The Making of a Prig Part 26

"You? But you do not care--as I do."

He did not heed the interruption.

"It is the system that is at fault," he said. "A man has to get on at the sacrifice of his happiness; or he has to be happy at the sacrifice of his position. It is difficult for a woman to realise this. She never has to choose between love and ambition."

"And you have chosen--ambition," said Katharine bitterly.

"My child, when you are older you will understand that the very qualities you affect to despise in man now, are the qualities that endear him to you in reality. You are far too fine a woman, Katharine, to love a man who has no ambition. Is it not so?"

She quivered, and lowered her eyes.

"I don't know," she said. "It seems so hard."

"It is terribly hard for both of us," continued Paul, looking down too. "But believe me, there would be nothing but unhappiness before us if it were otherwise. I am thinking of you, child, as much as of myself. Marriage for love alone is a ghastly mistake. There, I have said more to you than I have ever said to any woman; I felt you would understand, Katharine."

He mistook her silence for indifference, and put his arms round her.

But she clung to him closely, and lifted her face to his and broke out into a desperate appeal.

"Paul, don't say those horrid, bitter things! They are not true; I will never believe they are true. Why must you marry for anything so sordid as ambition? Why must you marry at all? Can't we go on being friends? I want to go on being your friend. Paul, don't send me away for ever. I can't go, Paul; I can't! I will work for you, I will be your slave, I will do anything; only don't let it all stop like this.

I can't bear it; I can't! Won't you go on being nice to me, Paul?"

He threw back his head and compressed his lips. He had grown quite white in the last few moments. She sobbed out her entreaties with her face hidden on his shoulder, and wondered why he did not speak to her.

"Why did you never look like that before?" he asked in a hoa.r.s.e whisper. She raised her head and stared at him with large, frightened eyes.

"Like what, Paul? What do you mean?"

He flung her away from him almost roughly.

"You must go," he said, "at once."

She laid her hand on his arm, and looked into his face.

"Why are you so angry?" she asked, wonderingly. "Is it because I have told you all these things?"

"My G.o.d, no! You must go," he repeated, vehemently, and pushed her towards the door. She stumbled as she went, and he thought he heard her sob. He sprang to her side instantly, and took her in his arms again.

"Why didn't you go quickly?" he gasped, as he crushed her against him.

His sudden change of manner terrified her. None of the tenderness or the indifference, or any of the expressions she was accustomed to see on his face were there now, and his violence repelled her. She struggled to free herself from his grasp.

"Let me go, Paul!" she pleaded. "I don't want to stop any more. What is the good of it all? You know I have got to go; don't make it so difficult. Paul, I--I _want_ to go."

He looked searchingly into her eyes, as though he would have read her inmost thoughts; but he did not see the understanding he had almost hoped to find there, and he laughed shortly and relinquished his hold of her.

"There, go!" he said in an uncertain tone. "Why did I expect you to know? Your day hasn't come yet. Meanwhile-- Ah! what am I saying?"

"I have annoyed you again," said Katharine sorrowfully. "What ought I to have known?"

"Oh, nothing," said Paul, flinging open the door. "You can't help it.

Now and again Nature makes woman a prig, and it is only the right man who can regenerate her. Unfortunately, circ.u.mstances prevent me from being the right man. Are you ready to come, now?"

He spoke rapidly, hardly knowing what he said. But Katharine walked past him without speaking, with a set look on her face. He talked mechanically about the storm and anything else that occurred to him, as they went downstairs, but she did not utter a word, and he did not seem to notice her silence. She held out her hand to him as they stood in the doorway.

"You will let me see you to a cab?" he said. "Oh, very well, as you like; but, at least, take an umbrella with you."

She shook her head mutely, and plunged out into the rain and the storm. It was on just such a night as this, more than two years ago, that she had first gone out to meet him. Paul called after her to come back and take shelter; and some one, who was walking swiftly by, turned round at the sound of his voice. The dim lamp above shed its uncertain light for a moment on the faces of the three, whom circ.u.mstances had thus strangely brought together in the fury of that June thunder-storm. It was only for a moment. Paul drew back again into the doorway, and Katharine stumbled blindly against the man outside.

"Ted!" she cried, with a sob of relief. "Take me home, Ted, will you?

Something terrible has happened to me; I can't tell you now. Oh, I am so glad it is you!"

She clung to his arm convulsively. Some clock in the neighbourhood was striking the hour, and it struck twelve times before Ted spoke.

"Kitty!" he said.

She waited, but not another word came. Exhaustion prevented her from resisting, as he led her to a hansom, and paid the driver, and left her. Then she remembered dimly that he had not spoken to her, except for that one startled exclamation.

It seemed to Katharine as though nothing could be wanting to complete her wretchedness.

CHAPTER XV

But, humiliated as she was, the predominant feeling in her mind was astonishment. Could it be true that she was a prig? Was that the final definition of the pride and the strength in which she had gloried until now? Was that all that people meant when they told her she was not like other girls? It was an odious revelation, and for the moment her self-respect was stunned by it. She had boasted of her success; and to be successful was merely to be priggish. She had been proud of her virtue; and virtue, again, was only an equivalent for priggishness. She wondered vaguely whether there was a single aspiration left that did not lead to the paths of priggishness. A prig! He had called her a prig! She had thought it such a fine thing to be content with his friendship, and this was the end of it all. All the wretchedness of her solitary drive home was centred in those last cruel words of his; all the bitterness of that long, miserable Sunday was concentrated in that covert insult. She could have borne his indifference, or even his displeasure; but she could have killed him for his contempt.

And Ted? She did not give a thought to Ted. Even the reason for his curious behaviour had not fully dawned upon her yet. It had only seemed in keeping with the rest of her misfortunes, just like the rain, which she allowed to beat in upon her, with a kind of reckless satisfaction. In the fulness of her more absorbing personal trouble, Ted would have to wait. It had been her experience that Ted always could wait. It was not until she stood once more within the familiar hall of number ten, Queen's Crescent, that the recollection of Ted's astonished look returned to her mind; and then she put it hastily away from her, as something that would have to be faced presently.

As she walked into her room, too weary to think any more, and longing for the temporary oblivion of a night's rest, the first thing that met her eye was the unmade condition of her bed. The desolate look of the tiny compartment was the crowning point of her day of woe; and the tears, which she had kept back until now, rushed to her eyes. It seemed a little hard that, on this day of all others, Phyllis should have neglected to make her bed. She gave it an impatient push, and it sc.r.a.ped loudly over the bare boards.

"Stop that row!" said Polly's sharp voice from the other end of the room. "You might be quiet, now you _have_ come in."

"Is Phyllis asleep?" asked Katharine shortly.

"Can't you be quiet?" growled Polly. "Haven't you heard she is worse?

Don't see how you should, though,--coming in at this hour of the night!"

"Worse?" With an effort, Katharine's thoughts travelled back over the absorbing events of the day, to the early morning; and she remembered that Phyllis had stayed in bed with a headache. "What is the matter with her?" she asked, faintly. Everything seemed to be conspiring against her happiness to-day.

"Influenza. A lot you care! Nothing but my cousin's funeral would have taken me out to-day, I know. I had to show up for that. Of course, I thought you would look after her; I asked you to."

Katharine had pushed aside the curtain, and was looking at the flushed, unconscious face of her friend. She dimly remembered saying she would stop with her; and then a letter had come from Paul, asking her to meet him in the park, and she had thought no more of Phyllis.

She had not even succeeded in meeting him; and again her eyes filled with tears at her own misfortunes.

"I couldn't help it," she said, miserably. "How was I to know she was so bad? Have you taken her temperature?"

"Hundred and three, when I last took it. It's no use standing there and pulling a long face. She doesn't know you; so it's rather late in the day to be cut up. You'd better go to bed, I should say; you look as though you'd been out all day, and half the night, too!"