12
In trying interviews, as in sprint races, the start is everything.It was the fact that she recovered more quickly from herastonishment that enabled Claire to dominate her scene with Bill.She had the advantage of having a less complicated astonishment torecover from, for, though it was a shock to see him there when shehad imagined that he was in New York, it was not nearly such ashock as it was to him to see her here when he had imagined thatshe was in England. She had adjusted her brain to the situationwhile he was still gaping.
'Well, Bill?'
This speech in itself should have been enough to warn Lord Dawlishof impending doom. As far as love, affection, and tenderness areconcerned, a girl might just as well hit a man with an axe as say'Well, Bill?' to him when they have met unexpectedly in themoonlight after long separation. But Lord Dawlish was too shatteredby surprise to be capable of observing _nuances_. If his love hadever waned or faltered, as conscience had suggested earlier in theday, it was at full blast now.
'Claire!' he cried.
He was moving to take her in his arms, but she drew back.
'No, really, Bill!' she said; and this time it did filter throughinto his disordered mind that all was not well. A man who is agood deal dazed at the moment may fail to appreciate a remark like'Well, Bill?' but for a girl to draw back and say, 'No, really,Bill!' in a tone not exactly of loathing, but certainly of painedaversion, is a deliberately unfriendly act. The three short words,taken in conjunction with the movement, brought him up with assharp a turn as if she had punched him in the eye.
'Claire! What's the matter?'
She looked at him steadily. She looked at him with a sort ofqueenly woodenness, as if he were behind a camera with a velvetbag over his head and had just told her to moisten the lips withthe tip of the tongue. Her aspect staggered Lord Dawlish. Acursory inspection of his conscience showed nothing but purity andwhiteness, but he must have done something, or she would not bestaring at him like this.
'I don't understand!' was the only remark that occurred to him.
'Are you sure?'
'What do you mean?'
'I was at Reigelheimer's Restaurant--Ah!'
The sudden start which Lord Dawlish had given at the opening wordsof her sentence justified the concluding word. Innocent as hisbehaviour had been that night at Reigelheimer's, he had been gladat the time that he had not been observed. It now appeared that hehad been observed, and it seemed to him that Long Island suddenlyflung itself into a whirling dance. He heard Claire speaking along way off: 'I was there with Lady Wetherby. It was she whoinvited me to come to America. I went to the restaurant to see herdance--and I saw you!'
With a supreme effort Bill succeeded in calming down the excitedlandscape. He willed the trees to stop dancing, and they camereluctantly to a standstill. The world ceased to swim and flicker.
'Let me explain,' he said.
The moment he had said the words he wished he could recall them.Their substance was right enough; it was the sound of them thatwas wrong. They sounded like a line from a farce, where the erringhusband has been caught by the masterful wife. They wereridiculous. Worse than being merely ridiculous, they created anatmosphere of guilt and evasion.
'Explain! How can you explain? It is impossible to explain. I sawyou with my own eyes making an exhibition of yourself with ahorrible creature in salmon-pink. I'm not asking you who she is.I'm not questioning you about your relations with her at all. Idon't care who she was. The mere fact that you were at a publicrestaurant with a person of that kind is enough. No doubt youthink I am making a great deal of fuss about a very ordinarything. You consider that it is a man's privilege to do thesethings, if he can do them without being found out. But it endedeverything so far as I am concerned. Am I unreasonable? I don'tthink so. You steal off to America, thinking I am in England, andbehave like this. How could you do that if you really loved me?It's the deceit of it that hurts me.'
Lord Dawlish drew in a few breaths of pure Long Island air, but hedid not speak. He felt helpless. If he were to be allowed towithdraw into the privacy of the study and wrap a cold, wet towelabout his forehead and buckle down to it, he knew that he coulddraft an excellent and satisfactory explanation of his presence atReigelheimer's with the Good Sport. But to do it on the spur ofthe moment like this was beyond him.
Claire was speaking again. She had paused for a while after herrecent speech, in order to think of something else to say; andduring this pause had come to her mind certain excerpts from oneof those admirable articles on love, by Luella Delia Philpotts,which do so much to boost the reading public of the United Statesinto the higher planes. She had read it that afternoon in theSunday paper, and it came back to her now.
'I may be hypersensitive,' she said, dropping her voice from theaccusatory register to the lower tones of pathos, 'but I have suchhigh ideals of love. There can be no true love where there is notperfect trust. Trust is to love what--'
She paused again. She could not remember just what Luella DeliaPhilpotts had said trust was to love. It was something extremelyneat, but it had slipped her memory.
'A woman has the right to expect the man she is about to marry toregard their troth as a sacred obligation that shall keep him aspure as a young knight who has dedicated himself to the quest ofthe Holy Grail. And I find you in a public restaurant, dancingwith a creature with yellow hair, upsetting waiters, andstaggering about with pats of butter all over you.'
Here a sense of injustice stung Lord Dawlish. It was true thatafter his regrettable collision with Heinrich, the waiter, he haddiscovered butter upon his person, but it was only one pat. Clairehad spoken as if he had been festooned with butter.
'I am not angry with you, only disappointed. What has happened hasshown me that you do not really love me, not as I think of love.Oh, I know that when we are together you think you do, but absenceis the test. Absence is the acid-test of love that separates thebase metal from the true. After what has happened, we can't go onwith our engagement. It would be farcical. I could never feel thatway toward you again. We shall always be friends, I hope. But asfor love--love is not a machine. It cannot be shattered and puttogether again.'
She turned and began to walk up the drive. Hanging over the top ofthe gate like a wet sock, Lord Dawlish watched her go. Theinterview was over, and he could not think of one single thing tosay. Her white dress made a patch of light in the shadows. Shemoved slowly, as if weighed down by sad thoughts, like one who, asLuella Delia Philpotts beautifully puts it, paces with measuredstep behind the coffin of a murdered heart. The bend of the drivehid her from his sight.
About twenty minutes later Dudley Pickering, smoking sentimentallyin the darkness hard by the porch, received a shock. He was musingtenderly on his Claire, who was assisting him in the process bysinging in the drawing-room, when he was aware of a figure, thesinister figure of a man who, pressed against the netting of theporch, stared into the lighted room beyond.
Dudley Pickering's first impulse was to stride briskly up to theintruder, tap him on the shoulder, and ask him what the devil hewanted; but a second look showed him that the other was built ontoo ample a scale to make this advisable. He was a large,fit-looking intruder.
Mr Pickering was alarmed. There had been the usual epidemic ofburglaries that season. Houses had been broken into, valuablepossessions removed. In one case a negro butler had been struckover the head with a gas-pipe and given a headache. In thesecircumstances, it was unpleasant to find burly strangers lookingin at windows.
'Hi!' cried Mr Pickering.
The intruder leaped a foot. It had not occurred to Lord Dawlish,when in an access of wistful yearning he had decided to sneak upto the house in order to increase his anguish by one last glimpseof Claire, that other members of the household might be out in thegrounds. He was just thinking sorrowfully, as he listened to themusic, how like his own position was to that of the hero ofTennyson's _Maud_--a poem to which he was greatly addicted,when Mr Pickering's 'Hi!' came out of nowhere and hit hi
m like atorpedo.
He turned in agitation. Mr Pickering having prudently elected tostay in the shadows, there was no one to be seen. It was as if thevoice of conscience had shouted 'Hi!' at him. He was justwondering if he had imagined the whole thing, when he perceivedthe red glow of a cigar and beyond it a shadowy form.
It was not the fact that he was in an equivocal position, staringinto a house which did not belong to him, with his feet onsomebody else's private soil, that caused Bill to act as he did.It was the fact that at that moment he was not feeling equal toconversation with anybody on any subject whatsoever. It did notoccur to him that his behaviour might strike a nervous stranger assuspicious. All he aimed at was the swift removal of himself froma spot infested by others of his species. He ran, and MrPickering, having followed him with the eye of fear, went rathershakily into the house, his brain whirling with professionalcracksmen and gas pipes and assaulted butlers, to relate hisadventure.
'A great, hulking, ruffianly sort of fellow glaring in at thewindow,' said Mr Pickering. 'I shouted at him and he ran like arabbit.'
'Gee! Must have been one of the gang that's been working downhere,' said Roscoe Sherriff. 'There might be a quarter of a columnin that, properly worked, but I guess I'd better wait until heactually does bust the place.'
'We must notify the police!'
'Notify the police, and have them butt in and stop the thing andkill a good story!' There was honest amazement in the Press-agent'svoice. 'Let me tell you, it isn't so easy to get publicitythese days that you want to go out of your way to stop it!'
Mr Pickering was appalled. A dislike of this man, which had grownless vivid since his scene with Claire, returned to him withredoubled force.
'Why, we may all be murdered in our beds!' he cried.
'Front-page stuff!' said Roscoe Sherriff, with gleaming eyes. 'Andthree columns at least. Fine!'
It might have consoled Lord Dawlish somewhat, as he lay awakethat night, to have known that the man who had taken Claire fromhim--though at present he was not aware of such a man'sexistence--also slept ill.