Part 51 (1/2)
”Dearest f.a.n.n.y:
”I'm sorry, but Mr. Waddington and I have had a sc.r.a.p. It's made things impossible, and I'm going to Ralph. He'll turn out for me, so there won't be any scandal.
”You know how awfully I love you, that's why you'll forgive me if I don't come back.
”Always your loving
”Barbara.”
”P.S.--I'm frightfully sorry about my birthday dinner. But I don't feel birthdayish or dinnerish, either. I want Ralph. Nothing but Ralph.”
That would make f.a.n.n.y think it was Ralph they had quarrelled about.
Barbara put this note on f.a.n.n.y's dressing-table. Then she went up to the White Hart, to Ralph Bevan. She waited in his sitting-room till he came back from Oxford.
”Hallo, old thing, what are _you_ doing here?”
”Ralph--do you awfully mind if we don't dine at the Manor?”
”If we don't--why?”
”Because I've left them. And I don't want to go back. Do you think I could get a room here?”
”What's up?”
”I've had a simply awful sc.r.a.p with Waddy, and I can't stick it there.
Between us we've made it impossible.”
”What's he been up to?”
”Oh, never mind.”
”He's been making love to you.”
”If you call it making love.”
”The old swine!”
As he said it, he felt the words and his own fury fall short of the fantastic quality of Waddington.
”No. He isn't.” (Barbara felt it.) ”He was simply more funny than you can imagine.... He had on a canary yellow waistcoat.”
In spite of his fury he smiled.
”I think he'd bought it for that.”
”Oh, Barbara, what he must have looked like!”
”Yes. If only you could have seen him. But that's the worst of all his best things. They only happen when you're alone with him.”
”You remember--we wondered whether he'd do it again, whether he'd go one better?”