One Man's Heart

by Mary Burchell

  “Hm. Or else you send for the police?”

  “Don’t make me repeat such a horrid statement,” he begged.

  “Well then, I’ll explain.” She paused, as though to collect her thoughts, and he watched her with an air of grave attention which she found oddly attractive. “I think,” she said slowly, “that you must be a man of the world—”

  He made her a slight bow.

  “And so you’ll know that—that there are times when a woman can do very foolish things.”

  “Even a very lovely woman?”

  “Oh, yes. In fact, she’s even more apt to do so than the other kind.”

  “Of course,” he agreed gravely. “There is more—”

  “Temptation.”

  “I was going to say ‘opportunity,’” he assured her.

  “Very well, it’s the same thing. Usually it happens when one is very young.”

  He began to laugh.

  “What is there amusing in that?” she wanted to know.

  “My dear, are we still talking about you?”

  “Of course. Why not?”

  “Only that it’s delicious to hear you talking of your vanished youth.”

  “Oh!” She laughed a little too, then. “Well, I was twenty when it happened.”

  “So?” The dark eyes travelled over her again with such frank curiosity as well as admiration that she said, rather dryly:

  “Twenty-five.”

  “Oh—thank you.” Again he made her that half-mocking little bow. “And when you were twenty you—you committed a grave indiscretion?”

  “Well, at least, I was preparing to do so. Spend a week-end with a man, you know.”

  He nodded regretfully. It seemed he did know.

  “I went, but—well, I changed my mind—came back in time, you understand.”

  “Perfectly. Most discreetly expressed—and very wise of you, if I may say so.”

  “Yes, but the unwise part was that I had written a letter—quite an unmistakable letter—making the ar­rangement.”

  “And that did not come back,” he suggested.

  “Exactly.”

  “The gentleman in the case—we will call him Mr. Martin, for the sake of argument, shall we?”

  “Purely for the sake of argument,” she agreed, a curious little dimple making its appearance in the cen­tre of her cheek.

  “The gentleman in the case preserved the letter carefully and produced it at a very awkward moment?”

  “Threatened do produce it,” she amended.

  “Oh—threatened, of course. I’m a little unfamiliar with the technique, I’m afraid.” His eyes sparkled, and then he enquired bluntly: “What made the moment specially awkward?”

  “The usual reason.” Her tone was a trifle dry. “I’m engaged—going to be married very soon.”

  “I see.” He glanced at her ringless hand, and her eyes followed his.

  “No,” she said. “No, I didn’t wear it tonight. It’s rather a big diamond and—”

  “You found difficulty in getting your burglar’s glove over it?” he suggested.

  “Notat all. As you see, I’m wearing no gloves.” She spread out rather strong white hands for his inspec­tion. “The fact is”—her tone was as grave as his, though that dimple appeared again—”that I thought the flash of it would betray my presence on the fire-escape.”

  “Whew—does he like them as large and imposing as all that?”

  “Pretty nearly.” There was a curious dryness in her tone again.

  “But these generous views don’t extend to—letters, shall we say?”

  “No,” Hilma agreed. “No, they do not.”

  “So that it became imperative to retrieve that unfor­tunate letter?”

  “Yes—absolutely imperative. And”—the shadow of very real anxiety darkened her eyes again—”and I haven’t got it, after all.”

  His eyes narrowed slightly as they had when he had watched her at the desk. But she was looking away from him, silent and troubled, and she failed to see the quick play of expression on his strong, good-looking face.

  “We must make other plans, in fact,” he remarked thoughtfully at last.

  “We?” She flashed a glance at him then.

  “We,” he agreed, and smiled straight at her.

  “Oh!” Something about that seemed to break her control badly for a moment. Her mouth quivered un­controllably and she looked down. “I don’t know why you should trust my story, or be so—so nice.” She put out her hand to him, her head still bent, and imme­diately long, strong, brown fingers closed over hers.

  He didn’t say anything, but the clasp of their hands was curiously eloquent.

  “I think,” she said, looking up at him with an un­steady little smile, “I think you must be a born romantic.”

  “Not at all,” he assured her earnestly. “Actually, I’m a distinctly selfish realist. Most people would call me an opportunist, I suppose.”

  “Then they would be wrong.”

  “No.” He was regretful but firm. “I wish I could agree with you. But I can’t. Almost my only positive virtue is an inability to hide the truth from myself. That tells me I’m the kind of man who deliberately sets out to make a rich marriage, for instance.”

  It was she who studied him with frank curiosity that time.

  “And have you had any—any success?” she en­quired delicately.

  He nodded.

  “I, too, am engaged,” he admitted, and his degree of enthusiasm accurately balanced hers when speaking of her fiancé.

  “Is she—nice?”

  “Certainly.”

  “And very rich?”

  “And very rich,” he agreed.

  “Oh, dear!” Hilma gave a slight sigh. “We’re not very admirable people, are we?”

  “Not very. Possibly that’s why we feel instinctively drawn towards each other.”

  “Do we?” She felt she must not let that pass without challenge.

  “Of course.” He was unabashed. “The attraction even went to the lengths of bringing you in at the wrong window.”

  She laughed, and he said calmly:

  “Will you stay and have supper with me?”

  “But I—there’s still the letter.”

  “Of course. But didn’t you say there was a light in the window above this?”

  “Yes.” She frowned again. “I can’t understand it.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you something. He goes out very often late at night, this—blackmailer friend of yours. He’s home at the moment, in spite of all your calcula­tions. But if you will honour me by taking supper with me, that will give him time to go out to his usual midnight haunts.”

  “But how shall we be sure that the coast is clear?”

  “We shall look out and see if the light is gone, of course, and if it has I shall telephone to his flat. Anyone can make a mistake in a telephone number. If he answers—I’ve made a mistake in the number, and we must try something else, perhaps some other night. If there’s no answer—the coast is clear.”

  Hilma nodded.

  “We could look out now to see if the light is gone,” she suggested.

  “My dear, that’s really horrid of you,” he said, “and not at all in keeping with the spirit of romantic adventure which has fallen on us both.”

  She laughed and coloured slightly, whereat he took both her hands and drew her gently to her feet.

  “How does this unfasten?” He bent to examine the clasp of her cloak.

  “I haven’t said I shall stay,” she protested. But he was already unfastening the clasp, and at the second’s light touch of his fingers on her throat she felt the protest die.

  It was impossible to tell from his grave dark eyes whether he even noticed the moment, but to Hilma it administered the strangest little shock. Half puzzling, half frightening—wholly delicious.

  “There.” He stood before her now, the velvet cloak over his arm. “Will you come in to supper? It’s in the o
ther room.”

  “We’re—we’re alone in the flat, of course?” The slight lift of her eyebrows emphasised the lateness of the hour and the curious unconventionality of what they were doing.

  “Of course.”

  The last vestige of doubt seemed to drop from her then.

  “Can I help get supper ready?” she volunteered.

  “No. My man set it all out before he left.”

  “You have your own manservant?”

  “Yes.”

  “Isn’t that pretty expensive?”

  “Yes. But so are most things worth having.”

  “I suppose they are.” She was silent for a moment, then added slowly, “I suppose we are right in thinking that?”

  “Well”—his smile was something between cynicism and indulgence—”are you prepared to face the rest of life without much money?”

  “No,” Hilma admitted. “No, I can’t say I am.”

  “Hence the fiancé with a lavish taste in diamonds but a meagre supply of tolerance.”

  “I’m afraid,” Hilma said, “that I don’t really ap­prove of your strange aptitude for approximating to the truth.”

  He laughed softly.

  “You know, the trouble is that we’re a little too much alike in outlook not to read each other’s motives rather easily.”

  She made a slight face.

  “Isn’t that a slightly uncomfortable suggestion? Let’s go in to supper.”

  He held the door open for her, but just as she was about to pass him, she stopped and said with a wor­ried little frown:

  “He’s really an awfully good sort, you know. Pro­bably much too good for me.”

  “I’m sure she’s much too good for me, too,” he agreed with that mocking gravity. And then they went into the charming, candle-lit dining-room together.

  He brought extra china, glass and silver for her and set it out deliberately. She stood watching him and thinking how well he did himself in everything. In style and choice this was the meal of a pretty extrava­gant person. Not too lavish, but undeniably exclu­sive.

  When they were seated, he poured out wine for them both—clear amber-coloured wine from Italy, which seemed to have brought with it something of the warm, romantic inconsequence of the sunlit slopes where it had been made.

  He raised his glass and silently toasted her, his smil­ing eyes never leaving her face.

  Hilma thought there must be something very heady about this wine, for, as she drank, it seemed to her that a warm, delicious recklessness took hold of her. But her voice was quite cool as she said:

  “Why do you look at me like that?”

  “I’m trying to decide what to call you.”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “You mean you want to know my name?”

  But he shook his head.

  “No, no. Discretion and romance are at one on that. Throughout this delightful, brief adventure we can be only one thing—nameless.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Hilma agreed slowly.

  “But I know what I shall call you,” he said softly. “What I’m sure my Austrian grandfather would have called you if he’d known you.”

  “And that is?”

  “Lieb­ling.”

  She coloured faintly again, perhaps at the peculiarly caressing quality of his voice when he said the word.

  “That means—darling, doesn’t it?”

  “It is perhaps a little softer—a little gentler than darling.” There was a strange quality of sweetness about his smile as he said that.

  “That’s very—nice of you. Almost too nice.”

  “Nothing could be too nice for this evening—Lieb­ling.”

  She hardly knew what to reply. For one thing she was so startlingly in agreement with that view herself. After a moment she said, quite casually:

  “So you had an Austrian grandfather?”

  “Yes. Viennese.”

  “I—see. You know Vienna very well?”

  “I did. In the old days.”

  “I think I’m not very much surprised to hear that. There’s something a little Viennese about your charm.” He inclined his head to her in amused ac­knowledgment of the compliment. “It’s appropriate to—to our adventure somehow, too,” she added, thoughtfully turning her glass on its stem.

  “I wonder why you say that.” His eyes were cu­riously gentle as they watched her.

  “Because, in spite of the surface gaiety, there is an undercurrent of melancholy in everything Vien­nese.”

  “Melancholy, Lieb­ling?”

  “No. Perhaps that’s too strong a word. I once heard someone say that Schubert’s music expresses it exact­ly. It’s a beauty like the spring. We all love it with an added tenderness because we feel instinctively that it can’t last long.”

  There was a moment of profound silence. Then he said softly:

  “So that’s how you feel about our meeting, Lieb­ling? You love it with an added tenderness because you know it can’t last long?”

  “Oh!” She looked up quickly and flushed. “I didn’t mean quite—”

  “Yes, you did, my dear. And you were right. This is our short and lovely and faintly melancholy moment. On either side of it lie our prosaic lives. We came from them. We shall go back to them, because neces­sity and our own rather selfish characters are something we cannot or will not fight against. But don’t let’s tarnish the moment by refusing to admit its brightness.”

  She smiled at him then and unhesitatingly raised her glass.

  “To our moment,” she said, and drank with her eyes on his.

  There was a short silence after that while they be­gan to eat the kind of meal that Hilma very seldom saw nowadays. She experienced a cool, almost imper­sonal appreciation of it. Not so much the physical enjoyment of eating good things as the satisfaction that such things existed and that all life had not nar­rowed down to the drab, commonplace of daily exis­tence.

  After a while he said smilingly:

  “There are so many questions that I’ve presumed to ask you, Lieb­ling. Aren’t there any that you want to ask me?”

  It amused her faintly, and for some reason touched her too, that he made this oddly ingenuous attempt to stir her curiosity in him. It was like a child who says, “Look at me, look at me. Don’t you think I’ve climbed up high?” And that there should be anything childlike in the make-up of this big, dark, impertur­bable stranger was piquant.

  “I thought we were to remain very mysterious and anonymous,” she said just a little teasingly.

  “Oh—yes. But there are some questions one can ask, and even answer, without casting too glaring a searchlight upon our identities.”

  “Very well, then there is something I feel very cu­rious about.”

  “Yes?” He leant his elbows on the table and smiled straight at her.

  “Tell me, is there any—any explanation of your wanting so passionately to have the good things of life?—or is it just—”

  “A weakness of character?” he suggested.

  She nodded.

  “By ‘explanation’ you mean ‘excuse,’ of course?”

  “I suppose I do.”

  “Well, there’s no excuse, Lieb­ling. There never is for being a dilettante instead of an honest-to-God fighter. What one might consider something of a rea­son is that all my life I’ve been used to the good things, that I never imagined that pleasant state of affairs altering, and now—or rather, a few months ago—instead of inheriting what I had expected, I find that someone else has been more fortunate than I.”

  “Oh! That’s too bad,” she exclaimed indignantly.

  “Except that I suppose a man is at liberty to leave his money where he pleases.”

  “It was your father who did that?”

  “My grandfather.”

  “Not the Austrian grandfather?”

  “Oh, no. He had nothing much to leave—except his temperament.”

  “And he left you that?” Her blue eyes w
ere almost tender suddenly.

  “I don’t know, Lieb­ling.” He smiled and shrugged. “You were kind enough to hint something of the sort a little while ago.”

  She nodded, perhaps in confirmation of that.

  “So that, having been used to lots of money all your life, you suddenly find yourself more or less without any?”

  “The unhappy truth in a nutshell,” he agreed.

  “I think that’s an excuse,” she exclaimed indignant­ly, “a very good excuse for deliberately setting out to—to acquire the good things of life again.”

  He seemed amused by her championship, but he slightly shook his head.

  “No, no. A really admirable character would put up a fight, you know. Accept the circumstances, start at the bottom of the ladder—or whatever the uncomfort­able expression is—and carve out his own fortune in the face of all obstacles.”

  “And you don’t feel like doing that?”

  “Not at all, Lieb­ling. I happen to be a lazy man with expensive tastes, and so—”

  “You make a very wealthy marriage?”

  “Exactly.”

  “You said she was nice, I think. Do you—do you like her?”

  “Since identities are not being disclosed, I can tell you that ‘like’ is exactly the word.”

  “You don’t—love her?”

  “Lieb­ling, do you really expect me to sit in front of anyone as lovely as you and say I love another wom­an?” he demanded mockingly.

  “Please—I’m serious.”

  “We ought not to be that, you know—serious. It doesn’t fit in with the mood at all. But—since you insist on a reply—I love her about as much as you love the man whose ring you’re not wearing.”

  “Oh!” Hilma’s right hand went instinctively to cover her ringless left hand.

  “Well, you don’t love him, do you?” His smiling eyes challenged her.

  “Do you expect me to sit in front of anyone as handsome as you—” she began mockingly in her turn, but he interrupted her quite urgently with:

  “Seriously, Lieb­ling.”

  “Very well.” She spoke seriously and slowly. “Very well, I like him.”

  “Ah!” He presumed to give a little sigh of relief. “You have lifted a weight from my mind.”

  “That doesn’t really mean anything at all, of course,” she said severely.

  “Doesn’t it?” he laughed. “Don’t you think it would have meant the ruin of our romantic meeting if you had started to tell me how much you loved someone else.”