Mrs. Maxon Protests Part 17

"Oh, I don't expect you to understand!" Winnie exclaimed petulantly. "I wonder you come here!"

"Wonder I come here! Good Lord!" He reflected on some other places he had been to--and meant to go to again perhaps.

"You're a hopeless person, but you're very kind and nice." The colour faded gradually and Winnie smiled again, rather tremulously. "We won't talk about that any more. Tell me how the chestnut mare shapes?"

Yet when she heard about the mare, she seemed no more than pa.s.sably interested, and for once Bob was tongue-tied on the only subject about which he was wont to be eloquent. He could not forgive himself for his hideous inexplicable slip; because he had sworn to himself always to remember that Mrs. Ledstone thought herself as good as married. But so from time to time do our habits of thought trip up our fair resolutions; a man cannot always remember to say what he does not think, essential as the accomplishment is in society.

Winnie regained her own serenity, but could not restore his. She saw it, and in pity offered no opposition when he rose to go. But she was gracious, accompanying him to the door, and opening it for him herself.

He had just shaken hands and put on his hat, when he exclaimed in a surprised tone, "Hullo, who's that?"

The studio stood a little back from the street; a small flagged forecourt gave access to it; the entrance was narrow, and a house projected on either side. To a stranger the place was not immediately easy to identify. Just opposite to it now there stood a woman, looking about her, as though in doubt. When the door opened and the light of the hall gas-jet streamed out, she came quickly through the gate of the forecourt and up to the house.

Bob Purnett emitted only the ghost of a whistle, but Winnie heard it and looked quickly at him. There was no time to speak before the visitor came up.

"Is this Mrs. G.o.dfrey Ledstone's?" she began. Then, with a touch of surprise, she broke off, exclaiming, "Oh, you, Mr. Purnett!" It was not surprise that he should be there at all, but merely that she should chance to come when he was there.

"Yes, er--how are you?" said Bob. "I--I'm just going."

"If you know this lady, you can introduce me," Winnie suggested, smiling. "Though I'm afraid I'm receiving you rather informally," she added to the visitor. "I'm Mrs. Ledstone."

"Yes," said the visitor. She turned quickly on Bob. "Mr. Purnett, please say nothing about this to--to G.o.dfrey."

"It's his sister." Bob effected the introduction as briefly as possible, and also as awkwardly.

"They don't know I've come, you see." Amy Ledstone spoke jerkily.

"Oh, that's all right, Miss Ledstone. Of course, I'm safe." He looked desperately at Winnie. "I--I'd better be off."

"Yes, I think so. Good-bye. Do come in, Miss Ledstone." She laughed gently. "You've surprised us both, but I'm very glad to see you, even though they don't know you've come. Good-bye again, Mr. Purnett."

She stood aside while Amy Ledstone entered the house, then slowly shut the door, smiling the while at Bob Purnett. After the door was shut, he stood where he was for several seconds, then moved off with a portentous shake of his head. He was amazed almost out of his senses. G.o.dfrey's sister! Coming secretly! What for? More confusion of boundaries! He thought that he really had known Woburn Square better than this. The memory of his terrible slip, five minutes before so mercilessly acute, was engulfed in a flood of astonishment. He shook his head at intervals all the evening, till his companion at dinner inquired, with mock solicitude, where he had contracted St. Vitus's dance, and was it catching?

Amy Ledstone was in high excitement. She breathed quickly as she sat down in the chair Winnie wheeled forward. Winnie herself stood opposite her visitor, very still, smiling faintly.

"I came here to-day because I knew G.o.dfrey wouldn't be here. Please don't tell him I came. He won't be back yet, will he?"

"Not for an hour later than this, as a rule."

"I left him in Woburn Square, you know."

Winnie nodded.

"And made my way here."

"From what you say, I don't suppose you've come just to call on me, Miss Ledstone?"

"No." She paused, then with a sort of effort brought out, "But I have been wanting to know you. Well, I'd heard about you, and--but it's not that."

"Please don't be agitated or--distressed. And there's no hurry."

"I wonder if you know anything of what daddy--my father--and mother are doing--of what's going on at home--in Woburn Square?"

"I suppose I can make a guess at it." She smiled. "First the letters, then the visits! Didn't you write any of the letters?"

"Yes--some." She stirred restlessly. "Why shouldn't I?"

"I haven't blamed you. No doubt it's natural you should. But then--why come here, Miss Ledstone?"

"How pretty you are!" Her eyes were fixed intently on Winnie's face.

"Oh, it's not fair, not fair! It's not fair to--to anybody, I think. Do you know, your name's never mentioned at home--never--not even when we're alone?"

"That part of it is done in the letters, I suppose? What am I called?

The entanglement, or the lamentable state of affairs--or what? I don't know, you see. If you don't talk about me, we don't talk much about you here either."

"Oh, well, it is--bad. But that's not what I meant--not all I meant, at least." She suddenly leant forward in her chair. "Does G.o.dfrey ever talk of the people he meets besides ourselves?"

"No, never. I shouldn't know anything about them, should I?"

"Has he ever mentioned Mabel Thurseley?"

"Mabel Thurseley? No. Who is she?"

"They live near us--in Torrington Square. Her mother's a widow, an old friend of ours."

"No, G.o.dfrey has never said anything about Miss Thurseley."

"She's rather pretty--not very, I think. They're comfortably off. I mean, as we think it. Not what you'd call rich, I suppose." She was remembering Mrs. Maxon.

"My idea of riches nowadays isn't extravagant. But please tell me why you're talking to me about Miss Thurseley. Did you come here to do that?"

"Yes, I did. You're never mentioned to her either. That's it."

Winnie had never moved through the talk. Her slim figure, clad in close-clinging black, was outlined against the grey wall of the studio.

"Oh, that's it! I see."

"So I had to come. Because how is it right? How is it decent, Mrs.

Maxon?"

Winnie let the name pa.s.s, indeed hardly noticed it. "Wouldn't your ideas be considered rather eccentric?" she asked, with a smile.

"Oh, I feel--I don't have ideas," murmured Amy Ledstone.

"In your home I'm considered the thing that exists, but isn't talked about--that's done and got over."

Again Amy's fixed gaze was on her companion. "Yes," she said, more than half a.s.senting to Winnie's description of herself, yet with a doubt whether "thing" were wholly the word, whether, if "thing" were not the word, the home doctrine could be altogether right.

"What about her then?" she went on.