"Where now?" asked the man, as the two stood outside in the street.
"Good night," replied Mavis.
"Good night?"
"Good-bye, then."
"Oh no."
"I'm grateful to you for getting me out of that place, but I can never see you or speak to you again."
"But—"
"We needn't go into it. I want to try to forget it, although I never shall. Good-bye."
"I can't let you go like this. Let me drive you home."
"Home!" laughed Mavis scornfully. "I've no home."
"Really no home?"
"I haven't a soul in the world who cares what becomes of me: not a friend in the world. And all I valued you've soiled. It made me hate you, and nothing will ever alter it. Good-bye."
She turned away. The man followed.
"Look here, I'll tell you all about myself, which shows my intentions are straight."
"It wouldn't interest me."
"Why not? You liked me before—before that happened, and, when you've forgiven me, there's no reason why you shouldn't like me again."
"There's every reason."
"My name's Windebank—Archibald Windebank. I'm in the service, and my home is Haycock Abbey, near Melkbridge—"
"You gave me your wrong name!" cried Mavis, who, now that she knew that the man was the friend of her early days, seized on any excuse to get away from him.
"But—"
"Don't follow me. Good-bye."
She crossed the road. He came after her and seized her arm.
"Don't be a fool!" he cried.
"You've hurt me. You're capable of anything," she cried.
"Rot!"
"Oh, you brute, to hurt a girl!"
"I've done nothing of the kind. It would almost have served you right if I had, for being such a little fool. Listen to me—you shall listen," he added, as Mavis strove to leave him.
His voice compelled submission. She looked at him, to see that his face was tense with anger. She found that she did not hate him so much, although she said, as if to satisfy her conscience for listening to him:
"Do you want to insult me again?"
"I want to tell you what a fool you are, in chucking away a chance of lifelong happiness, because you're upset at what I did, when, finding you in that house, I'd every excuse for doing."
"Lifelong happiness?" cried Mavis scornfully.
"You're a woman I could devote my life to. I want to know all about you. Oh, don't be a damn little fool!"
"You're somebody: I'm a nobody. Much better let me go."
"Of course if you want to—"
"Of course I do."
"Then let me see you into a cab."
"A cab! I always go by 'bus, when I can afford it."
"Good heavens! Here, let me drive you home."
"I shouldn't have said that. I'm overwrought to-night. When I'm in work, I'm ever so rich. I know you mean kindly. Let me go."
"I'll do nothing of the kind. It's all very important to me. I'm going to drive you home."
He caught hold of her arm, the while he hailed a passing hansom. When this drew up to the pavement, he said:
"Get in, please."
"But—"
"Get in," he commanded.
The girl obeyed him: something in the man's voice compelled obedience.
He sat beside her.
"Now, tell me your address."
Mavis shook her head.
"Tell me your address."
"Nothing on earth will make me."
"The man's waiting."
"Let him."
"Drive anywhere. I'll tell you where to go later," Windebank called to the cabman.
The cab started. The man and the girl sat silent. Mavis was not reproaching herself for having got into the cab with Windebank; her mind was full of the strange trick which fate had played her in throwing herself and her old-time playmate together. There seemed design in the action. Perhaps, after all, their meeting was the reply to her prayer in the tea-shop.
The cab drove along the almost deserted thoroughfare. It was now between ten and eleven, a time when the flame of the day seems to die down before bursting out into a last brilliance, when the houses of entertainment are emptied into the streets.
Mavis stole a glance at the man beside her. Her eye fell on his opera hat, the rich fur lining of his overcoat; lastly, on his face. His whole atmosphere suggested ample means, self-confidence, easy content with life. Then she looked at her cloak, the condition of which was now little removed from shabbiness. The pressure of her feet on the floor of the cab reminded her how sadly her shoes were down at heel. The contrast between their two states irked Mavis: she was resentful at the fact of his possessing all the advantages in life of which she had been deprived. If he had been visited with the misfortune that had assailed her, and if she had been left scathless, it would not have been so bad: he was a man, who could have fought for his own hand, without being hindered by the obstacles which weigh so heavily on those of her own sex, who seek to win for themselves a foothold on the slippery inclines of life. She found herself hating him more for his prosperity than for the way in which he had insulted her.
"Have you changed your mind?" asked Windebank presently.
"No."
"Likely to?"
"No."
"We can't talk here, and a fog's coming up. Wouldn't you like something to eat?"
"I'm not hungry—now."
"Where do you usually feed?"
"At an Express Dairy."
"Eh!"
"You get a large cup of tea for tuppence there."
"A tea-shop! But it wouldn't be open so late."
"Lockhart's is."
"Lockhart's?"
"The Cocoa Rooms. In the 'First Class' you find quite a collection of shabby gentility. And you'd never believe what a lot you can get there for tuppence."
"Eh!"
"I'll tell you, you might find it useful some day; one never knows. You can get a huge cup of tea or coffee—a bit stewed—but, at least, it's warm; also, four huge pieces of bread and butter, and a good, long, lovely rest."
"Good God!"
"For tuppence more you can get sausages; sixpence provides a meal; a shilling a banquet. Can't we find a 'Lockhart'?"
The man said nothing. The cab drove onward. Mavis, now that her resentment against Windebank's prosperity had found relief in words, was sorry that she had spoken as she had. After all, the man's well-being was entirely his own affair; it was not remotely associated with the decline in the fortunes of her family. She would like to say or do something to atone for her bitter words.
"Poor little girl! Poor little girl!"
This was said by Windebank feelingly, pityingly; he seemed unconscious that they had been overheard by Mavis. She was firmly, yes, quite firmly, resolved to hate him, whatever he might do to efface her animosity.
Meanwhile, the cab had fetched something of a compass, and had now turned into Regent Street.
"Here we are: this'll do," suddenly cried Windebank.
"What for?"
"Grub. Hi, stop!"
Obedient to his summons, the cabman stopped. Mavis got out on the pavement, where she stood irresolute.
"You'll come in?"
Mavis did not reply.
"We must have a talk. Please, please don't refuse me this."
"I shan't eat anything."
"If you don't, I shan't."
"I won't—I swear I won't accept the least favour from you."
She looked at him resentfully: she would go any lengths to conceal her lessening dislike for him.
"You'd better wait," he called to the cabman, as he led the way to a restaurant.
Two attendants, in gold-laced coats, opened double folding doors at the approach of the man and the girl.
Mavis found herself in a large hall, elaborately decorated with red and gold, upon the floor of which were many tables, that just now were sparsely occupied.
Windebank looked from table to table, as if in search of something. His eye, presently, rested on one, at which an elderly matron was supping with a parson, presumably her husband.
"Good luck!" Windebank murmured, adding to the girl, "This way."
Mavis followed him up the hall to the table next the one where the elderly couple were sitting.
"This is about our mark," he said.
"Why specially here?" she asked.
"Those elderly geesers are a sort of chaperone for unprotected innocence; a parson and all that," he remarked.
She could hardly forbear smiling at his conception of protection.
A waiter assisted her with her cloak. When she took a seat opposite to Windebank, he said:
"I like this place; there's no confounded music to interfere with what one's got to say."
"I like music," Mavis remarked.
"Then let's go where they have it," he suggested, half rising.
"I want to go straight home, if you'll let me."
"Then we'll stay here. What are you going to eat?"
"Nothing."
"Rot! Here's the waiter chaps. Tell 'em what you want."
Two waiters approached the table, one with a list of food, the other with like information concerning wines, which, at a nod from Windebank, they put before Mavis.
She glanced over these; beyond noticing the high prices charged, she gave no attention to the lists' contents.
"Well?" said Windebank.
"I'm not hungry and I'm not thirsty," remarked Mavis.
"You heard what I said, and I'm awfully hungry!"
"That's your affair."
"If you won't decide, I'll decide for you."
The waiters handed him the menus, from which, after much thought, he ordered an elaborate meal. When the waiters hastened to execute his orders, he found Mavis staring at him wide-eyed.
"Are you entertaining your regiment?" she asked.
"You," he replied.
"But—"
"It isn't much, but it's the best they've got. Whatever it is, it's in honour of our first meeting."
"I shan't eat a thing," urged Mavis.
"You won't sit there and see me starve?"
"There won't be time. I have to get back."
"But, however much you hate me, you surely haven't the heart to send me supperless to bed?"
"You shouldn't make silly resolutions."
As Windebank did not speak for some moments, Mavis looked at her surroundings. Men and women in evening dress were beginning to trickle in from theatres, concerts, and music hall. She noticed how they all wore a bored expression, as if it were with much of an effort that they had gone out to supper.
"Don't move! Keep looking like that," cried Windebank suddenly.
"Why?" she asked, quickly turning to him.
"Now you've spoiled it," he complained.
"Spoiled what?"
"Your expression. Good heavens!"
The exclamation was a signal for retrospection on Windebank's part. When he next spoke, he said:
"Is your name, by any wonderful chance, Mavis Keeves?"
"What?"
"Answer my question. Is your name Mavis Keeves: Mavis Weston Keeves in full?"
"You know it isn't. That woman told you what it was."
"She didn't tell you my name, and I thought she might have done the same by you. And when I saw that expression in your face—"
"Who is Mavis Keeves?"
"A little girl I knew when I was a kid. She'd hair and eyes like yours, and when I saw you then—but you haven't answered my question. Is your name Mavis Weston Keeves?"
Mavis had decided what to reply if further directly questioned.
"No, it isn't," she answered.
"Confound! I might have known. It's much too good to be true."
While Mavis was tortured with self-reproach at having told a lie, soup, in gilt cups, was set before Windebank and Mavis, the latter of whom was more than ever resolved to accept no hospitality from the man who appeared sincerely anxious to befriend her. The fact of her having told him a lie seemed, in the eyes of her morbidly active conscience, to put her under an obligation to him, an indebtedness that she was in no mind to increase. She folded her hands on the napkin, and again looked about her.
"Don't you want that stuff?" Windebank asked.
"No, thank you."
"Neither do I. Take it away!"
The waiters removed the soup, to substitute, almost immediately, an appetising preparation of fish. At the same time an elderly, important-mannered man poured out wine with every conceivable elaboration of his office.
"Don't refuse this. The place is famous for it," urged Windebank.
"You know what I said. I mean it more than ever."
"Don't you know that obstinacy is one of the seven deadly sins?"
"Is it?"
"If it isn't, it ought to be. Do change your mind."
"Nothing will make me," she replied icily.
He signalled to the waiters to remove the food.
"What a jolly night we're having!" he genially remarked, when the men were well out of hearing.
"I'm afraid I've spoiled your evening."
"Not at all. I like a good feed. It does one good."
Mavis would have been hard put to it to repress a smile at this remark, had she not suddenly remembered how she had left her purse in the pocket of the frock that she had left behind her at Mrs Hamilton's; she realised that she would have to walk to Mrs Bilkins's. The fact of having no money to pay a 'bus fare reminded her how the cab was waiting outside.
"You've forgotten your cab," she remarked.
"What cab?"
"The one you told to wait outside."
"What of it?"
"Won't he charge?"
"Of course. What of it?"
"What an extravagance!" she commented.
She could say no more; a procession of dishes commenced: meats, ices, sweetmeats, fruit, wines, coffee, liqueurs; all of which were refused, first by Mavis, then by Windebank.
Mavis, who had been accustomed to consider carefully the spending of a penny, was appalled at the waste. She had hoped that Windebank, after seeing how she was resolved to keep her word, would have countermanded the expensive supper he had ordered; failing this, that the management of the restaurant would not charge for the unconsumed meats and wine. Windebank would have been flattered could he have known of Mavis's consideration for his pocket.
He and the girl talked when the attendants were out of the way, to stop conversing when they were immediately about them; the two would resume where they had left off, directly they were sure of not being overheard.
"Just imagine, if you were little Mavis Keeves grown up," began Windebank.
"Never mind about her," replied Mavis uneasily.
"But I do. I loved her, the cheeky little wretch."
"Was she?"
"A little flirt, too."
"Oh no."
"Fact. I think it made me love her all the more."
"Are you trying to make me jealous?" she asked, making a sad little effort to be light-hearted.
"I wish I could. There was a chap named Perigal, whom the little flirt preferred to me."
"Perigal?"
"Charlie Perigal. We were laughing about it only the week before last."
"He loved her too?"
"Rather. I remember we both subscribed to buy her a birthday present. Anyway, the week before last, we both asked each other what had become of her, and promised to let each other know if we heard anything of her."
"If I were Mavis Keeves, would you let him know?"
"No fear."
Mavis smiled at the reply.
"Then we come to to-day," continued Windebank.
"The least said of to-day the better."
"I'm not so sure; it may have the happiest results."
"Don't talk nonsense."
"Do let me go on. Assuming you were little Mavis, where do I find her—eh?"
Here Windebank's face hardened.
"That woman ought to be shot," he cried. "As it is, I've a jolly good mind to show her up. And to think she got you there!"
"Ssh!"
"You've no idea what a house it is. It's quite the worst thing of its kind in London."
"Then what were you doing there?"
"Eh!"
"What were you doing there?"
"I'm not a plaster saint," he replied.
"Who said you were?"
"And I'm interested in life: curious to see all sides of it. She's often asked me, but to-night, when she wired to say she'd a paragon coming to dinner, I went."
"She wired?"
"To-night. It all but missed me. I'm no end of glad it didn't."
"I suppose I ought to be glad too," remarked Mavis.
"I know you think me a bad egg, but I'm not; I'm not really," he went on, to add, after a moment's pause, "I believe at heart I'm a sentimentalist."
"What's that?"
"A bit of a bally fool where the heart is concerned. What?"
"I think all nice people are that," she murmured.
"Thanks."
"I wasn't including you," she remarked.
"Eat that ice."
"Wild horses wouldn't make me."
"You'd eat it if you knew what pleasure it would give me."
"You want me to break my word?" she said, with a note of defiance in her voice.
"Have your own way."
"I mean to,"
The ices were taken away. Windebank went on talking.
"You've no idea how careful a chap with domestic instincts, who isn't altogether a pauper, has to be. Women make a dead set at him."
"Poor dear!" commented Mavis.
"Fact. You mayn't believe it, but every woman—nearly every woman he meets—goes out of her way to have a go at him."
"Nonsense!"
Windebank did not heed the interruption; he went on:
"Old Perigal, Charlie Perigal's father, is a rum old chap; lives alone and never sees anyone and all that. One day he asked me to call, and what d'ye think he said?"
"Give it up."
"Boy! you're commencing life, and you should know this: always bear in mind the value of money and the worthlessness of most women. Good-bye."
"What a horrid old man!"
"Yes, that's what he said."
"And do you bear it in mind?"
"Money I don't worry about. I've more than I know what to do with. As to women, I'm jolly well on my guard."
"You're as bad as old Perigal, every bit."
"But one has to be. Have some of these strawberries?"
"No, thank you."
"You ate 'em fast enough at Mrs What's-her-name's."
"It was different then."
"Yes, wasn't it? Take 'em away."
These last words were spoken to the waiters, who were now accustomed to removing the untasted dishes almost as soon as they were put upon the table.
"Have the coffee when it comes. It'll warm you for the fog outside."
"Thanks, I'm not used to coddling."
"Then you ought to be. But about what we were saying: then, I quite thought old Perigal a pig for saying that about women; now, I know he's absolutely right."
"Absolutely wrong."
"Eh!"
"Absolutely wrong. It's the other way about. It's men who're worthless, not poor women; and they don't care what they drag us down to so long as they get their own ends," cried Mavis.
"Nonsense!" he commented.
"I've been out in the world and have seen what goes on," retorted Mavis.
"It isn't my experience."
"Men are always in the right. No coffee, thank you."
"Sure?"
"Quite."
"No; it is not my experience," he went on. "Take the case of all the chaps I know who've married women who played up to them. Without exception they curse in their hearts the day they met them."
"If anything's wrong, it's owing to the husband's selfishness."
"Little Mavis—I'm going to call you that—you don't know what rot you're talking."
"Rot is often the inconvenient common sense of other people," commented Mavis.
"It isn't as if marriage were for a day," he went on, "or for a week, or two years. Then, it wouldn't matter very much whom one married. But it's for a lifetime, whether it turns out all right or whether it don't. What?"
"I see; you'd have men choose wives as you would a house or an umbrella," she suggested.
"People would be a jolly sight happier if they did," he replied, to add, after looking intently at Mavis: "Though, after all, I believe I'm talking rot. When one's love time comes, nothing else in the world matters; every other consideration goes phut, as it should."
"Goes what?"
"Goes to blazes, then, as it should."
"As it should," echoed Mavis.
"Dear little Mavis!" smiled Windebank, "But it's big Mavis now."
He called the waiter, to give him a note with which to pay the bill.
"What wicked waste!" remarked Mavis in an undertone.
"When it's been time spent with you?"
When the bill and the change were brought, Windebank would not look at either.
"How can you be so extravagant?" she murmured.
"When one's with you, it's a crime to think of anything else."
"What a good thing I'm leaving you!" she laughed.
He insisted on getting and helping her into her coat. As she put her arms into the sleeves, he murmured:
"Where did you get your hair?"
"Do try and talk sense," she pleaded, not insensible to the man's ardent admiration.
Then, with something like a sigh, she left the warmth and comfort of the restaurant for the bleakness of the street, on which a thick fog had descended.
This enveloped the man and the woman. As they stood on the pavement, it seemed to cut them off from the rest of the world.
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