Wynyard had been in the present situation for six weeks, and, although the pay was good and punctual, he found the life wearing. He never knew what it was to have a day off—or any time to himself; other employés had Sundays—Sunday to him was the heaviest day in the whole week. Tottie, besides her professional engagements, appeared to live in an irregular round of luncheons, suppers, bridge, and balls—of a certain class. She was madly extravagant, and seemed to take a peculiar delight in throwing away her money. The sallow-cheeked parlour-maid, who had a fancy for Wynyard, and generally contrived to have a word with him when she came downstairs with cloaks or shoes—informed him in confidence that “the missus was a-goin’ it!”
“But what can you expect?” she asked, with her nose in the air. “Her mother kept a tripe shop; she ain’t no class! Of course the money’s good as long as it’s there; but I don’t fancy these sort of fast situations. Give me gentry.”
“But Mrs. Foote’s all right,” protested Wynyard; “it’s her friends that are such a queer lot—and, I’m afraid, they cheat her.”
“You bet they do! And as to her being all right—I should say she was all wrong, if you ask me. She’s no more Mrs. Cavendish Foote than I am; she was divorced three years ago. Cavendish Foote—he was a young fool on the Stock Exchange; she broke him, and now he’s gone to America.”
An exceedingly unpleasant idea had lately been born in Owen’s mind; it was this—that his employer had taken a fancy to him. She leant with unnecessary weight on his arm when she stepped in and out of the motor; summoned him to her sitting-room on various pretexts to give him notes; offered cigarettes, talked to him confidentially, and begged him “to look upon her as a friend.”
“I like you, Owen, I swear I do, and I’d do a lot for you, so I would too—and don’t you make any mistake about that!”
Wynyard found this state of affairs extremely embarrassing—especially when they went for trips into the country alone, and, wrapped up in furs, she would come and sit beside him, and tell him of all her successes; stop at inns, order lunch, and invite him to share the meal, and drink champagne! But this he steadily declined. The cooler and more reserved he was, naturally the more empressé she became; and one of her pals, in his hearing, had loudly chaffed her on being “mashed on her chauffeur.”
Once or twice, she found some one to mind the car, and gave him a ticket for the theatre, in order that he might witness her performance. Tottie really was marvellous; it was no wonder that she was earning two hundred pounds a week! Her dancing, her agility, her vivacity, and her impudence, enraptured each nightly audience. There was something in her gaiety and her unstudied animation that reminded him of Aurea Morven; yet to think of the two in the same moment was neither more or less than profanation—the one was a sort of irresponsible imp, whilst the other resembled a beautiful and benevolent fairy.
It was early in December, Tottie had run over to Paris with Mr. Cloake and suitable pals, and Wynyard had got his neck out of the collar for a few days. In fact, he had insisted on a holiday, and treated himself to a dinner at his club. Here he met some old friends—that is to say, young men of his own age, who had been at Eton, or in the Service with him. He always looked well turned out, and none of them ever thought of asking “What are you doing now?” except a schoolfellow, who said—
“I say, old man, we don’t often see you here! What’s your job? I know the uncle has cut up rusty, and that you are on your own. Fellows say that you are down in some big steel works at Sheffield, and they have seen you out with the hounds.”