The Philanderers Part 16

Clarice drew a finger down the frame of gla.s.s in front of her.

'Mr. Drake thought so too,' she said quietly.

'Drake!' exclaimed Mallinson, utterly bewildered. 'Drake! The man wouldn't be such a--'

'He was though.'

'Do you mean that he confessed to it?'

'Confess?' she said, turning towards him. 'That is hardly the word. He told me of his own accord the moment he knew I had been engaged to--to--'

She broke off at the name, and continued, 'and he spared himself in the telling far less than you have spared him.'

She spoke with a gentle dignity which Mallinson had never known in her before, and he felt that it raised a more solid barrier between them than even her refusal had done.

Fielding, meanwhile, waited with an uneasy conscience which no casuistry would lighten. He threw himself in Mallinson's way time after time in order to ascertain whether the latter had spoken. Mallinson let no word of the matter slip from him, and for the rest seemed utterly despondent.

Fielding threw out a feeler at last.

'Of course,' he said, 'you would never repeat what I told you about Gorley. I forgot to mention that.'

Mallinson flushed. 'Of course not,' he said awkwardly.

Fielding turned on him quickly. 'Then what made you tell Miss Le Mesurier?'

Mallinson was too taken aback to deny the accusation. 'Oh, Miss Le Mesurier,' he replied, 'knew already.'

'She knew? Who told her?'

'Drake.'

Fielding drew in his breath and whistled. His first feeling was one of distinct relief, that after all he had not been the means by which Clarice had come to her knowledge; his second was one of indignation against Drake. He realised how a frank admission from Drake would outweigh in the girl's susceptible nature the fact admitted. 'What on earth induced him to reveal it?'

'I suppose he is a little more cunning than one took him for. No doubt he saw the thing would get known sooner or later, and thought the disclosure had better come from himself.'

Fielding had been leaning to the same opinion, but the moment he heard it stated, and stated by Mallinson, he felt a certain conviction that it was wrong. 'I don't believe that,' he said sharply.

He was none the less, however, indignant with Drake. To intermeddle at all in other people's concerns was averse to his whole theory of existence. But to intermeddle, and not very creditably, and out of the most disinterested motives of benevolence and expediency, and then to fail! All this was nothing short of degrading. He dined that night at his club, to which Drake had been elected, and lay in wait for him.

Drake, however, did not appear, and at ten o'clock Fielding went round to his rooms.

Drake was living in chambers on the Embankment, a little to the west of Hungerford Bridge. As he was shown into the room, Fielding could not help noticing the plainness of its furniture and adornment. The chairs were covered with a cheap red cretonne; there was an armchair or two with the high seat and long elbows, which seemed to have gone astray from a Peckham drawing-room; an ormolu clock under a gla.s.s shade ornamented the overmantel, and in the way of literature there was one book in the room--Prescott's _Conquest of Peru_--and a copy of the _Times_.

Drake was seated at the table engaged in the study of a map of Matanga.

'Come in!' he said cordially. Fielding drew up a chair to the fire. 'Have a drink? The cigars are on the mantelshelf.'

Drake fetched a syphon and a decanter of whisky and mixed two gla.s.ses. He handed one to Fielding, and brought his map to the fire.

'Ah!' said Fielding. 'There's likely to be a rising in Matanga, I see.'

'Very possibly.'

'How will that affect you?'

'Not at all, I think. It may delay things, of course, but it won't take long, and, besides, it won't touch the interior of the country. There will be a certain amount of shouting in the capital and round the coast, perhaps a gun or two fired off, and then they'll settle down under a new President.'

'But there are a good many Germans there, aren't there? What if they invite the German Government to interfere?'

'I don't fancy that's probable. The German colonist isn't over fond of German rule. You see the first thing a German official wants to do when he catches sight of a black, is to drill him. It's his first and often his last idea. He wants to see him holding the palm of his hand against the stripe of an invisible trouser, and the system doesn't work, because the black clears over the nearest border.'

Fielding laughed and turned to the object of his visit. 'Talking of Matanga, what in the world made you tell Miss Le Mesurier about Gorley?'

Drake looked up from his map. 'How did you know anything about Gorley?' he asked.

'Mrs. Willoughby told me. I thought it was decided Miss Le Mesurier should not be told.'

'Mr. Le Mesurier left the choice to me, and it seemed to me that she had a right to know.'

'Why?'

Drake paused for a second in reflection. 'It seemed to me--' he began again.

'Well, she hadn't,' snapped Fielding.

'Well, I think she had,' answered Drake quietly, returning to his map.

'Then you were wrong; she hadn't. The engagement was broken off a long while ago, and you hadn't a right to tell her unless you want to marry her yourself.'

Drake raised his head with a jerk and stared at the wall in front of him fixedly. He made no answer, nor could Fielding distinguish upon his face any expression which gave a clue to his thoughts. He got up from his chair, and Drake turned to him. 'I gather from your tone,' he said in an indifferent voice, 'that Mrs. Willoughby resents my action.'

'My dear fellow, no,' exclaimed Fielding energetically. 'For Heaven's sake, don't take me for a reflex of Mrs. Willoughby!'

No more plotting for him, he determined. He had planned and calculated and interfered, all for other people's good, and this was the thanks he got; to be quietly informed that he hadn't an idea of his own.

The next afternoon Mrs. Willoughby stopped her phaeton beside him in Bond Street. She looked very well, he thought, with her clear complexion,--clear as those clear eyes of hers with just the hint of azure in the whites of them--wind-whipped now to a rosy warmth.

'May I congratulate you yet?' she asked pleasantly.

Fielding was not to be provoked to renew the combat, and he put the question aside. 'You remember what you told me the other day about Gorley,' he said.

'Yes,' she answered, becoming serious.

'Well, Miss Le Mesurier knows.'

'Who told her?' and she leaned forward.

'Guess.'

Mrs. Willoughby thought for a moment and then shook her head. 'I can't.

Her father?'

'No; Drake himself.'