Double Harness Part 45

"He'd never be friends with me again."

"He doesn't seem particularly friendly now."

"I feel quite friendly to him. I want to be friends."

"It does you credit then," he said with a sneer.

She pressed his arm lightly again, pleading against his anger and his unwonted failure to understand.

"It would be an end of all hope if I threw the money in his teeth. He's unhappy enough about it as it is." She looked up as she added: "I've got to live with him, you know, Frank."

Caylesham gave her a curious quick glance.

"Got to live with him?"

"Yes; all my life," she answered. "I suppose you hadn't thought of that?"

It was not the sort of thing which Caylesham was in the habit of thinking about, but he tried to follow her view.

"Yes, of course. It would be better to be friends. But you shouldn't let him get on stilts. It's absurd, after what he's done. I mean--I mean he's done a much queerer thing than you have."

"Poor old John! How could he help it?"

He glanced at her sharply and was about to speak, when she cried, "Why, where are we? I didn't notice where we were going."

"We're just outside my rooms. Come in for a bit."

"No, I can't come in. I'm late now, and--and--really I'm ashamed to tell even you. Well, I'm always questioned where I've been. I have to give an account of every place. I have to stand with my hands behind me and give an account of all my movements, Frank."

He whistled gently and compa.s.sionately.

"Like a schoolgirl!"

"How well you follow the metaphor, Frank! So I can't come in. I'll go home. No, don't you come."

"I'll come a bit farther with you. Oh, it's quite dark."

"Well, not arm in arm!"

"But doesn't that look more respectable?"

"You're entirely incurable," she said, with her old pleasure in him all revived.

"It's infernal nonsense," he went on. "Just you stand up for yourself.

It's absolute humbug in him. He's debarred himself from taking up any such att.i.tude--just as much as he has from making any public row about it. Hang it, he can't have it both ways, Christine!"

"I've got to live with him, Frank."

"Oh, you said that before."

"And I'm very fond of him."

"What?" He turned to her in a genuine surprise and an obvious vexation.

"Yes, very. I always was. We used to spar, but we were good friends. We don't spar now; I wish we did. It's just iciness. But I'm very fond of him."

"Of course, if you feel like that----"

"I always felt like that, even--even long ago. I used to tell you I did.

I suppose you thought that humbug."

"Well, it wouldn't have been very strange if I had."

"No, I suppose not. It must have looked like that. But it was true--and it is true. The only thing I've got left to care much about in life is getting to be friends with John again--and I don't suppose I ever shall." Her voice fairly broke for a moment. "That's what upset me so much when I saw those silly children at Kate Raymore's."

Caylesham looked at her. There was a roguish twinkle in his eye, but he patted her hand in a very friendly sympathy.

"I say, old John's cut me out after all!" he whispered.

"You're scandalous! You always were," she said, smiling. "The way you put things was always disreputable. Yes, it was, Frank. But no; it's not poor old John who's cut you out--or at least it's John in a particular capacity. Life's cut you out--John as life. John, as life, has cut you out of my life--and now I've got to live with John, you see."

Caylesham screwed up his mouth ruefully. Things certainly seemed to shape that way. She had to live with John. John's conduct might be unreasonable and unjustifiable, but people who must be lived with frequently presume on that circ.u.mstance and behave as they would not venture to behave if living with them were optional. John really had not a leg to stand on, if it came to an argument. But arguing with people you have to live with does not conduce to the comfort of living with them--especially if you get the better of the argument. He was exceedingly sorry for Christine, but he didn't see any way out of it for her.

"Of course there's a funny side to it," she said with a little laugh.

"Oh, yes, there is," he admitted. "But it's deuced rough luck on you."

"Everything's deuced rough luck." She mimicked his tone daintily. "And I don't suppose it's ever anything worse with you, Frank! It was deuced rough luck ever meeting you, you know. And so it was that John wanted money and sent me to you. And that Harriet's got a temper, and, I suppose, that we've got to be punished for our sins." She took her arm out of his--she had slipped it in again while she talked about John as life. "And here I am, just at home, and--and the corner's waiting for me, Frank."

"I'm devilish sorry, Christine."

"Yes, I'm sure you are. You always meant to be kind. Frank, if ever I do make friends with John, be glad, won't you?"

"I think he's behaved like a----"

"Hush, hus.h.!.+ You've always been prosperous--and you've never been good."

She laughed and took his hand. "So don't say anything against poor old John."

"I tell you what--you're a brick, Christine. Well, good-bye, my dear."

"Good-bye, Frank. I'm glad I met you. I've got some of it out, haven't I? Don't worry--well, no, you won't--and if I succeed, do try to be glad. And never a word to show John that I've told you he knows!"

"I shall do just as you like about that. Good-bye, Christine."

He left her a few yards from her house, and she stood by the door watching his figure till it disappeared in the dark. He had done her so much harm. He was not a good friend. But he was good to talk to, and very kind in his indolent, careless way. If you recalled yourself to him, he was glad to see you and ready to be talked to. A moment of temptation came upon her--the temptation to throw up everything, as Tom Courtland had thrown everything up, to abandon the hard task, to give up trying for the only thing she wanted. But Caylesham had given her no such invitation. He did not want her--that was the plain English of it--and she did not want him in the end either. She had loved the thing and still loved the memory of it; but she did not desire it again, because in it there was no peace. She wanted a friend--and John would not be one. n.o.body wanted her--except John; and because he wanted her, he was so hard to her. But Frank Caylesham had been in his turn too hard on John. She was the only person who could realise John's position and make allowances for him. Yet all the light died out of her face as she entered her home.

John was waiting for her. His mind was full of how well things were going in the City. In the old days this would have been one of their merry, happy, united evenings. He would have told her of his success, and "stood" a dinner and a play, and brought her home in the height of glee and good companions.h.i.+p, laughing at her sharp sayings, and admiring her dainty little face. All this was just what he wanted to do now, and his life was as arid as hers for want of the comrades.h.i.+p. But he would not forgive; it seemed neither possible nor self-respecting. That very weak point in his case, with which Caylesham had dealt so trenchantly, made him a great stickler for self-respect; nothing must be done--nothing more--to make her think that he condoned her offence or treated it lightly. It was part of her punishment to hear nothing of the renewed prosperity in the City, to know nothing of his thoughts or his doings, to be locked out of his heart. This was one side; the other was that obligation to make full disclosure of all she did, and of how her time was spent. She must be made to feel the thing in these two ways every day. Yet he considered that he was treating her very mercifully; he was anxious to do that, because he was all the time in his heart afraid that she would throw Caylesham's money--the money which was bringing the renewed prosperity--in his face.