Second String Part 28

He started a little to see her--not that it was strange she should be there, but because he had not seen her alone since the night of the stolen kiss. He closed the door behind him and came to her.

"Vivien"--a jerk of his head told that Vivien was in the drawing-room--"has sent me to say 'How do you do?' to Mr. Wellgood."

"He's in his study, Mr. Harry. Don't stay long. He's very busy." She drew aside, to let him pa.s.s, but Harry stood still.

"Are you never going to give me an opportunity?" he asked in a low voice.

"An opportunity for what?"

Harry jumped at the chance of his confession and absolution. "Why, of saying how awfully sorry and--and ashamed I am that I yielded--"

"What's the use of saying anything about it? It's best forgotten."

"Now Wellgood's back?" he whispered, with a flash of his eyes.

"Certainly best forgotten, now that Vivien's father is back."

He shook his head at her with a smile, owning her skilful parry. "You won't give me one chance?"

"Does the dashing Mr. Harry Belfield need to have chances given him? I thought he made them for himself."

Harry's eyes gleamed. "I'll take you at your word in that!"

"You've been in no hurry about it up to now--and you seem in none to say 'How do you do?' to Mr. Wellgood." She motioned him to go on, adding, "It was very silly, but no harm's done. We'll forget."

Harry gave her a long look. She met it with a steady smile. He held out his hand.

"Thank you. We'll forget. There's my hand on it."

She gave a little laugh, shook her head, and put her hands behind her back.

"I seem to remember it began that way before," she said, and darted past him swiftly.

That was how they set about forgetting the stolen kiss.

Chapter XIII.

A LOVER LOOKS PALE.

It speedily appeared that Gilly Foot had other than pecuniary reasons for wanting a partner; he wanted a pair of hands to work for him. He was lazy, at times even lethargic; nothing could make him hurry. He hated details, and, above all other details, figures. His work was to hatch ideas; somebody else had to bring up the chickens. Andy could hardly have allowed the cool shuffling-off of all the practical business work on to his shoulders--which was what happened as soon as he had learnt even the rudiments of it--had it not been that the ideas were good. The indolent young man would sit all the morning--not that his morning began very early--apparently doing nothing, then spend two hours at lunch at the restaurant, come back smoking a large cigar, and after another hour's rumination be delivered of an idea. The budding business--Andy wondered how it had even budded under a gardener who no doubt planted but never watered--lay mainly with educational works; and here Gilly's ingenuity came in. He was marvellously good at guessing what would appeal to a schoolmaster; how or whence he got this instinct it was impossible to say; it seemed just a freak of genius. The prospectus of a new "series," or the "syllabus" of a new course of study (contained in Messrs. Gilbert Foot and Co.'s primers) became in his hands a most skilful bait. And if he hooked one schoolmaster, as he pointed out to Andy, it was equivalent to hooking scores, perhaps hundreds, conceivably thousands, of boys. Girls too perhaps! Gilly was all for the higher education of girls. Generations of the youth of both s.e.xes rose before his prophetically sanguine eye, all brought up on Gilbert Foot and Co.'s primers.

"A single really good idea for a series may mean a small fortune, Andy,"

he would say impressively. "And now I think I may as well go to lunch."

Andy accepted the situation and did the hard work. He also provided his partner with a note-book, urging him to put down (or, failing that, to get somebody else to put down) any brilliant idea which occurred to him at lunch. For himself he made a rule--lunch at the restaurant not more than once a week. Only ideas justified lunch there every day. Lunch there might be good for ideas; it was not good for figures.

So Andy was working hard, no less hard than when he was trying to drag his poor timber business out of the mud, but with far more heart, hope, and zest. He buckled to the figures; he bargained with the gentlemen who wrote the primers, with the printers, and the binders, and the advertis.e.m.e.nt canva.s.sers; he tracked shy discounts to their lairs, and bagged them; his eye on office expenses was the eye of a lynx. The chickens hatched by Gilly found a loving and a.s.siduous foster-mother.

And in September, after the new primers had been packed off to meet the boys going back to school, Andy was to have a holiday; he was looking forward to it intensely. He meant to spend it in attending Harry Belfield on his autumn campaign in the Meriton Division--an odd idea of a holiday to most men's thinking, but Harry was still Harry, and Andy's appet.i.te for new experiences had lost none of its voracity. Meanwhile, for recreation, there was Sunday with its old programme of church, a tramp, and supper with Jack Rock; there was lunch on Friday at the restaurant with the Nun--she never missed Andy's day--and other friends; and on both the Sat.u.r.days which followed the Belfields' return home he was bidden to dine at Halton.

That the Nun had taken a fancy to him he had been informed by that candid young woman herself; her a.s.surance that he was "attractive" held good as regarded Belfield at least; even Andy's modesty could not deny that. Belfield singled him out for especial attention, drew him out, listened to him, advised him. It was at the first of the two evenings at Halton that he kept Andy with him after dinner, while the rest went into the garden--Wellgood and Vivien were there, but not Isobel, who had pleaded a cold--and insisted on hearing all about his business, listening with evident interest to Andy's description of it and of his partner, Gilly Foot.

"And in your holiday you're going to help Harry, I hear?"

"Help him!" laughed Andy. "I'm going to listen to him."

"I recommend you to try your own hand too. You couldn't have a better opportunity of learning the job than at these village meetings."

"I could never do it. It never entered my head. Why, I know nothing!"

"More than your audience; that's enough. If you do break down at first, it doesn't matter. After a month of it you wouldn't mind Trafalgar Square."

"The--the idea's absolutely new to me."

"So have a lot of things been lately, haven't they? And they're turning out well."

A slow smile spread over Andy's face. "I should look a fool," he reflected.

"Try it," said Belfield, quite content with the reception of his suggestion. He saw that Andy would turn it over in his mind, would give it full, careful, impartial consideration. He was coming to have no small idea of Andy's mind. He pa.s.sed to another topic.

"You were at Nutley two or three times when we were away, Harry tells me. Everything seems going on very pleasantly?"

Andy recalled himself with a start from his rumination over a possible speech.

"Oh, yes--er--it looks like it, Mr. Belfield."

"And Harry's not been to town more than once or twice!" He smiled. "He really seems to have said farewell to the temptations of London. An exemplary swain!"

"I think it's going on all right, sir," said Andy.

Belfield was a little puzzled at his lack of enthusiasm. Andy showed no actual signs of embarra.s.sment, but his tone was cold, and his interest seemed perfunctory.

"I daresay you've been too busy to pay much attention to such frivolous affairs," he said; but to Andy's ears his voice sounded the least bit resentful.

"No; I--I a.s.sure you I take the keenest interest in it. I'd give anything to have it go all right."

Belfield's eyes were on him with a shrewd kindness. "No reason to suppose it won't, is there?"

"None that I know of." Now Andy was frowning a little and smoking rather fast.

Belfield said no more. He could not cross-examine Andy; indeed he had no materials, even if he had the right. But Andy's manner left him with a feeling of uneasiness.

"Ah, well, there's only six weeks to wait for the wedding!"

The next Sat.u.r.day found him again at Halton. One of the six weeks had pa.s.sed; a week of happy work, yet somewhat shadowed by the recollection of Belfield's questions and his own poor answers. Had he halted midway between honest truth and useful lying? In fact he knew nothing of what had been happening of late. He had not visited Nutley again--since that night. Suddenly it struck him that he had not been invited. Then--did they suspect? How could they have timed his entrance so exactly as to suspect? He did not know that Harry had seen his retreating figure.

Still it would seem to them possible that he might have seen--possible, if unlikely. That might be enough to make him a less desired guest.