A dead silence—a silence in which Julian Romayne seemed to feel something pulling and straining at his heart-strings. Then with a reckless, desperate effort he tore himself away from its influence and spoke.
“It can’t be helped, then,” he said fiercely and defiantly. “You must go your own way until you come to your senses! Some day, perhaps, you’ll be grateful to me for refusing to make fools of us! I wouldn’t have believed it of you, Clemence! You make me almost sorry that I ever saw you. Now, look here; I’ve put it to you from every point of view; I’ve tried as hard as ever I can to make you understand, and if you won’t, you won’t! As to the money, of course, I can’t hear of your not taking that. I shall send you so much regularly every month—it won’t be very much either, but it’ll be enough to keep you—and, of course, you’ll have to spend it. But you need not be afraid that I shall want to see you again until you come to a more sensible frame of mind.”
He waited, but again there was no answer, and again some influence from her still presence discomfited him, and made him hurry on.
“I’m going now!” he said roughly. “Good-bye, Clemence!” He made a movement as though to go, without a tenderer farewell, but quite suddenly his heart failed him. He turned again and took her into his arms impulsively and tenderly. “Clemmie!” he said brokenly. “I say—Clemmie!”
Her arms were round his neck pressing him closely and more closely, with a desperate, agonised pressure, and a long, clinging kiss was on his cheek.
“Don’t keep me waiting long,” she whispered hoarsely. “You will do it at last. I know, I know you will. But—don’t keep me waiting long!”
She released him and drew herself gently out of his arms, and Julian turned and stumbled out of the room and down the stairs, the most consciously contemptible young man in London, and with no strength to act upon his consciousness.
CHAPTER X
“You admire it, Mrs. Romayne? It strikes you as true? Ah, but that is very charming of you!”
A confused babel of voices—that curious, indefinable sound which is shrill, though its shrillness would be most difficult to trace; harsh, though it arises from the voices of well-bred men and women; and absolutely unmeaning—was filling the two rooms from end to end; and the soft light diffused by cleverly arranged lamps fell upon groups of smartly dressed women and men equally correct in their attire on male lines. It was about five o’clock, not a pleasant time on a gusty, sleety November afternoon if Nature is allowed to have her own way; but inside these rooms it was impossible to do anything but ignore nature; the air was so soft and warm—faintly scented, too, with flowers—and the colour so rich and delicate. The rooms themselves were a curious hybrid between the fashionable and the artistic; that is to say, they were not arranged according to any conventional tenets, and there were various really beautiful hangings, “bits” of old brass, “bits” of old oak, and “bits” of old china about. But all these, though very cleverly arranged, were distinctly “posed.” The larger of the two rooms was obviously a studio; rather too obviously, perhaps, since the fact was impressed by a certain superabundance of artistic prettinesses. Charming little arrangements in hangings, palms, or what not, “composed” at every turn with the constantly shifting groups. The unconventionalism, in short, was as carefully arranged as was the attitude of the host of the hour as he stood leaning against a large easel, mysteriously curtained, talking to Mrs. Romayne. He was a painter, and a clever painter; he had married a clever wife, and as a result of the working of their respective brains towards the same goal he had become the fashion. “Everybody” went to “the Stormont-Eades’ affairs,” whether the affair in question was a little dinner, a little “evening,” or a little tea-party—Mrs. Stormont-Eade always affixed the diminutive; consequently everybody was obliged to go; a fact which if carefully thought out, will lead to some rather curious conclusions. And the little tea-parties, particularly in the winter, were considered particularly desirable functions. One of these tea-parties was going on now.