The Hillman Part 51

She lay, for a moment, pa.s.sive in his arms. He smoothed her hair and kissed her tenderly. Then he led her back to her place upon the couch.

Her emotional mood, while it flattered him in a sense, did nothing to quiet the little demons of unrest that pulled, every now and then, at his heart-strings.

"What is this reception?" he asked.

She made a little grimace.

"It is a formal welcome from the English stage to the French company that has come over to play at the new French theater," she told him.

"Sir Edward and I are to receive them. You will come, will you not?"

"I haven't an invitation," he told her.

"Invitation? I invite you. I am the hostess of the evening."

"Then I am not likely to refuse, am I?" he asked, smiling. "Shall I come to the theater?"

"Come straight to the reception at the Whitehall Rooms," she begged.

"Sir Edward is calling for me, and Graillot will go down with us. Later, if you care to, you can drive me home."

"Don't you think," he suggested, "that it would be rather a good opportunity to announce our engagement?"

"Not to-night!" she pleaded. "You know, I cannot seem to believe it myself except when I am with you and we are alone. It seems too wonderful after all these years. Do you know, John, that I am nearly thirty?"

He laughed.

"How pathetic! All the more reason, I should say, why we should let people know about it as soon as possible."

"There is no particular hurry," she said, a little nervously. "Let me get used to it myself. I don't think you will have to wait long.

Everything I have been used to doing and thinking seems to be crumbling up around me. Last night I even hated my work, or at least part of it."

His eyes lit up with genuine pleasure.

"I can't tell you how glad I am to hear you say that," he declared. "I don't hate your work--I've got over that. I don't think I am narrow about it. I admire Graillot, and his play is wonderful. But I think, and I always shall think, that the denouement in that third act is d.a.m.nable!"

She nodded understandingly.

"I am beginning to realize how you must feel," she confessed. "We won't talk about it any more now. Drive me to the theater, will you? I want to be there early to-night, just to get everything ready for changing afterward."

The telephone-bell rang as they were leaving the room. John put the receiver to his ear and a moment later held it away.

"It is Sophy," he announced. "Shall I tell them to send her up?"

"Sophy, indeed!" Louise exclaimed. "I thought she was in the country, on tour, and was not expected back until to-morrow."

"I thought she went away for a week," John said, "but there she is, waiting down-stairs."

Louise hesitated for a moment. Then she came over to John with a tremulous little smile at the corners of her lips.

"Dear," she said, "I am in a strange frame of mind to-day. I don't want even to see Sophy. Tell them to send her up here. She can wait for you while you take me out the other way."

"May I tell her?" John asked, as he rang for the lift. "She has been such a good little pal!"

Once more Louise seemed to hesitate. A vague look of trouble clouded her face.

"Perhaps you had better, dear," she agreed spiritlessly. "Only tell her not to breathe it to another soul. It is to be our secret for a little time--not long--just a day or two longer."

The gates of the lift swung open, and John raised her fingers to his lips.

"It is for you to say, dear," he promised.

When he came back to his room, Sophy was curled up on the couch with a cigarette between her lips. She looked at him severely.

"I am losing faith in you," she declared. "There are signs of a hurried departure from this room. There is a distinct perfume of roses about the place. You have always told me that I am the only visitor of my s.e.x you allow here. I am fiercely jealous! Tell me what this tea-tray and the empty cups mean?"

"It means Louise," he answered, smiling. "She has just this moment gone away."

Sophy sighed with an air of mock relief.

"Louise I suppose I must tolerate," she said. "Fancy her coming here to tea with you, though!"

"I have been up to c.u.mberland for a day," he told her, "and Louise came to meet me at the station."

"How is your angel brother?" she asked. "Did he ask after me?"

"He did mention you," John confessed. "I don't remember any direct message, though. You want a c.o.c.ktail, of course, don't you?"

"Dying for it," she admitted. "I have had such a dull week! We've been playing in wretched little places, and last night the show went bust.

The manager presented us with our fares home this morning. We were only down in Surrey, so here I am."

"Well, I'm glad to see you back again," John told her, after he had ordered the c.o.c.ktails. "Louise has been quite lost without you, too."

"I didn't want to go away," she sighed, "but I do get so tired of not working! Although my part wasn't worth anything, I hated it being cut out. It makes one feel so aimless. One has too much time to think."

He laughed at her, pleasantly but derisively.

"Time to think!" he repeated. "Why, I have never seen you serious for five minutes in your life, except when you've been adding up Louise's housekeeping-books!"

She threw her cigarette into the grate, swung round toward him, and looked steadily into his face.

"Haven't you?" she said. "I can be. I often am. It isn't my correct pose, though. People don't like me serious. If they take me out or entertain me, they think they are being cheated if I am not continually gay. You see what it is to have a reputation for being amusing! Louise keeps me by her side to talk nonsense to her, to keep her from being depressed. Men take me out because I am bright, because I save them the trouble of talking, and they don't feel quite so stupid with me as with another woman. My young man at Bath wants to marry me for the same reason. He thinks it would be so pleasant to have me always at hand to chatter nonsense. That is why you like me, too. You have been pitched into a strange world. You are not really in touch with it. You like to be with some one who will talk nonsense and take you a little way out of it. I am just a little fool, you see, a harmless little creature in cap and bells whom every one amuses himself with."

John stared at her for a moment, only half understanding.

"Why, little girl," he exclaimed, "I believe you're in earnest!"

"I am in deadly earnest," she a.s.sured him, her voice breaking a little.

"Don't take any notice of me. I have had a wretched week, and it's a rotten world, anyway."

There was a knock at the door, and the waiter entered with the c.o.c.ktails.