Changing Winds Part 51

"I say, come along," Lord Jasper shouted to them.

"Poor Jimphy's getting fractious. You can tell me how much you've enjoyed to-night when we meet again!"

He took her to the car, and watched her as she gathered her skirts about her and climbed inside.

"Can't we drop you at your house!" said Lord Jasper. "It won't be any trouble to do so!"

"No, thanks," Henry replied. "I'd rather walk home. It's such a beautiful night!"

Lord Jasper followed Lady Cecily into the car. "You're a romantic chap, Quinn!" he said, and then, as an afterthought, he added quickly, "I say, we must arrange to go to the Empire together some evening. You're the sort of chap I like...."

Lady Cecily waved her hand to him. As the car moved off he saw her beautiful face leaning against the side of the car, and he longed to take her in his arms and kiss her. Then the car turned, and drove quickly off. He stood for a moment or two looking after it, and continued to stand still even when it had swung out of the courtyard into the Strand. Then he walked slowly away from the restaurant. He had not gone very far when his arm was touched, and, turning round, he saw Gilbert.

6

"Hilloa," he said, "you're late!"

"No, I'm not," Gilbert replied.

"Yes, you are. The Jaynes have gone!"

"I saw them going. I've been here for over half-an-hour, waiting for you!"

"Over half-an-hour! What's up, Gilbert?"

Gilbert put his arm in Henry's and made him move out of the Savoy courtyard. "Come down to the Embankment," he said. "It's quieter there.

I want to talk to you!"

"But hadn't we better go home? We can talk on the way. It's late...."

"No. I want to go to the Embankment. d.a.m.n it all, Quinny, it's a sentimental place for a heart-to-heart talk, isn't it?"

"You aren't drunk, Gilbert, I suppose?"

"Never so sober in my life, Quinny. Besides, I don't get drunk. People who talk about beer and whisky as much as I do, never get drunk. Come along, there's a good chap!"

"Very well ... only I'm not going to stay long. I'm no good for work the day after I've had a long night...."

"I won't keep you long. How did the supper-party go off?"

"d.a.m.nably. Two tame novelists turned up ... Boltt and Lensley!"

"Those a.s.ses!"

"Yes. Lensley 'chattered' to Lady Cecily, and Boltt bored and bored and bored.... I took him down a bit. I rubbed in the _Morning Report_ review. The little toad could hardly sit still! Of course, he affected the superior person att.i.tude!"

"G.o.d be merciful to him, poor little rat! He wants to be a wicked, h.e.l.l-for-leather fellow, but he hasn't got the stomach for it! What did Cecily say when I didn't turn up?"

"She looked rather cross. She told me as we came away to tell you she was angry with you. You're to go and apologise to her as soon as possible!"

"Did she?"

"Yes. I say, Gilbert, why didn't you turn up?"

They had reached the Embankment, and they crossed to the riverside and leant against the parapet.

"Because I was afraid to," said Gilbert.

"Afraid to!"

"Yes. Can't you see I'm in love with her?"

"Well, I guessed as much...."

"I love her so much that she can do what she likes with me, and all she likes to do is to destroy me!"

"Destroy you!"

"Yes. If you love Cecily, she demands the whole of your life. Every bit of it. She consumes you.... Oh, I know this sounds like a penny dreadful, Quinny, but it's true. I've asked her to run away with me, but she won't come. She says she hates scandal and she likes her social position. My G.o.d, I feel sick when I see Jimphy with her ... like a d.a.m.ned big lobster putting his ... his claws about her. He isn't a bad fellow in his silly way, but I can't stand him as Cecily's husband!"

"I know what you mean," said Henry.

"I thought that if Cecily and I were to go away together, we could get our lives into some sort of perspective, and then I could go on with my work and have her as well, but she won't go away with me. She wants me to hang around, being her lover ... and I can't do that, Quinny. It's mean and furtive, and I hate that. You're always listening for some one coming ... a servant or the husband or some one ... and I can't stand that. If I love a woman, I love her, and I don't want to spend part of my life in pretending that I don't. I loathe myself when I have to change the talk suddenly or move away when a door opens.... Do you understand, Quinny?"

Henry nodded his head, but did not speak.

"Once when I'd been begging Cecily to go away with me, Jimphy walked into the room ... and I had to pretend to be talking about some nasturtiums that Cecily had grown. I felt like a cad. That's what's rotten about loving another man's wife. It's the treachery of the thing, the pretending.... I've often wondered why it is that love of that sort seems so romantic and splendid in books and so d.a.m.nably mean when it comes into the Divorce Court ... but when I met Cecily I knew why ...

it's because of the treachery and the deceit. I used to think that it was beautiful in books because artists were able to see the hidden beauty, and ugly in the Divorce Court because ordinary people only saw the surface things ... but I'm not sure now."

He stopped speaking, but Henry did not speak instead. He did not know what to say; he felt indeed that there was nothing to be said, that he must simply listen. He watched the electric signs on the other side of the river as they spelt out the virtues of Someone's Teas and Another's Whisky, and wondered how long it would be before Gilbert said something else. He was beginning to be bored by the business, and he felt sleepy.

He was jealous too, when he thought that Gilbert had kissed Cecily and had been held in her beautiful arms....

"Cecily doesn't mind about the shabbiness of it," he heard Gilbert saying. "We've talked about that, and she says it doesn't matter a bit.

All that matters to her is that she shan't be found out ... too publicly anyhow! She called me a prig when I said that I was afraid of tainting my work...."

"Tainting your work?"

"Yes. Perhaps it is priggish of me, but I feel that if I'm mean in one thing I may be mean in another. I'm terribly afraid of doing bad work, Quinny, and I got an idea into my head that if I let taint into my life in one place, I couldn't confine it and it would spread to other places.

Do you see? If I let myself get into a rotten position with Cecily, I might write down...."

"I don't see that," said Henry. "Because you love a married woman, it doesn't follow that you'll pot-boil."

"No, perhaps not. But I was afraid of it. I suppose it was priggish of me. That wasn't the only thing, however. I knew that if I did what Cecily wanted me to do, I'd spend most of my time with her or thinking about her. I can't work if I'm doing that, for I think of her and long for her.... Oh, let's go home. It isn't fair to keep you here listening to my twaddle!"

But they did not move. They gazed down on the swiftly-flowing river, and presently they heard Big Ben striking one deep note.

"One o'clock!" said Gilbert.