CHAPTER TWENTY
1.
It is safest for the historian, if he values accuracy, to wait till athing has happened before writing about it. Otherwise he may commithimself to statements which are not borne out by the actual facts.Mrs Peagrim, recording in advance the success of her party at theGotham Theatre, had done this. It is true that she was a "radiant andvivacious hostess," and it is possible, her standard not being veryhigh, that she had "never looked more charming." But, when, she wenton to say that all present were in agreement that they had neverspent a more delightful evening, she deceived the public. UncleChris, for one; Otis Pilkington, for another, and Freddie Rooke, fora third, were so far from spending a delightful evening that theyfound it hard to mask their true emotions and keep a smiling face tothe world.
Otis Pilkington, indeed, found it impossible, and, ceasing to try,left early. Just twenty minutes after the proceedings had begun, heseized his coat and hat, shot out into the night, made off blindly upBroadway, and walked twice round Central Park before his feet gaveout and he allowed himself to be taken back to his apartment in ataxi. He tried to tell himself that this was only what he hadexpected, but was able to draw no consolation from the fact. He triedto tell himself that Jill might change her mind, but hope refused tostir. Jill had been very kind and very sweet and very regretful, butit was only too manifest that on the question of becoming Mrs OtisPilkington her mind was made up. She was willing to like him, to be asister to him, to watch his future progress with considerableinterest, but she would not marry him.
One feels sorry for Otis Pilkington in his hour of travail. This wasthe fifth or sixth time that this sort of thing had happened to him,and he was getting tired of it. If he could have looked into thefuture--five years almost to a day from that evening--and seenhimself walking blushfully down the aisle of St. Thomas' with RolandTrevis' sister Angela on his arm, his gloom might have beenlightened. More probably, however, it would have been increased. Atthe moment, Roland Trevis' sister Angela was fifteen, frivolous, andfreckled and, except that he rather disliked her and suspectedher--correctly--of laughing at him, amounted to just _nil_ in MrPilkington's life. The idea of linking his lot with hers would haveappalled him, enthusiastically though he was in favor of it fiveyears later.
However, Mr Pilkington was unable to look into the future, so hisreflections on this night of sorrow were not diverted from Jill. Hethought sadly of Jill till two-thirty, when he fell asleep in hischair and dreamed of her. At seven o'clock his Japanese valet, whohad been given the night off, returned home, found him, and gave himbreakfast. After which, Mr Pilkington went to bed, played three gamesof solitaire, and slept till dinner-time, when he awoke to take upthe burden of life again. He still brooded on the tragedy which hadshattered him. Indeed, it was only two weeks later, when at a dancehe was introduced to a red-haired girl from Detroit, that he reallygot over it.
* * *
The news was conveyed to Freddie Rooke by Uncle Chris. Uncle Chris,with something of the emotions of a condemned man on the scaffoldwaiting for a reprieve, had watched Jill and Mr Pilkington go offtogether into the dim solitude at the back of the orchestra chairs,and, after an all too brief interval, had observed the latterwhizzing back, his every little movement having a meaning of itsown--and that meaning one which convinced Uncle Chris that Freddie,in estimating Mr Pilkington as a sixty to one chance, had not erredin his judgment of form.
Uncle Chris found Freddie in one of the upper boxes, talking to NellyBryant. Dancing was going on down on the stage, but Freddie, thoughnormally a young man who shook a skilful shoe, was in no mood fordancing tonight. The return to the scenes of his former triumphs andthe meeting with the companions of happier days, severed from him bya two-weeks' notice, had affected Freddie powerfully. Eyeing thehappy throng below, he experienced the emotions of that Peri who, inthe poem, "at the gate of Eden stood disconsolate."
Excusing himself from Nelly and following Uncle Chris into thepassage-way outside the box, he heard the other's news listlessly. Itcame as no shock to Freddie. He had never thought Mr Pilkingtonanything to write home about, and had never supposed that Jill wouldaccept him. He said as much. Sorry for the chap in a way, and allthat, but had never imagined for an instant that he would click.
"Where is Underhill?" asked Uncle Chris, agitated.
"Derek? Oh, he isn't here yet."
"But why isn't he here? I understood that you were bringing him withyou."
"That was the scheme, but it seems he had promised some people he meton the boat to go to a theatre and have a bit of supper with themafterwards. I only heard about it when I got back this morning."
"Good God, boy! Didn't you tell him that Jill would be here tonight?"
"Oh, rather. And he's coming on directly he can get away from thesepeople. Forget their name, but they're influential coves who can dohim a bit of good and all that sort of thing. The man--the head ofthe gang, you know--is something connected with the Cabinet or thePrime Minister or something. You'd know his name in a minute if Itold you--always seeing it in the papers--they have pictures of himin _Punch_ a lot--but I'm rotten at names. Derek did tell me, butit's slipped the old bean. Well, he had to leg it with these people,but he's coming on later. Ought to be here any moment now."
Uncle Chris plucked at his mustache gloomily. Freddie's detachmentdepressed him. He had looked for more animation and a greater senseof the importance of the issue.
"Well, pip-pip for the present," said Freddie, moving toward the box."Have to be getting back. See you later."
He disappeared, and Uncle Chris turned slowly to descend the stairs.As he reached the floor below, the door of the stage-box opened, andMrs Peagrim came out.
"Oh, Major Selby!" cried the radiant and vivacious hostess. "Icouldn't think where you had got to. I have been looking for youeverywhere."
Uncle Chris quivered slightly, but braced himself to do his duty.
"May I have the pleasure . . . ?" he began, then broke off as he sawthe man who had come out of the box behind his hostess. "Underhill!"He grasped his hand and shook it warmly. "My dear fellow! I had nonotion that you had arrived!"
"Sir Derek came just a moment ago," said Mrs Peagrim.
"How are you, Major Selby?" said Derek. He was a little surprised atthe warmth of his reception. He had not anticipated this geniality.
"My dear fellow, I'm delighted to see you," cried Uncle Chris. "But,as I was saying, Mrs Peagrim, may I have the pleasure of this dance?"
"I don't think I will dance this one," said Mrs Peagrim surprisingly."I'm sure you two must have ever so much to talk about. Why don't youtake Sir Derek and give him a cup of coffee?"
"Capital idea!" said Uncle Chris. "Come this way, my dear fellow. AsMrs Peagrim says, I have ever so much to talk about. Along thispassage, my boy. Be careful. There's a step. Weil, well, well! It'sdelightful to see you again!" He massaged Derek's arm affectionately.Every time he had met Mrs Peagrim that evening he had quailedinwardly at what lay before him, should some hitch occur to preventthe re-union of Derek and Jill: and, now that the other was actuallyhere, handsomer than ever and more than ever the sort of man no girlcould resist, he declined to admit the possibility of a hitch. Hisspirits soared. "You haven't seen Jill yet, of course?"
"No." Derek hesitated. "Is Jill . . . Does she . . . I mean . . ."
Uncle Chris resumed his osteopathy. He kneaded his companion'scoat-sleeve with a jovial hand.
"My dear fellow, of course! I am sure that a word or two from youwill put everything right. We all make mistakes. I have made themmyself. I am convinced that everything will be perfectly all right. . . Ah, there she is. Jill, my dear, here is an old friend to seeyou!"
2.
Since the hurried departure of Mr Pilkington, Jill had been sittingin the auditorium, lazily listening to the music and watching thecouples dancing on the stage. She did not feel like dancing herself,but it was pleasant to be there and too much exertion to get up andgo home. S
he found herself drifting into a mood of gentlecontentment, and was at a loss to account for this. She washappy,--quietly and peacefully happy, when she was aware that sheought to have been both agitated and apprehensive. When she hadanticipated the recent interview with Otis Pilkington, which she hadknown was bound to come sooner or later, it had been shrinkingly andwith foreboding. She hated hurting people's feelings, and, though sheread Mr Pilkington's character accurately enough to know that timewould heal any anguish which she might cause him, she had had nodoubt that the temperamental surface of that long young man, when hesucceeded in getting her alone, was going to be badly bruised. And ithad fallen out just as she had expected. Mr Pilkington had said hissay and departed, a pitiful figure, a spectacle which should havewrung her heart. It had not wrung her heart. Except for one fleetinginstant when she was actually saying the fatal words, it had notinterfered with her happiness at all; and already she was beginningto forget that the incident had ever happened.
And, if the past should have depressed her, the future might havebeen expected to depress her even more. There was nothing in it,either immediate or distant, which could account for her feelinggently contented. The future was a fog, into which she had to gropeher way blindly. She could not see a step ahead. And yet, as sheleaned back in her seat, her heart was dancing in time to thedance-music of Mrs Peagrim's hired orchestra. It puzzled Jill.
And then, quite suddenly yet with no abruptness or sense ofdiscovery, just as if it were something which she had known allalong, the truth came upon her. It was Wally, the thought of Wally,the knowledge that Wally existed, that made her happy. He was asolid, comforting, reassuring fact in a world of doubts andperplexities. She did not need to be with him to be fortified, it wasenough just to think of him. Present or absent, his personalityheartened her like fine weather or music or a sea-breeze,--or likethat friendly, soothing night-light which they used to leave in hernursery when she was little, to scare away the goblins and see hersafely over the road that led to the gates of the city of dreams.
Suppose there were no Wally . . .
Jill gave a sudden gasp, and sat up, tingling. She felt as she hadsometimes felt as a child, when, on the edge of sleep, she haddreamed that she was stepping off a precipice and had woken, tense andalert, to find that there was no danger after all. But there was adifference between that feeling and this. She had woken, but to findthat there was danger. It was as though some inner voice was callingto her to be careful, to take thought. Suppose there were no Wally?. . . And why should there always be Wally? He had said confidentlyenough that there would never be another girl . . . But there werethousands of other girls, millions of other girls, and could shesuppose that one of them would not have the sense to snap up atreasure like Wally? A sense of blank desolation swept over Jill. Herquick imagination, leaping ahead, had made the vague possibility of adistant future an accomplished fact. She felt, absurdly, a sense ofoverwhelming loss.
Into her mind, never far distant from it, came the thought of Derek.And, suddenly, Jill made another discovery. She was thinking ofDerek, and it was not hurting. She was thinking of him quite coollyand clearly and her heart was not aching.
She sat back and screwed her eyes tight, as she had always done whenpuzzled. Something had happened to her, but how it had happened andwhen it had happened and why it had happened she could notunderstand. She only knew that now for the first time she had beengranted a moment of clear vision and was seeing things truly.
She wanted Wally. She wanted him in the sense that she could not dowithout him. She felt nothing of the fiery tumult which had come uponher when she first met Derek. She and Wally would come together witha smile and build their life on an enduring foundation of laughterand happiness and good-fellowship. Wally had never shaken and neverwould shake her senses as Derek had done. If that was love, then shedid not love Wally. But her clear vision told her that it was notlove. It might be the blazing and crackling of thorns, but it was notthe fire. She wanted Wally. She needed him as she needed the air andthe sunlight.
She opened her eyes, and saw Uncle Chris coming down the aisletowards her. There was a man with him, and, as they moved closer inthe dim light, Jill saw that it was Derek.
"Jill, my dear," said Uncle Chris, "here is an old friend to seeyou!"
And, having achieved their bringing together, he proceeded towithdraw delicately whence he had come. It is pleasant to be able torecord that he was immediately seized upon by Mrs Peagrim, who hadchanged her mind about not dancing, and led off to be her partner ina fox-trot, in the course of which she trod on his feet three times.
"Why, Derek!" said Jill cheerfully. She got up and moved down theline of seats. Except for a mild wonder how he came to be there, shefound herself wholly unaffected by the sight of him. "Whatever areyou doing here?"
Derek sat down beside her. The cordiality of her tone had relievedyet at the same time disconcerted him. Man seldom attains to perfectcontentment in this world, and Derek, while pleased that Jillapparently bore him no ill-will, seemed to miss something in hermanner which he would have been glad to find there.
"Jill!" he said huskily.
It seemed to Derek only decent to speak huskily. To his orderly mindthis situation could be handled only in one way. It was a plain,straight issue of the strong man humbling himself--not too much, ofcourse, but sufficiently: and it called, in his opinion, for the lowvoice, the clenched hand, and the broken whisper. Speaking as he hadspoken, he had given the scene the right key from the start,--orwould have done if she had not got in ahead of him and opened it on anote of absurd cheeriness. Derek found himself resenting hercheeriness. Often as he had attempted during the voyage from Englandto visualize to himself this first meeting, he had never picturedJill smiling brightly at him. It was a jolly smile, and made her lookextremely pretty, but it jarred upon him. A moment before he had beenhalf relieved, half disconcerted: now he was definitely disconcerted.He searched in his mind for a criticism of her attitude, and came tothe conclusion that what was wrong with it was that it was toofriendly. Friendliness is well enough in its way, but in what shouldhave been a tense clashing of strong emotions it did not seem toDerek fitting.
"Did you have a pleasant trip?" asked Jill. "Have you come over onbusiness?"
A feeling of bewilderment came upon Derek. It was wrong, it was allwrong. Of course, she might be speaking like this to cloak intensefeeling, but, if so, she had certainly succeeded. From her manner, heand she might be casual acquaintances. A pleasant trip! In anotherminute she would be asking him how he had come out on the sweepstakeon the ship's run. With a sense of putting his shoulder to some heavyweight and heaving at it, he sought to lift the conversation to ahigher plane.
"I came to find _you!_" he said; still huskily but not so huskily asbefore. There are degrees of huskiness, and Derek's was sharpened alittle by a touch of irritation.
"Yes?" said Jill.
Derek was now fermenting. What she ought to have said, he did notknow, but he knew that it was not "Yes?" "Yes?" in the circumstanceswas almost as bad as "Really?"
There was a pause. Jill was looking at him with a frank andunembarrassed gaze which somehow deepened his sense of annoyance. Hadshe looked at him coldly, he could have understood and evenappreciated it. He had been expecting coldness, and had bracedhimself to combat it. He was still not quite sure in his mind whetherhe was playing the role of a penitent or a King Cophetua, but ineither character he might have anticipated a little temporarycoldness, which it would have been his easy task to melt. But he hadnever expected to be looked at as if he were a specimen in a museum,and that was how he was feeling now. Jill was not looking at him--shewas inspecting him, examining him, and he chafed under the process.
Jill, unconscious of the discomfort she was causing, continued togaze. She was trying to discover in just what respect he had changedfrom the god he had been. Certainly not in looks. He was as handsomeas ever,--handsomer, indeed, for the sunshine and clean breezes ofthe Atlantic had given him an
exceedingly becoming coat of tan. Andyet he must have changed, for now she could look upon him quitedispassionately and criticize him without a tremor. It was likeseeing a copy of a great painting. Everything was there, except theone thing that mattered, the magic and the glamour. It was like . . .She suddenly remembered a scene in the dressing-room when the companyhad been in Baltimore. Lois Denham, duly the recipient of thesunburst which her friend Izzy had promised her, had unfortunately,in a spirit of girlish curiosity, taken it to a jeweller to bepriced, and the jeweller had blasted her young life by declaring it apaste imitation. Jill recalled how the stricken girl--previous tocalling Izzy on the long distance and telling him a number of thingswhich, while probably not news to him, must have been painfulhearing--had passed the vile object round the dressing-room forinspection. The imitation was perfect. It had been impossible for thegirls to tell that the stones were not real diamonds. Yet thejeweller, with his sixth sense, had seen through them in a trifleunder ten seconds. Jill come to the conclusion that hernewly-discovered love for Wally Mason had equipped her with a sixthsense, and that by its aid she was really for the first time seeingDerek as he was.
Derek had not the privilege of being able to read Jill's thoughts.All he could see was the outer Jill, and the outer Jill, as she hadalways done, was stirring his emotions. Her daintiness afflicted him.Not for the first, the second, or the third time since they had comeinto each other's lives, he was astounded at the strength of theappeal which Jill had for him when they were together, as contrastedwith its weakness when they were apart. He made another attempt toestablish the scene on a loftier plane.
"What a fool I was!" he sighed. "Jill! Can you ever forgive me?"
He tried to take her hand. Jill skilfully eluded him.
"Why, of course I've forgiven you, Derek, if there was anything toforgive."
"Anything to forgive!" Derek began to get into his stride. These werethe lines on which he had desired the interview to develop. "I was abrute! A cad!"
"Oh, no!"
"I was. Oh, I have been through hell!"
Jill turned her head away. She did not want to hurt him, but nothingcould have kept her from smiling. She had been so sure that he wouldsay that sooner or later.
"Jill!" Derek had misinterpreted the cause of her movement, and hadattributed it to emotion. "Tell me that everything is as it wasbefore."
Jill turned.
"I'm afraid I can't say that, Derek."
"Of course not!" agreed Derek in a comfortable glow of manly remorse.He liked himself in the character of the strong man abased. "It wouldbe too much, to expect, I know. But, when we are married . . ."
"Do you really want to marry me?"
"Jill!"
"I wonder!"
"How can you doubt it?"
Jill looked at him.
"Have you thought what it would mean?"
"What it would mean?"
"Well, your mother . . ."
"Oh!" Derek dismissed Lady Underhill with a grand gesture.
"Yes," persisted Jill, "but, if she disapproved of your marrying mebefore, wouldn't she disapprove a good deal more now, when I haven'ta penny in the world and am just in the chorus . . ."
A sort of strangled sound proceeded from Derek's throat.
"In the chorus!"
"Didn't you know? I thought Freddie must have told you."
"In the chorus!" Derek stammered. "I thought you were here as a guestof Mrs Peagrim's."
"So I am,--like all the rest of the company."
"But . . . But . . ."
"You see, it would be bound to make everything a little difficult,"said Jill. Her face was grave, but her lips were twitching. "I mean,you are rather a prominent man, aren't you, and if you married achorus-girl . . ."
"Nobody would know," said Derek limply.
Jill opened her eyes.
"Nobody would _know!_" She laughed. "But, of course, you've never metour press-agent. If you think that nobody would know that a girl inthe company had married a baronet who was a member of parliament andexpected to be in the Cabinet in a few years, you're wronging him!The news would be on the front page of all the papers the very nextday--columns of it, with photographs. There would be articles about itin the Sunday papers. Illustrated! And then it would be cabled toEngland and would appear in the papers there . . . You see, you're avery important person, Derek."
Derek sat clutching the arms of his chair. His face was chalky.Though he had never been inclined to underestimate his importance asa figure in the public eye, he had overlooked the disadvantagesconnected with such an eminence. He gurgled wordlessly. He had beenprepared to brave Lady Underhill's wrath and assert his right to marrywhom he pleased, but this was different.
Jill watched him curiously and with a certain pity. It was so easy toread what was passing in his mind. She wondered what he would say,how he would flounder out of his unfortunate position. She had noillusions about him now. She did not even contemplate the possibilityof chivalry winning the battle which was going on within him.
"It would be very awkward, wouldn't it?" she said.
And then pity had its way with Jill. He had treated her badly; for atime she had thought that he had crushed all the heart out of her:but he was suffering, and she hated to see anybody suffer.
"Besides," she said, "I'm engaged to somebody else."
As a suffocating man, his lips to the tube of oxygen, gradually comesback to life, Derek revived,--slowly as the meaning of her words sankinto his mind, then with a sudden abruptness.
"What!" he cried.
"I'm going to marry somebody else. A man named Wally Mason."
Derek swallowed. The chalky look died out of his face, and he flushedhotly. His eyes, half relieved, half indignant, glowed under theirpent-house of eyebrow. He sat for a moment in silence.
"I think you might have told me before!" he said huffily.
Jill laughed.
"Yes, I suppose I ought to have told you before."
"Leading me on . . . !"
Jill patted him on the arm.
"Never mind, Derek! It's all over now. And it was great fun, wasn't it!"
"Fun!"
"Shall we go and dance? The music is just starting."
"I _won't_ dance!"
Jill got up.
"I must," she said. "I'm so happy I can't keep still. Well, good-bye,Derek, in case I don't see you again. It was nice meeting after allthis time. You haven't altered a bit!"
Derek watched her flit down the aisle, saw her jump up the littleladder onto the stage, watched her vanish into the swirl of thedance. He reached for a cigarette, opened his case, and found itempty. He uttered a mirthless, Byronic laugh. The thing seemed to himsymbolic.
3.
Not having a cigarette of his own, Derek got up and went to look forthe only man he knew who could give him one: and after a search of afew minutes came upon Freddie all alone in a dark corner, apart fromthe throng. It was a very different Freddie from the moody youth whohad returned to the box after his conversation with Uncle Chris. Hewas leaning against a piece of scenery with his head tilted back anda beam of startled happiness on his face. So rapt was he in hisreflections that he did not become aware of Derek's approach untilthe latter spoke.
"Got a cigarette, Freddie?"
Freddie withdrew his gaze from the roof.
"Hullo, old son! Cigarette? Certainly and by all means. Cigarettes?Where are the cigarettes? Mr. Rooke, forward! Show cigarettes." Heextended his case to Derek, who helped himself in sombre silence,finding his boyhood's friend's exuberance hard to bear. "I say,Derek, old scream, the most extraordinary thing has happened! You'llnever guess. To cut a long story short and come to the blow-out ofthe scenario, I'm engaged! Engaged, old crumpet! You know what Imean--engaged to be married!"
"Uh?" said Derek gruffly, frowning over his cigarette.
"Don't wonder you're surprised," said Freddie, looking at him alittle wistfully, for his friend had scarcely been gushing, and hewould hav
e welcomed a bit of enthusiasm. "Can hardly believe itmyself."
Derek awoke to a sense of the conventions.
"Congratulate you," he said. "Do I know her?"
"Not yet, but you soon will. She's a girl in the company,--in thechorus, as a matter of fact. Girl named Nelly Bryant. An absolutecorker. I'll go further--a topper. You'll like her, old man."
Derek was looking at him, amazed.
"Good Heavens!" he said.
"Extraordinary how these things happen," proceeded Freddie. "Lookingback, I can see, of course, that I always thought her a topper, butthe idea of getting engaged--I don't know--sort of thing that doesn'toccur to a chappie, if you know what I mean. What I mean to say is,we had always been the greatest of pals and all that, but it neverstruck me that she would think it much of a wheeze getting hooked upfor life with a chap like me. We just sort of drifted along and soforth. All very jolly and what not. And then this evening--I don'tknow. I had a bit of a hump, what with one thing and another, and shewas most dashed sweet and patient and soothing and--and--well, andwhat not, don't you know, and suddenly--deuced rummy sensation--thejolly old scales seemed to fall, if you follow me, from my good oldeyes; I don't know if you get the idea. I suddenly seemed to lookmyself squarely in the eyeball and say to myself, 'Freddie, old top,how do we go? Are we not missing a good thing?' And, by Jove,thinking it over, I found that I was absolutely correct-o! You've nonotion how dashed sympathetic she is, old man! I mean to say, I hadthis hump, you know, owing to one thing and another, and was feelingthat life was more or less of a jolly old snare and delusion, and shebucked me up and all that, and suddenly I found myself kissing herand all that sort of rot, and she was kissing me and so on and soforth, and she's got the most ripping eyes, and there was nobodyabout, and the long and the short of it was, old boy, that I said,'Let's get married!' and she said, 'When?' and that was that, if yousee what I mean. The scheme now is to pop down to the City Hall andget a license, which it appears you have to have if you want to bringthis sort of binge off with any success and vim, and then what ho forthe padre! Looking at it from every angle, a bit of a good egg,what! Happiest man in the world, and all that sort of thing."
At this point in his somewhat incoherent epic Freddie paused. It hadoccurred to him that he had perhaps laid himself open to a charge ofmonopolizing the conversation.
"I say! You'll forgive my dwelling a bit on this thing, won't you?Never found a girl who would look twice at me before, and it's ratherunsettled the old bean. Just occurred to me that I may have beentalking about my own affairs a bit. Your turn now, old thing. Sitdown, as the blighters in the novels used to say, and tell me thestory of your life. You've seen Jill, of course?"
"Yes," said Derek shortly.
"And it's all right, eh? Fine! We'll make a double wedding of it,what? Not a bad idea, that! I mean to say, the man of God might makea reduction for quantity and shade his fee a bit. Do the job halfprice!"
Derek threw down the end of his cigarette, and crushed it with hisheel. A closer observer than Freddie would have detected long erethis the fact that his demeanor was not that of a happy andsuccessful wooer.
"Jill and I are not going to be married," he said.
A look of blank astonishment came into Freddie's cheerful face. Hecould hardly believe that he had heard correctly. It is true that, ingloomier mood, he had hazarded the theory to Uncle Chris that Jill'sindependence might lead her to refuse Derek, but he had not reallybelieved in the possibility of such a thing even at the time, andnow, in the full flood of optimism consequent on his own engagement,it seemed even more incredible.
"Great Scott!" he cried. "Did she give you the raspberry?"
It is to be doubted whether the pride of the Underhills would havepermitted Derek to reply in the affirmative, even if Freddie hadphrased his question differently: but the brutal directness of thequery made such a course impossible for him. Nothing was dearer toDerek than his self-esteem, and, even at the expense of the truth, hewas resolved to shield it from injury. To face Freddie and confessthat any girl in the world had given him, Derek Underhill, what hecoarsely termed the raspberry was a task so revolting as to beutterly beyond his powers.
"Nothing of the kind!" he snapped. "It was because we both saw thatthe thing would be impossible. Why didn't you tell me that Jill wasin the chorus of this damned piece?"
Freddie's mouth slowly opened. He was trying not to realize themeaning of what his friend was saying. His was a faithful soul, andfor years--to all intents and purposes for practically the whole ofhis life--he had looked up to Derek and reverenced him. He absolutelyrefused to believe that Derek was intending to convey what he seemedto be trying to convey: for, if he was, well . . . by Jove . . . itwas too rotten and Algy Martyn had been right after all and thefellow was simply . . .
"You don't mean, old man," said Freddie with an almost pleading notein his voice, "that you're going to back out of marrying Jill becauseshe's in the chorus?"
Derek looked away, and scowled. He was finding Freddie, in thecapacity of inquisitor, as trying as he had found him in the role ofexuberant _fiance_. It offended his pride to have to makeexplanations to one whom he had always regarded with a patronizingtolerance as not a bad fellow in his way but in every essentialrespect negligible.
"I have to be sensible," he said, chafing as the indignity of hisposition intruded itself more and more. "You know what it would mean. . . Paragraphs in all the papers . . . photographs . . . the newscabled to England . . . everybody reading it and misunderstanding . . .I've got my career to think of . . . It would cripple me . . ."
His voice trailed off, and there was silence for a moment. ThenFreddie burst into speech. His good-natured face was hard withunwonted scorn. Its cheerful vacuity had changed to stony contempt.For the second time in the evening the jolly old scales had fallenfrom Freddie's good old eyes, and, as Jill had done, he saw Derek ashe was.
"My sainted aunt!" he said slowly. "So that's it, what! Well, I'vealways thought a dashed lot of you, as you know. I've always lookedup to you as a bit of a nib and wished I was like you. But, greatScott! if that's the sort of a chap you are, I'm deuced glad I'm not!I'm going to wake up in the middle of the night and think how unlikeyou I am and pat myself on the back! Ronny Devereux was perfectlyright. A tick's a tick, and that's all there is to say about it. Goodold Ronny told me what you were, and, like a silly ass, I wasted alot of time trying to make him believe you weren't that sort of chapat all. It's no good standing there looking like your mother," saidFreddie firmly. "This is where we jolly well part brass-rags! If weever meet again, I'll trouble you not to speak to me, because I've areputation to keep up! So there you have it in a bally nutshell!"
Scarcely had Freddie ceased to administer it to his former friend ina bally nutshell, when Uncle Chris, warm and dishevelled from thedance as interpreted by Mrs Waddesleigh Peagrim, came bustling up,saving Derek the necessity of replying to the harangue.
"Well, Underhill, my dear fellow," began Uncle Chris affably,attaching himself to the other's arm, "what . . . ?"
He broke off, for Derek, freeing his arm with a wrench, turned andwalked rapidly away. Derek had no desire to go over the whole thingagain with Uncle Chris. He wanted to be alone, to build up, painfullyand laboriously, the ruins of his self-esteem. The pride of theUnderhills had had a bad evening.
Uncle Chris turned to Freddie.
"What is the matter?" he asked blankly.
"I'll tell you what's the jolly old matter!" cried Freddie. "Theblighter isn't going to marry poor Jill after all! He's changed hisrotten mind! It's off!"
"Off?"
"Absolutely off!"
"Absolutely off?"
"Napoo!" said Freddie. "He's afraid of what will happen to hisblasted career if he marries a girl who's been in the chorus."
"But, my dear boy!" Uncle Chris blinked. "But, my dear boy! This isridiculous . . . Surely, if I were to speak a word . . ."
"You can if you like. _I_ wouldn't speak to the cootie a
gain if youpaid me! But it won't do any good, so what's the use?"
Slowly Uncle Chris adjusted his mind to the disaster.
"Then you mean . . . ?"
"It's off!" said Freddie.
For a moment Uncle Chris stood motionless. Then, with a sudden jerk,he seemed to stiffen his backbone. His face was bleak, but he pulledat his mustache jauntily.
"_Morituri te salutant!_" he said. "Good-bye, Freddie, my boy."
He turned away, gallant and upright, the old soldier.
"Where are you going?" asked Freddie.
"Over the top!" said Uncle Chris.
"What do you mean?"
"I am going," said Uncle Chris steadily, "to find Mrs Peagrim!"
"Good God!" cried Freddie. He followed him, protesting weakly, butthe other gave no sign that he had heard. Freddie saw him disappearinto the stage-box, and, turning, found Jill at his elbow.
"Where did Uncle Chris go?" asked Jill. "I want to speak to him."
"He's in the stage-box, with Mrs Peagrim."
"With Mrs Peagrim?"
"Proposing to her," said Freddie solemnly.
Jill stared.
"Proposing to Mrs Peagrim? What do you mean?"
Freddie drew her aside, and began to explain.
4.
In the dimness of the stage-box, his eyes a little glassy and a dulldespair in his soul, Uncle Chris was wondering how to begin. In hishot youth he had been rather a devil of a fellow in between dances, acoo-er of soft phrases and a stealer of never very stoutly withheldkisses. He remembered one time in Bangalore . . . but that hadnothing to do with the case. The point was, how to begin with MrsPeagrim. The fact that twenty-five years ago he had crushed in hisarms beneath the shadows of the deodars a girl whose name he hadforgotten, though he remembered that she had worn a dress of somepink stuff, was immaterial and irrelevant. Was he to crush MrsPeagrim in his arms? Not, thought Uncle Chris to himself, on a bet.He contented himself for the moment with bending an intense gaze uponher and asking if she was tired.
"A little," panted Mrs Peagrim, who, though she danced often andvigorously, was never in the best of condition, owing to her habit ofneutralizing the beneficient effects of exercise by surreptitiouscandy-eating. "I'm a little out of breath."
Uncle Chris had observed this for himself, and it had not helped himto face his task. Lovely woman loses something of her queenly dignitywhen she puffs. Inwardly, he was thinking how exactly his hostessresembled the third from the left of a troupe of performing sea-lionswhich he had seen some years ago on one of his rare visits to avaudeville house.
"You ought not to tire yourself," he said with a difficulttenderness.
"I am so fond of dancing," pleaded Mrs Peagrim. Recovering some ofher breath, she gazed at her companion with a sort of short-windedarchness. "You are always so sympathetic, Major Selby."
"Am I?" said Uncle Chris. "Am I?"
"You know you are!"
Uncle Chris swallowed quickly.
"I wonder if you have ever wondered," he began, and stopped. He feltthat he was not putting it as well as he might. "I wonder if it hasever struck you that there's a reason." He stopped again. He seemedto remember reading something like that in an advertisement in amagazine, and he did not want to talk like an advertisement. "Iwonder if it has ever struck you, Mrs. Peagrim," he began again,"that any sympathy on my part might be due to some deeper emotionwhich . . . Have you never suspected that you have never suspected . . ."Uncle Chris began to feel that he must brace himself up. Usually a manof fluent speech, he was not at his best tonight. He was just about totry again, when he caught his hostess' eye, and the soft gleam in itsent him cowering back into the silence as if he wore taking coverfrom an enemy's shrapnel.
Mrs Peagrim touched him on the arm.
"You were saying . . . ?" she murmured encouragingly.
Uncle Chris shut his eyes. His fingers pressed desperately into thevelvet curtain beside him. He felt as he had felt when a rawlieutenant in India, during his first hill-campaign, when theetiquette of the service had compelled him to rise and walk up anddown in front of his men under a desultory shower of jezail-bullets.He seemed to hear the damned things _whop-whopping_ now . . . andalmost wished that he could really hear them. One or two good bulletsjust now would be a welcome diversion.
"Yes?" said Mrs Peagrim.
"Have you never felt," babbled Uncle Chris, "that, feeling as I feel,I might have felt . . . that is to say, might be feeling a feeling. . . ?"
There was a tap at the door of the box. Uncle Chris startedviolently. Jill came in.
"Oh, I beg your pardon," she said. "I wanted to speak . . ."
"You wanted to speak to me?" said Uncle Chris, bounding up."Certainly, certainly, certainly, of course. If you will excuse mefor a moment?"
Mrs Peagrim bowed coldly. The interruption had annoyed her. She hadno notion who Jill was, and she resented the intrusion at thisparticular juncture intensely. Not so Uncle Chris, who skipped outinto the passage like a young lamb.
"Am I in time?" asked Jill in a whisper.
"In time?"
"You know what I mean. Uncle Chris, listen to me! You are not topropose to that awful woman. Do you understand?"
Uncle Chris shook his head.
"The die is cast!"
"The die isn't anything of the sort," said Jill. "Unless . . . ."She stopped, aghast. "You don't mean that you have done it already?"
"Well, no. To be perfectly accurate, no. But . . ."
"Then that's all right. I know why you were doing it, and it was verysweet of you, but you mustn't."
"But, Jill, you don't understand."
"I do understand."
"I have a motive . . ."
"I know your motive. Freddie told me. Don't you worry yourself aboutme, dear, because I am all right. I am going to be married."
A look of ecstatic relief came into Uncle Chris' face.
"Then Underhill . . . ?"
"I am not marrying Derek. Somebody else. I don't think you know him,but I love him, and so will you." She pulled his face down and kissedhim. "Now you can go back."
Uncle Chris was almost too overcome to speak. He gulped a little.
"Jill," he said shakily, "this is a . . . this is a great relief."
"I knew it would be."
"If you are really going to marry a rich man . . ."
"I didn't say he was rich."
The joy ebbed from Uncle Chris' face.
"If he is not rich, if he cannot give you everything of which I . . ."
"Oh, don't be absurd! Wally has all the money anybody needs. What'smoney?"
"What's money?" Uncle Chris stared. "Money, my dear child, is . . .is . . . well, you mustn't talk of it in that light way. But, if youthink you will really have enough . . . ?"
"Of course we shall. Now you can go back. Mrs Peagrim will bewondering what has become of you."
"Must I?" said Uncle Chris doubtfully.
"Of course. You must be polite."
"Very well," said Uncle Chris. "But it will be a little difficult tocontinue the conversation on what you might call general lines.However!"
* * *
Back in the box, Mrs Peagrim was fanning herself with manifestimpatience.
"What did that girl want?" she demanded.
Uncle Chris seated himself with composure. The weakness had passed,and he was himself again.
"Oh, nothing, nothing. Some trivial difficulty, which I was able todispose of in a few words."
Mrs Peagrim would have liked to continue her researches, but afeeling that it was wiser not to stray too long from the main pointrestrained her. She bent towards him.
"You were going to say something when that girl interrupted us."
Uncle Chris shot his cuffs with a debonair gesture.
"Was I? Was I? To be sure, yes. I was saying that you ought not tolet yourself get tired. Deuce of a thing, getting tired. Plays thedickens with the system."
Mr
s Peagrim was disconcerted. The atmosphere seemed to have changed,and she did not like it. She endeavored to restore the tone of theconversation.
"You are so sympathetic," she sighed, feeling that she could not dobetter than to begin again at that point. The remark had producedgood results before, and it might do so a second time.
"Yes," agreed Uncle Chris cheerily. "You see, I have seen somethingof all this sort of thing, and I realize the importance of it. I knowwhat all this modern rush and strain of life is for a woman in yourposition. Parties every night . . . dancing . . . a thousand and onecalls on the vitality . . . bound to have an effect sooner or later,unless--_unless_," said Uncle Chris solemnly, "one takes steps.Unless one acts in time. I had a friend--" His voice sank--"I had avery dear friend over in London, Lady Alice--but the name wouldconvey nothing--the point is that she was in exactly the sameposition as you. On the rush all the time. Never stopped. The end wasinevitable. She caught cold, hadn't sufficient vitality to throw itoff, went to a dance in mid-winter, contracted pneumonia . . ." UncleChris sighed. "All over in three days," he said sadly. "Now at thattime," he resumed, "I did not know what I know now. If I had heard ofNervino then . . ." He shook his head. "It might have saved her life.It would have saved her life. I tell you, Mrs Peagrim, that there isnothing, there is no lack of vitality which Nervino cannot set right.I am no physician myself, I speak as a layman, but it acts on the redcorpuscles of the blood . . ."
Mrs Peagrim's face was stony. She had not spoken before, because hehad given her no opportunity, but she spoke now in a hard voice.
"Major Selby!"
"Mrs Peagrim?"
"I am not interested in patent medicines!"
"One can hardly call Nervino that," said Uncle Chris reproachfully."It is a sovereign specific. You can get it at any drug-store. Itcomes in two sizes, the dollar-fifty--or large--size, and the . . ."
Mrs Peagrim rose majestically.
"Major Selby, I am tired . . ."
"Precisely. And, as I say, Nervino . . ."
"Please," said Mrs. Peagrim coldly, "go to the stage-door and see ifyou can find my limousine. It should be waiting in the street."
"Certainly," said Uncle Chris. "Why, certainly, certainly,certainly."
He left the box and proceeded across the stage. He walked with alissom jauntiness. His eye was bright. One or two of those whom hepassed on his way had the idea that this fine-looking man was inpain. They fancied that he was moaning. But Uncle Chris was notmoaning. He was humming a gay snatch from the lighter music of the'nineties.