CHAPTER XXXIV
COFFEE FOR ONE ONLY
The breaking up of Mr. Grex's luncheon-party was the signal for acertain amount of man[oe]uvring on the part of one or two of his guests.Monsieur Douaille, for instance, was anxious to remain the escort ofLady Hunterleys, whose plans for the afternoon he had ascertained wereunformed. Mr. Grex was anxious to keep apart his daughter and LadyWeybourne, whose relationship to Richard Lane he had only justapprehended; while he himself desired a little quiet conversation withMonsieur Douaille before they paid the visit which had been arranged forto the Club and the Casino. In the end, Mr. Grex was both successful andunsuccessful. He carried off Monsieur Douaille for a short ride in hisautomobile, but was forced to leave his daughter and Lady Weybournealone. Draconmeyer, who had been awaiting his opportunity, remained byLady Hunterleys' side.
"I wonder," he asked, "whether you would step in for a few minutes andsee Linda?"
She had been looking at the table where her husband and his companionhad been seated. Draconmeyer's voice seemed to bring her back to apresent not altogether agreeable.
"I am going back to my room for a little time," she replied. "I willcall in and see Linda first, if you like."
They left the restaurant together and strolled across the Square to theHotel de Paris, ascended in the lift, and made their way toDraconmeyer's suite of rooms in a silence which was almost unbroken.When they entered the large salon with its French-windows and balcony,they found the apartment deserted. Violet looked questioningly at hercompanion. He closed the door behind him and nodded.
"Yes," he admitted, "my message was a subterfuge. I have sent Linda overto Mentone with her nurse. She will not be back until late in theafternoon. This is the opportunity for which I have been waiting."
She showed no signs of anger or, indeed, disturbance of any sort. Shelaid her tiny white silk parasol upon the table and glanced at himcoolly.
"Well," she said, "you have your way, then. I am here."
Draconmeyer looked at her long and anxiously. Skilled though he was inphysiognomy, closely though he had watched, for many months, the lightsand shades, the emotional changes in her expression, he was yet, at thatmoment, completely puzzled. She was not angry. Her attitude seemed tobe, in a sense, passive. Yet what did passivity mean? Was itresignation, consent, or was it simply the armour of normal resistancein which she had clothed herself? Was he wise, after all, to riskeverything? Then, as he looked at her, as he realised her close andwonderful presence, he suddenly told himself that it was worth whilerisking even Heaven in the future for the joy of holding her for once inhis arms. She had never seemed to him so maddeningly beautiful as atthat moment. It was one of the hottest days of the season and she waswearing a gown of white muslin, curiously simple, enhancing, somehow orother, her fascinating slimness, a slimness which had nothing to do withangularity but possessed its own soft and graceful curves. Her eyes werebluer even than her turquoise brooch or the gentians in her hat. Andwhile his heart was aching and throbbing with doubts and hopes, shesuddenly smiled at him.
"I am going to sit down," she announced carelessly. "Please say to mejust what is in your mind, without reserve. It will be better."
She threw herself into a low chair near the window. Her hands werefolded in her lap. Her eyes, for some reason, were fixed upon herwedding ring. Swift to notice even her slightest action, he frowned ashe discerned the direction of her gaze.
"Violet," he said, "I think that you are right. I think that the timehas come when I must tell you what is in my mind."
She raised her eyebrows slightly at the sound of her Christian name. Hemoved over and stood by her chair.
"For a good many years," he began slowly, "I have been a man with apurpose. When it first came into my mind--not willingly--itsaccomplishment seemed utterly hopeless. Still, it was there. Strong manthough I am, I could not root it out. I waited. There was nothing elseto do but wait. From that moment my life was divided. My whole-souldevotion to worldly affairs was severed. I had one dream that was morewonderful to me, even, than complete success in the great undertakingwhich brought me to London. That dream was connected with you, Violet."
She moved a little uneasily, as though the repetition of her Christianname grated. This time, however, he was rapt in his subject.
"I won't make excuses," he went on. "You know what Linda is--what shehas been for ten years. I have tried to be kind to her. As to love, Inever had any. Ours was an alliance between two great monied families,arranged for us, acquiesced in by both of us as a matter of course. Itseemed to me in those days the most natural and satisfactory form ofmarriage. I looked upon myself as others have thought me--a cold,bloodless man of figures and ambition. It is you who have taught me thatI have as much sentiment and more than other men, a heart and desireswhich have made life sometimes hell and sometimes paradise. For twoyears I have struggled. Life with me has been a sort of passionatecompromise. For the joy of seeing you sometimes, of listening to you andwatching you, I have borne the agony of having you leave me to take yourplace with another man. You don't quite know what that meant, and I amnot going to tell you, but always I have hoped and hoped."
"And now," she said, looking at him, "I owe you four thousand pounds andyou think, perhaps, that your time has come to speak?"
He shivered as though she had struck him a blow.
"You think," he exclaimed, "that I am a man of pounds, shillings, andpence! Is it my fault that you owe me money?"
He snatched her cheques from his inner pocket and ripped them in pieces,lit a match and watched them while they smouldered away. She, too,watched with emotionless face.
"Do you think that I want to buy you?" he demanded. "There! You are freefrom your money claims. You can leave my room this moment, if you will,and owe me nothing."
She made no movement, yet he was vaguely disturbed by a sense of havingmade but little progress, a terrible sense of impending failure. Hisfingers began to tremble, his face was the face of a man stretched uponthe rack.
"Perhaps those words of mine were false," he went on. "Perhaps, in asense, I do want to buy you, buy the little kindnesses that go withaffection, buy your kind words, the touch sometimes of your fingers, thepleasant sense of companionship I feel when I am with you. I know howproud you are. I know how virtuous you are. I know that it's there inyour blood, the Puritan instinct, the craving for the one man to whomyou have given yourself, the involuntary shrinking from the touch of anyother. Good women are like that--wives or mistresses. Mind, in a senseit's narrow; in a sense it's splendid. Listen to me. I don't want todeclare war against that instinct--yet. I can't. Perhaps, even now, Ihave spoken too soon, craved too soon for the little I do ask. Yet Godknows I can keep the seal upon my lips no longer! Don't let usmisunderstand one another for the sake of using plain words. I am notasking you to be my mistress. I ask you, on my knees, to take from mewhat makes life brighter for you. I ask you for the other thingsonly--for your confidence, for your affection, your companionship. I askto see you every day that it is possible, to know that you are wearingmy gifts, surrounded by my flowers, the rough places in your life madesmooth by my efforts. I am your suppliant, Violet. I ask only for thecrumbs that fall from your table, so long as no other man sits by yourside. Violet, can't you give me as much as this?"
His hand, hot and trembling, sought hers, touched and gripped it. Shedrew her fingers away. It was curious how in those few moments sheseemed to be gifted with an immense clear-sightedness. She knew verywell that nothing about the man was honest save the passion of which hedid not speak. She rose to her feet.
"Well," she said, "I have listened to you very patiently. If I owe youany excuse for having appeared to encourage any one of those thoughts ofwhich you speak, here it is. I am like thousands of other women. Iabsolutely don't know until the time comes what sort of a creature I am,how I shall be moved to act under certain circumstances. I tried tothink last night. I couldn't. I felt that I had gone half-way. I hadtaken your money. I ha
d taken it, too, understanding what it means to bein a man's debt. And still I waited. And now I know. I won't evenquestion your sincerity. I won't even suggest that you would not becontent with what you ask for--"
"I have sworn it!" he interrupted hoarsely. "To be your favoured friend,to be allowed near you--your guardian, if you will--"
The words failed him. Something in her face checked his eloquence.
"I can tell you this now and for always," she continued. "I have nothingto give you. What you ask for is just as impossible as though you wereto walk in your picture gallery and kneel before your great masterpieceand beg Beatrice herself to step down from the canvas. I began to wonderyesterday," she went on, rising abruptly and moving across the room,"whether I really was that sort of woman. With your money in my pocketand the gambling fever in my pulses, I began even to believe it. And nowI know that I am not. Good-bye, Mr. Draconmeyer. I don't blame you. Onthe whole, perhaps, you have behaved quite well. I think that you havechosen to behave well because that wonderful brain of yours told youthat it gave you the best chance. That doesn't really matter, though."
He took a quick, almost a threatening step towards her. His face wasdark with all the passions which had preyed upon the man.
"There is a man's last resource," he muttered thickly.
"And there is a woman's answer to it," she replied, her finger suddenlyresting upon an unsuspected bell in the wall.
They both heard its summons. Footsteps came hurrying along the corridor.Draconmeyer turned his head away, struggling to compose himself. Awaiter entered. Lady Hunterleys picked up her parasol and moved towardsthe door. The man stood on one side with a bow.
"Here is the waiter you rang for, Mr. Draconmeyer," she remarked,looking over his shoulder. "Wasn't it coffee you wanted? Tell Linda I'llhope to see her sometime this evening."
She strolled away. The waiter remained patiently upon the threshold.
"Coffee for one or two, sir?" he enquired.
Mr. Draconmeyer struggled for a moment against a torrent of words whichscorched his lips. In the end, however, he triumphed.
"For one, with cream," he ordered.