Mrs. Maradick pricked her finger and stopped the blood with her handkerchief. Both ladies were silent. The last rays of the sun as it left the corner of the lawn fell in a golden shower upon the sweet-peas.
Mrs. Lawrence could be heard counting her stitches.
Meanwhile Mrs. Lester’s smile had had its effect upon Maradick. He had waited, tortured, for the smile to come, but now it was all right. They were still friends. He could not see it any farther than that. After all, why should he trouble to look at it any more deeply? They were friends. He would be able to talk to her again; he would see her smile again. If she did not want him to behave like that, if she did not want him to hold her hand, he was ready to obey in anything. But they were still friends. She was not angry with him.
His depression took wings and fled. He put his arm on Tony’s shoulder as they went down the stairs. “Well, old chap,” he said, “I’m off to see Morelli now. You can bet that it will be all right. Things looked a bit funny last night. They always do when one’s tired and it’s dark. Last night, you see, you imagined things.”
But Tony looked up at him quietly with grave eyes.
“No,” he said, “there was nothing to imagine. It was just as I told you. Nothing happened. But I know now that there’s something in what the chaps in the town said. I believe in devils now. But my God, Maradick”—he clutched the other’s arm—“Janet’s down there. It isn’t for myself I care. He can do what he likes to me. But it’s her, we must get her away or there’s no knowing. . . . I didn’t sleep a wink last night, thinking what he might be doing to her. He may carry her away somewhere, where one can’t get at her; or he may do—God knows. But that’s what he said last night, just that! that she wasn’t for me or for anyone, that she was never for anyone—that he would keep her.” Tony broke off.
“I’m silly with it all, I think,” he said, “it’s swung me off my balance a bit. One can’t think; but it would be the most enormous help if you’d go and see. It’s the uncertainty that’s so awful. If I could just know that it’s all right . . . and meanwhile I’m thinking out plans. It’s all got to happen jolly soon now. I’ll talk when you come back. It’s most awfully decent of you. . . .”
Maradick left him pacing the paths with his head down and his hands clenched behind his back.
He found Morelli sitting quietly with Janet and Miss Minns in the garden. They had had tea out there, and the tea-things glittered and sparkled in the sun. It would have been difficult to imagine anything more peaceful. The high dark red brick of the garden walls gave soft velvet shadows to the lawn; the huge tree in the corner flung a vast shade over the beds and paths; rooks swung slowly above their heads through the blue spacious silence of the summer evening; the air was heavy with the scent of the flowers.
Morelli came forward and greeted Maradick almost eagerly. “What! Have you had tea? Sure! We can easily have some more made, you know. Come and sit down. Have a cigar—a pipe? Right. I wondered when you were going to honour us again. But we had young Gale in yesterday evening for quite a long time.”