Part 16

Clearly she was now in earnest. Even Peter might have found her adequate. But he had now committed himself deeply to the proof he required. He knew it was at bottom indefensible--that he was merely trying to build a refuge for his self-respect.

"If you really cared for me," he persisted, "you would not refuse to marry me."

"Marriage is not my way," she protested.

"I ask you with my whole soul."

"Your whole soul?" She smiled a little, but added gravely:

"You make things very difficult. This shows how badly you want to be looked after."

"What do you mean?"

"Don't you see how easily I might play up to you? Do you think it would be very difficult for an actress like me to love you 'with my whole soul' and win you altogether on my own terms?"

"You mean," Peter flashed at her, "that you might easily pretend."

"It would not be difficult," she said, a little sadly.

Vivette was feeling unlike herself. She was now unselfishly solicitous for Peter. She saw how helpless he was, restless and curious of life, ever more firmly held by one idea. She pictured him falling to some woman, hot and unscrupulous, who would coarsely tear the veil he fastidiously desired to lift, and for ever destroy for him the nobility of passion.

But Peter cut into her thoughts.

"Are you changing your mind?" he asked abruptly.

"No, Peter. I am only thinking."

"Then it is good-bye."

He moved towards the door. Vivette saw him passing out of her keeping. She saw him stumbling forward to disillusion and possible disgust. She could not let him go like that. She was zealous that his adventure should not end wholly in disaster.

Out of sudden pity she called to him.

"Peter!"

He paused at the door but did not turn.

She collected her courage. Surely it would be better for Peter, then and there, to end. Her spirit was alive to him. It would be an episode, but it would not be sordid. She saw a hundred ways in which Peter might fare so immeasurably worse. For an instant she shrank from the ordeal. She would have to sink her pride and solicit him. It was a bitter part for Vivette. The words dropped from her low and quiet.

"You may stay with me to-night."

Peter turned uncertainly. She saw his face like a beaten flame. He had yet to realise what she was saying.

"We are alone, Peter. You may stay with me here. I ask you to stay."

Now the flame spread in his face unchecked. She had dropped the veil, and he was driven towards her.

"You can do this, Vivette, and yet you will not marry me."

"To-night."

"For ever."

"For ever a memory--with nothing to regret."

Peter desperately kissed her, but with his climbing luxury his will climbed also, and his spirit cried out again for a justification. Like a refrain he repeated:

"This means you will marry me."

"No."

He returned wearily to his point.

"You do not care enough," he persisted.

"You tell me that," she cried, "after what I have said to you!"

She broke from him, and Peter knew he was far astray. But he shut himself from this better knowledge. He gave himself up to his fixed idea.

"I do not understand you. Prove to me that you care."

"I have proved it."

"An easy proof."

Peter hated himself for this angry stab at her. She went pale.

"I did not mean it," he cried at once.

"A light woman lightly offered," she said, interpreting his reproach.

"No."

He sank beside her in an agony of penitence. But she drew away from him, and he accepted her decision. There could be no more love to-night. The pallor had not left her face, and it struck into Peter a sense of enormous guilt. Again she pitied him.

"Come to me here to-morrow," she said. "I want to talk to you."

She held out her hand to him. He clasped it good night and left her.

XXXIX

Peter, away from Vivette, knew only that he had wronged her. He did not understand exactly how he had transgressed. He could not read her conduct at all. Her strange lapse into sincerity simply puzzled him. She had seemed, at the moment when she had put herself into his hands, protective and thoughtful.

Peter knew her impulse was rooted in honour. He exaggerated the evil of his graceless words, treading the familiar way of abasement and remorse. He now desired only to be pardoned. He called upon her at an early hour.

Vivette had spent the time wondering at depths in herself unsuspected. Hitherto her life had run a career of adventurous and impulsive hedonism. She had loved easily, and easily taken the thing she desired. She only asked of life that delicacy and fair play should not be offended. She did not understand virtue. Her principle had always been lightly to take the way of least resistance. Now, suddenly from somewhere, sprang a devoted altruism--a passionate resolution that another should see life beautifully open its treasure.

Her impulse had been to save Peter from sordidly failing. She had not acted from jealousy. She had never less been sensually led than when she had entreated Peter. Her lips curved in contemplation of a discovered irony in things. Peter had urged her to be serious. Very well: Peter should that day be made to realise how serious she could be. She had decided to talk to him frankly. She would not repeat her offer or allow it now to be accepted. She was glad that it had the previous evening miscarried. She had thought of a better way. Peter must be made to understand his condition.

She did not admit that her offer had been wrongly made. Peter's adventure would not with her have ended perfectly; but neither would it have ended in a fruition merely brutal. She realised how gradually he was losing grip of himself, and saw him soon as tinder for any woman with brains and a high temperature. She saw him slipping his self-respect. She would last night have saved him from the worst. There was friendliness and grace enough between them to justify their passion. But Vivette was now differently inspired. Surely Peter could be braced and stiffened. He was not yet attacked in his will. He was merely blind and drifting, perhaps unaware of his trouble.

He found her sitting, an image of graven severity, curiously out of tune with her cheerful room. He felt like a schoolboy called to repeat a lesson in which he had failed to satisfy.

"I have offended you," he tragically began.

But Vivette intended to be strictly sensible.

"That is what I want to talk about," she said, very matter-of-fact. "I don't think you understand what happened last night. I am going to tell you."

Peter was puzzled. She was not Vivette of the shallow eyes. He caught her hands to draw her towards him, but she firmly resisted.

"No, Peter. Sit still and listen to what I have to say."

Peter flung himself, evilly discontented, in a far corner of the settee.

"You always wanted me to be serious," said Vivette, looking at him with some amusement. "But it does not seem to please you."

Peter could not at once recover from his rejected tenderness, but he felt he was behaving badly again. He contrived to put a little grace into his manner.

"I will listen," he said briefly.

"Tell me," Vivette began, "what are you supposed to be doing with yourself?"

"Doing with myself?" he echoed. Already he was conscious of her drift.

"You never talk of your work."

"I am reading for the Bar."

"What does that mean?" she smiled. Vivette had met these young barristers.

"I shall soon be called."

"Till then, you will be waiting for work."

"You are interested?" Peter inquired with an effort to assume an innocent detachment.

"Hasn't it occurred to you," Vivette persisted, "that you're in rather a bad way?"

He moved uncomfortably, then rushed to the point:

"You mean I'm just loafing about?"

"You're not really interested in your work."

"You are indeed serious," said Peter, again trying to make light of her catechism. "Aren't you overdoing it?"

Vivette sharply rebuked him, and he did not again interrupt. She held to him an unflattering mirror in which he saw an image of himself which frightened him. He was rich. He had nothing particular to do. He drifted about, meeting elegant and attractive people--mostly women. Everywhere he unconsciously opened himself to one appeal. He was idle; and he was obsessed.

He struggled against this indictment. He even became angry. What did this talk of Vivette really mean? It meant that he desperately loved her.

"This obsession you tell me of!" he cried. "It is you."

"For the time being," she shortly answered.

"Always," he insisted.

"It might easily be someone else. Think, Peter. Have you once been free during these last years?"

Peter was silent.

"What do you want me to say?" he asked at last.

"I want you to realise there are other things. You must not give way to this fixed idea."

Where before had Peter heard this? It seemed an echo. But he shut his ears.

"I have only one fixed idea. It is to marry you. You are pleading against yourself, Vivette."

"Put me out of account," she said sharply. "I have already refused."

They were again at the point where last night they had failed to agree.

Peter rose and walked to the end of the room and back to Vivette. He was beginning to measure her strength and subtlety, and they made it more difficult to lose her. His blood rose against the idea. He caught her roughly by the arm.

"Suppose I cannot put all this away? Suppose it has to be really an episode?"

Her arm tightened under his grip. She became cold and hostile.

"I don't understand," she said.

Peter felt his mind twisting like a serpent:

"Will you come back with me to last night?"

"You are talking nonsense. Put your head into your law-books, write plays, travel about--anything."

"I want you, Vivette."

She rose, and stood dismissing him. "This is worse than I thought. You are ready to take the second best."

"You are first and last."

"Therefore," she lashed at him, "you want me for a mistress."

"I have asked you to marry me."

"Marriage would not be the truth."

Peter clenched his hands: "On any terms I must have you."

"That is for me to say."

Peter looked at Vivette and found her inexorably set against him. Clearly she was not that day to be moved. His passion died, and her words went poignantly home. He released her arm. His increasing dejection prompted Vivette to soften the steel of her manner:

"Cool yourself, Peter. Put me out of your mind. You are not looking for a mistress, and I want you to wait for the real thing."

"To have you would be very real. You have proved already that you love me."

She saw again the serpent's head and crushed it.

"I have loved before," she said deliberately. "Last night would have meant less to me than to you. Is that what you want?"

Peter cursed himself, and went.

"Good-bye," Vivette called to him. "Next time we meet I expect you to be in a better mind."

Vivette now had leisure to be surprised at herself.

For the first time in her life she had refused something she really wanted. She decided that this was the limit of her generosity. She had refused Peter for herself, but at any rate no other woman should, without a title, pluck the fruit of her sacrifice. She would closely examine any claim on Peter which might be made.

XL

It did not take Peter long to feel that Vivette was wholly right. He blushed to recall how he had justified her indictment by the way in which he had received it.

That evening he made a plan. He had called the immediate future to account, and found he had six months to spare without much prospect of being usefully absorbed.

"I must get away from all this," he decided.

At the end of an evening spent restlessly at home, he startled Mrs. Paragon with the prospect of six months on the high seas.

"We will have a yacht," he told her. "I want to learn all about sailing. We'll go right away."

Mrs. Paragon calmly considered this. She was alarmed for Peter, though she did not know the extent of his last infatuation. Peter had instinctively kept Vivette out of his conversation. His mother and Vivette moved in different circles, and they had not yet met. Mrs. Paragon only knew that Peter had recently become profoundly interested in the theatre. Nevertheless Mrs. Paragon perceived as clearly as Vivette how things were with him.

"Where do you think of going?" She showed no surprise at his sudden idea.

"Anywhere," said Peter vaguely.

"When do you think of starting?"

"Immediately."

Mrs. Paragon realised that something had happened.

"This is very sudden," she suggested.

"I've been thinking, mother."

"Is that all?" Mrs. Paragon inquired, quite innocent of any desire to be satirical. She merely asked.

"I ought to be doing something," Peter explained. "I know all this law stuff by heart. I'm sick of London."

"I thought you were so interested in everything."

"No, mother."

"Not in the theatre?"

Again Mrs. Paragon merely asked.

"That's over now," said Peter.

Mrs. Paragon reached at the heart of things in one sure gesture of the mind.

"What has she said to you?" she calmly inquired.

Peter stared in the manner of one whose thoughts are unexpectedly read.

"I asked her to marry me."

"She refused?"

"She wants me to think of something else."

Mrs. Paragon wondered a moment why an actress had refused. She also wondered whether the actress might not change her mind.

"I will come with you, Peter," she said decisively.

Peter flung himself with ardour into the work of finding a boat and getting together a crew. His condition was well known to Atterbury, who persuaded Haversham to help him in getting Peter equipped. They hunted out a skipper in Havre whose quality they knew, Atterbury going to interview and bring him over. It was decided they should sail immediately.

Vivette was soberly pleased at the success of her one good action.

"I've ordered Peter into the South Seas," she told Atterbury. "I think he'll be safe from the brown ladies."

It was arranged that Peter should give a farewell dinner. Atterbury insisted on the Savoy, and tactfully picked a day when the Wenderbys were to be out of town. He frankly discussed the position over Mrs. Paragon's dinner-table in Curzon Street. Vivette was there--accepted by Mrs. Paragon with large reserve.

"We want all Peter's friends," he said, "except those who cannot be present. It will be an advantage if Lady Mary is far away. She doesn't go at all well with Vivette."

"Agreed," said Vivette. "She would snuff me out. This is to be my feast. I hardly know whether I ought to allow Mrs. Paragon," she added.

"Nonsense," said Mrs. Paragon shortly.

"But it isn't nonsense," persisted Vivette. "I shall simply disappear beside you."

"Then you must make up your mind to it," said Atterbury. "I'm arranging this dinner, and I must have Mrs. Paragon. I have given up Lady Mary."

"We ought to have Lady Mary on the mantelpiece," said Vivette. "She'd go so well with the china."

"Envy," Atterbury retorted. "You say that because you can't sit still, and haven't a decent feature in your face."

"Lady Mary is the most beautiful woman in the world," Peter solemnly intervened.

"Hark to the oracle," cried Vivette.

"He's not far wrong," said Atterbury. "My heart always beats a little faster when she comes suddenly round the corner in a crush."

"Her mouth is all wrong."

"Glass houses, Vivette--you've nothing but your figure and the noise you make."

"You agree with Peter?"

"Not entirely. Lady Mary's good for a queen."

"She's the most beautiful woman in the world," Peter insisted.

"You're wrong, Peter. I saw the most beautiful woman in the world four days ago."

"This is interesting," said Vivette.

"It was in the boat from Havre. I saw at once how beautiful she was and looked after her. She is now at Claridge's and refuses to see me. I think she's from Brittany. Maddened by her extreme loveliness, I indiscreetly dreamed she might come to our dinner."

"Just as we are sending Peter safely out of harm's way," exclaimed Vivette. "You must have lost your senses."

"I have."

"What is her name?" Peter asked.

"You see," said Vivette, "you have already excited the poor boy."

"I have got her picture."

"Is it a funny one?" asked Vivette.

"I'm more than a caricaturist. I made a sketch of her on deck when she wasn't looking. What do you think of her, Mrs. Paragon?"

Mrs. Paragon took the sketch and quietly examined it.

"I should like her to come to Peter's dinner," she said. "What is her name?"

"Mdlle. Le Roy," said Atterbury.

Vivette looked at Mrs. Paragon in astonishment.

"May I look?" she asked. Mrs. Paragon handed her the sketch.

"Yes," said Vivette, "she is certainly beautiful."

Atterbury turned to her:

"She will be worse for you than Lady Mary."

"That was my nonsense. I love a beautiful woman." She handed back the picture.

"Peter hasn't seen it. He may not approve," she warned Atterbury.

"I'm arranging this dinner," said Atterbury. "Still Peter may look."

"I'll wait for the original," Peter growled.

"Where do you say she is staying?" said Peter's mother to Atterbury.

Atterbury wrote out the name and address on a card and gave it to Mrs. Paragon.

"I see this is your affair," he said. "I rely on you."

Mrs. Paragon now took Vivette into the drawing-room. Peter and his friend talked yachting shop, and gave them time to become better acquainted.

Mrs. Paragon did not take kindly to Vivette, but she realised that, as a mother, she owed her something, and she tried to put away her distrust. They talked without reserve, so far as appearance went; but Vivette knew she was not admitted far. She ruefully accepted the inevitable. She did not understand at all why Mrs. Paragon had taken it into her head to bring a stranger into Peter's farewell. Mrs. Paragon mildly baffled her polite astonishment.

"Is it quite fair to me?" asked Vivette, still talking of Mdlle. Le Roy. "I think I deserve to be considered. I'm sending Peter away."

"He will come back," said Mrs. Paragon briefly.

"Safe and sound," Vivette put in.

"Then you may change your mind."

"I can be really serious in some ways."

"There is a risk," Mrs. Paragon insisted.

Her obstinacy reminded Vivette of Peter at his worst.

"There is always a risk," she protested. "You can't tie Peter up."

"No: I can't tie Peter up," Mrs. Paragon agreed, shutting her lips.

Vivette tried to get in by another door.

"Mdlle. Le Roy," she suggested, "is going to efface me."

"Why should I wish it?" Mrs. Paragon innocently inquired.

"Perhaps you like the look of her."

"I do."

Vivette sighed.

"Peter won't have a very happy farewell," she said.

A week later Atterbury remembered his beautiful stranger only as a guest to be identified by a card upon the table. Peter had entirely forgotten her, and Vivette, looking forward to an evening of light pleasure, agreeably dashed with regret, did not take Mdlle. Le Roy into serious account.

The whole party was assembled in the Pinafore rooms at the Savoy, but Mrs. Paragon had not yet arrived. Peter had come early to approve the arrangements Atterbury had made, and had left his mother to follow by way of Claridge's. He was talking now with Haversham.

Vivette saw a light leap suddenly into Peter's eyes. He seemed like one confronted with a miracle.

"This," Vivette bitterly concluded, "is love at first sight."

But Vivette was wrong. Peter's brain was dazzled as by lightning. A flood of forgotten life was loosed upon him out of the past. He was looking at Miranda.

XLI

Mrs. Paragon had at once recognised Atterbury's sketch. She went, the day after she had seen it, to verify, waiting in the hotel in quiet amazement. It seemed strange to come to this place for Miranda. She remembered her as an awkward girl, hoydenly and tempestuous, absurdly transfigured by Peter's worship. Then she had found her again sleeping in Peter's brain, to lose her for ever in a brutal disaster of the sea.

Miranda came slowly to meet her, holding in her hand the card she had sent.

She had grown to the loveliness Peter had divined in her. Her eyes had softened, their passion held in reserve. The lines of her beauty were severe, but their severity veiled the promise of her surrender. She was radiant with a vitality serenely masked--a queen ready at the true word to come down.

She looked from the card she held to Mrs. Paragon.

"You are Peter's mother," she said, in the manner of one speaking to herself.

"You remember him?" asked Mrs. Paragon.

Miranda did not answer.

"Come to my room," she said, and led the way upstairs.

Her room was cheerful with firelight and simple comfort. Mrs. Paragon again wondered at finding her thus alone and able to command. Miranda drew her a chair to the fire, and, as Mrs. Paragon sat down, she put an arm about her shoulder and looked at her.

"I've often wondered what you were like," she said.

"You had forgotten?"

"I was only a girl. Memories are not to be trusted."

"You never tried to correct them?"

"I have heard of you often. You did not seem to want me."

"I have been looking for you," said Mrs. Paragon.

"Have you found what you expected?"

Mrs. Paragon put her hand upon Miranda's arm.

"Indeed I have," she quietly asserted. "I think you are the girl that Peter knew."

"Please," Miranda entreated. Mrs. Paragon had moved too quickly towards her secret. There was a short silence.

"Tell me," said Miranda at last. "When did you begin to look for me?"

"As soon as I knew that Peter needed you."

"He needs me?" said Miranda quickly. "How do you know that?"

"He was once very ill. He talked of you continually."

"I have heard of Peter," she objected a little hardly. "I have heard of him as entirely happy. Lately, too, in Paris I met a friend of Vivette Claire."

"Peter is in need of you," Mrs. Paragon insisted.

She spoke as one returning to the thing which really mattered.

"I wonder." Miranda looked thoughtfully at Mrs. Paragon.

"You are like my memory of you," she continued. "I remember you as always quiet and wise--as one who said only what was true."

"I know that Peter needs you."

"Does Peter himself know?" Miranda drily asked.

"I want you to come back. He will know when he sees you."

"You believe, if I met him to-morrow, the years between would disappear?" Miranda suggested, smiling at her idea.

"I am sure," Mrs. Paragon insisted.

"It would be interesting," said Miranda.

Her touch of irony was lost on Peter's mother, who saw no call for smiling.

"Have you no feeling for Peter?" she seriously urged.

"I do not know," Miranda answered bluntly, with a small shrug of her shoulders.

"Ask yourself."

"It is for Peter to ask."

"This is not generous, Miranda."

Miranda rose and walked to the fire. She stood for a moment looking away from Mrs. Paragon.

"I will tell you the truth," she said at last. "I went out of Peter's life five years ago, and I said I would not return unless he wanted me. He was only a boy. I have put away all thought of him. If I come back to him now, I come as a stranger to be won again. I do not know Peter to-day."

"Peter is still the same."

Miranda was beginning to rebel against the immovable conviction of Peter's mother. Mrs. Paragon was so calm and sure.

"How can I know that?" she exclaimed impatiently.

"You can meet him," answered Mrs. Paragon. She had the air of one suggesting the obvious thing to a child.

Miranda began to be seriously moved. Could she recapture the dead time? She saw herself quaintly perched on the slates of a roof sobbing her heart out, and again in a dark garden with Peter suddenly on his knees to her, kissing the hem of her frock. Perhaps, if she met him, without allowing him time to prepare, the truth would flash out of him.

"Where can I meet him suddenly?" she asked.

Mrs. Paragon quietly accepted her victory.

"I have come to invite you," she said. "You shall see him with Vivette Claire."

"What have I to do?"

"You need only be ready here in a week's time. I will take you to dinner. It is a farewell dinner. Peter is going to sea for six months."

"I will come."