Peter's appearance at Covent Garden precipitated in Wenderby an action upon whose brink he had stood for several weeks. He called upon Lady Mary in the morning and asked for her. She came into the room bravely affecting surprise. But too well she knew what was coming.
Lord Wenderby, she began, "this is wonderful."
That I should come to see you?
I read in the Times that a Cabinet was called for this morning. Surely you should be there.
Wenderby shrugged his shoulders.
The Cabinet, he said, "will be happier as they are."
You say that bitterly.
It's bitter truth, he answered. "I'm in the wrong set."
There was a short silence, and Lady Mary found it intolerable.
Have you come just to grumble and go? she inquired at last.
Wenderby paused a moment, as if looking for a way to open his mind; then he said abruptly:
I'm going to rat.
To leave the Cabinet? Lady Mary exclaimed. She was now sincerely astonished.
Perhaps, said Wenderby, looking at her intently. "It's in my mind. Politics are going to be very violent during these next years. All my friends are with the Opposition. My position will be dreary and difficult."
Lady Mary began to see his drift, and was dismayed at the sudden sinking of her spirit.
Why do you tell me this? she asked.
I want you to help me, said Wenderby, and again he looked at her.
How can that be? she protested, avoiding his eyes.
I'm not yet sure what I ought to do. I shall be giving up a great deal in leaving the Cabinet. I'm the youngest minister with a platform following. In a few years I should be leading the Party.
What would become of your principles? Lady Mary objected.
They would suffer, he curtly replied. "But I should do my best for them. At any rate, I should do less harm than any other conceivable head of a Liberal Cabinet."
You would be a fraud, she flashed.
Not without justification, he coolly answered.
Sophistry.
Not at all. Making the best of a bad business.
Again there was silence. Wenderby found it difficult to come to the point. It was again Lady Mary who spoke.
Have you come to me for advice? she asked.
Partly that.
Then I advise you to follow your conscience, she said decisively.
That is just the difficulty, he pleaded. "My conscience is vague."
It tells you to come over.
Wenderby smiled. "Naturally you say that. My desertion now would shake the Government. Perhaps we might even pull them down. There's a chance."
Your duty is clear, she insisted.
I do not think so, he objected. "The Government may stand in spite of me. Then my moderating influence is destroyed. Is it my duty to put this uncertain thing to the proof?"
There was a short silence. Lady Mary saw Wenderby's logical trap closing about her. He bent eagerly towards her, and a pleading note came into his voice. Lady Mary could not deny that it pleasurably moved her to detect under the steel of his manner the suspense of entire sincerity. He utterly depended upon her answer.
My conscience, he said, "does not help me. I cannot balance the right and wrong of this business. I want a better reason. I want the best reason in the world. I want you to be my wife."
Lady Mary did not move. Wenderby's sincerity saved him from the protest with which she had thought to meet it. Nearly a minute passed.
You understand? said Wenderby at last.
I think I understand, she slowly answered, "that this is not exactly what it seems."
Does it seem so terrible? he pleaded. "Consider it from my point of view."
You say that, if I marry you, you will leave the Cabinet. That is my price.
Obviously, if you consented to marry me, it would be my crowning motive for coming to your people. It is a natural consequence.
It is my price, she insisted.
You are brutal, he said in a low voice.
Lady Mary flushed a little. "You do not like my word. Shall we say inducement? You tell me you will leave the Cabinet, but you do not trouble to ask me whether I care for you."
Is that necessary? said Wenderby, quite simply. "I know you too well. You like me and trust me. I think you admire me a little. I am forty-seven. I do not urge you to passion. I have appealed to you as a woman who can weigh the things of youth against other things, more important perhaps, certainly more enduring. I have been candid with you."
Lady Mary sighed.
I wonder, she said, "how many English girls have been talked to in this way?"
You are not just an English girl. You are Lord Haversham's sister.
You mean, said Lady Mary sadly, "that I have no right to be loved in the common way?"
Again there was a short silence. Wenderby then rose, and put his hand upon Lady Mary's arm. He spoke now as one who loved her and understood.
I know, he said, "exactly what this choice means. I want you to be my wife, and I mean to use every argument to persuade you. But I am going to be quite frank. When you marry me you will be turning away from a great deal. But I will hold you very precious. We shall always be comrades. Can you do this? To me it seems a choice between marrying for yourself and marrying for all that we hold most dear. Realise what our marriage would mean. Already we have wealth and social leading. Soon we should have supreme political office. There is no really able man of my age on the Tory side. Our house would be the absolute fortress of all we hold precious in the country. There is no one in whom I could so confidently trust as you."
Lady Mary looked steadily at this vision. She knew it could be realised. She measured the full stature of Wenderby, and answered the call of her own talent. At last she spoke, rather as though she wondered to herself than talked with another:
But our marriage. What would our marriage be?
Always entirely as you wished. I should wait for you still, and hope to win you. I should never put away that hope. But I should not take you for granted.
I cannot do things by half, she said, bravely meeting him. "If I marry you, I shall accept all the consequences."
Wenderby bent his head.
You do not want to answer me now? he suggested.
Come for my answer in twelve months.
It is a long time.
All my life hangs upon this decision. Twelve months is nothing at all.
Meantime, said Wenderby, "we meet as usual."
Of course.
You will tell no one of this?
I reserve the right to tell my brother.
Wenderby rose to go. He hesitated as they stood together.
Mary, he said, "I have talked coolly and sensibly. It was not easy. Try and believe that." His voice sank under the burden of his sincerity.
I care with my whole soul, he added abruptly.
She met his look with understanding and compassion.
He took the hand Peter had touched and lifted it. She drew it impulsively away, giving him the other hand.
A year from now, he said, and, kissing her fingers, went quickly from the room.
Lady Mary had a sense of escape. She had put off the immediate need to decide for twelve months. Almost she exulted in the time she had won. She felt she had saved for herself a year of her days and nights—a year in which to measure the issues.
Peter that afternoon had never seen her so radiant. He looked at her continually, and, when for a moment she left the room to answer a message, it seemed as if a light had gone out.
In recoil from her ordeal of the morning Lady Mary gave herself free rein. She accepted Peter's worship, and allowed the climbing current of her pleasure to flow. It seemed like the beginning of a holiday.
They talked quietly of indifferent things. Lady Mary saw that Peter's looks were openly read by his mother. Once, as Mrs. Paragon turned from his lost face to Lady Mary, a glance of intelligence passed between them.
Lady Mary kissed Mrs. Paragon at parting.
You are not anxious about him? she said, as Peter waited for his mother at the door.
Peter finds his own way. I can trust him with you, said Mrs. Paragon.
In the evening, after her maid had left her, Lady Mary sat in the firelight of her room alone with her problem. For months to come she suffered these solitary hours, looking into a future she could not read. Her duty became less clear as the days passed. She doubted the necessity of her sacrifice. Would it ultimately weigh in history? Was she justified in giving herself to a doubtful cause? In an agony of regret she saw herself turning from the virginal adoration of the boy she loved to long years of devoted work for a country that neither wanted her nor would understand.
These moods inexorably came, but at first they were few and far. In Peter's company the holiday persisted. Wenderby heard of them everywhere together. One morning, on his way to the House, he saw them in the Park. They were riding at a gallop, glowing with laughter. He stood on the path, unseen, and turned sadly away with the picture of their dancing faces firmly drawn upon his brain. He framed them in a window opposite the Treasury Bench.
Peter was already deeply committed to the routine of London. He was popular. His youth was a perpetual delight to hostesses for whom a boy of twenty-four was a precious discovery.
His readiness to enter into things eagerly and without reserve was the quaintest of pleasures to watch. It was all the more entertaining to Peter's friends owing to the rapidity with which he exhausted his ideas, emotions, hobbies, and acquaintances, and the impetuosity with which he discarded them. It was his charm to be the most lovable of spendthrifts; and the charm of his desire to rush at everything as it came was enhanced for the women who welcomed him by their knowledge of his absolute integrity. He seemed to unite the energy and frank joy of a wilful libertine with the austere purity of a Galahad. Peter's was an eager, questing purity, whose adventure was watched by many of his friends with an almost passionate solicitude.
The winter drew in, and rapidly passed. Peter began to lose the edge of his enthusiasm for the new life. He soon realised that at Highbury he had found the best, and that London was inferior. It was not upon the level he had measured by Eustace Haversham. He began to be sensible of a shabby side to the frank hedonism which had at first seemed all free nature and ready fellowship. A quiet and gradual disappointment flung him the more devotedly upon Lady Mary. He was entirely happy to be her constant friend. Now that the shadow of Wenderby had passed—Wenderby hardly saw her at this time—Peter felt only an untroubled comfort in her presence. She was his particular angel, a shrine for his private adoration. The perfect symbol of his emotion at meeting her was the cool clasp of her hand.
Lady Mary was content that this should be so. She thought of Peter as of a sleeping boy, who one day, if she were free, would wake to her. She watched him curiously, and with fear, for knowledge to stir in him. She knew that at the first flutter she would have to meet her problem with an answer.
The winter passed, and spring began warmly to enter. The lonely hours of her stress became more intolerable. Her holiday was passing, and her conscience was astir. Surely she must take Peter, or send him away. She would soon be unable to part with him.
Curiously she felt no scruples as to Peter himself—that she was betraying him into a love she might have to deny. She felt that for him it was safest to continue quietly beside her. Were she to dismiss him suddenly, it would provoke in him the storm she feared. He had come unbidden into her life, and she knew he would not leave it without a struggle.
The burden became at last too heavy. She must share it, or run for ever round in the circle of her thoughts. Upon an evening in April she heard her brother pass along the corridor as she sat in her room. She called to him.
Tony, she said, "I want you to know something."
Haversham looked at her keenly. He had lately seen little of his sister or of Peter. The session had been very heavy, and the estate had also to be visited. Haversham was by more than twelve months older than he was a year ago.
Is it Peter? he asked quietly.
She shrank from an opening so direct.
Not altogether, she said.
It is partly Peter.
Yes, she admitted.
I saw it coming, Mary. You are only a sister of the younger branch. You can marry for yourself. You are not worrying about that?
His quiet accepting of Peter made it harder for Lady Mary to go on. Instinctively she felt that her brother would be against her when he knew the rest. She shut her eyes and rushed at her confession.
Lord Wenderby, she said, "asked me to marry him six months ago."
Wenderby?
The surprise in his voice uttered the quick leap of his mind. He came towards her. "Tell me," he said, "there is more in this than a proposal of marriage. Am I right?"
Yes, Tony. If I marry Lord Wenderby, he will leave the Cabinet.
Haversham's eyes dangerously glittered.
You mean, he said, "that Wenderby's political services are a wedding present?"
He isn't sure what he ought to do. I can help him to decide.
I see, said Haversham quietly. "Let me think of this."
He rapidly looked at the facts. He saw them clearly, in a hard, political light. Haversham had just come through a session of weary work in the House. Temper was hardening on both sides. The Government was shaken, but its power for mischief was still incalculable. Just at this moment Wenderby's defection would recast the entire position. Haversham swept into the future, thinking only of his country. He turned back to his sister.
Mary, darling. Can you do this?
She looked at him with dismay. She wanted for Peter the help he was giving to Wenderby.
You think it is my duty? she suggested.
It is your duty. He uttered it like a doom.
But, Antony, she pleaded, "are you sure? Think what it means."
He hesitated a moment; then, taking her by the arms, he searched her face.
Can you reasonably do this? he asked.
Reasonably? she echoed.
I mean, you are reasonably fond of Wenderby?
I trust him utterly.
Then it is only Peter.
Peter is my youth, she cried out, "and my right to be loved."
He felt her pain, and hated the influence he used.
It is very difficult, he said in a low voice. "Are the things for which we stand worth while? Surely we must think that they are."
She again felt the trap closing about her.
How clearly you see things, Tony.
Mary, darling, I see things as Lord Haversham. But I would to God this were not asked of you.
The words burst from him as he saw the tears gather in his sister's eyes. At the tenderness of his voice the barriers of her grief broke down. She wept in his arms, but at last drew erect.
You are quite sure, Tony? she asked again.
Yes, dear.
I will remember this talk when the time comes.
Haversham did not inquire when this time would be. He left everything now to his sister, inwardly deciding not to persuade her further.
Meantime, he lightly suggested, "what is happening to Peter?"
He holds me too precious to be loved, but I am afraid there will be trouble when I send him away.
I wonder, reflected Haversham.
I am sure of it, she insisted.
He may surprise you yet, answered Haversham. "There is a blind side to Peter. Sometimes I think he was intended for a monk. He has a dedicated look."
He loves me, Tony, and he will discover it.
Cannot you spare him the knowledge?
Lady Mary shook her head.
Peter loved me at Highbury, she insisted. "I shall have nothing on my conscience."
Haversham sat that night in his room in quiet contemplation of the advice he had instinctively given to his sister. It displeased him to think how promptly and easily he had declared against the friend of his own years. He realised that a season or so ago he would not so immediately have perceived where his sister's duty lay. Was there, after all, something in Peter's ineradicable contempt for politics? Did they not rub the finer edges from a man?
Peter, after all, was his friend. He saw him with a pang, eager and impetuous; and knew how savagely his sister's marriage with Wenderby would tear him. There was nothing tangibly ignoble—nothing that a man of worldly years would boggle at—in Wenderby's proposal to Lady Mary. Nevertheless Haversham realised that young Marbury twelve months ago would have recoiled with a faint disgust from this attempt upon his sister. Undoubtedly he had changed. A year of politics, of arrangements and compromises, of difficult dealings with men of many tempers and desires, had caused young Marbury to seem like a legend, remote and debonair, to thoughtful Haversham. He had, almost without thinking, thrown over his friend, perceived the wisdom of his sister's great alliance, and quite overlooked the faint soil in Wenderby of a finesse which a year ago would rudely have jarred him.
Haversham smiled a little bitterly into the fire as he thought of these things—and the smile deepened as he realised that, though on reflection he could see the pity of it, and even hope that youth might even now defeat them all, nevertheless he could himself only repeat his first advice and conduct. He would on all occasions repeat that Wenderby was a man of perfect honour, even though he understood the impulsive dislike and distrust of Peter. He would continue to insist that the mere claims of youth were not enough to defeat the splendid political vision this marriage had offered to their eyes.
Meantime to ease the pricking of his conscience in regard to Peter he assured himself that Peter was far too young to be really in love with anybody—with Mary least of all.
From that hour Lady Mary began to face the future as a creditor. Her coming days with Peter were numbered and enjoyed as the reward of her sacrifice.
Yet another month slipped away. The year was now at the full of the first green, and London roared at the height of the season. Peter began to be much oppressed with the social rush. Much of it he now saw as mere noise and hurry. He read steadily in the morning, for he still intended seriously to be called to the Bar. In the afternoon he rode or went for long solitary journeys on the river. An evening seldom passed without meeting Lady Mary. They frankly exchanged plans, and schemed for snatches of conversation in crowded places.
At this time they were opportunely invited to leave the hurry of London for a few days in Norfolk. A friend of Haversham had got together at Wroxham a fleet of wherries. Peter and Lady Mary joined the same boat for their last unclouded days together. Only Lady Mary knew how precious and irrevocable they were. For Peter they were slow days of agreeable idleness, as they glided from reach to reach of the quietest country in the world. Always there was the same circle of sky, with an idle mill and rows of grey-green sedges; the quiet lapping of water and plod of the quanting. Tiny villages dropped past them, with square towers and clusters of small buildings. Upon the third evening of the cruise, Lady Mary picked up some London letters at Potter Heigham. One was from Lord Wenderby. She opened it and read:
"Lady Mary,—I hope you will not regard this as a breach of our contract. Things are moving quickly in the Cabinet. I must decide at once to stay or go. I can wait for you six days. If you cannot now help me to break with my ties and interests of the moment I must put away our vision of the future.
"I saw you in the Park the other day. I cannot hope you will ever be my wife. Believe that I wish you all the happiness of your heart.
"Wenderby."
Lady Mary answered at once. She told Wenderby to come for his answer on her return to London. Meantime, if he needed to know her mind, let him believe all that he wished.
Now she had only two days. She decided to tell Peter in London when they returned. Here she would part from him without a destroying word.
The last evening of the cruise was warm with a breeze from the land to the sea, enough for sailing. Peter and Lady Mary sat, after an early dinner, together on deck. Laughter came from the drawing-room below—a London drawing-room planted in a wilderness of marsh and water. Sunset was burning itself out. Light was flung upon miles of water, making of the country about them a glimmering palette. The mill on the horizon was derelict, standing black and crude, an eyeless giant, blind to the colour of earth and sky.
Merriment swelled below them. A clever musician parodied the latest phase of a modern French composer.
This, said Peter with a sardonic gesture at the people below, "is a return to Nature."
You are more scathing than you know, answered Lady Mary with a smile. "You are listening to a burlesque of the latest thing in music, written in the scale of the Opopo islanders. The Opopo islanders can only count up to five. We are determined to be primitive."
I should like to sail away into all that, said Peter, waving his arm vaguely at the sunset.
Lady Mary caught at the idea.
Can you sail? she asked.
Pretty fair, said Peter.
Then why not?
Lady Mary pointed to the dinghy beneath them. The mast was shipped, and the sail folded.
Will you come? asked Peter.
It is our last evening.
Peter did not hear the sorrow of her phrase.
Our last evening of the simple life, he laughed. He climbed down, and held the ladder firm.
How are you for wraps? he called. "It is going to be colder later. This breeze will freshen."
Lady Mary smiled at his expert way.
Where, she inquired, "did you learn all this?"
I learned it with Antony. We did this sort of thing at Oxford.
The reference to her brother brought Lady Mary again in view of her sacrifice. She shivered and was silent as Peter rowed softly out into the stream, and spread the tiny sail. The breeze caught it, and the little boat leaned over, hesitated, and swung quickly across the river. The air freshened upon their faces. They dropped almost in a moment away from the lighted flat, and soon were alone, speeding at ease over the beautiful water.
Why didn't we think of this before? said Peter happily. He pushed over the tiller. The little boat turned, and the water chuckled under her bows.
Let me take you into the open. The breeze is beginning to be stiff for this tiny boat; but we can always lower sail if it gets too rough.
Anything to-night, said Lady Mary.
I love to hear you say that, Peter sang.
They passed into a wide lake, and were soon far from the shore, which showed now as a dark line picked out here and there with light.
Anything to-night, Peter echoed the phrase. "It sounds," he went on, "as if the present mattered more than anything in the world."
The breeze was stronger as they neared the middle of the water. The boat heeled dangerously.
We've too much canvas for a tub, said Peter. He lowered the sail, and found he could take in a tiny reef. The hurry of the little boat was stilled. It swung idly on the water, and the wind seemed to have left them. Peter was busy with the sail, and Lady Mary sat still as a statue opposite him, her hand on the side of the boat. His happy face was intolerable. How would he take the news which waited for him at home? He was ready now to swing the reefed sail to the mast, but she impulsively stopped him.
Don't do that, she said abruptly.
The boat will stand it, Peter protested.
It's not that, said Lady Mary. "Let us stay a while in this open place."
Her tone arrested him. It was urgent and entreating. He dropped the sail into the boat, and they sat silent for a time. Lady Mary was blaming her weakness. Why did she not at once signal for that brief run over the little span of water between them and the fleet? It would take her to the duty she had accepted. Her holiday was finished.
Peter misread the entreaty in her voice.
You do not want to go back? he said.
Not at once.
You, too, find all that less inspiring than it seems? He waved his hand towards the people they had left.
This is better, for a time, she answered evasively.
You still believe in all that? He looked towards the lighted masts, his face troubled and perplexed.
Of course I believe, she assured him.
Peter eagerly bent forward. "You remember," he said softly, "a night upon the terrace at Highbury?"
Lady Mary looked at him, terror waiting to spring at her heart.
I hardly know, Peter continued, "whether I still believe all that I believed at Highbury. It is all too insolent, and some of it is foolish and cruel. I have seen ugly and brutal things. I am beginning to see that there are no classes. Rank is nothing at all. There are only people."
Why did he talk like that to-night? It was intolerable.
You are wrong, she cried out. "Wealth is nothing, and there are bad shoots in an old tree. But there are men and women who must think and rule. It is their right."
That may be only your beautiful dream.
Peter, she called distressfully, "you don't know what you are saying."
He looked at her in wonder at the veiled agony of her voice. The pure white line of her face showed like stone in the shutting light. There was a short silence. Then Lady Mary spoke again:
I want you to suppose something, she said urgently. "It is possible that I may be asked to make a sacrifice for this belief of mine. It will be painful for me and for my dearest friend."
Nothing in the world is worth a moment of your pain.
Peter's sincerity redeemed from ridicule the tragic untimeliness of his dithyrambic assurance. Lady Mary was brought nearer to tears than to laughter.
Not even my faith? she protested.
It would be an evil faith, or it would not make you suffer.
Why do you put me so high? Again there was a note of stress.
I shall always do that.
He put his hand firmly upon hers that rested on the side of the boat. She held her breath, fighting the desperate flutter of her soul. When she dared to look at him, she still met the shining worship of a boy. His hand rested upon hers, temperate and cool. She was glad she had not trembled or drawn away. Peter felt only an exquisite sense of privilege. He sat with bright eyes, happy in her beautiful austerity. She triumphed over her thrilled senses, and in her triumph faced him carven and tense.
The light faded rapidly. Colour went out of the sky and the water. Lady Mary took a long farewell of Peter's adoration. She knew that the light in his eyes was soon to be put out.
At last, with a deep sigh, her hand still quietly held, she said:
Now, Peter, we must go. We have no light in the boat.
He reluctantly made ready the sail. The breeze caught it rudely. Their dream was broken up with the noise of water and wind. They came within sight and sound of the river. Peter lowered the sail to row in to the side of their wherry. There was only a moment now.
Lady Mary caught at Peter's wrist upon the oars.
You will believe in me always, Peter?
Always.
My life may take me away from you, she desperately urged. "We read things differently."
A burst of laughter came from the deck of the wherry. Lady Mary withdrew her hand from Peter's wrist.
Nothing in the world can shake my belief in you, said Peter, still pausing on the oars.
That is easily said.
Lady Mary cried out in pain at the light heart of the boy she loved.
I mean it in every fibre, Peter insisted. "I am utterly yours."
Row in to the boat, said Lady Mary. "This is the end."
Peter and Lady Mary travelled up to London next morning in the same train. They separated at Arlington Street, and she asked him to come and see her on the evening of the following day. Peter lightly promised, and happily left her.
Late in the day he sat with his mother in Curzon Street with open windows, idle and reminiscent. His talk in the boat with Lady Mary had emphasized his impressions of the life he was leading. It was not all wise and beautiful. His absurd enthusiasm had again been mocked. He measured what he had saved from the wreck of his expectations. The people with whom he now was living were more frank and free than any he had known. They were on the whole without fear. They feared neither men, nor words, nor the satisfaction of their heart's desire. But he had not found, and would not find, Eustace Haversham repeated.
He considered Lady Mary. Was not the world justified in that it put her high above fear and calculation, bidding her be queenly and untroubled? Peter tried to see her snatched from her world of policy and grace. Might she not show fairer yet, seen apart from the things for which she stood? Last night she had seemed like a creature with wings caught and held. How would they fare, those beating wings, if the common round too obstinately claimed her? Jealousy caught at Peter—the jealousy he had felt years ago when he saw a woman of the street pass to her desecration.
How much do I love her? he asked, prompted by the pain at his heart.
He loved her as far as the clasping of hands and his privileged admission to regard closely her perfection. His passion was a strong resolve that she should purely stand to be adored, not familiar, too delicate to catch at rudely for a possession.
His thoughts were shattered by a screaming in the street. Something extraordinary had happened. Peter moved to the window, and saw a newsboy rushing down from Piccadilly. Servants hurried from the doors, and bought the papers as he came. Peter at last heard the news, and saw the big black letters of the boy's fluttering bill. Wenderby had resigned. Peter turned impatiently away. These politics did not touch him.
But London was clearly interested. Next morning the papers were heavy with this great event. It stared at Peter from every corner of the street. Peter did not trouble to read the excited press. Since Wenderby had ceased to cloud the presence of his angel Peter had not regarded him. Frequently he paused that morning in his quiet reading of the law, but he paused to think only of an evening with Lady Mary.
Lady Mary was with Wenderby at that moment in her drawing-room at Arlington Street.
I am pledged to you, Lord Wenderby, she was saying; and he answered:
You talk like a creditor.
Are you not a creditor? she insisted. "You have put me beyond remedy into your debt."
My resignation had to come last night, or not at all, he explained. "I was not trying to force you."
She measured him with a look, deliberate and frank.
If I thought you were trying to force me, she said, "I should not be listening to you now. Your debt will be paid in full. But you must give me time. There are things you must allow me to forget."
Wenderby rose to go. He held her hand at parting, and hesitated a moment. The settled sadness of her manner showed him that she was looking back; showed him also that she had faced the future, and would not weakly remember things she must put away.
Mary, he said, "if you cannot reasonably go through with this, remember that I resigned last night for the chance of you. It was only a chance."
It was a safe chance, she answered quickly; "a chance that depended on my honour."
Wenderby gratefully accepted her decision. He became practical.
How would you have it arranged? he asked. "I mean the formal part of it."
We must meet, and be publicly seen. The engagement—shall we say three months from now?
Her sobriety misgave him. He began to realise the extent of her sacrifice. Had he pressed her unfairly?
You are sure you can go on with this? he urgently asked, again opening a way of retreat.
Quite sure, she firmly answered. "I cannot yet be glad of this event; but I shouldn't undertake to be your wife if I did not think I was able to keep faith. I shall join you gladly, and without reserve."
Wenderby bent his head.
I don't think you will regret this, he said with deep emotion. "Everything I have is now devoted to you and the things which are dear to you. But I won't urge personal feeling on you now."
He pressed her hand in a quick and friendly farewell. In another moment she was alone, able to think of her coming interview with Peter. She had begun to dread this so keenly that in a fit of shrinking she had almost written to him. She feared to see his pain, and trembled for its effect upon herself.
Peter's invitation was for dinner at Arlington Street. Shortly before he came Lady Mary talked with her brother. He had just arrived in town, brought by Wenderby's resignation. He at once looked for his sister.
They greeted in the drawing-room shortly before dinner.
This is great news, he began. "I came up from Yorkshire with the Chief Whip. He thinks we shall turn them out." He paused, and looked closely at his sister.
I am very proud of you, Mary, he went on. "You have accepted the work of your life."
Lady Mary had lately seen little of Haversham. His work began utterly to absorb him. She put her hand on his arm.
Tony, she said, "I sometimes wonder if I'm not losing a brother."
Mary, dear, he protested, "you are more than ever precious to me now."
Lady Mary sadly shook her head.
Your first word to me was of the Chief Whip, she reminded him.
Haversham was touched. He put his hand gently on his sister's arm.
We do not belong to ourselves, he pleaded. "This act of yours is a public thing."
I have a personal thing still left to do, she said. "Peter is coming to-night. You must leave him with me."
That will be easy, he assured her. "They're all political people this evening. We shall go on afterwards to the House."
The talk at dinner was all of Wenderby's resignation. The division that night would show the strength of his following. Peter was exasperated by the persistence with which this event pursued him.
Is this resignation really important? he asked in an early pause of the conversation. Lady Mary had left her seat at the foot of the table.
Important! his neighbour exclaimed at him. "Why, it's the most important event in politics for fifty years. It changes everything."
This, Peter, is not one of those important things which happen every day, said Haversham quietly. "I would have given almost anything to bring this about."
At any rate, Haversham, said one of the politicians, "you have helped it a little."
I'm afraid not.
Just a little, I think, the politician insisted. "Your friendship with Wenderby must have counted. These personal things do weigh. Wenderby was not very comfortable with his late friends."
Lord Wenderby's change of party, I suppose, is final? Peter politely suggested.
Quite, said Haversham curtly.
He'll certainly stay with us, chuckled Peter's neighbour. "We shall make it worth while."
There's less competition on our side, said another. "We haven't any brains under sixty-five."
Moreover, said Haversham incisively, "Wenderby is a man of honour."
Has that anything to do with it? Peter must somehow persist in his hostility. He could only think of Wenderby as an adventurer. Haversham lifted a finger at him:
Peter, he said, "we shall quarrel if you cannot help being rude to one of my best friends. You must believe in Wenderby. You don't know how essential it is."
They broke up, and prepared to leave for the House. Haversham told Peter he would find Lady Mary in her drawing-room. Peter went happily to discover her. He had seen her room only once before. He remembered with pleasure how exquisitely it framed her.
The servants were removing the coffee as he came in, and Lady Mary was softly at the piano. She continued her music after they were alone, Peter watching her in a light soft as the blurred harmonies of her playing. She had never seemed so elusive. At last she abruptly turned.
What would you do, Peter, if this were our last evening together?
Peter was surprised at her sudden question. He took it seriously, and thought a little.
I should sit quietly here, he said at last, "and learn you by heart."
But you would want to talk, she protested.
There has been talking enough.
She had come from the piano, and now sat near him upon a low chair. The silence deepened as she hunted for an opening. Then suddenly she uttered her secret thought:
I wonder how much you love me, Peter?
Peter did not in words answer her quiet speculation. He dropped softly beside her on the rug, putting his free hand between hers. There calmly it lay upon her lap as he looked at the fire. The minutes passed till Lady Mary found them intolerable. Her hands closed tightly upon his.
Peter, dear, she whispered.
Peter turned slowly towards her, startled by the stress of her voice, startled yet more when he found it in her eyes.
You are in trouble?
I have something to tell you, she said.
About yourself?
Lady Mary bent her head.
You remember, she went on, "our evening on the water?"
I shall not forget it.
I said then that the time might come when I should be drawn away from you.
That is impossible, he protested. "I cannot lose you. I shall always know that you are wonderful."
Will you always think of me like that? she mournfully wondered.
You are sacred, said Peter simply. He bent to kiss her fingers, but she drew them sharply back.
No, Peter, she cried in pain; "I have given your hand away."
Peter stared at her.
Do you mean, he slowly asked, "that I have no share in you at all?"
Tell me—she spoke in a low voice, and her eyes were veiled—"will you hold me sacred"—she shyly quoted his word—"as the wife of another man?"
Peter struggled with this new idea. It raised in him a bitter confusion. His calm devotion was shaken and stirred. Above it triumphed a sense of loss, an instinct to grasp at something threatened.
You are pledged? he abruptly asked.
Yes, Peter. It came from her like a confession.
The idea was now being driven into his brain. He looked at Lady Mary as he had not looked before. She sat back in her chair, turning aside from him. With opened eyes, he saw now the beauty of a woman snatched away. He leant towards her, uttering one hungry syllable:
Who?
It was the first time Peter's voice had challenged her. The adoration had gone out of it. It was hard.
Does it matter? she protested.
It is a secret, then? he coldly asked.
No; I have promised to marry Lord Wenderby.
Lord Wenderby, he echoed.
The name tore savagely at his heart, wounding him into jealousy and distrust. He was all blind passion now. Wenderby sprang to his eye, as he had stood darkly beside Lady Mary at the theatre. He saw, redly, in his galloping mind, his shining angel—now a beautiful woman he had exquisitely touched—possessed by another.
Turn to me, Lady Mary.
It was a command, and she obeyed. She bravely met his burning look, but she did not know how unendurable it had become. It searched and denounced her. Her eyes failed.
You do not love Lord Wenderby.
Now he accused her. She collected her mind for a defence.
It is not so simple as that, she pleaded.
You do not love him, he repeated.
She drew herself erect and faced him.
You must not speak like that, she said. "You are talking wildly. I tell you again this is not a simple thing."
Love is a simple thing, he rudely countered.
You are disappointing me, Peter.
The pain in her eyes for a moment arrested his passion. He stood away from her, and grasped at his vanishing peace. Lady Mary perceived his effort, and appealed once more to the boy who had so suddenly leaped out of her knowledge.
You will listen to me, Peter! she urged.
He stood silently waiting to hear what she had to say. She spoke quickly, running from the breaking storm in his eyes:
I am quite content to be the wife of Lord Wenderby. I have always liked him and admired him. Six months ago he asked me if I would help him to join us politically. I have used my influence to bring him over. This pledges me to work with him.
Does it pledge you to be his wife?
That is understood.
So Lord Wenderby has been bribed, Peter flashed.
He looked at her cold and hostile. His thwarted pride of possession in Lady Mary stirred a cruelty he had never known.
Between love and anger she cried to him:
This is not worthy of you, Peter.
But Peter's mind was busy now elsewhere. He was putting time and fact together.
Lord Wenderby arranged for this six months ago, he suggested.
He asked me to be his wife six months ago.
Now he stabbed at her again:
You have let me love the promised wife of Lord Wenderby for six months.
No, she sharply corrected him; "I answered him yesterday."
But you had this in your mind? Peter insisted.
Lady Mary was too deeply grieved for dignity or anger.
I am on my defence, it seems, she said, suddenly weary of their fruitless talk.
You have made me your judge, he bitterly retorted. "Why else do you tell me these things?"
I wanted you to understand.
I shall never understand.
Lady Mary looked at Peter, and saw the face of an enemy.
We will put an end to this, she said. "It is useless."
She moved to dismiss him. Peter saw her passing to another.
He took her by the arm, harshly.
You cannot so easily be rid of me.
I do not know you, Peter, she protested, drawing away from him.
He released her as to the troubled surface of his mind there came an impulse of his old devotion.
How can you do this thing? he asked in a burst of grief. "You were the angel of my life."
Her pride sank at this.
Peter, be just to me, she said. "This is a sacrifice."
He caught at the word, and returned to his old refrain.
Sacrifice! You do not love Lord Wenderby.
I shall be his wife. I am content to work with him.
Lord Wenderby is old, said Peter brutally. "He has bribed you to give him all your beautiful years."
She shrank from the climbing rhetoric of his passion.
It is infamous, he almost shouted.
Lady Mary flung back the challenge.
It is my appointed work. I shall work with Lord Wenderby for all I hold dear. I am going to live as Eustace Haversham died. Cannot you realise that this is required of me? I cannot choose only for myself. You must understand me, Peter. I can only endure this if you will believe that I am doing what is right.
Peter was obstinate.
I do not believe it, he said. "It is a terrible mistake."
Once you believed, she reminded him.
I believed in you.
She faced him, queenly now, as when Peter had worshipped her. His soul fell suddenly at her feet.
I still believe in you, he cried out. "I believe that you are too dear to be flung away."
I cannot value myself as you do.
You are giving yourself up, he said contemptuously, "so that your people for a few more years may live as we are living now."
So that we may for a few more years be allowed to work as we must, she corrected him.
Peter was silent. He had seen her justification, but his passion prompted him to put it away. Lady Mary now touched him to the quick.
You begin to see that I am right, she said, searching for his acquiescence.
I see nothing, he insisted. "I only see that I am losing you."
You make this very difficult, she said, trembling before the passion of his voice.
Difficult! He caught her by the arm. "Why should you care what I say or believe?"
She looked at his fingers imprinted in her flesh. She was weary and faint. She knew that love without reserve was confessed in her eyes.
You know that I care, Peter. Please let me go.
Peter leaned towards her. He wanted to see her face. She felt that in a moment she must yield the message shut under her lids. She desperately shook free of him and stood away. But Peter read the deep flush of her neck and the motion she made to suppress the labour of her breath. She superbly filled his eyes against a background that had grown dim. He caught at her.
My darling, he suddenly cried out, "I cannot let you go."
She felt the blood rushing to cover her.
On your honour, Peter.
For a moment he was checked. "Tell me again to leave you," he said.
She faced him, and her eyes were fast held. He read the whole of her secret. In a flash his arms were about her.
You cannot tell me to go.
She rested helplessly. Peter held her with a fierce pride. He would not surrender her. She closed her eyes upon a whispered entreaty as he touched her lips. He felt the stir of her heart, and the jealousy of possession utterly claimed him. Something wild and cruel lit in him. He kissed her upon the face and neck. She felt them as the kisses of mere hunger, and she suddenly rebelled.
Peter, you dishonour me. Her voice smote into him a revelation. Already the passion had gone out of him. It had died in the act of touching her. He knew what he had done; he was utterly ashamed. His arms fell away from her. He stood with bent head waiting for her decree.
I will write to you, Peter.
He accepted his dismissal, turning without a word. Lady Mary heard that the door had closed. She stood silently for a moment. Then, all that evening, she lay back in her chair stone still. Her eyes were tight shut; but at long intervals a tear was forced from under her lids, and fell insensibly.
Peter blundered away into the streets, an outcast. He walked furiously about, getting in the way of people who looked for pleasure.
He lived again the late encounter. Remotely he saw himself quietly at the feet of Lady Mary, before he had lost his happy peace. Then the storm was loose, and he saw her merely as one to be desired and held. Finally, his imagination inexorably came full circle in the cold shame with which he had left her. He repeated continually the moment when his kisses had gone out, and he knew them for the vulgar gust of his jealousy. Their passion had not been true. Lady Mary had cried in bitter verity. They dishonoured her.
Was all the story equally a falsehood? Peter dipped for assurance back into the quiet past. He floated again with Lady Mary under a dying sky, and saw her unattainably fair, with a hand that quietly rested under his. Surely this had been wonderful. Not even the stain of his brutal hunger for her dedicated beauty could destroy it.
Why, then, did he so certainly know that his passion to-night was evil? His conscience, bringing him to a reckoning, told him that he did not love her. There was a rift, not to be closed, between his adoration of Lady Mary and the passion with which he had thought to claim her. He put Wenderby aside, and asked himself whether he could ever have taken her by right of a vital need. His imagination would not allow him to do so. He could only see himself for ever kneeling, or delicately touching her as an exquisite privilege. He could not again repeat the physical claim. Mere coveting had prompted it. The soul had perished on his lips.
How instantly she had read the quality of his act. Every beat of the quick moment of his taking her was minutely divided in his memory. He felt again her surrender, her expectation of the kiss she could not deny—the farewell moment of her youth to be expiated in years of sacrifice. Then suddenly she had rebelled, feeling the soul go out of him, protesting against her dishonour.
Peter quailed to think how he had tortured her. He knew now that Lady Mary loved him. She had been outraged where most she was virginal.
For a moment Peter caught at a hope that yet the mysterious rift might close between the soul and body of his love. Must he always be thus divided? Was he never to know a perfect passion where the blood ran in obedient rapture to celebrate the meeting of two in one? He remembered the beautiful girl he had tracked on a summer night, to shrink from taking her because his spirit was her enemy. Now that he in spirit loved Lady Mary—he insistently fought through to-day's murk back to his adoration—he was still divided. His moment of hope died out. He had no right to Lady Mary. He could not passionately claim her. His passion would fail again, as to-night it had failed, leaving only the senses to be fed.
He did not love her. Brutally it came to that. Lady Mary must take the way she had herself appointed. She could not be asked to put away the work of her life in return for a worship that fed upon the air, or for a hunger that seized on a vanishing feast. Himself he felt entirely in her hands. He hoped to be forgiven, and accepted as the witness of her dedicated life. But he did not expect it, or make a claim.
He reached Curzon Street at ten o'clock, and found his mother returned from dining out. Mrs. Paragon now had her own friends. She quietly came and went, usually not asking how Peter fared. All his time was taken up with Lady Mary, and with Lady Mary she left the issue in perfect trust. But to-night she was startled from her assurance. Peter, unaware that he betrayed himself, had the face of a soul newly admitted to damnation.
What has happened to you, Peter? she asked.
Nothing, mother.
She came to him where he had flung himself into a chair beside the fire.
Has Lady Mary sent you away?
Peter stared at her in amazement. He had never talked of Lady Mary. But he always accepted his mother's mysterious knowledge.
She is soon to be married, mother.
Lord Wenderby?
This was more than Peter could accept.
You know that also? he exclaimed.
I saw Lord Wenderby one day in these rooms, said his mother quietly. "I knew he was in love with Lady Mary."
Peter looked keenly at his mother.
You are sure he loves her? he asked.
Quite.
I should be happy to believe that. It gives him a better claim.
Better than your own? said his mother. She was at last surprised.
I have no claim at all. I do not love Lady Mary.
He was quaintly wretched. His mother almost smiled. She saw a light in the cloud, but it puzzled her. Would he then have preferred to love Lady Mary and to lose her?
Tell me what has happened, she said. "I don't understand. You do not love Lady Mary—is that your trouble?"
She told me of Lord Wenderby, Peter obediently answered, "and I was mad at the idea of losing her. I grasped at her. I was like a wild beast."
But you do not love her, Mrs. Paragon persisted.
It was not love made me behave like that. It was brutal. I had no true passion at all. I disgusted her.
Mrs. Paragon suddenly rose.
What has Lady Mary said? How did she part from you?
Peter looked at her in wonder. What was his mother going to do now?
She said she would write, he answered. "Her eyes were closed."
Mrs. Paragon saw that this was not Peter's tragedy. She could leave him to his remorse.
Give me my cloak, Peter.
Where are you going?
Mrs. Paragon ignored his question.
What is Lady Mary doing now? she asked.
She promised to wait for Antony. The division to-night is at eleven o'clock.
Mrs. Paragon looked at the clock.
It is now half-past ten. Call me a cab, Peter.
You are going to her?
Of course.
On the way to Arlington Street Mrs. Paragon saw the radiant figure of the woman, to whom she had trusted Peter, in dreadful eclipse. She passed without a word Lady Mary's protesting servant, and went directly to her room. Lady Mary still lay with closed eyes where she had been struck down. Mrs. Paragon moved quietly towards her, and gathered her like a child. She opened her eyes, accepting Peter's mother with a clasp of the hand.
You have seen Peter? she quietly asked.
He has just come home. He says he has for ever offended you.
Lady Mary smiled.
I will send him a word to-night, she said. "I have just been trying to understand. I think I shall soon be happy. I know now that Peter does not love me. That makes it so much easier."
He worships you, Mrs. Paragon insisted.
Can that be restored?
More than ever now. I am sure he would want me to tell you that.
Lady Mary raised herself from Mrs. Paragon's shoulder and looked at her.
I cannot yet measure this breach in Peter. He has loved me from the moment we came together at Highbury. But to-night I was humbled. There was no love at all. I cannot now believe that Peter will ever truly love. There is a rift.
You are wrong, said Peter's mother.
Mrs. Paragon told Lady Mary how lately she had watched beside him as he wandered in an empty house. Lady Mary heard the story of Miranda.
I think he is wandering still, concluded Peter's mother.
You should have found this girl, said Lady Mary.
Mrs. Paragon paused a moment.
I have tried, she said at last.
Can't she be traced?
You remember the great liner that went down four years ago? She was not on the list of people saved.
When did you discover this?
I inquired shortly after Peter's illness.
Lady Mary thought a little.
Perhaps it is better so, she said after a pause.
Why do you say that?
Peter has surely grown away from these people. He would not have found his dream.
A shutting door warned Lady Mary that her brother had returned. She rose from the settee, and went to the writing table. When she had finished her few lines, she gave them to Mrs. Paragon, who, asking Lady Mary with a look, was invited to read them:
"Peter,—I beg you not to distress yourself. I am determined to forget what happened this evening, and I rely on you not to brood on things which are finished. You know now that I am more than ever right to become the wife of Lord Wenderby. I want you to meet me without awkwardness or self-reproach. There is no need for one or the other. Nothing has changed.
"I am sending this by your dear mother.
"Mary."
Mrs. Paragon handed back the sheet.
You are kind, she said.
I have nothing to resent.
She sealed the letter, and addressed it. "When Peter has got over his remorse, you will bring him back," she suggested.
His remorse is too keen to last, Mrs. Paragon said quite simply. She did not intend to be critical.
Lady Mary kissed Mrs. Paragon tenderly.
It was beautiful of you to come, she whispered.
Peter was waiting for his mother, and met her anxiously at the door. Lady Mary's letter acted as she intended. It was a dash of water upon the fires of his despair. Reading her collected sentences, he could hardly believe he had seen love and pain unutterable in her eyes. She was, in her letter, restored to serenity as one to be remotely worshipped. An added majesty had crowned her. She was dedicated to a great historic part. Already as Mrs. Paragon returned, the news was spread from waiting presses that the Government had fallen. They screamed it in the street below. Now that his personal passion was out of the way, Peter began to see these issues in a large and national perspective. He remembered Haversham's vibrant wish that he might have had some share in this event—the event of which Lady Mary was motive and queen.
Peter's recovery was rapid. Alternately the week through he wavered between the remorse of one who had erred unspeakably and the exultation of one still privileged to witness the flight of an angel. Then, one bright morning, he discovered that these extremes had vanished in a quiet sense, that a chapter of his life had closed. Rapture was going out of his late adventure, making way for a steady sense that Lady Mary was very admirable and an excellent friend.
After a few days spent mostly with his mother, he was enough in tune with Lady Mary's letter to visit her in Arlington Street. Wenderby was waiting for her, and, before she came down to them, they were a few moments together. Peter was surprised at the cordiality of his feelings for the man he had so long distrusted. Wenderby had an instinct for meeting people in their own way. He at once saw the change in Peter.
I think you know of my engagement? he said abruptly.
Has Lady Mary told you everything? Peter asked.
Not everything, Wenderby answered with a faint smile. "I have inferred the greater part."
You will be very proud of her, said Peter impulsively.
You believe that I understand my good fortune?
Lady Mary came in as they spoke. Peter was astonished at the ease with which they talked together of small things. He tranquilly withdrew at the end of a few moments. Lady Mary was frank and free. She seemed entirely at peace. There had not been a sign of effort in her friendly greeting.
In the following months Peter realised to what extent his late devotion to Lady Mary had filled him. Now that she was only one of his best friends, he was at first vacant of enthusiasm. Then he began to discover all kinds of neglected ties with people whom before he had hardly noticed. Ostensibly Lady Mary was still supreme, but, curiously as it seemed to Peter, though her sacrifice and the wonder of her great career set her higher in his admiration, it had made this admiration less tremulously personal. The ecstasy had gone out of it. It no longer shut out the undistinguished world. He discovered now that he had other friends; that he was liked by some of them; that their liking was gratifying and merited some small return.
Since Haversham had been claimed by his public and hereditary life, Peter had become attached to a frequent visitor at Arlington Street.
James Atterbury was a young and successful caricaturist who had also written and produced several plays. His activities were financially unnecessary, so that in a sense he was an amateur. He was socially popular, and Peter met him everywhere. Gradually he had taken Haversham's place. Like Haversham, he was tolerant and urbane. He had long abandoned those visions which now were driving Peter restlessly from day to day. He was a cheerful man of pleasure, living for all that was agreeable and could be decently enjoyed. He had watched, with respectful irony, Peter's absorbed devotion to Lady Mary, and had keenly speculated as to how it would end. When the end came, Haversham plainly hinted that Atterbury would do well to help Peter recover an early interest in people and things.
Certainly, Atterbury had said. "I'm rehearsing a new play at the Vaudeville. Peter shall attend."
Is that adequate, do you think?
Yes, Tony. Rehearsing a play is the most distracting thing in the world.
So Peter, plunged into a new atmosphere, sat for hours upon the small stage at the Vaudeville watching, with growing interest and amusement, the pulling together of a mixed company.
It's like a children's party, Atterbury told him. "At present we are a little shy, but soon it will be a bear-garden. They will forget that I am the author, to be loved and respected. By the time we are ready for the public, I shan't be on speaking terms with anybody."
Except Vivette, suggested Peter, looking towards Atterbury's principal lady.
You've noticed Vivette?
I've noticed you always give way to her.
Not always.
Usually, then.
Usually she is right. She is really improving my play.
Peter looked with greater interest at the vivacious young woman now holding the stage. She was full of vitality, which somehow she shared with all who acted with her. As soon as she left the stage, life went out of the performance.
What is her name? Peter asked.
Formally you may call her Mademoiselle Claire.
French?
Every country in the world.
At this point the rehearsal again became animated. Atterbury was soon fighting to be heard. The dispute was at last arranged, and he returned to Peter.
Vivette has been looking at you, Peter, he said as the play began to go smoothly again.
How do you know?
Because she has told me.
What did she say?
She asked for the name of my solemn friend.
Anybody looks solemn beside you, Peter grumbled.
He resentfully examined his companion. Atterbury was roseate and sanguine; but he looked at Peter as gravely as he could.
I hope you are not hankering after the admiration of Vivette, he said. "She isn't safe."
What do you mean? asked Peter.
She looks upon everything nice in life as a sort of sugar-plum. If she likes you, Peter, she will eat you.
You mean she is a wicked woman?
Not at all, twinkled Atterbury. "I mean she is a small child who happens to be greedy. She would think no more harm of making a hearty meal of your ingenuous self than I should of swallowing an oyster."
Vivette slipped from the imaginary door of a room that did not exist—they were rehearsing without scenery—and came to them before they were aware.
You have shocked your friend, she said to Atterbury, looking at Peter. Peter angrily composed his protesting face, as Atterbury presented him.
Peter Paragon is easily shocked, Atterbury said. "I hope you did not hear what we were talking about?"
No.
It was harmless, Atterbury assured her.
Do tell me, she pleaded. "I don't often hear anything harmless."
Impossible.
Wasn't it to do with oysters? Let's go to lunch. We shan't make any way this morning.
They lunched together. It was an agreeable triangle; but Atterbury, with amusement, saw he would soon be unnecessary. Peter, in reaction from the emotional strain of his last adventure, found in Vivette a pleasant holiday. Peter consented with Vivette to relieve the dignity and stress of life upon the heroic plane. He came to delight in the quick gleam of her eyes.
The eyes of Vivette were brown, easily lighting, but shallow. They flickered into fun, and went suddenly out. They could never be passionate or deep, but they talked with him, and drew him to admire the play of her lips, slightly full, the life and light of her face; the sudden tale of her blood which came and went at a word or gesture.
She did everything with an equal enthusiasm. She had the mimic soul to catch at every mood. She was born a player. Life was a quick succession of happy parts. She stepped from her r?le on the stage into the r?le she happened to be playing in the world.
Soon she was playing the happy comrade of Peter. He soon attended rehearsals regularly without prompting from Atterbury, and Atterbury usually made excuses to send them away to a friendly lunch. Atterbury was unable to resist the comedy of seeing them together. They inspired the most famously cruel of his social caricatures. Peter looked forlornly innocent beside her. Cytherea's Pilgrim, Atterbury named him. His simplicity and perpetual fervour aggravated the lightness of Vivette. In Atterbury's penetrating eye, each made a caricature of the other. It was a sense of this which threw them more and more closely together. Each was determined to touch the other and to make a proselyte. Peter wanted to be taken seriously by Vivette. Vivette wanted to see Peter come down from his golden throne.
Peter watched the first performance of the play from a box with his mother. Later he attended, without his mother, a supper party in the rooms of Vivette—a rambling flat among the chimneypots of Soho. She was bright with laughter and success, and Peter frowned to observe how easily she caught the mood of her company. He felt he would like to say or do something to bring depth into her eyes.
Peter and Atterbury were the last to leave, and they sat for a while to enjoy a friendly conversation. Vivette curled herself up.
This is heavenly, she purred. "I simply love peace and quietness."
I've noticed it, said Peter bitterly, surveying a litter of empty champagne bottles on the table behind them.
Don't, Peter. You are spoiling the beautiful silence. Besides, your views are all wrong. The only people who really understand peace and quietness are people who also like a jolly good racket. We get it both ways.
You always do, said Atterbury. "Life is the art of getting it both ways—eh, Vivette?"
Not worth living, grunted Peter.
That's your ignorance, Peter, said Vivette. Her eyes suggested a wicked godmother. "I don't know what's going to become of Peter," she added confidentially to Atterbury.
You are really anxious?
Naturally. Peter's a temptation to all of us. He is so aggressively pure.
You, at any rate, are safe, Atterbury audaciously hoped.
For the time being, Vivette reassured him, "if Peter will only smile now and then. But he mustn't go on wearing his beautiful character like a medal."
Peter had bounded to the far end of the sofa. Now he rose, offering to go.
You want to discuss me, he said.
It doesn't matter, thank you; but if you really must— Vivette held out her hand politely. Peter smacked it suddenly. Then he sat down again.
What a wicked child, said Vivette, turning again to Atterbury. "Did you ever see such a temper? It's a curious thing about me," she added, discussing an interesting problem in character, "every man I have anything to do with sooner or later wants to hit me."
Men like to be taken seriously.
You never want to be taken seriously, do you, Jimmy?
I am not a typical man, retorted Atterbury.
My men are never typical, said Vivette. "I hate typical men. I'm sure Peter isn't typical."
He'll get there some day, Atterbury assured her.
Not as far as that, she quickly hoped.
For the first time Peter detected a note of sincerity in her. He turned and found her jealously perusing him. He faintly coloured, and this time he really went.
After he had left them, Vivette and Atterbury looked intelligently at one another.
I really mean it, she said at last. "I shouldn't like Peter to be a typical man."
It will depend on his luck.
You mean he must fall into the right hands?
When he does fall.
He looked at her keenly, and she coloured under his inspection.
He mustn't fall into the hands of a nasty woman, she said.
You would rather take him yourself? Atterbury thoughtfully suggested.
Sometimes, Jimmy, you are too familiar.
I'm sorry, said Atterbury, beginning to look for his hat. "Let me thank you again for your beautiful acting. You saved my play to-night."
In the coming months Peter met many of the friends of Vivette. He at once became enthusiastic, and insisted to Atterbury that they were much maligned by superior people. Atterbury agreed.
They're the best-hearted people in the world, he said—"quite perfect if you don't have to do business with them."
So genuine, Peter exclaimed.
Very genuine, Atterbury echoed. "They always mean what they say. Of course they never mean the same thing for two days. But that only makes them more interesting."
He looked, as he said this, hard at Peter, and Peter flushed, knowing how justly he himself might be classed with enthusiastic people who change and range with the time. Why had he suddenly lost interest in the friends of Haversham and Lady Mary? He simply did not want to go on with them. He was caught up in this other set, and at heart he knew that his pleasure in these strangers was a dereliction. Their charm was superficial, their posturing was frequently half-bred. He realised that he was declining, through weariness, to a less excellent carriage of himself. He was unhappy and restless—tired enough to take and enjoy the second best.
Atterbury's play lived through the summer and the autumn season. It outlived many great events—among them a general election which put in the Tories, and the marriage of Lady Mary with Lord Wenderby, then First Lord of the Admiralty.
As Peter stood in St. Margaret's watching the ceremony he could hardly believe that he had ever had a part in this great affair. It seemed that lately he had gradually come down to a pleasant valley. It was incredible that he had ever breathed high air with the radiant woman who now was the wife of the most powerful man in England.
Lady Mary's marriage made Peter think. Already Vivette was an obsession, serious enough to be noticed by his friends, and to interfere with his work. Peter began to be frightened, and secretly ashamed. His last years seemed all to be bound up with women. Was he never to be free of his foolish sensibility? Was he to fall helplessly from figure to figure as opportunity called him? There was work to do, but his fancy was perpetually caught and held in one monotonous lure.
Lady Mary had shown him there were other ends to follow than a personal and perfect mating. He was beginning to feel haunted. There was a murk in his brain—into which thoughts sometimes intruded which he found, in clear moments, to be shabby. They prompted him intimately towards Vivette. Perhaps it would give him peace if once for all he pricked the bubble of his expectation. Why should he not test this vision; pierce rudely in, and pass on? Sex was not all, and if here he fell short of perfection, it was no great matter. He could leave that dream behind, no longer urged about it in a weary circle.
He felt at first that this impulse towards weak submission was treason to a secret part of himself that seemed to be waiting, seemed also to know that perfection would come and must find him virginal. But this feeling was less strong with the passing time. He came more and more to cherish the idea of Vivette. Her changing eyes became his only mirror wherein to look for an answer to his question, and when he did not find the answer he began stormily to wonder whether their cryptic shallows might not surrender the secret he desired if adventurously he dived deep enough.
This mood always found and left him deeply out of heart. It was part of a general feeling that he was gradually breaking down. Sometimes, in defence, it flung him to an extreme of carefully induced exaltation. When temptation whispered that Vivette was a pleasant creature, and would allow his love, he insisted, to justify his impulse to take her, that surely she must perfectly be his mate. His unconquerable idealism, weakened and gradually beaten down, required that he should thus deceive himself.
Through the winter—Atterbury's play still lingered—they frequently spent Sunday evening together in her Soho flat. Vivette alternated between fits of extreme physical energy—when she took exercise in every discovered way—and complete inertia. Midwinter found her at the close of her hibernating—"lying fallow for the spring," she described it. She passed her Sundays curled up in a deep settee by the fire. Peter spent long, drowsy afternoons and evenings reading with her, dropping occasional words, eating light food prepared by a cook who understood that her mistress must on no account be served with anything which required her to sit upright. Peter, who earlier in the year had ridden, rowed, and played tennis with Vivette, did not in the least like her present habits.
Upon a Sunday evening in February he discontentedly began to wait on her at supper.
Dormouse, he called from the table, "what are you going to drink?"
To his surprise Vivette suddenly sat up:
Champagne to-night. I'm going to be full of beans. I shall do Swedish drill in the morning.
Not a day too soon, grumbled Peter. "I wonder you can stand it, eating butter and cream all day and lying on your back. You must have the liver of a horse."
You are right, she retorted. "People pretend to despise me for being lazy. It's envy, Peter. Everybody would be lazy in the winter if their health would stand it."
She pushed away a plate of delicate soufflé.
Not to-night, Peter. I'm going to eat some meat.
I often wonder about you, said Peter.
Really?
Do you do nothing with your whole heart, or everything?
Everything, said Vivette, with her mouth full.
I don't believe anything really touches you.
Peter was trying to be serious.
You are forgetting the champagne, she interrupted.
Peter went to the cupboard, brought out a bottle and exploded it.
Thank you, Peter. There's nothing in the world like the pop of a champagne cork. It makes me think.
Think? said Peter, with his nose in the air.
Yes, she insisted. "It makes me think how nothing matters at all, or how everything matters tremendously. I don't know which."
I hate champagne, said Peter viciously.
Of course.
Why 'of course'?
There's something which doesn't fit in your popping a champagne cork. It's like laughing in church.
Champagne is vulgar. It's only good for a bean-feast.
You're going to have some, I suppose? She looked at him in a way that spoke between the lines of her question.
Peter hated the challenge of her light inquiry. He wanted to deepen it. In many small ways Vivette had held herself out to Peter, but she did not seem to care what he would do.
He poured himself some wine and drank to her.
This is excellent champagne, he said brightly. Then he drooped. "It isn't my stuff," he added.
I love it. Pop—and it's all over.
It goes flat in the glass.
Just for a moment it's perfect.
The present, I suppose, is all that matters? said Peter, heavily censorious.
Why not? she slanted her amusement at Peter, and delicately crushed the bubbles of her wine.
Have you ever taken anything seriously in your life? asked Peter.
I have never inquired.
Her eyes flickered. Their wavering light exasperated his desire to move her deeply, to hold for a moment her nimble spirit that ran at a touch like quicksilver. She felt his rising passion, and her mimic soul responded under the surface of her laughter. She did not stir when Peter came near and took her by the shoulders. Her eyes were still the familiar changing shallows. They raised in Peter an ambition to see them deepen and burn.
I would like to see you really meaning something, he said, tightening his grip upon her. "You are only a reflection. I want to see your own light shining."
Is this a poem, Peter? Or are you trying to save my soul?
Would she never be serious? Peter was angry and miserable. His late brooding came to a point. He wanted to touch Vivette, and he wanted an excuse. He could not play her light game of pleasure without insisting that it was something more.
Vivette saw the pain in his eyes. More gravely than she had yet spoken she said to him:
I might be very real, if only you believed it.
He bent eagerly towards her:
I am going to kiss you, Vivette.
Her eyes did not change. They were evasive still. Peter held her small face between his palms—the face of a happy child, with pleasure visibly in store. He had agreeably stirred her light senses. He turned abruptly away.
There is no feeling in you, he said.
Do you expect me to faint away?
I want you to care.
Perhaps I do.
You really care?
I care in my own way.
They sat together by the fire, and Peter held her lightly beside him. This was no conquest, or rapture of intimacy. He could not believe that he had really moved her. The more he grew alive to her physical presence and the implication of her surrender, the more he desired a guarantee that their love should be permanent and true. He wanted an assurance that this adventure was not ignoble. He wanted again to be justified.
He grew every instant more sensible of their intimacy. He tried to persuade himself that this was the real and perfect thing; that the stir of his senses, under which he weakly drooped, was the call of two passionate hearts. He wavered absurdly. Once he suffered an impulse to take Vivette brutally, without disguise, as an offered pastime. Then he shrank from so immediate a declension from his vanishing idealism, and inwardly clamoured that he loved her. There he ultimately fixed his mind. He looked at Vivette and found in her an increasing gravity. She was becoming aware of Peter's trouble. She was beginning to understand it, and to be seriously concerned. But Peter mistook her dawning compassion. He caught eagerly at the sober spirit which now possessed her. He suddenly heard himself propose to her.
Will you marry me, Vivette?
He saw the laughter leap into her eyes; but, even as he shrank, it passed, and they lit with affectionate pity.
Peter, she said very gently, "do you know what you are talking about?"
I have asked you to marry me.
Of course not.
You do not care enough? he suggested.
I care enough to-night. But there is next year and the year after that.
I want to be sure that this is serious, said Peter, with clenched hands.
Of course it is. It is more serious than I thought anything could be.
Clearly she was now in earnest. Even Peter might have found her adequate. But he had now committed himself deeply to the proof he required. He knew it was at bottom indefensible—that he was merely trying to build a refuge for his self-respect.
If you really cared for me, he persisted, "you would not refuse to marry me."
Marriage is not my way, she protested.
I ask you with my whole soul.
Your whole soul? She smiled a little, but added gravely:
You make things very difficult. This shows how badly you want to be looked after.
What do you mean?
Don't you see how easily I might play up to you? Do you think it would be very difficult for an actress like me to love you 'with my whole soul' and win you altogether on my own terms?
You mean, Peter flashed at her, "that you might easily pretend."
It would not be difficult, she said, a little sadly.
Vivette was feeling unlike herself. She was now unselfishly solicitous for Peter. She saw how helpless he was, restless and curious of life, ever more firmly held by one idea. She pictured him falling to some woman, hot and unscrupulous, who would coarsely tear the veil he fastidiously desired to lift, and for ever destroy for him the nobility of passion.
But Peter cut into her thoughts.
Are you changing your mind? he asked abruptly.
No, Peter. I am only thinking.
Then it is good-bye.
He moved towards the door. Vivette saw him passing out of her keeping. She saw him stumbling forward to disillusion and possible disgust. She could not let him go like that. She was zealous that his adventure should not end wholly in disaster.
Out of sudden pity she called to him.
Peter!
He paused at the door but did not turn.
She collected her courage. Surely it would be better for Peter, then and there, to end. Her spirit was alive to him. It would be an episode, but it would not be sordid. She saw a hundred ways in which Peter might fare so immeasurably worse. For an instant she shrank from the ordeal. She would have to sink her pride and solicit him. It was a bitter part for Vivette. The words dropped from her low and quiet.
You may stay with me to-night.
Peter turned uncertainly. She saw his face like a beaten flame. He had yet to realise what she was saying.
We are alone, Peter. You may stay with me here. I ask you to stay.
Now the flame spread in his face unchecked. She had dropped the veil, and he was driven towards her.
You can do this, Vivette, and yet you will not marry me.
To-night.
For ever.
For ever a memory—with nothing to regret.
Peter desperately kissed her, but with his climbing luxury his will climbed also, and his spirit cried out again for a justification. Like a refrain he repeated:
This means you will marry me.
No.
He returned wearily to his point.
You do not care enough, he persisted.
You tell me that, she cried, "after what I have said to you!"
She broke from him, and Peter knew he was far astray. But he shut himself from this better knowledge. He gave himself up to his fixed idea.
I do not understand you. Prove to me that you care.
I have proved it.
An easy proof.
Peter hated himself for this angry stab at her. She went pale.
I did not mean it, he cried at once.
A light woman lightly offered, she said, interpreting his reproach.
No.
He sank beside her in an agony of penitence. But she drew away from him, and he accepted her decision. There could be no more love to-night. The pallor had not left her face, and it struck into Peter a sense of enormous guilt. Again she pitied him.
Come to me here to-morrow, she said. "I want to talk to you."
She held out her hand to him. He clasped it good night and left her.
Peter, away from Vivette, knew only that he had wronged her. He did not understand exactly how he had transgressed. He could not read her conduct at all. Her strange lapse into sincerity simply puzzled him. She had seemed, at the moment when she had put herself into his hands, protective and thoughtful.
Peter knew her impulse was rooted in honour. He exaggerated the evil of his graceless words, treading the familiar way of abasement and remorse. He now desired only to be pardoned. He called upon her at an early hour.
Vivette had spent the time wondering at depths in herself unsuspected. Hitherto her life had run a career of adventurous and impulsive hedonism. She had loved easily, and easily taken the thing she desired. She only asked of life that delicacy and fair play should not be offended. She did not understand virtue. Her principle had always been lightly to take the way of least resistance. Now, suddenly from somewhere, sprang a devoted altruism—a passionate resolution that another should see life beautifully open its treasure.
Her impulse had been to save Peter from sordidly failing. She had not acted from jealousy. She had never less been sensually led than when she had entreated Peter. Her lips curved in contemplation of a discovered irony in things. Peter had urged her to be serious. Very well: Peter should that day be made to realise how serious she could be. She had decided to talk to him frankly. She would not repeat her offer or allow it now to be accepted. She was glad that it had the previous evening miscarried. She had thought of a better way. Peter must be made to understand his condition.
She did not admit that her offer had been wrongly made. Peter's adventure would not with her have ended perfectly; but neither would it have ended in a fruition merely brutal. She realised how gradually he was losing grip of himself, and saw him soon as tinder for any woman with brains and a high temperature. She saw him slipping his self-respect. She would last night have saved him from the worst. There was friendliness and grace enough between them to justify their passion. But Vivette was now differently inspired. Surely Peter could be braced and stiffened. He was not yet attacked in his will. He was merely blind and drifting, perhaps unaware of his trouble.
He found her sitting, an image of graven severity, curiously out of tune with her cheerful room. He felt like a schoolboy called to repeat a lesson in which he had failed to satisfy.
I have offended you, he tragically began.
But Vivette intended to be strictly sensible.
That is what I want to talk about, she said, very matter-of-fact. "I don't think you understand what happened last night. I am going to tell you."
Peter was puzzled. She was not Vivette of the shallow eyes. He caught her hands to draw her towards him, but she firmly resisted.
No, Peter. Sit still and listen to what I have to say.
Peter flung himself, evilly discontented, in a far corner of the settee.
You always wanted me to be serious, said Vivette, looking at him with some amusement. "But it does not seem to please you."
Peter could not at once recover from his rejected tenderness, but he felt he was behaving badly again. He contrived to put a little grace into his manner.
I will listen, he said briefly.
Tell me, Vivette began, "what are you supposed to be doing with yourself?"
Doing with myself? he echoed. Already he was conscious of her drift.
You never talk of your work.
I am reading for the Bar.
What does that mean? she smiled. Vivette had met these young barristers.
I shall soon be called.
Till then, you will be waiting for work.
You are interested? Peter inquired with an effort to assume an innocent detachment.
Hasn't it occurred to you, Vivette persisted, "that you're in rather a bad way?"
He moved uncomfortably, then rushed to the point:
You mean I'm just loafing about?
You're not really interested in your work.
You are indeed serious, said Peter, again trying to make light of her catechism. "Aren't you overdoing it?"
Vivette sharply rebuked him, and he did not again interrupt. She held to him an unflattering mirror in which he saw an image of himself which frightened him. He was rich. He had nothing particular to do. He drifted about, meeting elegant and attractive people—mostly women. Everywhere he unconsciously opened himself to one appeal. He was idle; and he was obsessed.
He struggled against this indictment. He even became angry. What did this talk of Vivette really mean? It meant that he desperately loved her.
This obsession you tell me of! he cried. "It is you."
For the time being, she shortly answered.
Always, he insisted.
It might easily be someone else. Think, Peter. Have you once been free during these last years?
Peter was silent.
What do you want me to say? he asked at last.
I want you to realise there are other things. You must not give way to this fixed idea.
Where before had Peter heard this? It seemed an echo. But he shut his ears.
I have only one fixed idea. It is to marry you. You are pleading against yourself, Vivette.
Put me out of account, she said sharply. "I have already refused."
They were again at the point where last night they had failed to agree.
Peter rose and walked to the end of the room and back to Vivette. He was beginning to measure her strength and subtlety, and they made it more difficult to lose her. His blood rose against the idea. He caught her roughly by the arm.
Suppose I cannot put all this away? Suppose it has to be really an episode?
Her arm tightened under his grip. She became cold and hostile.
I don't understand, she said.
Peter felt his mind twisting like a serpent:
Will you come back with me to last night?
You are talking nonsense. Put your head into your law-books, write plays, travel about—anything.
I want you, Vivette.
She rose, and stood dismissing him. "This is worse than I thought. You are ready to take the second best."
You are first and last.
Therefore, she lashed at him, "you want me for a mistress."
I have asked you to marry me.
Marriage would not be the truth.
Peter clenched his hands: "On any terms I must have you."
That is for me to say.
Peter looked at Vivette and found her inexorably set against him. Clearly she was not that day to be moved. His passion died, and her words went poignantly home. He released her arm. His increasing dejection prompted Vivette to soften the steel of her manner:
Cool yourself, Peter. Put me out of your mind. You are not looking for a mistress, and I want you to wait for the real thing.
To have you would be very real. You have proved already that you love me.
She saw again the serpent's head and crushed it.
I have loved before, she said deliberately. "Last night would have meant less to me than to you. Is that what you want?"
Peter cursed himself, and went.
Good-bye, Vivette called to him. "Next time we meet I expect you to be in a better mind."
Vivette now had leisure to be surprised at herself.
For the first time in her life she had refused something she really wanted. She decided that this was the limit of her generosity. She had refused Peter for herself, but at any rate no other woman should, without a title, pluck the fruit of her sacrifice. She would closely examine any claim on Peter which might be made.
It did not take Peter long to feel that Vivette was wholly right. He blushed to recall how he had justified her indictment by the way in which he had received it.
That evening he made a plan. He had called the immediate future to account, and found he had six months to spare without much prospect of being usefully absorbed.
I must get away from all this, he decided.
At the end of an evening spent restlessly at home, he startled Mrs. Paragon with the prospect of six months on the high seas.
We will have a yacht, he told her. "I want to learn all about sailing. We'll go right away."
Mrs. Paragon calmly considered this. She was alarmed for Peter, though she did not know the extent of his last infatuation. Peter had instinctively kept Vivette out of his conversation. His mother and Vivette moved in different circles, and they had not yet met. Mrs. Paragon only knew that Peter had recently become profoundly interested in the theatre. Nevertheless Mrs. Paragon perceived as clearly as Vivette how things were with him.
Where do you think of going? She showed no surprise at his sudden idea.
Anywhere, said Peter vaguely.
When do you think of starting?
Immediately.
Mrs. Paragon realised that something had happened.
This is very sudden, she suggested.
I've been thinking, mother.
Is that all? Mrs. Paragon inquired, quite innocent of any desire to be satirical. She merely asked.
I ought to be doing something, Peter explained. "I know all this law stuff by heart. I'm sick of London."
I thought you were so interested in everything.
No, mother.
Not in the theatre?
Again Mrs. Paragon merely asked.
That's over now, said Peter.
Mrs. Paragon reached at the heart of things in one sure gesture of the mind.
What has she said to you? she calmly inquired.
Peter stared in the manner of one whose thoughts are unexpectedly read.
I asked her to marry me.
She refused?
She wants me to think of something else.
Mrs. Paragon wondered a moment why an actress had refused. She also wondered whether the actress might not change her mind.
I will come with you, Peter, she said decisively.
Peter flung himself with ardour into the work of finding a boat and getting together a crew. His condition was well known to Atterbury, who persuaded Haversham to help him in getting Peter equipped. They hunted out a skipper in Havre whose quality they knew, Atterbury going to interview and bring him over. It was decided they should sail immediately.
Vivette was soberly pleased at the success of her one good action.
I've ordered Peter into the South Seas, she told Atterbury. "I think he'll be safe from the brown ladies."
It was arranged that Peter should give a farewell dinner. Atterbury insisted on the Savoy, and tactfully picked a day when the Wenderbys were to be out of town. He frankly discussed the position over Mrs. Paragon's dinner-table in Curzon Street. Vivette was there—accepted by Mrs. Paragon with large reserve.
We want all Peter's friends, he said, "except those who cannot be present. It will be an advantage if Lady Mary is far away. She doesn't go at all well with Vivette."
Agreed, said Vivette. "She would snuff me out. This is to be my feast. I hardly know whether I ought to allow Mrs. Paragon," she added.
Nonsense, said Mrs. Paragon shortly.
But it isn't nonsense, persisted Vivette. "I shall simply disappear beside you."
Then you must make up your mind to it, said Atterbury. "I'm arranging this dinner, and I must have Mrs. Paragon. I have given up Lady Mary."
We ought to have Lady Mary on the mantelpiece, said Vivette. "She'd go so well with the china."
Envy, Atterbury retorted. "You say that because you can't sit still, and haven't a decent feature in your face."
Lady Mary is the most beautiful woman in the world, Peter solemnly intervened.
Hark to the oracle, cried Vivette.
He's not far wrong, said Atterbury. "My heart always beats a little faster when she comes suddenly round the corner in a crush."
Her mouth is all wrong.
Glass houses, Vivette—you've nothing but your figure and the noise you make.
You agree with Peter?
Not entirely. Lady Mary's good for a queen.
She's the most beautiful woman in the world, Peter insisted.
You're wrong, Peter. I saw the most beautiful woman in the world four days ago.
This is interesting, said Vivette.
It was in the boat from Havre. I saw at once how beautiful she was and looked after her. She is now at Claridge's and refuses to see me. I think she's from Brittany. Maddened by her extreme loveliness, I indiscreetly dreamed she might come to our dinner.
Just as we are sending Peter safely out of harm's way, exclaimed Vivette. "You must have lost your senses."
I have.
What is her name? Peter asked.
You see, said Vivette, "you have already excited the poor boy."
I have got her picture.
Is it a funny one? asked Vivette.
I'm more than a caricaturist. I made a sketch of her on deck when she wasn't looking. What do you think of her, Mrs. Paragon?
Mrs. Paragon took the sketch and quietly examined it.
I should like her to come to Peter's dinner, she said. "What is her name?"
Mdlle. Le Roy, said Atterbury.
Vivette looked at Mrs. Paragon in astonishment.
May I look? she asked. Mrs. Paragon handed her the sketch.
Yes, said Vivette, "she is certainly beautiful."
Atterbury turned to her:
She will be worse for you than Lady Mary.
That was my nonsense. I love a beautiful woman. She handed back the picture.
Peter hasn't seen it. He may not approve, she warned Atterbury.
I'm arranging this dinner, said Atterbury. "Still Peter may look."
I'll wait for the original, Peter growled.
Where do you say she is staying? said Peter's mother to Atterbury.
Atterbury wrote out the name and address on a card and gave it to Mrs. Paragon.
I see this is your affair, he said. "I rely on you."
Mrs. Paragon now took Vivette into the drawing-room. Peter and his friend talked yachting shop, and gave them time to become better acquainted.
Mrs. Paragon did not take kindly to Vivette, but she realised that, as a mother, she owed her something, and she tried to put away her distrust. They talked without reserve, so far as appearance went; but Vivette knew she was not admitted far. She ruefully accepted the inevitable. She did not understand at all why Mrs. Paragon had taken it into her head to bring a stranger into Peter's farewell. Mrs. Paragon mildly baffled her polite astonishment.
Is it quite fair to me? asked Vivette, still talking of Mdlle. Le Roy. "I think I deserve to be considered. I'm sending Peter away."
He will come back, said Mrs. Paragon briefly.
Safe and sound, Vivette put in.
Then you may change your mind.
I can be really serious in some ways.
There is a risk, Mrs. Paragon insisted.
Her obstinacy reminded Vivette of Peter at his worst.
There is always a risk, she protested. "You can't tie Peter up."
No: I can't tie Peter up, Mrs. Paragon agreed, shutting her lips.
Vivette tried to get in by another door.
Mdlle. Le Roy, she suggested, "is going to efface me."
Why should I wish it? Mrs. Paragon innocently inquired.
Perhaps you like the look of her.
I do.
Vivette sighed.
Peter won't have a very happy farewell, she said.
A week later Atterbury remembered his beautiful stranger only as a guest to be identified by a card upon the table. Peter had entirely forgotten her, and Vivette, looking forward to an evening of light pleasure, agreeably dashed with regret, did not take Mdlle. Le Roy into serious account.
The whole party was assembled in the Pinafore rooms at the Savoy, but Mrs. Paragon had not yet arrived. Peter had come early to approve the arrangements Atterbury had made, and had left his mother to follow by way of Claridge's. He was talking now with Haversham.
Vivette saw a light leap suddenly into Peter's eyes. He seemed like one confronted with a miracle.
This, Vivette bitterly concluded, "is love at first sight."
But Vivette was wrong. Peter's brain was dazzled as by lightning. A flood of forgotten life was loosed upon him out of the past. He was looking at Miranda.