XV
It was late when Graham let himself into his father's house that night. He had done many things that day. He had also been through much anxiety. He felt that he deserved the right to turn in at once and sleep the sleep of the just. But Kenyon had said that Belle had been alone in his rooms the night before and the queer expression that had come into his eyes as he made the remark lived most uneasily in Graham's memory. He now knew Nicholas Kenyon to be a skunk—an unscrupulous individualist devoid of loyalty, incapable of feeling true friendship and in every way unfit to have any dealings, unwatched, with a girl unless she was in his own set or belonged to the same class as the two chorus girls for whom he had waited outside the stage door of the Oxford Theatre.
He was well aware of the fact that Belle had been something more than merely attracted by Kenyon. He had even hoped that she might be engaged to be married to him, being very proud to believe that some day soon she might become the wife of the man under whose spell he, like all the rest of the family, had fallen. Now, however, in the light of Kenyon's hideous treatment of Peter, he saw his one-time hero with eyes from which all the glamour of his appearance had disappeared and he was filled with an overwhelming desire to see Belle at once and make it clear to her, bluntly and finally, that she must clear Kenyon out of her mind as a house is rid of vermin. Belle was, as he well knew, a high-spirited, amazingly imperious, independent girl, with strong emotions. She was not one who would be turned lightly, or even driven, out of a line of thought. She was, on the contrary, as difficult to treat as an unbroken filly and could only be managed with the lightest of hands. If she really and truly loved Kenyon and still believed in him, he knew that he could not say anything that would prejudice him in her estimation, even by telling her what he had done to Peter. She would be able to produce reasons, however far-fetched, to make that incident seem less ugly. There was, however, the chance—just the chance—that she would be open to conviction. After much inward argument and hesitation he decided to go up to Belle's room, and if she were not asleep, to have a little talk with her and find out how the land lay, and if he could see any possibility of adding to his punishment of Kenyon to do so by putting him in his true colour before Belle.
It took him some time to come to this decision and screw up his courage to face Belle. For nearly an hour he paced up and down the quiet library, smoking cigarette after cigarette. Belle was likely to tell him to go and hang himself if she considered that he was butting into her private affairs. He knew this,—no one better. He had often done so before. He decided, however, to run this risk and, in the hope that she might still be up, went upstairs and stood for a moment listening outside her door. He could hear no sound in her room, no movement, no creak of a drawer being opened or shut. He knocked softly and waited,—was just going to knock again when the door was opened.
With her beautiful black hair done for the night and a pink kimono over her night-dress, Belle stood in the doorway with an expression of surprised inquiry in her eyes. These two had not taken the trouble to be very good friends for some years.
"Oh, it's you, Graham," she said, but made no move.
"It's awfully late, I know; but, if you're not too tired, may I come in?" Graham hated himself for being self-conscious. It seemed absurd with his own sister. He wished then that he had not been quite so selfish and self-contained since he had considered himself to be a man, and had gone out of his way to keep up his old boyish relations with Belle.
He was a little surprised when she said, "Come in, dear," and made way for him. He noticed quickly as soon as she stood under the light that her eyes were red and swollen, and that there was a most unusual air about her of gentleness and dejection. He noticed, too, with immense relief, that a large photograph of Kenyon in hunting-kit which he had seen standing on her dressing-table had been taken away. A good sign!
The room was very different from Ethel's. It had nothing of that rather anæmic ultra-modern air so carefully cultivated by the younger girl. On the contrary, everything in it was characteristic of Belle. It was full of ripe colours and solid comfort. A mass of silver things jostled each other untidily on the dressing-table. A collection of monthly fashion papers with vivid decorative covers lay on a heap on a chair, and a novel, open in the middle, had been flung, face down, on the sofa. There was no attempt at carefully shaded lights. They were all turned on and were reflected from the long glasses in a large mahogany wardrobe. The carpet all round the dressing-table was bespattered with white powder.
"I was reading when I heard your knock," she said,—"at least I was pretending to read. Sleep was miles away."
Graham sat down, hanging a pair of stockings over the arm of the chair. "Why?" he asked.
"Oh, I don't know, I've been thinking,—for a change. It's such a new thing for me that it knocked sleep out of my head. Not nice thoughts, either."
She seemed glad to talk, Graham thought. "Anything the matter, Bee?" he asked.
"I guess it's nearly a century since you called me Bee," she said with a queer little laugh. "Would you say that anything was the matter if you had just picked yourself out of the ruins of a house that had fallen about your ears?"
Graham got up suddenly, sat on the sofa at Belle's side and put his arms round her shoulder. "Don't dodge behind phrases, old girl," he said. "Just tell me in plain English. Let me help you if I can."
But Belle shook him off,—not angry with him so much as with herself. She detested weakness. This unexpected kindness on Graham's part made her feel like crying again. In her heart she longed for some one to whom she could pour out her soul, and Graham's affection almost caught her before she could stop herself. Not to him, she told herself, nor to any member of her family, was she going to confess the sort of thoughts that had choked her brain ever since that hour alone with Kenyon. Not even to Betty, to whom she told most things, was she going to lay bare the fact that, in the cold light of day, she found herself deeply hurt and deeply humiliated at Kenyon's treatment of her. In fact, she had herself only that night begun to realize the state of her feelings and was still suffering under the discovery.
Graham, whose nature and character were as much like those of Belle as though they were twins, caught her mental attitude as she stood struggling between pride and a desire to tell the truth. It was as plain to him as though she had already confessed that Kenyon had done something which had shaken her belief in him. His photograph, which had dominated her room, had been put away. Her eyes were red and swollen. All his sympathy was stirred. At the same time he rejoiced in the eager thought that he had it in his power to clear Kenyon finally out of her mind.
He set to work quietly. "I'm going to tell you about Peter," he said.
She turned quickly. "Peter? There's nothing wrong with Peter, is there?"
"God knows how much wrong there is. I'm going to tell you all I know. We're all in this,—through Kenyon, and because we've been thoughtless fools running amuck through life."
The idea of there being anything wrong with Peter brought Belle quickly out of self-analysis and the self-indulgence of her own pain. "Don't beat about the bush," she said. "Please tell me. You told mother this morning that he had stayed with Nicholas last night."
"That was a lie. This is what happened. After a rotten day worrying about an upset with Betty, he went to see Kenyon late last night. He'd had nothing to eat. I believe because Kenyon had been disappointed about something earlier in the evening,—but I only make a guess at that from the way he looked when I saw him to-day,—he deliberately took it out on Peter."
"On Peter? How?" Belle understood this disappointment only too well.
"He made him drunk."
"Drunk!—Peter!"
"Dead drunk,—by doping him with a fearful mixture of all the drinks he had. He had always threatened to do it, and this time he caught Peter napping. That was a foul enough thing to do anyway, but it didn't satisfy him. He got him into the street and instead of putting him into a cab and sending him home he called a passing woman——"
"Oh, no!" cried Belle.
"Yes,—and gave Peter over to her and there he's been, in her bed, in a little hole of an apartment, ill and poisoned, ever since."
"Oh, my God!" cried Belle.
"The woman rang me up early this morning and I got Ralph Harding to go and see what he could do. I've been there most of the day,—except for ten minutes with Kenyon—the best ten minutes I ever put in—ever."
He got up and stood looking at Belle with a gleam of such intense satisfaction in his eyes that she guessed what he had done.
"That's our admirable friend Kenyon," he added. "That's the man who shared rooms with Peter—whose charm of manner got us all at Oxford, and who was made one of the family by father and mother when he came to this country. I hit him for Peter, for you and for myself in that glorious ten minutes to-day. I left him lying on the floor in his rooms all over his own black blood, and if ever I meet him again, in any part of the world, at any time of my life, I'll give him another dose of the same sort—for Peter, for you and for me—That's what I came to tell you, Bee."
He bent forward and kissed her, turned round and left the room.
That was Kenyon, Graham had said.
Standing where he had left her, with this story of utter and incredible treachery in her ears, Belle added another count to Graham's indictment,—that of trying to seduce her without even the promise of marriage, when her grief at parting with him made her weak.
For a moment she stood chilled and stunned. That was Kenyon—All along she had been fooled—all along he had been playing with her as though she amounted merely to a light creature with whom men passed the time. It was due to her father,—of all men, her father,—that she stood there that night, humiliated but unharmed, with her pride all slashed and bleeding, her self-respect at a discount, but with nothing on her conscience that would make her face the passing days with fear and horror.
She suddenly flamed into action. "Yes; that's Kenyon!" she thought, and making a sort of blazing pounce on the middle drawer of her dressing-table she pulled it open, took out the large photograph of a man in hunting-kit, and with queer, choking cries of rage and scorn, tore it into shreds and stamped upon the pieces.