Chapter V

That night Sally sat in her old rooms once more and wrote a letter to Traill. The return to them had for one moment surged back in a rushing flood of memories; but it did not overwhelm her. She threw herself into no quagmire of despair. Her eyes were tearless. All her actions were such as those of a person dazed with sleep. One hope she had in her heart which animated her, just as the hope of ultimate rest will give sluggish life to the person whose eyes are heavy with fatigue.

Towards the realization of that hope, she seated herself at her desk and wrote to Traill.

"DEAR JACK,

"Will you come and see me to-morrow afternoon at about half-past four? I will give you some tea. I want to speak to you. Please do not think that I am going to begin to pester you with unwelcome attentions. My silence over these two or three months should convince you that I would not worry you like that for anything.

"Hoping that I shall see you,
"Yours sincerely,
"SALLY BISHOP."

When she had posted it, she went to bed and slept fitfully till morning. There was no letter waiting her from Traill, but an envelope addressed with a scrawled, uneven writing lay in the box. She tore it eagerly open, her heart beating exultantly.

"DEAR SALLY," it read,

"Mummy has gone out I am to write to you I am to say good bi proply I am very fond of you but I doant luv you Mummy ses you have been very kind I wode luv you very much if you was my mummy but mummy ses she is she is I am afrade this is not spellt rite but I have got a very bad pen.

"Yours affagintly,
"MAURIE."

If the tears could have come then; but she laid the letter down on the table, and her eyes were aching and dry. The quaintness of the spelling, the almost complete absence of punctuation. That queer little repetition, of words--"she is she is"--none of these things moved her, even to smile. Maurie had said good-bye properly. That, and that he was only just fond of her, was all that reached her understanding. Had the letter been from a lover, dashing all her hopes into fragments, she could not have read it more seriously. But one prospect was left her. She never took her eyes from that. The fact that Traill had not written did not convey to her mind any fear that he would not come. She knew that he would not needlessly lead her to expect him and disappoint her at the last.

At four o'clock she had the table laid for tea. The dainty china that she had bought with him when abroad was brought out. The kettle was beginning to sing on the gas stove in the grate. When everything was ready, she tried to sit quietly in a chair, but her eyes kept wandering to the little Sevres clock. Again and again she rose to her feet, looking out of her window into the street below.

At last footsteps echoed up the stairs. She caught her breath, and a sound broke in her throat. They came nearer, and she trembled; her hand shook; her whole body was chilled with searching cold. She had not seen him for three months--more. Now she began to think that she could not bear it. Then the knock fell on the door. A cry was on her lips. She forced it back, turned, holding as naturally as possible to the mantelpiece, and said--

"Come in."

He entered. He closed the door after him. Then she looked around.

The situation was as strained, as tautened, as is the gut of a snapping fiddle-string. Every sound seemed to vibrate in itself. For an instant he stood still, coming forward at last, hand outstretched to relieve the tension.

"Well, how are you, Sally?" he asked.

The random speech, jerked out--any words to break the silence. Even he felt it beating on his brain.

She shook hands with him. For the brief moment he touched her cold fingers in the grip of his; then she withdrew them.

"Let me take your hat," she said.

He gave it her. Watched her as she crossed the room to lay it on the chintz-covered settee, turned then to the fireplace, biting a nail between his teeth.

"Do you know the kettle's boiling?" he forced himself to say.

"Yes; I'm just going to make tea. You'll have some tea?"

"Oh, rather. You promised that."

He looked up with his old jerk of the head, courting the smile to her lips. She had no smile to give, and a shrug half tossed his shoulders.

"Are you comfortable here?" he asked, as she poured out the boiling water.

"Oh yes. Very."

"God!" he said casually within himself, feeling the weight of the strain. Then he struggled for it once more.

"I'm dining with Devenish this evening," he said lightly. "You remember Devenish, don't you?"

"Oh yes--I remember him. He came up to see me here a few weeks ago."

"Did he? He's a gay dog," he said lightly. "Do you like him?"

"I haven't thought about it."

"Oh, then you don't. And haven't you seen him since?"

"No; I've been away."

"Away?"

"Yes; down at Cailsham--staying with my mother."

"Oh, very nice, I should think. I'm glad you're moving about a bit. I was rather afraid, you know, that you'd hang about in town all through the summer, and that 'ud be bound to knock you up."

She handed him his cup of tea. "Why were you afraid?" she asked.

"Why? Do you think I'd be glad if you were knocked up?"

He looked up at her, with raised eyebrows, not understanding.

"I don't suppose you'd be sorry, would you?"

She said it gently--no strain of bitterness. The emotion which had swept her at first was passed now. All her mind concentrated to the one end.

"Of course I should," he replied. "Of course I should be sorry. Do you paint me in your mind the little boy dropped in and out of a love affair?"

"Oh no."

"Then why say that? Of course I should be sorry. Because you and I couldn't fit things properly together--"

"Is that how it seems to you now?" she interrupted.

"Well, could we? Is it any good going over it all again? Did you ever imagine me to be the type of man who would consent to being followed, as you followed me that night? I can't suppose you did; otherwise, would you have tried to hide it from me? But I don't lose any friendly regard for you because of that."

"You don't object to being here, then?" she asked eagerly.

"No; certainly not! Why should I?"

"Would you come again if nothing of that were ever mentioned any more between us--would you come again?"

"Yes, willingly. Now that I see that your intention is to be perfectly reasonable, I would--willingly. Why not? I don't see why we should be enemies."

"No," said Sally quickly; "neither do I--neither do I."

He drank through his tea. One mouthful--they were such tiny cups; but that is the way a man takes his entertainment.

"Have a good time down at Cailsham?" he asked presently.

He felt more at his ease. She was taking it well--so much better than he expected.

"Oh, not very good. I have told you, haven't I, that I don't get on very well with my people."

"Of course; yes. Isn't that rather a pity?"

Possibly conscience was plying its spurs. There was some suggestion underlying the quietness of her manner which he found to bring a sense of uneasiness. He would have preferred that she had got on well at Cailsham. He would rather that she had taken a fancy to Devenish. But she was reasonable--extremely reasonable. He had nothing to grumble at. Yet he could not get away from the sense of something that made each word they said drag slowly, unnaturally into utterance. He tried to shake it from him.

"Well, what is it you've got to speak to me about?" he asked in a fresh tone of voice, as if with a jerk they were starting again over lighter ground.

"Won't you wait till you've finished your tea?" she asked.

"I have finished."

"No more?"

"No, thanks. Do you mind my smoking?"

She lit a match for him in answer--held it out, waiting while he extracted the cigarette from his case.

"Now tell me," he said, when she had thrown the match away.

She gazed for a moment in the grate, at the kettle breathing contentedly on the gas stove.

"I'm lonely," she said, turning to his eyes.

He met her gaze as well as he could. He knew she was lonely. Conscience--conscience that no strength of will could override--had often pricked him on that point. But what was a conscience? He would not have believed himself guilty of the weakness at any other time. He gave no rein to it.

"But you'll get over that," he said. "You'll get over that."

"I don't think so."

"But why not? Perhaps you give way to it. Find yourself plenty to do. Keep yourself moving. You won't be lonely then."

"I know. But do what?"

"Well," the question faced him. He had to answer it. "Well, you're fond of reading, aren't you?"

"Reading!"

"And you've got these rooms to keep straight. A good many women if they thought they'd got to tidy up two rooms every day would grumble at the amount of labour, because it took up so much of their time."

"Yes; but they'd do it."

"Probably they'd have to."

"And then they wouldn't be lonely."

"Quite so. Isn't that what I say?"

"Yes; but don't you forget one thing?"

"What's that?"

"They'd be doing it for some one else. They wouldn't be doing it for themselves. And don't you think they get the impetus to do it from that?"

She leant forward--no sign of triumph in her face--and watched his eyes. She knew he could not reply to that. He knew it too. He pulled strenuously at his cigarette, then flung it into the empty fireplace.

"Then what is your point?" he asked firmly. He beat around no bushes. That was not the nature of him. This was a difficulty. He faced it. This was the scene she had deftly been leading up to. Let her have it out and he would tell her straight, once and for all. "What is your point?" he repeated. "You want me to come back--go through the same business all over again?"

"No!"

Now he was puzzled. His eyes frowned straight into hers.

"Then what? Come along, Sally, out with it."

She turned her head away. He heard the sound in her throat as she began to form the words. But she could not say it. Then her hands covered her face, for a moment stayed there; at last she took them away and met the beating gaze of his eyes.

"If I had a child," she said quickly.

His forehead creased, line upon line. He took a deep breath and leant back in his chair.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"If I had a child," she repeated, "I shouldn't be lonely then. I should have some one to do all these things for then. I should have something to live for."

Traill stood abruptly to his feet. "You're--you're crazy!" he exclaimed.

She stood beside him. Her hand stretched out nervously, touching his coat.

"No, no, I'm not. I mean it. Can't you see what it would mean to me, here alone, night after night, night after night, no one, absolutely no one but myself."

He studied her in amazement. "If it were any other woman than you," he said suddenly, "I should think this was a put-up job to compromise me--a cunning, put-up job. But you! It's amazing! I don't understand it. Why, you'd brand yourself to the whole world. It'd be a mill stone round your neck, not a child."

"Don't you think I'm branded plainly enough already? What do you think a man like Devenish thinks of me?"

"Oh, Devenish be damned! There are other men than Devenish in the world. Men who know nothing; men who'd be ready to marry you."

"Yes, I found one--one who thought me everything--everything till I told him."

"You told him?"

"Yes."

"In the name of God, what for? You must be crazy. What the deuce did you want to tell him for?"

"It was the only fair thing to do," she said quietly.

"Fair? Rot! That's chucking your chances away. That's playing the fool! What's he got to do with your life before you met him?" This was flinging the blame at him.

"Would you rather that the woman you were going to marry kept silent, risked your not finding out afterwards? Would you think she'd treated you fairly if she said nothing, and you were to discover it when it was too late?"

He had no answer. He tried to make one. His lips parted; then, in silence, he turned away.

"It might have made your mind easier," she said quietly, without tone of blame, "but it wouldn't have been fair."

He twisted back. "There's no need for my mind to be made easier," he said hardly. "I've treated you fairly from the beginning to the end. I warned you in the first instance; I told you to have no truck with me. I sent you away. You came back. I didn't ask you to come back."

Janet's words flashed across Sally's memory; the words she had said when they were talking over the bangle: "I don't care what you say about that letter, the letter's nothing! It's the gift that's the thing. That's the song of sex if you like, and whether you return it, or whether you don't, you'll answer it, as he means you to."

It was on the edge of her mind to repeat them then to him, but she refrained. It was better then, at that moment, to let him think that he had no cause to blame himself.

"No, my mind's perfectly easy," he added. "Thank God, I don't pose for a paragon; I've got the beast in me all right, but I've treated you square--absolutely square."

Her fingers clutched. To win her desires she must let him think so. And perhaps he had treated her square; she supposed he had.

"Then help me not to be lonely now," she begged. She could see the wave of repulsion beat across his face, but even that did not deter her. "Oh, I don't mean that you should come back and live with me," she went on. "It isn't for that. You can't--you surely can't hate me as much as all that." It was not in her knowledge to realize that he must love her, greater than he had ever loved, if she were to win. To the woman needing the child it is the child alone; to the man, the child is only the child when it is his.

"I don't hate you," he said. He picked up his hat from the settee, and her heart dropped to a leaden weight. "You seem to harp on that. But what you ask, you surely must realize is frankly impossible. I don't wish to be responsible for a child."

"You needn't be responsible," she said eagerly. "You need never see it. You've been generous enough to me in what you've given me. I shan't ask for a penny more--I shan't use the child to extract money from you. You'll never hear from me again. After all, you have loved me," she said piteously. "You did love me once."

He turned angrily away. "My God!" he exclaimed. "You talk as if you were out of your mind! If I did have a child, I should want to see it. I shouldn't want to be ashamed of it; I shouldn't want to disown it, as you'd have me do."

"Well, then, you might see it as often as you wished."

He strode to the door. She must have it now. He had meant to say nothing, wishing to save her feelings; but she must have it now.

"Then I'm engaged to be married," he said firmly. "Do you see now that it's impossible?"

She dropped into a chair, staring strangely at his face.

"You--married?" she whispered.

"Yes; and I've no desire to have things cropping up in my life afterwards, just in the way that this Mrs. Priestly in the divorce courts--"

Sally struggled to her feet.

"Mrs. Priestly?"

"Yes; what about her? Do you know her?"

"What do you know about her?" she asked.

"I'm counsel for her husband."

"You're cross-examining her?"

Straight through her mind leapt that scene in the divorce court when she had witnessed his attack upon the miserable woman whom the law had placed out for his feet to trample on.

"Yes," he replied. "What _do_ you know about her?"

She sank back into her chair saying nothing.

"You won't say?"

She shook her head.

"Well, it's of not much interest to me. I shouldn't have you subpoenaed, if you did know anything. You know the case, at any rate. Well, I don't want that sort of affair in my life; so you never need mention this matter again. I'll come and see you sometimes, if you want me to; but only on condition that we have none of this. When I'm married, of course, then it'll have to stop."

Sally raised her head. Her eyes were burning--her lips were drawn to a thin colourless line.

"You--who never were going to marry!" she shouted. "You who didn't believe in it--who wouldn't fetter yourself with it! Oh, go! Go!"