December Love Part 60

"Oh, Seymour, you and I--we have always lived in the world. We know all its humbug by heart. We are both old--old now, and why should we pretend to each other? You know how lots of us have lived, no one better. And I suppose I have been one of the worst. But, as you say, for ten years now I have behaved myself."

She stopped. She longed to say, "And, my G.o.d, Seymour, I am sick of behaving myself!" That would have been the naked truth. But even to him, after what she had just said, she could not utter it. Instead, she added after a moment:

"A great many lies have been lifted up as guiding lamps to men in the darkness. One of them is the saying: 'Virtue is its own reward.' I have behaved for ten years, and I know it is a lie."

"Adela, what is exasperating you to-day? Can't you tell me?"

Once more she looked at him with a sharp and intense scrutiny. She thought it was really a final look, and one that was to decide her fate; his too, though he did not know it. She knew his worth. She knew the value of the dweller in his temple, and had no need to debate about that. But she was one of those to whom the temple means much. She could not dissociate dweller from dwelling. The outside had always had a tremendous influence upon her, and time had not lessened that influence.

Perhaps Sir Seymour felt that she was trying to come to some great decision, though he did not know, or even suspect, what that decision was. For long ago he had finally given up all hope of ever winning her for his wife. He sat still after asking this question. The lamplight shone over his thick, curly white hair, his lined, weather-beaten, distinguished old face, broad, cavalryman's hands, upright figure, shone into his faithful dog's eyes. And she looked and took in every physical detail, as only a woman can when she looks at a man whom she is considering in a certain way.

The silence seemed long. At last he broke it. For he had seen an expression of despair come into her face.

"My dear, what is it? You must tell me!"

But suddenly the look of despair gave place to a mocking look which he knew very well.

"It's only boredom, Seymour. I have had too much of Berkeley Square. I think I shall go away for a little."

"To Cap Martin?"

"Perhaps. Where does one go when one wants to run away from oneself?"

And then she changed the conversation and talked, as she generally talked to Sir Seymour, of the life they both knew, of the doings at Court, of politics, people, the state of the country, what was likely to come to old England.

She had decided against Seymour. But she had not decided for Craven.

After a moment of despair, of feeling herself lost, she had suddenly said to herself, or a voice had said in her, a voice coming from she knew not where:

"I will remain free, but henceforth I will be my own mistress in freedom, not the slave of myself."

And then mentally she had dismissed both Seymour and Craven out of her life, the one as a possible husband, the other as a friend.

If she could not bring herself to take the one, then she would not keep the other. She must seek for peace in loneliness. Evidently that was her destiny. She gave herself to it with mocking eyes and despair in her heart.

PART FIVE

CHAPTER I

Three days later, soon after four o'clock, Craven rang the bell at Lady Sellingworth's door. As he stood for a moment waiting for it to be answered he wondered whether she would be at home to him, how she would greet him if she chose to see him. The door was opened by a footman.

"Is her ladyship at home?"

"Her ladyship has gone out of town, sir."

"When will she be back?"

"I couldn't say, sir. Her ladyship has gone abroad."

Craven stood for a moment without speaking. He was amazed, and felt as if he had received a blow. Finally, he said:

"Do you think she will be long away?"

"Her ladyship has gone for some time, sir, I believe."

The young man's face, firm, with rosy cheeks and shallow, blue eyes, was strangely inexpressive. Craven hesitated, then said:

"Do you know where her ladyship has gone? I--I wish to write a note to her."

"I believe it's some place near Monte Carlo, sir. Her ladyship gave orders that no letters were to be forwarded for the present."

"Thank you."

Craven turned away and walked slowly towards Mayfair. He felt startled and hurt, even angry. So this was friendship! And he had been foolish enough to think that Lady Sellingworth was beginning to value his company, that she was a lonely woman, and that perhaps his visits, his sympathy, meant something, even a great deal to her. What a young fool he had been! And what a humbug she must be! Suddenly London seemed empty. He remembered the coldness in the wording of the note she had sent him saying that she could not see him the day after the theatre party. She had put forward no excuse, no explanation. What had happened?

He felt that something must have happened which had changed her feeling towards him. For though he told himself that she must be a humbug, he did not really feel that she was one. Perhaps she was angry with him, and that was why she had not chosen to tell him that she was going abroad before she started. But what reason had he given her for anger?

Mentally he reviewed the events of their last evening together. It had been quite a gay evening. Nothing disagreeable had happened unless--Lady Wrackley and Mrs. Ackroyde came to his mind. He saw them before him with their observant, experienced eyes, their smiling, satirical lips. They had made him secretly uncomfortable. He had felt undressed when he was with them, and had realized that they knew of and were probably amused by his friendship for Lady Sellingworth. And he had hated their knowledge. Perhaps she had hated it too, although she had not shown a trace of discomfort. Or, perhaps, she had disliked his manner with Miss Van Tuyn, a.s.sumed to hide his own sensitiveness. And at that moment he thought of his intercourse with Miss Van Tuyn with exaggeration. It was possible that he had acted badly, had been blatant. But anyhow Lady Sellingworth had been very unkind. She ought to have told him that she was going abroad, to have let him see her before she went.

He felt that this short episode in his life was quite over. It had ended abruptly, undramatically. It had seemed to mean a good deal, and it had really meant nothing. What a boy he had been through it all! His cheeks burned at the thought. And he had prided himself on being a thorough man of the world. Evidently, despite his knowledge of life, his Foreign Office training, his experience of war--he had been a soldier for two years--he was really something of a simpleton. He had "given himself away" to Braybrooke, and probably to others as well, to Lady Wrackley, Mrs. Ackroyde, and perhaps even to Miss Van Tuyn. And to Lady Sellingworth!

What had she thought of him? What did she think of him? Nothing perhaps.

She had belonged to the "old guard." Many men had pa.s.sed through her hands. He felt at that moment acute hostility to women. They were treacherous, unreliable, even the best of them. They had not the continuity which belonged to men. Even elderly women--he was thinking of women of the world--even they were not to be trusted. Life was warfare even when war was over. One had to fight always against the instability of those around you. And yet there was planted in a man--at any rate there was planted in him--a deep longing for stability, a need to trust, a desire to attach himself to someone with whom he could be quite unreserved, to whom he could "open out" without fear of criticism or of misunderstanding.

He had believed that in Lady Sellingworth he had found such an one, and now he had been shown his mistake. He reached the house in which he lived, but although he had walked to it with the intention of going in he paused on the threshold, then turned away and went on towards Hyde Park. Night was falling; the damp softness of late autumn companioned him wistfully. The streets were not very full. London seemed unusually quiet that evening. But when he reached the Marble Arch he saw people streaming hither and thither, hurrying towards Oxford Street, pouring into the Edgware Road, climbing upon omnibuses which were bound for Notting Hill, Ealing and Acton, drifting towards the wide and gloomy s.p.a.ces of the Park. He crossed the great roadway and went into the Park, too. Attracted by a small gathering of dark figures he joined them, and standing among nondescript loungers he listened for a few minutes to a narrow-chested man with a long, haggard face, a wispy beard and protruding, decayed teeth, who was addressing those about him on the mysteries of life.

He spoke of the struggle for bread, of materialism, of the illusions of sensuality, of the Universal Intelligence, of the blind cruelty of existence.

"You are all unhappy!" he exclaimed, in a thin but carrying voice, which sounded genteel and fanatical. "You rush here and there not knowing why or wherefore. Many of you have come into this very Park to-night without any object, driven by the wish for something to take you out of your miseries. Can you deny it, I say?"

A tall soldier who was standing near Craven looked down at the plump girl beside him and said:

"How's that, Lil? We're both jolly miserable, ain't we?"

"Go along with yer! Not me!" was the response, with an impudent look.

"Then let's get on where it's quieter. What ho!"

They moved demurely away.

"Can you deny," the narrow-chested man continued, sawing the air with a thin, dirty hand, "that you are all dissatisfied with life, that you wonder about it, as Plato wondered, as Tolstoi wondered, as the Dean of St. Paul's wonders, as I am wondering now? From this very Park you look up at the stars, when there are any, and you ask yourselves--"

At this point in the discourse Craven turned away, feeling that edification was scarcely to be found by him here.

Certainly at this moment he was dissatisfied with life. But that was Lady Sellingworth's fault. If he were sitting with her now in Berkeley square the scheme of things would probably not seem all out of gear.

He wondered where she was, what she was doing! The footman had said he believed she was near Monte Carlo. Craven remembered once hearing her say she was fond of Cap Martin. Probably she was staying there. It occurred to him that possibly she had told some of her friends of her approaching departure, though she had chosen to conceal it from him.

Miss Van Tuyn might have known of it. He resolved to go to Brook Street and find out whether the charming girl had been in the secret.