The Return of the Prodigal Part 23

"Then," said Straker, "ask Mrs. Viveash."

She turned on him a cold and steady gaze that rebuked his utterance.

How dare he, it said, how dare he mention Mrs. Viveash in her presence?

She answered quietly: "There will hardly be time, I think. Mrs.

Viveash is going to-day."

Straker turned on her now, and his look expressed a sort of alien and repugnant admiration. He wondered how far she had gone, how much she had told, by what intimations she had prevailed with f.a.n.n.y to get Mrs. Viveash out of the house. Mrs. Viveash, to be sure, had only been invited for the week-end, from the Friday to the Tuesday, but it had been understood that, if her husband prolonged his business in Liverpool, she was to stay till his return. Viveash was still in Liverpool--that had been known at Amberley yesterday--and Mrs. Viveash had not been asked to stay. It had been quite simple.

Mrs. Viveash, not having been asked to stay, would be obliged to go.

"And is Furnival going, too?" he asked.

"I believe not," said Philippa.

An hour later Mrs. Viveash joined them in the avenue where he waited for Miss Tarrant, who had proposed that he should walk with her to the village.

In the clear and cruel light of the morning Mrs. Viveash showed him a blanched face and eyes that had seen with miserable lucidity the end of illusion, the end of pa.s.sion, and now saw other things and were afraid.

"You know I'm going?" she said.

Straker said that he was sorry to hear it; by which he meant that he was sorry for Mrs. Viveash.

She began to talk to him of trifles, small occurrences at Amberley, of the affair of Mr. Higginson and Miss Probyn, and then, as by a natural transition, of Miss Tarrant.

"Do you like Miss Tarrant?" she asked suddenly, point-blank.

Straker jibbed. "Well, really--I--I haven't thought about it."

He hadn't. He knew how he stood with her, how he felt about her; but whether it amounted to liking or not liking he had not yet inquired.

But that instant he perceived that he did not like her, and he lied.

"Of course I like her. Why shouldn't I?"

"Because"--she was very slow about it--"somehow I should have said that you were not that sort."

Her light on him came halting, obscured, s.h.i.+vering with all the vibrations of her voice; but he could see through it, down to the sources of her thinking, to something secret, luminous, and profound--her light on Philippa.

She was instantly aware of what she had let him see.

"Oh," she cried, "that was horrid of me. It was feline."

"It was a little," he admitted.

"It's because I know she doesn't like me."

"Why not say at once it's because you don't like her?"

Her eyes, full, lucid, charged with meaning, flashed to him. She leaped at the chance he offered her to be sincere.

"I don't," she said. "How can I?"

She talked again of trifles, to destroy all cohesion between that utterance and her next.

"I say, I want you to do something for me. I want you to look after Furny."

"To look after him?"

"To stand by him, if--if he has a bad time."

He promised her. And then Miss Tarrant claimed him. She was in her mood of yesterday; but the charm no longer worked on him; he did not find her adorable that morning.

After a longish round they were overtaken by Brocklebank in his motor-car. He and Furnival were returning from the station after seeing Mrs. Viveash off (Furny had had the decency to see her off).

Brocklebank gave a joyous shout and pulled up two yards in front of them.

As they stood beside the car Straker noticed that Furnival's face had a queer, mottled look, and that the muscles of his jaw were set in an immobility of which he could hardly have believed him capable. He was actually trying to look as if he didn't see Miss Tarrant. And Miss Tarrant was looking straight at him.

Brocklebank wanted to know if Miss Tarrant cared for a run across the Hog's Back before luncheon.

Miss Tarrant did care--if Mr. Straker did.

Furnival had got down from his seat beside Brocklebank and had opened the door of the car, ignoring Straker. He had managed in his descent to preserve his att.i.tude of distance, so much so that Straker was amazed to see him enter the car after Miss Tarrant and take his, Straker's, place beside her. He accomplished this maneuver in silence, and with an air so withdrawn, so obscurely predestined, that he seemed innocent of all offense. It was as if he had acted from some malign compulsion of which he was unaware.

Now Brocklebank in his motor was an earnest and a silent man.

Straker, left to himself, caught fragments of conversation in the rear. Miss Tarrant began it.

"Why did you give up your seat?"

"You see why," said Furnival.

Straker could see him saying it, flushed and fervent. Then Furnival went one better, and overdid it.

"There's nothing I wouldn't give up for a chance like this."

Straker heard Philippa laughing softly. He knew she meant him to hear her, he knew she was saying to him, "Could anything be more absurd than the creature that I've got in here?"

There was a pause, and then Furnival broke out again:

"I've seen Mrs. Viveash off."

"That," said Miss Tarrant reprovingly, "was the least you could do."

Furnival made that little fierce, inarticulate sound of his before he spoke. "I hope you're satisfied. I hope I've done enough to please you."

"Oh, quite enough. I shouldn't attempt to do _anything_ more if I were you."

After that there was silence, in which Straker felt that Furnival was raging.