Our young man was all critical attention again. "'Desperate'?"

"The letter of a woman so scared that she'll do anything. I may be a great brute, but her scare amuses me."

"You're in the position of Olivier de Jalin in _Le Demi-Monde_,"

Waterville remarked.

"In _Le Demi-Monde_?" Littlemore was not quick at catching literary allusions.

"Don't you remember the play we saw in Paris? Or like Don Fabrice in _L'Aventuriere_. A bad woman tries to marry an honourable man, who doesn't know how bad she is, and they who do know step in and push her back."

"Yes, it comes to me. There was a good deal of lying," Littlemore recalled, "all round."

"They prevented the marriage, however-which is the great thing."

"The great thing if your heart's set! One of the active parties was the intimate friend of the man in love, the other was his son. Demesne's nothing at all to me."

"He's a very good fellow," said Waterville.

"Then go and talk to him."

"Play the part of Olivier de Jalin? Oh I can't. I'm not Olivier. But I think I do wish he'd corner me of himself. Mrs. Headway oughtn't really to be allowed to pa.s.s."

"I wish to heaven they'd let me alone," Littlemore murmured ruefully and staring a while out of the window.

"Do you still hold to that theory you propounded in Paris? Are you willing to commit perjury?" Waterville asked.

"a.s.suredly I can refuse to answer questions-even that one."

"As I told you before, that will amount to a condemnation."

Longmore frowningly debated. "It may amount to what it pleases. I guess I'll go back to Paris."

"That will be the same as not answering. But it's quite the best thing you can do. I've really been thinking it out," Waterville continued, "and I don't hold that from the point of view of social good faith she's an article we ought to contribute-!" He looked at the matter clearly now from a great elevation; his tone, the expression of his face, betrayed this lofty flight; the effect of which, as he glanced down at his didactic young friend, Littlemore found peculiarly irritating.

He shifted about. "No, after all, hanged if they shall drive me away!"

he exclaimed abruptly; and he walked off while his companion wondered.

X

The morning after this the elder man received a note from Mrs. Headway-a short and simple note, consisting merely of the words: "I shall be at home this afternoon; will you come and see me at five? I've something particular to say to you." He sent no answer to the question, but went to the little house in Chesterfield Street at the hour its mistress had proposed.

"I don't believe you know what sort of a woman I _am_!" she began as soon as he stood before her.

"Oh Lord!" Littlemore groaned as he dropped into a chair. Then he added: "Please don't strike up _that_ air!"

"Ah, but it's exactly what I've wanted to say. It's very important. You don't know me-you don't understand me. You think you do-but you don't."

"It isn't for the want of your having told me-many many times!" And Littlemore had a hard critical smile, irritated as he was at so austere a prospect. The last word of all was decidedly that Mrs. Headway was a dreadful bore. It was always the last word about such women, who never really deserved to be spared.

She glared at him a little on this; her face was no longer the hospitable inn-front with the showy sign of the Smile. The sign had come down; she looked sharp and strained, almost old; the change was complete. It made her serious as he had never seen her-having seen her always only either too pleased or too disgusted. "Yes, I know; men are so stupid. They know nothing about women but what women tell them. And women tell them things on purpose to see how stupid they can be. I've told you things like that just for amus.e.m.e.nt when it was dull. If you believed them it was your own fault. But now I want you really to know."

"I don't want to know. I know enough."

"How do you mean you know enough?" she cried with all her sincerity.

"What business have you to know anything?" The poor little woman, in her pa.s.sionate purpose, was not obliged to be consistent, and the loud laugh with which Littlemore greeted this must have seemed to her unduly harsh.

"You shall know what I want you to know, however. You think me a bad woman-you don't respect me; I told you that in Paris. I've done things I don't understand, myself, to-day; that I admit as fully as you please.

But I've completely changed, and I want to change everything. You ought to enter into that, you ought to see what I want. I hate everything that has happened to me before this; I loathe it, I despise it. I went on that way trying-trying one thing and another. But now I've got what I want. Do you expect me to go down on my knees to you? I believe I will, I'm so anxious. You can help me-no one else can do a thing; they're only waiting to see if _he'll_ do it. I told you in Paris you could help me, and it's just as true now. Say a good word for me for Christ's sake!

You haven't lifted your little finger, or I should know it by this time.

It will just make the difference. Or if your sister would come and see me I should be all right. Women are pitiless, pitiless, and you're pitiless too. It isn't that Mrs. Dolphin's anything so great, most of my friends are better than that!-but she's the one woman who _knows_, and every one seems to know she knows. _He_ knows it, and he knows she doesn't come. So she kills me-she kills me! I understand perfectly what he wants-I'll do everything, be anything, I'll be the most perfect wife.

The old woman will adore me when she knows me-it's too stupid of her not to see. Everything in the past's over; it has all fallen away from me; it's the life of another woman. This was what I wanted; I knew I should find it some day. I knew I should be at home in the best-and with the highest. What could I do in those horrible places? I had to take what I could. But now I've got nice surroundings. I want you to do me justice.

You've never done me justice. That's what I sent for you for."

Littlemore had suddenly ceased to be bored, but a variety of feelings had taken the place of that one. It was impossible not to be touched; she really meant what she said. People don't change their nature, but they change their desires, their ideal, their effort. This incoherent pa.s.sionate plea was an a.s.surance that she was literally panting to be respectable. But the poor woman, whatever she did, was condemned, as he had said of old, in Paris, to Waterville, to be only half right. The colour rose to her visitor's face as he listened to her outpouring of anxiety and egotism; she hadn't managed her early life very well, but there was no need of her going down on her knees. "It's very painful to me to hear all this. You're under no obligation to say such things to me. You entirely misconceive my att.i.tude-my influence."

"Oh yes, you shirk it-you only wish to shirk it!" she cried, flinging away fiercely the sofa-cushion on which she had been resting.

"Marry whom you d.a.m.n please!" Littlemore quite shouted, springing to his feet.

He had hardly spoken when the door was thrown open and the servant announced Sir Arthur Demesne. This shy adventurer entered with a certain briskness, but stopped short on seeing Mrs. Headway engaged with another guest. Recognising Littlemore, however, he gave a light exclamation which might have pa.s.sed for a greeting. Mrs. Headway, who had risen as he came in, looked with wonderful eyes from one of the men to the other; then, like a person who had a sudden inspiration, she clasped her hands together and cried out: "I'm so glad you've met. If I had arranged it it couldn't be better!"

"If you had arranged it?" said Sir Arthur, crinkling a little his high white forehead, while the conviction rose before Littlemore that she had indeed arranged it.

"I'm going to do something very queer"-and her extravagant manner confirmed her words.

"You're excited, I'm afraid you're ill." Sir Arthur stood there with his hat and his stick; he was evidently much annoyed.

"It's an excellent opportunity; you must forgive me if I take advantage."

And she flashed a tender touching ray at the Baronet. "I've wanted this a long time-perhaps you've seen I wanted it. Mr. Littlemore has known me from far back; he's an old old friend. I told you that in Paris, don't you remember? Well he's my only one, and I want him to speak for me."

Her eyes had turned now to Littlemore; they rested upon him with a sweetness that only made the whole proceeding more audacious. She had begun to smile again, though she was visibly trembling. "He's my only one," she continued; "it's a great pity, you ought to have known others.

But I'm very much alone and must make the best of what I have. I want so much that some one else than myself should speak for me. Women usually can ask that service of a relative or of another woman. I can't; it's a great pity, but it's not my fault, it's my misfortune. None of my people are here-I'm terribly alone in the world. But Mr. Littlemore will tell you; he'll say he has known me for ever so long. He'll tell you if he knows any reason-if there's anything against me. He has been wanting the chance-he thought he couldn't begin himself. You see I treat you as an old friend, dear Mr. Littlemore. I'll leave you with Sir Arthur. You'll both excuse me." The expression of her face, turned towards Littlemore as she delivered herself of this singular proposal, had the intentness of a magician who wishes to work a spell. She darted at Sir Arthur another pleading ray and then swept out of the room.

The two men remained in the extraordinary position she had created for them; neither of them moved even to open the door for her. She closed it behind her, and for a moment there was a deep portentous silence. Sir Arthur Demesne, very pale, stared hard at the carpet.

"I'm placed in an impossible situation," Littlemore said at last, "and I don't imagine you accept it any more than I do." His fellow-visitor kept the same att.i.tude, neither looking up nor answering. Littlemore felt a sudden gush of pity for him. Of course he couldn't accept the situation, but all the same he was half-sick with anxiety to see how this nondescript American, who was both so precious and so superfluous, so easy and so abysmal, would consider Mrs. Headway's challenge. "Have you any question to ask me?" Littlemore went on. At which Sir Arthur looked up. The other had seen the look before; he had described it to Waterville after Mrs. Headway's admirer came to call on him in Paris.

There were other things mingled with it now-shame, annoyance, pride; but the great thing, the intense desire to _know_, was paramount. "Good G.o.d, how can I tell him?" seemed to hum in Littlemore's ears.

Sir Arthur's hesitation would have been of the briefest; but his companion heard the tick of the clock while it lasted. "Certainly I've no question to ask," the young man said in a voice of cool almost insolent surprise.

"Good-day then, confound you."

"The same to you!"

But Littlemore left him in possession. He expected to find Mrs. Headway at the foot of the staircase; but he quitted the house without interruption.

On the morrow, after luncheon, as he was leaving the vain retreat at Queen Anne's Gate, the postman handed him a letter. Littlemore opened and read it on the steps, an operation which took but a moment.