The Halo Part 24

He nodded. She stared, and then rang the bell. "Bring Mr. Carron a brandy and soda, Fledge; he is not well."

She went to the window and stood looking out into the quiet street until the man had returned and she heard Carron set down the empty gla.s.s.

Then, without looking at him, she came back. Her shallow soul was dismayed.

"Dinner at 8.30?" he asked after a pause.

"Yuss. Good-bye till then, for I must fly and make some calls."

"Good-bye, Tony. You are sure that boy isn't coming? I--I am getting to hate him----"

"Nonsense," she laughed harshly, for she was not merry; "he isn't even invited. He is in the country, I tell you."

"Then, _au 'voir_."

"_Au 'voir_, Gerry."

He went away, feeling that his cause perhaps was not utterly hopeless.

And in her gaudy bedroom, in the caravanserai that had been her idea of luxury, his wife lay dead.

CHAPTER EIGHT

When the women had left the dining-room Carron got up from his place and sat down by Joyselle, who looked at him with unconcealed astonishment.

He had never liked Carron, and knew that the man did not like him.

"When is your next concert to be, M. Joyselle?"

"The third of June."

"I--I always come. I have come for years, and last June I heard you in Paris. You must like playing with Colonne."

"I do. He is a wonderful director. But--I did not know that you liked music, Mr. Carron."

"I have always liked it. And no one plays the violin as you do."

He would not have hesitated to lie about the matter, had it been necessary, but he happened to be telling the truth, and his weary voice carried conviction.

Joyselle smiled. "I am glad," he said.

The two men eyed each other for a moment, and much was decided by their gaze.

Carron broke the silence. "Did I not see you the other day in Chelsea. I was motoring, and going very fast; but I think it was you."

"It is possible. I have a studio in t.i.te Street. I go there to practise. It is very quiet there, at the top of the house, and I am very nervous when I am working."

Carron nodded absently; this did not interest him. At the other end of the table one of the Italian secretaries was talking about the Ascot favourite to Freddy Fane, who had recently divorced his chorus girl and stopped drinking, and who was supposed to be looked on with a favourable eye by old Mrs. Banner, the aunt and chaperon of Lady Mary Sligo, the prettiest of the season's _debutantes_.

"Is that man going to marry the beautiful girl I saw on the box-seat of his coach the other day?" asked Joyselle, suddenly.

"I daresay. His mother died last month and left him pots of money.

Marmalade-pots--Peet's Peerless." After a moment Carron pursued, drawing lines on the tablecloth with a fruitknife: "I have a very fine violin--left me by my grandfather. It is a Strad, I believe. I wonder if you'd care to see it?"

Joyselle pursed up his lips. "I should, but I warn you, it is probably an imposture. Most cherished violins are--that are in the hands of non-players."

"No doubt, but Sarasate has played on this one, and he believed it to be genuine."

"Aha! When may I come?"

Carron named a near day, and then they went upstairs. He had obtained his immediate object, and now there remained to him that evening a far more difficult task.

Brigit was sitting by the window, fanning herself with a fan made of eagle-feathers. She wore white and looked very tired.

"May I sit down here, Brigit?"

She turned at his voice, and then stared at him. "You look very ill,"

she said abruptly, "is your heart all right?"

Her face did not change as she spoke, and there was no friendliness in her tone, but he thanked G.o.d that he was, and looked, ill.

"My heart is weak, I believe; nothing organic. It is very warm, and I never can bear heat. You look tired yourself."

She nodded absently. "Yes, I have been away--at the Bertie Monson's.

Nelly Monson always gives me a headache, she talks so loud. And my room was under the nursery. I do hate children."

Carron caught his breath. She was actually talking civilly to him. And, then, remembering his request to her mother, he, for a second, hated Lady Kingsmead with a bitter and senseless hatred. Was Brigit, after all, only talking to him as a favour to her mother? But a second's reflection showed him the folly of this idea. Had Brigit ever done anything to please her mother? Never.

One of the two women-guests sat down at the piano and began to play, very softly, an old song of Tosti's. Everybody listened. A hansom jingled by and a bicycle's sharp bell was a loud noise in the after-dinner silence.

Joyselle was standing by a table, absently balancing on his forefinger a long, broad, ivory paper-knife. He was, Brigit remembered, curiously adept in balancing, and once she had seen him go through, for Tommy's amus.e.m.e.nt, a whole series of the kind, from the cla.s.sic broomstick on his chin, to blowing three feathers about the room at a time, allowing none of them to fall. How quickly he had moved, in spite of his great height, and how Tommy had laughed. But, for the past week, something had gone wrong with the violinist. He had been away from the house one day when she went, and that afternoon, when she "dropped in" on her way from the station, he had hardly spoken. In his silence he seemed immeasurably far from her, and she would have given worlds to read his thoughts.

During dinner he had been conventionally polite, but playing a _role_ was so foreign to him that even this laudable one of pretending to be amused when he was bored sat gloomily and guiltily on him.

Carron sat by her for twenty minutes, but her eyes were fixed on Joyselle, and her whole mind groping in the darkness for his.

There was a ball that night, so the party broke up early, but Joyselle stayed, absently, as if he did not notice that the others were going. He sat on a sofa and smoked cigarettes rapidly, rolling them himself, with quick, nervous movements, and throwing them into a silver bowl before they were half-burnt.

Lady Kingsmead tried to talk to him, but finding that, though he answered her politely enough, his thoughts were elsewhere, gave him up and took up a book, casting an impatient look at her daughter.

Carron had gone early, too restless to stay quiet, and afraid to rouse Brigit out of her curious lethargic state.

For a long time the three people sat in silence, and then Lady Kingsmead rose. "I think I'll go upstairs," she said, "but if you two enjoy sitting as mute as fish, there is no reason why you shouldn't continue to do so. Good-night, Joyselle."

He rose and kissed her hands, and a moment later he and Brigit were alone. It was the first time it had happened, for weeks, the girl realised suddenly.