The Immortal Moment Part 32

It was to be a battle of brains, and she had foiled him with the indomitable stupidity of her pa.s.sion. But his point--the one point that he stuck to--was a sword point for her pa.s.sion.

"You won't tell him? You won't? It would be a blackguardly thing to do."

"If Lucy was a friend of mine I'm afraid the blackguardly thing would be to hold my tongue."

"You'd tell him then?" she said. "You wouldn't think of me?"

She came to him. She laid her arms upon his shoulders. Her hands touched him with dispa.s.sionate, deliberate, ineffectual caresses, a pitiful return to a discarded manner, an outrageous imitation of the old professional cajoleries. It was so poor a thing that it had no power to move him. What moved him was the look in her eyes, the look which his brain told him was the desperate, incredulous appeal of her unhappy soul.

"I don't know, Kitty," he said. "Thank heaven, he's not a friend of mine."

CHAPTER XVI

It was not from Marston, then, that she had to fear betrayal. Neither was she any more afraid of the rumours of the Cliff Hotel. She was aware that her engagement to Robert Lucy, unannounced but accepted for the simple fact it was, had raised her above censure and suspicion.

It had come just in time to occupy Mrs. Jurd and Miss Keating on their way to Surbiton.

When Kitty thought of Grace Keating she said to herself, "How will Bunny feel now?" But her mortal exultation was checked by her pity for poor Bunny, who would have been so happy if she had been married.

Then there were the Hankins. She reflected sanely that they couldn't be dangerous, for they knew nothing. Still she did feel a little uneasy when she thought of the Hankins.

She was thinking of them now as she and Robert sat on the Cliff, making the most of their last hour together before the arrival of the little girls.

"Robert," she said, "the Hankins are probably sitting down there under the Cliff. Supposing they see us?"

"They can't, we're over their heads."

"But if they do what do you suppose they'll think?"

"If they think at all, they'll have an inkling of the truth. But it isn't their business. The children will be here soon," he added.

She looked at him intently. Was he trying, she wondered, to rea.s.sure her that the presence of his children would protect her? Or was he merely preoccupied with the thought of their arrival?

"You don't mind," he said presently, "not coming to the station?"

He had said that already twice before. Why ask, she said, when he knew perfectly well she didn't mind?

Of course she didn't mind. She knew his idea, that they were not to be confronted with her suddenly. He meant to let her dawn on them beautifully, with the tenderest gradations. He would approach them with an incomparable cunning. He would tell them that they were going to see a very pretty lady. And when they were thoroughly inured to the idea of her, he would announce that the pretty lady was coming to stay with them, and that she would never go away.

She looked at her watch.

"We've got another half-hour before they come."

"Kitty, I believe you're afraid of them?"

"Yes, Robert, I'm afraid."

"What? Of two small children?"

"What are they like? I haven't asked you that."

"Well, Janet's a queer, uncanny little person, rather long for her age and very thin----"

"Like you?"

"Like me. At first you think she's all legs. Then you see a little white face with enormous eyes that look at you as if she was wondering what you are."

He smiled. His mind had gone off, away from her, to the contemplation of his little daughter.

"I think she is clever, but one never knows. We have to handle her very carefully. Barbara's all right. You can pitch her about like anything."

"What is Barbara like?"

"Barbara? She's round and fat and going to be pretty, like----"

"Like her mother?"

"No, like Janey, if Janey was fat. They're both a little difficult to manage. If you reprove Barbara, she bursts out laughing in your face. If you even hint to Janet that you disapprove of her, she goes away somewhere and weeps."

"Poor little thing. I'm afraid," said Kitty sadly, "they're not so very small."

"Well, Janet, I believe, is seven, and Barbara is five."

"Barbara is five. And, oh dear me, Janet is seven."

"Is that such a very formidable age?"

She laughed uneasily. "Yes. That's the age when they begin to take notice, isn't it?"

"Oh, no, they do that when they're babies. Even Barbara's grown out of that. I say, Kitty, what a lot you know."

"Don't, Robert." She looked at him imploringly and put her hand in his.

"I won't, if you'll only tell me what I'm not to do."

"You're not to tease me about the things you think I don't know. I used to nurse my little sisters, when I wasn't very big myself. I can't nurse Janet, or Barbara, can I?"

"Why not?"

"They wouldn't let me. They're too old. It won't be the same thing at all."

"Well," said Robert, and paused, hiding from her the thing that was in his mind.

"Oh, Robert, I do wish, I do wish they were really small."