"I'm ready to learn my lesson," he assured her, with a challenging gleam in his eye.
She nodded rather scornfully, but accepting his challenge. There was a last bit of by-play between their eyes.
"It's really time to go, if Mr. Wellgood has finished his game," said Isobel, rising.
The insinuation of the words, the by-play of the eyes, had passed over Vivien's head and outside the limits of Andy's perspicacity. To both of them the bandying of words was but chaff; by both the exchange of glances went unmarked. Well, the whole thing was no more than chaff to Harry himself; such chaff as he was very good at, a practised hand—and not ignorant of why the chaff was pleasant. And Isobel? Oh yes, she knew! Harry was amused to find this knowledge in Vivien's companion—this provocation, this freemasonry of flirtation. Poor old Andy had, of course, seen none of it! Well, perhaps it needed a bit of experience—besides the temperament.
Indoors, farewell was soon said—hours ruled early at Meriton. Soon said, yet not without some significance in the saying. Mrs. Belfield was openly affectionate to Vivien, and Belfield paternal in a courtly way; Harry very devoted to the same young lady, yet with a challenging "aside" of his eyes for Isobel; Andy brimming over with a vain effort to express adequately but without gush his thanks for the evening. Belfield, being two pounds the better of Wellgood over their bezique, was in more than his usual good-temper—it was spiced with malice, for the defeat of Wellgood (a bad loser) counted for more than the forty shillings—and gave Andy his hand and a pat on the back.
"It's not often one has to tell a man not to undervalue himself," he remarked. "But I fancy I might say that to you. Well, I'm no prophet; but at any rate be sure you're always welcome at this house for your own sake, as well as for Harry's."
Getting into the carriage with Isobel and her father, Vivien felt like going back to school. But in all likelihood she would see Harry's eyes again to-morrow. She did not forget to give a kindly glance to solid Andy Hayes—not exciting, nor bewildering, nor inflaming (as another was!), but somehow comforting and reassuring to think of. She sat down on the narrow seat, fronting her father and Isobel. Yes—but school wouldn't last much longer! And after school? Ineffable heaven! Being with Harry, loving Harry, being loved by—? That vaulting imagination seemed still almost—nay, it seemed quite—impossible. Yet if your own eyes assure you of things impossible—well, there's a good case for believing your eyes, and the belief is pleasant. Wellgood sore over his two pounds, Isobel dissatisfied with fate but challenging it, sat silent. The young girl's lips curved in sweet memories and triumphant anticipations. The best thing in the world—was it actually to be hers? Almost she knew it, though she would not own to the knowledge yet.
Happy was she in the handkerchief flung by her hero! Happy was Harry Belfield in the ready devotion, the innocent happy surrender, of one girl, and the vexed challenge of another whom he had—whom he had at least meant to ignore; he could never answer for it that he would quite ignore a woman who displayed such a challenge in the lists of sex. But there was a happier being still among those who left Halton that night. It was Andy Hayes, before whom life had opened so, who had enjoyed such a wonderful day-off, who had been told not to undervalue himself, had been reproached with being a day after the fair, had undergone (as it seemed) an initiation into a life of which he had hardly dreamt, yet of which he appeared, in that one summer's day, to have been accepted as a part.
Yes, Andy was on the whole the happiest—happier even than Harry, to whom content, triumph, and challenge were all too habitual; happier even than Vivien, who had still some schooling to endure, still some of love's finicking doubts, some of hope's artificially prudent incredulity, to overcome; beyond doubt happier than Wellgood, who had lost two pounds, or Isobel Vintry, who had challenged and had been told that her challenge should be taken up—some day! Mrs. Belfield was intent on sleeping well, as she always did; Mr. Belfield on not coughing too much—as he generally did. They were not competitors in happiness.
Andy walked home. Halton lay half a mile outside the town; his lodgings were at the far end of High Street. All through the long, broad, familiar street—in old days he had known who lived in well-nigh every house—his road lay. He walked home under the stars. The day had been wonderful; they who had figured in it peopled his brain—delicate dainty Vivien first; with her, brilliant Harry; that puzzling Miss Vintry; Mr. Belfield, who talked so whimsically and had told him not to undervalue himself; Wellgood, grim, hard, merciless, yet somehow with the stamp of a man about him; Mrs. Belfield serenely matching with her house, her Vandykes, her garden, and the situation to which it had pleased Heaven to call her. Soberly now—soberly now—had he ever expected to be a part of all this?