“Novelty is to love like bloom to fruit; it gives a lustre, which is easily effaced, but never returns.”

Half-past twelve was striking, as Eric entered his flat. A pile of letters awaited him, but he went into his bedroom without looking at them and began to undress. His unexpected walk had tired him, and he wanted to go to sleep before his brain woke up to puzzle itself over Ivy Maitland or to reconstruct his meeting with Barbara and imagine ways in which he could have carried it off with greater dignity or triumph. Until twenty minutes ago he fancied that he understood the few elements of Ivy’s simple character; but, if she were forcing her way into Gaymer’s flat to evict another woman, she had more passion and determination than her record of short-lived impulses warranted his expecting....

The telephone-bell by his bed mercilessly violated the silence of the room; and he spun around to face it, dropping his watch. No one but Barbara had ever telephoned to him at such an hour; at such an hour she had hardly missed one night in fifteen months, when they were both in London; when last she telephoned to him at such an hour, two and a half years before, he had returned home after saying good-bye to her; next day he was leaving for America; and he had let the bell ring on unanswered, muffling it with his handkerchief, when he could bear the noise no longer and trying to face his new conception of Barbara as a woman for whom honour and love had no meaning. For two and a half years he had wondered what would have happened if he had listened to her pleading... He took a step towards the bed and then retraced it.

As he picked up his watch and continued to wind it, the bell rang again. This time he advanced to the telephone unhesitatingly, but with the dread of a man compelled to draw back the sheet from a corpse’s face.

“Hullo?”

“Is that Mr. Lane? It’s Lady Maitland speaking. I hope you weren’t asleep?”

He sat heavily on the bed, limp for the moment with relief.

“Oh, I’m not undressed yet, thanks.”

“I rang you up to find out what had happened to Ivy. She’s not come in yet; and she’s such a little harum-scarum... Did you bring her home?”

Eric wanted to think over the answer and knew that he had no time.

“I put her into a taxi,” he said promptly.

“Oh... Then she ought to be home by now... She didn’t say she was going on to a party, did she?”

“No... I hope there’s nothing wrong, Lady Maitland. If I can do anything... Search-parties or anything of that kind?”

“Oh no! She must be in soon. I thought I’d just find out... Good-night!”

Eric lighted a cigarette and threw himself, half-undressed, on the bed. He could have done no good by handing on insubstantial suspicions... Half-an-hour later he went to bed with an unresolved riddle on his mind and found himself, in his dreams, counselling Ivy or tracking Gaymer. The riddle kept him company at breakfast, and, as he came to the end of his letters, he was wondering whether to call for an explanation, when Ivy herself was announced.

She shook hands and looked round the room with a show of interest, as his secretary collected her papers and withdrew.

“I hope I’m not disturbing you?,” she asked.

“I think I was expecting you. Won’t you sit down?”

She arranged herself with her back to the light, a moment too late to keep Eric from seeing that her face was colourless but for blue-grey shadows under her eyes; a black hat and black dress with transparent sleeves from shoulder to wrist accentuated her pallor.

“I won’t keep you a minute; it’s about last night,” she began breathlessly. “You must have thought it very funny of me to ask you not to see me home, making you walk home yourself—”

“It was fair to assume that you weren’t going straight home,” Eric laughed.

Ivy’s strangulated voice and expression of tragedy warned him not to laugh again.

“I—went out to supper,” she explained. “Aunt Connie told me she rang you up to know what had happened to me. So, if she says anything about it—”

She stopped in embarrassment at Eric’s look of surprise.

“I suspect you of trying to involve me in a conspiracy, Miss Maitland,” he said.

“Conspiracy?... Aunt Connie said that you were anxious and that you’d kindly offered to send out search-parties or something—”

“So you came in person to set my mind at rest instead of writing or telephoning! Your aunt was very anxious, I thought.”

“I’m afraid she was. You see, I hadn’t told her beforehand.”

Ivy tried to look him frankly in the face, then lowered her eyes and pretended to inspect the furniture and pictures. Eric turned away and lighted a cigarette.

“Did you know anything about it, yourself, beforehand?” He gave her time to decide whether it was worth while to speak the truth. “I don’t say I will be your accomplice, but, if you want me to be, you must tell me everything.”

“My accomplice in what?”

Eric turned with a smile and offered her a cigarette:

“To put it quite brutally, in concealing from your aunt what happened last night.”

“And what did happen?,” she demanded.

Eric found her effort to put him out of countenance by attempted haughtiness of tone pathetically unsuccessful.

“You went to Gaymer’s flat in Buckingham Gate. I don’t say there wasn’t any supper; I don’t even say there wasn’t a party, if three constitute a party. It was informal, however, and as much of a surprise to the host as to his guests.”

Ivy jumped up indignantly and subsided slowly in defeat.

“I don’t know what you mean!,” she cried with a last rally.

“Am I right so far?”

“How did you find out?,” she asked limply.

“Intuition, if you like. You went there on the spur of the moment, because you’d seen him driving home with another woman. You went there to make a scene with the other woman.”

“No, I wanted to talk to him about something.”

“Doesn’t it come to the same thing?”

“I never even saw her. I don’t know who she was.”

There was a long pause. Eric changed his chair so that he should not seem to be watching her face.

“Well, so far my intuition has been fairly good,” he said. “Isn’t it your turn now?” There was no answer. “I’m hardly adding anything, if I say that you’re in love with Gaymer and jealous of the other woman.”

“She’d no right to be there!”

“Oh, come! I’m afraid neither Gaymer nor any other man would allow you to dictate who may go to his flat.”

“But he’s engaged to me!”

Her left hand was bare and carried no ring; Eric seemed to remember her telling him overnight that she had not seen Gaymer for some time; and, when he went into her rooms off the Adelphi, she had confessed to at least a disagreement. The engagement seemed unstable.

“Ah, that I didn’t know, of course,” he said.

There was another pause, and the girl turned her head quickly so that even her profile was hidden from him. Eric saw the flash of a handkerchief and heard a sob half-choked down. Throwing away his cigarette, he seated himself on the arm of the chair and laid his hand on her shoulder. Nearly three years ago Barbara had swept into that room like a whirlwind and collapsed as suddenly. Since then he ought to have learned the price of sympathy....

“Wouldn’t it help you to tell me all about it?,” he asked her gently.

Ivy dabbed at her eyes and felt for his hand. Then she turned and pressed herself against him until he could feel the fluttering of her heart.

“That’s why I told you I was desperate,” she gulped, burying a tear-stained face of misery on his shoulder. “That’s why I told you at the opera that I couldn’t allow myself to think of things... We met on the way back from America; we liked each other, we were always meeting. When life at home became more than I could stand, he helped me... But I told you all about that... It was glorious at first, I’d never been in love, I felt I’d never been happy before. I used to dine with him almost every night and go on to a dance. He’s a beautiful dancer, and I adore dancing. I seemed to belong to him... When we didn’t do that, we used to go to a theatre, or he’d just come and talk to me in my rooms, or I’d go and talk to him—”

“Didn’t you feel that was rather a risk?”

Either the girl did not hear him or she deliberately ignored the interruption.

“I didn’t think any one could be so happy,” she went on. “I remember thinking how wrong you were... Some days weren’t as perfect as others, of course. I suppose I’m very jealous, but I loved him so much that I simply hated to see him speak to another woman; I never wanted to speak to another man, so it wasn’t fair... We’d had a row that night when I met you after the theatre. A woman—she was rude to me, deliberately; he said he’d known her for years, but that didn’t make any difference or give her the right... I never said anything to her, but I could see she hated me; and he just laughed at us both and seemed to enjoy it. I refused to have anything to do with him for ten days after that. Then he apologized and said the woman had once been in love with him and he didn’t want a scene in public... Then we became engaged.”

She threw out the words so abruptly that Eric was conscious of disproportion, even of omission.

“What happened?,” he asked.

“He took me out to dinner, and we went on to a dance at the Burlington Rooms. Then we went to his flat for supper. I didn’t want to go at first, because it was after two, but he begged so hard and said he was leaving London next day. We became engaged then.”

Eric was still conscious of an omission.

“It was never announced, was it?,” he asked.

“No. He didn’t want us to marry until he knew whether he was going to stay on in the army. He wants to be demobilized as soon as possible; he has friends in the City—”

“But that’s no reason why the engagement shouldn’t be announced,” Eric persisted.

“He didn’t want it. He made me promise to keep it a secret. I oughtn’t to have told you, but last night—”

She broke off and began to cry again.

“Well, what happened then?” he asked her after a pause.

“After that—My work in his department was over; and, when Aunt Connie asked me to come and stay with her, I went. Johnnie didn’t like my going, he said he’d never see anything of me—”

“But I thought he was going away himself?”

“No, he didn’t go—after all. At least, not then. I saw him whenever we could arrange it, he used to come and dine... He complained that he never had me to himself; but I told him that, as soon as the engagement was announced, he could have me as much to himself as he liked. When my sisters were engaged, every one ran away as if they’d got plague... I did dine with him once or twice, but in some ways Aunt Connie’s as bad as mother; she always comes into my room at night to see I’m home and she’d have had a fit, if she’d known that I was dining alone with Johnnie. We used to invent people—‘Captain Richards’ and ‘Mrs. Bosanquet’; whenever Aunt Connie wanted to know who’d been there, I used to say ‘Captain Richards and Mrs. Bosanquet’.”

She laughed feebly at her strategem, but Eric was disquieted. Innocence or stupidity might excuse her for running risks; but there must be a blind spot in her conscience, if she could tell a lie so light-heartedly and then talk about it.

“And what happened then?,” he asked, deferring censure for fear of drying the stream of her confidence.

“Well, then the opera started, and I hardly saw him at all. Aunt Connie was there every night, and I felt she had first call on me. Besides, I liked going; and there was always room in the box, if he’d wanted to come. He said he didn’t care to be with me when there was a crowd of other people... Then he did go away. That was weeks ago, and I didn’t see him again till last night.”

“Did he write?”

Ivy turned with anguished protest in her eyes, as though he had asked the question for the pleasure of hurting her:

“No.”

“And what happened last night?”

As she hesitated, he could see her hardening; and the grip on his hand tightened.

“I hardly knew what I was doing,” she whispered. “I couldn’t see... But I felt I had to go... He opened the door, and I asked him... Her coat was on a chair. I shan’t tell you what we said... But I did tell him he was a beast to behave like that, when he was engaged to me, a beast not to write, a beast to make me miserable!”

Her voice had risen, she had drooped away from him and was crying without concealment. Eric lifted her hand to his lips and put an arm around her shoulders, drawing her to him until her cheek lay against his breast.

“You must steady yourself, Ivy! I warn you that, when any one cries, I’m always liable to join in!”

“You? I don’t mind what you do! You’ve been ripping to me—right from the first time we met... I hate men! I’d never tell any man what I’ve told you. I don’t know why you let me; you’ve better things to do, I should have thought.”

“Well, perhaps I hope that I may be useful. What happened then?”

Ivy dabbed jerkily at her eyes and tried to steady her voice.

“He said that, if I thought so badly of him, we’d better end the engagement,” she went on.

“There I agree with him.”

“I said I only asked him to behave properly to me. He said the whole thing was a mistake and, if I wouldn’t end it, he would. I said I wouldn’t let him!”

She wiped her eyes and began smoothing the front of her dress as though she had nothing to add. Eric got off the arm of her chair and stood facing her with his shoulders against the mantelpiece.

“Don’t think me prejudiced,” he began, “if I admit that I don’t greatly care for Gaymer, but believe me when I tell you that you’re very well out of it—”

“But I’m not!,” she interrupted. “I won’t let him break it off!”

“I imagine you’re not prepared to share him,” Eric suggested drily.

“But I love him more than any one in the world!”

“That’s not enough by itself.”

She fingered her handkerchief for a moment and then broke out explosively:

“I won’t let him go!”

“How can you keep him?” Eric asked. “Will you threaten him with an action for breach of promise?”

“I’ll do anything!”

He shook his head and waited for her to calm herself.

“In the first place you couldn’t prove that there’d ever been a promise to marry,” he began. “In the next place, as it’s never been announced, you couldn’t prove damage. He’s not kept you from marrying any one else; and a jury wouldn’t give a farthing for your heart or feelings. And it’s fantastic to think that you can make a man marry you by threatening an action if he doesn’t. What kind of married life do you look forward to after that? Of course, I don’t know whether he was serious last night or whether you’d both lost your tempers; but, if he meant it, you must regard the thing as being over.”

Pouting and rebellious, Ivy stared at her shoes and bit at the border of a crumpled handkerchief:

“I won’t!”

“My dear, you must! However much you love him, he’s not worth having unless he loves you. What can you do to make him?”

“I’ll publish the engagement!”

“And if he contradicts it?”

“He wouldn’t! He couldn’t! He couldn’t be such a brute!” She was startled by her own vehemence and repeated in a whisper more poignant than the cry: “Oh, he couldn’t!”

Eric looked at her and walked away to the window. Pillowing his chin on his arms, he stared into the lifeless street below. Somewhere in the silent flat a clock struck twelve; a second and a third joined in with softly discordant chimes, and he realized that he had been sprawling there in mental catalepsy for ten minutes....

“From your account—you’ve told me everything, I take it—?” he asked uncertainly.

“Everything!”

He shrugged his shoulders and turned back to the room, avoiding her eyes because he knew that she was lying. There was no proof, but her desperate intensity convinced him, and he wondered why he had not guessed before.

“What are you going to do?,” he asked.

“I don’t know. I didn’t mean to talk to you about this. I only wanted you not to give me away to Aunt Connie.” She stood up and looked round the room for a mirror. “Do I look very awful? I cried myself sick last night.”

“Come into the next room and tidy up,” he suggested.

“I could drown myself!,” she cried.

He gave her a clean handkerchief and watched her thoughtfully as she bathed and dried her eyes. When she took off her hat and smoothed her short dark hair, she would have passed anywhere as a slim boy of fifteen masquerading in a woman’s black dress. As he watched her, his mind went back to their first conversation in New York, and he felt that he had foreseen everything as well as if she carried her future branded on her forehead. It was a tragedy from which he could see no escape, perfect material for the third act of a play; and the psychology and emotion had been presented to him without any strain on his imagination... But artistic detachment was an indecency when a mere child was being ruined and heartbroken for the passing pleasure of a man like Gaymer. She was spiritually ruined whether Gaymer married her or not....

“You mustn’t talk like that,” he said gently. “I’m going to think whether I can suggest anything. May I take you home? A walk will do me good.”

They left Ryder Street and crossed the Park without exchanging six words. Here and there the passers-by paused and looked back to marvel at their preoccupation, for both walked with knitted brows and bent heads, Ivy to hide her red eyes, and Eric to concentrate his thoughts with no other distraction than brown gravel and grey flag-stones. They said good-bye in Eaton Place after arranging to meet at the opera.

Eric turned back towards Grosvenor Place and walked to the Thespian Club. As he entered the dining-room, a hand was laid on his arm. Carstairs was lunching with Deganway, and they greeted him with an air of grievance.

“You’ve just cut us once. Don’t make a habit of it,” said Deganway.

“I’m sorry! May I join you? And tell me where I cut you.”

“It was in the Park,” said Deganway. “We were coming here from the Foreign Office, and you were walking with a young and lovely sylph. It was quite deliberate. I think I shall have to tell John Gaymer about it; on my honour I shall.”

Eric reached for the menu and began to write his bill. Deganway was the most intolerable gossip in London, but a gossip was sometimes useful.

“How does he come into it?,” he asked at length.

“Oh, those two! My dear, she’s Johnnie’s latest passion... At least I haven’t heard of any one later. You’d better watch out, if he finds you poaching. You are behindhand.”

“We can’t compete with you, Gerry,” said Carstairs.

Eric made no comment, but he ordered a light luncheon and ate it as quickly as it could be served. He had offered to take Ivy home because he knew that he could do no work while he was thinking of her; and it was useless to go back to his rooms or to fancy that he could compose his mind until he had done something for her or satisfied himself that nothing could be done. He wondered whether she knew that he had guessed... The slim, black figure with the short, boyish hair haunted him; he saw her in every corner of the dining-room and heard her cry of despair above the clatter of plates and the babble of voices. Once he tried to tell himself that it was not his business... But she had talked to him because there was no one else....

Before he could do anything, he had to hear Gaymer’s version. That had been obvious from the first, but he had seen only the precipitous difficulties of a meeting until a chance hint from Deganway shewed him how to overcome them. As soon as he had finished his meal, he telephoned to find out whether Gaymer was at home. A voice answered that he was not expected until after six, and Eric strode into the Park to be by himself and to rehearse the interview.

There was no one who could undertake it for him. He passed General Maitland, the judge and Ivy’s two brothers in rapid review, but they were the last people who must ever know. Then, waiving preliminaries, he wondered what he was going to say to Gaymer. Plain speaking was more salutary than effective. Gaymer might deny everything, he might laugh; this was probably not the first time that he had got himself into an ambiguous position, and he had probably received his share of plain speaking. Moreover, invective did not help Ivy. Eric tried to make up his mind whether he wanted, whether he would help, whether he would even allow her to marry such a man....

There was no one who could advise him. Amy Loring was a sensible, sympathetic woman, but, where sex morals were in question, she rather boasted of her old-fashioned intolerance. To tell her would be to alienate her forever from some one to whom she was at present mildly attached. Sonia O’Rane had crammed a life-time of experience into thirty years and would probably respect a girl the more flagrantly she overthrew the conventional canons of morality. But it was never safe to entrust Sonia with a secret. The longer he thought over it, the more clearly Eric saw that the secret could be shared with no one.

He walked slowly into the Green Park and timed his arrival at Buckingham Gate for half-past six. Gaymer had come home a moment before him and was still standing in the hall with his cap on, opening letters. For an instant he betrayed surprise at receiving a call from a man whom he knew but slightly and had never invited to his flat, but the surprise was banished without an effort.

“Hullo! How are you?,” he jerked out. “Just let me finish these, will you?”

“I wanted to have a word with you, if you could spare time,” said Eric.

“Come along.” Gaymer crossed the hall slowly, reading the last of his letters, and threw open the door of a small sitting-room decorated with Vogue plates and furnished with a divan, two arm-chairs and a low Moorish table. “What’ll you have to drink?,” he asked.

“Nothing, thanks... I’d better explain why I’m here. I was at the opera last night, and Lady Maitland asked me to see Ivy home. I put her into a taxi just by the Royal Stables, but, when I got home, Lady Maitland telephoned to say that she wasn’t in yet; did I know what had happened to her? This morning Ivy called on me, and I gathered that, after leaving me, she’d come here.”

Gaymer rang the bell and ordered whiskey to be brought in.

“So it was you she was walking with?” he said. “I couldn’t see.”

“Yes... As the result of coming here, she’s rather upset; and I wanted to straighten things out, if I could.”

Gaymer filled his tumbler and looked at Eric over the top, slightly raising his eyebrows.

“Well, drive ahead,” he recommended.

“You and she are engaged, aren’t you?”

“Did she tell you that?”

“I should like to hear if that is so.”

Gaymer emptied half the tumbler and set it down behind him on the mantelpiece.

“Would you?,” he asked with a smile. “I rather feel that’s my business.”

“Not entirely. She’s a friend of mine... You and she were being discussed at lunch to-day.”

“Where?”

“At the Thespian. Are you engaged to her?,” Eric persisted.

In the short pause which followed both men seemed to resolve no longer to waste time on appearances and the circumlocution of civility.

“What the devil’s that to you?,” Gaymer demanded.

“Are you going to marry her?,” asked Eric.

“Do you want to marry her yourself?”

“I’d sooner marry her myself than see her married to you,” said Eric and repented of the words almost before they were spoken. In themselves they were harmless, but he did not want Gaymer to see that his cool insolence and jerky monosyllables were wearing down his own patience.

“Well, I won’t stop you, if you think you’ll have any success.”

“That’s not the point. She says you promised to marry her, and I want to know if you’re going to keep your promise.”

“I see. Well, I want to know just where you think you come in.”

“She’s a friend of mine,” Eric repeated.

“Bully for her! But I’m afraid I don’t hold myself responsible to any friend of hers who chooses to come here and ask impertinent questions.”

“Naturally. But I think I may say she’s asked my advice. Certainly I’ve given her advice, and she seems to be guided by it to some extent.”

“Bully for her again!”

“She was talking of making the engagement public.”

Gaymer was only impressed to the extent of hesitating for an instant; then he shewed himself more assured than ever:

“And, if your advice to her is worth a damn, you told her not to do that!”

“You don’t want to marry her, then?”

Gaymer first yawned and then frowned with a sudden irritability that suggested more that he wanted to end the interview than that he had lost his temper.

“Whether I want to or not is beside the point!” he exclaimed. “I’ve no money to marry on. She knows that. I don’t know from one day to another whether I’m going to be demobilized. I can’t marry on my pay.” He looked round with sensual appreciation of the simple warmth and softness of his quarters. “Far too fond of personal comfort for that. Have I satisfied your curiosity enough now?”

“No, you haven’t told me why you promised to marry her,” Eric persisted.

“Did I promise? I should be enormously interested to know why you say that.”

“Because she told me, and in this instance I believe her word in preference to yours. Why you promised to marry her—I needn’t bother you to tell me that. I suppose you found it a necessary formality.”

Eric waited for a denial, though he knew that it would tell him nothing. Guilty or innocent, Gaymer must now lose his temper in vehement earnest.

And yet no denial came.

“Did she tell you that, too?” he asked.

“I chose to infer it.”

“You’re a desirable friend for a girl to have, if you choose to infer that sort of thing about her... Lane, the artistic temperament runs away with you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go and dress. But, any time you think of anything else you’d like to ask me, don’t hesitate to drop in. I’m nearly always at home this time of day and I can give you a cocktail, if you’ll tell me how to get hold of any gin. Good-bye.”