Part 30 (2/2)

”There's no one there,” he said. ”They don't come 'till six and it isn't five yet.... Elise--abstract your mind one moment from Partridge. If I get that little house in London, will you live in it?”

”I can't let you. You make me ashamed, after all you've done for me.

It's too much.”

”It isn't. If I take it, will you let me come and see you?”

”Oh, yes. But--” She shrank, so far as Elise could be said to shrink, a little further back into her corner.

”It's rather far from Wyck,” he said. ”Still, I could run up once in”--he became pensive--”in three weeks or so.”

”For the day--I should be delighted.”

”No. _Not_ for the day.” He was irritated with this artificial obtuseness. ”For the week-end. For the week, sometimes, when I can manage it. I shall say it's business.”

She drew back and back, as if from his advance, her head tilted, her eyes glinting at him under lowered lids, taking it all in yet pretending a paralysis of ignorance. She wanted to see--to see how far he would go, before she--She wanted him to think she didn't understand him even now.

It was this half-fascinated, backward gesture that excited him. He drew himself close, close.

”Elise, it's no use pretending. You know what I mean. You know I want you.”

He stooped over her, covering her with his great chest. He put his arms round her.

”In my arms. You _know_ you want _me_--”

She felt his mouth pushed out to her mouth as it retreated, trying to cover it, to press down. She gave a cry: ”Oh--oh, you--” and struggled, beating him off with one hand while the other fumbled madly for her pocket-handkerchief. His grip slackened. He rose to his feet. But he still stooped over her, penning her in with his outstretched arms, his weight propped by his hands laid on the back of the sofa.

”You--old--imbecile--” she spurted.

She could afford it. In one rapid flash of intelligence she had seen that, whatever happened, she could never get that five hundred pounds _down_. And to surrender to old Waddy without it, to surrender to old Waddy at all, when she could marry Freddy Markham, would be too preposterous. Even if there hadn't been any Freddy Markham, it would have been preposterous.

At that moment as she said it, while he still held her prisoned and they stared into each other's faces, she spurting and he panting, Barbara came in.

He started; jerked himself upright. Mrs. Levitt recovered herself.

”You silly cuckoo,” she said. ”You don't know how ridiculous you look.”

She had found her pocket-handkerchief and was dabbing her eyes and mouth with it, rubbing off the uncleanness of his impact. ”How ridic--Te-hee--Te-hee--te-hee!” She shook with laughter.

Barbara pretended not to see them. To have gone back at once, closing the door on them, would have been to admit that she had seen them.

Instead she moved, quickly yet abstractedly, to the writing-table, took up the photographs and went out again.

Mr. Waddington had turned away and stood leaning against the chimneypiece, hiding his head (”Poor old ostrich!”) in his hands. His att.i.tude expressed a dignified sorrow and a wronged integrity. Barbara stood for a collected instant at the door and spoke:

”I'm sorry I forgot the photographs.” As if she said: ”Cheer up, old thing. I didn't really see you.”

Through the closed door she heard Mrs. Levitt's laughter let loose, malignant, shrill, hysterical, a horrid sound.

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