"I don't feel I've made you particularly happy to-night," said Eric, bending one arm into an angle for her head and throwing the other round her waist to hold her on to the sofa.
"I feel as if my spirit were almost clean again.… Will you come and see me sometimes, Eric?"
"If you'll go to bed instantly, after leaving a note on the mat to say that you're not to be called till you ring."
There was a touch of frost in the air, as Eric walked home; yet he went slowly, because he wanted to think. Jack was his best friend, and Barbara had behaved.… He could not abuse the girl even in thought, after trying to comfort her and saying that she started with a clean slate. But if any other girl had behaved like that … any girl who meant nothing to him. Even with Barbara he ought not to be so suavely forgiving at Jack's expense.… It was impossible to reconcile loyalty to both of them.
Before going to bed he wrote her a note, inviting her to lunch with him next day at Claridge's before she went back to Crawleigh Abbey; and, as soon as she was sure of his mood, Barbara released her invitations; the quietest possible party with Amy Loring (who was so anxious to meet him because he had known Jim), two days afterwards a dinner for two in Berkeley Square, followed by Mrs. O'Rane's house-warming, later still a decorous and rather dull dinner with Colonel Grayle.
"You might dine with me for a change," Eric suggested, as he drove her home at the end of the week. "I'll get my sister to come and keep you in countenance—she's never seen my flat—and I'll think of another man."
"I'd sooner dine with you alone, Eric," pleaded Barbara.
"On first principles I discourage young girls from visiting bachelors in their rooms. I was born in the 'eighties, and I don't seem to have caught up."
"There are restaurants," Barbara suggested. "It's quite fairly respectable to dine without a chaperon—since the war."
Eric turned and looked out of the window with a frown. He had not troubled to tell her that he had lately received a shock which threatened to make further meetings impossible. During a lull in the tumult at Mrs. O'Rane's party he had heard Lady Maitland's rumbling preparations for an introduction. "Eric Lane? My dear Raymond Stornaway, you mean to say you haven't heard of him? But he's the coming playwright. You've not seen that thing of his——? My memory's like a sieve.… You must go." It was very familiar, but, as the other voices fortuitously grew hushed, he heard a new pendant. "But you know her? Babs. Babs Neave. Barbara Neave. Now don't pretend you don't know Lady Barbara Neave! Every one tells me that they're desperately in love with each other. Of course Crawleigh wouldn't hear of it, but he doesn't know what to do. You know what the girl is! If you oppose her.… It's an absurd position. You must come along and meet them. And I'll arrange a little party. I think you'd be amused."