Chapter 24

FOOL'S CAP

Osborn visited a smart flower shop when he went out to lunch and ordered carnations, a generous sheaf of them, to be sent to Miss Roselle Dates at the Piccadilly Theatre at half-past seven. He rang up and booked a stall for himself and, later, sent the wire to his wife.

"She's cut me loose," he said to himself, "and that's that."

He lunched as he liked now, with a memory that could afford to be humorous of the five-shilling weekly limit to which he had cut himself down in the bad old days only just over a year ago. But they were dear old days, too, when this extraordinary complication between his wife and him wasn't even thought of....

His luck was wonderful. He sold another car that afternoon. Two three-hundred-pound cars in two days, meaning forty pounds in his pocket! People liked him; he was big, good-looking and plausible, and he had a way with him which absolutely prevented any possible purchaser from ever giving another thought to any two-seater but the Runaway. When he turned out of the establishment that winter afternoon, on his way to an hotel to dress for his early and lonely dinner somewhere or other, he was pleased. Brisk business did a little towards lightening his trouble, just as less innocuous excitements might do.

"Stick to business and stick to fun," he told himself grimly, as he strode along, "and you'll worry through."

He thought of his children more than of anyone else throughout the courses of his dinner in a light, bright, well-served restaurant. George was a fine little boy, and should be done well, thoroughly well, with no expense spared; he must get to know the little chap, take him about a bit and make him interested in things worth knowing. Minna was going to be pretty, a facsimile of her mother; and the baby was a splendid little female animal. There was no doubt that he possessed three beautiful kids of whom any man might be proud.

Surely, if only for their sakes, some day she'd soften and return to him? Some evening he'd come home and find her as she used to be during the first year, sweet and eager, and shining; loving and passionate....

Osborn smoked several cigarettes over his coffee thinking of these things; he was in no hurry to see the show at the Piccadilly, and there would be plenty of time for Roselle afterwards. But he was rather lonely here by himself, and looked around somewhat wistfully at gay couples, laughing parties, all about him. There was not a woman there who could equal Marie, he said to himself; if she were only here with him, with her fresh, soft face, and her springing hair, and her round and slender figure, she'd put all this paint and powder right out of court.

But she was sitting afar off in a quiet flat, softly lighted, ineffably cosy, in the place called home, where husbands were not wanted.

He confessed to himself: "It used to be pretty beastly for her; a little delicate thing--three babies and no nurse; no help with anything. I suppose I could have done a lot, but how's one to think of these things? I suppose I've failed as a husband, but what am I to do about it now? It's all over and can't be helped."

He went to his stall at the Piccadilly, and, looking about him at other men's clothes, decided that he must have new ones. The price of an evening suit need not trouble him now. He settled down and began to enjoy the play.

Roselle was on the stage, in the beauty chorus, looking magnificent, and her eyes were sweeping the stalls. They paused here and there in their saucy habit, lingering upon more than one man with one of her tiny inscrutable smiles winging a message, but their search continued until at last she had found Osborn Kerr sitting on the lefthand side in the third row. He had scribbled on the card which accompanied his flowers, "Look for me to-night," and when her look met his, he had a sudden thrill of pleasure. Watching her eyes sweeping here and there, it had been exciting to wait for the moment when they should fall on him. After he had signalled back a discreet smile in answer, he put up his glasses and looked at her eagerly.

Her beauty returned to his senses like a familiar thing; he had admired the way her hair grew from her temples, and to-night it was dressed to show the unusual charm; her ankles had always been wonderfully slim, and to-night they looked finer than ever atop of twinkly little Court shoes in a vivid green hue; her eyes had that deep, still look which expressed her inanity, while having the result of concealing it.

During the first interval he scribbled a note to her, and sent it round with an imperative request for an answer. The note asked:

"My dear Roselle, come out to supper? And shall I wait for you at the stage door?--O.K."

And her reply, in her big, silly back-hand writing, said laconically:

"Right. I'll be out at eleven.--R.D."

Eleven found him waiting by the stage-door entrance, and she did not keep him long. Soon she came, big and brilliant, out from the gloomy gully, in the inevitable fur-coat which he remembered so well, but which had begun now to look battered, and the velvet hat shoved on cheekily, like a man's wideawake. Her eyes and her teeth acclaimed him in a kindred smile, for which he felt the warmer.

"Hallo, dear old thing!" she greeted him. "I thought you were lost."

He held her hand, smiling. "This is fine!" he said. "Where shall we go?"

"Romano's."

"Romano's let it be. I've a cab here, waiting." He handed her in, jumped in after her, and slammed the door, with a feeling that for an hour at least he had left his troubles outside.

"How are you?" he asked. "What have you been doing since I saw you last? And didn't you ever expect to see me again?"

Her eyes, in the dimness, looked very deep.

"I knew I should," she answered murmurously.

The inimitable atmosphere of Romano's loosened his tongue. After she had ordered supper, with every whit of the appetite and extravagance which he remembered as her chief characteristic, next to her beauty, and after each had been stimulated by a cocktail, he was conscious that he wanted to confide in her, not so much because she was Roselle, but because she was a woman, would look soft and listen prettily. He wanted stroking gently, patting on the back, and reassuring about himself.

The slight moodiness of his expression set her suggesting confidences. "You've got a pretty bad hump," she said caressingly. "What is it? Has the car slumped? Won't they have it? Or is it indigestion? You're not what you were when--"

She gave a quick sigh and smile, very inviting.

"When we were touring about Canada and the States together," he finished. "Well, you see; when a man has come back to all he left behind him--"

"Did you leave much behind you?"

"Why do you ask?"

"You never told _me_ anything," she pouted. "But I'm not _asking_. I've no curiosity. The knots men tie themselves into--"

"You can laugh."

"You make me. Aren't men silly? Tell me about--to whom you came back."

"What does it matter?"

"It doesn't. _I_ don't care." She drummed her fingers on the table. "All men are like cats, home by day, and tiles by night. But if you'd told me you were likely to get scolded for saying how d'you do to me, I'd have been more careful of you."

Her smile derided him. "Has someone scolded you?" she asked.

Consommé was set before them and she began to drink it with appetite, not repeating her question till it was finished.

"Well?" she said then, tilting her head inquiringly to one side.

"The fact is," he answered abruptly, "I--I've had a bad let-down."

"Financial?"

"No."

"Oh! Really!" she said pettishly.

"It doesn't matter," he remarked, rousing himself, "the thing is to make the best of life, and by Jove! I'm going to!"

"So you come and look for me?"

"Precisely," said Osborn. "You've been awf'ly decent to me, Roselle. Knowing you has meant a lot to me. I don't believe you'd let a fellow down very badly, would you?" He began to feel tender towards her, and the stupidity and avarice, which he had awhile ago begun faintly to see in her, now receded under the spell of the lights and the hour. "If no one else has cut in since I last saw you," he said, leaning towards her, "you might be kind to me again. Will you? I'm lonely. I'm simply too dreadfully lonely for anything. What are you doing this week-end?"

"Nothing," she said after a careful pause.

"Come out into the country on Saturday."

"I've a matinée."

"Of course. Sunday then? I'd bring the car round for you early, and we'd have a jolly day, get down to the sea somewhere. You'd like Brighton?"

"That's a nice run," she agreed. "Yes!"

"We could get back for dinner. Where shall we dine--Pagani's?"

She suggested, also, a supper club to which she belonged. "You'll have to belong, too," she said with enthusiasm. "It's the brightest thing in town. Will you, if I get someone to propose you?"

"Rather!"

He had felt dreadfully at a loose end before that evening, but now, this old intimacy again established, he was, in a restless sort of way, happier. As they drove home, she slid her hand into his pocket like a cunning child and said: "Osborn, I want a fiver awf'ly badly; lend me one." And it was pleasure to him to pull out a handful of money and let her pick out the gold.

"I'll pay you back quite soon," she said, lying; and he replied: "You know you won't, you naughty girl; and you know I don't want you to, either."

She kissed him good night with the facility of her type, in the taxicab as they crossed a dark corner.

"Less lonely now?" she queried.

"I don't care who denies it," said Osborn, "a man's got to have a woman in his life; he's just got to. If one drives him...."

"Poor boy!" she said in her murmurous way.

He left her at her door and kept the cab to drive him to the nearest Tube station. A strange excitement filled him as he looked ahead to the direction in which he was drifting. What did it matter, anyway? He was almost in the position of a man without ties.

"'Make your own life,'" his wife had said, "'I have all I want in mine.'"

"Well, I'll make it," said Osborn as he journeyed homewards.

The flat was alight, expecting his coming, though everyone was in bed. The fire had been made up, and his whisky decanter and soda siphon stood by a plate of sandwiches on the dining-room table. Marie was looking after him infernally, defiantly well, he thought, as he splashed whisky irritably into a tumbler. It was almost as though she were making all she did utter for her: "See how perfectly I fulfil my duties! See how comfortable you are! You've nothing whatever to grumble about. Make your own life and I'll make mine."

He drank his whisky, thinking of Roselle. "Here's to Sunday!" was his silent toast. Yet it was not she who tugged tormentingly at his heart.

But he was like a child who has been put into the corner, revengefully tearing the wallpaper.

He wanted someone to be sorry; very, very sorry.

There was dead silence in the flat. What a lonely place!

How queer life was!

He went sullenly to his room, where his son was sleeping peacefully.