CHAPTER XVII
| "Aye, thought and brain were there, some kind Of faculty that men mistake For talent, when their wits are blind,— An aptitude to mar and break What others diligently make." |
A. L. Gordon.
Impulse had always been a guiding factor in Robert Landon's life. If he saw a thing and wanted it, impulse would prompt him to reach out his hand and snatch it; if the thing were beyond his reach, he would climb—if necessary—over the heart of his best friend to obtain it; should it prove of very fragile substance and break in his hands, he would throw it away, but its loss, or the possible harm he had inflicted in his efforts to obtain it, brought no regrets. He made love deliriously, on fire himself for the moment, but never once had he so far forgot himself as to come from the flame in any way singed. Many tragedies lay behind the man, for impulse is hardly a safe guide through life; but he himself was essentially too level-headed, too selfish, to be the one who suffered.
He had spoken and danced and made love to Joan on an impulse. Beyond that, he set himself down seriously and painstakingly to win her. Most women, he knew, like to be carried forward on the wings of a swift-rushing desire, but there was some strange force of reserve behind this girl's constant disregard of his real meaning in the game they played. She was willing, almost anxious to be friends; it did not take him long to find out how lonely and dreary had been the life she was leading. She went out with him daily; it became a recognized thing for him to fetch her in his small car every evening at office. Sometimes they would dine together at one of the many little French restaurants in Soho, and go to a theatre afterwards; sometimes they would just drive about the crowded lighted streets, or slip into the Park for a stroll, leaving the car in charge of some urchin for a couple of pennies. Since he was out on the trail, as his friends would have said, every other interest in his life was given up to his impulse to beat down this girl's reserve, but all his attempts at passionate love-making left her unresponsive. She would draw back, as it were, into her shell, and for days she would avoid meeting him. Going out some back way at the office and never being at home when he called at Montague Square. Then he would write little notes to her and bribe the office-boy to deliver them, begging her pardon most humbly—he played his cards, it may be noticed, very seriously—imploring her to be friends again. And Joan would forgive him and for a little they would be the best of companions.
But through it all, and though she shut her eyes more or less to the trend of events, Joan's mind refused to be satisfied. She was restless and at times unhappy; she had her hours of wondering where it would all end, her spells of imagination when she saw Landon asking her to marry him. When she thought about it at all it always ended like that, for she could not blind her eyes to the fact of the man's love for her. Then she would shun his society, and endeavour to build up a wall of reserve between them, for it was her answer to his question that she could not bring herself to face.
It was on one of these occasions that she made up her mind definitely to break with him altogether. She wrote him a short note, saying that she was going to be dreadfully busy at office and that as she had another girl coming to stay with her—both statements equally untrue—she was afraid it would be no use his calling to fetch her.
Landon accepted this attitude in silence, though one may believe it did something to fan the flame of his passion, and for ten whole days he left her entirely alone. Then he wrote.
Joan found the letter waiting for her on the hall table when she came home one evening after a peculiarly dull and colourless day. It had been delivered by hand and was addressed simply to "Pierrette, In the Attic." Mrs. Carew must have been a little surprised at such a designation. Joan took it upstairs to read, lingering over the opening of it with a pleasurable thrill. The days had been very grey lacking his companionship.
"Dear Pierrette," Landon had written, "is our romance finished, and why? The only thing I have left to comfort me is a crushed red rose. You wore it the first evening we ever met. Pierrette, you are forgetting that it is summer. How can you wake each morning to blue skies and be conventional? Summer is nearly over, and you do not know what you are missing. Come out and play with me, Pierrette; I will not kiss even your hands if you object. I can take you down next Sunday to a garden that I know of on the river, and you shall pick red roses. Will you not come, Pierrette?"