Mr. Billett was garrulous at times, I fear--young men are so apt to be with older women. Oh _no_--he was beautifully sure that he was not betraying himself--the dear ostrich. And that letter--really that was clumsy of both of you, Oliver--when I could see the handwriting--all modern and well-bred girls seem to write the same curly kind of hand somehow--and then Sargent's address in embossed blue letters on the back. And I _couldn't_ have suspected him of carrying on an intrigue with Mrs. Piper!" and Oliver was forced to smile at her tinkle of laughter. Then she grew a little earnest.

"I don't suppose it was--Mr. Billett--I wanted so--exactly," she mused.

"It was more--Mr. Billett's age--Mr. Billett's undeniable freshness--if you see. I'm not quite a Kipling vampire--no--a vampire that wants to crunch the bones--or do vampires crunch bones? I believe they only act like babies with bottles--nasty of them, isn't it?--But one gets to a definite age--and Sargent's a dear but he has all the defects of a husband--and things begin slipping away, slipping away--"

She made a motion of sifting between her hands, letting fall light grains of a precious substance that the hands were no longer young enough to keep.

"And life goes so queerly and keeps moving on like a tramp in front of a policeman till you've started being gray and taking off your corset every time you're alone because you like being comfortable better than having a waist-line--and you've never had anything to settle you," her face twitched, "not children--nor even the security of marriage--nothing but work that only interests part of you--and this--"

She spread her hands at the apartment.

"Well--what a lot of nonsense I'm talking--and keeping Mr. Billett out in the car when he's sure he has pneumonia already--how unkind of me.

You must think me a very immoral old woman, don't you, Oliver?"

"I think you're very sporting," said Oliver, truthfully.

"Not very. If I really _wanted_ Mr. Billett, you see." Her eyes sparkled. "I'm afraid you wouldn't think me sporting at all--in that case. But then I don't think you'd have been able to--save--anybody I really wanted as you did Mr. Billett." She spoke slowly. "Even with that very capable looking right hand. But in case you're still worried--"

"I'm not, really."

She paid no attention.

"In case you're still worried--what I told Mr. Billett was true. In the first place, Sargent would never believe me, anyway. In the second place it would mean breaking with Sargent--and do you know I'm rather fond of Sargent in my own way?--and a thing like that--well, you saw how he was tonight--it would mean more things like revolvers and I _hate_ revolvers. And hurting Sargent--and ruining Mr. Billett who is a genuinely nice boy and can't help being a Puritan, though I never shall forget the way he looked in those towels. Still, I'm rather fond of him too--oh, I'm perfectly unashamed about it, it's quite in an aunty way now and he'll never see me again if he can help it.

"And making Sargent's daughter--who must be charming from what I hear of her--but charming or not, she happens to be a woman and I have a feeling that, being a woman, life will hurt her quite sufficiently without my adding my wholly vicarious share. Oh, I'm perfectly harmless now, Oliver," she made a pretty gesture with her hands. "You and Sargent and the fire-escape between you have drawn my fangs."

"I can't exactly--thank you," said Oliver, "but I do repeat--you're sporting."

"Never repeat a compliment to a woman over twenty and seldom then." She looked at him reflectively. "The same woman, that is. There is such a great deal I could teach you though, really," she said. "You're much more teachable than Mr. Billett, for instance," and Oliver felt a little shudder of terror go through him for a moment at the way she said it.

But she laughed again.

"I shouldn't worry. And besides, you're blighted, aren't you?--and they're unteachable till they recover. Well.

"Oh, yes, there was something else I meant to be serious about. Sargent said something about our--disappearing, and all that. Well, Sargent has always been enamored of puttering around a garden somewhere in an alias and old trousers with me to make him lemonade when he gets overheated--and so far I've humored him--but I've really never thought very much of the idea. That would be--for me--a particularly stupid way of going to seed." She was wholly in earnest now. "And I haven't the slightest intention of going to seed with Sargent or anybody else for a very long time yet. If it ever comes definitely to that I shall break with Sargent; you can depend on my selfishness--arrogance--anything you like for that. Quite depend.

"Tonight," she hesitated. "Tonight has really made a good many things--clear to me. Things that were moving around in my mind, though I didn't know quite what to call them. For one thing, it has made me--realize," her eyes darkened, "that my time for really being--a woman--not in the copybook sense--is diminishing. Getting short. Oh, you and Mr. Billett will have to reconcile your knowledge of Sargent's and my situation with whatever moral ideas you may happen to have on fathers-in-law and friends' fathers for some time yet--I'm sure I don't know how you're going to do it, especially Mr. Billett, and I can't honestly say that I particularly care. But that will not be--permanent, I imagine. You understand?" She put her hand on the door-k.n.o.b to imply that the audience was over.

"I shall miss Louise, though," she said, frankly.

"Louise will miss you." Oliver saw no need for being politic now. He added hesitatingly, "After all--"

"Oh, no. No," she said lightly but very firmly. "I couldn't very well, now, could I?" and Oliver, in spite of all the broadmindedness upon which he prided himself, was left rather dumb.

"Oh, it won't be--difficult," she added. "We can keep up--in the office--yes?"

"Yes," said Oliver hastily. He might be signing a compact with all the powers of darkness, but even so.

"For the rest, I am--used to things like that," she added, and once again her face grew suddenly bright with pain. Then she recovered herself.

"Well--our next merry meeting and so forth," she said airily. "Because when it happens, if it does, I may be so stodgily respectable you'll be very glad to ask me to dinner, you know. Or I may be--completely disreputable--one never knows. But in any case," and she gave her hand.

"Mr. Billett must be freezing to death in that car," she murmured.

"Good-by, Oliver, and my best if wholly unrespectable good wishes."

"Thanks and--good luck to you."

She turned on him swiftly.

"Oh, no. All the happiness in the world and _no_ luck---that's better, isn't it? _Good_-by."

"Good-by."

And then Oliver was out in the hall, pressing the b.u.t.ton that would summon a sleepy, disgruntled elevator-boy to take him down to Ted and the car. He decided as he waited that few conversations he had ever had made him feel quite so inescapably, irritatingly young; that he saw to the last inch of exact.i.tude just why Mr. Piper completely and Ted very nearly had fallen in love with Mrs. Severance; that she was one of the most remarkable individuals he had ever met; and that he hoped from the bottom of his heart he never, never saw her again.

XLIV

Ted and he had little conversation going back in the car. The most important part of it occurred when they had left New York behind and were rushing along cool moon-strewn roads to Southampton. Then--

"Thanks," said Ted suddenly and fervently and did not seem to be able to say anything more.

The events of the evening had come too close, at moments, to grotesque tragedy for Oliver to pretend to misunderstand him.

"Oh, that's all right. And anyhow I owed you one for that time with the gendarmes in Brest."

"Maybe," but Ted didn't seem to be convinced. "That was jocose though.

Even at the worst." The words came with effort. "This was--serious. I owe you about everything, I guess."

"Oh, go take a flying leap at a galloping goose!"

"Go do it yourself. Oh, Oliver, you a.s.s, I _will_ be pretty and polite about your saving my life." And both laughed and felt easier. "Saved a good deal more than that as a matter of fact--or what counts for more with me," Ted added soberly. "Then the letter I brought _was_ satisfactory?"

"Satisfactory? Gee!" said Ted intensely, and again they fell silent.

Some miles later Oliver added casually

"You won't have any trouble with our late hostess, by the way. Though she knows all about it."

"She knows?"

Oliver couldn't resist.

"And quite approves. But she's--a sport." Then for Ted's sake, "Besides, you see, it would crab her game completely."

"I'll tell Elinor, though," said Ted, stubbornly.

"About her father? You can't."

"Oh, Lord, no. About myself. Don't have to give names and addresses."