IV
On his way down to the supper room he was filled with annoyance at the thought of his interrupted conversation. He might never have his opportunity again. Maradick was so reserved a fellow and took so few into his confidence—also he would, in all probability, be ashamed to-morrow of having spoken at all.
But to Peter at that moment the world about him was fantastic and unreal. It seemed to him that at certain periods in his life he was suddenly confronted with a fellow creature who perceived life as he perceived it. There were certain persons who could not leave life alone—they must always be seeing it as a key to something wider, bigger altogether. This was nothing to do with Christianity or any creed whatever, because Creeds implied Certainty and Definition of Knowledge, whereas Peter and the others like him did not know for what they were searching. Again, they were not Mystics because Mysticism needed a definite removal from this world before any other world were possible. No, they were simply Explorers and one traced a member of the order on the instant. There had been already in Peter's life, Frosted Moses, Stephen, Mr. Zanti, Noah Monogue, and now suddenly there was Maradick. These were people who would not laugh at his terror of Scaw House, at his odd belief that his father was always trying to draw him back to Treliss....
As he entered the supper-room and saw Clare sitting at a distant table, he knew that his wife would never be an Explorer. For her Fires and Walls, for her no questions, no untidiness moral or physical—the Explorer travelled ever with his life in his hands—Clare believed in the Stay-at-homes.
The great dining-room was filled with Stay-at-homes. One saw it in their eyes, in the flutter of useless and tired words that rose and fell; all the souls in that room were cushioned and were happy that it was so. The Rider on the Lion was beyond the Electric Lights—on the dark hill, over the darker river, under the stars. Somebody pulled a cracker and put on a paper cap. He was a stout man with a bald head and the back of his neck rippled with fat. He had tiny eyes.
“Look at Mr. Horset,” cried the woman next to him—“Isn't he absurd?”
Peter found at the table in the corner Alice, Clare, Millicent and Percival Galleon, Tony Gale and his wife, waiting. There was also a man standing by Alice's chair and he watched Peter with amused eyes.
He held out his hand and smiled. “How do you do, Westcott?” he said. Then, with the sound of his voice, the soft almost caressing tilt of it, Peter knew who it was. His mind flew back to a day, years ago, when he had flung himself on the ground and cried his soul out because some one had gone away....
“Cards!” he cried. “Of all wonderful things!”
Cards of Dawson's—Cards, the magnetic, the brilliant, Cards with his World and his Society and now slim and dark and romantic as ever, making every one else in the room shabby beside him, so that Bobby's white waistcoat was instantly seen to be hanging loosely above his shirt and Peter's trousers were short, and even the elegant Percival had scarcely covered with perfect equality the ends of his white tie.
Instantly as though the intervening years had never been, Bobby took his second place beside Cards' glory—even Percival's intention of securing the wonderful Mr. Rondel, author of “The Violet's Redemption,” for their table, failed of its effect.
They were enough. They didn't want anybody else—Room for Mr. Cardillac!
And he seized it. Just as he would have seized it years ago at school so he seized it now. Their table was caught into the most dazzling series of adventures. Cards had been everywhere, seen everybody and everything—seen it all, moreover, with the right kind of gaiety, with an appreciation that was intelligent and also humorous. There was humour one moment and pathos the next—deep feeling and the wittiest cynicism.
They were all swung about Europe and with Cards at their head pranced through the cities of the world. Meanwhile Peter fancied that once or twice Clare flung him a little glance of appeal to ask for forgiveness—and once they looked up and smiled at one another. A tiny smile but it meant everything.
“Oh! won't we have a reconciliation afterwards? How could I have said those things? Don't we just love one another?”
When they went upstairs again Peter and Cards exchanged a word:
“You'll come and see us?”
“My dear old man, I should just think so. This is the first time I've been properly in London for years and now I'm going to stay. Fancy you married and successful and here am I still the rolling-stone!”
“You! Why you can do anything!”
“Can't write 'Reuben Hallard,' old boy....” and so, with a laugh, they parted.
In the cab, afterwards, Clare's head was buried in Peter's coat, and she sobbed her heart out. “How I could have been such a beast, Peter, Peter!”
“Darling, it was nothing.”
“Oh, but it was! It shall never, never happen again...but I was frightened—”
“Frightened!”
“Yes, I always think some one's going to take you away. I don't understand all those other people. They frighten me—I want you to myself, just you and I—always.”
“But nobody can take me away—nobody—”
The cab jolted along—her hand was on his knee—and every now and again a lamp lighted her face for him and then dropped it back into darkness.
By the sharp pressure of her hand he knew that she was moved by an intensity of feeling, swayed now by one of those moods that came to her so strangely that it seemed that they belonged to another personality.
“Look... Peter. I'm seeing clearly as I think I never have before. I'm afraid—not because of you—but because of myself. If you knew—” here his hand came down and found hers—“if you knew how I despise myself, my real self. I've been spoilt always, always, always. I've always known it. My real self is ashamed of it. But there's another side of me that comes down suddenly and hides all that—and then—when that happens—I just want to get what I want and not to be hurt and ...” she pressed closer against him and went on in a whisper.
“Peter, I shall always care for you more than any one—always whatever happens. But think, a time will come—I know it—when you'll have to watch me, to keep me by you, and even let your work go—everything, just for a time until I'm safe. I suppose that moment comes to most women in their married lives. But to me, when it happens, it will be worse than for most women because I've always had my way. You mustn't let me have my way then—simply clutch me, be cruel, brutal, anything only don't let me go. Then, if you keep me through that, you'll always keep me.”
To Peter it was almost as though she were talking in her sleep, something, there in the old, lumbering cab that was given to her by some one else to say something to which she herself would not give credit.
“That's all right, you darling, you darling, you darling.” He covered her face, her eyes with kisses. “I'll never let you go—never.” He felt her quiver a little under his arms.
“Don't mind, Peter, my horrible, beastly character. Just keep me for a little, train me—and then later I'll be such a wife to you, such a wife!”
Then she drew his head down. His lips touched her body just above her dress, where her cloak parted.
She whispered:
“There's something else.”
She raised her face from his coat and looked up at him. Her cheeks were stained with crying and her eyes, large and dark, held him furiously as though he were the one place of safety.
He caught her very close.
“What is it?...”
That night, long after he, triumphant with the glory of her secret, had fallen asleep, she lay, staring into the dark, with frightened eyes.