"Oh, it's not late. But I'm imposing on good nature, trying to keep you merely to talk to me. Fact is, I seldom come across people that I care to talk to." He held his watch open under a lamp. "Later than I thought, though—late for you to be about alone, as you say, Miss Liddon. You don't mind my seeing you home, do you?"
She thanked him, and they walked to the tram together, without saying anything except that they thought rain was at hand; and the tram set her down almost at the door of her lodgings, where Mrs. Liddon and Sarah awaited her on the doorstep—Sarah in an ecstasy of secret joy at the apparent success of her manœuvres.
Jenny never went alone to the pier after that night, and her admirer sought for another happy hour in vain. On the two occasions that he went to St. Kilda in the hope of a meeting, she had her family with her, and not all Sarah's artifices could disintegrate the party. Jenny loved him more distractedly than ever, but, having no assurance that he loved her in the right way, or loved her at all, she knew what her duty was. And she had the resolution to act accordingly, though it was a hard task. He had scruples about going to the tea-room by himself, after what Mary had said to him; and he found it no fun to go with her, or other ladies. Then the rush of the races set in. Mr. Oxenham and other guests arrived from the country; horses had to be inspected; betting business became brisk and absorbing; lunches, garden parties, dinners, balls, crowded upon one another in a way to carry a society man and bachelor off his feet. In short, for a few weeks Mr. Anthony Churchill almost forgot the tea-room. Almost—not quite. The portfolio of photographs arrived by the carrier (and the formal note of thanks for it was preserved, and is extant to this day); flowers for Sarah came from Paton's, at short intervals, with all the air of having been specially selected; Joey swaggered into the new sitting-room with news of his rise to £200 a year, imagining it to be the reward of transcendent merit. But poor little Jenny, harried with great crushes of tea-drinkers, worn with fatigue and heat and bad air and a restless mind, ready to go into hysterics at a touch, but for the fact that there was no time for such frivolities, sighed for the refreshment of her beloved's voice and face in vain. Day after day, week after week, she watched for his return, and he came not. She concluded that her effort to do her duty had been successful, and—though she would have done the same again, if necessary—she was heart-broken at the thought.
To tell the honest truth, as a faithful chronicler should do, our hero very nearly did abandon her at this juncture. When love, even the very best of love, is in its early stages, it is easily nipped by little accidents, like other young things. It wants time to toughen the tender sprout, and develop its growth and strength until it can defy vicissitudes; nothing but time will do it, let poets and novelists say what they like to the contrary. And so Anthony, not having been in love with Jenny Liddon for more than a few days (and having been many times in love), was seduced by the charms of the stable and the betting-ring and the good company in which he found himself, when deprived by circumstances of the higher pleasure of her society. More than that, her image was temporarily superseded by that of a beautiful and brilliant London woman who was on a visit to Government House, and whom in this time of festivity he was constantly meeting. She was a lady of title and high connections, and she singled him out for special favour because he was big and handsome, travel-polished and proper-mannered, and altogether good style as an attendant cavalier. His family (barring his stepmother), proudly aware of the mutual attraction, and pleased to hear it joked of and commented on amongst their friends, formed the confident expectation that a marriage would result, whereby their Tony would have a wife and a position of a dignity commensurate with his own surpassing worth.
CHAPTER XI
NATURE SPEAKS
At the end of the gay season, when races were over, and multitudinous parties had become a weariness to the flesh, a few people of the highest fashion went on a yachting cruise, to recruit their strength after all they had gone through. Of these Tony was one, and Lady Louisa, whom he was expected to bring back as his affianced bride (she was a widow of thirty-five), was another; and Maude Churchill (without her husband, and bent on circumventing Lady Louisa) was a third. They were got up elaborately in blue serge and white flannel and gold buttons, and the smartest of straw hats and knotted neckties, and they set off on a hot morning of late November, when the breeze was fair.
Mary Oxenham saw them start. She had refused to accompany them, partly because she felt she was too quiet for such a party, and partly because she wanted to return to her own household and children, whom she seldom left for so long. As she bade the voyagers good-bye she said to her brother, "What are you going to do at Christmas, Tony?"
"Stay with us—in his own father's house—of course," Mrs. Churchill interposed promptly. "You can come down, Mary."