"And I got them marching. I marched them the two miles from Byford, through Lower Speed, and up the hill to Wyck and into the police station. And we ran 'em in for robbery and a.s.sault."

"It was clever of you."

"No; nothing but presence of mind and bluff, and showing that you weren't going to stand any nonsense. But I don't suppose Corbett or Hawtrey or any of those chaps would have thought of it."

Barbara wondered: "Supposing I were to turn on him and say, 'You old humbug, you know I don't believe a word of it. You know you didn't march them a hundred yards.' Or '_I_ saw you this afternoon.' What would he look like?" It was inconceivable that she should say these things. If she was to go on with her study of him alone she would go on in the spirit they had begun in, she and Ralph. That spirit admitted nothing but boundless amus.e.m.e.nt, boundless joy in him. Moral indignation would have been a false note; it would have been downright irreverence towards the G.o.d who made him.

What if he did omit to mention that the nasty, dangerous fellows turned out to be two feeble youths, half imbecile with sh.e.l.l-shock and half drunk, and that it was Mr. Hawtrey, arriving opportunely in his car, who took them over the last mile to the police station? As it happened Mr.

Waddington had frankly forgotten these details as inessential to his story. (He _had_ marched them a mile.)

After telling it he was so far re-established in his own esteem as to propose their working together on the Ramblings after dinner. He even ordered coffee to be served in the library, as if nothing had happened there. Unfortunately, by some culpable oversight of Annie Trinder's, the cushions still bore the imprint of Elise. Awful realization came to him when Barbara, with a glance at the sofa, declined to sit on it. He had turned just in time to catch the flick of what in a bantering mood he had once called her "Barbaric smile." After all, she might have seen something. Not Mrs. Levitt's laughter but the thought of what Barbara might have seen was his punishment--that and being alone with her, knowing that she knew.

5

All this happened on a Wednesday, and f.a.n.n.y wouldn't be back before Sat.u.r.day. He had three whole days to be alone with Barbara.

He had thought that no punishment could be worse than that, but as the three days pa.s.sed and Barbara continued to behave as though nothing had happened, he got used to it. It was on a Friday night, as he lay awake, reviewing for the hundredth time the situation, that his conscience pointed out to him how he really stood. There was a worse punishment than Barbara's knowing.

If f.a.n.n.y knew--

There were all sorts of ways in which she might get to know. Barbara might tell her. The two were as thick as thieves. And if the child turned jealous and hysterical--She had never liked Elise. Or she might tell Ralph Bevan and he might tell f.a.n.n.y, or he might tell somebody who would tell her. There were always plenty of people about who considered it their duty to report these things.

Of course, if he threw himself on Barbara's mercy, and exacted a promise from her not to tell, he knew she would keep it. But supposing all the time she hadn't seen or suspected anything? Supposing her calm manner came from a mind innocent of all seeing and suspecting? Then he would have given himself away for nothing.

Besides, even if Barbara never said anything, there was Elise. No knowing what Elise might do or say in her vulgar fury. She might tell Toby or Markham, and the two might make themselves d.a.m.nably unpleasant.

The story would be all over the county in no time.

And there were the servants. Supposing one of the women took it into her head to give notice on account of "goings on?"

He couldn't live in peace so long as all or any of these things were possible.

The only thing was to be beforehand with Barbara and Bevan and Elise and Toby and Markham and the servants; to tell f.a.n.n.y himself before any of them could get in first. The more he thought about it the more he was persuaded that this was the only right, the only straightforward and manly thing to do; at the same time it occurred to him that by suppressing a few unimportant details he could really give a very satisfactory account of the whole affair. It would not be necessary, for instance, to tell f.a.n.n.y what his intentions had been, if indeed he had ever had any. For, as he went again and again over the whole stupid business, his intentions--those that related to the little house in Cheltenham or St. John's Wood--tended to sink back into the dream state from which they had arisen, clearing his conscience more and more from any actual offence. He had, in fact, nothing to account for but his att.i.tude, the rather compromising att.i.tude in which Barbara had found him. And that could be very easily explained away. f.a.n.n.y was not one of those exacting, jealous women; she would be ready to accept a reasonable explanation of anything. And you could always appease her by a little attention.

So on Friday afternoon Mr. Waddington himself drove the car down to Wyck Station and met f.a.n.n.y on the platform. He made tea for her himself and waited on her, moving a.s.siduously, and smiling an affectionate yet rather conscious smile. He was impelled to these acts spontaneously, because of that gentleness and tenderness towards f.a.n.n.y which the bare thought of Elise was always enough to inspire him with.

Thus, by sticking close to f.a.n.n.y all the evening he contrived that Barbara should have no opportunity of saying anything to her. And in the last hour before bed-time, when they were alone together in the drawing-room, he began.

He closed the door carefully behind Barbara and came back to his place, scowling like one overpowered by anxious thought. He exaggerated this expression on purpose, so that f.a.n.n.y should notice it and give him his opening, which she did.

"Well, old thing, what are _you_ looking so glum about?"

"Do I look glum?"

"Dismal. What is it?"

He stood upright before the chinmeypiece, his conscience sustained by this posture of rect.i.tude.

"I'm not quite easy about Barbara," he said.

"Barbara? What on earth has _she_ been doing?"

"She's been doing nothing. It's--it's rather what she may do if you don't stop her."

"I don't want to stop her," said f.a.n.n.y, "if you're thinking of Ralph Bevan."

"Ralph Bevan? I certainly am not thinking of him. Neither is she."

"Well then, what?"

"I was thinking of myself."

"My dear, you surely don't imagine that Barbara's thinking of you?"

"Not--not in the way you imply. The fact is, I was let in for a--a rather unpleasant scene the other day with Mrs. Levitt."

"I always thought," said f.a.n.n.y, "that woman would let you in for something. Well?"

"Well, I hardly know how to tell you about it, my dear."

"Why, was it as bad as all that? Perhaps I'd better not know."

"I want you to know. I'm trying to tell you--because of Barbara."

"I can't see where Barbara comes in."

"She came into the library while it was happening--"

f.a.n.n.y laughed and it disconcerted him.

"While what was happening?" she said. "You'd better tell me straight out. I don't suppose it was anything like as bad as you think it was."

"I'm only afraid of what Barbara might think."

"Oh, you can trust Barbara not to think things. She never does."

Dear f.a.n.n.y. He would have found his job of explaining atrociously difficult with any other woman. Any other woman would have entangled him tighter and tighter; but he could see that f.a.n.n.y was trying to get it straight, to help him out with all his honour and self-respect and dignity intact. Every turn she gave to the conversation favoured him.

"My dear, I'm afraid she saw something that I must say was open to misinterpretation. It wasn't my fault, but--"

No. The better he remembered it the more clearly he saw it was Elise's fault, not his. And he could see that f.a.n.n.y thought it was Elise's fault. This suggested the next step in the course that was only not perjury because it was so purely instinctive, the subterfuge of terrified vanity. It seemed to him that he had no plan; that he followed f.a.n.n.y.

"Upon my word I'd tell you straight out, f.a.n.n.y, only I don't like to give the poor woman away."

"Mrs. Levitt?" said f.a.n.n.y. "You needn't mind. You may be quite sure that she'll give _you_ away if you don't."

She was giving him a clear lead.