Part 13 (1/2)
”And what do you know about Mrs. Levitt?”
”Nothing. I only gather from what you say yourself that she is--fertile in resource.”
”Resource?”
”Well, in creating opportunities.”
”Opportunities, now, for what?”
”For you to exercise your Christian charity, my dear. When are you going to let me call on her?”
”I am not going to let you call on her at all.”
”Is that Christian charity?”
”It's anything you please.” He was absorbed in his letter. Mrs. Levitt had been obliged to move from Mrs. Trinder's in the Square to inferior rooms in Sheep Street, and she was sorry for herself.
”But surely, when you're always calling on her yourself--”
”I am not always calling on her. And if I were, there are some things which are perfectly proper for me to do which would not be proper for you.”
”It sounds as if Mrs. Levitt wasn't.”
He looked up as sharply as his facial curves permitted. ”Nothing of the sort. She's simply not the sort of person you _do_ call on; and I don't mean you to begin.”
”Why not?”
”Because you're my wife and you have a certain position in the county.
That's why.”
”Rather a sn.o.bby reason, isn't it? You said I might call on anybody I liked.”
”So you may, in reason, provided you don't begin with Mrs. Levitt.”
”I may have to end with her,” said f.a.n.n.y.
Mr. Waddington had many reasons for not wis.h.i.+ng f.a.n.n.y to call on Mrs.
Levitt. He wanted to keep his wife, because she was his wife, in a place apart from Mrs. Levitt and above her, to mark the distance and distinction that there was between them. He wanted to keep himself, as f.a.n.n.y's husband, apart and distant, by way of enhancing his male attraction. And he wanted to keep Mrs. Levitt apart, to keep her to himself, as the hidden woman of pa.s.sionate adventure. Hitherto their intercourse had had the charm, the unique, irreplaceable charm of things unacknowledged and clandestine. Mrs. Levitt was unique; irreplaceable.
He couldn't think of any other woman who would be a suitable subst.i.tute.
There was little Barbara Madden; she had been afraid of him; but his pa.s.sions were still too young to be stirred by the crudity of a girl's fright; if it came to that, he preferred the rea.s.suring ease of Mrs.
Levitt.
And he didn't mean it to come to that.
But though Mr. Waddington did not actually look forward to a time when he would be Mrs. Levitt's lover, he had visions of the pure fancy in which he saw himself standing on Mrs. Levitt's doorstep after dark; say, once a fortnight, on her servant's night out; he would sound a m.u.f.fled signal on the knocker and the door would he half-opened by Elise. Elise!
He would slip through in a slender and mysterious manner; he would go on tip-toe up and down her stairs, recapturing a youthful thrill out of the very risks they ran, yet managing the affair with a consummate delicacy and discretion.