Changing Winds Part 63

"Let's go home, Quinny," Gilbert said. "I'd like to walk if you don't mind!"

"Very well," Henry replied.

They left the hotel and strolled across the street towards the National Gallery.

"I wish it were the morning," Gilbert said. "I want to see the newspapers!"

"It doesn't greatly matter what they say, does it?" Henry answered. "The play's a success. The audience liked it."

"I want to read the notices all the same. Of course, I want to read them. I shall spend the whole of to-morrow reading and re-reading them.

Just vanity!"

They walked past the Gallery, and made their way through the complicated streets that lie behind the Strand, about Covent Garden, towards Bloomsbury. They did not speak for some time, for they were tired and their minds were too full of other things. Once indeed, Gilbert began to speak ... "I think I could improve the second act a little ..." but he did not finish his sentence, and Henry did not ask him to do so. It was not until they were nearly at their home that Henry spoke to Gilbert about Cecily.

"Are you going to Lady Cecily's to-morrow?" he said.

"Eh?" Gilbert exclaimed, starting out of his dreams. "Oh, no, I think not! Why?"

"I only wondered. She asked you, you know!"

They walked on in silence until they reached the door of their house.

"I say, Quinny," said Gilbert, while Henry opened the door, "you seem to be very friendly with Cecily!"

Henry fumbled with the key and muttered, "d.a.m.n this door, it won't open!"

"Let me try!..."

"It's all right now. I've done it! What were you saying, Gilbert?"

They entered the house, shutting the door behind them, and stood for a while in the hall, removing their hats and coats.

"Oh, nothing," Gilbert replied. "I was only saying you seemed very friendly with Cecily!"

"Well, yes, I suppose I am, but not more than most people. Are you going to bed now or will you wait up for Ninian and Roger?"

"I shan't sleep if I go to bed ... I'm too excited. I shall read for a while in my room ... unless you'd like to jaw a bit!"

Henry shook his head. "No," he said, "I'm too tired to jaw to-night. See you in the morning. Good-night, Gilbert!"

"Good-night, Quinny!"

Henry went to his bedroom, leaving Gilbert in the hall, and began to undress. His mind was full of a flat rage against Cecily. She had consented to meet him in St. James's Park, and then, almost as she had made her promise, she had turned to Gilbert and had invited him to call on her, in his company, at the time she had appointed for his private meeting with her. He did not wish to see her again. "She's fooling me,"

he said, throwing his coat on to a chair so that it fell on to the ground where he let it lie. "I've not done a stroke of work for days on her account, and she cares no more for me than she does for ... for anybody. I won't go and meet her to-morrow, d.a.m.n her! I'll send a messenger to say I can't come, and then I'll drop her. It isn't worth while going through this ... this agony for a woman who doesn't care a curse for you!"

"I'm not going to be treated like this," he went on to himself while he brushed his teeth. "I'm not going to hang about her and let her treat me as she pleases. She can get somebody else, some one who is more complacent than I am, and doesn't feel things. I hope she goes to the Park and waits for me. Perhaps that'll teach her to understand what a man feels like...."

But of course she would not go to the Park and wait for him. He would send an express messenger with a note to tell her that he was unable to keep the appointment.

"I'll write it now," he said to himself and he stopped in the middle of washing his face and hands to find notepaper. "d.a.m.n, my hands are wet,"

he said aloud, and picked up a towel.

"_Dear Lady Cecily_," he wrote, when he was dry, using the formal address because he wished to let her know that he was ill friends with her, "_I am sorry I shall not be able to meet you to-day as we arranged last night_." He wondered what excuse he should make for breaking off the appointment, and then decided that he would not make any. "I won't add anything else," he said, and he signed himself, "_Yours sincerely, Henry Quinn_." "She'll know that I'm sick of this ... messing about. I don't see why I should explain myself to her!"

He sealed the envelope and put the letter aside, and sat for a while drumming on his table with the pen.

"Mary's worth a dozen of her," he said aloud, getting up and going to bed.

THE NINTH CHAPTER

1

They all rose early the next day. Ninian had been out of the house before any of them had reached the breakfast room, and when he returned, his arms were full of newspapers.

"What's Walkley say?" said Gilbert. "That's all I want to know!"

They opened the _Times_, and then, when they had read the criticism of "The Magic Cas.e.m.e.nt," they murmured, "Charming! Splendid! Oh, ripping!"

while Gilbert, sitting back in his chair, smiled beatifically and said, "Read it again, coves. Read it aloud and slowly!"

While they were reading the notices, Henry went off to a post office, and sent his letter to Lady Cecily by express messenger. "That's settled," he said, as he returned home, for he had been afraid that he might change his mind. As he was shaving that morning, he had faltered in his resolution. "I'd better go," he had said to himself, and then had added weakly, "No, I'm d.a.m.ned if I will!" Well, it was settled now. The letter was on its way to her. She would probably be angry with him, but not as angry as he was with her, and perhaps they would not meet again for a long while. So much the better. Now he could get on with his book in peace. Gilbert was right. Women _do_ upset things. Well, this particular woman would not upset him again....

They had read all the notices when Henry returned, and were now at breakfast. Roger was relating the latest legal jest about Mr. Justice Kirkcubbin, a poor old man who persisted in clinging to the Bench in spite of the broadest hints from the _Law Journal_, and Ninian was making mysterious movements with his hands.

"What's the matter, Ninian?" Henry asked, as he sat down at the table.

Ninian, while searching for the notices of Gilbert's play, had seen a sentence in a serial story in one of the newspapers.... "_Her hands fluttered helplessly over his breast_" ... and he was trying to discover exactly what the lady had done with her hands. "She seems to have just flopped them about," he said, and he turned to Gilbert. "Look here, Gilbert," he said, "you try it. I'll clasp you in my arms as the hero clasped this female, and you'll let your hands flutter helplessly over my breast!"

"I'll let my fist flutter helplessly over your jaw, young Ninian!..."

"I don't believe she let her hands do anything of the sort," Ninian went on. "She couldn't have done it. An engineer couldn't do it, and I don't believe a female can do what an engineer can't do!"

"I suppose," he added, getting up from the table, "Tom Arthurs is half way across now. I wish I could have gone with him. What a holiday!"

"Talking of holidays," Gilbert said, "I'm going to take one, and as you don't seem in a fit state to do any work, Quinny, you'd better take one too, and come with me!"

"Where are you going?" Roger asked. "Anglesey?"

"No. I thought of going there, but I've changed my mind. I shall go to Ireland with Quinny."

"Ireland!" Henry exclaimed, looking across at Gilbert.

"Yes. Dublin. We can go to-night. I've never been there, and I'd like to know what these chaps, Marsh and Galway, are up to. That whatdoyoucallit movement you were telling me about?... you know, the thing that means 'a st.i.tch in time saves nine' or something of the sort!"

"Oh, the Sinn Fein movement!"