They were silent for a moment. Then he said abruptly, “Would you marry a comparatively poor man, Cecile?”
“If I loved him—yes.”
“Even if he had no Uncle Algernon prospects?” He turned his head and grinned at her, but she saw suddenly that he was more than half serious.
“That wouldn’t make any difference at all, I’m sure,” she said quietly. “But I’m speaking quite academically, because at the moment I’m not going to marry anyone. I’m giving myself some time with Laurie, so that we can both be happy together.”
“I see.” Maurice was looking ahead again, rather soberly. And she thought, with an irrepressible flash of humour, that it was impossible to tell if he were regretting a lost opportunity or congratulating himself on a narrow escape.
They were a good deal delayed by the Saturday traffic as they neared London, and when they finally arrived back at the flat it was later than Cecile had intended. She had hoped to have half an hour with Laurie before it was necessary for her to leave for the evening performance, but now, Cecile knew, her mother would have already departed to the theatre.
However, the prospect of some hours alone was suddenly a welcome relief, and she refused Maurice’s invitation to dinner, saying that she had something of a headache after the long drive.
“Give me a call and we’ll do a dinner together another evening,” she told him. “And—thank you, Maurice, for being such a sympathetic and understanding companion.”
“Was I?” Maurice smiled a bit dubiously. “I have an idea that I handled something badly. But there’s always another day. Sleep well, Cecile dear—and forget about Felicity.”
If only she could! thought Cecile, as she went up the stairs to the flat. But day and night she must remember Felicity, and the ever-present danger that she represented.
On the table in the sitting room she found a note from Laurie. “We are all invited to supper by Sir Lucas, after the show,” Laurie had scrawled, in her large, flowing hand. “Gregory Picton will be fetching you. Wear something nice and look your best. It just might lead to the kind of job you want.”
Cecile, who had never felt less like going on show and trying to be bright and attractive, groaned aloud. But then she reminded herself that at least she had an hour or two in which to prepare for the test.
And test it would be. Looking back at her mother’s note, she saw only the words that Gregory would be coming to fetch her. And, with an indescribable sinking of her heart, she realized that this very evening she would have to begin to adopt the attitude which was to drive Gregory away from her. Somehow she must convey to him that a sort of indifference was growing up on her side.
But how was one indifferent to someone who had come to mean so much? In principle, she had accepted this bitter and unwelcome role. How she was to play it she had, as yet, no idea.
Presently Cecile had a leisurely bath, did her hair a new way, and put on a becoming flower-printed dress, in the hope that all this would make her feel better able to tackle whatever ordeal awaited her.
Then she remembered that she had had nothing to eat since teatime at Uncle Algernon’s house. But she felt little hunger, and she contented herself with going into the kitchen and pouring herself a glass of milk. She was standing by the table drinking this when Gregory rang.
For a terrified moment she thought she could not go on. Then a sort of cold calm settled on her, and, going out into the little hall, she pressed the lever which opened the street door and set the flat door open for him.
She heard him coming up the stairs, two steps at a time, and she longed to match that almost boyish eagerness by running out to meet him. Instead, however, she went into the sitting room, flung herself down in an armchair and, as he entered the flat, she called out casually,
“Hello—you’re early, aren’t you?”
“Too early?” he enquired, standing in the doorway and smiling at her.
“Oh, no. I’m ready.”
“I’ll say you are.” He came slowly forward and regarded her with pleasure. “You look lovely in that dress. And you’ve done your hair a different way. It’s nice. Rather sophisticated for your type—but charming.”
“What is my type? Childish—and in need of a trustee, I suppose?” And she shrugged, as though she found his comment slightly irritating.
“Why—no.” He looked at her with faint surprise. But he did not commit the fatal error of asking her if she were tired. Instead, he came and sat down in the chair opposite and asked,
“What did you do with yourself today?”
“I went down to see Uncle Algernon.”
“Oh, yes—of course. How is the old boy? Gloomy as ever?”
“Yes. Though Felicity was there, which seemed to cheer him up a little. I think he is almost fond of her.” Cecile supposed bitterly that she had better throw in some kind remarks about Felicity, for good measure.
“Yes?”
She was half charmed, half dismayed that he showed no interest whatever in the subject of Felicity. For while this would make her difficult task even more difficult, it was not humanly possible to be anything but pleased by his indifference to her rival.
Cecile asked him about the supper party then, and he explained that it was quite a small, informal affair—Sir Lucas’s friendly way of making Laurie’s daughter welcome, now that she had come to live on the fringe of their circle.
“You mean it’s for me?” Cecile could not but be flattered. “How very nice—and gratifying. He must have arranged it with Laurie, I suppose, after the matinee. But how did you come into it, Gregory?”
“I think I was Laurie’s suggestion.” Gregory smiled. “Which I find gratifying, in my turn. That was a good idea of yours, Cecile, to bring us together on the day of your return.”
“Was it?” Cecile said, rather sadly, for it seemed to her now that her innocent scheming was pathetically out of date.
“Why, of course.” He gave her another of those quick, penetrating looks. “Laurie seems to regard me as your natural escort—which I find a very pleasing way of bridging the old gap. She rang me up herself early this evening, and made the suggestion that I should come along.”
“Did she?” Cecile could not quite suppress a sensation of triumphant pleasure. But then, remembering the demands of her new role, she felt bound to add, reflectively, “I’m a little surprised that she didn’t suggest Maurice should bring me.”
“Maurice? Why Maurice?” Gregory seemed surprised that he should even find a place in the discussion. And, all at once, Cecile found herself groping towards a possible justification for her new attitude.
“I was out with him today, and Laurie knew it. I suppose the obvious thing was to let him bring me on to the party.”
“Oh, no, it wasn’t.” Gregory dismissed Maurice’s claims with cheerful finality. “I imagine that anyone with Laurie’s stage experience would cast him for a very minor role in your young life. And quite right too.”
“Don’t you be so sure!” Cecile forced a light but convincing laugh, and somehow she contrived to give Gregory a glance which suggested that he did not know quite as much as he thought he did.
“What does that mean, exactly?” Gregory was evidently not going to deal in glances and innuendo. Though perfectly good humoured about it, he was going to have things in black and white. “As your trustee, I would suggest that Maurice Deeping is not worth more than your very passing attention.”
“You have that out with the other trustees,” Cecile told him mockingly. “Uncle Algernon, at least, would not agree with you. In fact, he gave me quite a lecture today on the desirability of my marrying his nephew.”
"He couldn’t have been serious!”
“On the contrary, he was willing to back his candidate to the tune of fifty thousand pounds.”
“The old bounder!"
“But why? Maurice is a very dear fellow. Even without fifty thousand pounds.”
“He may be.” Gregory smiled across at her�
��lazily, but in a way that made Maurice a thing of naught. “Only he just doesn’t come into this at all.”
“What do you mean by that?” She tried to sound angry, but failed.
“I mean, my darling,” he said, pleasantly but finally, “that if I had been there this afternoon, I should have told Uncle Algernon the exact truth. Which is that you are not going to marry anyone but me.”
CHAPTER IX
“Gregory—you mustn’t talk like that!” Cecile sprang to her feet, rapture and dismay almost equally mingled, in the emotion which drove the colour from her face. “It isn’t even a good joke.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.” He too had risen, and for a moment he seemed to tower over her, though he was smiling good-humouredly still. “It’s the simple truth. You don’t suppose I’m going to let any other fellow have you, do you?”
“But—you don’t know! You haven’t even asked my views.”
“Very well. I ask you now. Though it isn’t the moment I would have chosen. I mean you to have some time with Laurie first—to enjoy being a daughter before you began to enjoy being a wife. But if the issue is to be forced—”
Putting out his hand, he drew her to him and smiled down at her. “Well, my darling? When are you going to marry me?”
“I haven’t said I’m going to at all,” she cried, horribly torn between desire and cruel necessity. “You have no right to assume that I would. You’re being arrogant and—and—”
“Take it easy,” he said, and kissed her softly. “I’ll begin at the beginning, if you like, but I thought we understood each other better than that. Will you marry me, my dearest ward, when you come of age, in a few months’ time, and it won’t look quite so much like baby-snatching on my part?”
“I—don’t know.” She stared up at him. “I mean—no—I don’t think so.” She made an attempt to escape such close scrutiny, but his arms still held her, lightly but firmly.
“Why not, Cecile?” He spoke quietly, but as though he meant to have an answer.
“I hadn’t thought about it. I don’t want—”
“Well, think about it now,” he told her gently. “Think whether you feel you could love me and live happily with me for the rest of your life.”
“Oh, Gregory—” It was almost a wail, and she hid her face against him for a moment.
“What, darling?” He put his cheek down against her hair. “It’s nothing to cry about, you know.”
“But—” she grasped at the hateful necessity which Felicity had forced upon her—“I hate hurting you. And I—I have to. Because I’m going to say—no.”
“You mean you don’t love me?”
“I can’t marry you, Gregory. It—it wouldn’t do at all. I like you, but—”
“I asked—do you not love me?”
She struggled against the necessity of absolute denial. It would be like betraying her very soul to say she did not love him, and a sort of superstitious dread held her silent.
“Is it so difficult to say?”
“You must give me time—I don’t want to—to commit myself. I can’t help feeling—”
“ You shall have all the time in the world. Only I was so sure that you did love me, and that you knew it. I suppose,” he said slowly, “when one has an overwhelming revelation oneself, it’s impossible to believe that one’s beloved doesn’t share it. Don’t look like that, my love. Have I scared you?”
“No—no.” She put up her hand against his cheek for a moment, in a tender little gesture, for she simply could not bear to have him look worried and puzzled. “It’s just—” She stopped helplessly, and he said:
“Do you mean you are scared about something else? Or someone else?”
“Oh, no—no,” she cried again. She knew she was doing this badly, and that if Felicity could have seen her now she would have considered that the bargain was being poorly kept.
“Then why do you look so frightened?”
“I’m not frightened, Gregory.” She made a supreme effort, and even smiled faintly. “I was—startled, if you like. I hadn’t expected to be proposed to twice in one day and—”
“What was the other one?”
“I told you. Uncle Algernon wanted me to say—”
“Oh, that!” He dismissed Uncle Algernon and his proposition scornfully. But, because it represented the only basis on which she could build any sort of defence, Cecile refused to let it be brushed aside.
“It isn’t so absurd as you think. I’m very fond of Maurice. And although of course I don’t take Uncle Algernon’s suggestion very seriously, there—there’s more to it than that.”
“More to what?” enquired Gregory, with terrifying exactness.
“I mean I do like Maurice. And I know he likes me. And though it’s too early to be positive yet, I think—I mean it might be possible—” Her voice trailed away, and after a moment Gregory asked drily.
“Are you trying to tell me that you might consider marrying Maurice Deeping?”
“N—I don’t know. I won’t be badgered like this! You have no right to ask such a question when he hasn’t even asked it himself yet.”
“Very well. I ask you the same question about myself. I have a right to ask that. Do you love me, Cecile?”
“Please, Gregory—”
“Answer me, Cecile,” he said quietly. “It’s a very simple question.”
“I don’t know, I tell you!”
“Of course you know.” He kissed her compellingly.
“Well, then—” a vision of Felicity’s cold, watchful eyes rose before her—“I don’t love you.”
“You’re lying,” he said, and he was very pale. But he let her go. “I told you once before—you’re a bad liar, Cecile. You do love me, but for some reason best known to yourself, you want to deny it. Why, I wonder—why?” He spoke half to himself, and she was immediately terrified lest he contrived to do what his mother had called some inspired guessing.
“I’m not lying.” She whipped herself into seeming anger, and she thought her voice carried cold conviction. “The fact is that you simply will not accept an answer you don’t like. You’re conceited and arrogant, and you can’t imagine that someone should not be in love with you.”
“That isn’t true.” He spoke quietly and without any sign of answering anger. “I didn’t expect you to love me, Cecile. I think I was quite humbly happy when I felt sure that you did and I am not, as you say,” he flashed her an amused smile, “a humble man by nature. It is not self-confidence which makes me believe you love me. It is knowledge of human nature. Only I don’t know why you should deny it.”
He frowned considerably, and she was irresistibly reminded of him in Court, just before cross-examination.
“Please let go—” She was terribly frightened, but she managed to force a nervous little laugh. “I don’t know how we have come to be involved in such a desperately serious discussion—all because of Uncle Algernon’s silly idea.”
“You mean I spoke too soon?”
“Yes— No—It wouldn’t be any good, anyway.”
“Cecile, don’t be so final!” He looked taken aback again. “It’s as though something stronger than yourself is making you turn away from me. What’s the matter, child? Why aren’t we friends any longer? Is it—” he narrowed his eyes slightly, in a speculative manner—“something to do with Laurie?”
“No, no!” She was absolutely panic-stricken, as he seemed to brush the very fringe of her miserable secret.
“But I think perhaps it is.”
“No, it’s not!” Sheer desperation enabled her to make that sound convincing. “And you are drawing the most absurd conclusions, anyway. I’m not—unfriendly, Gregory. It’s just that—that I don’t want to be forced into admissions, when I don’t even know my own mind yet.”
He smiled.
“If you don’t know your own mind, my darling, there is no need for you to be so final about the uselessness of my pleading my cause another time,” he pointed ou
t.
She saw she would have to withdraw that and temporize. “I didn’t quite mean that, I suppose. I was—angry and a bit—frightened, I think.”
“I’m sorry.” He held out his hand to her, with his most winning smile. “Forgive me. It seems I’m not so good at handling my own cause as those of my clients.”
“Oh, Gregory—it’s all right—” She put her hand into his, and somehow resisted the desire to fling herself into his arms. “We both got rather hot over nothing, I think.”
“Did we? Is that really how it struck you?” He smiled at her quizzically, and she felt herself blush. But he did not pursue the subject further, and presently they both went down to his car. All the way to the restaurant, where they were to meet the others, Cecile tried to chat normally and to seem at ease. But her conversation sounded strained, even to her own ears, and her heart ached so much that her head ached too. But for the fact that this supper party had been arranged for her own special pleasure, she would have made any sort of excuse and turned back home again.
When they reached the restaurant—an unpretentious but very pleasant-looking Italian place—they found that a table had been reserved for the theatre party, and that they were expected at any minute. Indeed, even as the information was being given, the door opened again, and in came Sydney Manning and Laurie, followed by Sir Lucas and one or two other people.
There were introductions all round, and then Cecile found herself sitting between Sir Lucas himself and someone who was introduced as Theo Letterton. A name which she remembered as one in the cast of the play, though she could not recall which part he had taken.
“You wouldn’t. It’s quite a small one,” he told her with a smile, when she admitted this. “I play the not very successful blackmailer, who is somewhere back in Laurie’s past. On the stage, of course,” he added, which made Cecile realize that she must have looked momentarily startled.
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