The Man with the Double Heart Part 2

Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, with a physical excuse." He gave loose reins for a moment to his vivid imagination, which swept him on with the current of his thoughts.

"You're not married, you say? Well--you'd better be careful. It might lead to bigamy! If so, refer to me."

A curious expression came into the young man's face as he echoed the other's laugh with a trace of confusion.

"A fair wife and a dark one? Porridge and ... Chianti!"

He paid his fee and went out into the London fog.

CHAPTER II

McTaggart walked down Harley Street, his blue eyes full of light, still hugging the consciousness of a new lease of life.

High above him an orange sun was swung in the misty heavens, putting to shame the wistful gleam of the pale lamps below, with their air of straggling revellers caught by the dawn. A carriage rolled down the street and was met by a pa.s.sing taxi, and then, as he moved forward rejoicing to himself, into the foggy calm came a sudden stir of life: the sound of young voices, of laughter and light feet.

From under a gloomy portico a crowd of girls swept forth, gathered in groups of twos and threes and dissolved into the fog, chattering and linking arms, swinging bags of books, north and south they scattered with a sweet note of youth.

And at the sight McTaggart came to a sudden halt, conscious that he had received the answer to his prayer; that steadily growing wish for the presence of a friend to share in the new-born exuberance of his mood.

He crossed the street quickly and joined in the crowd, receiving demure glances of studied unconcern and here and there a frown from elderly duennas whose acid displeasure added to his amus.e.m.e.nt. But cool, and imperturbable, he proceeded to run the gauntlet until on the steps of the College itself he saw a lonely figure busily engaged in tightening the strap that held together exercises and books.

His hand was already midway to his hat when the girl raised a pair of dark-fringed gray eyes and favoured him with a cold glance of non-recognition. For a second McTaggart stared, clearly taken aback.

Then, with an impatient gesture, he walked straight past, recrossed the road and turned up a side street. Here he slackened his pace, and, smiling to himself, was presently rewarded by the sound of hurrying steps; but, conscious of former warnings, refrained from looking back until a breathless voice sounded in his ear.

"Peter!"

He walked on with mischievous intention,

"Peter--it's _me_!" He felt a touch on his arm.

"Hullo!" He wheeled round. "Why, it's Jill!--what a surprise!"

The gray-eyed girl looked up at him with a reproving frown, at his handsome, laughing face and unrepentant air.

"I _wish_ you'd remember!" She stood there, slim and straight; as it seemed to him, a-quiver with the miracle of life. For not all the shabby clothes she wore, from the little squirrel cap which, with the tie about her throat, had seen better days, to the short tweed skirt revealing mended boots, could mar the spring-like radiance of her golden youth.

"You're a prim little school miss," said McTaggart teasingly.

"I'm _not_." She drew back, her head very high, the thick plait of dark hair swinging with the movement.

"You don't understand, you really _are_ dense! I've told you heaps of times, not in Harley Street."

He gave a happy chuckle, warming to the fray. "Now, don't stand there quarrelling, but give me your books. I'll walk home with you if you're a good girl."

Unresisted he took the strap from her, with its tightly wedged pencil case above the school primers. For her thoughts were far away, her dark brows drawn together as she went on steadily in her own defence.

"I hate being cross with you--but it's not fair play! You wouldn't like it yourself if you were me, Peter. It didn't matter last year when I was in the Juniors, but now I'm a First Senior" ... pride lay in the words ... "it's quite a different thing. We think it jolly bad form in _my_ set, you know."

Instinctively in talking she had fallen into his step. McTaggart glanced sideways, as they turned up Portland Place, at the pretty, flushed face with its dark frame of hair under the little furry cap, pulled close about her ears.

"All right, Jill. I won't do it again. I'll admit I was tempted, being sorely in need of a pal. I'd just been through a bad half hour, you see, and was weakly yearning for a little sympathy."

She looked up quickly with affectionate concern; for he knew the royal road to her instant forgiveness.

"Bills?" He laughed aloud at the laconic suggestion. Then a shade of pity seized the man. Despite her youthful years she spoke from experience.

"Not this time." On the verge of confidence, he checked himself, moved by a sudden reticence.

"Do you think your mother would give me some lunch? Or, better still, will you come and lunch with me?"

He halted as he spoke. "There's Pagani's now, it's not far from here,--in Great Portland Street."

She shook her head. "I'd love to"--her voice was regretful--"but I must get back. I've promised Roddy. He's home for his exeat and we're going to the Zoo. You'd better lunch with us if you don't mind pot luck. But we mustn't be late; we've got a new cook."

"Another?" McTaggart laughed. It seemed a familiar joke.

"The fourth since the Summer," the girl answered dryly. "But Stephen found this one, so she _ought_ to be perfect!"

They turned up the Broad Walk where the fog still hung, white and shadowy over the sodden gra.s.s. Here and there a nurse moved with steady intention, children trotting beside her, homeward to lunch; and upon a damp bench, oblivious of the weather, a loving couple lingered, speechlessly hand in hand.

"And how is the great Stephen? I haven't seen him for years."

"Oh, he's just the same." The girl's voice was weary. She stared straight ahead as they swung along together, and a short silence followed that both understood. For they met here on the grounds of a common mistrust, and a hatred shared is a stronger link than even that of love. At the turnstile McTaggart paused, watching her thoughtful face.

"Let's go by the Inner Circle, it's a much nicer way."

"All right." The words were husky, and, as she pa.s.sed through, the dark lashes hid from him her downcast eyes. But not before McTaggart had seen what she tried to disguise--the tears standing there in their clear gray depths.

"Why, Jill!--why, my dear, whatever is the matter?"

"Nothing." She bit her under lip, furious with herself.

The fog swallowed them up again in the narrow hedged-in road, and McTaggart tucked a hand through his companion's arm.

"Tell me all about it," he said persuasively, "a worry only grows by being bottled up."

She gave him a swift look from under her wet lashes, tempted by the sympathy which rang in his voice.

"It's Stephen. That's all."

"I thought so," his face was dark; "what's he been doing now? What a rotter the fellow is!"

"It's not so much what he does," she pulled herself together and with a defiant gesture pa.s.sed a hand across her eyes. "It's the fact of his being there, all day long ... it's difficult to explain. But I can't bear to see him, sitting in Father's chair, as if it were his by right, as though he were the master..."

She broke off indignantly, her tears dried by anger, her smooth cheeks flushed, her hand unconsciously tightening on his arm.