Who? Part 37

She thrust him from her with unexpected force and stood before him with blazing eyes.

"You cannot treat me like a child, who can be neglected one day and fondled the next! I won't have it! At the nursing home I was too weak and confused to realise how strangely you were behaving, but now I know.

You dare to complain of my coldness--my coldness indeed! Is my coldness a match to yours? Why do you suddenly pretend to love me?"

He interrupted her with a vigorous protest.

"If you do, then your conduct is all the more inexplicable. If you do, then I ask you, what is it, who is it, that stands between us?"

"If I could tell you, don't you suppose I would?" declared Cyril.

"Then there is some one, some person who is keeping us apart!"

"No--oh, not exactly."

"Ah, you see, you can't deny it! There is another woman in your life. I know it! I felt it!"

"No--no! I love you!" cried Cyril.

He hardly knew what he was saying; the words seemed to have leaped to his lips.

She regarded him for a second in silence evidently only partially convinced.

Cyril felt horribly guilty. He had momentarily forgotten his wife, and although he tried to convince himself that he had spoken the truth and that it was not she who was keeping them apart, yet he had to acknowledge that if he had been free, he would certainly have behaved very differently towards Anita. So in a sense he had lied to her and as he realised this, his eyes sank before hers. She did not fail to note his embarra.s.sment and pressed her point inexorably.

"Swear that there is no other woman who has a claim on you and I will believe you."

He could not lie to her in cold blood. Yet to tell her the truth was also out of the question, he said to himself.

While he still hesitated, she continued more vehemently.

"I don't ask you to tell me anything of your past or my past, if you had rather not do so. One thing, however, I must and will know--who is this woman and what are her pretensions?"

"I--I cannot tell you," he said at last. "I only wish I could. Some day, I promise you, you shall know everything, but now it is impossible. But this much I will say--I love you as I have never loved any one in my whole life."

She trembled from head to foot and half closed her eyes.

For a moment neither spoke. Cyril felt that this very silence established a communion between them, more complete, more intense than any words could have done. But as he gazed at the small, drooping figure, he felt that his self-control was deserting him completely. He almost reeled with the violence of his emotion.

"I can't stand it another moment," he said to himself. "I must go before--" He did not finish the sentence but clenched his hands till the knuckles showed white through the skin.

He rose to his feet.

"I can't stay!" he exclaimed aloud. "Forgive me, Anita. I can't tell you what I feel. Good-bye!" He murmured incoherently and seizing her hands, he pressed them for an instant against his lips, then dropping them abruptly, he fled from the room.

Cyril in his excitement had not noticed that he had called Anita by her name nor did he perceive the start she gave when she heard it. After the door had clicked behind him, she sat as if turned to stone, white to her very lips.

Slowly, as if with an effort, her lips moved.

"Anita?" she whispered to herself. "Anita?" she repeated over and over again as if she were trying to learn a difficult lesson.

Suddenly a great light broke over her face.

"I am Anita Wilmersley!" she cried aloud.

But the tension had been too great; with a little gasp she sank fainting to the floor.

CHAPTER XIX

AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR

What he did during the next few hours, Cyril never quite knew. He retained a vague impression of wandering through endless streets and of being now and then arrested in his heedless course by the angry imprecations of some wayfarer he had inadvertently jostled or of some Jehu whose progress he was blocking.

How could he have behaved like such a fool, he kept asking himself. He had not said a thing to Anita that he had meant to say--not one. Worse still, he had told her that he loved her! He had even held her in his arms! Cyril tried not to exult at the thought. He told himself again and again that he had acted like a cad; nevertheless the memory of that moment filled him with triumphant rapture. Had he lost all sense of shame, he wondered. He tried to consider Anita's situation, his own situation; but he could not. Anita herself absorbed him. He could think neither of the past nor of the future; he could think of nothing connectedly.

The daylight waned and still he tramped steadily onward. Finally, however, his body began to a.s.sert itself. His footsteps grew gradually slower, till at last he realised that he was miles from home and that he was completely exhausted. Hailing a pa.s.sing conveyance, he drove to his lodgings.

He was still so engrossed in his dreams that he felt no surprise at finding Peter sitting in the front hall, nor did he notice the dejected droop of the latter's shoulders.

On catching sight of his master, Peter sprang forward.

"Hsh! My lord," he whispered with his finger on his lip; and turning slightly, he cast an apprehensive glance over his shoulder towards the top of the stairs.

With an effort Cyril shook off his preoccupation. Following the direction of his servant's eyes, he saw nothing more alarming than a few dusty plants which were supposed to adorn the small landing where the stairs turned. Before he had time to form a conjecture as to the cause of Peter's agitation, the latter continued breathlessly: "Her Ladyship 'ave arrived, my lord!"

Having made this announcement, he stepped back as if to watch what effect this information would have on his master. There was no doubt that Peter's alarm was very genuine, yet one felt that in spite of it he was enjoying the dramatic possibilities of the situation.

Cyril, however, only blinked at him uncomprehendingly.

"Her Ladyship? What Ladyship?" he asked.

"Lady Wilmersley, my lord, and she brought her baggage. I haven't known what to do, that I haven't. I knew she ought not to stay here, but I couldn't turn 'er out, could I?"

Cyril's mind was so full of Anita that he never doubted that it was she to whom Peter was referring, so without waiting to ask further questions, he rushed upstairs two steps at a time, and threw open the door of his sitting-room.

On a low chair in front of the fire his wife sat reading quietly.

Cyril staggered back as if he had been struck. She, however, only turned her head languidly and closing her book, surveyed him with a mocking smile.

For a moment Cyril saw red. His disappointment added fuel to his indignation.

"Amy! How dare you come here?" he cried, striding towards her.

She seemed in nowise affected by his anger; only her expression became, if possible, a trifle more contemptuous.

"Your manners have sadly deteriorated since we parted," she remarked, raising her eyebrows superciliously.