She had let him give her a box of gloves, flowers she could not have enough of, the more costly the amus.e.m.e.nt of the night the better she seemed to like it. But that was all.

In his madness, his poisoned madness, he would have sold his house to give her diamonds had she asked for them--she would not even let him make her a present of a trumpery silver case for cigarettes.

She was baffling, elusive, he could not understand her. For several days she had refused to dine alone with him in his rooms.

One night, when he was driving her home after the dinner at the Ritz and a box at the Comedy theatre, he had pressed her urgently. She had once more refused.

And then, something unveiled and brutal had risen within him. The wave of alcohol submerged all decency and propriety of speech. He was furiously, coa.r.s.ely angry.

"d.a.m.n you!" he said. "What are you afraid of?--of compromising yourself? If there were half a dozen people in London who knew or cared what you did, you've done that long ago. And for heaven's sake don't play Tartuffe with me. Haven't I been kissing you as much as ever I wanted to for the last three days? Haven't you kissed me? You'll dine with me to-morrow night in St. James' Street or I'll get out of town at once and chuck it all. I've been an a.s.s to come at all. I'm beginning to see that now. I've been leaving the substance for the shadow."

She answered nothing to this brutal tirade for a minute or two.

The facile anger died away from him. He cursed himself for his insane folly in jeopardising everything and felt compunction for his violence.

He was just about to explain and apologise when he heard a chuckle from the girl at his side.

He turned swiftly to her. Her face was alight with pleasure, mingled with an almost tender mischief. She laughed aloud.

"Of course I'll come, Gilbert dear," she said softly--"since you _command_ me!"

He realised at once that, like all women, she found joy in abdication when it was forced upon her. The dominant male mind had won in this little contest. He had bullied her roughly. It was a new sensation and she liked it.

But when she dined in the rooms and he tried to accomplish artificially what he had achieved spontaneously, she was on her guard and it was quite ineffectual.

They sat at a little round table. The dinner was simple, but perfectly served. During the meal, for once,--once again--he had talked like his old self, brilliantly touching upon literary things and illuminating much that had been dark to her before with that splendour of intellect which came back to him to-night for a s.p.a.ce; and brought a trace of spirituality to his coa.r.s.ening face.

And after dinner he had made her play to him on the little Bord piano against the wall. She was not a good pianist but she was efficient, and certain things that she knew well, and _felt_, she played well.

With some technical accomplishment she certainly rendered the "Bees'

Wedding" of Mendelssohn with astonishing vivacity that night. The elfin humour of the thing harmonised so much with certain aspects of her own temperament!

The swarming bees of Fairyland were in the room!

And then, with merry malice, and at Gilbert's suggestion, she improvised a Podley Polonaise.

Then she gave a little melody of Dvorak that she knew--"A mad scarlet thing by Dvorak," he quoted to her, and finally, at Gilbert's urgent request, she attempted the Troisieme Ballade of Chopin.

It reminded him of the first night on which he had met her, at the Amberleys' house. She did not play it well but his imagination filled the lacunae; his heated mind rose to a wild ecstasy of longing.

He put his arm round her and embraced her with tears in his eyes.

"Sweetheart," he said, "you are wonderful! See! We are alone here together, perfectly alone, perfectly happy. Let us always be for each other. Dear, I will sacrifice everything for you. You complete me. You were made for me. Come away with me, come with me for ever and ever. My wife will divorce me and we can be married; always to be together."

He had declared himself, and his wicked wish at last. He made an open proffer of his shameful love.

There was not a single thought in his mind of Mary, her deep devotion, her love and trust. He brushed aside the supreme gift that G.o.d had allowed him as a man brushes away an insect from his face.

All that the girl had said in answer was that he must not talk in such a way. Of course it could never be. They must be content as they were, hard as it was. "I am very sorry, Gilbert dear, you can never know how sorry I am. But you know I care for you. That must be all."

He had sent her home by herself that night, paying the cabman and giving him the address in Kensington.

Then for an hour before going to bed he had walked up and down his sitting room in a welter of hope, fear, regret, desire, wonder and deep perplexity.

He had now lost all sense of honour, all measure of proportion. His desire filled him and racked his very bones. Sometimes he almost hated Rita; always he longed for her to be his, his very own.

Freed from all possible restraint, lord of himself--"that heritage of woe!"--he was now drinking more deeply, more madly than ever before in his life.

He was abnormal in an abnormal world which his insanity created. The savage torture he inflicted on himself shall be only indicated here.

There are deeper h.e.l.ls yet, blacknesses more profound in which we shall see this unhappy soul!

Suffice it to say that for three red weeks he drove the chariot of his ruin more recklessly and furiously than ever towards h.e.l.l.

And the result, as far as his blistering hunger was concerned, was always the same.

The girl led him on and repulsed him alternately. He never advanced a step towards his desire. Yet the longing grew in intensity and never left him for a moment.

He tried hard to fathom Rita's character, to get at the springs of her thoughts. He failed utterly, and for two reasons.

Firstly, he was in no state to see anything steadily. The powers of insight and a.n.a.lysis were alike deserting him. His _mind_ had been affected before. Now his _brain_ was becoming affected.

One morning, with shaking hand, bloodshot eyes and a bottle of whiskey before him on the table, he sat down to write out what he thought of Rita. The accustomed pen and paper, the material implements of his power, might bring him back what he seemed to be losing.

This is what he wrote, in large unsteady characters, entirely changed from the neat beautiful caligraphy of the past.

"Pa.s.sionate and yet calculating at the same time; eager to rule and capable of ruling, though occasionally responsive to the right control; generous in confidence and trust, though with suspicion never very far away.

"Merrily false and frankly furtive in many of the actions of life.

A dear egoist! yet capable of self-abandoning enthusiasm, a brilliant embryo really wanting the guiding hand and master brain but reluctant to accept them until the last moment."

There was more of it, all compact of his hopes and fears, an entirely false conception of her, an emanation of poison which, nevertheless, affords some indication of his mental state.

The sheet concluded:--

"A white and graceful yacht seriously setting out into dangerous waters with no more certainty than hangs upon the result of a toss up or the tinkle of a tambourine. Deeply desiring a pilot, but unwilling that he should come aboard too soon and spoil the fun of beating up into the wind to see what happens. Weak, but not with the charm of dependence and that trusting weakness which stiffens a man's arm."

A futile, miserable dissection with only a half-grain of truth in it.

Gilbert knew it for what it was directly it had been written. He crumpled it up with a curse and flung it into the fireplace.

Yet the truth about the girl was simple enough. She was only an exceptionally clever and attractive example of a perfectly well-defined and numerous type.

Lothian was ignorant of the type, had never suspected its existence in his limited experience of young women, that was all.

Rita Wallace was just this. Heredity had given her a quick, good brain and an infinite capacity for enjoyment. It was an accident also that she was a very lovely girl. All beautiful people are spoiled. Rita was spoiled at school. Girls and mistresses alike adored her. With hardly any interregnum she had been plumped into Podley's Pure Literature Library and begun to earn her own living.

She lived with a good, commonplace girl who worshipped her.

Except that she could attract them and that on the whole they were silly moths she knew nothing of men. Her heart, unawakened as yet save by school-girl affections, was a kind and tender little organ. But, with all her beauty and charm she was essentially shallow, from want of experience rather than from lack of temperament.