To Love Part 24

"That is only another sign then," f.a.n.n.y went on, quite impervious to the other's requests. "You take it from me, honey, if a man falls really in love he is shy of kissing you. Thinks it is kind of irreverent to begin with. You mark my words, he will be round again to-morrow. Honey," she had a final shot at Joan's peace of mind just before she fell asleep, "if you play your cards well, that man will marry you, he is just the kind that does."

Joan lay thinking of f.a.n.n.y's remarks long after the other had fallen asleep. She was a little annoyed to find how much impression the man had made on her; the idea was alarming to one who fancied herself as immune as she did from any such attraction. But until f.a.n.n.y had burst in she had been pleased enough with the vague thoughts which his eyes had waked to life. If you took the dream down and a.n.a.lysed it as f.a.n.n.y had rather ruthlessly done, it became untenable. Probably this man only thought of her as Landon had thought of her; she was not content to burn her fingers in the same fire.

Short of being extremely disagreeable, however, she could not avoid going out to lunch with him the next day, as f.a.n.n.y had already accepted the invitation, and once with him, it was impossible not to be friends with d.i.c.k, he set himself so a.s.siduously to please her. He did not make love to her; f.a.n.n.y would have said he just loved her. There is delicate distinction between the two, and instinctively Joan grew to feel at her ease with him; when they laughed, which they did very often, their laughter had won back to the glad mirth of children.

f.a.n.n.y watched over the romance with motherly eyes. She had, in fact, set her heart upon Joan marrying the young man. He came to the theatre every evening, but it was not until the sixth day of their acquaintance that f.a.n.n.y was able to arrange for him to spend the afternoon alone with Joan. She had tried often enough before, but Joan had been too wary. On this particular afternoon, half way through lunch and after the three of them had just arranged to go out into the country for tea, f.a.n.n.y suddenly discovered that she had most faithfully promised to go for a drive that afternoon in young Swetenham's side-car.

"I am so awfully sorry," she smiled at them sweetly, "but it doesn't really matter; you two will be just as happy without me."

"We could put it off and go to-morrow," suggested Joan quickly.

"We can go to-morrow too," d.i.c.k argued, and f.a.n.n.y laughed at him.

"Don't disappoint him, honey, it's a shame," she said with unblushing effrontery, "and if it is a chaperon you are wanting, why, Sockie and I will meet you out there."

So it was arranged, and d.i.c.k and Joan started off alone. They were to drive out to a farmhouse that Swetenham knew of, where you got the most delicious jam for tea. Joan was a little shy of d.i.c.k to begin with, sitting beside him tongue-tied, and never letting her eyes meet his.

From time to time, when he was busy with the steering, she would steal a glance at him from under her lashes. His face gave her a great sense of security and trust, but at times her memory still struggled with the thought that she had met him somewhere before.

d.i.c.k, turning suddenly, caught her looking at him, and for a second his eyes spoke a message which caused both their hearts to stand still.

"Were you really afraid of coming out with me alone?" he asked abruptly; he had perhaps been a little hurt by the suggestion.

"No, of course not," Joan answered; she hoped he did not notice how curiously shaken the moment had left her. "Only I thought it would probably be more lively if we waited till we could take f.a.n.n.y with us. I am sometimes smitten with such awful blanks in my conversation."

"One does not always need to talk," he said; "it is supposed to be one of the tests of friendship when you can stay silent and not be bored.

Well, we are friends, aren't we?"

"I suppose so," Joan agreed; "at least you have been very kind to us and we do all the things you ask us to."

"Doesn't it amount to more than that?" d.i.c.k asked; his eyes were busy with the road in front of him. "I had hoped you would let me give you advice and talk to you like a father and all that sort of thing." His face was perfectly serious and she could hear the earnestness behind his chaff.

"What were you going to advise me about?" she asked.

"Well, it is this theatre game." d.i.c.k plunged in boldly once the subject had been started. "You don't like it, you know, and you aren't a bit suited to it. Sometimes when I see you dance and hear the people clapping you I could go out and say things--really nasty things."

"You don't like it?" she said. "I have tried to do other things too,"

she went on quickly, "but you know I am not awfully much good at anything. When I first started in London, it is two years ago now, I used to boast about having put my hand to the plough. I used to say I wouldn't turn back from my own particular furrow, however dull and ugly it was. But I haven't been very much use at it, I have failed over and over again."

"There are failures and failures," he answered. "There was a book I read once, I don't remember its name or much about it, but there was a sentence in it that stuck in my mind: 'Real courage, means courage to stand up against the shocks of life--sorrow and pain and separation, and still have the force left to make of the remainder something fine and gay and brave.' I think you have still got that sort of courage left."

"No," whispered Joan. She looked away from him, for her eyes were miserably full of tears. "I haven't even got that left."

They had tea, the four of them, for strange to tell f.a.n.n.y did deem it expedient to keep her promise, and it was after tea that d.i.c.k first mooted the idea of their coming out to tea with his people the next day.

f.a.n.n.y was prompt in her acceptance. "Of course we'll come, won't we, honey," she said. "My new muslin will just come in for it."

"It won't be a party," d.i.c.k explained, his eyes were on Joan, "just the mother and my sister. Not very lively I am afraid, still it is a pretty place and I'll drive you both ways."

He came to the theatre again that night. f.a.n.n.y pointed him out to Joan in a little aside as she stood beside her in the wings, but Joan had already seen him for herself. She could put no heart into her dancing that night, and she ran off the stage quickly when the music ceased, not waiting to take her applause.

"Feeling ill to-night?" Daddy Brown asked her. He eyed her at the same time somewhat sternly; he disapproved of signs of weakness in any of the company.

"I suppose I am tired," Joan answered. Only her own heart knew that it was because a certain couple of blue eyes had shown her that they wished she would not dance. "I am getting into a ridiculous state," she argued to herself; "why should it matter to me what he thinks? It must not, it must not."

"You did not dance at all well to-night, honey," f.a.n.n.y added her meed of blame as the two of them were undressing for the night. "But there, I know what is wrong with you. You are in love, bless your heart, and so is he. Never took his eyes off you while you were dancing, my dear--I watched him."

The rather hurt feeling in Joan's heart burst into sudden fire. "I am not in love," she said, "and neither is he. Men do not fall in love with girls like us, and if you say another word about it, f.a.n.n.y, I won't go out to tea to-morrow; I won't, I won't!"

f.a.n.n.y could only shrug her shoulders. The words "girls like us" rather flicked at her pride. Later on, however, when they were both in bed and the room in darkness save for the light thrown across the shadows by the street lamp outside, she called softly across to Joan:

"You are wrong, honey," she said, "about men and love. They do fall in love with us, sometimes, bless them, even though we aren't worth it. And anyway, you are different, why shouldn't he love you?"

Joan made no answer, only when she fell asleep at last it was against a little damp patch of pillow and the lashes that lay along her cheeks were weighed down by tears.

CHAPTER XXII

"A man who has faith must be prepared not only to be a martyr, but to be a fool."

C. CHESTERTON.

It did not need much intuition on Mrs. Grant's part to know herself suspicious of d.i.c.k's behaviour. She listened to Mabel's information about the two young ladies he was bringing to tea with her eyes lowered.

Mabel had not volunteered the information till Mrs. Grant had noticed that there were two extra cups provided for tea. They always had tea out under the trees if it was fine enough, so there had been nothing surprising in that, but Mrs. Grant's eyes had spotted the extra cups even while they stayed piled up one within the other in the shade of the silver tea-pot.

"Two girls to tea," she commented; "who are they, Mabel?"

"Well, I really don't know," Mabel admitted, n.o.bly untruthful, out of a desire not to prejudice Mrs. Grant from the beginning. "I fancy d.i.c.k met them at Sevenoaks, anyway, he was having lunch with them yesterday."

"And dinner every day this week," supplemented Mrs. Grant. "Did he meet them on his travels?"

"He did not say so," Mabel answered, "only just that he was seeing a good deal of them at Sevenoaks, and I thought it would be nice to ask them out here."

"Mabel," said Mrs. Grant, with intense seriousness; she lifted her eyes from her work and fixed them on her daughter, "do you not think it is very probable that d.i.c.k has become entangled? I have even wondered lately whether he may not be secretly married to some awful woman."

"Dear mother," laughed Mabel--though the first part of the sentence rather hurt her, it was the truth--"why secretly married? What has d.i.c.k done to deserve such a suspicion?"

"His manner has been peculiar ever since the first night he came home,"

Mrs. Grant explained, "and he has an uneasy way of trying not to be left with me alone. The other day I thought of going to see him very early in the morning when I happened to be unable to sleep, and, Mabel, his door was locked!"

"If you had knocked he would probably have opened it," Mabel suggested.

"It is hardly likely that he keeps his wife concealed upstairs, is it?"

"You may laugh," Mrs. Grant spoke with an expression of hurt pride on her countenance, "but surely a mother can see things in her son which other people miss. d.i.c.k is in love, and not nicely in love, or he would not be so shy about it."

Further discussion was prevented, for at this point the motor, bringing d.i.c.k and his guests, came round the sweep of the drive and drew up at the front door. Mabel went across the lawn to meet them. She had schooled herself to this meeting for d.i.c.k's sake, and to please him; she could not, however, pretend to any pleasure in the prospect. It was only natural that she should view Joan with distrust. d.i.c.k had allowed himself to become entangled; all unknowingly Mother had expressed the matter in a nutsh.e.l.l.