IV
"You don't know how happy I was when I found your letter at the store this morning. The manager doesn't like girls to get letters, he is an awful fossil, but he's rather keen on me. I told him your letters were from an uncle who isn't friends with mother."
"What a darling little liar you are!" said Ronnie amused. "My dear, I've missed you terribly. I shall have to give up my writing, if it is going to keep me from my girl."
She snuggled closer to his side as they walked slowly through the gloom to her favorite spot. She did not tell him how she had sat there every evening, braving the importunities of those less attractive ghouls who haunt the park in the hours of dusk.
"There have been times," said Ronnie when they had found chairs and drawn them to the shadow of a big elm, "when I felt that I could write no more unless I saw you for a moment. But I set my teeth and worked. I pretend sometimes that you are sitting on the other side of the table and I look up and talk to you."
"You are like Christina," said the delighted girl, "she makes up things like that. Would you have liked to see me really walk into the room and sit down opposite to you?"
He held her more tightly. "Nine-tenths of my troubles would vanish," he said fervently, "and I could work—by heaven, how I should work if I had the inspiration of your company! I wish you weren't such a dear little puritan. I'm half inclined to engage a housekeeper if only to chaperon you."
He waited for a rejoinder, but it did not come.
"You have such queer ideas about how people should behave," he said. "In fact you are awfully old-fashioned, darling."
"Am I—I suppose I am."
"Why, the modern girl goes everywhere, bachelor parties and dances—chaperons are about as much out of date as the dodo."
"What is a dodo?"
"A bird—a sort of duck."
She gurgled with laughter. "You funny boy—"
"You know Sault, don't you? Isn't he a great friend of yours?"
She struggled up out of his arms. "Friend! Of course not. He is a great friend of Christina's but not of mine. He is so old and funny-looking. He has gray hair and he is quite dark—when I say dark, I mean he is not a negro, but—well, dark."
"I understand. Not a friend of yours?"
"Of course not. There are times when I can't stand him! He doesn't read or write, did you know that? Of course you do—and he has been in prison, you told me that, too. If mother knew she would have a fit. Why do you talk about him, Ronnie?"
"I've no special reason, only—"
"Only what, has he been talking about me?"
"Not to me, of course—he told a friend of mine that he didn't like you to know me. It was a surprise to me that he was aware we were friends. Did you tell him?"
"Me—I? Of course not. I never heard of such nerve! How dare he!"
"S-sh—don't get angry, darling. I'm sure he meant well. You have to do something for me, Evie dear."
"Talking about me—!"
"What is the use?" He bent his head and kissed her. "It will be easy for you to say that you've only met me once or twice—and that you are not seeing me any more."
"But you—you will see me, Ronnie?"
"Surely. You don't suppose that anything in the world will ever come between us, do you? Not fifty Saults."
"It is Christina!" she said. "How mean of her to discuss me with Sault! And I've done so much for her; brought her books from the store and given her little things—I do think it is deceitful of her."
"Will you do as I ask?"
"Of course, Ronnie darling. I'll tell her that I've given you up. But she is terribly sharp and I must be careful. I sleep in the same room, ours is a very small house. I used to have a room of my own until Sault came—the horrid old man. He is in love with Christina. It does seem ridiculous, doesn't it, a man like that? Christina says she isn't, but really—she is so deceitful."
"Will you tell her what I suggest?" he insisted.
"Yes—I'll tell her. As for Mr. Sault—"
"Leave me to deal with Mr. Sault," said Ronnie grandly.
Evie reached home, her little brain charged with conflicting emotions. Her relief at meeting the man again, the happiness that meeting had brought, her resentment at Sault's unwarranted interference, her hurt from Christina's supposed duplicity and breach of confidence, each contended for domination and each in turn triumphed.
"I have given up Ronnie and I am not going to meet him again," she said as she entered the room.
She was without finesse and Christina, instantly alert, was not impressed. "This is very sudden. What has happened?"
"I've given him up!" Evie slammed her hat down on a rickety dressing-table. She had no intention of letting the matter rest there. Her annoyance with Sault must be expressed.
"If a girl cannot have a friendship without her own sister and her sister's beastly friends making up all sorts of beastly stories about her and breaking their sacred word, too, by telling beastly people about their private affairs, then she'd better give up having friendships," she said a trifle incoherently.
"I want to sort that out," said Christina, frowning, "the only thing I'm perfectly sure about is that somebody is beastly. Do you mean that people have been talking about you and your—Ronnie?"
Evie glowered at her. "You know—you know!" she blurted tremulously. "You and Sault between you, trying to interfere in my—interfering in my affairs."
"Oh," said Christina, "is that all?"
"Is that all! Don't you think it enough, parting Ronnie and I? Breaking my heart, that is what you're doing!" she wailed. "I'll never speak to Sault again. The old murderer—that's what he is, a murderer! I'm going to tell mother and have him chucked out of the house. We're not safe. Some night he'll come along with a knife and cut our throats. A nigger murderer," she screamed. "He may be good enough to be your fancy man, but he's not good enough for me!"
"Open the window and tell the street all about it," suggested Christina. "You'll get an audience in no time. Go along! Open the window! They would love to hear. Every woman in this street screams her trouble sooner or later. The woman across the road was shouting 'murder' all last night. Be fashionable, Evie. Ronnie would love to know that you made a hit in Walter Street."
Evie was weeping now. "You're horrible and vulgar, and I wish I was dead! You've—you've parted Ronnie and I—you and Sault!"
"I don't think so," said Christina quietly, "my impression is that you are saying what Ronnie told you to say."
"I swear—" began Evie.
"Don't swear, Evie, screech. It is more convincing. Ronnie told you to say that you had given him up. What did Ambrose Sault do?"
"He went to a friend of Ronnie's with a lot of lies—about me and Ronnie. And you must have told him, Christina. It was mean, mean, mean of you!"
"He didn't want telling. He heard you the other night when you were having hysterics and yelling 'Oh, Ronnie, Ronnie!' at the top of your voice. You did everything except give Ronnie's address and telephone number. Apart from that I did tell him. I wanted to know the kind of man you're raving about. And your Ronnie is just dirt."
"Don't dare to say that—don't dare!"
"If mother didn't sleep like a dormouse she'd hear you—some people think they can make black white if they shout 'black' loudly enough. Ronald Morelle has a bad reputation with girls. I don't care if you foam at the mouth, Evie, I'm going to say it. He is a blackguard!"
"Sault told you! Sault told you!" Evie's voice had a shrill thin edge to it. "I know he did—a murderer—a nigger murderer, that is what he is. Not fit to live under the same roof as me—I shall tell Ronnie what he said—I'll tell him tomorrow, and then you'll see!"
"As you are permanently parted, I don't see how you will have an opportunity of telling him," said Christina. "I could have told him myself, today, I saw him."
"Saw him, how?" Evie was surprised into interest.
"With my eyes. Mr. Sault took me into Kensington Gardens and I saw him—he pointed him out to me."
Evie smiled contemptuously. "That is where you and your damned Sault were wrong," she said in triumph. "Ronnie has been working in his flat all the afternoon! He was writing an article for The Statesman!"
"He didn't seem to be working very hard when I saw him," said Christina unmoved, "unless he was dictating his article to Miss Merville. They were driving together. Mr. Sault said: 'There is Morelle'—"
"He should have said 'Mister'."
"And I saw him. He is good-looking; the best looking man I have ever seen."
"It wasn't Ronnie—I don't mean that Ronnie isn't good looking. He's lovely. But it couldn't have been him. Besides, he hates that Merville girl, at least he doesn't like her. You are only saying this to make me jealous. How was he dressed?"
"So far as I could see, he wore a long-tailed coat—he certainly had a top hat. Mr. Sault said that he thought he had been to Lady Somebody-or-other's garden party. Mr. Steppe was going, but couldn't get away."
"Now I know it wasn't Ronnie! He was wearing a blue suit—no, he hadn't changed his clothes. He told me he didn't dress until an hour before he met me. Sault is a—he must have been mistaken."
Before she went to bed she came over to say "good night."
"I'm sorry I lost my temper, Chris."
"My dear, if you lose nothing else, I shall be happy."
"I hate your insinuations, Christina! Some day you will find out what a splendid man Ronnie is—and then you'll be surprised."
"I shall," admitted Christina, and later, when Evie was dropping into sleep, "Who did Ambrose kill?"
"Eh—? I don't know. Somebody in Paris—" Another long silence.
"He must have been a terrible villain!"
"Who, Sault?"
"No, the man he killed," said Christina.
She lay awake for a long time. It was two o'clock when she heard his key in the lock. She raised her head, listening to the creaking of the stairs as he came up. He had to pass her room and she whispered: "Good night, Ambrose!"
"Good night, Christina."
She blew a kiss at the door.