Chapter XX

Jocelyn rose from her seat, stretching out her hands, as Nielsen came slowly forward from the door. The two peered at each other in the dusk. The servant, going out, turned up the light, and it leaped suddenly forth from the twisted brackets on the walls upon the man’s square figure, and the girl’s flushed and smiling face.

Nielsen bowed low over her hand with his elaborate courtesy. There was an air of prosperity about him. He was tightly buttoned into a smart, grey overcoat, and wore an orchid in his buttonhole. He carried in his hand a hat of exceptional glossiness, to which a mourning band only succeeded in giving an additional air of festivity. His face was rather fatter, his moustache seemed, if anything, tawnier. His eyeglass was carefully screwed into his eye, and he regarded Jocelyn through it with an expression of admiring benevolence.

“I am verry fortunate! verry fortunate,” he kept repeating, purring his r’s and spitting his t’s. “What a prretty room! How well you are looking!”

Her face was burning, and her eyes dark and soft after the flow of tears.

“I’m very glad to see you again,” she said. “Come and sit down.” She took the hat out of his hand, put it on the table, and turned a chair for him to the fire, talking all the time. In the restless and excited state of her nerves, he was a godsend to her.

“And how is the dear aunt?” he said, with his old pathetic emphasis. Jocelyn began to laugh. She could not help it--she had been waiting for the words. She struggled with her laughter and laughed the more. Nielsen looked at her rather puzzled, and then began to laugh too. He had not the least idea why, except that she looked so charming, with the bright colour in her cheeks, with her brown eyes dancing, and her white teeth showing as she swayed gracefully backwards and forwards in her chair.

“I am so sorry!” she gasped. “What _is_ the matter with me? Auntie’s very well, she always is, you know. Now tell me all about yourself, every little last thing.”

“_Place aux dames_, my dear young lady! You will have a grreat deal of news to tell me, I am sure.”

“Oh no! I’ve _no_ news, except that I’m bored--terribly bored with London. Now come, begin! First of all--how is the ‘system’?”

She leant forward, in an attitude of correct listening with a perfectly grave face.

Nielsen spread his fingers, and then gave his moustache a prolonged twist.

“Ah! _rien ne va plus!_ That is all over,” he said mournfully, with a little shake of his head. “I am quite lost without it. _Mais que voulez-vous?_ My uncle dies--I told you of him--my uncle--did I not?--ah! the good old fellow! He leaves me a little--but yes, a little fortune. Can one go on playing a ‘system’? One has one’s brread and butter.” He spread his fingers again. “It is inconceivable, don’t you know.”

“That’s very good news, I’m _so_ glad!”

Nielsen shrugged his shoulders gently, his head a little on one side.

“It gives me the good fortune to see you again,” he said, “but for the rrest, I am not sure. It was a _verry_ good ‘system’; and now, you know, I have nothing to do. I am not used to that.”

Jocelyn smiled, the death of the “system” amused her. “I don’t think you will be idle long,” she said, “you are busy by nature.”

Nielsen bowed.

“And you?” he said. “Where have you been all this long time? _Mon Dieu!_ Is it possible it is not yet a year?”

“We came to London first. Then in August we went to Whitby, and stayed six weeks, and got shrivelled by the winds. Then we were in Paris a month, and we’ve been here ever since November. How long have you been in England?”

“I arrived yesterday. I have been in Stockholm. One of my cousins had got into a--what do you call it--a hole, _une affaire de cœur_. I had a grreat deal of trouble to extrract him.” He talked of his cousin as if he had been a tooth, and soon found himself giving her an account of delicate matters in which a woman figured discreditably. Jocelyn was so sympathetic a listener, and so devoid of prudery, that insensibly one told her almost anything. She inspired a sense of comradeship.

He finished, however, by saying: “I suppose I should not have told you this yarrn. It has been on my mind a grreat deal, you see, so you must forgive me.”

At this moment tea arrived, followed by Mrs. Travis. She had changed her costume for a robe having a breastplate of many colours, and came in smiling affably above it. She greeted Nielsen with a smoothly dignified cordiality. She managed at the same time, by refusing to look at her niece above the waist, to convey to her a sense of unforgiven injury. For a large lady she was inimitably quick of expression--she never wasted time. She began to talk to Nielsen of old days and mutual friends; no allusion was made to the Legards, but in the middle of the conversation Jocelyn rose, and, on the pretence of drawing the blinds, went to the window. She dreaded to hear Giles’s name, fearing for her self-command.

It was almost dark now. Through the dim shapes of the tree branches the black water was seen spangled with the reflections of lights. The deep rumble of a heavy cart absorbed all other sounds. The wind had dropped, and a soft grey haze was creeping downwards from the clouds.

Nielsen came over presently, and stood beside her.

“That is verry interresting,” he said. “Nothing is plain except the black water beyond. Ah! it is like the attitude of our minds looking out into life, don’t you know.”

Jocelyn was faintly surprised; it was a remark unlike what she knew of him, but before she could answer he was saying good-bye.

“Good night! my dear young lady. It is verry late. If you will permit me, I will say _au revoir_. I shall be at your disposal whenever you wish for an escort. I hope you will take pity upon me now that I have lost my occupation. I should like to see some pictures, and hear some music again; it is so long since I have heard any good music. Some day I trust you will come with the dear aunt and dine with me. I am staying at the Grrand, don’t you know--the cooking might be better, but then in London!”

He spread his fingers and departed.

* * * * *

During the weeks that followed they saw a good deal of Nielsen. He generally contrived to present himself, by arrangement or otherwise, in the course of the day. He appeared to divide his time between visiting them, and running all over London in search of old acquaintances whom he had known in the days when, as Bohemian and journalist, he had maintained a hand-to-mouth existence. He had lived in London for several years; he had shoals of these acquaintances, and the larger number of them, from the tales which he confided to Jocelyn, seemed to have holes in their personalities which required patching. He would get as far as the holes in his confidences, indeed he would enlarge upon them pathetically, but it was only by inference that she gathered the patches. The patching, moreover, was not confined to money transactions. He had a knack, in the service of other people, of rushing in where angels feared to tread.

Upon one occasion, when they had been lunching with him at a distinguished restaurant, they were mildly astounded by the waiter, who brought them coffee, touching their host gently upon the shoulder. Nielsen had stared at the man for a short time in a gradually dissolving indignation, risen abruptly from his seat, shaken him warmly by the hand, and retired with him into a corner of the room, where an animated conversation had ensued. He had presently come back to them, to say with his customary smooth languor--

“I am _so_ sorry, don’t you know. A dear old frriend of mine--poor fellow!--he has had grreat misfortunes; and here _figurez vous?_--here! he is verry badly trreated. If you will excuse me a minute?”

A few seconds later, they had a glimpse of him in perspective through the open door, twirling his moustache, while he held a button of the proprietor’s coat and talked to him evidently for his good. The only words that faintly reached their ears sounded suspiciously like--“damned scoundrrel, don’t you know?”

He rejoined them, perfectly suave and apologetic, finished his coffee with an air of exhaustion, and paid the bill. As they left the room the proprietor bowed before them low and obsequious. And yet, if a cabman drove over his toes, or a crossing-sweeper bespattered him with mud, the chances were that he would apologise to them for being in the way.

Jocelyn had a much kindlier feeling for him than she had had in the old days. His companionship took her out of herself. She brooded less, regained much of her spirits. She could not shake off the feeling of being alone, of being lost in a forest of uncompanionable trees, but the fear became more shadowy--less substantial.

They went about a good deal by themselves. Jocelyn had always been, both by nature and education, unconventional in such matters, and now a kind of recklessness possessed her. Mrs. Travis indeed had a high sense of the proprieties, but she had a higher sense of comfort; she did not care at all for music or pictures, not much for theatres, so she contented herself and salved her conscience with those entertainments where one ate.

As for Nielsen, he had expanded with prosperity. In his relations with Jocelyn, he seemed to have more time, no longer any reason to cramp his emotions into a small space. He found it pleasant to play with the sensation of being alone in the field--with a newly-born feeling of comradeship. Also, he was always beset with a sense of enigma, of something in the girl which had not formerly been there--in an impersonal sort of way he felt he would like to find out what it was; just as, when he was a small boy, he had cut open his toys to see what was inside. It would have been wrong to say he was not in love with her, he was--but the attitude of his mind was leisurely.

One day they were driving down Sloane Street on their way to a theatre. At the edge of the pavement, as they passed, a shop assistant in an apron and grey flannel shirt sleeves was twirling a red-bristled mop. If his life had depended on it, his puckered visage could not have expressed a more concentrated emotion. Jocelyn plucked Nielsen’s sleeve: “Look what a limited thing the human face is!” she said, with a sudden little shiver. “If that man had committed a murder he couldn’t look more dreadful, and he’s only twisting a mop!” The hansom whirled close past the man with the sound of frequent hoofs and jingled bell, and Nielsen only had a glimpse of a momentarily suspended mop, and a pale, expressionless visage. Having missed the effect, he looked at his companion’s face instead as she leaned forward in the cab. It was very white, and the brows were drawn together as if she were in sudden pain. He had a gleam of recollection, and for the first time since seeing her again, all the old, painful sense of a barrier between them.

Jocelyn looked at him.

“Ah!” she said, with sudden inspiration, “you are thinking you would like to read my thoughts, to know what’s behind the mask, but you never will, you see. We’re all alone--always alone--aren’t we?”

She spoke quietly enough, rather like a child asking for information, but somehow he had the impression that she was frightened. He put one of his gloved hands soothingly upon hers. It was the first time he had touched her except in the exchange of ordinary greeting, and he was surprised and confused by the sudden vehemence with which she snatched her hand away, and folding her arms, leant back in her corner of the cab, almost as if he had struck her.

He said nothing--he had nothing to say. She was as gentle and friendly to him as usual all the rest of the afternoon.