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A People's Man, a novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim |
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Chapter 7 |
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_ CHAPTER VII Mrs. Bollington-Watts' shrill voice once more broke the silence, which, although it was a matter of seconds only, was not without a certain peculiar dramatic quality. "Say, what's wrong with you, Freddy? You don't think I'm a ghost, do you? Can't you come down and talk?" The spell, whatever it may have been, had passed. The young man lifted his hat and leaned over the side of the coach. "I won't get down just now, Amy," he said. "Tell me where you are and I'll come and see you. How's Richard?" Maraton, obeying a gesture from Lady Elisabeth, moved away with her, leaving Mrs. Bollington-Watts absorbed in a flood of family questions and answers. "Come back with me now, won't you?" she asked, a little abruptly. "My uncle is restless and unwell this afternoon, and it will perhaps relieve him to have your decision." "What about Mrs. Bollington-Watts?" Lady Elisabeth glanced at him for a moment. Her eyebrows were slightly lifted. "If you can bear to lose her, I'm sure I can. She is really rather a dear person but she is very intense. She will meet a crowd of people she knows, directly, and quite forget that we have slipped away. Shall we go down Birdcage Walk, or if you are in a hurry, perhaps you would prefer a taxi?" He shook his head. "I prefer to walk." He did not at first prove a very entertaining companion. They proceeded for some distance almost in silence. "If I were a curious person," Lady Elisabeth remarked, "I should certainly be puzzling my brain as to what there could have been about that very frivolous young man to call such an expression into your face. And how terrified he was to see you!" Maraton smiled grimly. "You have observation, I perceive, Lady Elisabeth." "Powers of observation but no curiosity, thank goodness," Lady Elisabeth declared. "Perhaps that is just as well, for I can see that you are going to turn out to be a very mysterious person." "In some respects I believe that I am," he assented equably. "My peculiar beliefs are responsible for a good deal, you see--and certain circumstances. . . . But tell me--we have both agreed to be frank--why have you changed your attitude towards me so completely? I scarcely dared to hope even for your recognition this morning." She was suddenly thoughtful. "That was the very question I was asking myself when we crossed the street just now," she remarked, with a faint smile. Maraton was conscious of a curious and undefined sense of pleasure in her words. In the act of crossing he had held her arm for a few moments, and though her assent to his physical guidance had been purely negative, there was yet something about it which had given him a vague pleasure. Instinctively he knew that she was of the order of women to whom the merest touch from a man whom they disliked would have been torture. "I think," she went on, "that it is because I am trying to adopt my uncle's point of view towards you." "And what is your uncle's point of view?" "He believes you," she declared, "to be a very dangerous person, a rabid enthusiast with brains and also stability--the most difficult order of person in the world to deal with." "Anything else?" "He believes you," she continued, "to be harmless enough at a wholesome period of our country's history. Just now, he told me yesterday, that he considered it was within your power to bring something very much like ruin upon the country." Maraton was silent. He felt singularly indisposed for argument. Every condition of life just then seemed too pleasant. They were walking in the shade, and a soft west wind was rustling in the trees above their heads. "There are, after all," she said, "so many happy people in the world. Is it worth while to drag down the pillars, to bring so much misery into the world for the sake of a dream?" "I am no dreamer," he insisted quietly. "It is possible to make absolute laws for the future with the same precision as one can extract examples from the history of the past." "But human nature," she objected, "is always a shifting quality." "Only in detail. The heart and lungs of it are the same in all ages." They crossed the road and turned into St. James's Park. He paused for a moment to look at the front of Buckingham Palace. "A hateful sight to you, of course," she murmured. "Not in the least," he assured her. "On the contrary, I think that the actual government of this country is wonderful. I suppose my creed of life would command a halter from any one who heard it, but I raise my hat always to your King." "It is going to take me ages," she sighed, "to understand you." "I will supply you with the necessary signposts," he promised. "Perhaps you will find then that the task will become almost too easy. For me I am afraid it will prove too short." She turned her head and looked at him curiously. There was something provocative in the curl of her lips and in her monosyllabic question. "Why?" "Because when you have arrived at a complete understanding," he declared, "I fear we shall have reached the parting of our ways." She looked steadfastly ahead. "Wouldn't that rather rest with you?" she asked. They passed a flower-barrow wonderfully laden, and she half stopped with a little exclamation. "Oh, I must have some of those white roses!" she begged. "They fit in at this moment with one of my only superstitions." He bought her a great handful. She held them in both hands and gave him her parasol to carry. "Mine is an inherited superstition, so I will not be ashamed of it," she told him. "We have always believed that white roses bring happiness, especially if they come accidentally at a critical moment." He glanced behind at the retreating figure of the flower woman. "If happiness is so easily purchased," he said, "what a pity it is that I did not buy the barrowful!" "It isn't a matter of quantity at all," she assured him. "One blossom would have been enough and you were really frightfully extravagant." She drifted into silence. They were walking eastwards now, and before them was the great yellow haze which hung over the sun-enveloped city, a haze which stretched across the whole arc of the heavens, and underneath which were toiling the millions to whom his life was consecrated. For a moment the grim inappropriateness of these hours struck him with a pang of remorse. He felt almost like a traitor to be walking with this slim, beautiful girl whose face was hidden from him now in the mass of white blossoms. And then his sense of proportion came to the rescue. He knew that he had but one desire--to work out his ends by the most effective means. It did not even disturb him to reflect that for the first time for many years he had found pleasure in what was merely an interlude. "We turn here," she directed. "You see, we are close to home now. My uncle will be so glad to see you, Mr. Maraton, and I cannot tell you how delighted I am that you are coming to Lyndwood." "I only hope," he said a little gravely, "that your uncle will not expect too much from my coming. It seems churlish to refuse, and even though our views are as far apart as the poles, I know that your uncle means well." She smiled at him delightfully. "I refuse to be depressed even by your solemn looks," she declared. "It is my twenty-fourth birthday to-day and I am still young enough to cling to my optimism." "Your birthday," he remarked. "I should have brought you an offering." She held up the roses. "Nothing in the world," she assured him softly, "could have given me more pleasure than these. Now I am going to take you first into a little den where you will not be disturbed, and then fetch my uncle," she added, as they passed into the house. "I shall pray for your mutual conversion. You won't mind a very feminine room, will you? Just now there are certain to be callers at any moment, and my uncle's rooms are liable to all manner of intrusions." She threw open the door and ushered him into what seemed indeed to be a little fairy chamber, a chamber with yellow walls and yellow rug, white furniture, oddments of china and photographs, silver-grey etchings, water-colour landscapes, piles of books and magazines. On a small table stood a yellow Sevres vase, full of roses. "It's a horrible place for a man to sit in," she said, looking around her. "You must take that wicker chair and throw away as many cushions as you like. Now I am going to fetch my uncle, and remember, please," she concluded, looking back at him from the door, "if I have seemed frivolous this morning, I am not always so. More than anything I am looking forward, down at Lyndwood, to have you, if you will, talk to me seriously." "Shall I dare to argue with you, I wonder?" he asked. She smiled at him. "Why not? A matter of courage?" "The bravest person in the world," he declared, "remembers always that little proverb about discretion." _ |
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