December Love Part 128

"No; you will always have youth in you. It is undying. It makes half your charm, my dear. And perhaps--"

"Yes?"

"Well, perhaps it has caused most of the trouble in your life."

She looked down.

"Our best gifts have their--what shall I say--their shady side, I suppose. And we seem to have to pay very often for what are thought of as gifts. But now I must tell you."

"Yes."

And then he began to relate to her, swiftly although he was old, the events of his mission. She listened, and while she listened she sat very still. She had looked up. Her eyes were fixed upon him. Presently he reached the point in his narrative where Arabian walked into d.i.c.k Garstin's studio. Then she moved. She seemed suddenly seized with an uncontrollable restlessness. He went on without looking at her, but he heard her movements, the rustle of her gown, the touch of her hand on a sofa cus.h.i.+on, on the tea-table, the c.h.i.n.k of moved china, touching other china. And two or three times he heard the faint sound of her breathing.

He knew she was suffering intensely, and he believed it was because of the haunting, inexorable remembrance of the enticement that abominable fellow, Arabian, had had for her. But he had to go on. And he went on till he came to the scene in the flat at Rose Tree Gardens.

"You--you went to his room!" she then said, interrupting him.

"Yes."

He heard her sigh. But she said nothing more. He told what had happened in the flat, but not fully. He said nothing of Arabian's mention of her name, but he did tell her that he himself had spoken of her, had said that he was a friend of hers. And finally he told her how, carried away by indignation, he had spoken of his and Miss Van Tuyn's knowledge that Arabian had stolen her jewels.

"I didn't mean to tell him that," he added. "But--well, it came out.

I--I hope you forgive me?"

He did not wait for her answer, but told her of his abrupt departure from the flat, and of his subsequent visit to Miss Van Tuyn, of what he had learnt at the hotel, and of what he had done there.

"The police!" she said, as if startled. "But if--if there should be a scandal! Oh, Seymour, that would be too horrible! I couldn't bear that!

He might--it might come out! And my name--"

She got up from the sofa. Her face looked drawn with an anxiety that was like agony. He got up too.

"It was only a threat. But in any case it will be all right, Adela."

"But we don't know what he may do!" she said, with desperation.

"Wait till you know what he has done."

"What has he done?"

And then he told her of the outrage in the studio. When he was silent she made a slight swaying movement and took hold of the mantelpiece.

He saw by her face that she had grasped at once what Arabian's action implied.

Flight!

"You see--he's done with. We've done with the fellow!" he said at last as she did not speak.

"Yes."

Her face, when not interfered with, was always pale. But now it looked horribly, unnaturally white. Relief, he believed, had shaken her in the very soul.

"Adela, did you think your good deed was going to recoil on you?" he said. "Did you really think it was going to bring punishment on you? I don't believe things go like that even in this distracted, inexplicable old world."

"Don't they? Mightn't they?"

"Surely not. You have saved that girl. You have paid back that scoundrel. And you have nothing to fear."

"Why did you look at me like that when you came into the room?"

"But you are--"

"No. You haven't told me something. Tell me!"

"Be happy in the good result of your self-sacrifice, Adela."

"I want you to tell me. There is something. I know there is."

"Yes. But it only concerns me."

"Seymour, I don't believe that!"

He was silent, looking at her with the old dog's eyes. But now there was something else in them besides faithfulness.

"Well, Adela," he said at last, "I believe very much in absolute sincerity between real friends. But I suppose friends.h.i.+p must be very real indeed to stand absolute sincerity. Don't you think so?"

"Yes, I do. But our friends.h.i.+p is as real as any friends.h.i.+p can be, I think."

"Yes, but on my side it is mixed up, it has always been mixed up, with something else."

"Yes, I know," she said in a low voice.

"And besides I'm afraid, if I speak quite frankly, I shall hurt you, my dear!"

"Then--hurt me, Seymour!"

"Shall I? Can I do that?"

"Be frank with me. I have been very frank with you. I have told _you_."

"Yes, indeed. You have been n.o.bly, gloriously frank. Well, then--that horrible fellow did say something which I haven't told you, something that, I confess it, has upset me."

"What was it?" she said, still in the low voice, and bending her small head a little like one expecting punishment.

"He alluded to a friend of yours. He mentioned that nice boy I met here, young Craven?"

"Yes?"

"I really can't get what he said over my lips, Adela."

"I know what he said. You needn't tell me."