The Paying Guest

‘Yes, but—Mr. Mumford, I want to stay longer—a few weeks longer. Do you think Mrs. Mumford would forgive me? I have made up my mind what to do, and I ought to have told her. I should have, if I hadn’t lost my temper.’

‘Well,’ replied the other, in grave embarrassment, but feeling that he had no alternative, ‘let us go to the house—’

‘Oh! I couldn’t. I shouldn’t like anyone to know that I spoke to you about it. It wouldn’t be nice, would it? I thought if I came later, after dinner. And perhaps you could talk to Mrs. Mumford, and—and prepare her. I mean, perhaps you wouldn’t mind saying you were sorry I had gone so suddenly. And then perhaps Mrs. Mumford—she’s so kind—would say that she was sorry too. And then I might come into the garden and find you both sitting there —’

Mumford, despite his most uneasy frame of mind, betrayed a passing amusement. He looked into the girl’s face and saw its prettiness flush with pretty confusion, and this did not tend to restore his tranquillity.

‘What shall you do in the meantime?’

‘Oh! go into the town and have something to eat, and then walk about.’

‘You must be dreadfully tired already.’

‘Just a little; but I don’t mind. It serves me right. I shall be so grateful to you, Mr. Mumford. If you won’t let me come, I suppose I must go to London and ask one of my friends to take me in.’

‘I will arrange it. Come about half-past eight. We shall be in the garden by then.’

Avoiding her look, he moved away and ran up the stairs. But from the exit of the station he walked slowly, in part to calm himself, to assume his ordinary appearance, and in part to think over the comedy he was going to play.

Emmeline met him at the door, herself too much flurried to notice anything peculiar in her husband’s aspect. She repeated the story with which he was already acquainted.

‘And really, after all, I am so glad!’ was her conclusion. ‘I didn’t think she had really gone; all the afternoon I’ve been expecting to see her back again. But she won’t come now, and it is a good thing to have done with the wretched business. I only hope she will tell the truth to her people. She might say that we turned her out of the house. But I don’t think so; in spite of all her faults, she never seemed deceitful or malicious.’

Mumford was strongly tempted to reveal what had happened at the station, but he saw danger alike in disclosure and in reticence.

When there enters the slightest possibility of jealousy, a man can never be sure that his wife will act as a rational being. He feared to tell the simple truth lest Emmeline should not believe his innocence of previous plotting with Miss Derrick, or at all events should be irritated by the circumstances into refusing Louise a lodging for the night. And with no less apprehension he decided at length to keep the secret, which might so easily become known hereafter, and would then have such disagreeable consequences.

‘Well, let us have dinner, Emmy; I’m hungry. Yes, it’s a good thing she has gone; but I wish it hadn’t happened in that way. What a spitfire she is!’

‘I never, never saw the like. And if you had heard Mrs. Higgins! Oh, what dreadful people! Clarence, hear me register a vow—’

‘It was my fault, dear. I’m awfully sorry I got you in for such horrors. It was wholly and entirely my fault.’

By due insistence on this, Mumford of course put his wife into an excellent humour, and, after they had dined, she returned to her regret that the girl should have gone so suddenly. Clarence, declaring that he would allow himself a cigar, instead of the usual pipe, to celebrate the restoration of domestic peace, soon led Emmeline into the garden.

‘Heavens! how hot it has been. Eighty-five in our office at noon—eighty-five! Fellows are discarding waistcoats and wearing what they call a cummerbund—silk sash round the waist. I think I must follow the fashion. How should I look, do you think?’

‘You don’t really mind that we lose the money?’ Emmeline asked presently.

‘Pooh! We shall do well enough.—Who’s that?’

Someone was entering the garden by the side path. And in a moment there remained no doubt who the person was. Louise came forward, her head bent, her features eloquent of fatigue and distress.

‘Mrs. Mumford—I couldn’t—without asking you to forgive me—’

Her voice broke with a sob. She stood in a humble attitude, and Emmeline, though pierced with vexation, had no choice but to hold out a welcoming hand.

‘Have you come all the way back from London just to say this?’

‘I haven’t been to London. I’ve walked about—all day—and oh, I’m so tired and miserable! Will you let me stay, just for to-night? I shall be so grateful.’

‘Of course you may stay, Miss Derrick. It was very far from my wish to see you go off at a moment’s notice. But I really couldn’t stop you.’

Mumford had stepped aside, out of hearing. He forgot his private embarrassment in speculation as to the young woman’s character. That she was acting distress and penitence he could hardly believe; indeed, there was no necessity to accuse her of dishonest behaviour. The trivial concealment between him and her amounted to nothing, did not alter the facts of the situation. But what could be at the root of her seemingly so foolish existence? Emmeline held to the view that she was in love with the man Cobb, though perhaps unwilling to admit it, even in her own silly mind. It might be so, and, if so, it made her more interesting; for one was tempted to think that Louise had not the power of loving at all. Yet, for his own part, he couldn’t help liking her; the eyes at had looked into his at the station haunted him a little, and would not let him think of her contemptuously. But what a woman to make ones wife! Unless—unless—

Louise had gone into the house. Emmeline approached her husband.

‘There! I foresaw it. Isn’t vexing?’