly, as I shook hands with her on the pavement before the Whitwells’ bijou house. I was thinking ruefully of her description of my face. “After this, I shall never be invited here again. I valued the privileges of that pleasant friendship. I want to ask if you will allow me to replace it by yours.”

“Oh, but you will,” she protested.

I knew better. I pressed the point and she consented prettily.

What Carew had written I never knew, but I was right. Mrs. Whitwell, of course, had to hear the proceedings of the night so far as the “Bull” was concerned. I was not asked to her house any more, and even Whitwell, having no doubt received some garbled version, was very cool towards me. But I have often since visited the valley and the garden. Carew, on the other hand, was very friendly afterwards; and I think I understood the meaning of that revoke.