understand; I just did. And they were...'
He stopped. Grinding out his cigarette on the glass top of the table, he jumped up in a fever of anguish and began to pace outside the embrasure. It never occurred to him to wonder whether or not Holden might understand what he was talking about; he simply assumed, like a sixth former in front of a master, that the latter would naturally be acquainted with any subject he chose to mention.
'You see, sir, I can't understand it!'
'Understand what?'
'It wouldn't be so bad,' declared Ronnie, running his hands through his hair, 'if I could only understand what Doris sees in him. I mean, a man old enough to be her father! See what I mean?'
'You were referring to Doris and—and Mr. Marsh?'
'Yes, of course. Mind you,' added Ronnie, suddenly assuming a very lofty and disdainful attitude with his hand on the back of a chair, 'I think I'm tolerably sophisticated myself. Broadminded, and all that these things happen. They're a part of nature, and we can't help 'em. If,' he added anxiously, 'you follow what I mean?'
'Yes. I think I follow you.'
'But the point is, there ought to be decency in it!' Ronnie hesitated. 'You take Mrs. Marsh; for instance. The one that died.'
Holden's pulses gave a violent jump and throb, though he only continued to study the tip of his cigarette. 'What about Mrs. Marsh?'
'Well she was all right. When she had an affair (mind; I'm not saying she did), then she chose somebody as old as herself: yes, and I should think a good deal older! But'—he dismissed Margot with a wave of the hand—'but Doris is different, don't you see?'
'Doris is on a different plane. Spiritually, and everything else, from all these other people. Naturally, I know there's never been anything of what you could call wrong between her and Marsh.' This idea, to Ronnie, was quite plainly inconceivable. The mere thought of it so revolted him that he shied away from it.
'It's only,' he argued, 'a sort of adolescent fad. It always happens in books. The only trouble is,' his voice rose, 'what does Doris see in him? It isn't as if he were some dashing kind of bloke that women would fall for. I—I met Doris in London last night Took her dancing. I asked her if I could come down to Widestairs today. She said yes; only I couldn't go with her, because she'd be in the car,' his face wrinkled up, 'with Mr. Marsh. Even when I got to Widestairs, she was hiding from me. I came over here, hoping to find her...'
And again he found her.
At that moment, as Ronnie Merrick's voice trailed away, three persons appeared in the Long Gallery.
From the south end, up the little flight of carpeted stairs from the Painted Room, appeared Sir Danvers Locke. From the north end, down the little flight of stairs from the Blue Drawing Room, came Doris Locke and Thorley Marsh.
All three stopped and stood motionless.
The Long Gallery, with those curiously portentous and somehow menacing figures at each end, gave back no sound of footfall. Through three great windows, diamond panes of clear glass, purplish-tinged dusk touched the line of portraits hanging against the opposite wall. It touched a glint of gilt or ebony in portrait frame, but it softened the richer, more somber colors of the portraits themselves.
Sir Danvers Locke moved first.
They heard his footsteps creak and crack, slowly, down that gallery with its long strip of brownish carpet. Doris and Thorley advanced to meet him. They met in the middle, just by the embrasure of the oriel window where Holden and Ronnie Merrick were standing. Yet Holden had the feeling that he and Ronnie were forgotten, unnoticed, in that meeting of eyes.
Locke, in his early fifties, remained lean and fastidious looking even when he wore country plus fours. He carried a cap in one hand and an ash stick in the other. The iron-gray hair, the high intellectual forehead, the thick dark eyebrows, the prominent cheekbones and rather beaked nose, even Locke's mouth which should have worn its usual serene smile: these features were without expression, polite and waiting.
It was Doris, flushed and bright eyed, who broke the silence.
'Tell him, Thorley!' she cried. Thorley smiled, a little nervously. 'Tell him,Thorley!'
You could see Thorley, under the line of watching portraits, adjusting his face as clearly as a man adjusts a necktie.
'Locke old man,' he said in a low, hearty, sincere voice, 'I hope you're going to congratulate me. Doris and I have decided to get married.'
And nothing happened, during a long silence. Locke did not even nod or move. Thorley, who had started forward with his hand outstretched, stopped uncertainly. Thorley's eye fell on Ronnie Merrick, and his expression grew as black as thunder; but Thorley spoke quite pleasantly.
'I think we can excuse you, young man,' he said.
'Yes,' said Ronnie, abruptly coming to life like a young man who has been hypnotized. 'Of course. Sorry to have intruded. Congratulations.'
And he marched out of the gallery: long-legged, utterly disdainful, but bumping into a little chair before he reached the stairs to the Painted Room.
'Ronnie!' Doris cried out uncertainly, with a ring of contrition in her voice. 'Wait! I didn't mean to be so . . . !'
'He's all right,' Thorley told her reassuringly, and patted her arm. 'Let him go. But your father...'
Doris's father, at the moment, had caught sight of Holden. Locke's face lighted up with the old smile, of virile charm, which made him seem a dozen years younger. Putting down cap and walking stick on the table, he grasped the wanderer's hand.
'My dear Holden,' he exclaimed, 'I'm delighted to see you back again! We're all delighted to hear your 'death' was only (what shall I say?) a ruse de guerre. No'—as Holden made a strong, embarrassed attempt to follow Ronnie—'no, don't go. I think you ought to remain. Tell me, my dear fellow: how was Italy? And did you get into Spain?' 'Father!' cried Doris.
'Yes, my dear?' Locke dropped Holden's hand and turned around.
'Aren't you,' gasped Doris, with her high color making the blue eyes seem paler, and shivering all over, 'aren't you at least going to pay at-attention to me? I've been in love with Thorley for months and months and months. We're going to get married just as soon as ...'
'As soon as,' remarked Locke, politely running his eye over Thorley's clothes, 'as Mr. Marsh gets rid of that deep mourning he is now wearing?'
Silence.
It was a deadly thrust, however thin and lightly held seemed the rapier. Locke rolled an upholstered chair around so that its back was to the window, and sat down. Behind him lay the darkening moat, and the dim green fields dotted with a few beech trees. Thorley, deeply hurt and really shocked, stared back at him.
'I thought,' Thorley burst out, 'you were a friend of mine!'
'So I am,' assented Locke, and inclined his head.
'I love her,' said Thorley. It was impossible to doubt, apparently, his honesty or his deep feeling. Doris, still clutching at Thorley's sleeve, looked up at him with eyes of sheer adoration. Holden, in spite of himself, could not help feeling oddly touched.
'I love her,' Thorley repeated, with real dignity. 'Is there any reason, financial or—or social, why we shouldn't marry?'
'None whatever.'
'Well, then!'
Locke crossed his knees comfortably.
'Let's put aside,' he suggested, 'certain considerations which (I suppose) don't matter. Young Merrick, who, with your exquisite courtesy, has just been kicked out of here...'
'I know. I'm sorry.' Thorley passed a hand across his forehead. 'But the damn little nuisance—!'
'The damn little nuisance, as you call him, is the son of my oldest friend, Lord Seagrave. He is also, I am inclined to believe, something of a genius.'
Thorley, baffled, appealed to the ceiling.
'An artist!' he said.
