Afterwards Part 16

"One moment, Dr. Anstice." His tone was less openly hostile. "Don't go yet, please. There are still one or two things to be said between us.

Will you do me the favour of sitting down again and letting us talk a little?"

"I don't see what good will come of it, but I'll stay if you wish."

Anstice returned to the table, and drawing out a chair--the one which Iris had occupied during the meal--he sat down and lighted a cigarette with a slightly defiant air.

"To begin with"--Cheniston spoke abruptly--"I gather you know my sister's story--know the bitter injustice that has been done to her in this d.a.m.ned place?"

Rather taken aback Anstice hesitated before replying, and Cheniston continued without waiting for him to speak:

"I say you know it, because my sister has a code of honour which forbids her welcoming to her house anyone who is ignorant of that horrible chapter in her history. And since I find you here, not only as a doctor, but as a friend, I gather you believe she was innocent of the charge against her."

"Most certainly I believe in Mrs. Carstairs' innocence." He spoke warmly now.

"For that, at least, I am grateful to you." His tone did not betray overwhelming grat.i.tude, yet Anstice felt a sudden lightening of his spirit. "To me, of course, it is absolutely inconceivable how anyone could believe my sister guilty of such a degrading crime--or series of crimes--but doubtless I am bia.s.sed in her favour. Still, you are a new acquaintance, and don't know her as I do; so that I am grateful to you for your clear-sightedness in the matter."

He broke off for a moment to drink some wine. Then:

"I should like to ask you one question. Does my sister know of that episode in India? I mean, of course, of your share in the affair?"

"No. And," said Anstice, "it has been puzzling me for the last couple of hours to understand how it is that she has not connected my name with you. Didn't she know it at the time?"

"I daresay. But you must remember that my sister has gone through a great deal since that day, three years ago. Very soon after that she became involved in that terrible chain of events which led to her public humiliation; and I haven't a shadow of doubt that the names of the actors in the tragedy which broke up my life vanished completely from her memory. As you may have noticed, Chloe is a self-centred woman. Her sympathies are not deep, nor her interests wide. Her own life is a good deal more interesting to her than the lives of other people--it is generally so with strong characters, I believe--and after all, her own tragedy has been so appalling that she may be excused if she has not a very keen curiosity for those of others."

"I quite agree with you. But"--it was Anstice's turn to look Cheniston fully in the face--"do I understand you wish me to tell your sister of our former--acquaintance?"

After his question there fell a silence, during which Anstice had time to study the other man more fully than he had hitherto done.

Like himself, Cheniston had altered since that day in India. Although still sunburned and florid, a typical young Englishman in his square-shouldered build and general air of clean fitness, there was something in his face which had not been there before, which warred oddly with the youth which still lurked in the blue eyes and round the clean-shaven mouth. The boyishness had vanished from his features, taking with it all hint of softness; and in its place was a hard, a.s.sertive look, the look of one who, having been once worsted in a bout with Fate, through no fault of his own, was determined for the future to keep a sharp lookout for his own interests and well-being.

That it was a stronger face there was no denying, but it was also a far less attractive one than that which Bruce Cheniston, the boy, had presented to the world.

At another moment Anstice would have found occasion for interested speculation in the question as to whether or no this new man were the real Bruce Cheniston--the Cheniston who would eventually have come to the surface no matter how his life had been ordained; and as a psychologist he would have found pleasure in debating the subject in all its aspects. But as things were he was too miserably conscious that to him, indirectly, this change from boy to man was due to take any interest in the subtler question as to whether, after all, the alteration was only the logical outcome of the man's true character, uninfluenced by external happenings.

"No." Cheniston spoke so suddenly that Anstice started. "On the whole I see no reason why my sister need be told the truth. Of course, one day the similarity of name may flash upon her, and then, naturally, she must be told."

"Quite so." Anstice played with an empty gla.s.s for a moment. "As a matter of fact I should really prefer Mrs. Carstairs to know the truth.

Of course the decision rests with you; but if you see your way to telling her the story, pray don't be held back from doing so by any scruples on my account. Besides----"

Suddenly, so suddenly that he broke off involuntarily in his sentence, the notes of the piano rang out from the room across the hall, and without thinking what he did he rose hastily to his feet.

"Miss Wayne is going to sing." Cheniston followed his lead politely.

"Shall we go and listen to the concert, Anstice?"

"As you like. Forgive my abruptness, Cheniston." He had realized he had acted unconventionally. "Miss Wayne's singing is a treat one doesn't want to lose."

With a queer little smile Cheniston led the way across the hall, and they entered the drawing-room, Iris bringing her prelude to a close as the door opened to admit them.

"Come and sit down, Dr. Anstice." Chloe indicated a deep chair beside the piano, and nothing loth, Anstice sat down as directed, while Cheniston, his face a little in shadow, stood by one of the widely-opened cas.e.m.e.nts, through which the scents of the sleeping garden stole softly, like a benison from the heart of the pitiful earth.

A moment later Iris began to sing, and once again her rich, soft tones seemed to cast a spell over Anstice's troubled, bitter spirit.

From his low seat he had an unimpeded view of the singer. Her profile, shaded by her soft, fair hair, looked unusually pure and delicate in the candlelight, and as she sang the rise and fall of her breast in its fold of filmy chiffon, the motion of her hands over the ivory keys, the sweet seriousness of her expression, gave her an appearance of radiant, tender youth which held an appeal as potent as it was unconscious.

When she had finished her song, the last notes dying away into silence, Cheniston came forward quickly.

"Miss Wayne, you sing beautifully. May we ask for another song? You're not tired, are you?"

He bent over her as he spoke, and something in his manner, something subtly protective, made Anstice's heart beat with a sudden fierce jealousy which he knew to be quite unjustifiable.

"No, I'm not in the least tired." Iris lifted her grey eyes frankly to Cheniston's face, and again Anstice, watching, felt a pang of whose nature he could have no doubt. He rose from his chair, with a half-formed intention of adding his entreaties to those of Cheniston, but sank back again as he realized the favour was already won.

"I will sing with pleasure." Iris turned on the music-stool to glance at her hostess, and Anstice saw her face, pearly and luminous in the soft candlelight. "Mrs. Carstairs, you like Dvorak. Shall I sing you one of his gipsy songs?"

"Please, Iris." Few words of endearment ever pa.s.sed between the two, yet each felt something like real affection for the other, and Chloe's deep voice was always gentle when she spoke to Iris.

The next moment Cheniston stepped back and took up his former position on the far side of the piano; and Iris began the simple little melody which Dvorak acquired from the gipsies of his native land.

"Songs my mother taught me In the days long vanished!"

So far Anstice heard the pure, soft voice; and suddenly he felt a half-shy, half-reverential wonder as to what manner of woman she had been who had brought this adorable girl into the world. Surely Fate had been cruel to this unknown woman, inasmuch as Death had been permitted to s.n.a.t.c.h her away before her eyes had been gladdened by the vision of her child grown into this priceless, this wonderful youth, which held a hint of a yet more gracious, yet more desirable womanhood....

And then the second verse stole softly on the quiet air....

"Now I teach my children Each melodious measure...."

Again did one, at least, of Iris' hearers lose the remaining lines. For to Anstice these words brought another vision--a vision in which Iris, this fair-haired girl who looked so adorably young and sweet, bent over a little child whose rose-leaf face was a baby replica of her own....

And suddenly Anstice knew, knew irrevocably, beyond shadow of doubt, that he wanted Iris Wayne for himself, that she was the one woman in all the world he desired to make his wife....

With a wild throb of his heart he looked up--to find Bruce Cheniston's eyes fixed upon his face with a half-mocking smile in their blue depths, of whose hostile meaning there could be no question.

An hour or so later, when the guests had departed, and Cheniston had finished a solitary pipe downstairs, he went up, yawning, to bed.

Pa.s.sing his sister's open door he heard her call him, and after a second's indecision he answered the summons, wondering why she were not already asleep.

Chloe was sitting by the open window, wearing a thin grey wrapper which made her look curiously pale and ethereal. Her thick hair hung in two heavy plaits over her shoulders, and in the dim light her face showed indistinctly in its silky black frame.

"Chloe, why aren't you in bed?" Bruce paused half-way across the room.

"I'm not sleepy," she said indifferently. "I often sit here half the night. Bruce"--her voice grew more alert--"have you and Dr. Anstice met before?"

"Yes," he said, "we have. But why do you ask?"

"I thought there was something rather curious about your meeting," she answered slowly. "At first I could not understand it, and then it dawned upon me that you had met--and distrusted one another--before."

"Distrusted?" He stared at her. "That isn't the right word, Chloe. We _have_ met before--in India. I almost wonder you yourself didn't realize that fact, but I suppose you were not sufficiently interested----"