Chapter VI

Ruth Mellicot had perhaps rather too classic a brow; it rose above her clear gray eyes, white and firm and a little high. She would have made a perfect model for Minerva.

She had been to Girton, and besides a very quiet manner and an ability to follow the points of an argument, however abstruse, she spoke in a low, pleasant voice very agreeable to listen to. There was no reason why it should make people feel as if they had gone back to the school-room.

Both Daphne and Jim liked her extremely. She was a woman to be relied upon in every emergency and she was never in the way. She was modern in her ideas, without coming into conflict with respectability. She had grasped the convenient truth that it is well to think a century ahead, and to act a century behind the present. She was very open-minded about the other world and extremely clear-headed about this one.

Anthony could talk to her upon any subject he liked. He had always thought it was absurd that women should have to be talked to as if the facts of life did not exist for them in the presence of the opposite sex. If you wanted to know what a woman thought about life, she should be capable of telling you without shirking facts or showing embarrassment.

Ruth was perfectly capable of telling Anthony what she thought upon any subject; she shirked nothing, and it was Anthony who felt embarrassed. She regarded him with her grave, candid eyes as if they were fellow-students at a lecture, discussing one of the subjects in their course. She said that men and women must work together on the dissecting-tables of life, and doctors do not like illustrations about dissecting-tables. Daphne argued afterward with Jim that they oughtn’t to have been left so much alone together.

It was wonderful weather for April, the kind of weather that seemed designed for long country rambles, teas at wayside inns, and late returns in time to dress for dinner. Anthony had explained to Daphne that if she wanted him really to make friends with Ruth Mellicot, they must be a great deal alone together. He made friends slowly, and he did not think women ever showed their real selves before a third person.

When Daphne said, “Do they before a second?” Anthony smiled the smile of a man who has reason to believe in his own power of discrimination, and replied that they probably did it unconsciously.

Ruth looked very well in coats and skirts, and walking suited her. In the evening she did not show to such advantage. Good walkers seldom do. She was not exactly clumsy, but her figure appeared rather pointless. When she moved she seemed to be shouldering her way through obstacles. There was very little slope to her shoulders, and her elbows and wrists were more prominent than they should have been.

Her conversation was extremely interesting. She read the newspapers carefully, and Anthony never heard her jump ahead of her facts. Ruth did not always share Anthony’s opinions, but she was prepared to listen to his arguments, and he could see that on the whole she wanted to agree with him.

Ruth was twenty-five, and in a sensible, unferocious way she wished to get married. She hoped to find a man of her class with steady principles, a moderate income, and more or less the same ideals. A man who would wish to have a happy, hygienic home, two or three healthy children, and who had a genuine desire to improve the world up to a certain point. Ruth did not wish a crank; cranks wish to improve the world unreasonably and involve their personal futures in their efforts. Ruth did not think this a very necessary or desirable attitude. People’s individual futures should run on one line, and their efforts to reform the world should run on another, and these two lines should be parallel and never meet. When she said she feared fanatics and disliked cranks this was what she meant. It is what people usually do mean. Anthony agreed with her, only he meant something a little different. Before he had been two years in prison he would have meant something exactly the same.

Ruth studied Anthony much as he was studying her. She had the same prospect in view; if she liked him, she meant to marry him.

It did not annoy Anthony to guess this fact. On the contrary, it rather amused him. He liked her quiet, appraising eyes and her distinct and unevasive questions. Sometimes he found them a little too difficult to answer, but he appreciated her asking them. She was not at all eager to attract him, which would have frightened him, nor did she appear to be greatly attracted by him.

Their cards were all out on the table, and they played them in turn without any effort at concealment. It sent Daphne and Jim into fits of laughter.

Daphne and Jim weren’t superior about their happiness. It was a child of so much danger and uncertainty that even now when life appeared open before it, they walked delicately, like an Agag, and hid the sharpness of their joy. But they could not hide their happiness itself. They existed in a charmed circle of love, and though they looked over the edge of it from time to time, their inner life was complete, and uninterrupted by the actions of others.

“Of course,” Anthony observed to Daphne when Ruth had left them to change her shoes, most sensibly, without a suggestion from Anthony, after they had been caught in a shower, “it’s an immense comfort to hear exactly what a woman thinks about things. I appreciate it awfully and all that, you know. Miss Mellicot’s just been telling me what she expects of a husband. Daphne, if you laugh into your tea like that you’ll choke. Only it occurred to me to wonder if you’d ever put it quite like that to Jim.”

“My dear,” said Daphne, chuckling, “as if I should have dared! And if I had dared, it wouldn’t have mattered. You see, I never thought about him in the least like that. I don’t now. He was just Jim.”

“Still,” Anthony protested, “you must have said to yourself some time or other before you fell in love with him: ‘What kind of fellow is this, good or bad? Would he make a good father for my children? That kind of thing—what?’”

Daphne’s eyes brimmed with laughter. She shook her head violently.

“I never said anything of the kind,” she answered him. “I always thought of him as Jim, _not_ as a man, and I was terrified he’d fall out of his aëroplane and be killed before I knew if he really loved me, and I didn’t think about anybody’s children for millions of years afterward. Of course I dare say goodness was a part of his being Jim, but not nearly _all_ of it. Badness wouldn’t have mattered if it hadn’t altered him. Of course I suppose some kinds of badness _do_ really alter people. That must be awful, like losing your way in a fog—your way _home_—when you _know_ it so frightfully well really; but it wouldn’t stop being your home, would it?”

Daphne became quite serious, looking at Anthony over her bread and butter. It was funny to think of Ruth and Anthony, but it wasn’t funny to think how badness might alter love.

“Of course,” said Anthony, “neither Miss Mellicot nor I sentimentalize nature. If you act on sane principles, sufficient emotion will follow later; only—” his face slightly clouded as he regarded his sister’s shining eyes—“I must confess, Daphne, just between you and me, you know, that it’s rather like going to a dentist without a toothache.”

“Doesn’t it ache the least little bit?” Daphne asked with anxiety as Ruth came into the room.

Anthony shook his head, and looked consideringly at the tall, tidy young woman in front of the tea-table. Ruth did her hair very well. It was bright, smooth, brown hair, and very thick.

“Not in the least, thanks,” said Anthony a little dryly. “I haven’t felt even a preliminary twinge. Won’t you have one of these little pink things, Miss Mellicot?”

“I’ll have bread and butter first, please,” said Ruth. “It’s the good old nursery rule, isn’t it?”

And then the door opened, and Kitty came in.

She did not wait to be announced as “Miss Costrelle.” She simply threw a long, blue chiffon scarf on a chair, followed by a gold handbag and a perfectly insufficient umbrella with a jeweled handle; then she embraced Daphne.

“I know I oughtn’t to have come,” she said apologetically, for the only welcome Daphne gave her was to say reproachfully, “O Kitty! Kitty!”

“It was only tea. I literally was dying for some on the doorstep, and the next house was miles off and full of women who hate me like poison, and won’t say so except when they think I’m looking the other way. And I thought you wouldn’t like Jimmy to find me just _dead_ on the mat. It would make him think you such a bad housekeeper.

“This is your brother, isn’t it? I’ve met Miss Mellicot before, I believe. I’m awfully afraid of her. You are the one who went to Girton, aren’t you? I can’t think why Daphne has such awfully clever friends; she isn’t a bit clever herself, really, is she, Captain Arden? Of course I know _you_ are, but men don’t matter. One isn’t afraid of _their_ cleverness.”

“Give her her tea,” said Daphne, resignedly. She seemed to be simultaneously annoyed and amused at the appearance of her unexpected visitor. “She’s not really afraid of anybody’s cleverness.”

Kitty laughed over her tea-cup at Anthony. Her eyes, which were almost black and a little narrow at the corners, laughed, too; her long emerald ear-rings laughed at him. Everything about her glittered and sparkled, and seemed in some strange way directed straight at Anthony.

She took what color there was out of Miss Mellicot as sunshine takes the light out of a fire.

“Of course I’ve heard all about you,” she said, making room for Anthony on the sofa beside her. “Daphne’s really awfully fond of me, though you mightn’t think it. I’m one of her secret sins. She keeps me for dull, rainy days, as you keep chocolates and tell people you have a headache, and then shut yourself up with a box of them and a good detective story. Don’t you ever do that? Don’t you, Miss Mellicot?”

“I never eat chocolates,” said Ruth, coldly.

Daphne groaned inwardly. It was not the moment for Ruth to repudiate chocolates.

Kitty opened her eyes wider than ever. She had black lashes which curled upward, and when she laughed her eyelashes swept together and made her look as if her eyes were shut.

“Wouldn’t Miss Mellicot make a good food-controller?” Kitty murmured. “Perhaps you were one during the war, Miss Mellicot? I often wondered who the Government really got hold of. I don’t believe men did that kind of thing themselves, poor dears. There must have been some really clever people behind the scenes who knew just how much food there really was, and what was absolutely necessary for babies. Somebody very competent who didn’t mind people not having what they wanted.”

“Do you suppose that women are the only sex who wish to deprive others of what they want?” asked Miss Mellicot, disdainfully. “You don’t appear to have a high opinion of your sisters.”

“They’re the only people who really seem to mind my having what I want,” said Kitty, plaintively. “Still, of course, it wouldn’t be any fun getting it if nobody minded your having it, would it? Do you play billiards, Captain Arden? Yes?” Anthony nodded.

“They have a really good table here,” Kitty said, directing a glance at Daphne’s increasing gravity. “I’ve finished my tea now, and it’s begun to rain again, so I can’t possibly go home. It would be such a pity to spoil this hat, wouldn’t it, Miss Mellicot? But perhaps you don’t wear hats?”

“Not such perishable ones—in the country,” agreed Miss Mellicot, smoothly.

“It would die in a good cause,” said Anthony with appreciation, studying the golden wing that rested on Kitty’s dark, wavy hair.

Miss Mellicot’s lips tightened. It was the first time Anthony had seen her with tight lips. They accentuated her likeness to Minerva.

Kitty smiled at Anthony. Then she turned coaxingly to Daphne.

“We may just as well have a game now, mayn’t we, Daphne?” she urged. “Or is it bad for Captain Arden to play billiards?”

“It’s remarkably good for him,” said Anthony, quickly.

He had an intense desire to get Kitty away from Miss Mellicot. Of course it was Kitty who was behaving badly, but, curiously enough, it was not Miss Mellicot whom Anthony wished to take away from Kitty.

Miss Mellicot behaved extremely well. It is quite compatible with behaving well to look like one of the Muses in the Vatican. There is a didactic Muse fronting the stairs, who keeps a thin little finger very levelly lifted. She seems to warn the approaching onlooker not to be carried away by his feelings.

Miss Mellicot did not lift her finger. She merely turned her eyes a little fixedly on Anthony. Anthony avoided her glance. Perhaps some day it would be his domestic duty to meet fixed glances and reply to them, but at present he slipped into fluidity. He hurried out of the room behind Kitty.

When they were in the hall, with the door shut, Kitty turned and laughed at him.

“Now,” she said, “I know you are _really_ brave, Captain Arden. Do you know how I should describe Miss Mellicot?”

“No,” said Anthony; “but I have no doubt your description would be picturesque and a little unfair.”

“No, it wouldn’t,” said Kitty, petulantly, throwing open the billiard-room door. “I shouldn’t be a bit unfair to her. I should describe her as a perfect wife and mother.”

Anthony found himself saying in a tone which he had never dreamed of using with Ruth Mellicot:

“_You_ deserve to have your ears boxed.” But it was a perfectly suitable tone to use with Kitty. She merely made a face at him over her shoulder.

He watched her with delight swing down her cue and chalk it. She had fine little hands and delicate wrists; her short skirts revealed the neatest feet and ankles Anthony had ever seen. Every line of her small, graceful figure told. She was beautifully dressed, with that unnecessary expensive luxury which Ruth and Anthony had mutually deplored in modern women.

Anthony could hear the rustle of her silk petticoats as she swung round, and see through her transparent chiffon blouse the lace and ribbons under it. Kitty’s lips were artificially reddened, and her small, tip-tilted nose was powdered. She had taken no pains to disguise the fact. She was a minx, a flirt, and a perfectly obvious danger-signal to any sane man.

And yet almost all sane men would have done precisely what Anthony did. He followed her into the billiard-room to see what she was up to.

She heaved a little sigh of relief when the door closed.

“I don’t really like women, you know,” she told him, “except Daphne, and not Daphne when she’s cross with me, and she’s awfully cross with me to-day. Still she’s generally kind to me; other women aren’t.”

“I should hardly suppose that you gave them much reason to be,” said Anthony, with his eyes on the poise of her figure bending over the table.

“Still,” said Kitty, looking up at him with dancing eyes, “I don’t know that I give men much _reason_, and yet men are always kind to me, even awfully clever ones like you. And even when I behave—and I do sometimes behave, you know—like a perfect fiend.”

“I can well believe it,” said Anthony. “Do you like to start, or shall I?”

Anthony did not believe that Kitty could really play billiards. He thought billiards was one of her ways of escape from other women. But he was mistaken. Kitty played a most excellent game of billiards, and was really fond of it; only she could play more than one game at a time.

“I’m being a fiend now,” said Kitty in a low voice, like a subdued child’s. “Perhaps you didn’t know it, but I am—a fiend to Daphne. I promised not to come all the while you were here. Wasn’t it awful to break it, when Daphne’s been so tremendously good to me, and Jim, too, only Jim doesn’t count. And it wasn’t true about the tea—it was just curiosity.”

“Well,” said Anthony, “I hope your curiosity is satisfied agreeably. May I ask why you promised not to come here during my visit?”

Kitty measured her shot carefully, took it successfully, and looked up at him.

“Daphne thought I should be bad for you,” she said. “You see, I am usually supposed to be rather bad for men.”

Anthony aimed, and missed. It was an easy stroke and Anthony couldn’t think how he had come to miss it.

“Do you try to be?” he asked her.

Kitty hung her head.

“Sometimes I try to be,” said Kitty.

“Are you trying now?” Anthony asked her. “Because I rather fancy you’re putting me off my game.”

“I don’t want to do that,” said Kitty, quickly; “not a bit. Do you _like_ Miss Mellicot? Is she a great comfort to you, I mean? If you were unhappy, you couldn’t put your head against her as if she were a cushion, could you? It would be rather like leaning against one of those marble block tombstones, the ones that lie flat on the ground, and you feel no one could resurrect under them. Of course she has quite a good figure, really; only I’m _sure_ her bones are hard.”

“I have not attempted to take that particular form of comfort from Miss Mellicot, if that is what you are asking me,” said Anthony, trying hard to keep his gravity. “It’s your turn, I think. I’ve missed again; there must be something wrong about my confounded cue.”

“Use mine for a change,” said Kitty, sweetly. “I hope you don’t mind what I said about Miss Mellicot’s bones?”

Anthony did not mean to touch Kitty’s hand; the thing simply happened. He felt it slim and warm under his fingers. Kitty’s long eyelashes fell over her eyes and hid them. He could not tell if what had happened had happened purposely; he only knew that it was difficult to take away his hand.

“You haven’t said if you really like her,” declared Kitty after a pause.

“I really like her very much,” said Anthony, dryly.

“Now it’s your turn again,” said Kitty, gaily. “You ought to be more careful this time, Captain Arden. I don’t believe you took aim properly before. I’m rather glad you like her as little as that.”

It occurred to Anthony that probably when other men were alone with Kitty, and she said this kind of thing, they kissed her. The thought of it stung him intolerably.

“Look here,” he said fiercely, “why do you talk to me as if you cared a hang what I think of anybody? You know you don’t. I suppose it’s your usual way of talking to men you’ve met half an hour ago, but I tell you plainly I don’t care for it. You’ve no right to behave as if it mattered to you what I think when it doesn’t, or as if it mattered to me what _you_ think when—when—”

“When it doesn’t?” asked Kitty, softly. “It’s rather horrid of you to say that, even if it’s true.”

“Well, you haven’t any right—” said Anthony, sulkily. He wouldn’t look at her, but he knew perfectly well what she looked like. She had caught her upper lip with one of her teeth and was trying to prevent herself smiling.

“As if having rights mattered,” said Kitty. “You are silly, Captain Arden.”

Anthony put down his cue deliberately and faced her.

“I don’t know this game,” he said quietly. “Am I supposed to kiss you? Because in about twenty seconds that is what is going to happen whether I am supposed to or not.”

Kitty tossed her head defiantly, then said unexpectedly:

“Oh, I am a mean little cur to break my promise to Daphne,” and without a word of explanation she flung herself into one of Jim’s neat leather arm-chairs, buried her head in her arms, and shook pitifully with sobs.

Anthony found himself on his knees beside her, with one arm across her shoulders.

“Don’t; don’t, my dear child, my dear baby!” he whispered. “If I was a brute and rough, I’m awfully sorry. I won’t touch you. You can say whatever naughty, silly thing you like. Is that what you’re crying for?”

Kitty shook her head. She was crying without tears, as boys do who have been beaten in a race.

Anthony drew her into his arms and held her close against him. She made no effort to release herself, nor did she seem aware of him. She fought silently to control her sobs. Anthony felt as if he had a bird’s heart throbbing under his hand. She was such an exquisite, delicate creature! Perfume and softness breathed from her small crushed figure. At last Kitty raised her head and pushed away his encircling arms.

“I’ll tell you,” she said. “I know it wasn’t fair even to cry; but I couldn’t help that. Just for a moment you looked, when you were angry, so like Dick—that was why I came to see you; I have such a funny feeling, as if I must see the men who do come back. You see, Dick and I were engaged. But he went off so quickly, before we could be married. He was in the regular army—Mons—and then he was missing. I couldn’t stop hoping. I hoped quite awfully and steadily for two years, then I knew it was no good. I didn’t care what happened then. I don’t care now, and I never shall in the least care what happens. I just amuse myself.”

Anthony put his hands on her shoulders and met her defiant eyes; beneath the defiance he saw her frightened, broken heart.

He saw her as Daphne had seen her, not as the easier men who flirted with her saw her, or as the angry women whose jealousy she roused saw her. The pity and the waste of it went through him like a knife.

“You poor little thing!” he said gently. “You poor, dear little thing!”

She sprang away from him quickly.

“No, no,” she said; “I’m _not_ like that. I’m not poor. You needn’t be sorry for me. I do just as I like, and I enjoy myself awfully. I dare say I shall enjoy myself awfully with you. I’m sorry I made such a fuss. I haven’t cried like that for ages. It was just—that you reminded me; besides, I could see you’ve had a pretty bad time yourself. If you’d really liked that woman, I’d have left you alone. You do believe that, don’t you?”

“I propose to believe everything you ever tell me,” said Anthony, steadily. “But aren’t you going to leave me alone?”

She turned and faced him.

“Do you want me to?” Kitty asked. Her eyes widened again, the corners of her mouth quivered, all of her became as it had been before—a glittering, dancing, creature, as bright and strong as a steel magnet.

Anthony made a few steps toward her.

“No,” he said reluctantly; “I suppose I don’t want you to leave me alone.”