The Beggar Man Part 21

"Faith----" But she only shook her head, and he turned and went out of the room, shutting the door behind him....

There followed a terrible week of scenes and tears and defiance and pleading; Forrester suffered every emotion by turn at her hands. He tried indifference, firmness, kindness,--they all failed him, and the only way left to him--brute force--he would not try.

And then one evening as Peg was walking home from the factory, deeply engrossed in the last chapter of a new novelette, someone spoke her name.

"Miss Fraser!" She looked up, startled, dragging herself from the ardent words of the Honourable Fitzmaurice Arlington, to find the Beggar Man beside her.

"You!" she said blankly. Then with quick suspicion, "Is Faith ill?"

"Yes--no! At least ... Oh, G.o.d only knows." He laughed mirthlessly.

"I've come to ask if your offer is still open," he went on bitterly. "I mean--will you come and stay with us in my flat? Live with us if you like. Anything, if you'll only come. Will you?"

Peg stuffed the novelette into a pocket; the story of the Honourable Fitzmaurice Arlington suddenly paled beside this real-life romance.

A beatific smile overspread her handsome face.

"Will I come?" she echoed. "Well, I should say so!"

CHAPTER VIII

By bringing Peg Fraser to the flat the Beggar Man acknowledged his defeat.

If he had not been so sure of Faith's hatred he might have tried harder to overcome her prejudices, but he felt that hatred was an active force through which success was impossible.

He said as much to Mr. Shawyer.

"I've been a fool, I know! I suppose the whole thing was bound to be a failure from the start, but she seemed to like me...." He shrugged his shoulders. "What's the best thing to do?" he asked.

Mr. Shawyer hesitated. He was disappointed over this marriage himself.

He admired Forrester intensely, and had looked to him to carry through successfully a thing which he was sure must have failed dismally in the hands of a weaker man.

"She'll change her mind," he said after a moment. "Women always do if you give them time. Her mother's death was a great shock to her, of course."

"I've made every allowance for that."

"Then taking her sisters away so soon...." said Mr. Shawyer tentatively.

Forrester made an angry gesture.

"I did it for the best. She knows that, and it will prove for the best.

How in G.o.d's name was she going to look after them and provide for them?"

"I know all that, but perhaps if you had left them with her for a little longer...."

Forrester frowned.

"The longer they had been together the harder the parting would have seemed. However, it's done, and I'm not going to undo it. Have you found out anything yet about this story of her father?"

Mr. Shawyer looked away from his client's anxious eyes as he answered.

"I have. Unfortunately, it's true! You remember that deal, five years ago it was, when a syndicate was formed to knock out the smaller manufacturers who would not sell to Heeler's?"

"Yes."

"Your wife's father was one of the small men who held out against you and was ruined."

Forrester laughed mirthlessly.

"It's the devil's luck; but how was I to know? Women are all unreasonable."

Mr. Shawyer did not answer, and Forrester went on:

"My wife has that Miss Fraser with her now, and mighty uncomfortable it is, too. She's as good as gold, but a rough diamond, and I wanted to get Faith away from the cla.s.s she's been forced to mix with for the past five years. It looks as if she's going to beat me in that, too," he added, grimly.

"And are you all living at the flat?"

"Yes, for the present. I've taken a house at Hampstead, and we shall move there as soon as it's ready--in a week or two, I hope." He paced the length of the office and back again. "If it didn't look so much like running away, I'd make a settlement on my wife and clear off abroad," he said, shortly.

"I shouldn't do that," said Mr. Shawyer. "She's young. Give her another chance; be patient for a little while."

"Patience was never a virtue of mine," said the Beggar Man, grimly.

"And, dash it all! What sort of a life is it for me, do you think? I'm not married at all, except that I'm paying; not that I mind the money."

"Well, wait a little longer," the elder man urged again. "It's early days yet, and you never know what will happen."

"I know what won't happen, though," said Forrester grimly.

He went back to the flat disconsolately. He heard Peg laughing as he let himself in, and the silence that fell as soon as his steps sounded in the pa.s.sage.

The two girls were together in the sitting-room with which Faith had been so delighted when she first visited it, but it was Peg who greeted him as he entered.

She had made herself quite at home, and, in spite of a certain bluntness and vulgarity of which she would never rid herself as long as she lived, she seemed to have improved.

She was dressed more quietly and her hair was neater, but she still wore the gipsy earrings which Forrester hated so much.

She had been living in the flat a fortnight then--a year it seemed to Forrester. And he wondered, as he looked at his wife, why it was that, with each day, the gulf between them seemed to widen.

He smiled rather pathetically as her eyes met his.

"I've been thinking," he said. "What about a run down to see the twins?

I'll take you in the car."

Twenty times a day he made up his mind that he would start all over again to win Faith back to him, but though she was friendly up to a certain point, he could never get beyond that point, or even back to the footing which had promised so happily for the future during the first days of their acquaintance.