Anna the Adventuress Part 13

Anna was silent. She was trembling a little. The man's pa.s.sion was infectious. She had to school herself to speak the words which she knew would cut him like a knife.

"You are mistaken, David. I have counted you, and always hoped to count you, the best of my friends. But I do not love you. I do not love any one."

"I don't believe it," he answered hoa.r.s.ely. "We have come too close together for me to believe it. You care for me a little, I know. I will teach you how to make that little sufficient."

"You came to tell me this?"

"I came for you," he declared fiercely.

The hansom sped through the crowded streets. Anna suddenly leaned forward and looked around her.

"We are not going the right way," she exclaimed.

"You are coming my way," Courtlaw answered. "Anna," he pleaded, "be merciful. You care for me just a little, I know. You are alone in the world, you have no one save yourself to consider. Come back with me to-night. Your old rooms are there, if you choose. I kept them on myself till the sight of your empty chair and the chill loneliness of it all nearly sent me mad."

Anna lifted her hand and pushed open the trap door.

"Drive to 13, Montague Street, cabman," she ordered.

The man pulled up his horse grumbling, and turned round. Courtlaw sat with folded arms. He said nothing.

"My friend," she said, "no! Let me tell you this. Nothing would induce me to marry you, or any man at present. I am a pauper, and as yet I have not discovered how to earn money. I am determined to fight my own little battle with the world--there must be a place for me somewhere, and I mean to find it. Afterwards, it may be different. If I were to marry you now I should feel a dependent being all my life--a sort of parasitical creature without blood or muscle. I should lose every sc.r.a.p of independence--even my self-respect. However good you were to me, and however happy I was in other ways, I should find this intolerable."

"All these things," he muttered bitterly, "this desperate resolve to take your life into your own hands, your unnatural craving for independence, would never trouble you for a moment--if you really cared."

"Then perhaps," she answered, with a new coldness in her tone, "perhaps I really do not care. No, don't interrupt me. I think that I am a little disappointed in you. You appear to be amongst those strong enough in all ordinary matters, but who seem to think it quite natural and proper to give in at once and play the weakling directly--one cares. Do you think that it makes for happiness to force oneself into the extravagant belief that love is the only thing in the world worth having, and to sacrifice for it independence, self-respect, one's whole scheme of life. I cannot do it, David.

Perhaps, as you say, I do not really care--but I cannot do it."

He was strangely silent. He did not even reply to her for several minutes.

"I cannot reason with you," he said at last wearily. "I speak from my heart, and you answer from your brain."

"Believe me that I have answered you wisely," she said, in a gentler tone, "wisely for you too, as well as myself. And now you must go back, take up your work and think all this over. Presently you will see that I am right, and then you shall take your vacation over here, and we will be good comrades again."

He smiled bitterly as he handed her from the cab. He declined to come in.

"Will you tell Sydney that I will see him in the morning," he said. "I am staying at the Savoy. He can come round there."

"You will shake hands with me, please," she begged.

He took her fingers and lifted his eyes to hers. Something he saw there made him feel for a moment ashamed. He pressed the long shapely hand warmly in his.

"Good-bye," he said earnestly. "Please forgive me. You are right.

Quite right."

She was able to go straight to her room without delay, and she at once locked the door with a little sigh of relief. She found herself struggling with a storm of tears.

A sob was strangled in her throat. She struggled fiercely not to give way.

"Oh, I am lonely," she moaned. "I am lonely. If I could but----"

To escape from her thoughts she began to undress, humming a light tune to herself, though her eyes were hot with unshed tears, and the sobs kept rising in her throat. As she drew off her skirt she felt something in the pocket, and remembered the letter which the commissionaire at the Carlton had given her. She tore open the envelope and read it.

"MY DEAR GIRL,--

"I am so sorry if we made a.s.ses of ourselves to-night. The fact is I was so glad to see you again that it never occurred to me that a little discretion might be advisable. I'm afraid I'm a terribly clumsy fellow.

"I hope that you are going to allow me to see something of you during your stay in London, for the sake of old times. Could you come to tea at my rooms one afternoon, or would you dine with me somewhere, and do a theatre? We could have a private room, of course, if you do not wish to be seen about London, and a box at the theatre. I often think of those delightful evenings in Paris.

May we not repeat them once, at any rate, in London?

"Ever yours, "NIGEL ENNISON.

"P.S. My address is 94, Pall Mall."

Anna read, and her cheeks grew slowly scarlet. She crushed the letter in her hand.

"I wonder," she murmured to herself, "if this is the beginning."

_Chapter X_

THE TRAGEDY OF AN APPEt.i.tE

Anna, notwithstanding her quiet clothes, a figure marvellously out of accord with her surroundings, sat before a small marble-topped table at a crowded A.B.C., and munched a roll and b.u.t.ter with hearty appet.i.te.

"If only I could afford another!" she thought regretfully. "I wonder why I am always hungry nowadays. It is so ridiculous."

She lingered over her tea, and glancing around, a sudden reflection on the change in her surroundings from the scene of her last night's supper brought a faint, humorous smile to her lips.

"In two days," she reflected, "Mrs. White will present her bill. I have one shilling and sevenpence halfpenny left. I have two days in which to earn nearly thirty shillings--that is with no dinners, and get a situation. I fancy that this is a little more than playing at Bohemianism."

"So far," she continued, eyeing hungrily the last morsel of roll which lay upon her plate, "my only chance of occupation has lain with a photographer who engaged me on the spot and insulted me in half an hour. What beasts men are! I cannot typewrite, my three stories are still wandering round, two milliners have refused me as a lay figure because business was so bad. I am no use for a clerk, because I do not understand shorthand. After all, I fancy that I shall have to apply for a situation as a nursery governess who understands French. Faugh!"

She took up the last morsel of roll, and held it delicately between her long slim fingers. Then her white teeth gleamed, and her excuse for remaining any longer before that little marble table was gone. She rose, paid her bill, and turned westwards.

She walked with long swinging steps, scorning the thought of buses or the tube. If ever she felt fatigue in these long tramps which had already taken her half over London, she never admitted it. Asking her way once or twice, she pa.s.sed along Fleet Street into the Strand, and crossed Trafalgar Square, into Piccadilly. Here she walked more slowly, looking constantly at the notices in the shop windows. One she entered and met with a sharp rebuff, which she appeared to receive unmoved. But when she reached the pavement outside her teeth were clenched, and she carried herself unconsciously an inch or so higher.

It was just then that she came face to face with Nigel Ennison.

He was walking listlessly along, well-dressed, _debonnair_, good-looking. Directly he saw Anna he accosted her. His manner was deferential, even eager. Anna, who was disposed to be sharply critical, could find no fault with it.

"How fortunate I am, Miss Pellissier! All day I have been hoping that I might run across you. You got my note?"

"I certainly received a note," Anna admitted.