The Education of Eric Lane Part 5

"I've too many things to be afraid of without bothering about that. Lady Barbara, you've several brothers, I've one sister. If one of your brothers saw fit to invite _my_ sister to a bachelor flat----"

"But you _haven't_ invited me!"

"I should horsewhip him," Eric resumed jerkily.

She considered him curiously with her head on one side.

"You know, I don't feel afraid of you," she told him. "I could trust you anywhere. You're not old enough to understand that yet, but you will."

"Then for the present it's irrelevant. Come along, Lady Barbara."

He advanced a step, but she only smiled at him without moving. Eric looked angrily round, but the stream of pa.s.sers-by, though sluggish, shewed no signs of drying up. A clock inside the hall began to chime midnight, and he turned on his heel. As he did so, a taxi turned into the street, and an officer climbed gingerly out and hoisted himself across the pavement on two crutches. Barbara coughed and drew her shawl round her until half her face was hidden.

"But, Eric dear, you can't have _lost_ the key," she expostulated, purposefully clear.

Over the shawl her eyes were gleaming with mischief and triumph.

The officer looked quickly from one to the other.

"Hullo! You locked out?" he enquired sympathetically. "Rotten luck!

Here, let me put you out of your misery! Hope you haven't been waiting long?"

"That _is_ sweet of you," said Barbara. "Long? I seem to have been standing here all day. Come on, Eric; I'm frightfully tired; I want to sit down."

She walked into the hall, beckoning him with a jerk of her head. The officer bade them good-night and limped to a ground-floor flat at the end.

"I'm going to my club, Lady Barbara," said Eric with slow distinctness from the door-step.

"Then I shall bang on every door I see until I find your flat," she retorted promptly. "I've told you, I want some soda-water. And, Eric----"

"Yes, Lady Barbara."

"Eric, I always get what I want. Who lives here, do you suppose? We'll try his door first."

Eric came in and walked to the foot of the stairs. Barbara slipped her arm through his, but he shook it away.

"I'm tired," she explained. "I wish you wouldn't be so rough with me."

She replaced her arm, and, rather than engage in a childish brawl, Eric left it there, though the touch of her fingers on his wrist set his blood tingling. They walked slowly, for he was trying to set his racing thoughts in order. This, then, was the true Lady Barbara Neave. He had never believed the fantastic stories about her, but she was now gratuitously shewing him that she was of those who stopped at nothing.

He felt the sudden unpitying disgust of a disappointed idealist. She was very young, with expressions which made her wholly beautiful at times. . . . "Virginal" was the word he was trying to find. . . . He wondered how to rid himself of her without a scene.

"If you'll let go my arm, I'll open the door," he said with stiff patience.

She walked into the small inner hall and looked round her with unaffected interest.

"I've never been in a man's rooms before," she remarked and Eric knew that she was speaking the truth. An extraordinary sense of power came to him, rushing to his head. The tired eyes and wistful mouth, the haggard cheeks, the cloud of fine hair, the white arms and slender hands fed his hungry love of beauty. And he had attracted her until she lay at his mercy. . . .

"I want to see everything, Eric," she said gently.

He hardly heard the words; but her tone was confiding, and she slipped her hand into his. A latent sense of the dramatic came to his rescue.

"You seem to have put yourself pretty completely into my power," he observed, closing the front door behind them.

"I know you so much better than you know me," she answered.

"I don't quite follow."

She laughed gently to herself, then put her arms round his neck and kissed him.

"No. . . . And you won't for years . . . not till I've educated you. . . .

Am I right in thinking that you've forgotten all about my soda-water?"

5

Eric led her into the dining-room and gave her a tumbler of soda-water with a hand that trembled.

She had taken him by surprise as much as if she had struck him in the face. Incuriosity and fastidiousness, partly timid, partly romantic, had conspired to let him reach the age of two-and-thirty without ever kissing or being kissed. The act, now that he had experienced it, was nothing. A warm body, yielding in self-surrender, had pressed against him for a moment; two hands had impelled his head forward; he had been blinded for an instant by a scented billow of hair; then his cheeks had been touched as though a leaf had blown against them. That was the temperate a.n.a.lysis of kissing. . . .

"It's a nice room, Eric," she murmured, glancing slowly round over the top of her tumbler at the panelled walls and shining oak table. "And I like your invisible lighting. It's restful, and I hate a glare. What other rooms have you?"

"Kitchen next door," he answered with intentional abruptness; "then the servants' room--you won't make a noise, will you? or you'll wake them up. Bathroom, spare room, my own room, smoking-room. No, the limits of my unconventionality are soon reached; you can finish your soda-water in the smoking-room, and then I'll take you home."

"But I should _like_ to see your room," she answered with the grave persistence of an unreasonable child. "Mine's purple and white in London--purple carpet, purple curtains, purple counterpane--and nothing but white--except the rose-wood, of course--at Crawleigh."

"This is the smoking-room," said Eric, conscientiously firm and unimpressed.

Barbara gave a little gasp of pleasure as he flooded the room with light. Book-cases surrounded three walls, stretching half-way to the ceiling and topped with rose-bowls and bronzes. The fourth was warmed by long _rose Du Barry_ curtains over the two windows; between them stood a Chippendale writing-table. The rest of the room was given up to an irregular circle of sofas and arm-chairs, white-covered and laden with _rose Du Barry_ satin cushions, surrounding a second table.

"I _am_ glad I came!" she cried. "You know how to make yourself comfortable, Eric! Of course, the first cigarette I drop on your adorable grey carpet--you see how it matches my dress?--the first cigarette spoils it for ever. _And_ the roses!" With a characteristically impulsive jerk she dragged the tulle band and artificial flower from her hair, tossed them to Eric and stretched her hand up for a red rose to take their place. "Ah! beloved celibate! not a mirror in the room! I shall _have_ to----"

"Please stay where you are, Lady Barbara."

She crammed the rose carelessly into her hair and dropped on the nearest sofa.

"_Do_ take that coat off and sit down here!" she begged him.

"I'm waiting to take you home."

"But I'm not going home yet. I'm enjoying myself, I'm happy."

"I'm waiting to take you home," he repeated.

She pouted and glanced up at him through half-closed eyes.

"You don't care whether I'm happy or not. You're _soullessly_ selfish!"

She looked round and helped herself to a cigarette; then her hand crept invitingly, with the shy daring of a mouse, along the sofa. "I want a match."