The Philanderers Part 6

'Oh, don't trouble,' she said, sympathy shaping the words into a positive entreaty. 'You are _so_ short-sighted, you know. Then you will bring Mr. Drake,' she turned to Conway as he rose and moved towards the door. Mr. Le Mesurier had resumed his conversation with Fielding, and beyond a slight movement of impatience, he gave no sign that he had heard the words.

'After the next act,' said Conway, and he went out.

Mallinson picked up the fan and laid it upon the ledge of the box.

'I lied to you that evening,' he whispered in a low faltering tone. 'I have no excuse--Can't you guess why I lied?'

There was a feeling behind the words, genuine by the ring of it, and to feeling Clarice was by nature responsive. Mallinson saw the mischief die out of her face, the eyelids droop until the lashes touched the cheek.

Then she raised them again, tenderness flowered in her eyes.

'Perhaps,' she said.

She turned from him and watched Conway making his way along the row of stalls. Drake was already in his seat.

'Then why didn't Mr. Drake come if you asked him?' she said with a quick change of tone.

'He gave no reason beyond that it was his first night in London.'

Miss Le Mesurier looked again at Drake. His indifference irritated her and in a measure interested her in spite of herself. She was not used to indifference, and felt a need to apologise for it to herself. 'Of course,' she reflected, 'he had not seen me then,' and so was reinstated in her self-esteem. The explanation, however, failed her the next moment. For Drake, at all events, had seen her now; she had caught him looking up into the box before Conway left. Yet when Conway communicated his news, Drake never so much as moved his head in her direction. The three blows of the mallet had just sounded from behind the curtain and he sat upright in his seat, his face fixed towards the stage. Clarice bit her lips and frowned.

'Don't be alarmed. He is really quite interested in you.' She looked up.

Fielding was standing just behind her shoulder. 'He asked me quite often what you were like.'

'I don't understand you,' said she loftily; and then, 'He might be a schoolboy at his first pantomime.'

'He gives that kind of impression, I believe, in everything he does.'

Miss Le Mesurier had not made the remark in order to elicit eulogy.

'He looks old, though,' she said, and her voice defied Fielding to contradict her.

'Responsibility writes with the cyphers of age,' he quoted solemnly. It was his habit to recite sentences from _A Man of Influence_ when Mallinson was present, in a tone which never burlesqued but somehow belittled the work. Mallinson was never able to take definite offence, but he was none the less invariably galled by it.

'As a matter of fact there is hardly a year to choose between the ages of Drake, Conway, and you, Mallinson, is there?' asked Fielding.

Mallinson admitted that the statement was correct.

'He has lived a hard life, has anxieties enough now, I don't doubt. You will find the explanation in that. The only people who remain young nowadays are actors. They keep the child in them.'

The curtain went up as he spoke. As soon as it was lowered again Conway hurried Drake out of the stalls and up the staircase to the box.

Clarice welcomed Drake quietly. Mr. Le Mesurier vouchsafed him the curtest of nods.

'Didn't I see you join Israel Biedermann?' asked Fielding. The name belonged to a speculator who had lately been raised into prominence by the clink of his millions.

'Yes,' replied Drake, with a laugh. 'The city makes one acquainted with strange financiers. I have business with him.'

Mr. Le Mesurier showed symptoms of interest.

'Really?' he said. 'You mean to return to Africa, I suppose.'

'If I can help it, no.'

'You intend to stay in England?' asked Mallinson sharply.

'Yes,' replied Drake. He addressed himself to Miss Le Mesurier. 'You were kind enough to invite me to your house on the evening I arrived.'

Mr. Le Mesurier's eyebrows went up at the mention of the day.

'Mr. Mallinson had talked of you,' she explained. 'We seemed to know you already. I saw that you had landed from an interview in the _Meteor_, and thought you might have liked to come with your friend.'

The words were spoken indifferently.

'The _Meteor_?' inquired Mr. Le Mesurier. 'Isn't that the paper which attacked you, Mr. Drake? You let yourself be interviewed by it? I didn't know that.'

He glanced keenly at his daughter, and Mallinson intercepted the look.

His conviction was proved certain. There was something concealed, something maybe worth his knowing.

'The attack was of no importance,' replied Drake, 'but I wanted it to be known in some quarters that I had landed without losing time.'

'You replied to the attack?'

'Not so much that. I gave the itinerary of the march to Boruwimi.'

Mr. Le Mesurier perceived his daughter's eyes quietly resting upon him, and checked a movement of impatience, less at the answer than at his own folly in provoking it. Drake turned to Clarice and was offered a seat by her side. He realised, now that she was near, talking to him, that his impression of her, gained from the distance between the box and the stalls, did her injustice. She seemed now the vignette of a beautiful woman, missing the stateliness, perhaps, too, the distinction, but obtaining by very reason of what she missed a counterbalancing charm, to be appreciated only at close quarters, a charm of the quiet kind, diffused about her like a light; winsome--that was the epithet he applied to her, and remained doubtfully content with it, for there was a gravity too.

Clarice invited him to speak of Matanga, but Drake was reticent on the subject, through sheer disinclination to talk about himself, a disinclination which the girl recognised, and gave him credit for, shooting a comparing glance at Mallinson.

Mr. Le Mesurier, it should be said, remarked this reticence as well, and it gave him an idea. From Matanga Drake led the conversation back to London, and they fell to discussing the play.

'You are very interested in it,' she said.

'Yes,' said he, 'I have never seen the play before.'

'I should hardly have thought it would have suited your taste,'

Conway observed.

'Why? It's French of course, but you can discount the sentiment. There is a stratum of truth left, don't you think?'

Mallinson raised pitying shoulders. 'Of the ABC order perhaps,' he allowed.

'I am afraid it appeals to me all the more on that account,' Drake answered, with a genial laugh. 'But what I meant really was truth to those people--truth to the characters presumed. Consistency is perhaps the better word. I like to see a play run on simple lines to an end you can't but foresee. The taste's barbarian, I don't doubt.'

Miss Le Mesurier's lips instinctively pouted a mischievous 'bourgeois'

towards Mallinson. He remarked hastily that he thought the curtain was on the point of rising, and Miss Le Mesurier pushed her opera-gla.s.ses towards him with a serene 'Not yet, I think.' Mallinson understood the suggestion of her movement and relapsed into a sullen silence.

By the time that Conway and Drake rose to leave the box Mr. Le Mesurier had thought out his idea. His manner changed of a sudden to one of great cordiality; he expressed his pleasure at meeting Drake, and shook him by the hand, but destroyed the effect of his action through weakly revealing his diplomacy to his daughter by a triumphant glance at her.

At the close of the performance he met Drake in the vestibule of the theatre and lingered behind his party. Fielding, Mallinson, and Conway meanwhile saw Miss Le Mesurier into her carriage.