Don't you remember me now--at Mrs. Murrett's?"She threw the question at Darrow across a table of the quietcoffee-room to which, after a vainly prolonged quest for hertrunk, he had suggested taking her for a cup of tea.
In this musty retreat she had removed her dripping hat, hungit on the fender to dry, and stretched herself on tiptoe infront of the round eagle-crowned mirror, above the mantelvases of dyed immortelles, while she ran her fingers comb-wise through her hair. The gesture had acted on Darrow'snumb feelings as the glow of the fire acted on hiscirculation; and when he had asked: "Aren't your feet wet,too?" and, after frank inspection of a stout-shod sole, shehad answered cheerfully: "No--luckily I had on my newboots," he began to feel that human intercourse would stillbe tolerable if it were always as free from formality.
The removal of his companion's hat, besides provoking thisreflection, gave him his first full sight of her face; andthis was so favourable that the name she now pronounced fellon him with a quite disproportionate shock of dismay.
"Oh, Mrs. Murrett's--was it THERE?"He remembered her now, of course: remembered her as one ofthe shadowy sidling presences in the background of thatawful house in Chelsea, one of the dumb appendages of theshrieking unescapable Mrs. Murrett, into whose talons he hadfallen in the course of his head-long pursuit of Lady UlricaCrispin. Oh, the taste of stale follies! How insipid itwas, yet how it clung!
"I used to pass you on the stairs," she reminded him.
Yes: he had seen her slip by--he recalled it now--as hedashed up to the drawing-room in quest of Lady Ulrica. Thethought made him steal a longer look. How could such a facehave been merged in the Murrett mob? Its fugitive slantinglines, that lent themselves to all manner of tender tiltsand foreshortenings, had the freakish grace of some younghead of the Italian comedy. The hair stood up from herforehead in a boyish elf-lock, and its colour matched herauburn eyes flecked with black, and the little brown spot onher cheek, between the ear that was meant to have a rosebehind it and the chin that should have rested on a ruff.
When she smiled, the left corner of her mouth went up alittle higher than the right; and her smile began in hereyes and ran down to her lips in two lines of light. He haddashed past that to reach Lady Ulrica Crispin!
"But of course you wouldn't remember me," she was saying.
"My name is Viner--Sophy Viner."Not remember her? But of course he DID! He was genuinelysure of it now. "You're Mrs. Murrett's niece," he declared.
She shook her head. "No; not even that. Only her reader.""Her reader? Do you mean to say she ever reads?"Miss Viner enjoyed his wonder. "Dear, no! But I wrotenotes, and made up the visiting-book, and walked the dogs,and saw bores for her."Darrow groaned. "That must have been rather bad!""Yes; but nothing like as bad as being her niece.""That I can well believe. I'm glad to hear," he added,"that you put it all in the past tense."She seemed to droop a little at the allusion; then shelifted her chin with a jerk of defiance. "Yes. All is atan end between us. We've just parted in tears--but not insilence!""Just parted? Do you mean to say you've been there all thistime?""Ever since you used to come there to see Lady Ulrica? Doesit seem to you so awfully long ago?"The unexpectedness of the thrust--as well as its doubtfultaste--chilled his growing enjoyment of her chatter. He hadreally been getting to like her--had recovered, under thecandid approval of her eye, his usual sense of being apersonable young man, with all the privileges pertaining tothe state, instead of the anonymous rag of humanity he hadfelt himself in the crowd on the pier. It annoyed him, atthat particular moment, to be reminded that naturalness isnot always consonant with taste.
She seemed to guess his thought. "You don't like my sayingthat you came for Lady Ulrica?" she asked, leaning over thetable to pour herself a second cup of tea.
He liked her quickness, at any rate. "It's better," helaughed, "than your thinking I came for Mrs. Murrett!""Oh, we never thought anybody came for Mrs. Murrett! It wasalways for something else: the music, or the cook--whenthere was a good one--or the other people; generally ONEof the other people.""I see."She was amusing, and that, in his present mood, was more tohis purpose than the exact shade of her taste. It was odd,too, to discover suddenly that the blurred tapestry of Mrs.
Murrett's background had all the while been alive and fullof eyes. Now, with a pair of them looking into his, he wasconscious of a queer reversal of perspective.
"Who were the 'we'? Were you a cloud of witnesses?""There were a good many of us." She smiled. "Let me see--who was there in your time? Mrs. Bolt--and Mademoiselle--andProfessor Didymus and the Polish Countess. Don't youremember the Polish Countess? She crystal-gazed, and playedaccompaniments, and Mrs. Murrett chucked her because Mrs.
Didymus accused her of hypnotizing the Professor. But ofcourse you don't remember. We were all invisible to you;but we could see. And we all used to wonder about you----"Again Darrow felt a redness in the temples. "What aboutme?""Well--whether it was you or she who..."He winced, but hid his disapproval. It made the time passto listen to her.
"And what, if one may ask, was your conclusion?""Well, Mrs. Bolt and Mademoiselle and the Countess naturallythought it was SHE; but Professor Didymus and JimmyBrance--especially Jimmy----""Just a moment: who on earth is Jimmy Brance?"She exclaimed in wonder: "You WERE absorbed--not toremember Jimmy Brance! He must have been right about you,after all." She let her amused scrutiny dwell on him. "Buthow could you? She was false from head to foot!""False----?" In spite of time and satiety, the male instinctof ownership rose up and repudiated the charge.
Miss Viner caught his look and laughed. "Oh, I only meantexternally! You see, she often used to come to my room aftertennis, or to touch up in the evenings, when they were goingon; and I assure you she took apart like a puzzle. In factI used to say to Jimmy--just to make him wild--:'I'll betyou anything you like there's nothing wrong, because I knowshe'd never dare un--'" She broke the word in two, and herquick blush made her face like a shallow-petalled roseshading to the deeper pink of the centre.
The situation was saved, for Darrow, by an abrupt rush ofmemories, and he gave way to a mirth which she as franklyechoed. "Of course," she gasped through her laughter, "Ionly said it to tease Jimmy----"Her amusement obscurely annoyed him. "Oh, you're allalike!" he exclaimed, moved by an unaccountable sense ofdisappointment.
She caught him up in a flash--she didn't miss things! "Yousay that because you think I'm spiteful and envious? Yes--Iwas envious of Lady Ulrica...Oh, not on account of you orJimmy Brance! Simply because she had almost all the thingsI've always wanted: clothes and fun and motors, andadmiration and yachting and Paris--why, Paris alone wouldbe enough!--And how do you suppose a girl can see that sortof thing about her day after day, and never wonder why somewomen, who don't seem to have any more right to it, have itall tumbled into their laps, while others are writing dinnerinvitations, and straightening out accounts, and copyingvisiting lists, and finishing golf-stockings, and matchingribbons, and seeing that the dogs get their sulphur? Onelooks in one's glass, after all!"She launched the closing words at him on a cry that liftedthem above the petulance of vanity; but his sense of herwords was lost in the surprise of her face. Under theflying clouds of her excitement it was no longer a shallowflower-cup but a darkening gleaming mirror that might giveback strange depths of feeling. The girl had stuff in her--he saw it; and she seemed to catch the perception in hiseyes.
"That's the kind of education I got at Mrs. Murrett's--andI never had any other," she said with a shrug.
"Good Lord--were you there so long?""Five years. I stuck it out longer than any of the others."She spoke as though it were something to be proud of.
"Well, thank God you're out of it now!"Again a just perceptible shadow crossed her face. "Yes--I'mout of it now fast enough.""And what--if I may ask--are you doing next?"She brooded a moment behind drooped lids; then, with a touchof hauteur: "I'm going to Paris: to study for the stage.""The stage?" Darrow stared at her, dismayed. All hisconfused contradictory impressions assumed a new aspect atthis announcement; and to hide his surprise he addedlightly: "Ah--then you will have Paris, after all!""Hardly Lady Ulrica's Paris. It s not likely to be roses,roses all the way.""It's not, indeed." Real compassion prompted him tocontinue: "Have you any--any influence you can count on?"She gave a somewhat flippant little laugh. "None but myown. I've never had any other to count on."He passed over the obvious reply. "But have you any ideahow the profession is over-crowded? I know I'm trite----""I've a very clear idea. But I couldn't go on as I was.""Of course not. But since, as you say, you'd stuck it outlonger than any of the others, couldn't you at least haveheld on till you were sure of some kind of an opening?"She made no reply for a moment; then she turned a listlessglance to the rain-beaten window. "Oughtn't we bestarting?" she asked, with a lofty assumption ofindifference that might have been Lady Ulrica's.
Darrow, surprised by the change, but accepting her rebuff asa phase of what he guessed to be a confused and tormentedmood, rose from his seat and lifted her jacket from thechair-back on which she had hung it to dry. As he held ittoward her she looked up at him quickly.
"The truth is, we quarrelled," she broke out, "and I leftlast night without my dinner--and without my salary.""Ah--" he groaned, with a sharp perception of all the sordiddangers that might attend such a break with Mrs. Murrett.
"And without a character!" she added, as she slipped herarms into the jacket. "And without a trunk, as it appears--but didn't you say that, before going, there'd be time foranother look at the station?"There was time for another look at the station; but the lookagain resulted in disappointment, since her trunk wasnowhere to be found in the huge heap disgorged by the newly-arrived London express. The fact caused Miss Viner amoment's perturbation; but she promptly adjusted herself tothe necessity of proceeding on her journey, and her decisionconfirmed Darrow's vague resolve to go to Paris instead ofretracing his way to London.
Miss Viner seemed cheered at the prospect of his company,and sustained by his offer to telegraph to Charing Cross forthe missing trunk; and he left her to wait in the fly whilehe hastened back to the telegraph office. The enquirydespatched, he was turning away from the desk when anotherthought struck him and he went back and indited a message tohis servant in London: "If any letters with French post-markreceived since departure forward immediately to TerminusHotel Gare du Nord Paris."Then he rejoined Miss Viner, and they drove off through therain to the pier.