V
Wynne rang up Quiltan’s number, and was answered by the manservant, who said:
“Very good, sir. I will tell him.” But when he went to do so he found his master had already gone out.
Lane Quiltan was somewhat surprised when the door of Wynne’s flat was opened by a girl who by no stretch of imagination could be thought to belong to the servant class. She wore a coarse apron, her sleeves were rolled up, and there was a redness about her eyes that could only have come from tears.
“I beg your pardon,” he said; “is this Mr. Rendall’s flat?”
“Yes.”
“Is he—at home?”
“No,” replied Eve. Then, as she realized what had happened, a smile broke the tragical lines of her expression.
“He asked me to lunch,” said Quiltan. “May I come in?”
“Yes, please do.”
He followed her to the shabby sitting-room.
“I’m afraid,” said Eve, “my husband won’t be back to lunch. He was telephoning to ask you to meet him at the club instead.”
“Your husband?” He looked at her in surprise. “I didn’t know Rendall was married.”
She bit her lip—it was rather an unkind stab. He noticed this, and hastened to say:
“That is, he never told me.”
“Why should he?” she answered quickly.
He looked at her for a longish while before replying:
“I can see quite a number of reasons.”
The words were spoken with simple sincerity, and they brought a glow of bright colour to her cheeks. Thinking perhaps he had offended, he said:
“Well, since he has gone to the club, I suppose I had better follow him there. I don’t want to go a bit, and I’m sorry we shan’t be lunching together.”
“So am I,” she nodded.
“Why aren’t we?” he asked, unexpectedly.
“I suppose there is no great harm telling you—since you are here. This was to have been a business meeting, and Wynne thought the surroundings might prove—unproductive.”
“Oh!” He hesitated; then: “When did he think that?”
“An hour ago.”
“Then,” said Quiltan, with quick intuition, “the lunch must have been partially prepared?”
“It was.”
He took a deep breath.
“Isn’t it a pity to waste it? I mean, don’t you think I might be invited to share it with you?”
There was something very attractive in the tentative manner in which he made the proposal.
“Do you want to stay?”
“Very much indeed.”
“Do stay, then—please stay. I was rather— I mean, it would make a difference if you stayed. But I haven’t finished cooking yet. You’d have to wait a little.”
“So much the better.”
“I’ll be as quick as I can. There are plenty of books here.”
He made a wry face.
“Of course, if I must read I will,” he said; “but I’d much rather help cook.”
“You can if you like.”
“That’s jolly of you.”
He threw his overcoat over the back of a chair, and together they made their way to the kitchen.
“I had no idea a sole had its face powdered before being put in a fry-pan,” he observed, and made her laugh merrily.
“It goes in like a white Parisian, and comes out a sunburnt Spaniard,” she returned.
“You look as if some sun would do you no harm.”
“I dare say it wouldn’t. Haven’t tried the experiment. Would you like to be useful and lay the table in the front room?”
“Oh, can’t we eat here?”
“If you’d rather, we can.”
“Much rather. Everything piping hot, and you won’t be everlastingly running off to fetch dishes, will you?”
It was so long since any one had minded what she did that Eve caught her breath in a half-sob.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
It had seemed rather cruel that this five minutes’ friend should say the very things Wynne never bothered to say.
“But you—”
“I did. I do silly things sometimes, but I’m not really hysterical.”
“I know.”
“How can you know?”
“I seem to know you very well. That remarkable husband of yours contrived to put a lot of you into the characters of my play. I used to puzzle about it—used to wonder where his extraordinary intimate knowledge came from.”
Eve was all enthusiasm in a second.
“You really mean that?”
“ ’Course. He used to show the women what to do in the most amazing way. Now I can see the source of his wisdom.”
“That’s made me happy. It’s nice to feel one is of use, isn’t it? There are some knives and forks in the box there, and the plates are in the dresser.”
It was because she could feel his eyes resting inquiringly upon her that she gave him this sudden direction.
Presently they sat down to the first course.
“This is jolly,” said Quiltan.
“It’s a change for you. I wonder—”
“What?”
“Only whether you would think it quite so jolly if it were all.”
For awhile he made no reply, then he laid down his knife and fork.
“I say,” he said, “shall we be friends?”
“I am sure we shall be.”
“I mean— Well, this meeting of ours was never really intended, so one might excusably assume that it had never taken place. Wouldn’t we be justified, then, in talking to one another as we might have talked to ourselves if we had been alone?”
Eve shivered. “It might not be a happy conversation.”
“Even so—why not? We could be as honest as dreams are, and what we said could be as easily forgotten.”
“I’m frightened of dreams,” said Eve. “They never come true.”
“Won’t you tell me one that hasn’t come true? If it hasn’t come false there is hope for it yet.”
“I suppose there is.”
“Won’t you tell me that dream?”
“If you promise to wake up and forget it.”
“Tell me first.”
And so, rather haltingly, but with growing confidence, Eve told the stranger of her hopes:
“I can see clearly now, it was a companion Wynne needed, that’s all—a mental companion. Had I been a man I might have entered more deeply into his life. You see, we fought to rise out of this rut, and now he has begun to rise he finds that I am part of the rut—something to be left behind. I believe a man and woman were not intended to live together as we have—there was no fire, you see—we were just partners. The marriage link cannot be welded without fire. I wonder—do you understand what I mean?”
He nodded gravely.
“Wynne’s was all mental fire. The embers of his love for me have never glowed into a flame.” She laughed to smother a sob. “They are out—out altogether—dead and cold! At least it seems so. I have been like a book to him—an information bureau and debating society in one. Ever ready to supply the thoughts that were not self-revealing. And now I have been read from cover to cover, and it’s foolish, I suppose, to expect a place in the new library.”
“What a damnable story!” said Quiltan, with sudden fierceness. “I feel like—kicking him.”
“Don’t feel like that. Everybody has wanted to kick Wynne. It was the first thing which drew me toward him. And when you look at it all from his point of view, you can see.”
“You find excuses for him?”
“Easily.”
“How—how?”
“I love him.”
“Still?”
“Yes. And I’d go through just such another three years if I thought that he would love me at the end—gladly I would.”
“But suppose he never does love you! What then? How long can you last out like this? Don’t you want to live?”
“Oh, yes, I want to live.”
“Well then?”
“But all the folk who want to live can’t have their way. Perhaps I shall just go on wanting till even the want dies.”
“That’s unthinkable.”
“But very possible.”
She became suddenly aware of the intensity of his expression. The sinews of his close-shut hands showed white, and in his eyes burnt a strange fire. An odd fear seized her, and to cover her nervousness she quoted at random.
“Don’t you remember the Browning lines:
“ ‘Some with lives that came to nothing,
Some with deeds as well undone,
Death came tacitly and took them where they never see the sun.’ ”
He seized on the purport of a single line, and said:
“Isn’t the alternative better, perhaps, than this?”
“Death?” she queried.
“ ‘Some with deeds as well undone.’ ”
He spoke with a queer hoarseness.
For a moment she held his eyes steadily, then with quick colour turned away her head.
“I thought,” she said, “we were to be friends.”
“Haven’t you had enough of friendship?”
She had thought he would recover himself at the rebuke, but if anything his voice was more insistent.
“Haven’t you?” he repeated.
“There is no need for you to make love to me, Mr. Quiltan.”
“How do you know?” he retorted. “How can you possibly say that?”
She rose and moved some plates to the dresser.
“I suppose you were sorry for me, and thought that the kindest way to show it. You were wrong.”
His reply was unexpected:
“How can you possibly say I was wrong? You don’t know—you don’t know what may have happened to me since I came here. If I made you think I am a lover by trade I apologize—for it’s the last thing I would have you believe.”
She scarcely knew what to answer, but there was no need, for he started afresh:
“D’you know, I have never been in love with any one before. I have never even made love to any one; but, by God! I want to make love to you. The instant you opened the door I knew something had happened to me. I’m in love with you—do you understand?—absolutely.”
Despite the startled fear these crazy words awoke, Eve could not but feel a sudden impulse of warmth. In the midst of the passionless monotony of her life—at a time when her every thought was doubting if she possessed any one quality to endear—came this sudden avowal, backed by a sincerity that could not be misunderstood. The very surprise written on his face testified that he meant all he had said.
So they looked at each other with the greatest perplexity, and only the silliest, most conventional phrase found its way to Eve’s lips.
“I’m married,” she said. “You forget. You mustn’t speak so.”
“I deny your marriage, so why shouldn’t I speak as I feel? I must speak.”
“When I ask you not?”
His hands fell to his sides.
“Why do you ask me not? Is it nothing to hear of love, even though you may not need it? Oh, I—”
“Please.”
He took a step toward her, then turned sharply away. Presently he laughed:
“Ha! I said we’d be as honest as dreams are—and we have been. You know how dreams go—leaping from rock to rock—clearing all difficulties—you and the subject to the predestined end.”
“What is the predestined end?” said Curiosity.
“To make you happy.”
“Is that a part of love?”
“All of mine,” he said.
She stretched out her hand.
“Oh, you’re rather good. I’m glad you came, you have given me back what I had lost.”
“What?”
“You’ve given me hope.”
“I wish I could give you reality.”
“Hope is better, New Friend.”
“Until it dies.”
“It shan’t die,” said Eve, with a sudden fierceness.
“But if it should, would not reality help you to forget?”
“I don’t know.”
“How would you know if hope had died?”
“If—if he failed me altogether,” she slowly answered.
“I understand,” said Quiltan.