The Vision of Desire
more economically when you're thin, you know, and that's quite a
consideration these days."
"Are you--do you mean--look here, Ann," he floundered awkwardly. "Are you
hard up?"
She laughed outright.
"No, of course not. Robin gets a topping good screw, and I'm doing quite a
millionaire business in the poultry line."
"Humph!" Sir Philip grunted. "Got any clothes fit for London?"
She nodded.
"Lots. Put away where moth and rust shan't corrupt their morals."
"Well, get'm out and come up to Audley Square for a bit. You look--I don't
know the word I want--peeked."
"It's no use shelving it on to me like that," said Ann teasingly. "What you
really mean is that you and Tony are getting awfully bored with each other
alone!"
A smile glimmered in the depths of the fierce old eyes.
"Perhaps that's it. Will you come?"
"I'd love to. But you may just as well tell me what's worrying you."
"You're an impudent girl! Who said I was worrying?"
"Well--perhaps not worrying. But unsettled in mind," conceded Ann. "What's
Tony been doing?"--shrewdly.
"Getting engaged--or trying to."
She laughed.
"Pooh! I guessed that--months ago. And I think Lady Doreen's a dear. So
you'd better be getting out your consent and furbishing it up so as to give
it prettily as soon as it's required. You know you're pleased--really."
By this time the guests were arriving, and very soon Ann was swept away
from Sir Philip on a tide of eager young men, anxious to inscribe their
names on her programme. She was an excellent dancer, but although she
was physically too young and healthy not to find a certain enjoyment in
the sheer delight of rhythmic motion, she was conscious as the evening
progressed of a certain quality of superficiality in the pleasure she
experienced. There was a sameness about it all that palled. What was there
in it, after all? One of your partners knew a priceless new glide or
shuffle which he forthwith imparted to you, or else you initiated him into
some step hitherto unfamiliar to him, and after that you both went on
one-stepping or fox-trotting round the room in the wake of a number of
other people doing likewise.
Ann, in the arms of a tall young officer from the Ferribridge barracks,
caught herself up quickly at this stage of her unprofitable train of
thought. This was not the first time lately that she had found herself
impressed with the utter staleness of things--she who had been wont to find
life so full of interest--and she knew that thoughts such as these were
best dismissed as soon as possible. They linked up too closely with searing
memories. She made a determined effort to steady herself, and pulled
herself together so successfully that the young Guardsman from Ferribridge
told quite a number of people that Miss Lovell was a "topping little sport
all round--good dancer and jolly good fun to talk to."
She danced several times with Tony, and left him completely nonplussed by
her uncanny discernment when, after he had stumbled through the revelation
of his engagement to Doreen Neville, during one of the intervals, she
promptly told him she had anticipated it long ago and wished him luck.
"And--and you and I?" he had queried with a certain wistful embarrassment.
"Pals, Tony," she answered frankly. "Same as always. You must let me meet
Lady Doreen when she comes back from Switzerland, and"--smiling--"I'll hand
over my charge to her. Have you been good lately, by the way?"
He flushed, and his eyes grew restless.
"I lost a bit at Monte," he admitted. "I was winning pots of money at
first, and then all at once my luck turned and I lost the lot."
"And more, too, I suppose?" suggested Ann rather wearily.
He nodded.
"I shall get it all back at cards, though," he assured her.
"Have you got any of it back yet?" she asked pointedly.
"No, But it stands to reason my run of bad luck must turn sooner or later.
Come on back to the ball-room and let's dance this, Ann--don't lecture me
any more, there's a dear."
She yielded to those persuasive, long-lashed eyes of his, and they
returned to the ball-room and finished the remainder of the dance. But her
conversation with Tony had added to the oppression of her spirits. She felt
sure, from the way he shirked the subject, that he was getting himself
into financial difficulties again, and if the matter came to Sir Philip's
ears she was afraid that this time it might end in an irreparable cleavage
between uncle and nephew. The former had paid Tony's debts so often, and
on the last occasion he had warned him very definitely that he would never
do so again. And Ann was fain to acknowledge that one could hardly blame
the old man if by this time he had really reached the limits of his
patience--and his purse.
She was still brooding rather unhappily over Tony's affairs when Robin came
to claim her for a dance. He, too, seemed rather preoccupied and distrait,
and as they swung out into the room together Ann cast about in her mind
for some explanation of his unwonted gloom. A minute later she caught an
illuminating glimpse of Cara, sitting alone by the big fire which still
smouldered redly at the far end of the room, and a queer little smile of
understanding curved her lips.
"You've only danced with Cara once this evening, Robin," she observed.
"Have you been squabbling?"
He laughed.
"Not likely. But Lady Susan caught me and trotted me round for some duty
dances, and by the time those were fixed Cara had booked up a lot and we
couldn't make our programmes fit."
On a quick, sympathetic impulse Ann pulled up near one of the doorways,
drawing him aside out of the throng of dancers with a light touch on his
arm.
"Then go and ask her for this," she said hastily. "She's not dancing it.
And I--I'm really rather tired. I'd love a few minutes' rest." She gave him
a little push, and before he could say yea or nay she had vanished through
the doorway, leaving him free to secure at least one more dance with Mrs.
Hilyard.
A good many couples were sitting about outside, partaking of ices and
other forms of refreshment, and Ann made her way quickly through the hall
and bent her steps in the direction of the library where, earlier in the
evening, she had caught sight of a cosy fire. As she passed, she heard the
ring of a bell, followed by the sound of some late-comer being admitted.
She did not see who it was, and with a fleeting thought that whoever had
chosen to arrive so late would have small chance of securing good partners,
she slipped quietly into the library.
The fire had burnt down and she stirred it into a blaze before she settled
herself in a low chair beside it. She was genuinely glad to be alone for
a few minutes--glad of the peaceful quiet of the comfortable room with
its silent, book-lined walls and padded easy chairs. She had lost the
real spirit of enjoyment. Her old-time zest for dancing seemed to have
deserted her entirely, and the daily necessity of playing up in public, of
pretending to the world at large that all was well with her, was becoming
an increasing strain.
In addition to this, she was conscious to-night of a vague sense of regret.
In another few weeks the term of Robin's six months' notice would have
expired and they would both be going away from Silverquay. He had heard of
several suitable posts, but so far he had not definitely accepted any one
of them. Probably within the next fortnight his decision would be made, and
Ann realised that leaving Silverquay would be somewhat of a wrench. She had
known both great happiness and great grief there, and a full measure of
those unreckoned hours of everyday fun and laughter and enjoyment which we
are all prone to accept so easily and without any very great gratitude,
only realising for how much they counted when they are suddenly taken
from us. But now, as the inevitable day of departure drew nearer, Ann
found herself face to face with the fact that, although she might leave
Silverquay itself behind, memories both sweet and bitter would forever hold
out their hands to her from the little sea-girt village. Sometimes she
would not be able to evade them. However fast she might hurry through life,
they would reach out and touch her, and she would feel those straining
hands against her heart.
And then, across her bitter-sweet musings, came the creak of the door as
some one pushed it quietly open, and entered the room.
"Ann!"
At the sound of that voice she felt as though every drop of blood in her
body had rushed to her heart and were throbbing there in one great
hammering pulse. Her hands gripped the arm of her chair convulsively, and
slowly and fearfully she turned her head in the direction whence came the
voice. Coventry was standing on the threshold of the room. A strangled cry
broke from her, and she sat staring at him with wild, incredulous eyes.
For a moment the room seemed to fill with a grey, swirling mist, blurring
the outlines of the furniture and the figure of the man who stood there
silently in the doorway. Then the mist cleared away, and she could see his
eyes bent on her with an expression of such stark bitterness and despair
and longing that it hurt her to look at him. Was this her lover--who had
left her in such fierce scorn and anger only a few short months ago? This
man whose face was worn and ravaged with an intensity of suffering such
as she had not dreamed possible! If she had grown thin in paying for that
bitter parting, then he must have paid a hundredfold to be so terribly
marred and altered.
"Eliot!" The word came stammeringly from her lips--hushed as one hushes the
voice only in the presence of a great grief or of death itself. She bent
her head, unwilling to look again on that soul's agony so nakedly revealed.
"Yes. I have come back," he said tonelessly.
Closing the door behind him, he advanced into the room and came and stood
beside her.
"Look up!" he exclaimed suddenly, almost violently. "Lift up your face, and
let me see what these months have done to you."
She lifted her face mechanically, and for a full minute he stood looking
down at it, reading it feature by feature, line by line--the proud, weary
droop of the mouth, the quiet acceptance of pain which had lain so long
in the gold-brown eyes. Then, with a groan he dropped suddenly and knelt
beside her, holding his arms close round her, and laid his head against
her knees. His face was hidden, and hesitatingly, with a half-shy,
half-maternal gesture Ann touched the dark head pressed against her.
Moments passed and he neither stirred nor spoke. At last she stooped over
him.
"Eliot," she said quietly, "tell me why you have come back?"
Even then he did not move at once, but at last he raised his head from her
knees and met her eyes.
"I've come back," he said slowly, "because, though I've doubted you, I
can't live without you. I've come back to ask your forgiveness--if it is
still possible for you to forgive me." Then, as she would have spoken, he
checked her: "No, don't decide--don't say anything yet. Hear what I have to
tell you first."
She yielded to a curious strained insistence in his voice.
"Very well," she said gently, "you shall tell me just what you will."
He left his place by her side and went over and stood by the chimneypiece,
looking down at her while he spoke, and as she listened it seemed as though
all that he had fought against, believed and disbelieved, suffered and
endured, was made clear to her in the terse, difficult sentences that fell
one by one from his lips.
"You knew that I'd once been deceived by a woman," he said. "Her name
doesn't matter. She deceived me, and my love for her died--as surely as a
man dies if you stab him to the heart. She stabbed my love--and it died,