Imprudence Part 27

It was a matter of indifference to Prudence whether he went or not. His presence would not add to the general hilarity; and he would probably want her to leave early; apart from that, it would be good for him to look on at the harmless fun with which youth took its fill of enjoyment in the presence of tragedy. There was something fine and inspiriting in the gay manner in which these young people enjoyed themselves with the dark cloud of war overshadowing their lives.

Prudence's thoughts dwelt upon these things as she entered Mrs Henry's house with her husband, and left him at the foot of the stairs and went up to take off her wrap. They were everywhere, these khaki-clad figures; the sound of their voices, of their gay laughter, filled the rooms and pa.s.sages. She talked to them, when she descended, and met their admiring glances with the quiet self-possession which characterised her always, talked easily and pleasantly with men whom she had never met before, to whom she had not been introduced. The uniform was an introduction; and she was there to help them to have a good time.

Mrs Henry demanded that of her. But this lapse from the conventions struck Edward Morgan unfavourably. He perceived disrespect in the eager push of these unknown young men to secure a dance with his wife. And she gave her dances readily to any one who solicited the favour, a sweet and gracious-looking figure in a dress of white and gold, with a wreath of gold leaves in her hair.

"Don't tell me your name," he heard one laughing voice exclaim, as its owner scribbled something on his card. "I've written it down as Queen of Hearts. That's what you are--to me for to-night. I want to think of you as just that."

Mr Morgan, restraining a desire to interfere, turned abruptly and moved away. He did not at all approve of this sort of thing. The licence permitted by the times struck him as very objectionable. He took up a position near the door, where he could command a view of the dancing and be out of the way. He did not like the modern dances; they were awkward, and lacked the dignity of the dances familiar to his youth.

"Come and open the ball with me," Mrs Henry said graciously, pausing beside him while the band played the opening bars of a two-step.

"I'm sorry," he said stiffly; "but these rag-time airs are unfamiliar to me."

"We can waltz to this," she said good-naturedly. "You waltz divinely.

Come on, old dear!"

She put her hand on his arm, and he found himself to his amazement dancing with his sister-in-law and enjoying it. He had not danced for years, not since the night when he danced in that same room with his fiancee, who, at the finish of the evening, had asked him to release her from her engagement. The memory of that humiliating experience was with him when, at the finish of the dance, he found his way back to the quiet corner near the doorway, from whence he watched Prudence come and go with her different partners, always animated and gay and tireless in her enjoyment. What, he wondered, would his life have been like, and hers, had he not turned a deaf ear to her request?

He hated to see her enjoying herself thus independently of him; and he was powerless to interfere. She would have accused him justly of jealousy of her youth. He was jealous of her youth; he was still more jealous of the youth of the men who surrounded her.

A late arrival, entering un.o.btrusively while the dancing was in full swing, seeing Mr Morgan standing disconsolately in the doorway, came to a halt beside him, and noting the heavy boredom of his look, was moved to address him, though he had no particular liking for the man he accosted, and was not sure how his advances would be received.

"Something of a crush inside, sir," he observed. "There doesn't appear to be any room for me."

Mr Morgan turned his head and surveyed the speaker. A light of surprised recognition flashed into his sombre eyes, and, after a slight show of hesitation, he held out his hand.

"Steele!" he exclaimed. "The last man I expected to see. Where do you spring from?"

Steele laughed quietly.

"The war brought me back," he said. "I arrived two days ago, and of course came home. Mrs Henry met me yesterday outside the bank--and so I'm here. She told me she was short of men. The shortage isn't apparent." He stared into the densely packed room and smiled. "One can't imagine Mrs Henry short of anything. It looks ripping."

"Beastly crus.h.!.+" Edward Morgan muttered. "I hate this sort of thing."

The smile in the young man's eyes deepened, but the rest of his face was grave. He was wondering why Mr Morgan put himself to the inconvenience of attending an entertainment against his inclination.

"It doesn't look as though my chance of securing partners was rosy," he remarked. "I'm horribly late."

He had not made any great effort to get there earlier. He had felt no particular interest in the dance to which he had been so urgently and unceremoniously bidden. But he deplored his lateness sincerely when, as the music slowed down before finally ceasing, he caught an amazingly unexpected vision of soft white and gold, with cheeks flushed like a wild rose, and with wide blue eyes opened to their fullest as they encountered his eager gaze. Prudence's eyes looked into his; and the lights and the music and the crowd melted magically away. She was back in the past, with the scent of _gloire de Dijon_ roses filling the air, and one voice only breaking across immeasurable distance, and falling on her ears like a note, lost and now recalled, the dear familiar sound of a voice to which her heart responded and which flooded the universe with the music of the spring.

Whether Prudence broke away from her legitimate partner, or whether it was Steele who effected the change, she never afterwards remembered.

She was conscious at the moment only of the eager welcome in his eyes, the surprised satisfaction of his voice speaking her name, the glad a.s.surance with which he took her hand and placed it on his arm and steered her with dexterous swiftness through the crowd about the doorway, leaving Mr Morgan staring after them in stupefied amazement, and her late partner frowning with annoyance at the slight which bereft him of the most sought after partner of the evening.

It all happened so quickly. Before she had recovered fully from the first surprise of the encounter, she found herself alone with Steele in a little room off the hall, that was all in confusion with an overflow of furniture from the rooms which had been cleared. He drew her inside and closed the door and stood looking down at her with a laugh in his grey eyes.

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR.

"What luck!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Whoever would have thought of finding you here? This saves me a journey."

"I thought you were abroad," she said, her face irradiating happiness.

"It's just a dream, I can't believe you are real."

He stooped over her, and laid his hands on her shoulders and held her, looking into her upturned face. "I thought myself at first _you_ were a dream," he said--"a vision which the longing in my heart had conjured up. And then your voice--the touch of your hand..." He bent lower and kissed her lips. "That is no dream," he murmured, and drew back, smiling at her. "How good it is to be with you again! All the way home on the s.h.i.+p I've had you in my thoughts. For that matter, I've had you in my thoughts right along ever since I went away. I came home, I think, just to see you."

"I thought you had forgotten," she said, and turned aside her face to hide the regret in her eyes. "I waited to hear from you. I waited, and waited. And then--I thought surely you must have forgotten."

"You might have known I couldn't forget," he said. "You told me not to write. I did write several times, but I didn't send the letters for fear they might get you into trouble at home. But all that doesn't count now. I've come back."

There was a ring of triumph in his voice, a joyous inflection that seemed not only to invite, but to confidently expect, a sympathetic response. Prudence, who in the first flush of her gladness at being with him again, had forgotten everything else for the moment, gave herself up to the pleasure of this unexpected encounter: her marriage, everything outside the immediate present, every one save themselves, was blotted out like patterns on the sand which the incoming tide obliterates. She was as a person whose mind swings abruptly backward, with every event which has befallen in the interval wiped from her memory for the time.

"You've come back!" she repeated, and smiled happily. "I'm so glad.

Why did you go abroad?"

"Because there didn't seem much chance of getting on here," he replied.

"I couldn't afford to waste the years. You see, I wanted to make a home. Well, I've done that."

"Oh! but that's splendid!" she cried, her eyes s.h.i.+ning with excitement.

"You've got on quickly."

He laughed with her, and seated himself on the arm of her chair and laid a hand upon one of hers.

"I've been lucky," he said.

He lifted his hand to her neck and slipped his arm around her shoulders.

It did not seem to occur to him that she might resent or feel surprised at this familiarity. They were in love with one another; he took that for granted; he was so certain about it that it did not appear necessary even to raise that point.

"So now, you see," he added, "I can afford to marry."

She looked at him with a quick darkening of her blue eyes, a sudden gravity chasing the smiling happiness from her face. She knew quite well whom he wished to marry. And she loved him. She had no doubt about that at all. She loved the feel of his nearness, the clasp of his arm about her: the touch of his lips had caused her a thrill of happiness, deeper and sweeter than any emotion she had felt or imagined.

He wanted her; she wanted him; and she was not free to go to him.

"Yes," she said, with, to him, unaccountable nervousness. "Yes. That's wonderful. It's great news. Tell me more--something about your life out there. Where was it you went? South Africa! Funny! I didn't even know where you were. You'll go back, I suppose, after the war?"

"Yes, I'll go back. I don't think I'd care to live in England again.

It's jolly out there--always summer. You'd like it. Say you'll like it--the jolly warmth and the brightness. The scenery knocks spots out of Wortheton. Do you remember that day in the woods, Prudence?--and the primroses we gathered and threw away? I've often thought of that day, when I've been lonely and wanting you, and comparing the blue of your eyes with the blue of the African sky. Dear, waking and dreaming, I have pictured you continually--leaning out of a window with the roses beneath the sill."

He bent lower over her and clasped her closely, smiling at the reluctance, which he realised, and attributed to shyness; it was not because she did not love him that she shrank from his embrace.

"Little girl," he said, "dear little girl, I didn't come over only to fight for the old country, I came for the purpose of fetching you and taking you out with me, if I am spared. You'll go with me, Prudence--as my wife? You know how I love you."

"Oh!" she said. And suddenly she was clinging to him sobbing, with her face hidden against his sleeve. "I can't. I can't."

He was surprised, but manifestly unconvinced. He supposed it was family opposition she feared, and he set himself to the business of sweeping this difficulty aside.

"We're up against a lot, of course," he said, and smoothed her hair with his ungloved hand. "Who cares? If I go back to Africa I'm going to take you with me, if all the blooming family rolls up to prevent me.

You trust me? You love me, Prudence dear?"

Prudence lifted her head, and sat back, looking at him with drenched, dismayed blue eyes. The realisation that she must tell him of her marriage, that she ought to have told him sooner, came to her with startling abruptness. A distressful certainty that she was about to give pain to this man whom she loved better than any one in all the world gripped her tormentingly. She felt ashamed at the confession which she must make. Horror of her marriage seized her. She wanted to hide her eyes from the tenderness in his.