"And so you were obliged to marry your
bete noire after all! My dear, it has been the talk of the town. Come, sit down, and tell me all about it. I am burning to hear how it came about."
Doris's old friend, Mrs. Lockyard, paused to flick the ash from her cigarette, and to laugh slyly at the girl's face of discomfiture.
Doris also held a cigarette between her fingers, but she was only toying with it restlessly.
"There isn't much to tell," she said. "We were married by special licence. I was not obliged to marry him. I chose to do so."
Mrs. Lockyard laughed again, not very pleasantly.
"And left poor Maurice in the lurch. That was rather cruel of you after all his chivalrous efforts to deliver you from bondage. And he so hard up, too."
A flush of anger rose in the girl's face. She tilted her chin with the old proud gesture.
"I should not have married him in any case," she said. "He made that quite impossible by his own act. He--was not so chivalrous as I thought."
A gleam of malice shone for a moment in Mrs. Lockyard's eyes, and just a hint of it was perceptible in her voice as she made response.
"One has to make allowances sometimes. All men are not made after the pattern of your chosen lord and master. He, I grant you, is hard as granite and about as impassive. Still I mustn't depreciate your prize since it was of your own choosing. Let me wish you instead every happiness."
"He was not impassive that night," said Doris quickly, with a sharp inward sense of injustice.
"No?" questioned Mrs. Lockyard.
"No. At least--Major Brandon did not find him so." Doris's blue eyes took fire at the recollection. "He gave him his deserts," she said, with a certain exultation. "He thrashed him."
"Oh, my dear, he would have done that in any case. That was an old, old score paid off at last. Forgive me for depriving you of this small gratification. But that debt was contracted many years ago when you were scarcely out of your cradle. Your presence was a mere incident. You were the opportunity, not the cause."
"I don't know what you mean," said Doris, looking her straight in the face.
"No? Well, my dear, it isn't my business to enlighten you. If you really want to know, I must refer you to your husband. Surely that is Mrs. Fricker over there. You will not mind if she joins us?"
"I am going!" Doris announced abruptly--"I really only looked in to see if there were any letters."
She dropped her cigarette with determination and turned to the nearest door.
It was true that she had run into the club for her correspondence, but having met Mrs. Lockyard she had been almost compelled to linger, albeit unwillingly. Now from the depths of her soul she regretted the impulse that had borne her thither. She vowed to herself that she would not enter the club again so long as Mrs. Lockyard remained in town.
Three weeks had elapsed since her marriage; three weeks of shopping in Paris with Caryl somewhere in the background, looking on but never advising.
He had been very kind on the whole, she was fain to admit, but she was further from understanding him now than she had ever been. He had retired into his shell so completely that it seemed unlikely that he would ever again emerge, and she did not dare to make the first advance.
Her return to London had been one of the greatest ordeals she had ever faced, but she had endured it unflinchingly, and had found that London had already almost forgotten the eccentricity of her marriage. In the height of the season memories are short.
Caryl had taken a flat overlooking the river, and here they had settled down. He spent the greater part of his day at the Law Courts, and Doris found herself thrown a good deal upon her own resources. In happier days this had been her ideal, but for some reason it did not now content her.
Returning from her encounter with Mrs. Lockyard at the club, she told herself with sudden petulance that life in town had lost all charm for her.
Entering the dainty sitting-room that looked on to the river, she dropped into a chair by the window and stared out with her chin in her hands. The river was a blaze of gold. A line of long black barges was drifting down-stream in the wake of a noisy steam-tug. She watched them absently, sick at heart.
Gradually the shining water grew blurred and dim. Its beauty wholly passed her by, or if she saw it, it was only in vivid contrast to the darkness in her soul. For a little, wide-eyed, she resisted the impulse that tugged at her heart-strings; but at last in sheer weariness she gave in. What did it matter, a tear more or less? There was no one to know or care. And tears were sometimes a relief. She bowed her head upon the sill and wept.
"Why, Doris!" a quiet voice said.
She started, started violently, and sprang upright.
Caryl was standing slightly behind her, his hand on the back of her chair, but as she rose he came forward and stood beside her.
"What is it?" he said. "Why are you crying?"
"I'm not!" she declared vehemently. "I wasn't! You--you startled me--that's all."
She turned her back on him and hastily dabbed her eyes. She was furious with him for coming upon her thus.
He stood at the window, looking out upon the long, black barges in silence.
After a few seconds of desperate effort she controlled herself and turned round.
"I never heard you come in. I--must have been asleep."
He did not look at her, or attempt to refute the statement.
"I thought you were going to be out this afternoon," he said.
"So I was. So I have been. I went to the club to get my letters."
"Didn't you find any one there to talk to?" he asked.
"No one," she answered somewhat hastily; then, moved by some impulse she could not have explained, "That is, no one that counts. I saw Mrs. Lockyard."
"Doesn't she count?" asked Caryl, still with his eyes on the river.
"I hate the woman!" Doris declared passionately.
He turned slowly round.
"What has she been saying to you?"
"Nothing."
Again he made no comment on the obvious lie.
"Look here," he said. "Can't we go out somewhere to-night? There is a new play at the Regency. They say it's good. Shall we go?"
The suggestion was quite unexpected; she looked at him in surprise.
"I have promised Vera to dine there," she said.
"Ring her up and say you can't," said Caryl.
She hesitated.
"I must make some excuse if I do. What shall I say?"
"Say I want you," he said, and suddenly that rare smile of his for which she had wholly ceased to look flashed across his face, "and tell the truth for once."
She did not see him again till she entered the dining-room an hour later. He was waiting for her there, and as she came in he presented her with a spray of lilies.
Again in astonishment she looked up at him.
"Don't you like them?" he said.
"Of course I do. But--but--"
Her answer tailed off in confusion. Her lip quivered uncontrollably, and she turned quickly away.
Caryl was plainly unaware of anything unusual in her demeanour. He talked throughout dinner in his calm, effortless drawl, and gradually under its soothing influence she recovered herself.
She enjoyed the play that followed. It was a simple romance, well staged, and superbly acted. She breathed a sigh of regret when it was over.
Driving home again with Caryl, she thanked him impulsively for taking her.
"You weren't bored?" he asked.
"Of course not," she said.
She would have said more, but something restrained her. A sudden shyness descended upon her that lasted till they reached the flat.
She left Caryl at the outer door and turned into the room overlooking the river. The window was open as she had left it, and the air blew in sweetly upon her over the water. She had dropped her wrap from her shoulders, and she shivered a little as she stood, but a feeling of suspense kept her motionless.
Caryl had entered the room behind her. She wondered if he would pause at the table where a tray of refreshments was standing. He did not, and her nerves tingled and quivered as he passed it by.
He joined her at the window, and they stood together for several seconds looking out upon the great river with its myriad lights.
She had not the faintest idea as to what was passing in his mind, but her heart-beats quickened in his silence to such a tumult that at last she could bear it no longer. She turned back into the room.
He followed her instantly, and she fancied that he sighed.
"Won't you have anything before you go?" he said.
She shook her head.
"Good-night!" she said almost inaudibly.
For a moment--no longer--her hand lay in his. She did not look at him. There was something in his touch that thrilled through her like an electric current.
But his grave "Good-night!" had in it nothing startling, and by the time she reached her own room she had begun to ask herself what cause there had been for her agitation. She was sure he must have thought her very strange, very abrupt, even ungracious.
And at that her heart smote her, for he had been kinder that evening than ever before. The fragrance of the lilies at her breast reminded her how kind.
She bent her head to them, and suddenly, as though the flowers exhaled some potent charm, impulse--blind, domineering impulse--took possession of her.
She turned swiftly to the door, and in a moment her feet were bearing her, almost without her voluntary effort, back to the room she had left.
The door was unlatched. She pushed it open, entering impetuously. And she came upon Caryl suddenly--as he had come upon her that afternoon--sunk in a chair by the window, with his head in his hands.
He rose instantly at her entrance, rose and closed the window; then lowered the blind very quietly, very slowly, and finally turned round to her.
"What is it? You have forgotten something?"
Except that he was paler than usual, his face bore no trace of emotion. He looked at her with his heavy eyes gravely, with unfailing patience.
For an instant she stood irresolute, afraid; then again that urging impulse drove her forward. She moved close to him.
"I only came back to say--I only wanted to tell you--Vivian, I--I was horrid to you this afternoon. Forgive me!"
She stretched out her trembling hands to him, and he took them, held them fast, then sharply let them go.
"My dear," he said, "you were in trouble, and I intruded upon you. It was no case for forgiveness."
But she would not accept his indulgence.
"I was horrid," she protested, with a catch in her voice. "Why are you so patient with me? You never used to be."
He did not answer her. He seemed to regard the question as superfluous.
She drew a little nearer. Her fingers fastened quivering upon his coat.
"Don't be too kind to me, Vivian," she said, her voice trembling. "It--it isn't good for me."
He took her by the wrists and drew her hands away.
"You want to tell me something," he said. "What is it?"
She glanced upwards, meeting his look with sudden resolution.
"You asked me this afternoon why I was crying," she said. "And I--I lied to you. You asked me, too, what Mrs. Lockyard said to me. And I lied again. I will tell you now, if--if you will listen to me."
Caryl was still holding her wrists. There was a hint of sternness in his attitude.
"Well?" he said quietly. "What did she say?"
"She said"--Doris spoke with an effort--"she said, or rather she hinted, that there was an old grudge between you and Major Brandon, a matter with which I was in no way concerned, an affair of many years' standing. She said that was why you followed him up and--thrashed him that night. She implied that I didn't count at all. She made me wonder if--if--"--she was speaking almost inarticulately, with bent head--"if perhaps it was only to satisfy this ancient grudge that you married me."
Her words went into silence. She could not look him in the face. If he had not held her wrists so firmly she would have been tempted to turn and flee. As it was, she could only stand before him in quivering suspense.
He moved at length, moved suddenly and disconcertingly, freeing one hand to turn her face quietly upwards. She did not resist him, but she shrank as she met his eyes. She fancied she had never seen him look so grim.
"And that was why you were crying?" he asked, deliberately searching her reluctant eyes.
"That was--one reason," she acknowledged faintly.
"Then there was something more than that?"
"Yes." She laid her hand pleadingly on his arm, and he released her. "I will tell you," she said tremulously, keeping her face upturned to his. "At least, I will try. But it's very difficult because--"
She began to falter under his look.
"Because," he said slowly, "you have no confidence in me. That I can well understand. You married me more or less under compulsion, and when a wife is no more than a guest in her husband's house, confidence between them, of any description, is almost an impossibility."
He spoke without anger, but with a sadness that pierced her to the heart; and having so spoken he leant his arm upon the mantelpiece, turning slightly from her.
"I will tell you," he said, his voice very quiet and even, "exactly what Mrs. Lockyard was hinting at. Ten years ago I was engaged to a girl--like you in many ways--gay, impulsive, bewitching. I was young in those days, romantic, too. I worshipped her as a goddess. I was utterly blind to her failings. They simply didn't exist for me. She rewarded me by running away with Maurice Brandon. I knew he was a blackguard, but how much of a blackguard I did not realize till later. However, I didn't trust him even then, and I followed them and insisted that they should be married in my presence. Six months later I heard from her. He had treated her abominably, had finally deserted her, and she was trying to get a divorce. I did my best to help her, and eventually she obtained it." He paused a moment, then went on with bent head, "I never saw her after she gained her freedom. She went to her people, and very soon after--she died."
Again he paused, then slowly straightened himself.
"I never cared for any woman after that," he said, "until I met you. As for Brandon, he kept out of my way, and I had no object in seeking him. In fact, I took no interest in his doings till I found that you were in Mrs. Lockyard's set. That, I admit, was something of a shock. And then when I found that you liked the man--"
"Oh, don't!" she broke in. "Don't! I was mad ever to tolerate him. Let me forget it! Please let me forget it!"
She spoke passionately, and as if her emotion drew him he turned fully round to her.
"If you could have forgotten him sooner," he said, with a touch of sternness, "you would not find yourself tied now to a man you never loved."
The effect of his words was utterly unexpected. She started as one stricken, wounded in a vital place, and clasped her hands tightly against her breast, crushing the flowers that drooped there.
"It is a lie!" she cried wildly. "It is a lie!"
"What is a lie?"
He took a step towards her, for she was swaying as she stood; but she flung out her hands, keeping him from her.
Her face was working convulsively. She turned and moved unsteadily away from him, groping out before her as she went. So groping, she reached the door, and blindly sought the handle. But before she found it he spoke in a tone that had subtly altered:
"Doris!"
Her hands fell. She stood suddenly still, listening.
"Come here!" he said.
He crossed the room and reached her.
"Look at me!" he said.
She refused for a little, trembling all over. Then suddenly as he waited she threw back her head and met his eyes. She was sobbing like a child that has been hurt.
He bent towards her, looking closely, closely into her quivering face.
"So," he said, "it was a lie, was it? But, my own girl, how was I to know? Why on earth didn't you say so before?"
She broke into a laugh that had in it the sound of tears.
"How could I? You never asked. How could I?"
"Shall I ask you now?" he said.
She stretched up her arms and clasped his neck.
"No," she whispered back. "Take me--take everything--for granted. It's the only way, if you want to turn a heartless little flirt like me into--into a virtuous and amiable wife!"
And so, clinging to him, her lips met his in the first kiss that had ever passed between them.