The Return of the Prodigal Part 25

"Poor f.a.n.n.y. You can't get them to go, can you?"

"I've thought of things. I've told Will he must have an illness."

"And will he?"

"Not he. He says, as I asked them, I ought to have the illness. But if I did she'd stay and nurse me. Besides, if we ousted the whole lot to-morrow, _they'll_ meet again. He'll see to that; and so will Philippa."

There was a long pause.

"I want _you_ to do it. I want you to tell her."

"Good Lord, what am I to tell her?"

"Tell her it isn't nice; tell her it isn't worth while; tell her Furny isn't fair game; tell her anything you can think of that'll stop her."

"I don't see myself----"

"I do. She won't listen to anybody but you."

"Why me?"

"She respects you."

"I doubt it. Why should she?"

"Because you've never made yourself a spectacle of folly. You've never told her you're in love with her."

"But I'm not," said poor Straker.

"She doesn't know that. And if she did she'd respect you all the more."

"Dear f.a.n.n.y, I'd do a great deal for you, but I can't do that. I can't, really. It wouldn't be a bit of good."

"You could speak," f.a.n.n.y said, "to Furny."

"I couldn't."

"Why _not_?" she cried, in desperation.

"Because, if I did, I should have to a.s.sume things--things that you cannot decently a.s.sume. I can't speak to him. Not, that is, unless he speaks to me."

VIII

He did speak to him that very night.

It was after ten o'clock, and Straker, who ought to have been in the drawing-room playing bridge, or in the billiard-room playing billiards, or in the smoking-room talking to Brocklebank--Straker, who ought to have known better, had sneaked into the library to have a look at a brief he'd just got. He ought to have known better, for he knew, everybody knew, that after ten o'clock the library at Amberley was set apart as a refuge for any two persons who desired uninterrupted communion with each other. He himself, in the library at Amberley--but that was more than two years ago, so far before Philippa's time that he did not a.s.sociate her with the library at Amberley. He only knew that Furnival had spent a good deal of time in it with Nora Viveash, and poor Nora was gone. It was poor Nora's departure, in fact, that made him feel that the library was now open to him.

Now the library at Amberley was fitted, as a library should be, with a silent door, a door with an inaudible latch and pneumatic hinges.

It shut itself behind Straker with a soft sigh.

The long room was dim and apparently deserted. Drawn blinds obscured the lucid summer night behind the three windows opposite the door.

One small electric globe hung lit under its opaline veil in the corner by the end window on the right.

Straker at the doorway turned on the full blaze of the great ring that hung above the central table where he meant to work. It revealed, seated on the lounge in the inner, the unilluminated corner on the right, Miss Tarrant and Laurence Furnival.

To his intense relief, Straker perceived that the whole length of the lounge was between the two. Miss Tarrant at her end was sitting bolt upright with her scarf gathered close about her; she was looking under her eyelids and down her beautiful nose at Furnival, who at his end was all huddled among the cushions as if she had flung him there. Their att.i.tudes suggested that their interview had ended in distance and disaster. The effect was so marked that Straker seized it in an instant.

He was about to withdraw as noiselessly as he had entered, but Miss Tarrant (not Furnival; Furnival had not so much as raised his head)--Miss Tarrant had seen him and signed to him to stay.

"You needn't go," she said. "_I'm_ going."

She rose and pa.s.sed her companion without looking at him, in a sort of averted and offended majesty, and came slowly down the room.

Straker waited by the door to open it for her.

On the threshold she turned to him and murmured: "Don't go away. Go in and talk to him--about--about anything."

It struck him as extraordinary that she should say this to him, that she should ask him to go in and see what she had done to the man.

The door swung on her with its soft sigh, shutting him in with Furnival. He hesitated a moment by the door.

"Come in if you want to," said Furnival. "I'm going, too."

He had risen, a little unsteadily. As he advanced, Straker saw that his face bore traces of violent emotion. His tie was a little crooked and his hair pushed from the forehead that had been hidden by his hands. His moustache no longer curled crisply upward; it hung limp over his troubled mouth. Furnival looked as if he had been drinking. But Furnival did not drink. Straker saw that he meant in his madness to follow Philippa.

He turned down the lights that beat on him.

"Don't," said Furnival. "I'm going all right."

Straker held the door to. "I wouldn't," he said, "if I were you. Not yet."

Furnival made the queer throat sound that came from him when words failed him.

Straker put his hand on the young man's shoulder. He remembered how Mrs. Viveash had asked him to look after Furny, to stand by him if he had a bad time. She had foreseen, in the fierce clairvoyance of her pa.s.sion, that he was going to have one. And, by Heaven! it had come.

Furnival struggled for utterance. "All right," he said thickly.

He wasn't going after her. He had been trying to get away from Straker; but Straker had been too much for him. Besides, he had understood Straker's delicacy in turning down the lights, and he didn't want to show himself just yet to the others.

They strolled together amicably toward the lounge and sat there.

Straker had intended to say, "What's up?" but other words were given him.

"What's Philippa been up to?"

Furnival pulled himself together. "Nothing," he replied. "It was me."

"What did you do?"