He wins her as she would be won. There is no diffidence, no hesitation in his wooing. They lunch together; there is no word of love between them. He talks of himself and not of her; of the men he has known, the places he has visited, of his early days in politics; his first campaign, that reversal of a two-thousand vote majority. He mentions casually as men of his acquaintance the great men of the hour. And, as he talks, the spell of his domination is falling over her. She does not analyse the sensation, does not ask herself whether or not she is in love with him. But she knows that here is a man to whom she could trust herself, in whose arms she would find surely, and to its full, the relief of self-surrender.
Two days later they dine together. It is the first time she has ever been to the Savoy. She is thrilled and frightened by the glare of lights, and is measurably grateful for the guiding hand at her elbow. In this new atmosphere of luxury and display she feels more than ever the need of his experience. She notices with pride and pleasure the assurance with which he follows the bowing waiter to their table at the far end of the room, and he does not embarrass her by handing her a menu and asking her what she will choose. He decides what they shall have. “A savoury dinner, I think,” he says, “caviare; turtle soup and truite au bleu and a pheasant, and perhaps—yes, I think we’ll have an anchovy savoury to finish up with. And a bottle of that 103.” Ninety seconds and it is over. It is she this time who does the talking. She is happy and excited, and she tells him of her ambitions, of her hopes to get an engagement in a touring company. “It won’t be much fun,” she said, “but I shall get to know people and I shall get experience.” He smiles. “We must see what we can do for you,” he says.
They dance afterwards, and she finds, as she had expected, that he dances well, if conventionally, following closely the pattern of the music. She is lulled by the rhythm of the dance, upheld by the pressure of his hand upon her shoulder. She misses her step once, and his toe strikes against her instep. He apologises, but in a tone that reminds her that the fault is hers, not his. And for the first time in her life she is content to be corrected. He makes no avowal of love to her as they drive home in the taxi, but just before the car slows down before her door his hand closes firmly over hers. “Wednesday, then, at one o’clock,” he says. She nods her head, weak, happy and submissive.
There is never any talk of marriage. He has his political career. There are his daughters. For their sake he must keep his name free of scandal. And even if he were free it is doubtful if she would want to marry him. Over thirty years between them. She will not want to spend some of the best years of her life nursing an old man. But she is content that as long as their love lasts he should give her his protection. For a while they are wonderfully happy. In his arms and against his lips she comes into the rich kingdom of her womanhood. Through her he wins back to the lost countries of his youth.
They are happy days. He takes her to restaurants of which she only knows the name, places over which her imagination has spread the high colour of romance. They go to theatres and dances and music-halls, and they know always there is waiting for them the little flat that he has furnished for her so prettily, and where their love makes the hours pass on such swiftly sandalled feet.
She abandons naturally her scheme of joining a touring company. For a few months, indeed, she forgets her ambition in her happiness, and by the time she has begun again to feel the lure of grease-paint and the footlights, the influence and affluence of her protector has found her a leading part in a forthcoming West-end production. Marvellously grateful she is, marvellously happy. The days of excitement as the first night draws near are almost more than she can bear, and it means much to her to have at such a time a strong arm about her shoulders, and in her ears the sound of a firm voice.
She need, though, have had no fears of failure. It is a good play, and she has talent. But it is at the very moment of her triumph that her lover is, for the first time, frightened. He stands in the shadow of the box and watches her in the front of the stage bending, over a bank of bouquets, to an audience hoarse with shouting. He sees suddenly into the heart of their relationship. He sees her a young woman at the start of her career—fresh, radiant, intoxicated with the sensation of a first success. And he is an ageing man, with the best of life behind him. How can he hope to keep her? She will find herself now the centre of a circle of brilliant and charming persons. She will be invited to houses where, for his good name’s sake, he can hardly accompany her. Now that she is a public figure he must be careful of her reputation and of his. He will not be able to go about with her so much. She will make her own friends. She will forget him. He will have been a stepping-stone in her life; nothing more.
For him there is in their love-making no longer a solid, satisfying comfort, only an occasional moment in which he may forget. Life catches her up. She has luncheon engagements and week-end parties. And, as soon as the curtain falls, she is being rushed away to dances at Murray’s or at Ciro’s. The names of her new friends, Christian names for the most part, trip from her tongue at every turn of her conversation. He knows none of them; they are strangers to him. And he realises that now she has found her feet in the world he has lost his hold over her. She needs his help no longer. He cannot exert the dominating influence of experience and success. Probably she has begun to think of him already as an old man.
Is she still faithful to him, he wonders. He knows what are the morals of the green-room—one intrigue after another. “And the people concerned,” he reminds himself, “are always the very last to hear anything.” He makes enquiries furtively about her especial friends. He finds himself listening in his club to the tedious reminiscences of obsolete tragedians. He asks chance acquaintances in the train whether they have ever heard of her. “That’s a wonderful discovery,” he says, “that new star at the Adelphi.” And he waits anxiously, in case the stranger may have some scandal to tell of her. He sees very little of her now. “But you cannot think how one thing comes on the top of another,” she explains. “All these people; its business half of it, and I am so happy. And you want me to be happy, don’t you, darling?” And every day he grows more jealous; every day the strain grows greater. Night after night she is supping and dancing, at other people’s expense; and in this world people don’t give anything for nothing, especially that type of person. There are times when he thinks he would give anything to be certain, to know one way or another. But there are others when he knows that that knowledge is the one thing which he would avoid. He is almost certain that there is something between her and that young barrister he saw her dining with last Sunday at the Berkeley. But he dare not make sure. He dare not be forced to break with her.
For he knows that if he once broke with her he would have to say good-bye to love for ever. He knows that he has not the faith, nor the strength, to begin again. He has lived ten years in the last eighteen months, and ten years bring him very close to the prescribed limits of a life’s endurance. He can no longer say, as he could in the early forties, what is one love affair, is not the world companionably full of freehearted ladies? This is the last time, the very last. He has not the courage to say good-bye to pleasure.