A Lost Leader Part 10

"It was so many years ago," she said, in a low tone. "I am afraid to think how many. It makes me lonely, Lawrence, to look ahead. I am afraid of growing old!"

He looked at her steadily. Yes, the signs were there. She was a good-looking woman to-day, a handsome woman in some lights, but she had reached the limit. It was a matter of a few years at most, and then--He stood with his hands behind his back.

"It is a fear which we must all share," he said, quietly. "The only antidote is work."

"Work!" she repeated, scornfully. "That is the man's resource. What about us? What about me?"

"It is no matter of s.e.x," he declared. "We all make our own choice. We are what we make of ourselves."

"It is not true," she answered, bluntly. "Not with us, at any rate. We are what our menkind make of us. Oh, what cowards you all are."

"Cowards?"

"Yes. You do what mischief you choose, and then soothe your conscience with plat.i.tudes. You will take hold of pleasure with both hands, but your shoulders are not broad enough for the pack of responsibility. Don't look at me as though I were a mile off, Lawrence, as though this were simply an impersonal discussion. I am speaking to you--of you. You avoid me whenever you can. I don't often get a chance of speaking to you. You shall listen now. You live the life of a poet and a scholar, they tell me. You live in a beautiful home, you take care that nothing ugly or disturbing shall come near you. You are pleased with it, aren't you? You think yourself better than other men. Well, you are making a big mistake.

A man doesn't have to answer for his own life only. He has to carry the burden of the lives his influence has wrecked and spoilt. I know just what you think of me. I am a middle-aged woman, clinging to my youth and pleasures--the sort of pleasures for which you have a vast contempt.

There isn't an hour of my days of which you wouldn't disapprove. I'm not your sort of woman at all. And yet I was all right once, Lawrence, and what I am now--" she paused, "what I am now--"

Hester came in, followed by a maid with the tea-tray. She looked from one to the other a little anxiously. The atmosphere of the room seemed charged with electricity. Mannering's face was grey. Her mother was nervously crumpling into a ball her tiny lace handkerchief. Mrs.

Phillimore rose abruptly from her seat.

"Have you got the brandy and soda, Hester?" she asked.

"I'm afraid I forgot it, mother," the girl answered. "Mayn't I make you some Russian tea? I've had the lemon sliced."

The woman laughed, a little unnaturally.

"What a dutiful daughter," she exclaimed. "That's right! I want looking after, don't I? I'll have the tea, Hester, but send it up to my room. I'm going to lie down. That wretched motoring has given me a headache, and I'm dining out to-night. Good-bye, Mr. Mannering, if I don't see you again."

She nodded, without glancing in his direction, and left the room. The maid arranged the tea-tray and departed. Hester showed no signs of being aware that anything unusual had happened. She made a little desultory conversation. Mannering answered in monosyllables.

When at last he put his cup down he rose to go.

"You are quite sure, Hester," he said. "You have made up your mind?"

She, too, rose, and came over to him.

"You know that I am right," she answered, quietly. "The life you offer me would be paradise, but I dare not even think of it. I may not do any good here, perhaps I don't, but I can't come away."

"You are a true daughter of your s.e.x," he said, smiling. "The keynote of your life must be sacrifice."

"Perhaps we are not so unwise, after all," she answered, "for I think that there are more happy women in the world than men."

"There are more, I think, who deserve to be, dear," he answered, holding her hand for a moment. "Good-bye!"

Mannering walked in somewhat abstracted fashion to the corner of the street, and signalled for a hansom. With his foot upon the step he hesitated.

CHAPTER VII

THE d.u.c.h.eSS'S "AT HOME"

"The perfect man," the d.u.c.h.ess murmured, as she stirred her tea, "does not exist. I know a dozen perfect women, dear, dull creatures, and plenty of men who know how to cover up the flaw. But there is something in the composition of the male s.e.x which keeps them always a little below the highest pinnacle."

"It is purely a matter of concealment," her friend declared. "Women are cleverer humbugs than men."

Borrowdean shrugged his shoulders.

"I know your perfect woman!" he remarked, softly. "You search for her through the best years of your life, and when you have found her you avoid her. That," he added, handing his empty cup to a footman, "is why I am a bachelor."

The d.u.c.h.ess regarded him complacently.

"My dear Sir Leslie," she said, "I am afraid you will have to find a better reason for your miserable state. The perfect woman would certainly have nothing to do with you if you found her."

"On the contrary," he declared, confidently, "I am convinced that she would find me attractive."

The d.u.c.h.ess shook her head.

"Your theory," she declared, "is antiquated. Like and unlike do not attract. We seek in others the qualities which we strive most zealously to develop in ourselves. I know a case in point."

"Good!" Sir Leslie remarked. "I like examples. The logic of them appeals to me."

The d.u.c.h.ess half closed her eyes. For a moment she was silent. She seemed to be listening to something a long way off. Through the open windows of her softly shaded drawing-rooms, odourous with flowers, came the rippling of water falling from a fountain in the conservatory, the lazy hum of a mowing machine on the lawn, the distant tinkling of a hansom bell in the Square. But these were not the sounds which for a moment had changed her face.

"I myself," she murmured, "am an example!"

A woman who had risen to go sat down again.

"Do go on, d.u.c.h.ess!" she exclaimed. "Anything in the nature of a personal confession is so fascinating, and you know you are such an enigma to all of us."

"Am I?" she answered, smiling. "Then I am likely to remain so."

"A perfectly obvious person like myself," the woman remarked, "is always fascinated by the unusual. But if you are really not going to give yourself away, d.u.c.h.ess, I am afraid I must move on. One hates to leave your beautifully cool rooms. Shall I see you to-night, I wonder, at Esholt House?"

"Perhaps!"

There were still many people in the room. Some fresh arrivals occupied his hostess's attention, and Borrowdean, with a resigned shrug of the shoulders, prepared to depart. He had come, hoping for an opportunity to be alone for a few minutes with the d.u.c.h.ess, and himself a skilful tactician in such small matters, he could not but admire the way she had kept him at arm's length. And then the opportunity for a master stroke came. A servant sought him out with a card. A man of method, he seldom left his rooms without instructions as to where he was to be found.

"The gentleman begged you to excuse his coming here, sir," the man whispered, confidentially, "but he is returning to the country this evening, and was anxious to see you. He is quite ready to wait your convenience."

Borrowdean held the card in his hand, scrutinizing it with impa.s.sive face. Was this a piece of unparalleled good fortune, or simply a trick of the fates to tempt him on to catastrophe? With that wonderful swiftness of thought which was part of his mental equipment he balanced the chances--and took his risk.

"I should be glad," he said, looking the servant in the face, "if you would show the gentleman up here as an ordinary visitor. I should like to find you down stairs when I come out. You understand?"

"Perfectly, sir," the man answered, and withdrew.