It was after that queer look, after her too conscious blush that she began to envisage the state of her affairs. She was going to Martley Thicket for Whitsuntide; it was an old engagement, comparatively old, that is; she did want to go, and now she knew that she did. Well, how much did she want to go? Ought she to want it? What had happened? Questions thronged her when once she had opened a window. What did it matter to her whether Urquhart qualified as an aviator or not? What had made her ask him not to do it? How had she allowed him to say "Assume that you like me"? The short dialogue stared at her in red letters upon the dark. "Assume that you like me—" "You may assume it." "I do." She read the packed little sentences over and over, and studied herself with care. No, honestly, nothing jarred. There was no harm; she didn't feel any tarnish upon her. And yet—she was But having once begun to pay attention to such matters as these, she pursued her researches—in and out of season. It was a busy time of year, and James always laid great stress on what he called "the duties of her station." She must edge up crowded stairways behind him, stand at Since Easter at Wycross, James had not been her veiled Eros, but the possibilities were all there. He was not a garden god, by any means, nor a genius of the Spring. January and Onslow Square had not frozen his currents; February and the Opera House had heightened his passion. At any moment he might resume his devotional habit—even here in Carlton House Terrace. And what then? Well—and this was odd—this ought to have produced a state of tension very trying to the nerves; and, well—it hadn't. That's all. At that very party in Carlton House This was bad enough, and occupied her through busy nights and days; but there was more disturbing matter to come, stirred up to cloud her mind by Mabel's unwonted discretion. Mabel had been more than discreet. She had been frightened. Pushing out into a stream of new surmise, she had suddenly faltered and hooked at the quay. Lucy herself was at first merely curious. She had no doubts, certainly no fears. What had been the matter with Mabel, when she hinted that perhaps, after all, James had never done anything? And then—after the beautiful, the thrilling, the deeply touching episode—the moment after it—there was the old, indifferent, slightly bored James with the screwed eye and the disk. Not a hint, not a ripple, not the remains of a flush. It But she had said so! The discovery stabbed Lucy in the eyes like a flash of lightning, left her blind and quivering, with a swim of red before her hurt vision. That was why Mabel had been frightened. And now Lucy herself was frightened. Francis Lingen, absurd! Mr. Urquhart? Ah, that was quite another thing. She grew hot, she grew quite cold, and suddenly she began to sob. Oh, no, no, not that. A flood of tossing thoughts came rioting and racing in, flinging crests of foam, like white and beaten water. She for a time was swept about, a weed in this fury of storm. She was lost, effortless, at death's threshold. But she awoke herself from the nightmare, walked herself about, and reason returned. It was nonsense, unwholesome nonsense. Why, that first time, he was in the library with James and Francis Lingen, his second visit to the house! Why, when she was at the Opera he had been at Peltry with the She felt very safe, and enormously relieved. So much so that she could afford herself the reflection that if hardihood had been all that was wanting, Jimmy Urquhart would have had plenty and to spare. Oh, yes, indeed. But—thank God again—he was a gentleman if ever there was one. Nobody but a gentleman could afford to be so simple in dealing. Having worked all this out, she felt that her feet at least were on solid ground. A spirit of adventure was renewed in her, and a rather unfortunate contretemps provoked it. Before she knew where she was, she was up to the neck, as Urquhart would have said, in a turbid stream. Francis Lingen, that elegant unfortunate, was certainly responsible, if you could call one so tentative and clinging responsible for anything. He had proposed the Flower Show, to which she had been, as an earnest gardener, early in the morn He made himself a monument of matter-of-fact impassivity during the drive home. His arms were folded, he stared out of window; she thought once she heard him humming an air. But he didn't smoke, as he certainly would have done had relations been easy. He kept her at a distance, but not aggressively. Lucy was by this time very much annoyed. Her apologies had been frozen at the front by his angry glare. She had no intention now of renewing them, nor did she care to justify herself, as she might have done, by pointing out that, while she was half-an-hour late, he was probably a quarter of an hour too early. This would have been a safe venture, for his fussiness over an appointment and tendency to be beforehand with it were quite well known to himself. She kept the best face she could upon the miserable affair, but was determined that she would force a crisis at home, come what might. Arrived at Onslow Square, James strode into the library and shut the door behind him. When Crewdson was disposed of on his numerous affairs, Lucy followed her lord. He turned, he stared, and waited for her to speak. Lucy said, "I think that you must be sorry that James did his best to an easy calm. "Apologies should be in the air. I should have looked for one myself an hour or so ago." "You should have had it," she said, "if you had given me time. But you stared me out of countenance the moment I came in. Anger before you had even heard me is not a nice thing to face." James turned pale. He used his most incisive tones. "I am ready to hear your explanation. Perhaps I had better say that I know it." Lucy showed him angry eyes. "If you know it, there is no need for me to trouble you with it. You must also know that it isn't easy to get away from a great crowd in a minute." But he seemed not to hear her. He had another whip in waiting, which nothing could have kept him from the use of. "I think that I must trouble you, rather. I think I should be relieved by hearing from you where the crowd was of which you were one—or two, indeed." She discovered that he was white with rage, though she had never seen him so before. "What do you mean, James?" she said—and "Yes," said Lucy, "I was indeed. And why shouldn't I be?" "I have told you before this what my views are about that. I don't intend to repeat them, at present." "I think you must be mad," said Lucy. "Do you mean to tell me that you object to Francis Lingen to that extent—to the extent of such a scene as this?" He faced her from his height. "I do mean that." "Then," she said, out of herself, "you are insulting me. I don't think you can intend to do that. And I should like to say also that you, of all the men in the world, are the last person to be jealous or suspicious of anybody where I am concerned." She hadn't meant to say that; but when she saw that he took it as a commonplace of marital ethics, she determined to go further still. He took it, in fact, just so. It seemed to him what any wife would say to any indignant husband. "I beg your pardon," he said, "you don't quite follow me. I agree with you that I should "No person at all," said Lucy, "has the right or the reason to suspect me of anything, or to be jealous of any of my acquaintance. You didn't understand me: I suppose because you are too angry. What I meant you to remember was how much, how very much, you are bound to believe in me—now of all times in our life." Here then was a Psyche with the lamp in her hand. Here was Lucy on the limit of a world unknown. Here she stood, at her feet the tufted grasses and field herbs, dusty, homely, friendly things, which she knew. Beyond her, beyond the cliff's edge were the dim leagues of a land and sea unknown. What lay out there beyond her in the mist? What mountain and forest land lay there, what quiet islands, what sounding mains? But it was done now. James gazed blankly, but angrily, puzzled into her face. "I haven't the faintest notion what you mean," he said. Evidently he had not. She must go on, though she hated it. "You are very surprising. I can hardly think you are He gave his mind to it, explored the past, and so entirely failed to understand her that he looked rather foolish. "I remember that we were there." Then he had a flash of light—and shed it on her, God knows. "I remember also that Lingen was in the box." "Oh, Lingen! Are you mad on—? Do you not remember that you were there before Lingen?" "Yes, I do remember it." He stood, poor fool, revealed. Lucy's voice rang clear. "Very well. If that is all that your memory brings you, I have nothing more to say." She left him swiftly, and went upstairs in the possession of an astounding truth, but rapt with it in such a whirlwind of wonder that she could do no more than clutch it to her bosom as she flew. She sent out word that she was not coming down to dinner, and locked herself in with her truth, to make what she could of it. |