Celibates Part 27

'It is now half-past six, don't you think you'd better go upstairs and get ready?'

'Oh, don't bother me about the dinner, Harold. What does it matter if it is a few minutes late. I can't go upstairs yet. I want to sit here.'

She looked round the room and remembered how her father used to sit in the chair Harold was sitting in. He was getting bald just like father.

He looked just like father, his head seen against the book-cases, the light catching the ends of his bristly hair. But who was she like? she didn't know, not like poor dear mother who thought of nothing but her husband and her children. From whom had she got her tastes, her taste for painting--her ideas, G.o.d knows. She wished she were like other people. Like Harold. Yet she didn't know that she would like to be quite so simple, so matter of fact. They were only like in one thing, neither had married. She had never thought of that before, and wondered why. But he would marry one of these days. He wasn't forty yet. Then she would have to leave Sutton, she couldn't live there with a step-sister.

'So you're not married yet, Harold.'

'No, not yet.'

'Not even engaged?'

'No, not even engaged.'

'I suppose you will one of these days.'

'Perhaps, one of these days, but I'm in no hurry. And you, are you as much set against marriage as ever? Alfred Stanby has never married, I don't think he ever will. I think you broke his heart.'

'I don't believe in breaking men's hearts.'

'You are just the kind of woman who does break men's hearts.'

'Why do you say that? You think me heartless.'

'No, Mildred, I don't think you heartless--only you're not like other girls.'

No, I'm not. I've too much heart, that's been my misfortune, I should have got on better if I had less.'

Harold had no apt.i.tude or taste of philosophical reflections, so he merely mentioned that Alfred was living in Sutton, and hoped that Mildred would not mind meeting him.

'No, I don't mind meeting him, but he may not like to meet me. Does he ever speak of me?'

'Yes, he does sometimes.... I never knew why you threw him over. He's really a very good fellow. He has worked hard and is now making a fair income.'

'I'm glad of that.... I suppose I did treat him badly. But no worse than men treat women every day.'

'Why did you throw him over?'

'I don't know. It's so long ago. He didn't understand me. I thought I should find some one who did.... I know the world better now.'

'Would you marry him if he were to propose again?'

'I don't know, I don't know.... I don't know what I should do now.

Don't question me, Harold.'

At that moment the gong sounded for dinner. Harold refrained from saying 'I knew you'd be late.' An hour after, brother and sister were sitting by the library fire. At last Harold said:

'I'm glad you're going to stop here for the present, that you're not going back to Paris. Do you never intend to live there again?'

'There's no reason why I should go back, certainly none that I should live there again, my life in Paris is ended.'

She did not recount her misfortunes in plain straightforward narrative, her story fluctuated and transpired in inflections of voice and picturesque glances. She was always aware of the effect of herself on others, and she forgot a great deal of her disappointment in the pleasure of astonishing Harold. The story unwound itself like spun silk. The princ.i.p.al spool was the Panama scandals.... But around it there were little spools full of various thread, a little of which Mildred unwound from time to time.

When the first accusations against the Deputies were made, I warned him. I told him that the matter would not stop there, but he was over confident. Moreover, I warned him against Darres.'

'Who's Darres?'

'Oh, he was the _secretaire de la redaction_ and a sort of partner.

But I never liked him. I gave him one look.... I told M. Delacour not to trust him. ... And he knew that I suspected him. He admired me, I could see that, but he wasn't my kind of man: a tall, bullet--headed fellow, shoulders thrown well back, the type of the _sous officier, le beau soudard,_ smelling of the cafe and a cigarette. A plain sensualist. I can tell them at once, and when he saw that I was not that kind of person, he went and made love to Madame Delacour. She was only too glad to listen to him.'

'Is Madame Delacour good-looking?'

'I daresay she's what some people would call good-looking. But she has wretched health, she never got over the birth of her last child.'

Madame Delacour's health was the subject of many disparaging remarks, in the course of which Mildred called into question the legitimacy of one of her children, and the honourability of Darres as a card-player.

The conversation at last turned on Panama. M. Delacour had, of course, denied the charge of blackmail and bribery. Neither had been proved against him. Nevertheless, his const.i.tuency had refused to re-elect him. That, of course, had ruined him politically. Nothing had been proved against him, but he had merely failed to explain how he had lived at the rate of twelve thousand a year for the last three years.

'But the paper?'

'The paper never was a pecuniary success.'

'The money you put into it, I suppose, is lost.'

'For the present at all events. Things may right themselves, Delacour may come up to the top of the wheel again.'

'He must have cheated you, he swindled you.'

'I suppose he did, but he was very hard pressed at the time. He didn't know where to turn for money.'

Harold was surprised by the gentleness of Mildred's tone.

'You must give me the particulars, and I'll do all that can be done to get back your money. Now tell me how--'

'Yes, you shall have all the particulars,' she said, 'but I'm afraid that you'll not be able to do much.'

'What were the conditions?'

'I cannot talk about them now, I'm too tired.'

There was a petulant note in her voice which told Harold that it would be useless to question her. He smoked his pipe and listened, and, in her low musical and so well-modulated voice, she continued her tale about herself, M. Delacour, _La Voix du Peuple_, and M. Darres. Her conversation was full of names and allusions to matters of which Harold knew nothing. He failed to follow her tale, and his thoughts reverted to the loss of three thousand pounds in the shocking _Voix du Peuple_ and two thousand in scandalous Panama. Every now and then something surprising in her tale caught his ear, he asked for precise information, but Mildred answered evasively and turned the conversation. She was much more interested in the influence M.

Delacour had exercised over her. She admitted that she had liked him very much, and attributed the influence he had exercised to hypnotism and subordination of will. She had, however, refused to run away with him when he had asked her.

'You mean to say that he asked you to run away with him--a married man?'

'Yes; but I said no. I knew that it would ruin him to run away with me. I told him that he must not go away either with me or alone, that he must face his enemies and overcome them. I was a true friend.'

'It is most extraordinary. You must have been very intimate for him to propose such a thing.'

'Yes; we were very intimate, but, when it came to the point, I felt that I couldn't.'