Mrs. Maxon Protests Part 40

Suddenly, without seeing where he came from, she found the General beside her--rather a stiff General, raising his hat very ceremoniously.

"You've had your tea, Clara? May I sit down by you?"

"Yes, I've had my tea, thank you. And you?"

"No, thank you. I--in fact I've had a whisky and soda."

The indulgence was unusual. It confirmed Mrs. Lenoir's instinct.

"Where's Bertie?"

"He's gone for a walk to Camara de Lobos."

The instinct was proved infallibly correct. A stride along the one level road--clearly a case of mental disturbance needing physical treatment!

The General sat down. He was not even smoking; he rested the big silver k.n.o.b of his stick against his lips. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. Oh yes, certainly yes!

When he spoke, it was abruptly. "I don't know exactly how long you mean to stay here, Clara, but I'm afraid Bertie and I must take the next boat home. We must get back to London."

"Who's inconsolable in London?"

"I've had a letter which makes it advisable----"

"Oh, nonsense!" She did not disguise her impatience. "She's told him, has she?"

"I don't think you've treated me quite fairly."

The sun began to sink below the promontory which bounded the view on the right. The growing sombreness of the atmosphere seemed to spread over Mrs. Lenoir's face. Her voice was hard too, when she spoke.

"I've treated you absolutely fairly. You men always want to play with your cards held up, and ours down on the table. That's the masculine idea of an even game! Oh, I know it! For my part I think she's silly to have told him so soon. I wouldn't have. And so she's not good enough for him, isn't she?"

Mrs. Lenoir had certainly done well to whip up her anger. It enabled her to deliver the a.s.sault, and forestall the General's more deliberate offensive movement. Also by her plainness she exposed ruthlessly her friend's tactful invention of a letter from London making it advisable for him and his son to take the next boat back to England.

"It's not quite a question of that," said the General, his pale-brown old cheek flushing under the roughness of her scornful words. "You know how much I like her, and how much Bertie likes her too. But we must look facts in the face--take things as they are, Clara. It's not so much a matter of his own feelings. There's the regiment."

Mrs. Lenoir grew more annoyed--because she perceived in a flash that, old student of men as she was, she had neglected an important factor in the case. Being annoyed, and being a woman, she hit out at the other women who, as she supposed, stood in her way.

"A parcel of n.o.bodies, in a garrison or cantonment somewhere!" Whatever the judgment on her life, she was always conscious that she herself had been famous.

"I suppose you're referring to the women? I wasn't thinking so much of them. It'd be sure to get out, and it wouldn't do with the youngsters."

She turned to him almost fiercely, but his next words struck a new note.

"And it'd prejudice my boy's career, Clara."

The sun had set. There was an interval of cold light before the glories of the afterglow. Mrs. Lenoir's face looked wan and hard. "Yes, it would follow them all over the world," she said. "Now a mail ahead of them, now a mail behind--always very close. Yes, the women would chatter and lift their skirts; the old men would sn.i.g.g.e.r and the youngsters make jokes. Is there anything at all to choose between us, Hugh--between you men and us women? Anything at all?"

He would not enter on that. "You don't quite understand. I may think about his interest--well, I'm his father, and he's my eldest. He sees it in the light of his duty to the Service."

"My poor little Winnie!" Gradually the afterglow was coming and seemed to soften the hard lines of her face.

"You know I--why, I fairly love her myself!" His voice trembled for a moment. "Pretty nearly as much, I believe, in the end, as the boy does.

But--could I tell him anything different? I'd give a year's pay not to hurt her feelings."

"A year's pay! You old goose, Hugh! You'd give your life--but you wouldn't give one b.u.t.ton off the tunic of one of the soldiers in your blessed regiment." She held out her hand to him, smiling under misty eyes. "You men are queer," she ended.

After a stealthy look round, the General raised her hand to his lips.

They were friends again, and he was glad. Yet she would not forgo her privilege of ridicule and irony--the last and only weapon of the conquered.

"I don't know that anything need be said----"

"So you two valiant soldiers have decided that I had better say it?" she interrupted.

"How could either of us so much as hint that she--that she was the least interested in our movements?"

"Not even in your retreats? Oh, I'll tell her you're going by the next boat. Nearly a week off, though, isn't it?" She hinted maliciously that the week might be difficult--even dangerous. Whether it would be depended on how Winnie took their decision. Mrs. Lenoir's unregenerate impulse would have been to make that week rather trying to the Major, had she been in Winnie's place. By being disagreeable to him? No, she would have found a better way than that.

A merry laugh sounded from the door of the casino. Winnie was there, in animated conversation with the Anstruther boys. A great event had happened, calculated to amuse the whole hotel. 'Dolly' had come down with his usual half-dollar--and had lost it as usual. He walked round the room, then up and down the concert-room adjoining. He went to the other table, he came back to the one at which he had played. He fidgeted about, behind the second Anstruther boy, for some minutes. Then he fished out another half-dollar, and put it on a single number--twenty!

Could Winnie, his confidante, doubt what was in his mind? The number twenty was the gage of Dame Fortune; he would wear it on his sleeve!

Number twenty came up; the little man, with a quick gasp for breath, pounced on his handful of money.

"Well, any of us may win after that!" said the elder Anstruther boy, who had been strongly for the view that Mr. Wigram was a 'hoodoo' to the whole hotel.

With rapid yet gracious dexterity Winnie got rid of her companions. She had caught sight of the General's tall figure as he left Mrs. Lenoir's side. She came down to her friend's chair, and laid a hand on her shoulder.

"Not cold?" Mrs. Lenoir shook her head. "Well, let's go home, anyhow--shall we? I've had a long afternoon with those boys--I'm tired."

"Sit down for a minute, child. So you let the cat out of the bag?"

"I told you I had to. Has he been here? I haven't seen him."

"Bertie? No--only the General. Bertie's gone for a walk by himself. But, before he went, he told the General."

"Well?" Winnie was drawing on the gloves she had taken off to count out her money in the room.

"They're going home by the next boat." Winnie gave no sign, made no movement. "A letter from London--if you want to observe the usual fiction." Her malice, her desire that her s.e.x should fight for itself and avenge its injuries, twinkled in her eyes again. "But they can't go till Tuesday!"

Winnie's eyes turned out to sea. "Tuesday, or Tuesday twelvemonth--what difference does it make?" She gave a little sigh; she had liked the idea of it--of the life it meant, of seeing the world, of a fresh start, of his great courtesy and kindness. "I don't think that we need consider ourselves responsible for a broken heart," she added suddenly.

"No, but he'd have gone on, even after you told him." Her voice took on its ironical inflexion. "He'd have gone on but for the regiment."

Winnie had been leaning back in her chair. She sat up straight, almost with a jerk. "Gone on but for what?" she asked, in a tone of genuine amazement.

Mrs. Lenoir's acrid smile penetrated the twilight. After a moment's blank staring, Winnie's parted lips met in a smile too. To both of them, in the end, it seemed funny--rather unaccountable.

"The regiment, Winnie!" Mrs. Lenoir repeated, as she rose from her seat.

"It really never entered my head," said Winnie.