The truth was that Mr. Priestley had suddenly given way to his overwrought nerves. He had a perfectly sound reason for wanting to get himself and his cuff-mate securely alone inside that bedroom, but when he heard himself being called a cad, before he had even had time to explain (if explanation were needed) that his intentions were strictly honourable, the words had simply frozen on his lips. The mildest of men will show signs of unrest on hearing the word “cad” directed at themselves from the lips of a pretty girl, and Mr. Priestley, as he had already proved to his own surprise, was apparently not the mildest of men. His subsequent outburst, the cumulative result of desperate anxiety manfully suppressed and blank horror, simply followed.
Before they had preceded the landlady into the charming pink-and-white bedroom, on whose hearth a fire was already miraculously burning, sanity had returned and he was mildly penitent for the freedom of his speech. Not very penitent, however, for the sooner some one told this obnoxious young woman a few home-truths, the better for the world in general.
Affectionately hand-in-hand they stood, while the landlady rapidly praised her room and apologised for it in the same breath, and, intent on their respective thoughts, heard not a single word. Mr. Priestley was now far too anxious regarding the outcome of the next few minutes to feel more than a passing embarrassment concerning that outcome’s setting; while as for Laura, that humorous young woman was still wondering in a dazed sort of way exactly what unpleasant consequences this ridiculous joke was going to bring upon her, and how on earth she was going to avoid at any rate the worst of them.
It had struck her with some force that to tell the truth now, as a last desperate resource, was simply to invite ridicule. The truth, in fact, sounded thinner than the thinnest story she could possibly invent—far less plausible than the one she had so proudly originated in the tube train about twelve years ago. Mr. Priestley would only take it as yet another of her endless subterfuges and hypocrisies, and no doubt wax correspondingly drastic. It was a singularly chastened young woman who clasped her companion’s hand with mechanical fingers and turned a dull ear to the stream of the little landlady’s volubility.
“I think you’ll find the bed comfortable, mum,” the little landlady was now saying. “Not but what it mightn’t be newer than it is, but——”
“Thank you, I’m sure we shall find it comfortable,” put in Mr. Priestley, whose one anxiety was to get the landlady out of the room and the door locked behind her.
Laura started nervously. Had she been mistaken, or was there a ring of grim triumph in Mr. Priestley’s voice? For about the first time in her life Laura began to feel seriously frightened.
With growing alarm she found her right wrist twisted round to the small of her back as Mr. Priestley put his arm about her waist and drew her towards him. She flinched, but the pressure was inexorable. Her knees feeling unpleasantly wobbly, she allowed herself to be pressed affectionately to Mr. Priestley’s side. As a matter of strict fact, all that Mr. Priestley wanted to do was to consolidate their joint front in order to advance upon the landlady in phalanx-formation and force her out of the room; but Laura did not know that. It was occurring to Laura very vividly that really one simply didn’t know where one was with men; the Girls’ Friendly Societies must be right after all; and she had thought Mr. Priestley of all men could be trusted.
By sheer weight of numbers Mr. Priestley succeeded in driving the landlady to the door. The landlady did not wish to go at all. Beside her natural desire to give her tongue a little trot after having had nobody to exercise it for her since four o’clock that afternoon, except Annie (who didn’t count one way or the other), she was much enjoying the spectacle of this nice couple, so unaffectedly lover-like even in her presence. Why, they never left go of one another for a single instant! It was a sight for sore eyes, that it was.
Still, when two persons relentlessly advance upon a narrow doorway, the third, and smallest, member of the trio must give way. “Well, if you’ll put your things outside the door in a few minutes,” she smilingly covered her retreat, “I’ll see they’re nice and dry for you in the morning. And I’m sorry about you not having no luggage with you, but I hope you’ll manage with what I’ve put out on the bed. Good-night, then, mum; good-night, sir.”