No, the thing must come to an end at once, and completely. They had invited him to dinner and he had accepted, meaning to use the occasion for the contemplated separation. He had thought often enough of what he would say--words that had served others many times before in similar situations. He would refer to their youth, the affair should be a midsummer episode, pleasant to look back upon when they were both older and married to more worthy partners; he would be a brother to her and she should be a sister to him--but, thank G.o.d for his escape!

He believed that the Trojan traditions would carry him through. He was not quite sure what she would do--cry probably, and remonstrate; but it would soon be over and he would be at peace once more.

He dressed slowly and with his usual care. It would be easier to speak with authority if there was no doubt about his appearance. He decided to walk, and he pa.s.sed through the garden into the town, his head a buzzing repet.i.tion of the words that he meant to say. It was a beautiful evening; a soft mist hid the moon's sharper outline, but she shone, a vague circlet of light through a little fleet of fleecy white cloud. Although it was early in September, some of the trees were beginning to change their dark green into faint gold, and the sharp outline of their leaves stood out against the grey pearl light of the sky. As he pa.s.sed into the princ.i.p.al street of Pendragon, Robin drew his coat closer about him, like some ancient conspirator. He had no wish to be stopped by an inquisitive friend; his destination demanded secrecy. Soon the lights and asphalt of the High Street gave place to dark, twisting paths and cobbled stones. These obscure and narrow ways were rather pathetic survivals of the old Pendragon. At night they had an almost sinister appearance; the lamps were at very long intervals and the old houses leaned over the road with a certain crazy picturesqueness that was, at the same time, exceedingly dangerous.

There were few lights in the windows and very few pedestrians on the cobbles; the m.u.f.fled roar of the sea sounded close at hand. And, indeed, it sprang upon you quite magnificently at a turn of the road.

To-night it scarcely moved; a ripple as the waves licked the sand, a gentle rustle as of trees in the wind when the pebbles were dragged back with the ebb--that was all. It seemed strangely mysterious under the misty, uncertain light of the moon.

The houses facing the sea loomed up darkly against the horizon--a black contrast with the grey of sea and sky. It was No. 4 where the Feverels lived. There was a light in the upper window and some one was playing the piano. Robin hesitated for some minutes before ringing the bell.

When it had rung he heard the piano stop. For a few seconds there was no sound; then there were steps in the pa.s.sage and the door was opened by the very dowdy little maid-of-all-work whose hands were always dirty and whose eyes were always red, as though with perpetual weeping.

With what different eyes he saw the house now! On his first visit, the sun had dazzled his eyes; there had been flowers in the drawing-room and she had come to meet him in some charming dress; he had stood enraptured at the foot of the stairs, deeming it Paradise. Now the lamp in the hall flared with the wind from the door, and he was acutely conscious of a large rent in the dirty, faded carpet. The house was perfectly still--it might have been a place of ghosts, with the moon shining mistily through the window on the stairs and the strange, insistent murmur of the sea beating mysteriously through the closed doors!

There was no one in the drawing-room, and its appalling bad taste struck him as it had never done before. How could he have been blind to it? The glaring yellow carpet, the bright purple lamp-shades, the gilt looking-gla.s.s over the fireplace, and, above all, dusty, drooping paper flowers in bright china vases ranged in a row by the window. Of course, it might be merely the lodgings. Lodgings always were like that--but to live with them for months! To attempt no change, to leave the flowers, and the terrible oil-painting "Lost in the Snow"--an obvious British Public appeal to a pathos that simply shrieked at you, with its hideous colours and very material snow-storm. No, Robin could only repeat once more, What an escape!

But had he, after all, escaped? He was not quite sure, as he stood by the window waiting. It might be difficult, and he was unmistakably nervous.

Dahlia closed the door, and stood there for a moment before coming forward.

"Robin--at last!" and she held out both hands to him. They were the same words that his aunt had used to his father last night, he remembered foolishly, and at once they seemed strained, false, ridiculous!

He took her hand and said something about being in time; then, as she seemed to expect it, he bent down and kissed her.

She was pretty in a rather obvious way. If there had been less artificiality there would have been more charm; of middle height, she was slim and dark, and her hair, parted in the middle, fell in waves over her temples. She affected a rather simple, aesthetic manner that suited her dark eyes and rather pale complexion. You said that she was intense until you knew her. To-night she wore a rather pretty dress of some dark-brown stuff, cut low at the neck, and with her long white arms bare. She had obviously taken a good deal of trouble this evening, and had undoubtedly succeeded.

"And so Sir Robert has deigned to come and see his humble dependants at last!" she said, laughing. "A whole fortnight, Robin, and you've not been near us."

"I'm dreadfully sorry," he said, "but I've really been too terribly busy. The Governor coming home and one thing and another----"

He felt gauche and awkward, the consciousness of what he must say after dinner weighed on him heavily. He could hardly believe that there had ever been a time when he had talked eagerly, pa.s.sionately--he cursed himself for a fool.

"Yes, we've been very lonely and you're a naughty boy," said Dahlia.

"But now you are here I won't scold you if you promise to tell me everything you've done since last time----"

"Oh! done?" said Robin vaguely; "I really don't know--the usual sort of thing, I suppose--not much to do in Pendragon at any time."

She had been looking at him curiously while he was speaking. Now she suddenly changed her voice. "I've been so lonely without you, dear,"

she said, speaking almost in a whisper; "I fancied--of course it was silly of me--that perhaps there was some one else--that you were getting a little tired of me. I was--very unhappy. I nearly wrote, but I was afraid that--some one might see it. Letters are always dangerous. But it's very lonely here all day--with only mother. If you could come a little oftener, dear--it means everything to me."

Her voice was a little husky as though tears were not far away, and she spoke in little short sentences--she seemed to find it hard to say the words.

Robin suddenly felt a brute. How could he ever tell her of what was in his mind? If it was really so much to her he could never leave her--not at once like that; he must do it gradually.

She was sitting by him on the sofa and looked rather delightful. She had the pathetic expression that always attracted him, and he felt very sorry indeed. How blank her days would be without him! Part of the romance had always been his role of King Cophetua, and tears sprang to his eyes as he thought of the poor beggar-maid, alone, forlornly weeping, when he had finally withdrawn his presence.

"I think it is partly the sea," she said, putting her hand gently on his sleeve. "When one is sitting quite alone here in the evening with nothing to do and no one to talk to, one hears it so plainly--it is almost frightening. You know, Robin, old boy, I don't care for Pendragon very much. I only came here because of you--and now--if you never come to see us----"

She stopped with a little catch in her voice. Her hand fastened on his sleeve; their heads were very close together and her hair almost brushed his cheek.

He really was an awful brute, but at the same time it was rather nice--that she should care so much. It would be terrible for her when he told her what was in his mind. She might even get very ill--he had read of broken hearts often enough; and she was extraordinarily nice just now--he didn't want to hurt her. But still a fellow must think of his career, his future, and that sort of thing.

Mrs. Feverel entered--ponderous, solemn, dressed in a black silk that trails behind her in funereal folds. Her hands were clammy to the touch and her voice was a deep ba.s.s. She said very little, but sat down silently by the window, forming, as she always did, a dark and extremely solid background. Robin hated and feared her. There was something sinister in her silence--something ominous in her perpetual black. He had never heard her laugh.

Dahlia was laughing now. "I'm a selfish brute, Bobby," she said, "to bother you with my silly little complaints when we want to be cheerful.

We'll have a good time this evening, won't we? We'll sing some of those Rubinstein's duets after dinner, and I've got a new song that I've been learning especially for you. And then there's your father; I do want to hear all about him so much--he must be so interesting, coming from New Zealand. Mother and I saw a gentleman in the town this morning that we thought must be him. Tall and brown, with a light brown moustache and a dark blue suit. It must be splendid to have a father again after twenty years without him."

Her voice dropped a little, as though to refer gently to her own fatherless condition.

Mrs. Feverel, a dark shadow in the window, sighed heavily.

"Oh! the Governor!" said Robin, a little irritably. "No! It's rather difficult--he doesn't seem to know what to do and say. I suppose it's being in New Zealand so long! It makes it rather difficult for me."

He spoke as one suffering under an unjust accusation. It was bad luck, and he wondered vaguely why Dahlia had been so interested; why should she care, unless, and the idea struck him with horror, she already regarded him as a prospective father-in-law?

Dinner was announced by the grimy little maid. Robin took the dark figure of Mrs. Feverel on his arm and made some hesitating remark about the weather--but he had the curious and unpleasant sensation of her seeing through him most thoroughly and clearly. He felt ridiculously like a captive, and his doubts as to his immediate escape increased.

The gaudy drawing-room, the dingy stairs, the gas hissing in the hall, had been, in all conscience, depressing enough, but now this heavy, mute, ominous woman, trailing her black robes so funereally behind her, seemed, to his excited fancy, some implacable Frankenstein created by his own thrice-cursed folly.

The dinner was not a success. The food was bad, but that Robin had expected. As he faced the depression of it, he was more than ever determined to end it, conclusively, that evening, but Mrs. Feverel's gloom and Dahlia's little attempts at coquettish gaiety frightened him.

The conversation, supported mainly by Dahlia, fell into terrible lapses, and the attempts to start it again had the unhappy air of desperate remedies doomed to failure. Dahlia's pathetic glances failed of their intent. Robin was too deeply engaged in his own gloomy reflections to notice them, but her eyes filled with tears, and at last her efforts ceased and a horrible, gloomy silence fell like a choking fog upon them.

"Will you smoke, Robin?" she said, when at last the dessert, in the shape of some melancholy oranges and one very attenuated banana, was on the table. "Egyptian or Turkish--or will you have a pipe?"

He took a cigarette clumsily from the box and his fingers trembled as he lit first hers and then his own--he was so terribly afraid of cutting a ridiculous figure. He sat down again and beat a tattoo on the tablecloth. Mrs. Feverel, with some grimly muttered excuse, left the room. She watched him a moment from the other side of the table and then she came over to him. She bent over his chair, leaning her hands on his shoulders.

"Robin, what is it?" she said. "What's happened?"

"Nothing," he said gloomily. "It's all right----"

"Oh! do you suppose I haven't seen?" She bent closer to him and pressed her cheek against his. "Robin, old boy--you're not getting tired of me? You're tired or cross to-night--I don't know. I've been very patient all this time--waiting for you--hoping that you would come--longing for you--and you never came--all these many weeks. Then I thought that, perhaps, you were too busy or were afraid of people talking--but, at last, there was to be to-night; and I've looked forward to it--oh! so much!--and now you're like this!"

She was nearly crying, and there was that miserable little catch in her voice. He did feel an awful cad--he hadn't thought that she would really care so much as this; but still it had to be done some time, and this seemed a very good opportunity.

He cleared his throat, and, beating the carpet with his foot, tried to speak with dignity as well as feeling--but he only succeeded in being patronising.

"You know," he said quickly, and without daring to look at her, "one's had time to think. I don't mean that I'm sorry it's all been as it has--we've had a ripping time--but I'm not sure--one can't be certain--that it's best for it to go on--quite like this. You see, old girl, it's so d.a.m.ned serious. Of course my people have ideas about my marrying--of course the Trojans have always had to be careful. People expect it of them----"

He stopped for a moment.

"You mean that I'm not good enough?"

She had stepped back from his chair and was standing with her back to the wall. He got up from his chair and turned round and faced her, leaning with his hands on the table. But he could not face her for long; his eyes dropped before the fury in hers.

"No, no, Dahlia--how stupid of you!--of course it's not that. It's really rather unkind of you to make it harder for me. It's difficult enough to explain. You're good enough for any one, but I'm not quite sure, dear, whether we'd be quite the people to marry! We'd be splendid friends, of course--we'll always be that--but we're both very young, and, after all, it's rather hard for one to know. It was splendid at Cambridge, but I don't think we quite realised----"

"You mean you didn't," she broke in quickly. "I know well enough.

Some one's been speaking to you, Robin."

"No--n.o.body." He looked at her fiercely. She had hurt his pride. "As if I'd be weak enough to let that make any difference. No one has said a word--only----"