“I hope I may soon have a little visit with you, Mrs. Ashford,” continued Helen rather breathlessly. “Today—I’m in something of a rush … Important errands.”
At the sound of the familiar voice, just outside the door of her little filing-room, Joyce came bounding into the circle with a shrill exclamation of surprise and delight and a torrent of questions.
“Why, whatever brought you here, darling? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming so soon? And you and Doctor Merrick have actually met! How jolly? Oh—now we can have that dinner we talked about! Let’s do it tonight! We four! My party! And I’ll get tickets for Jasmine! What do you all say? Can you come, Mrs. Ashford?”
Nancy swiftly sought Helen’s eyes, and thought she detected a faint expression of annoyance. Should she encourage the dinner project? It was an awkward moment.
Suddenly sensing her own obligation to take a cordial interest in Joyce’s proffer of hospitality, Helen smiled inquiringly, and Nancy replied, “I should be very happy, Joyce. Thank you.”
“And you can come, too, can’t you, Bobby?” persisted Joyce.
He studied Helen’s face for a brief second, and found his heart pounding when she glanced up unmistakably interested to hear his reply.
“I’ll be very glad to come, Joyce.”
Helen glanced at her watch.
“I must be going,” she said determinedly. “I’ll see you all this evening, then.”
The three of them accompanied her to the big, glass-panelled doors—Bobby at her elbow, obviously proposing to see her to the waiting taxi. The pair descended the snowy steps, his hand on her arm, both conscious that Nancy and Joyce were still standing just inside the door, observant.
“We must talk,” said Bobby cheerfully. “This game isn’t over yet.”
“True,” agreed Helen, turning toward him with a smile that fairly dizzied him. “And from all indications, you’ve let us in for a whole evening of this delightful recreation! Whatever made you say you would come to that wretched dinner Joyce contrived to plan? Some more of your good sportsmanship, I suppose!”
Bobby was contrite. His face was overspread with it.
“Don’t look like that!” she commanded, her tone oddly out of step with her smile. “They’ll think we are quarrelling!”
“Well—” glumly, “aren’t we?”
She laughed.
“As a dramatist, you seem to be better as a producer than an actor!”
“But, really, I was going to refuse the invitation. And then, when I happened to glance at you, you seemed so—so friendly about it …”
“What had you thought I might do? Scowl at you? It was your own suggestion that we appear to be on good terms. And now—well, you have taken advantage of me—as usual.” She was still smiling. They had reached the kerb. The taxi-driver was churning his engine.
“I’ll contrive some excuse,” decided Bobby, weakly. “I’m sorry.”
“No! You can’t do that. We’re in for it, and we’ll see it through; and I can promise you that my own feelings will not be apparent to anybody.” She hesitated for a moment, and added, “Not even to you! I’ll guarantee not to spoil your dinner.”
Bobby opened the door and helped her in. The warm grasp of his hand on her arm vexed her—thrilled her. Safe in her seat, she no longer felt under compulsion to make further show of amiability. The smile had vanished. He held out his hand, and she, annoyed, was obliged to accept it. He held it tightly.
“Goodbye, dear,” he said tenderly. “Please don’t think too badly of me. I have blundered, terribly, but—my dear—I do love you so!”
XVII
When Merrick arrived at his apartment shortly after midnight, he slipped out of his dinner clothes and into a dressing-gown, and told Matsu to toss another chunk of pine on the fire and go to bed.
The evening’s entertainment had been a gusty symphony set to every key and tempo; brief passages of ineffable tenderness, momentary measures of hope, drably padded intervals of manoeuvring and modulation, spiced, with occasional breathtaking crescendos that went ripping shrilly up the chromatic scale precariously freighted with anxiety. The finale, unfortunately, had brought up on a most disquieting diminished chord … Considering the evening, in total, its moods were as fitful and erratic as Sibelius’ Valse Triste.
He had hoped to bring to it the sportsmanly spirit of an athlete entering upon a vigorous contest. His dear antagonist had promised that nobody—not even he—should be aware of her irritation and resentment, and he knew she would keep her word. If hers would be a difficult part to play, his would be more so. All she had to do was to register cordiality. Whoever, with any social experience at all, had not learned how to dissemble in pretence of amiability when thrown with persons whom one disliked? As for him, the part he had drawn called for a cool casualness; not the stiff restraint of renunciation, or a show of ascetic indifference, but the calm courtesy of a man toward a woman he had barely met. It would be his task to carry this off convincingly—this with a heart aflame.
As he gave himself a brief inspection in the cheval glass before starting down town, he seriously pledged his own reflection that he would maintain an attitude of dignified chivalry toward the woman whose promised pretence of friendship, for an evening, would probably be little short of torture. And he had seen through, almost valorously—all but to the end.
And yet, remorseful as he was over that one brief but utter breakdown of self-discipline, which now made their relations more difficult than ever, he tingled to his nerves’ ends with memories of those few enchanted moments when, even fully aware that she but kept her contract, her comradeship had seemed sincere.
In the mood of a miser, eager to be alone to finger his gold, he impatiently dismissed the solicitously lingering Matsu, lighted his pipe, and eased himself into a deep chair before the crackling fire, determined to live the evening over, item by item, and recover its most stirring sensations.
Pursuant to instructions
