that was far and away the most disconcerting thing that had happened at amberley within straker's recollection.
it must have been very disagreeable for philippa.
when, five days ago, he had wondered if he would ever live to see philippa disconcerted, he had not contemplated anything like this. neither, he was inclined to think, had philippa in the beginning. she could have had no idea what she was letting herself in for. that she had let herself in was, to straker's mind, the awful part of it.
as he walked home from the station he called up all his cleverness, all his tact and delicacy, to hide his knowledge of it from philippa. he tried to make himself forget it, lest by a word or a look she should gather that he knew. he did not want to see her disconcerted.
the short cut to amberley from the station leads through a side gate into the turning at the bottom of the east walk. straker, as he rounded the turning, saw miss tarrant not five yards off, coming down the walk.
he was not ready for her, and his first instinct, if he could have yielded to it, would have been to fly. that was his delicacy.
he met her with a remark on the beauty of the morning. that was his tact.
he tried to look as if he hadn't been to see furnival off at the station, as if the beauty of the morning sufficiently accounted for his appearance at that early hour. the hour, indeed, was so disgustingly early that he would have half an hour to put through with philippa before breakfast.
but miss tarrant ignored the beauty of the morning. [pg 137]
"what have you done," she said, "with mr. furnival?"
it was straker who was disconcerted now.
"what have i done with him?"
"yes. where is he?"
straker's tact was at a disadvantage, but his delicacy instantly suggested that if miss tarrant was not disconcerted it was because she didn't know he knew. that made it all right.
"he's in the seven-fifty train."
a light leaped in her eyes; the light of defiance and pursuit, the light of the hunter's lust frustrated and of the hunter's ire.
"you must get him back again," she said.
"i can't," said straker. "he's gone on business." (he still used tact with her.) "he had to go."
"he hadn't," said she. "that's all rubbish."
her tone trod his scruples down and trampled on them, and straker felt that tact and delicacy required of him no more. she had given herself away at last; she had let herself in for the whole calamity of his knowledge, and he didn't know how she proposed to get out of it this time. and he wasn't going to help her. not he!
they faced each other as they stood there in the narrow walk, and his knowledge challenged her dumbly for a moment. then he spoke.
"look here, what do you want him for? why can't you let the poor chap alone?"
"what do you suppose i want him for?"
"i've no business to suppose anything. i don't know. but i'm not going to get him back for you."
something flitted across her face and shifted the wide gaze of her eyes. straker went on without remorse. [pg 138]
"you know perfectly well the state he's in, and you know how he got into it."
"yes. and i know," she said, "what you think of me."
"it's more than i do," said straker.
she smiled subtly, mysteriously, tolerantly, as it were.
"what did you do it for, philippa?"
her smile grew more subtle, more tolerant, more mysterious; it measured him and found him wanting.
"if i told you," she said, "i don't think you'd understand. but i'll try and make you."
she turned with him and they walked slowly toward the house.
"you saw," she said, "where he was going before i came? i got him out of that, didn't i?"
he was silent, absorbed in contemplating the amazing fabric of her thought.
"does it very much matter how i did it?"
"yes," said straker, "if you ask me, i should say it did. the last state of him, to my mind, was decidedly worse than the first."
"what do you suppose i did to him?"
"if you want the frankness of a brother, there's no doubt you—led him on."
"i led him on—to heights he'd never have contemplated without me."
straker tried to eliminate all expression from his face.
"what do you suppose i did to him last night?"
"i can only suppose you led him further, since he went further."
by this time straker's tact and delicacy were all gone.
"yes," said miss tarrant, "he went pretty far. but, [pg 139] on the whole, it's just as well he did, seeing what's come of it."
"what has come of it?"
"well, i think he realizes that he has a soul. that's something."
"i didn't know it was his soul you were concerned with."
"he didn't, either. did he tell you what i said to him?"
"he told me you gave him a dressing down. but there was something that he wouldn't tell. what did you say to him?"
"i said i supposed, after all, he had a soul, and i asked him what he meant to do about it."
"what does he?"
"that's what i want him back for," she said, "to see. whatever he does with it, practically i've saved it."
she turned to him, lucid and triumphant.
"could any other woman have done it? do you see mary probyn doing it?"
"not that way."
"it was the only way. you must," she said, "have temperament."
the word took straker's breath away.
"you didn't like the way i did it. i can't help that. i had to use the means at my disposal. if i hadn't led him on how could i have got hold of him? if i hadn't led him further how could i have got him on an inch?"
"so that," said straker quietly, "is what you did it for?"
"you've seen him," she answered. "you don't seriously suppose i could have done it for anything else! what possible use had i for that young man?"
he remembered that that was what she had said about mr. higginson. but he confessed that, for a [pg 140] lady in a disconcerting situation, she had shown genius in extricating herself.
fanny's house party broke up and scattered the next day. a week later straker and will brocklebank saw furnival in the park. he was driving a motor beyond his means in the society of a lady whom he certainly could not afford.
"good god!" said brocklebank. "that's philippa."
by which he meant, not that furnival's lady in the least resembled philippa, but that she showed the heights to which philippa had led him on.
