V
"Are we friends?" he asked roguishly.
"I hope so," she said, with no diminution of her inscrutability.
They were in a taxi-cab, rolling along the Embankment towards theBuckingham Palace Hotel, where she said she lived. He was happy. "Whyam I happy?" he thought. "_What_ is there in her that makes me happy?"He did not know. But he knew that he had never been in a taxi-cab, oranywhere else, with any woman half so elegant. Her elegance flatteredhim enormously. Here he was, a provincial man of business, ruffling itwith the best of them!... And she was young in her worldly maturity.Was she twenty-seven? She could not be more. She looked straight infront of her, faintly smiling.... Yes, he was fully aware that he wasa married man. He had a distinct vision of the angelic Nellie, of thethree children, and of his mother. But it seemed to him that his owncase differed in some very subtle and yet effective manner from thesimilar case of any other married man. And he lived, unharassed byapprehensions, in the lively joy of the moment.
"But," she said, "I hope you won't come to see me act."
"Why?"
"Because I should prefer you not to. You would not be sympathetic tome."
"Oh, yes, I should."
"I shouldn't feel it so." And then, with a swift disarrangement of allthe folds of her skirt, she turned and faced him. "Mr. Machin, do youknow why I've let you come with me?"
"Because you're a good-natured woman," he said.
She grew even graver, shaking her head.
"No! I simply wanted to tell you that you've ruined Rose--my cousin."
"Miss Euclid? Me ruined Miss Euclid!"
"Yes. You robbed her of her theatre--her one chance."
He blushed. "Excuse me," he said. "I did no such thing. I simplybought her option from her. She was absolutely free to keep the optionor let it go."
"The fact remains," said Elsie April, with humid eyes, "the factremains that she'd set her heart on having that theatre, and youfailed her at the last instant. And she has nothing, and you've gotthe theatre entirely in your own hands. I'm not so silly as to supposethat you can't defend yourself legally. But let me tell you that Rosewent to the United States heart-broken, and she's playing to emptyhouses there--empty houses! Whereas she might have been here inLondon, interested in her theatre, and preparing for a successfulseason."
"I'd no idea of this," breathed Edward Henry. He was dashed. "I'mawfully sorry!"
"Yes, no doubt. But there it is!"
Silence fell. He knew not what to say. He felt himself in one wayinnocent, but he felt himself in another way blackly guilty. Hisremorse for the telephone-trick which he had practised on Rose Euclidburst forth again after a long period of quiescence simulating death,and acutely troubled him.... No, he was not guilty! He insisted inhis heart that he was not guilty! And yet--and yet--No taxi-cab evertravelled so quickly as that taxi-cab. Before he could gather togetherhis forces it had arrived beneath the awning of the Buckingham PalaceHotel.
His last words to her were:
"Now I shan't change the day of my stone-laying. But don't worry aboutyour Conference. You know it'll be perfectly all right!" He spokearchly, with a brave attempt at cajolery. But in the recesses of hissoul he was not sure that she had not defeated him in this their firstencounter. However, Seven Sachs might talk as he chose--she was notsuch a persuasive creature as all that! She had scarcely even tried tobe persuasive.
At about a quarter-past six when he saw his underling again he said toMr. Marrier:
"Marrier, I've got a great idea. We'll have that corner-stone-layingat night. After the theatres. Say half-past eleven. Torchlight!Fireworks from the cranes! It'll tickle old Pilgrim to death. I shallhave a marquee with matchboarding sides fixed up inside, and heatit with a few of those smokeless stoves. We can easily lay onelectricity. It will be absolutely the most sensational stone-layingthat ever was. It'll be in all the papers all over the blessed world.Think of it! Torches! Fireworks from the cranes!... But I won't changethe day--neither for Miss April nor anybody else."
Mr. Marrier dissolved in laudations.
"Well," Edward Henry agreed with false diffidence. "It'll knock spotsoff some of 'em in this town!"
He felt that he had snatched victory out of defeat. But the nextmoment he was capable of feeling that Elsie April had defeatedhim even in his victory. Anyhow, she was a most disconcerting andfancy-monopolizing creature.
There was one source of unsullied gratification, he had shaved off hisbeard.
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