Part 30 (1/2)

She never cried. How often Maisie had insisted on her sister's abstinence from tears, as though it was something monstrous that summed up all her character! He would have felt far more comfortable in visiting her if he had been a.s.sured that she sometimes cried.

As he turned into Brompton Square, he thought he caught the door of his house in the act of closing. He might have been mistaken. It was dark under the shadow of the trees. Quite possibly it had been the door of a neighbor's house. Nevertheless, he hugged the curb as he drove so that he might scan the face of any one on the pavement. Forty yards from his doorstep, at a point where things were darkest, a man pa.s.sed him. He was a tall man and walked with the erectness of one who had been a soldier.

The way in which he carried himself and strode was extraordinarily reminiscent. Tabs slowed down and looked back; the man moved straight ahead, without hesitancy or sign of recognition. It couldn't be Braithwaite; Ann's vicinity was the least likely place in which to find him.

As Tabs let himself into his house, he found Ann in the hall. ”Was there some one here to see me?” he asked.

”There's been no one to see your Lords.h.i.+p,” Ann replied respectfully.

He scarcely knew what prompted him to say it. Perhaps it was the healthy neatness of her appearance--the extreme orderliness of her quiet. ”Ann, you're the sanest creature I meet anywhere. You've the pluck of one in a million.”

She turned to him a face that was flus.h.i.+ng and eyes that were unusually bright. ”It's good of your Lords.h.i.+p. Your Lords.h.i.+p is always kind.”

”No, Ann, only human. I know what you've been through and I'm glad you're getting over it---- I have to be away to-night. I shall need some supper. While you're preparing it, I'll pack.”

On the way upstairs he telephoned the garage to send for his car and to return it within the hour. Then he climbed the last flight to his bedroom.

While he packed, he kept pausing and knitting his brows. A ridiculous conviction was forming in his mind. ”It couldn't have been,” he a.s.sured himself. Yet the more he recalled the man on the pavement the more certain he was that he had been Steely Jack. But what motive could Braithwaite have had for calling and why should Ann try to hide the fact that he had called? He had lost trace of him utterly since that day when he had handed him Terry's ultimatum at the Savoy. Since then Terry and he had had many meetings, he did not doubt. Braithwaite's influence clung to her like her shadow. But if he was so in love with Terry, the more reason why he should steer clear of Ann. To have called at Brompton Square would have been asking for a cloudburst. It couldn't have been Braithwaite. And yet----

And then there was Ann. Since that day when the General's portrait had appeared in the papers, she had given up watching for letters marked, ”On His Majesty's Service.” She had made no further enquiries as to how his Lords.h.i.+p's friend at the War Office was progressing. Her silence told its story; she had learned the truth. In what spirit she had accepted the truth Tabs had no means of guessing. Lady Hamilton, the little maid-of-all-work, had been the beloved of Nelson. Ann was not without her precedent. But the maid-of-all-work had become Lady Hamilton before the Admiral had set eyes on her. Steely Jack was a General, while Ann was still a servant. Her claims would not meet with much applause if they were brought before a jury.

To all appearance she had resigned herself to the inevitable. Tabs was frankly surprised at her magnanimity and fort.i.tude. About her fort.i.tude there could be no question, but concerning her magnanimity he was not a little skeptical. More than once he had caught her singing as she went about her work. She didn't get all the words correctly; she sang them with improvisions, filling in the gaps where her memory failed.

Throughout the war the song had been sung to men on leave at the Alhambra by the heroine who acted the revengeful part of _Tootsie_:

”Some day I'll make you love me.

Some day you'll call me 'Dear'.

You'll feel so lonely And want me only; I'm sure you'll want me near.

I know you can't forget me, Though, dear, for years you'll try.

I'll make you miss me And want to kiss me, Bye and bye.”

She was a mystery. If she were playing a game, it was a game the intentions of which he could not fathom. The man whom he had pa.s.sed on the pavement could not have been Braithwaite. Common-sense insisted on that.

IV

While he was at supper she gave him no chance to question her. ”I'm motoring down to Dawn Castle,” he told her. ”I've left the address on my desk. Don't forward any letters till you hear from me. I don't suppose that I shall be there for more than a day. To tell the truth,” he glanced up smiling at her seriousness, ”I haven't been invited.”

Ann refused to be lured off her perch of reticence. She set before him the dish she was carrying. ”I'm sure wherever your Lords.h.i.+p goes there's a welcome.”

He felt that he was being reproved. He had been conscious of her silent criticism from the moment he had announced that he would be away for the night. He respected Ann and was anxious for her good opinion. She was by long odds the most honorable woman of his acquaintance and the best, because she was the kindest. He had had the feeling throughout the past two months that there was very little that had happened inside his brain that had escaped her. She had disapproved of Maisie. She had shown no enthusiasm for Terry. She had been aware of his dangers when he himself was disguising them with excuses. All this he knew though no word had been exchanged. She had observed in all her dealings with him the decorum to be expected from a high-cla.s.s servant. And yet she was his trusted friend, whose virtues compelled his admiration and whose loyalty commanded his affection. She thought ahead for him and smoothed his path. Her sense of responsibility was as tender as a sister's. Her humility lent it a touch of pathos. He looked up to her as men instinctively look up to good women in whatever grade of society they find them. The silent knowledge which each had of the other formed a bond of sympathy, the more delicate because it was unuttered.

He said, ”Long ago--it must have been before the war--I gave you tickets to see Peter Pan.”

”It wasn't to me your Lords.h.i.+p gave them. It was to Braithwaite.”

”Was it?” He held her eyes, striving to peer behind their curtained windows. It was the first time that that name had been mentioned between them in casual conversation. ”You're right. It comes back to me now. It was the Christmas of 1913 that he took you. Do you remember the fairy who was dying? There was only one way of keeping her alive. Peter Pan had to make the children in the audience promise that they believed in fairies. When they did that, she got well. That's why I'm going to Dawn Castle to-night.”

Ann ceased abruptly from what she was doing and stared at her master in concern. He laughed mischievously. ”Wrong again, Ann; I've not taken leave of my senses. Two hours ago I made the same mistake. There was a man who asked me whether I believed that Mrs. Lockwood's first husband, who was killed at the Front, would return. While I was wondering how long it would be before he'd grow violent, he proved to me that he was her first husband. So I'm believing in fairies.”