Chapter III

They made a day of it. In Trafalgar Square at eleven o'clock the next morning, they stepped into a taxi-cab--the same little vehicle that Taylor, from the dining-room window, had seen spinning round the curve of the drive. The hood was put down; the warm sunshine, just touched with a light sting from the regions of cold air through which it had passed, beat upon their faces. To such a day, from the grey fogs and lightless hours of winter, one comes, finding life well worth its while. Sally sat with her hand wrapped in Traill's, giving vent to a thousand expressions of delight, drawing his sudden attention to the thousand things that pleased her eye--the faint wash of green from the buds upon the hedgerows, the bright clusters of primroses that struck light through the shadows in the wood, forcing life through the thick carpet of dead leaves that the trees had given back to earth.

"Does it worry you--my keeping on pointing out things?" she asked at last.

"Worry? Lord, no! Shout as much as you like. It reminds me of when I was a kid, coming back from Harrow to Apsley for the holidays."

When they came in sight of the Manor, could perceive through rents in the cloak of cedars that enveloped it, the high, graceful Elizabethan chimneys and the points of the red gables on which the starlings congregated, Traill half rose to his feet with a straining of his neck--a light of excitement in his eyes.

"There it is!" he exclaimed. "That place through the dark trees there. Jove, I haven't seen it for more than three years."

She followed the direction in which his extended finger pointed, and her eyes took in, not only Apsley, but his life and the true gulf that lay between them. As she saw it from there, she recognized it as a place which, passing, even in those better days when her father had lived in the quaint little rectory at Cailsham, she might have exclaimed--"Oh, what a lovely place that is! I wonder who lives there?" And it had belonged to him--this man who had taken her life out of its dreary groove and placed it in a pleasure-garden of plenty; but the garden gate was not locked and the key was not in her keeping.

This mood was momentary. It passed, scudding across her mind, a fringe of rain cloud that the wind has caught hanging between the hill-tops and driven at its will. When Traill leant out of the car and gave peremptory orders of direction, she forgot about it. Then, in his almost boyish excitement, she realized how much the place really was to him; how much, notwithstanding all his Bohemianism, it counted in his life.

"You love this place--don't you?" she said, when he dropped back again into his seat.

"Yes--I should think so. I know every stick and stone for miles round here. See that little lane up there?"

"Yes."

"Had a fight there once with a gamekeeper. Much more exciting, I can tell you, than that show you saw that night."

"Were you hurt?" she asked, frowning.

"Oh, not much; not more than he was. It was stopped precipitously by a stick, wielded by my governor. He'd got wind of it. We hadn't much time to make a mess of each other."

"I suppose it must be full of memories," she said. "I can never understand why you should have given it up."

"Oh, I was a fool, of course. I wanted ready money, and I didn't want to sell the place--couldn't have sold it. So I let my sister take it over for what the pater had left her. That suited me at the time. I'm not sorry that I saw far enough to re-purchase if I wanted to."

"You can re-purchase?"

"Lord, yes!"

"But you did not tell me that."

"Didn't I? Oh yes, I can re-purchase; five thousand any day will make this place my own again. That's the sum I took from my sister."

Sally inclined her head to show that she understood, but she made no reply. The cloud had blown back again into her mind. She felt the shadow of it, the chill of it, even in the warm sunshine. It took no definite shape, it brought no definite warning; but she was oppressively conscious of its presence and its weight upon all her thoughts.

Then they entered the drive, swept up between the long beds of brilliant tulips until the house came full in view, and from that moment her little ejaculations of delight and admiration were a pleasure to him and a distraction to her.

"It's a wonderful old place!" she exclaimed. "And doesn't it make it twice as wonderful to think that Queen Elizabeth stayed here when it was just like it is now!" This fact he had told her as they came down, knowing that the childish enthusiasm of her mind would catch hold of it, drive it deep into her imagination and hang thereon a pretty raiment of romance.

"Does add a bit of colour," he admitted with a smile. "I expect she made it pretty expensive for the old gentleman who entertained her. He probably had to keep quiet for a few months after she'd gone, and lay restrictions on the household expenditure."

Then they drew up before the hall door and Traill helped her to alight.

"I guess we'll make old Mrs. Butterick give us some lunch first. Are you hungry?" He opened the hall door and stood aside to let her enter.

"Yes, frightfully. I suppose it was the drive."

"All right, just a second; you go round there through the hall to the left--fine old hall, isn't it?--and the first door on the left, that's the dining-room. I shan't be long. I just want to see about getting this filthy coloured taxi out of the light and tell the gardener to get the chauffeur a meal--you wait in the dining-room."

He closed the door again. Sally stood for a moment looking about her. The old square panelling of oak--black with age--the huge open grate with its logs of wood ready for the burning, the ornaments of pewter--old pewter jugs, old pewter plates with coats of arms embossed upon their surface, all the perfection of it awed her and, with a momentary wave of depression that beat over her feelings of admiration, she felt an interloper in a place that was beyond her wildest dreams of avarice. It was with no little sense of reluctance, even though the anticipation of meeting any one never for the moment entered her head, that she made her way slowly to the dining-room, hoping every moment to hear his footsteps following her--giving her, so it seemed, the right to her presence in so luxurious a place. No wonder he loved it. And then, the thought struck at her, would it be any wonder if he re-purchased, as he had said he had the right to do? And if that were to happen--he was making his name now, and it well might--would he bring her here to live with him? Would he perhaps make her his wife? Or would they live, as they lived together now? Or--and the thought drove blood that was cold and chilling through her veins--would it be impossible for them to live so publicly in such a way, and would he then live alone?

She tried to shake herself free of this mood of conjecture, took the handle firmly within her fingers, opened the door, and walked into the room.

The next moment her heart leapt, a live thing within her, then lay still. Every action through her body seemed suspended. She scarcely realized her physical existence at all. It was as though she were conscious only of mind, mind that was filled with perplexity, astonishment, consternation, a mind that was being buffeted by winds from every quarter of the compass of sensation. And through it all, she struggled to drive words together into sentences, words, that like a flock of witless sheep upon open ground, would not be driven, but ran this way and jumped that in a frolicsome imbecility of purpose.

And there she stood, just within the room, while Mrs. Durlacher with slowly uplifting eyebrows of amazement rose gradually from the comfortable armchair to her feet.

"Aren't you Miss--Miss--?" She tried to catch the name in the air with her fingers.

"Bishop," said Sally, with dry lips.

"Yes, of course, Bishop--Miss Bishop?"

Sally half inclined her head.

"But what--?" she hesitated, knowing that the rest of her sentence must be obvious, yet gaining time to put the matter together--fit it to the whole from its separate parts. This was the girl whom she had met that night in Jack's room--the girl he had called a lady. They were still acquainted, still friends--greater friends than ever, since he had brought her down with him to Apsley. Were they married? Married secretly? She was a thousand times better dressed than she had been before. The thought tasted bitter. She swallowed the possibility of it with undeniable courage.

"Have you come down here with my brother?" she asked, still in assumed bewilderment.

"Yes," replied Sally. "We--we came down in a taxi-cab."

"But he never said he was bringing any one. He wrote. I--I thought he was going to be alone."

Nothing could be said to this. To apologize for her presence there would be ridiculous. Sally said nothing.

"Well," Mrs. Durlacher smiled, brushing away her surprise with that half-breath of laughter which throws a thin wrapping of amusement about a wealth of contemptuous resignation. "I'm afraid we haven't got much of a lunch to offer you. I expect you'll be very discontented with the slight fare I have provided for Jack and myself. He ought to have told me. Do come into the room, won't you? Wouldn't you like to take off your coat?"

So, with that ease of apparent hospitality, she made her guest as uncomfortable as possible, a glutton for the slightest sign of embarrassment from Sally. Her gluttony was well served. The poor child pitiably looked once through the door, straining eager ears for the sound of Traill's footsteps; then she closed it and came to the fireplace, taking the first chair that offered.

The sense that she had fallen into a trap, notwithstanding all the perfect simulation of Mrs. Durlacher's apparently genuine surprise, swept chillingly through her blood. When once she became conscious again of her bodily existence, felt the pulses throbbing in her forehead, and knew that her heart was beating like the muffled rattling of a kettledrum, she shuddered. Traill, she knew, had nothing to do with it. If that thought, with the force of conviction behind it, had entered her mind, she would have fled; driven with the curling lash of fear--fear of life itself, fear of everything. But she did not even contemplate it. It was the woman her instinct mistrusted. She had realized her an enemy before; now, in the purring tones of her tardy welcome, she recognized in her an enemy whose aggressiveness is active, brought into definite play.

Where lay the trap and how it had been set, she could not conjecture; but that a trap was there, she was convinced, and as she had walked unthinkingly into that room, so she had unsuspiciously fallen into the cruel iron jaws of the relentless machine. She sat in that chair by the fire, gazing at the hissing logs as they spat at the flames that licked them, and felt all the powerlessness, all the impotence, that the frightened rabbit knows when it is caught in the device of the snarer.

"Did you come down from Town?" said Mrs. Durlacher, presently.

"Yes."

"It's a nice drive, isn't it?"

"Oh yes, it's lovely."

"Let me see, how long is it since we met last?"

"Three years, I think, perhaps a little more."

"Of course--yes--of course it must be. What a good memory you have! Would you care to see over the house before lunch? It's rather a charming old place, don't you think so? But of course it's terribly untidy now. I haven't started my house-parties yet, and everything's generally more or less upside down till my husband and I begin to come down regularly. Perhaps you'd prefer to wait till after lunch, though?"

Sally rose willingly to her feet.

"Oh no. Not at all--I should like to see it immensely. I think the hall is perfectly wonderful."

Mrs. Durlacher stood up, her eyes candidly criticizing Sally's dress.

"Yes, it is rather quaint. We'll go through to the library first."

Then, but not until that moment, not until she had passed through the white heat of the fire, and had felt her spirit charred, did any help come to her. Traill opened the door abruptly and came into the room. From the set line of his lips, both of them could see that his temper was loose. His shutting of the door, every action, was an expression of feeling to which an innate sense of politeness made him deny speech. He crossed the room without hesitation to join them, shaking hands with his sister.

"They told me you were here, Dolly," he said, all pleasure of meeting her stamped utterly from his voice.

"Well, I suppose they did," she replied with a laugh. "Besides, didn't you see the car? I motored over this morning. That reminds me--" She played with self-possession, it came so easily to her. "That reminds me. Garrett wants a clean collar. Did you see Garrett?"

"Yes."

"Well, did you ever see such a filthy collar as he's wearing in all your life?"

"I don't know--" He crushed her flippancy with the tone in his voice, the look in his eyes. "I don't go about looking at other people's linen."

"No, but you'd have to if you sat behind Garrett as I did this morning for something over an hour. You couldn't help noticing it."

"Well, you can't expect a servant to be clean, can you?" he retorted. "If he hides his uncleanliness that's all you can demand of him."

She broke into a light, ringing laugh at his ironical humour; but he took no notice of that.

"Where were you two going?" he added. He addressed the question to Sally, turning his eyes to hers.

Mrs. Durlacher interposed the answer. "I was going to show Miss Bishop round the house before lunch," she said. "I thought you might show her the grounds afterwards."

"She's much too tired to go tramping round the place before lunch," said Traill, abruptly. "Remember we've just been bumped down from Town--Trafalgar Square--in a jolting taxi. No, she's too tired. She'd better go and take off her hat, I think. Where's Taylor?" He moved towards the bell. "Taylor had better take her up to the Elizabeth room, or your room if you don't mind."

The outline of Mrs. Durlacher's lips tightened; but Traill took no notice. He turned to Sally. "Like to lay your hat on the spot where her gracious Majesty was supposed to have rested a weary head, aching with finance?" he asked.

Sally smiled. Admiration for him then was intense. Mrs. Durlacher smiled as well; but for one instant, she winced first.

"Let me do the honours, Jack, _please_," she said sweetly, "at any rate in my own house."

That was a foolish thing to have said--the first false step she had taken. But so far in the encounter, she knew she was losing, and it takes a greater woman than she to play a losing game. In the first clash of weapons, she had been well-nigh disarmed, and the sting of the steel in her loosened grip had touched her to that momentary loss of control. It was not so much the fact that she had spoken of Apsley as her house. That piece of boasting would have fallen from Traill's shoulders, shaken off by the shrug with which he would have taken it. It was the veiled insult to Sally, the ill-concealed suggestion as to what their relations had been when she had met Sally at the rooms in Regent Street, that whipped him to reply.

He rang the bell imperturbably. That little action, occupying the brief moment that it did, gave him ease to temper his feelings; then he turned.

"Don't let's worry about whose house it is," he said coldly. "Miss Bishop's tired--that's our first consideration. A taxi's not got the latest pattern of springs that your car has."

Taylor entered the room.

"Taylor," he added. "Show Miss Bishop up to the Elizabeth room."

He smiled at Sally as she departed; then, when the door had closed, he turned back to his sister.

Now she was a lost woman, losing a losing game. Her eyes sparkled with anger; she took her breath rapidly between her teeth.

"How dare you bring your mistresses down here and insult me in my own house!" she said recklessly. So a woman, the best of them, strikes when the points are turning against her. It is the rushing blow of the losing man in the ring. Its comparison can be traced through all sports--all games. There is always force at the back of the blow, the brute force of desperation; but, with no head to guide it, it wastes itself in air. Once delivered, striking nothing, with all the weight of the body behind it, the body itself is unbalanced, loses equilibrium, becomes a tottering mark for the answering fist.

The moment she had said it, seeing the flame that it lit in her brother's eyes, Mrs. Durlacher wished it unsaid. For the instant he gazed at her, then his anger was spent. Knowing how wasted that blow was, he turned to the mantelpiece and laughed. It was the most bitter retaliation he could have made. She heard it echoing through her brain as the fallen man, dazed and helpless, just hears the seconds being meted out, yet cannot rise, can lift no voice to stop them.

"What Miss Bishop is to me," he said quietly, "is neither here nor there--only to be classed with one of those impulsive conjectures of yours--just the same as when you said that she was a milliner. You don't quite know what you're speaking about, and that gives you confidence. You're a woman. But you'll have to forgive me if I correct you when you talk about this house as yours--it's not--it's mine. You've scarcely what constitutes a tenancy of it."

"Haven't you to put down the sum of five thousand pounds before you can say that?" she asked, her voice steadied, her impulses all under the curb now. She must step lightly if she were to win after this.

"Do you think that would be a very difficult matter?" he questioned in return.

"Well, can you do it?"

"Oh no," he smiled. "As a matter of fact, I never carry more than four or five pounds in loose cash about with me. Don't be a fool, Dolly. Do you want to irritate me into doing something that you know would put your nose out of joint for the rest of your natural life? You know well enough, that I could find the money to-morrow if I wanted to. You've irritated me quite enough already."

"How?"

"By coming down here."

"Why should that irritate you?"

"Because I guess pretty well your reasons. You were expecting a lady--so Mrs. Butterick amiably told me." He turned and looked at her fixedly. "You're as cute as ten, Dolly, but I'm hanged if you know how to play with me."

"Mrs. Butterick told you that?" she said.

"Yes--she spoke like a book. Like the book of Revelations. Now, when I'd expressly asked you if I should be alone when I came down, what the deuce did you want to come for?"

"Don't you think you can speak a little more politely?" she requested.

"That won't help the discussion from your side or mine," he replied quietly. "But rather than give you cause for interruption--I'll do so. Why did you come down here?"

The mind of a woman works with amazing rapidity, but it is impossible to see the direction it will take. There are little insects known to our childish days as skip-jacks. Scratch them with the end of a piece of grass, and they reward you for your pains--they will jump--bound with one spasmodic leap and vanish. So is the working of a woman's mind. You can be almost certain of the jump--but of the direction--never.

"Why?" Traill insisted, and then Mrs. Durlacher turned her gaze to the window, looked far away across the stretch of fields ploughed and green, beyond the blue, rising land that lifts above Wycombe, into that distance which holds all the intricate mysteries of a woman's being. When a woman looks like this, a man strains eyes to follow her. He realizes all the distance, but cannot with his utmost effort decipher what it contains. And that very inability in him is the strongest weapon that she holds. He sees the distance, yet there is none. No wonder that he cannot discern its contents. There is no distance. She is looking inwards--not outwards; searching her own mind, searching his, and only playing the game of contemplation to hide what she has found.

When Traill saw that expression of her face, he dropped the note of brass from his voice.

"Why?" he asked again, almost gently.

Her lips bound tight together as though she were keeping back her confession; her nostrils dilated, checking tears.

"I wanted to see you--that's all."

She said it with a shrug of the shoulders--the motion with which you shake an unwelcome thought from your mind.

He pressed her further. "But you apparently knew I was bringing some one?" he said.

She still looked towards her invisible horizon. "I guessed that--guessed that from your letter--the way you said you wanted to find no one down here. I thought you wouldn't mind my coming--besides--there was no one to order anything for you, and then--as I said--I wanted to see you."

"Yes, but why?" He took her arm, held the elbow in the cup of his hand.

She looked once more--looked long into her distance--then turned, petulantly almost, with a smothered sigh to the fireplace, rested her feet upon the fender, and redirected her gaze into the heart of the fire.

"Oh, it's no good talking about it now," she said. "Miss Bishop '11 be down in a minute."

"Aren't you happy? That it?"

"Yes."

"You aren't happy?"

"No."

"Harold?"

"Yes."

On the fender she beat out her thoughts.

"All the things she wants to say and is too proud," he said to himself as he watched the tapping of her dainty toe. That was precisely what he was meant to think.

"What's he done?" he asked.

"Tisn't what he's done--I don't think he's done anything."

"Then what?" He put his hand on her shoulder. "Poor old Dolly," he said softly. "But why did you say that about bringing mistresses down here?"

She looked up frankly--generously into his eyes. "Jealousy," she admitted.

He laughed lightly. It just caught the edge of his vanity to which she played. Then, bending down, he kissed her, and as Sally entered the room, she saw the kiss--to her, a kiss of Judas. In that instant, the intuition that it was she who was betrayed, shot upwards like a flame of fire, rushing the blood in a burning race to her temples.