A Damsel in Distress Part 50

Geoffrey had started to his feet. He was puffing with outraged innocence.

"What the devil do you mean by this?" he demanded. "Can't you see you've made a mistake? My name is not Gray. This lady has told you that I am Geoffrey Raymond!"

"Makes it all the worse for you," said the young man imperturbably, "making advances to our client under an a.s.sumed name. We've got letters and witnesses and the whole bag of tricks. And how about this photo?" He dived into the bag again. "Do you recognize that, miss?"

Maud looked at the photograph. It was unmistakably Geoffrey. And it had evidently been taken recently, for it showed the later Geoffrey, the man of substance. It was a full-length photograph and across the stout legs was written in a flowing hand the legend, "To Babe from her little Pootles". Maud gave a shudder and handed it back to the young man, just as Geoffrey, reaching across the table, made a grab for it.

"I recognize it," she said.

Mr. Willoughby junior packed the photograph away in his bag, and turned to go.

"That's all for today, then, I think," he said, affably.

He bowed again in his courtly way, tilted the hat a little more to the left, and, having greeted one of the distressed gentlewomen who loitered limply in his path with a polite "If you please, Mabel!"

which drew upon him a freezing stare of which he seemed oblivious, he pa.s.sed out, leaving behind him strained silence.

Maud was the first to break it.

"I think I'll be going," she said.

The words seemed to rouse her companion from his stupor.

"Let me explain!"

"There's nothing to explain."

"It was just a ... it was just a pa.s.sing ... It was nothing ... nothing."

"Pootles!" murmured Maud.

Geoffrey followed her as she moved to the door.

"Be reasonable!" pleaded Geoffrey. "Men aren't saints!

It was nothing! ... Are you going to end ... everything ... just because I lost my head?"

Maud looked at him with a smile. She was conscious of an overwhelming relief. The dim interior of Ye Cosy Nooke no longer seemed depressing. She could have kissed this unknown "Babe" whose businesslike action had enabled her to close a regrettable chapter in her life with a clear conscience.

"But you haven't only lost your head, Geoffrey," she said. "You've lost your figure as well."

She went out quickly. With a convulsive bound Geoffrey started to follow her, but was checked before he had gone a yard.

There are formalities to be observed before a patron can leave Ye Cosy Nooke.

"If you please!" said a distressed gentlewomanly voice.

The lady whom Mr. Willoughby had addressed as Mabel--erroneously, for her name was Ernestine--was standing beside him with a slip of paper.

"Six and twopence," said Ernestine.

For a moment this appalling statement drew the unhappy man's mind from the main issue.

"Six and twopence for a cup of chocolate and a few cakes?" he cried, aghast. "It's robbery!"

"Six and twopence, please!" said the queen of the bandits with undisturbed calm. She had been through this sort of thing before.

Ye Cosy Nooke did not get many customers; but it made the most of those it did get.

"Here!" Geoffrey produced a half-sovereign. "I haven't time to argue!"

The distressed brigand showed no gratification. She had the air of one who is aloof from worldly things. All she wanted was rest and leisure--leisure to meditate upon the body upstairs. All flesh is as gra.s.s. We are here today and gone tomorrow. But there, beyond the grave, is peace.

"Your change?" she said.

"d.a.m.n the change!"

"You are forgetting your hat."

"d.a.m.n my hat!"

Geoffrey dashed from the room. He heaved his body through the door.

He lumbered down the stairs.

Out in Bond Street the traffic moved up and the traffic moved down.

Strollers strolled upon the sidewalks.

But Maud had gone.

CHAPTER 27.

In his bedroom at the Carlton Hotel George Bevan was packing. That is to say, he had begun packing; but for the last twenty minutes he had been sitting on the side of the bed, staring into a future which became bleaker and bleaker the more he examined it. In the last two days he had been no stranger to these grey moods, and they had become harder and harder to dispel. Now, with the steamer-trunk before him gaping to receive its contents, he gave himself up whole-heartedly to gloom.

Somehow the steamer-trunk, with all that it implied of partings and voyagings, seemed to emphasize the fact that he was going out alone into an empty world. Soon he would be on board the liner, every revolution of whose engines would be taking him farther away from where his heart would always be. There were moments when the torment of this realization became almost physical.

It was incredible that three short weeks ago he had been a happy man. Lonely, perhaps, but only in a vague, impersonal way. Not lonely with this aching loneliness that tortured him now. What was there left for him? As regards any triumphs which the future might bring in connection with his work, he was, as Mac the stage-door keeper had said, "blarzy". Any success he might have would be but a stale repet.i.tion of other successes which he had achieved. He would go on working, of course, but--. The ringing of the telephone bell across the room jerked him back to the present. He got up with a muttered malediction. Someone calling up again from the theatre probably. They had been doing it all the time since he had announced his intention of leaving for America by Sat.u.r.day's boat.

"h.e.l.lo?" he said wearily.

"Is that George?" asked a voice. It seemed familiar, but all female voices sound the same over the telephone.

"This is George," he replied. "Who are you?"

"Don't you know my voice?"

"I do not."

"You'll know it quite well before long. I'm a great talker."