§ 20

But it had not been a lovers’ quarrel that had blinded Joan to the passing automobile. It had been the astounding discovery of her real relationship to Peter. So astounding had that been that at the moment she was not only regardless of the passing traffic but oblivious of Huntley and every other circumstance of her world.

Huntley was not one of those people who love; he was a pursuing egotist with an unwarrantable scorn for the intelligence of his fellow-creatures. He liked to argue and show people that they were wrong in a calm, scornful manner; The Pernambuco Bunshop was a very sarcastic work. He was violently attracted by the feminine of all ages; it fixed his attention with the vast possibilities of admiration and triumph it offered him. And he had greedy desires. Joan attracted him at first because she was admired. He saw how Wilmington coveted her. She had a prestige in her circle. She had, too, a magnetism of her own. Before he realized the slope down which he slid, he wanted her so badly that he thought he was passionately in love. It kept him awake of nights, and distracted him from his work. He did not want to marry her. That was against his principles. That was the despicable way of ordinary human beings. He lived on a higher plane. But he wanted her as a monkey wants a gold watch—he wanted this new, fresh, lovely and beautiful thing just to handle and feel as his own.

There was little charm about Huntley and less companionship. He was too arrogant for companionship. But he abounded in ideas, he knew much, and so he interested her. He talked. He pursued her with the steadfast scrutiny of his large grey eyes—and with arguments. He tried to argue and manœuvre Joan into a passionate love for him.

Well, Joan had a broad brow; she thought things over; she was amenable to ideas.

He harped on “freedom.” He carried freedom far beyond the tempered liberties of ordinary human association. Any ordinary belief was by his standards a limitation of freedom. There was a story that he had once been caught burgling a house in St. John’s Wood and had been let off by the magistrate only because the crime seemed absolutely motiveless. No doubt he had been trying to convince himself of his freedom from prejudice about the rights of property. He had an obscure idea that he could induce Joan to plunge into wild depravities merely to prove himself free from her own decent instincts. But he was ceasing to care for his argument if only he could induce her.

There was a moment when he said, “Joan, you are the one woman”—he always called her a woman—“who could make me marry her.”

“I’ll spare you,” said Joan succinctly.

“Promise me that.”

“Promise.”

“Anyhow.”

On this Christmas afternoon he discoursed again upon freedom. “You, Joan, might be the freest of the free, if only you chose. You are absolutely your own mistress. Absolutely.”

“I have a guardian,” she said.

“You’re of age.”

“No; I’m nineteen.”

“You—it happens, were of age at eighteen, Joan.” He watched her face. He had been burning to get to this point for weeks. “Even about your birth there was freedom.”

“So you know that.”

“Icy voice! To me it seems the grandest thing. When I reflect that I, alas! was born in loveless holy wedlock I grit my teeth.”

“Oh! I don’t care. But how do you know?”

“It’s fairly well known, Joan. It’s no very elaborate secret. I’ve got a little volume of your father’s poetry.”

She hesitated. “I didn’t know my father wrote poetry,” she said.

“It was all Will Sydenham ever did that was worth doing—except launch you into the world. He was a dramatic critic and something of a journalist, I believe. Stoner of the Post knew him quite well. But all this is ancient history to you.”

“It isn’t. Nobody has told me.... I didn’t know.”

“But what did you think?”

“Never mind what I thought. Every one doesn’t talk with your freedom. I’ve never been told. Who was my mother?”

“Stoner says she died in hospital. Soon after you were born. He never knew her name.”

“Wasn’t it Stubland?”

“Lord, No! Why should it be?”

“But then——”

“That’s one of the things that makes you so splendidly new, Joan. You start clean in the world—like a new Eve. Without even an Adam to your name. Fatherless, motherless, sisterless, brotherless. You fall into the world like a meteor!”

She stood astonished at the way in which she had blundered. Brotherless! If Huntley had not drawn her back by the arm Lady Charlotte’s car would have touched her....