Born in Exile Part 65

Then she really wished him to stop. Was he not behaving like an obtuse creature? Why, everything was planned to encourage him.

He talked recklessly of this and that, and got round to the years long gone by. When the tea came, he was reviving memories of occasions on which he and she had met as young people. Constance laughed merrily, declared she could hardly remember.

'Oh, what a time ago!--But I was quite a child.'

'No--indeed, no! You were a young lady, and a brilliant one.'

The tea seemed to intoxicate him. He noticed again that Constance glanced at him significantly. How good of her to allow him this delicious afternoon!

'Mr. Moxey,' she said, after meditating a little, 'why haven't you married? I should have thought you would have married long ago.'

He was stricken dumb. Her jerky laugh came as a shock upon his hearing.

'Married----?'

'What is there astonis.h.i.+ng in the idea?'

'But--I--how can I answer you?'

The pretty, characterless face betrayed some unusual feeling. She looked at him furtively; seemed to suppress a tendency to laugh.

'I mustn't pry into secrets,' she simpered.

'But there is no secret!' Christian panted, laying down his teacup for fear he should drop it. 'Whom should I--could I have married?'

Constance also put aside her cup. She was bewildered, and just a little abashed. With courage which came he knew not whence, Christian bent forward and continued speaking:

'Whom could I marry after that day when I met you in the little drawing-room at the Robinsons'?'

She stared in genuine astonishment, then was embarra.s.sed.

'You cannot--cannot have forgotten----?'

'You surely don't mean to say, Mr. Moxey, that you have remembered? Oh, I'm afraid I was a shocking flirt in those days!'

'But I mean _after_ your marriage--when I found you in tears'----

'Please, please don't remind me!' she exclaimed, giggling nervously.

'Oh how silly!--of me, I mean. To think that--but you are making fun of me, Mr. Moxey?'

Christian rose and went to the window. He was not only shaken by his tender emotions--something very like repugnance had begun to affect him. If Constance were feigning, it was in very bad taste; if she spoke with sincerity--what a woman had he wors.h.i.+pped! It did not occur to him to lay the fault upon his own absurd romanticism. After eleven years'

persistence in one point of view, he could not suddenly see the affair with the eyes of common sense.

He turned and approached her again.

'Do you not know, then,' he asked, with quiet dignity, 'that ever since the day I speak of, I have devoted my life to the love I then felt? All these years, have you not understood me?'

Mrs. Palmer was quite unable to grasp ideas such as these. Neither her reading nor her experience prepared her to understand what Christian meant. Courts.h.i.+p of a married woman was intelligible enough to her; but a love that feared to soil itself, a devotion from afar, encouraged by only the faintest hope of reward other than the most insubstantial--of that she had as little conception as any woman among the wealthy vulgar.

'Do you really mean, Mr. Moxey, that you--have kept unmarried for _my_ sake?'

'You don't know that?' he asked, hoa.r.s.ely.

'How could I? How was I to imagine such a thing? Really, was it proper?

How could you expect me, Mr. Moxey----?'

For a moment she looked offended. But her real feelings were astonishment and amus.e.m.e.nt, not unmingled with an idle gratification.

'I must ask you to pardon me,' said Christian, whose forehead gleamed with moisture.

'No, don't say that. I am really so sorry! What an odd mistake!'

'And I have hoped in vain--since you were free----?'

'Oh, you mustn't say such things! I shall never dream of marrying again--never!'

There was a matter-of-fact vigour in the a.s.sertion which proved that Mrs. Palmer spoke her genuine thought. The tone could not be interpreted as devotion to her husband's memory; it meant, plainly and simply, that she had had enough of marriage, and delighted in her freedom.

Christian could not say another word. Disillusion was complete. The voice, the face, were those of as unspiritual a woman as he could easily have met with, and his life's story was that of a fool.

He took his hat, held out his hand, with 'Good-bye, Mrs. Palmer.' The cold politeness left her no choice but again to look offended, and with merely a motion of the head she replied, 'Good-bye, Mr. Moxey.'

And therewith permitted him to leave the house.

CHAPTER II

On calling at Earwaker's chambers one February evening, Malkin became aware, from the very threshold of the outer door, that the domicile was not as he had known it. With the familiar fragrance of Earwaker's special 'mixture' blended a suggestion of new upholstery. The little vestibule had somehow put off its dinginess, and an unwontedly brilliant light from the sitting-room revealed changes of the interior which the visitor remarked with frank astonishment.

'What the deuce! Has it happened at last? Are you going to be married?'

he cried, staring about him at unrecognised chairs, tables, and bookcases, at whitened ceiling and pleasantly papered walls, at pictures and ornaments which he knew not.

The journalist shook his head, and smiled contentedly.

'An idea that came to me all at once. My editors.h.i.+p seemed to inspire it.'

After a year of waiting upon Providence, Earwaker had received the offer of a substantial appointment much more to his taste than those he had previously held. He was now literary editor of a weekly review which made no kind of appeal to the untaught mult.i.tude.

'I have decided to dwell here for the rest of my life,' he added, looking round the walls. 'One must have a homestead, and this shall be mine; here I have set up my penates. It's a portion of s.p.a.ce, you know; and what more can be said of Longleat or Chatsworth? A house I shall never want, because I shall never have a wife. And on the whole I prefer this situation to any other. I am well within reach of everything urban that I care about, and as for the country, that is too good to be put to common use; let it be kept for holiday. There's an atmosphere in the old Inns that pleases me. The new flats are insufferable. How can one live sandwiched between a music-hall singer and a female politician? For lodgings of any kind no sane man had ever a word of approval. Reflecting on all these things, I have established myself in perpetuity.'

'Just what I can't do,' exclaimed Malkin, flinging himself into a broad, deep, leather-covered chair. 'Yet I have leanings that way. Only a few days ago I sat for a whole evening with the map of England open before me, wondering where would be the best place to settle down--a few years hence, I mean, you know; when Bella is old enough.--That reminds me. Next Sunday is her birthday, and do you know what? I wish you'd go down to Wrotham with me.'

'Many thanks, but I think I had better not.'

'Oh, but do! I want you to see how Bella is getting on. She's grown wonderfully since you saw her in Paris--an inch taller, I should think.

I don't go down there very often, you know, so I notice these changes.

Really, I think no one could be more discreet than I am, under the circ.u.mstances. A friend of the family; that's all. Just dropping in for a casual cup of tea now and then. Sunday will be a special occasion, of course. I say, what are your views about early marriage? Do you think seventeen too young?'