Chapter Twenty Two.
Dare lunched alone with Mrs Carruthers. He was a little unpunctual; but she waited for him, and they sat down as soon as he came in. She did not ply him with questions; she kept her curiosity within bounds until the meal was well advanced. He was strangely quiet and preoccupied. She did not know what to make of his dejected silence. Mysteries were worrying to Connie Carruthers’ practical nature. It was the flavour of mystery which clung about the happenings next door that caused her, despite the warmth of her affection for Pamela, to avoid the house of late. She had the keen dislike of a healthy minded person for anything in the way of concealment. Discreet reticence was praiseworthy, but furtive silence bred distrust. His visit next door had, it seemed to her, given George Dare the air of a conspirator. Whatever shadow hung over the house had enveloped him in its gloom. It was absurd in her opinion for a man to allow his feeling for a married woman to swamp him in this fashion; it betrayed a lack of dignity and self-respect.
Dare did not wait for her to question him; he looked across at her towards the finish of the meal, and plunged of his own accord into the subject.
“That man, Arnott, is a double-dyed scoundrel,” he said. “He has left that poor girl without a word. She doesn’t know where he is even. He doesn’t write to her.”
“I suppose,” Mrs Carruthers observed calmly, “if he has eloped with some one else he would be little likely to write to her. Why, in the name of commonsense, did she confide her troubles to you? You will become obsessed with the thought of the divorce court, and carry a ring in your waistcoat pocket in anticipation of the decree absolute. I wish I had eaten my pen before I wrote that letter to you.”
She became aware of the offence in Dare’s look, and was instantly contrite.
“George,” she said, “I didn’t mean to be an unfeeling beast. But you ought not to have come down. You ought not to mix yourself up in the Arnott’s affairs. You can’t do any good.”
“Some one’s got to see her through,” he said. “You haven’t done much in the way of helping.”
“She doesn’t confide in me,” Mrs Carruthers retorted drily.
“Perhaps you haven’t given her the opportunity,” he returned. “I don’t think you have shown a particularly friendly spirit. Why don’t you see more of her? She is moped to death.”
“My dear boy,” she replied, wholly unruffled, “it is bad form to push one’s self forward where one is obviously not wanted. Forcing confidences is not in my line.” She sipped her coffee, and regarded him with interest over the rim of the cup. “I have asked her in here repeatedly, but she invariably pleads the same excuse; she cannot leave the children. I am beginning to think with you that the possession of children is a qualified blessing.”
Dare made an unexpected exclamation.
“Oh, damn the children!”
He was so entirely sincere that he omitted to apologise. She smiled faintly, and continued her scrutiny of him and the sipping of her coffee.
“Smoke,” she said, “and give me a cigarette. It assists the reasoning faculties.”
He got up, and went round the table to her with his open case in his hand. When he had lighted her cigarette he returned to his seat.
“I don’t wish to appear inhospitable—” she began...
“I am leaving to-morrow,” he interrupted her shortly.
She blew a cloud of smoke and followed it as it curled upward with her eyes. Then she looked again at Dare. He was leaning with his elbows on the tablecloth, his expression gloomily abstracted, his sombre eyes as they met hers conveying a mute resentment. Her attitude struck him as peculiarly unsympathetic.
“You must not go in there again,” she said.
He stared in some surprise.
“I have no intention of doing so,” he answered. “I didn’t come down to fool about, but to gain information. I’ve learnt all I came to learn.”
“And what use are you going to make of your information?” she asked.
She could not, despite the utmost caution, disguise her strong curiosity. That he would rest satisfied in the inactive rôle of sympathiser she did not for a moment believe. He would want to do things, want to concern himself actively in what was after all no business of his. These lean men generally had a reserve of energy which broke forth at awkward seasons, and manifested itself in disquieting ways.
He knocked the ash from his cigarette against the rim of a saucer, and refrained from looking at her as he replied.
“I don’t know yet I suppose the immediate thing is to find Arnott, and discover what the fellow is really up to... I wish he were dead.”
“That would certainly simplify matters,” she said. “But people don’t die merely to be obliging. You’ll find him very much alive, I expect.”
He nodded in gloomy acquiescence.
“And while you are ransacking the country for Arnott, what about your own affairs?” she inquired.
“Oh! that’s all right. I’m entitled to leave.” He emitted a short laugh. “I believe you regard me in the light of an irresponsible person.”
“I’ve met wiser people,” she allowed. “Quixotism is a form of benevolent insanity. Look at it how you will, your undertaking is quixotic in the last degree.”
“So long as it is only that,” he returned, “I don’t see why you need set your face against it.”
“It’s the futility of it,” she said, “that appeals to me. What you purpose doing is a job for the Supreme Court; and even the law cannot force a man to return to his wife against his will.”
Dare made no answer to this. Had the position of affairs been simply as she believed it to be, he would not be undertaking this quest. An act of plain desertion would, as she had stated, have been a matter for the law to deal with. But the Arnotts’ case had to be kept out of the courts if possible for Pamela’s sake. He was very clear on that point. Pamela’s mistake in continuing to live with Arnott after her discovery of the truth made secrecy vitally important. That was a point which Arnott had probably taken into consideration.
“You are a big fool, George,” she said; “but I love you for your folly. I suppose most women admire quixotic men. I am going to be amenable now. I’ll do my part, never fear. I’ll stick to Pamela like a limpet. There’s a difficult time ahead for her,—a storm of scandal to be faced; but we’ll win through. Thank heaven! no one has ever been able to fling any mud at her!”
He gave her a quick look; she met it with a little uncertain laugh, and a light of indulgent affection in her eyes.
“We are creatures of circumstance,” she added; “but we are not ruled by our passions,—not all of us.”
To which Dare had nothing to say. He was very conscious at the moment of the dominating quality of his own passion; that he was not ruled by it was due rather to circumstances being against him than to any particular self-restraint. Had Pamela been willing to accept his proposal, he would have allowed no consideration to bar the way to their immediate marriage. As the case stood, however, his love was sufficiently strong and unselfish to move him to act as a disinterested friend who had at heart only an earnest desire to be of service to her. He meant to find Arnott, and persuade the man if possible to fulfil his obligation.
The quickest means of discovering Arnott’s whereabouts, Carruthers suggested, and Dare considered the advice sound enough to follow, was to find Blanche Maitland, whose movements, if she were still in her professional capacity, would be easier to trace.
“Though what on earth he expects to do when he does run across them,” Carruthers remarked to his wife, “beats me. Old George is off his balance.”
“This business of sex is a big muddle,” he commented later, philosophising while he undressed, to his wife’s sleepy amusement. “Odd how it takes some fellows! ... Seems to knock the brains out of an average sensible chap. Never thought old George would go silly over somebody else’s wife. It’s in some fellows, that sort of thing.”
He fussed about at the glass, and got into difficulties with his tie.
“Jolly glad he didn’t develop a tender passion for you, old girl... Damn the thing!”
The tie came away in his hand and was flung into a drawer. He banged the drawer to with noisy impatience.
“It’s just giving rein to one’s feelings,” he said, “that is the cause of it. One can’t do that sort of thing,—it’s not decent. It’s like taking too much to drink because one enjoys the sensation of being drugged. We’ve got to observe the decencies of life; it’s a social obligation. Pretty mess we’d make of things, if every one yielded to his impulses.”
He approached the bed and seated himself on the side of it and stared at his wife with a perturbed expression on his usually good-humoured face. She blinked an eyelid open, and returned his gaze with a kind of one-sided attention, and a drowsy smile that mocked his serious mood. Dickie in the rôle of moralist was unfamiliar and mildly diverting.
“George isn’t yielding to his impulses,” she said; “he’s acting in direct opposition to them.”
“He’s moonstruck over another man’s wife,” Carruthers returned; “and the other man is moonstruck over somebody else. What’s that but encouraging one’s fool sentimentalities? Some fellows enjoy messing about, and imagining themselves in love with every fresh face.”
“The hunter’s instinct,” she murmured sleepily.
Carruthers grunted.
“It’s abnormal vanity,” he replied... “that, and suggestion... Just giving rein to unwholesome thoughts. I suppose, if I wanted to, I could work up that sort of feeling in respect to lots of women.”
She opened both eyes at this, and regarded him with wide curiosity. Then she laughed.
“Silly old duffer!” she said. “I don’t think George’s influence is good for you. You had better get to bed, and leave off talking nonsense. I want to go to sleep.”
Carruthers got off the bed and repaired to his dressing-room, there to continue his reflections on the sex problem while he proceeded with the business of undressing.
“It’s nosing about for the scent of these things,” he mused, taking off a shoe, and holding it in his hand with a contemplative eye upon it, as though the sight of this familiar object presented aspects hitherto unobserved. “If a man trains his mind to think along commonsense lines, his feelings don’t run amok.”
He dropped the shoe on to the carpet, and focussed his attention on the pattern of his socks.
“Gods! what a muddle it is!” he muttered... “A beastly lot of sentiment,—a beastly uncomfortable time of it,—and then,—reaction. And men go out of their way to tumble into these kind of messes. Hanged if I can understand it!”
The following morning he surprised his wife with the inquiry:
“Connie, were you ever in love before you met me?”
“Lots of times,” she answered cheerfully.
“How was it you never married one of the crowd?” he asked, a trifle nettled by the unexpectedly frank reply.
“Because none of them asked me,” she replied with extraordinary candour.
“Oh!” he said. He pondered this for a second or so. “I suppose you married me as a sort of substitute?” he added.
She gave a little amused laugh.
“Guess again,” she said.
He went to her and put an awkward arm about her neck.
“Tell me,” he entreated. “I’m a duffer at guessing.”
“My reason for marrying you was precisely the same as yours for marrying me,” she answered provokingly, and pulled the encircling arm closer. Carruthers bent his head and kissed her.
“There isn’t a better reason,” he affirmed in satisfied tones. “I guess we’re all right.”
That before breakfast talk had the effect on Carruthers of inducing a kindly mood which inclined him to view Dare’s folly with greater toleration. He was even conscious of a certain sympathy with the man; his overnight impatience had moderated considerably. He threw out a few suggestions, intended to be helpful; and promised, without being asked, to keep Dare informed if anything transpired at that end.
Carruthers’ cheerfulness had an irritating effect upon Dare. He had passed a sleepless night, kept awake by the worried thoughts which had harassed him throughout the long hours; by the passion of longing which possessed him, which refused, despite his utmost effort, to be subdued. He wanted Pamela, wanted her urgently,—and he was fool enough to be about to assist in bringing off a marriage between her and the villain who had spoilt her life. The irony of the situation struck him in its full absurdity. It was the consummation of a tragedy wearing comedy’s mask,—the enforced marriage of a man and woman who had ceased to care for one another, for the sake of the new generation which had arisen as the result of their one-time passion.
Her decision was right, of course. It was the one unquestionably right step she had taken in the whole miserable affair. Because of its unanswerable equity he could only acquiesce.