Some years back the old man had made the acquaintance of a Baron and Baroness de Rummel through the organisation of a musical festival in Manchester. The de Rummels collected about them at their London house a varied circle of smart, semi-artistic people. Sir Charles, first and last a simple business man, having only one point of contact with their world, enjoyed—perhaps a trifle guiltily—his excursions into so sophisticated a set, feeling, no doubt, that in some new way for him he was "seeing life." The men and women he met were ornamental and amusing, possessed expensive habits, spoke in thousands, and told you in the same breath that they hadn't a bean. Many might have been somewhat hazy as to antecedents, but all were well-provided with a certain stock-in-trade—personal charm. There were young men who composed music, others who designed everything from a lampshade to the décors of a ballet, young women who sang or danced, actresses who had not got on because managers would make love to them—or wouldn't, as the case might be. All types and many classes were represented, but a common object bound them together, namely, the hope that in the de Rummels' drawing-room they might chance upon a "backer," someone trusting enough to invest money in their enterprises.
In the winter of 1919, the particular star in this artistic zodiac was Thérèse Romain, dazzling chiefly on account of her ethereal beauty. She had a voice, which did not amount to much, and she had done a little acting on the stage and for the screen, but without conspicuous success. She had devoted years to war-work, and there were tears in her beautiful eyes when she spoke of her husband, killed in action. She refrained from mentioning the fact that when he fell he had been in the midst of divorce proceedings against her, nor was she explicit as to the nature of her war-work, though there were those, Roger among the number, who assumed that it must have paid pretty well. At any rate, the Baron took an interest in her referring to her as his ward—a sufficiently elastic term. Finding Sir Charles attracted, he took him aside and besought him to do something for Thérèse. Exactly what the Baron had in mind may have been shadowy; but what Sir Charles did was definite. He married her.
This action was as much a bombshell to the Baron as it was to the neighbours in Cheshire, perhaps even more than Thérèse herself had bargained for. It was a piece of amazing good fortune, but it entailed restrictions which soon grew tedious. Country life in the North Midlands proved a crushing bore. Tennis she cared little for once she had finished dressing for the part, and hunting she gave up after her third venture, when a fall strained a ligament in her back and laid her up for weeks. Altogether she loathed England and the English more every day. London she could have borne, but this life of the rural provinces spelled extinction, beginning with the climate and ending with the vicar for tea. At last she could not even be amused by the sensation she was causing, and, casting about for something to mitigate her boredom, she hit upon Roger as a possible distraction.
Roger, for his part, had seen trouble in the offing, though he was unprepared for it to take this form. He did not dislike the young woman, half French, half Belgian, with the qualities of both races, though secretly he thought his father a fool to have offered her marriage when something less permanent would have served the purpose. Still, for all his private convictions, he behaved to his stepmother with perfect courtesy, determined to make the best of things.
While Thérèse was recovering from her accident, Roger sat with her nearly every evening. His father went off to bed at ten o'clock, while Thérèse found herself with several hours on her hands. It was during this period that Roger became aware that his stepmother was using every means to make him fall in love with her. He tried to ignore the fact, he sought excuses to take him away, but this led to reproaches which made him still more uncomfortable. Beyond a certain point one cannot pretend denseness, and he was in an agony of dread lest his father would see what Thérèse was up to. She had begun kissing him good-night, and now more and more warmth crept into the embrace until he found himself trying to avoid it. He was no prig, and Thérèse was attractive, yet the distaste he felt for the situation neutralised her power to lure him. Moreover, she showed him a side which convinced him of what he had hitherto suspected—that Thérèse had all the instincts of a cocotte. Whether she actually was one or not was a matter of opportunity.
The climax came one night during an absence of his father in London. Thérèse deliberately came into his room when she knew he was in bed. It was a painful thing, and even after six years it embarrassed him to think of it. It was her bad taste that revolted him, the calm assumption that he was ready to enter light-heartedly into a liaison with his father's wife! He was filled with disgust. She had placed him in a position where whatever he did would be wrong; consequently he let his temper get the better of him and, taking her by the shoulders, put her out of the room. Naturally, she never forgave him.
Since that night he had seen little of her. He had moved into Manchester, on the excuse of being nearer the factory, while she, in turn, took to spending more and more time abroad. Three years ago his father had been persuaded to give up work and try the South of France for his health. That had made things easier.
"I'm afraid I shall have to turn you out now. We have to be strict."
He glanced up quickly, then jumped to his feet. The screen which guarded the door had kept him ignorant of the nurse's quiet entrance until she was beside him.
"Have I stayed too long?"