Violet Forster's Lover Part 8

He echoed her last word with a very different accent.

"Cold!" He said it again in a tone of voice which was indescribable; in the word as he uttered it there was a whole dictionary of meaning.

"Cold!"

"Have a drink?"

She was moving towards the sideboard on which there were bottles and gla.s.ses.

"The last time I saw you I had a drink at your expense, though I'm always paying for it."

"The world doesn't seem to have been using you very well since I met you last."

His speech was not a reply to hers.

"At least you have courage."

"Women of my sort have to; experience gives it to them. Without courage where should we be?"

"I wonder where you are sometimes even with it. Do you know that you've scarcely ever been out of my thoughts more than an hour or two at a time since we parted?"

"That's very nice of you."

"You think so. I've told myself over and over again that when I did get within reach of you--that's just the trouble, I've never quite been able to make up my mind what I'd do to you. I've told myself I'd kill you; in some of my happiest moments, in imagination, I've been wringing your neck; it was a delicious sensation."

"For you?"

"For me."

"Very well, then, give yourself that delicious sensation in real earnest--wring it. Here I am, quite close, ready to make things easy; I promise that I'll do nothing to keep you from wringing it to your heart's content." She had gone right up to him. He drew himself up straight, with a look upon his face as if he were about to take her at her word; but he stood still. Observing his indecision, she laughed.

"How long do you propose to keep me waiting? Are you going to wring it now, or--it might be rather a nuisance in such a matter to have one's moment chosen for one--would you rather wait?"

"I'll wait."

"Good; then while you're waiting won't you come closer to the fire and have a drink? That's whisky and soda."

She held out to him a tumbler.

"Don't you give me that."

"Why not? It's warming."

"Last time you gave me something which was--warming."

"I see." She laughed. "You're thinking this is the same as that. I understand; or--are you very hungry?"

"Don't you ask me questions; I'll take neither food nor drink from you.

I'll pay my debt and then----"

He left his sentence unfinished. If his bearing was more than a little melodramatic, hers was easiness itself.

"Before we go any farther--and we are going farther, so you needn't glare at me--we'll clear that up about what you call your debt. You think you owe me one?"

"Think! I've been in h.e.l.l because of you; I'm in it still. Now I've a chance I'm going to make it my business to give you a taste of it too."

"There's nothing so silly as using extravagant language. I found that out long ago; and I'm a woman, and women are supposed to be inclined that way, and you're a man."

"You're a woman? A woman!"

"Yes, I'm a woman, a woman, a woman, and all the vitriolic bitterness you can get into your tone won't alter that. Now just you keep still and let me talk. You've your own point of view--of course, you would have, being a man--and I've mine; before you start paying that debt which weighs so heavily on your chest, you'll listen to what it is.

I'll be as brief as I can, and while I'm talking I'll lay the table; I'm acting as my own maid just now. I may remark that you and I are quite alone in the house, so that if you do feel like wringing my neck you need fear no personal interference. I'm going to put some food upon the table, because I'm going to eat something, if you aren't."

Out of a drawer in the sideboard she took a tablecloth.

"Now about that debt you were speaking of; but before I talk of it, I'd better go and see what there is in the pantry that really is worth eating. Wouldn't you like to come and help me? There will be a tray to carry."

She had laid the table, and now stood at the open doorway looking at him with a smile on her face. Plainly he was in more than two minds as to what to do; this woman was, so far, proving more than a match for him. His tone was surly.

"I'm not coming with you."

"Aren't you? Very well, don't; stop there. I may as well go upstairs and take off my hat and coat and make myself look decent, even if I am to have my neck wrung directly afterwards. And then I'll go and forage in the pantry. Until we meet again."

With a saucy little nod she paused out of the room and shut the door.

A student in pantomime would have been interested by the man's proceedings when he found himself thus left alone, he was so evidently at a loss. He stared, or rather glared, at the door through which the woman had vanished; he seemed to be in doubt as to whether to go through it and out of the house. Then his eyes moved round the room, and stayed; as if it were all in such delightful contrast to what he had been used to that he had to stay. He made a half-step towards the fire, then drew back, with clenched hands and knitted brows; he would not warm himself beside this woman's fire. Then he saw the tumbler on the table, which she had left on the snowy tablecloth invitingly beneath his nose; his hand moved towards that--it was harder to keep that back, but he did. He saw, for the first time, the mirror above the mantel; as if unwillingly he went to it; the action was significant, a mirror had not been a necessary adjunct to his toilet for a considerable time.

He stared at the face that looked back at him as if it were that of a stranger, as if he found it difficult to realise that it could by any possibility be his, as if it were incredible that the man who had been could be the man who was now. He took the greasy cap off his head, as if the mirror had made him conscious that it was there. No woman could have shown keener interest in a tale told by the mirror; so absorbed was he by his own image that apparently he could not tear himself away.

He became aware that the fire was just beneath; he stretched out his hands to the grateful blaze, then, remembered, glanced round him shamefacedly, moved away towards the window. How cheerless it was without, how cheery it was within. He twisted his cap as if he would have torn it; his jaw was hard set; his eyes looked this way and that.

He moved from the window, this time towards the door, as if he were trying to bring himself to the sticking point, to retreat in time. He was nearly there when the door reopened and the woman appeared.

"Now then, you really must come and help me carry this tray; it's perfectly absurd to suppose that I can do everything while you do nothing. My maid is out; I only keep one, and it's her day out. You needn't eat anything; the fates forbid that I should press my food on you or my anything. But surely you can help me to get something to eat myself. Do you hear?"

"Yes, I hear."

"And you're not coming?"

"No, I'm not coming."

"You won't help me to carry the tray?"

"I won't."

"Then thank you very much. You know, you used to be a gentleman."

She pa.s.sed out of the room with her head in the air. He let her go, waiting, grimly, for her return, the greasy cap between his hands.

Presently she was back, bearing a well-filled tray.

"Won't you sit down? I should think even my chairs would not do you any serious injury; but, of course, stand if you prefer it; I suppose you can wring my neck better standing. I'm going to have some tea, the kettle's boiling, and I feel like tea. I suppose it's no use suggesting tea to you, but I've brought a second cup, which you can throw at me if you care to use it for nothing else. It might amuse you to throw things at me before you wring my neck, including the teapot and the tray."

She was laying the table while she spoke. He kept his eyes turned from her, which was perhaps the reason why she imparted to him information which he declined to observe for himself.