A Butterfly on the Wheel Part 8

"No! no! no!" he cried, coming after her.

"Yes--only that friend!"

"Lover! Peggy," he said pa.s.sionately. "I am a man--devoured by love of you. I have waited for you--longed for you--and now----" With a sudden movement he caught her in his arms, straining her to him wildly, showering kisses upon the s.h.i.+ning coronet of her hair. "We're alone, Peggy," he cried, "just you and I!" and his voice rang with triumph.

"We're alone! There are no others in the world--no others! You are mine, Peggy, mine at last!"

She struggled in his arms, her face pale as linen, her voice with a note of almost shrill alarm.

"Colling, I can't bear it--you will spoil everything. Do help me, Colling! I don't love you like that. I'm sorry if it hurts you. I'd rather die."

There was a note in her voice of such absolute sincerity, mingled with fear, that he opened his arms and let her flutter away.

The pa.s.sion upon his face changed and melted into something else.

"My G.o.d!" he cried. "You would rather die----"

He stumbled rather than walked towards the sofa and sat down upon it, burying his face in his long lean hands, that trembled exceedingly.

"My G.o.d!" she heard him whisper to himself; "she would rather die!..."

Peggy had followed him, and she stood at the end of the sofa, aghast at what she had done. She began to speak slowly and nervously.

"Colling, don't do that. I really can't bear that you should think me unkind. I like you too well to let you do anything that would spoil our happiness. I am not unkind--really I am not. Have not I shown how fond of you I am? We have been such good friends!"

"Friends!" he said bitterly, without looking up from his hands.

His voice was so cold, so charged with misery and sudden realisation, that it cut the girl to the heart. She went round from the back of the sofa and knelt at his feet, stretching out her hand timidly, and touching the sleeve of his coat.

"Colling, dear, what else can we be?" she said.

He looked down at her, and for a moment his voice did not soften. There was a quiet, dogged misery in it.

"We have pa.s.sed the merely friends.h.i.+p line," he said; "and you know that well enough, Peggy. That has been pa.s.sed a long time. You would not have left London with me if we had only been friends and nothing more. Were we only friends when we used to sit up together night after night at Ellerdine's house? Do 'friends' speak to each other as we have spoken?

Why, you have only to touch my hand to know that I burn with longing."

"Colling, you mustn't say such things!"

He jumped up roughly, leaving her kneeling upon the floor, and pa.s.sed with rapid steps to the window.

"Friends!" he cried, and his voice had a razor edge to it. "Friends!

It's not true! Do friends run the risks that we have run? For G.o.d's sake, here and now let us be honest with each other. Why, we haven't even tried to fool society! For Heaven's sake, Peggy, don't let's try to fool ourselves!"

Peggy rose slowly to her feet, trembling all over. "Colling! oh, Colling!" she said in a piteous voice, "surely people don't think we are----"

"People don't think! People are only too glad to think. You know well enough what is said about others----"

Her face grew paler still, her eyes were wide with fear and slowly dawning realisation. She clasped both hands to her breast, and the light shone upon the rubies set in the old Moorish bracelets that she was wearing.

"Oh!" she said.

He came up to her again.

"Peggy, you don't care, do you?"

"Don't care, Colling!" she gasped. "Tell me, do people think we are----"

"Think!--how can they help thinking it? Haven't we given them every reason?"

"No, no, no! Oh! I hate to think of that! We have only been very fond friends. Why should they think otherwise?"

There were tears of agony in her voice. She kept clasping and unclasping her hands.

"Oh! I suppose it is all my fault," she said brokenly--"all my fault. I don't think ungenerous things of others. I have been too trusting--too confiding. Why should people thing such things? I only wanted a good friend, a companion."

He still stood by her, looking at her keenly, and the bitterness in his voice did not die away. "Friends! Oh yes, I know! You wanted someone to pet you, to pamper you. What you wanted was someone to satisfy all your vanities--your yearning for devotion, for adulation, for sense of power.

I know! You wanted all the joys and none of the risks. That sums up the whole thing in a nutsh.e.l.l. There are lots of women like you. They drive men mad--make drunkards, gamblers, swindlers of them. I have seen it often enough. I have seen men fall out and lose themselves among the army of crooks that throng the second-rate shows. But I won't let you drive me mad."

The bitterness in his voice was terrible. His words seemed to scourge her, to lash her like a whip. She stared at him in helpless amazement and misery. He had paused in his rapid torrent of speech, and as he saw her distress he seemed to be a little touched.

"Peggy!" he said, and once more the note of pa.s.sion came into his voice, while the anger died out of it--"Peggy! I mean you to be mine. There will be a crash soon--that is certain. Admaston will take notice of what everybody is saying about us. He will come out of his political sh.e.l.l, wake up, do things, put an end to it at once and for ever!"

"Oh, my G.o.d! What have I done!" the girl cried.

"Done! What have you done to deserve your husband's neglect? Why, he doesn't even know that you exist. His heart beats by Act of Parliament.

He'd a thousand times rather address a village meeting than spend an hour in your company. Are you to pa.s.s your youth in the company of----"

"Stop! stop!" she cried. "Say what you like about me--scold me if you like, but say nothing against him. You do not know my husband. We are neither of us fit to mention his name. He is a big man, and he loves me."

"But, Peggy, you won't say that you love him?" Collingwood said, with a curious note of perplexity in his voice. The situation, tragic as it was, got a little bit beyond him.

"Love him?" she answered. "I don't know. I have had no chance to love anyone the way you regard love."

Collingwood put his hands into his pockets, swung round upon his heels and swung back again. "I see," he said; "you mean you don't love Admaston, and won't love anybody else?"

"Oh, I don't know," Peggy replied; "but I certainly don't love anybody else. You think I am neglected. That is absurd. It was my father's wish that we should marry. George knew that I did not love him. He trusts me fully. There will be no crash."

He heard the note in her voice which told him that she was trying to persuade herself that her fears were groundless, and smiled rather grimly.

"There will be," he said. "You take my word for it. No man--not even Admaston--can stand _ridicule_ for long. Remember, I mean to win you. I shall marry no one if I don't marry you."

She tried to speak lightly.

"Colling, don't be so silly! You are one of the best matches in England.

You will marry a beautiful girl who will lead society and make you a very proud and ambitious man. Don't shake your head--that's only because you want to be gallant. Heavens! how I would do things if I were a man!

You, with all your talents and your money, ought to rise to any position."

"You are mad about position," he said impatiently.

"Yes," Peggy answered. "I like men who have some big purpose in life and who fight the world and win."