CHAPTER XIX 'NO MORE THAN A GLIMMER'
Forty-eight hours had passed since Peggy Ryle fled from Danes Inn. How they had gone Airey Newton could scarcely tell; as he looked back, they seemed to hold little except the ever-reiterated cry, 'The shame of it—you're rich!' But still the contents of the safe were intact, and no entries had been cancelled in the red-leather book. A dozen times he had taken the book, looked through it, and thrown it from him again. A clash of passions filled him; the old life he had chosen, with its strange, strong, secret delight and its sense of hidden power, fought against the new suggestion. It was no longer of much moment to him that Peggy knew or that it was Peggy's voice which had cried out the bitter reproach. These things now seemed accidental. Peggy or another—it mattered little.
Yet he had sent for Tommy Trent, and reproached him; he was eager to reproach anybody besides himself.
'I told nobody,' protested Tommy, in indignant surprise. Then the thought flashed on him. 'Was it Peggy?' he asked incredulously. Airey's nod started all the story. His view was what Peggy had foreseen; he found no arguments to weigh against that breaking of her word which had made him seem a traitor in the eyes of his friend.
'A woman setting the world right is the most unscrupulous thing in the world,' he declared angrily. 'You believe I never meant to break faith, old fellow? I shall have it out with her, you may be sure.' He paused and then added, 'I can't believe she'll let it go any further, you know.'
To that also Airey seemed more than half-indifferent now; the old furtive solicitude for his secret, the old shame lest it should escape, seemed to be leaving him, or at least to be losing half their force, in face of some greater thing in his mind. He had himself to deal with now—what he was, not what was said or thought of him. But he did not intercede with Tommy's sternness against Peggy; he let it pass.
'I don't blame you. It's done now. You'd better leave me alone,' he said.
Tommy went and sought Peggy with wrath in his heart; but for all these two days she was obstinately invisible. She was not to be found in Harriet Street, and none of her circle had seen her. It may be surmised that she wandered desolately through fashionable gatherings and haunts of amusement, slinking home late at night. It is certain that she did not wish to meet Tommy Trent, that she would not for the world have encountered Airey Newton. There seemed to be gunpowder in the air of all familiar places; in the reaction of fear after her desperate venture Peggy withdrew herself to the safety of the unknown.