Chapter XXVI

“Strange the world about me lies,
Never yet familiar grown,
Still disturbs me with surprise,
Haunts me like a face half known.”

WATSON.

“I wish you were coming, too,” said Daphne, rather wistfully. She had a late pass, and David was coming to take her to a theatre.

Katherine sat on her bed drinking cocoa while her friend dressed. “I don’t like David,” she said slowly, “at all.”

Daphne flung a scarf of scarlet chiffon over her dark hair. She was dressed all in white, and the contrast told. “David is a dear boy,” said Daphne. “He really doesn’t bother me in the least. Sometimes I quite forget we are engaged.”

Katherine frowned. “That’s just it,” she said, “you ought not to forget it, and what is more, you ought not to wish to!”

“Your verbs, dear,” said Daphne, playing with some scarlet carnations, “are so imperative! you don’t seem to realize—that I do not expect golden dreams, and I do not like thrills. I have had my day of excitement. Nevertheless I have got possibly a good many years before me, so I shall marry David. It will be——” she paused to look at the result of the carnations, “very restful.”

“That’s just exactly what it _won’t_ be!” said Katherine, putting down her cup with a bang. “It will be hell! You’ll hate yourself, and you’ll be tied to him. It wouldn’t matter so much if he didn’t care for you but he does, and you’ll hate that!”

Daphne’s lips shut tight. This was already true, but she did not mean to acknowledge it. “I never heard before that a woman disliked a man for caring for her,” she said.

“Possibly not—when he’s not her husband!” said Katherine. “That is where the difficulty comes in.”

“Of course I shouldn’t let David take me alone to-night,” said Daphne irrelevantly, “his aunt is coming too.”

“Yes,” Katherine persisted, “but his aunt won’t always be coming too, Daphne.”

Daphne put down the flowers on the dressing-table and went over to her friend. She took her by the shoulders, and looked into her eyes. “Katherine,” she said, “I have given my word, you must never talk to me in this way again. I understand quite well what it means. One must pay for everything in this world, and we women have to pay high, but I’m not prepared to talk about the price! Good-night!” She caught up the cloak, Katherine had put out for her, and ran out of the room. The day-nurses were coming in for supper, she met and passed them, with merry greetings. They envied her a great deal. She crossed the cool courtyard, stopping to speak to the porter about his wife; she was in Katherine’s ward, and was doing very well. A hansom swung into the little street, and pulled up at the iron gates. The figure of a tall, well-dressed young man sprang out.

“Is that you, Daphne?”

Daphne drew in a long breath, then she held out her hand. “I am quite ready, David,” she said. “Is your aunt going to meet us at the theatre?” she asked a few minutes later.

David gave a queer little laugh. “I think not, dear,” he said, “it seemed to me we would have more fun alone. After all what does it matter, we’re engaged, we can do what we like?”

“I am not altogether sure I do like it,” said Daphne, “you told me you would bring her.”

“Don’t be cross, Daphne,” David pleaded, “I don’t often bother you this way, but I wanted you quite alone. You see I know such an awfully nice little room near by, where we can have supper. You don’t mind very much, do you?”

Daphne did mind, and she minded very much indeed. There was something about David which puzzled her to-night. His eyes were too bright, he spoke very fast, and there was a restlessness about him which infected her with nervousness. Nevertheless she made an effort, and throwing off her fears, fascinated him, by her delight and joy in the London streets. “Oh! but it’s good to get back again!” she cried. “Often in Overham when everyone was saying, ‘How you must be enjoying the country life,’ I was wondering how much longer I could put up with it, and thirsting for the roar and the crowds, and the lights of London! I get so tired of wearing a uniform too, and Katherine and I can only afford the tops of ’buses. Just looking at me, as I am now, you wouldn’t think I was a nurse, would you?”

But what David thought of her at that moment was left unsaid, for a too sharp turn at the corner, brought their horse with a crash against a lumbering four-wheeler. Daphne felt David’s arm about her, a sound of broken glass, and his hand before her face. In another moment she was lifted on to the pavement.

“It’s all right!” he said, steadily enough, “and we are just here.” He gave something to the swearing cabman, and drew her quickly out of the crowd.

Daphne knew suddenly that she would have been very badly hurt if it had not been for David. Then she saw his hand and wrist were bleeding from a cut by the broken glass. “It’s just as well you took a nurse out with you,” she said smiling, as she tore her handkerchief into strips, and took out a safety pin. “Come under this jewellers’ window, David, and I’ll fasten you up.” She thought he was badly shaken for he stumbled as he crossed the pavement. “After all ’buses are safer,” she said, as she neatly fixed the safety pin. “Now let me take your arm, there is such a crowd here!” Daphne’s hand on his arm guided him through the crowded Strand. Voices of flower girls, and the scent and sounds, of the streets at night, remained a memory of Daphne’s. She was quite conscious that if she had not been guiding David people might have thought him the worse for drink; she was conscious also, as it was, that several people turned and looked after them. She wanted to explain to them that David had just had an accident. She explained it several times to herself. “Now, David,” she said, as they reached the lighted doors, “give me the tickets.”

He fumbled in his pockets and obeyed. With her light firm hand still on his arm, they reached their seats. She threw off her long cloak, and leaned back with a sigh of relief. The theatre rested her as nothing else could, the orchestra, the lights, the crowds of well-dressed people, seemed to her an assurance that she was quite safe, and quite happy, and that after all, in the best regulated families, accidents didn’t happen. The play for the time being swallowed up all her emotions. She was watching a great actor, and it stirred her pulses, and set her brain on fire. The man beside her watched her face, and seldom glanced towards the stage.

“Oh, but David,” she said when the curtain went down, “the heroine’s a stick, why won’t she let herself go?”

“Women are always afraid to do that,” said David, “they want everything else to go, and then to be able to say ‘no, thank you,’ and skip out of the circle of emotions. I never met a good woman yet, who let herself go.” His eyes were on her face, and seemed to devour her. Again she felt a sensation as distinct as it was unpleasant, if she had not known David so well she would have thought it fear.

“One must be sure of one’s man before one does that,” she said lightly.

“Well—are you?” he asked.

The slow colour mounted in the girl’s face, she felt her heart speaking in every pulse. Would he see that she was breathless, guess that she was afraid? “Naturally, I trust you, David,” she said rather coldly.

“Naturally!” said David, and he laughed. Daphne grew angry, and the next scene passed before she could enter into the spirit of the piece. It was _David Garrick_, and the man by her side was immensely amused at the drunken dinner-party scene. “That man knows what it’s like!” he said, as the curtain went down.

“Oh!” said Daphne, “what horrible, loathsome days those were! I—I don’t believe I liked that scene, David!”

David laughed. “Why, you little fool!” he said, “it’s only acting!”

“David!” exclaimed Daphne in astonishment.

“I beg your pardon,” said the man, getting very red. Daphne looked away from him. She was beginning to believe there were some things she did not understand about David. The curtain went down for the last time amidst tremendous applause. David put the cloak around the girl. As he did so he stooped and kissed her bared shoulder. These seats were under the shelter of the boxes. Daphne felt as if he had struck her.

“Never do that again, David!” she said, turning round on him with flashing eyes.

“Oh! all right!” said David awkwardly. They went out into the crowded streets in angry silence.

“Get a hansom and let me drive home, David,” she said, “I don’t want any supper.”

“Oh! but Daphne,” he said, “I’ve ordered it!” He was so evidently disappointed that she changed her mind.

“That was very nice of you,” she said gently. “I won’t be so ungrateful as not to come then.” The restaurant was only a step from the theatre; David led the way upstairs to a private room. It was beautifully appointed, and the little table with its dazzling candles and lovely flowers astonished her.

“Why, what a pretty room it is, David!” she said. “I had no idea restaurants had such lovely private rooms.”

“Some of ’em don’t,” said David. “This is an old friend of mine.”

“Then you’ve been here often,” said Daphne, smiling at him across the table. David got up and looked out of the window.

“Daphne, dear,” he said, “if you really like me to take you back now, I will, you know.”

“Oh, but we must have supper first, since you’ve ordered it,” she said. “We’ll be back before twelve o’clock, won’t we?”

“Oh, yes!” said David, “of course!” The waiter, a swift and silent individual, came in. Daphne was astonished at the supper, it was exquisitely cooked and served, and the best she had ever tasted. David ate very little, but she noticed he drank a good deal. He did not talk much, and being still a little shaken with silence and the uneasiness of the evening, Daphne talked continuously and nervously, until at last the almost oppressive silence of her host made her catch her breath. She gave a frightened little laugh.

“What is the matter with you, David?” she said; “why won’t you speak to me?” and then she wished she had not spoken. He came over and caught her hands.

“Daphne!” he stammered, “Daphne!” She looked into his eyes, and all the inarticulate rose up to meet her. She was afraid now in real earnest, desperately, horribly afraid.

“Oh! my God!” she whispered, “my God! David, let me go! you’re—drunk!”

“Damn it!” he muttered between his teeth, “do you think I am the only man who won’t get your kisses?” He drew her closer and closer to him, she felt his hot breath on her neck. He was mad with drink and passion, she dared not scream, and she was too far off the bell to ring it. She began to struggle with him, and the pattern of the wall, the carpet, the chairs got caught in her brain, till she saw nothing but these, and the two hands she was so vainly fighting against.

“David!” she moaned, “for God’s sake let me go!” He was pressing her backwards, and she knew that behind her was a chair she had admired a little while before; with a quick movement she avoided it, David saw it too late, stumbled and fell. In an instant Daphne was at the open door. Something stopped her from going down into the crowded hall below. She heard voices coming down the passage.

“Most improper _I_ call it, goin’ with a young man to a theatre at night. I should never let the twins do it if they were twenty times engaged!”

“I wish you wouldn’t talk so loud, mother!” the voice was Reggie’s.

“Oh, you go ’long!” said his mother, laughing, “and get us some kind of a gee!” Quick steps followed.

“Oh! Reggie!” whispered Daphne into the passage. There was a moment’s pause, then he came in quietly, shutting and locking the door after him. David was on his feet again, and the eyes of the two men met in one long, angry gaze. Reggie said nothing at all, but his face had changed from a pleasant boy’s, into a firm and steady man’s. His eyes looked as cold and fierce, as only blue eyes can look, when they are angry. Daphne, watching him, felt a surprise, almost as strong as her shame, and terror. He took up her cloak which was hanging over a chair.

“You—put that down,” said David heavily. Reggie fastened the cloak over her shoulders in silence, then he went up to David and looked at him.

“Come along with me,” he said shortly. Daphne stood in wide-eyed terror, expecting some fearful termination to the scene. To her intense surprise David quietly obeyed.

“Stay here, please, till I come back,” said Reggie to her over his shoulder, “and lock the door after us.” Reggie slipt his arm under David’s, and they left her. He came back alone. “I am sorry,” he said, “you’ll have to wait a few minutes till my people have gone.” Then he saw that she was trembling from head to foot. He got very white, crossed to the table, and poured her out some wine. “Take this,” he said. Her hands trembled too much to hold the glass, and he knelt down beside her putting it to her lips.

“Reggie,” she whispered, “David—poor David was drunk! He didn’t mean to be horrible!”

“All right!” he said, “we can go now, but pull that red thing over your face as much as you can.”

“Like this?” said Daphne, drawing it low over her dark hair, and looking up at him.

“I daresay that’ll do,” said Reggie evasively. When they got to the door of the restaurant there was a hansom waiting. “You’ll go straight back to the hospital?” he asked.

“Yes, but Reggie,” she pleaded, “you won’t let me go alone? I’m so frightened!” She caught her breath. He said nothing, but got in beside her. They drove in silence for a little way. “Reggie,” she said at last, “I’m still terribly frightened. Won’t you hold my hand?”

“All right,” said Reggie briefly. She gave a little sigh of relief, remembering how good he had always been to her when she was a little girl and they had stayed together at the seaside, and he had always been willing to lend her his spade. He looked ahead down the lately crowded streets, they were emptier now, only the habitués were still out. He looked at the still blazing lights in the jewellers’ windows, he looked in fact everywhere, but at the girl beside him.

“Reggie,” she said, “has David ever been like that before?” Reggie said nothing. “Then he—has!” sighed Daphne wearily. “I don’t think I could bear to see him again,” she said. “Oh, you _don’t_ think I ought to marry him after this, do you?”

“No! I don’t,” said Reggie decisively. They had reached the hospital gates. He got out and lifted her down. “Do you feel better now?” he asked, looking at the porter’s lodge. Daphne gave a little sigh of relief.

“Reggie!” she said, “do you know, I think I shall join a sisterhood?”

“You’d better go to bed,” said Reggie. “I’ll see David to-night, and you can write to him yourself to-morrow.”

“You have been good to me,” she said; “I’ve always wished you were my younger brother, Reggie.”

“A wish that couldn’t be granted!” said her companion rather stiffly, “seeing I’m three years older than you are! Good-night!”

She turned and went into the hospital gates. Katherine was asleep, she leaned over her and kissed her. “After all!” she thought, “I have not got to pay the price!”