The Immortal Moment Part 17

And he----" Kitty had been playing with a b.u.t.ton of her dressing-gown.

Her fingers now began tearing, pa.s.sionately, convulsively, at the b.u.t.ton. "He is the first nice man who--who hasn't been what men are."

"You don't mean that," said Jane calmly. She was holding Mrs. Tailleur's hand in hers and caressing it, soothing its pathetic violence.

"I do. I do. That's why I like you so."

"I'm glad you like us."

"I'd give anything to know what you really think of me."

"May I say what I think?"

"Yes."

"I think you're too good to be so unhappy."

"That's a new view of me. Most people think I'm too unhappy to be very good."

"You _are_ good; but if you'd been happier you'd have known that other people are what you call good, too."

"That's what I said to Bunny. _She_ was unhappy."

"Never mind her. If you'd been happier you'd have known, for instance, that my brother isn't an exception. There are a great many men like him.

All the men I've known have been more or less like Robert."

"They would be, dear; all the men _you've_ known. But, you see, something happened. Nothing ever happened to you."

"No. Nothing very much has happened to me. Nothing very much ever will."

"You never wanted things to happen, did you?"

"I don't know. Perhaps I'm interested most in the things that happen to other people."

"You dear! If I'd been like you----"

"I wish," said Jane, "you'd known Robert sooner."

Mrs. Tailleur's lips parted, but no voice came through them.

"Then," said Jane, "whatever happened never would have happened, probably."

"I wonder. What do you suppose happened?"

"I don't know. I've no business to know."

"What do you think? Tell me--tell me!"

"I think you've been very badly handled."

"Yes. You may think so."

"When you were young--too young to understand it."

"Ah, I was never too young to understand. That's the difference between you and me."

"That makes it all the worse, then."

"All the worse! So that's what you think? How does it make you feel to me?"

"It makes me feel that I want to take you away, and warm you and wrap you round, so that nothing could ever touch you and hurt you any more."

"That's how it makes you feel?"

"That's how it makes us both feel."

"_He_ takes it that way, too?"

"Of course he does. Any nice man would."

"If _I_ were nice----"

"You _are_ nice."

"You don't know, my child; you don't know."

"Do you suppose Robert doesn't know?"

Mrs. Tailleur rose suddenly and turned away.

"I was nice once," she said, "and at times I can be now."

CHAPTER XI

Colonel Hankin was mistaken. Mrs. Tailleur's room was not wanted the next day. The point had been fiercely disputed in those obscure quarters of the hotel inhabited by the management. The manager's wife was for turning Mrs. Tailleur out on the bare suspicion of her impropriety. The idea in the head of the manager's wife was that there should be no suspicion as to the reputation of the Cliff Hotel. The manager, on his side, contended that the Cliff Hotel must not acquire a reputation for suspicion; that any lady whom Miss Lucy had made visibly her friend was herself in the position so desirable for the Cliff Hotel; that, in any case, unless Mrs. Tailleur's conduct became such as to justify an extreme step, the scandal of the ejection would be more damaging to the Cliff Hotel than her present transparently innocent and peaceful occupation of the best room in it. He wished to know how a scandal was to be avoided when the place was swarming with old women. And, after all, what had they got against Mrs. Tailleur except that she was better looking by a long chalk, and better turned-out, than any of 'em? Of course, he couldn't undertake to say--offhand--whether she was or wasn't any better than she should be. But, in the absence of complaints, he didn't consider the question a profitable one for a manager to go into in the slack season.

All the manager's intelligence was concentrated in the small commercial eye which winked, absurdly, in the solitude of his solemn and enormous face. You must take people as you found them, said he, and for his part he had always found Mrs. Tailleur----

But how the manager had found Mrs. Tailleur was never known to his wife, for at this point she walked out of the private sitting-room and shut herself into her bureau. Her opinion, more private even than that sitting-room, consecrated to intimate dispute, was that where women were concerned the manager was a perfect fool.

The window of the bureau looked out on to the vestibule and the big staircase. And full in sight of the window Mrs. Tailleur was sitting on a seat set under the stair. She had her hat on and carried a sunshade in her hand, for the day was fine and warm. She was waiting for somebody.

And as she waited she amused herself by smiling at the little four-year-old son of the management who played in the vestibule, it being the slack season. He was running up and down the flagged floor, dragging a little cart after him. And as he ran he never took his eyes off the pretty lady. They said, every time, with the charming vanity of childhood, "Look at me!" And Kitty looked at him, every time, and made, every time, the right sort of smile that says to a little boy, "I see you." Just then n.o.body was there to see Kitty but the manager's wife, who stood at the window of the bureau and saw it all. And as the little boy was not looking in the least where he was going, his feet were presently snared in the rug where the pretty lady sat, and he would have tumbled on his little nose if Kitty had not caught him.

He was going to cry, but Kitty stopped him just in time by lifting him on to her lap and giving him her watch to look at. A marvellous watch that was gold and blue and bordered with a ring of little sparkling stones.

At that moment Robert Lucy came down the stairs. He came very quietly and leaned over the banister behind Kitty's back and watched her, while he listened shamelessly to the conversation. The pretty lady looked prettier than ever.