She got up, and then he said something which filled her with dismay.
“Among my letters this morning there was one from a very old friend of mine, a man with whom I worked during the war. He and his wife have a room in some back street, for they’re not at all well off. So I thought it would be a good plan to take them for a drive this afternoon. I felt sure you wouldn’t mind?”
“Of course not!”
She felt bitterly disappointed, but she would have been more than disappointed had she known that Rushworth had deliberately asked these old friends to join them, in order to put temptation out of his way.
He added, a little quickly, “I felt rather a brute not asking them to lunch, but I was so looking forward to my lunch alone with you.”
“I’d been looking forward to it, too,” she said in a low voice.
And then there did come across him a sharp, unavailing pang of regret that he had been so stupidly quixotic, and instantly he made up his mind that their drive should not last more than two hours. After all, he and Ivy were both decent people, and dear friends to boot; why shouldn’t they go back to the yacht to spend a quiet happy hour or two, alone together, before the others returned?
They had a delicious lunch, the sort of lunch that Ivy enjoyed, in an airy room full of chattering, merry, prosperous-looking couples.
Then, after they had had coffee, they went out and slowly sauntered to the little garden at the foot of a great cliff on which stands an ancient stronghold. It was cool and quiet there, and the only person with whom they shared the garden was an old lady exercising her Persian cat on a lead.
They sat down in silence. Rushworth was smoking a cigar, Ivy a cigarette. Suddenly he threw away his cigar, for there had come over him a wild, mad impulse to put his arms round her. But, instead, he moved a little farther away.
She, too, suddenly flung away her cigarette, and turned to him, “I sometimes wonder, Mr. Rushworth, if you know how awfully grateful I am to you for all you’ve done for me—and for Jervis.”
He saw that tears were in her eyes, and he took her hand and clasped it closely. He was saying to himself, “Poor little darling, it would be the act of a cad, of a cur, to take advantage of her gratitude and—and loneliness.”
“You’ve nothing to be grateful for,” he said quietly, and then he released the soft hand he held. “It’s a great privilege to meet someone who really deserves a little help. A man who is known to have money is there to be shot at,” he smiled a little grimly. “Any number of what are called deserving objects are presented to his view. The real problem is to find the people who want helping, and who won’t ask for help.”
He sincerely believed that the woman to whom he was addressing those words fell within that rare category.
Suddenly he got up. “I see the Actons,” he exclaimed. “I told them three o’clock in front of the Casino—they’re a little before their time.”
It was a wonderful drive to Tréport, and Ivy, rather to her own surprise, enjoyed it. Partly, perhaps, because Rushworth’s old friend, James Acton, “fell for” her at once, to the amusement of his good-humoured, clever, middle-aged wife. They stopped at the Trianon Hotel on their way back and had some early tea; but even so it was only five o’clock when they returned to Dieppe and dropped the Actons.
Dismissing the car, they began walking towards the harbour. At last—at last they were alone.
In the Grande Rue Ivy stopped, instinctively, before a minute shop, a branch of a famous house of the same name at Cannes and Deauville.
The window contained but one object, to Rushworth’s masculine eyes a rather absurd-looking trifle, for it consisted of a lady’s vanity bag which looked like a tiny bolster of mother-of-pearl. The clasp consisted of a large emerald set with pearls.
“What a lovely little bag!” exclaimed Ivy ecstatically.
“D’you like it?” Rushworth was filled with a kind of tender amusement. What a baby she was, after all!
“Like it? I adore it!”
“Then I’ll give it you—for next Christmas!”
“You mustn’t! It must be fearfully expensive,” she cried.
But he had already gone into the shop. With something like awe, she watched him from the pavement shovelling out bundles of thousand franc notes on to the narrow counter behind which stood a white-haired woman.
How rich, how enormously rich Miles Rushworth must be!
As he joined her, Ivy saw that the precious bag was now enclosed in a soft leather case which had evidently been made for its protection. He put his delightful gift into her eager hands, and said, smiling:
“The elegant old dame in there—she looked like a marquise herself—declares that the clasp of this bag was once a brooch belonging to the Princesse de Lamballe, Marie Antoinette’s friend.”
“How wonderful!”
He looked at her quizzically, “I said I hoped it wouldn’t bring you bad luck! She quite understood the allusion,” which was more than Ivy did.
“It was made, it seems, to the order of a lady who supplied the jewel for the clasp. She’s suddenly gone into mourning, and as they had made it they consented to try and sell it for her. It was being sent on to their Deauville branch this very afternoon. It’s been here a week, and the old lady admitted that she hadn’t had a single inquiry for it!”
Ivy had now opened, the case and taken out the wonderful little bag, her eyes dancing with pleasure and gratitude. She told herself with satisfaction, that, given the right kind of frock, she could use it by day as well as by night.
There was a very practical, shrewd
