The Imaginary Marriage Part 11

"You--you forgive everything?" Her eyes blazed. "What have you to forgive? What right have you to tell me that you forgive--me?"

"I can't let you go, I can't! Joan, I tell you I'll never throw the past in your face. I'll forget Alston and--"

The door behind the girl opened, the maid appeared.

"Miss," she said, "there's a car waiting down below. The man says he is from General Bartholomew, and he has come for you."

"Thank you. I am coming now. My luggage is ready, Annie. Can you get someone to carry it down?"

Joan moved to the door. She looked back at Slotman. "I hope," she said quietly, "that we shall never meet again, Mr. Slotman, and I wish you good morning!" And then she was gone.

Slotman walked to the window. He looked down and saw a car, by no means a cheap car, and he knew the value of things, none better. He waited, unauthorised visitor as he now was, and saw the girl come out, saw the liveried chauffeur touch his cap to her and hold the door for her, saw her enter. Presently he saw luggage brought down and placed on the roof of the limousine, and then the car drove away.

Slotman rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Well, I'll be hanged! And who the d.i.c.kens is General Bartholomew? And why should she go to him, luggage and all? Is it anything to do with that fellow Alston? Has she accepted his offer after all?" He shook his head. "No, I don't think so."

The General put his two hands on Joan's shoulders. He looked at her, and then he kissed her.

"You are very welcome, my dear," he said. "I blame myself, I do indeed.

I ought to have found out where you were long ago. Your father was one of my dearest friends, G.o.d rest his soul. I knew him well, and his dear little wife too--your mother, my child, one of the loveliest women I ever saw. And you are like her, as like her as a daughter can be like her mother. Bless my heart, it takes me back when I see you, takes me back to the day when Tom married her, the loveliest girl--but I am forgetting, I am forgetting. You've brought your things?" he asked.

"Hudson, where's Hudson? Ring for Mrs. Weston, that's my housekeeper, child. She'll look after you. And now you are here, you will stay here with us for a long time, a very long time. It can't be too long, my dear. I am a lonely old man, but we'll do our best to make you happy."

"I think," Joan said softly, "that you have done that already! Your welcome and your kindness, have made me happier than I have been for a very, very long time."

CHAPTER XI

THE GENERAL CALLS ON HUGH

Hugh Alston lingered in London, why, he would not admit, even to himself. In reality he had lingered on in the hope of seeing Joan Meredyth again. How he should see her, where and when, he had not the faintest idea; but he wanted to see her even more than he wanted to see Hurst Dormer.

He had thought of going to the city and calling on Mr. Philip Slotman again. But he had not liked Mr. Slotman.

"If I see her, she will only suggest that I am annoying and insulting her," Hugh thought. "I suppose I thought that I was doing a very fine and very clever thing in asking her to be my wife!" His face burned at the thought. He had meant it well; but, looking back, it struck him that he had acted like a conceited fool. He had thought to make all right, by bestowing all his possessions and his person on her, and she had put him in his place, had declined even without thanks.

"And serve me jolly well right!" Hugh said. "Who?" he added aloud.

"Gentleman, sir--General Bartholomew," said the hotel page.

"And who on earth is he?"

"Short, stout gentleman, sir, white whiskers."

"That's quite satisfactory then; I'll see him," said Hugh.

He found the General in the lounge.

"You're Hugh Alston," said the General. "I'd know you anywhere. You are your father over again. I hope that you are as good a man."

"I wish I could think so," Hugh said, "but I can't!" He shook hands with the General. He had a dim recollection of the old fellow, as one of his father's friends, who in the old days, when he was a child, had come down to Hurst Dormer; but the recollection was dim.

"How did you find me out here, sir?"

"Ah, ha! That's it--just a piece of luck! The name struck me--Alston--I thought of George Alston. I said to myself, 'Can this be his boy?' And you are, eh? George Alston, of Hurst Dormer."

The General rambled on, but he forgot to explain to Hugh how it was that he had found him out at the Northborough Hotel, and presently Hugh forgot to enquire, which was what the General wanted.

"You'll dine with me to-night, eh? I won't take no--understand. I want to talk over old times!"

"I thought of returning to Suss.e.x to-night," said Hugh.

"Not to be thought of! I can't let you go! I shall expect you at seven."

The old fellow seemed to be so genuinely anxious, so kindly, so friendly, that Hugh had not the heart to refuse him.

"Very well, sir; it is good of you. I'll come, I'll put off going till to-morrow. I remember you well now, you used to come for the shooting when I was a nipper."

Not till after the old fellow had gone did Hugh wonder how he had unearthed him here in the Northborough Hotel. He had meant to ask him--he had asked him actually, and the General had not explained. But it did not matter, after all. Some coincidence, some easily understandable explanation, of course, would account for it.

"And to-morrow I shall go back," Hugh thought, as he drove to the General's house in a taxicab. "I shall go back to Hurst Dormer, I shall get busy doing something and forget everything that I don't want to remember."

But his thoughts were with the girl he had seen last in Mr. Slotman's office. And he saw her in memory as he had seen her for one brief instant of time--softened and sweetened by some thought, some influence that had come to her for a moment. What influence, what thought, he could not tell; yet, as she had been then, so he saw her always and remembered her.

A respectful manservant took Hugh's coat and hat; he led the way, and flung a door wide.

"General Bartholomew will be with you in a few moments, sir," he said; and Hugh found himself in a large, old-fashioned London drawing-room.

"To-morrow," Hugh was thinking, "Hurst Dormer--work, something to occupy my thoughts till I can forget. It is going to take a lot of forgetting, I suppose I shall feel more or less a cad all my life, though Heaven knows--"

He swung round suddenly. The door had opened; he heard the swish of skirts, and knew it could not be General Bartholomew.

But who it would be he could not have guessed to save his life. They met again for the third time in their lives. At sight of him the girl had started and flushed, had instinctively drawn back. Now she stood still, regarding him with a steadfast stare, the colour slowly fading from her cheeks.

And Hugh stood silent, dumbfounded, astonishment clearly shown on his face.

CHAPTER XII

"I TAKE NOT ONE WORD BACK"

"I will do you the justice, Mr. Alston, to believe that you did not antic.i.p.ate this meeting?"

"You will only be doing me justice if you do not believe it," Hugh said.