“Why don’t you come, too?” he said.
Jane started.
“No. No, I don’t think I will, thanks.”
“Give you lunch somewhere.”
“No. I want to stay here and do some practice-putting.”
“All right. I’ll try to get back in time for a round in the evening.”
Remorse gnawed at Jane’s vitals. She had never deceived William before. She kissed him with even more than her usual fondness when he left to catch the ten-forty-five. She waved to him till he was out of sight; then, bounding back into the house, leaped at the telephone and, after a series of conversations with the Marks-Morris Glue Factory, the Poor Pussy Home for Indigent Cats, and Messrs. Oakes, Oakes, and Parbury, dealers in fancy goods, at last found herself in communication with Rodney Spelvin.
“Rodney?” she said, and held her breath, fearful at this breaking of a two years’ silence and yet loath to hear another strange voice say “Wadnumjerwant?” “Is that you, Rodney?”
“Yes. Who is that?”
“Mrs. Bates. Rodney, can you give me lunch at the Alcazar today at one?”
“Can I!” Not even the fact that some unknown basso had got on the wire and was asking if that was Mr. Bootle could blur the enthusiasm in his voice. “I should say so!”
“One o’clock, then,” said Jane. His enthusiastic response had relieved her. If by merely speaking she could stir him so, to bend him to her will when they met face to face would be pie.
“One o’clock,” said Rodney.
Jane hung up the receiver and went to her room to try on hats.
The impression came to Jane, when she entered the lobby of the restaurant and saw him waiting, that Rodney Spelvin looked somehow different from the Rodney she remembered. His handsome face had a deeper and more thoughtful expression, as if he had been through some ennobling experience.
“Well, here I am,” she said, going to him and affecting a jauntiness which she did not feel.
He looked at her, and there was in his eyes that unmistakable goggle which comes to men suddenly addressed in a public spot by women whom, to the best of their recollection, they do not know from Eve.
“How are you?” he said. He seemed to pull himself together. “You’re looking splendid.”
“You’re looking fine,” said Jane.
“You’re looking awfully well,” said Rodney.
“You’re looking awfully well,” said Jane.
“You’re looking fine,” said Rodney.
There was a pause.
“You’ll excuse me glancing at my watch,” said Rodney. “I have an appointment to lunch with—er—somebody here, and it’s past the time.”
“But you’re lunching with me,” said Jane, puzzled.
“With you?”
“Yes. I rang you up this morning.”
Rodney gaped.
“Was it you who phoned? I thought you said ‘Miss Bates.’ ”
“No, Mrs. Bates.”
“Mrs. Bates?”
“Mrs. Bates.”
“Of course. You’re Mrs. Bates.”
“Had you forgotten me?” said Jane, in spite of herself a little piqued.
“Forgotten you, dear lady! As if I could!” said Rodney, with a return of his old manner. “Well, shall we go in and have lunch?”
“All right,” said Jane.
She felt embarrassed and ill at ease. The fact that Rodney had obviously succeeded in remembering her only after the effort of a lifetime seemed to her to fling a spanner into the machinery of her plans at the very outset. It was going to be difficult, she realized, to conjure him by the memory of their ancient love to spare Anastatia; for the whole essence of the idea of conjuring anyone by the memory of their ancient love is that the party of the second part should be aware that there ever was such a thing.
At the luncheon-table conversation proceeded fitfully. Rodney said that this morning he could have sworn it was going to rain, and Jane said she had thought so, too, and Rodney said that now it looked as if the weather might hold up, and Jane said Yes, didn’t it? and Rodney said he hoped the weather would hold up because rain was such a nuisance, and Jane said Yes, wasn’t it? Rodney said yesterday had been a nice day, and Jane said Yes, and Rodney said that it seemed to be getting a little warmer, and Jane said Yes, and Rodney said that summer would be here any moment now, and Jane said Yes, wouldn’t it? and Rodney said he hoped it would not be too hot this summer, but that, as a matter of fact, when you came right down to it, what one minded was not so much the heat as the humidity, and Jane said Yes, didn’t one?
In short, by the time they rose and left the restaurant, not a word had been spoken that could have provoked the censure of the sternest critic. Yet William Bates, catching sight of them as they passed down the aisle, started as if he had been struck by lightning. He had happened to find himself near the Alcazar at lunchtime and had dropped in for a chop; and, peering round the pillar which had hidden his table from theirs, he stared after them with saucer-like eyes.
“Oh, dash it!” said William.
This William Bates, as I have indicated in my previous references to him, was not an abnormally emotional or temperamental man. Built physically on the lines of a motor-lorry, he had much of that vehicle’s placid and even phlegmatic outlook on life. Few things had the power to ruffle William, but, unfortunately, it so happened that one of these things was Rodney Spelvin. He had never been able entirely to overcome his jealousy of this man. It had been Rodney who had come within an ace of scooping Jane from him in the days when she had been Miss Packard. It had been Rodney who had temporarily broken up his home some years later by persuading Jane to become a member of the artistic
