Chapter II: Part 2

Miles Rushworth looked across to where Jervis Lexton was now sipping slowly a liqueur brandy. “The chap looks a regular slacker,” he said to himself contemptuously.

He considered it a tragic thing that the deliciously pretty, sweet-natured, little woman now sitting so close to him that they nearly touched, should be married to “that.”

He heard her whisper hesitatingly, “But Jervis must get something to do very soon now, Mr. Rushworth, or I don’t know what we shall do. We’re so horribly hard up,” and her mouth, that most revealing feature, quivered.

His strong face--the face he believed to be so shrewd, and which was shrewd where “business” was concerned--became filled with warm sympathy.

“That can’t be allowed to go on!” he exclaimed a little awkwardly.

During their last moonlit walk and talk in the dark, scented garden of the house where they had first met, Ivy Lexton had told him the pathetic story of her life. How, when she and Jervis Lexton had first married, they had been quite well off, but that a dishonest lawyer had somehow muddled away all “poor Jervis’s money.”

She had further confessed that now they were really “up against it,” hard-driven as they had never been before.

“An idle man,” she had said, speaking in that tremulous, husky voice which nearly always touched a listener’s heart-strings, “can’t help spending money. I would give anything to get my husband a job!”

Miles Rushworth remembered, now, that pathetic cry from the heart, and he felt much ashamed that he had not attended to the matter ere this. But he had not forgotten this dear little woman, and, had they not met to-night, she would have heard from him within a day or two.

All at once, by what was a real accident, his fingers touched her bare arm. They lay on her soft flesh for the fraction of a minute, and it was as if she could feel the thrill which ran through him.

She did not move, she scarcely breathed. Neither could have said how long it was before those hard, cool fingers slid down and grasped her soft hand. He crushed her hand in his strong grasp, then let it go.

“I suppose you would like Mr. Lexton to start work this autumn?” he said at last. “There isn’t much doing during August and September.”

His voice sounded strangely caressing and possessive, even to himself. But he felt sure that Ivy, a “nice” woman, had no suspicion of how much he had been moved by that casual, unexpected touch.

Miles Rushworth told himself that he must mind his step, for this seductive little creature, God help him, was another man’s wife, and he “wasn’t that sort.” Neither, he would have staked his life on it, was she.

And yet? Was it he?--sensible, prudent, nay, where women were concerned, over-cautious--Miles Rushworth, or some tricksy, bold entity outside himself which uttered the words: “By the way, what are you doing next month? If you’re doing nothing in particular, I do wish you’d both join my yachting party. Lady Dale and her daughter are coming, together with two or three others.”

A look of real, almost child-like, joy and pleasure flashed into Ivy Lexton’s face and, once more, the man sitting so closely by her side felt shaken to the depths. Tenderness was now added to the feeling of passionate attraction of which he was already half uncomfortably, half exultantly, aware. How young she looked, how innocent--now, at this moment, like a happy little girl.

“D’you really mean that?” she cried. “I’ve always longed to go yachting! But I’ve never even been in a yacht. Jervis is awfully fond of the sea, too; he was at Cowes when the war broke out!”

“Then that settles it,” exclaimed Rushworth delightedly. “We join the _Dark Lady_ at Southampton on August the 5th! By the way, perhaps I ought to tell you that we’re not going on any specially wonderful trip. We’re only going to cruise about the coast of France. I’m afraid Lady Dale and her daughter will have to leave us fairly soon--they’ve promised to stay with some people near Dieppe.”

“It will be heavenly--heavenly!”

Ivy whispered those five words almost in his ear, for she was exceedingly anxious that Roger Gretorex should hear nothing of this delightful plan. She had promised the young man she would spend a week, during August, alone with him and his mother in the Sussex manor house which was still his own, though all the land up to the park gates had been sold.

As she gave a quick surreptitious glance at the host who was her dangerously jealous lover--even jealous, grotesque thought, of her husband, entirely unsuspicious Jervis--a feeling of sharp irritation again swept over Ivy Lexton.

She told herself angrily that, though Roger Gretorex might belong by birth to grand people (to her surprise he made no effort to keep up with them), he had never been taught to behave as a young man should always behave in pleasant company. Even now, he still had what Ivy called “his thundercloud face,” and he was scarcely paying any attention to the girl sitting by him.

Ivy, not for the first time, realised that she had been a fool indeed to allow herself to become attracted to a man who was so little of her own sort. And yet Gretorex had been such a wonderful wooer! And his ardour had moved and excited her all the more because, at times, he had been as if overwhelmed with what had seemed to her an absurd kind of remorse at the knowledge that the woman he loved was another man’s wife.

Dismissing the distasteful thought of Gretorex from her mind, she turned to Rushworth.

“Don’t say anything to my husband about this delightful plan,” she murmured. “I shall have to bring him round to the idea. You see, he’s so awfully eager to start work at once.”

The lights were now being turned off one by one, so Ivy smiled across at Lady Dale, and rose from the chair which touched that on which Rushworth was still sitting as if lost in a dream.

As, a few moments later, they all stood together outside in the cool night air--all, that is, but Roger Gretorex who, after having uttered a curt good-night, had gone back to the now fast-emptying restaurant to pay his bill--Miles Rushworth exclaimed: “We can all squeeze into my car, or, if not, I’ll go outside.”

Ivy was delighted. She very much disliked the spending of any unnecessary ready money just now; and the thought of going home in a crowded omnibus on this fine July night had been unbearable.

In the end it was Jervis Lexton who sat outside by the chauffeur, while inside the car the other four discussed their coming yachting tour.

At last the Rolls-Royce drew up before the shabby-looking, stucco-fronted house in Pimlico, and Rushworth helped Ivy Lexton out of his car with a strong, careful hand.

“Don’t ring,” she said hurriedly; “Jervis has a latchkey. This house belongs to an old servant of the Lexton family; that’s why we are living here.”

As Ivy’s husband opened the door, Ivy’s new friend caught a glimpse of the dirty, gaslit hall, and his heart swelled with mingled disgust and pity. He must get this sweet, dainty little woman out of this horrible place at once--at once. Taking her hand in his, he held it just a thought longer than is perhaps usual even when a man is bidding good-night to an exceptionally pretty woman.

Long, long after Jervis Lexton was fast asleep in his crowded little back room, Ivy lay awake on the hard, lumpy, small double bed which took up most of the space in the front room.

She was tired, and with fatigue had come a feeling of depression. Miles Rushworth had said nothing as to their next meeting. He had forgotten her before--he might forget her again. As for Mrs. Thrawn--all that woman had told her might be fudge. The hard, shrewd side of Ivy’s nature came uppermost, and whispered that she had probably been very silly to spend a pound on a fortune-teller, and sillier still to believe in her predictions.

As she lay there, moving restlessly about, for it was a hot night, there came over her a feeling of revolt, almost of despair, at the conditions of her present day-to-day life. She was vividly aware of her own beauty--what beautiful young woman is not? In a certain set, the world of the smart night clubs, she was known as “the lovely Mrs. Lexton.” Further, she was popular, well liked by all sorts of people, women as well as men, and dowered by nature with a keen appreciation of all that makes civilised life decorous, orderly, and attractive.

Unlike some of her friends, she hated and despised Bohemian ways. She had tasted something of what Bohemia can offer her subjects during the few weeks she had spent in the chorus of a musical comedy. Yet now she was condemned--she sincerely believed through no fault of her own--to lead an existence full of sordid shifts, and of expedients so ignoble that even she sometimes shrank from them, while always on her slender shoulders lay the dead weight of her husband, a completely idle, extravagant, and yes, well she knew it, very stupid young man.

With angry distress she now asked herself a question of immediate moment. How was she to procure even the very simplest clothes suitable for life on a yacht? For a long time, now, she had had to pay ready money where she had once been welcome to unlimited credit.

Then in the darkness her face lightened. She had remembered Roger Gretorex! Poor though he was, he could always find money for her at a pinch. He had done so this very morning, and would of course do so again.

Then her face shadowed. Though Roger had his uses, he was becoming a tiresome, even a dangerous, complication in her life. Yet had it not been for him, had he not taken them to the Savoy to-night, she might never again have seen the man on whom now all her hopes centred.

Ivy Lexton had an intimate knowledge of the ugly, sinister sides of human nature. Her own father, a big man of business, had failed when she was seventeen. He had killed himself to avoid legal proceedings which would have led to a term of imprisonment. Their large circle of acquaintances (of real friends they had none) were some kind, some cruel, to the feckless, foolish, still pretty widow, and her lovely young daughter. The widow had soon married again, to die within a year. Ivy, after drifting about rudderless for a while, had obtained the “walking-on” part which had introduced her to an idle, pleasure-seeking, rich class of young men. By the time she was twenty she could have married half a dozen times. Her choice finally fell on Jervis Lexton, partly because he was of a superior social world to the other men who made love to her, but far more because at that time he had been undisputed owner of what had seemed to her a large fortune. Yet that fortune had melted like snow, lasting the two of them barely six years.…

Tossing about in her hot bed, Ivy reminded herself with a dawning feeling of hope, almost of security, that dull Lady Flora, who was no gossip, had said, during the week-end they had first met, that Miles Rushworth’s income was over a hundred thousand a year.…

As she was drinking her cup of tea the next morning, there was brought up to her an envelope, marked “Personal,” which had come by hand.

Eagerly tearing it open, at once she saw that, in addition to a letter, it contained a small plain envelope:

The Albany,
_Friday morning._

My dear Mrs. Lexton,

I have already thought of a job for your husband, but the earliest moment he can begin work would be the third week in September, say a week after our return from our yachting trip. This being so, I hope you will forgive me for sending you the enclosed cheque for a hundred pounds, which he can pay me back at his convenience after he has begun to draw his salary.

I shall be so pleased if you and he will lunch with me to-morrow at the Carlton Grill. We can then make our final arrangements as to meeting at Southampton on August 5th.

Yours very sincerely,
Miles Rushworth.

As Ivy drew out of the smaller envelope an uncrossed cheque made out to “self,” and endorsed “Miles Rushworth,” tears of joy rose to her eyes.

She ran into the next room, and excitedly told her husband the good news. But she said that the cheque their generous new friend had sent them “on account” was for fifty pounds.

Jervis Lexton leapt out of bed. “How splendid!” he exclaimed. And then, seizing her in his arms, he pirouetted in the tiny space left in the middle of the garret. “You are the cleverest as well as the prettiest little woman in the whole world!” he cried.

Chapter Three

“Do look at Mrs. Lexton! Isn’t she absolutely lovely, Miles?”

“Yes, Bella--and as good as she is pretty, I really do believe,” was the half-joking answer.

Look at her? Rushworth had done very little else since Ivy had come out of her state-room this morning.

The two speakers were standing on the deck of the _Dark Lady_, and three yards away Ivy Lexton, lying back in a deck-chair, was talking animatedly to one of her fellow-guests, a good-looking young man named Quirk, who after having done well in the war, had been very nearly down and out by 1921, when he had been found and succoured by Rushworth. He now had his own ’plane, his air-taxi as he called it, and, thanks again to Rushworth, he never lacked good customers.

It was true that Mrs. Lexton looked lovely to-day. All the lovelier because she was thoroughly enjoying her new rôle, that of a perfectly turned out yachtswoman.

But Miles Rushworth had already told himself more than once, in the last hour, that he would be cool, detached, impartial, when considering this special guest.

“I suppose you couldn’t say a word to her, just pointing out that she’s quite pretty enough to do without lipstick and rouge? I wish you’d tell her they don’t look, somehow, the right thing on a yacht.”

Bella Dale smiled and shook her head. “If you want me to make friends with her, that would be a very poor beginning----”

He said suddenly, “I am afraid Lady Dale doesn’t care for Mrs. Lexton?”

The colour deepened in his companion’s cheeks, and she looked embarrassed.

“Mother hasn’t had much of a chance of talking to her yet.”

Bella Dale was uncomfortably aware that her mother had taken an instant dislike to Ivy Lexton on the evening they had first met at the Savoy; and she knew that Lady Dale’s feeling had increased, rather than lessened, since the Lextons had joined Miles Rushworth’s yacht, for she had exclaimed to her daughter in the privacy of their state-room: “It’s foolish to be too good-natured, Bella. That young woman is a regular little minx!”

But Bella Dale, at this time of her life, saw everything through Miles Rushworth’s eyes. She liked what he liked, admired what he admired, and at any rate tried to believe good what he believed good. He had asked her earnestly to make friends with Mrs. Lexton, and he had told her something of the struggle the poor, pretty, little thing had gone through. Also he had let her see how great was his contempt for Ivy’s worthless, extravagant, idle husband.…

Rushworth had always had from childhood a passion for the sea. His had been an old-fashioned home, and everything had been done by his parents to promote what they thought was for his happiness from the day he was born; but not once had he been asked what he wished to do in life. His path had been marked out for him almost, it may be said, before his birth. His father would have been surprised as well as dismayed to learn that, both as a child and as a youth, his great wish had been to enter the Navy. During the war he had given to naval charities what would have crippled a lesser fortune than his own.

His fine yacht was his one personal extravagance, and on the _Dark Lady_ he spent by far the happiest hours of his life. But he had deliberately so arranged the accommodation that it was impossible for him to have a really big party aboard. Eight to ten, including himself, was his limit, and the same people were generally asked by him each year. Lady Dale and her daughter, together with an old-fashioned couple belonging to a rather older generation than himself, who looked forward the whole year through to this August yachting fortnight, always came. To these he had added this summer the flying man, the latter’s bride, and the Lextons.

Acting as hostess was a middle-aged spinster cousin of his mother’s, who, like himself, had a passion for the sea. Charlotte Chattle was a pleasant woman of the world, speaking both French and Italian well, and clever in organising expeditions for those of his guests who cared for land jaunts. But the only people who counted in Rushworth’s mind on this summer cruise were Lady Dale and her daughter, and Ivy Lexton and Ivy Lexton’s husband.

Ivy’s half-presentiment at the Savoy had been perhaps a case of thought transference, for Miles Rushworth, just about that time, had been thinking seriously of marrying Bella Dale. Indeed, had that meeting with the Lextons not taken place, he would almost certainly have been engaged by now to Bella, and he still so far deceived himself as to wish that the girl he thought he loved, and whom he intended to become Mrs. Miles Rushworth, should make friends with Ivy Lexton.

Bella Dale had done her best in the last three days to fall in with his wishes, but she found it difficult to get further than a mild acquaintanceship with Miles Rushworth’s beautiful guest. She knew nothing of the night club, dancing, racing life, which was all that both the Lextons knew and thought worth living for. And Ivy, on her side, was entirely ignorant of, and would have despised, had she known of them, the manifold social and general interests which filled the life of even so quiet a girl as Bella Dale. Also Bella, who was no fool, realised with some discomfort that Mrs. Lexton had very quickly become aware that Lady Dale did not like or approve of her.

And Ivy herself? Ivy was counting the hours--to her intense relief they had now become hours instead of days--to the time when Lady Dale and her daughter would leave the yacht at Dieppe.

During the three weeks that had elapsed since their memorable meeting at the Savoy, Ivy Lexton and Miles Rushworth had been constantly together. It had all been very much above board--indeed, quite as often as not, Jervis Lexton had been of the company when the two lunched or dined, went to the play, or, pleasanter still, motored down to Ranelagh to spend an enchanting evening.

But Rushworth had a definite philosophy of life. To pursue a woman who, whatever the undercurrents to her life might be, appeared happily married, would have seemed to him a despicable, as well as a cruel and unmanly thing to do. Also, he prided himself on being able, when he chose to do so, to resist temptation, and he felt convinced he could handle what might become a delicate situation not only with sense, but even with comfort to himself. This was made the easier to him because he put Ivy Lexton on a pedestal. God alone knew how he idealised her, how completely he believed her soul matched her delicately perfect, ethereal-looking body.

While Ivy was chatting gaily to her companion, she was yet almost painfully aware of the two who stood talking together in so earnest and intimate a way. She was feeling what she had never felt in her life of twenty-six years: that is, bitterly, angrily jealous of a girl whom she thought stupid, dull, and unattractive.

Miles Rushworth’s attitude to herself disconcerted her. She could not, to use her own jargon, get the hang of him. It was so strange, in a sense so disturbing, that he never made love to her. Then, now and again, she would remember Mrs. Thrawn, and Mrs. Thrawn’s predictions.

She had followed the fortune-teller’s advice with regard to Roger Gretorex. She had insisted that it would be better for them both neither to see nor to write to each other till she came back to London in September; and he had had perforce to agree to her conditions.

The yacht made Dieppe the next morning, and at breakfast there rose a discussion as to how the party could spend their time on shore to the best advantage. Rushworth at once observed that he would not be able to take part in any expedition ashore. He had received important business telegrams, and he had a number of letters to dictate to a stenographer whose services he had already secured.

Miss Chattle, who knew he would value a quiet working day, suggested a motor expedition to a celebrated shrine a hundred kilometres inland from Dieppe. She declared that if they started at once they could be back in comfortable time for dinner.

And then it was that Ivy, as in a lightning flash, made up her mind as to how she would spend to-day.

“I get so tired motoring, so I’d rather stay behind.” She turned to her host, “While you’re doing your work, I can take a walk in the town. Though I’ve been to Paris two or three times, I’ve never been anywhere else in France.”

“That’s a good idea! We might meet at the Hotel Royal about one o’clock, and have lunch together.”

Half an hour later Miss Chattle shepherded the rest of the party into two roomy cars, while Rushworth escorted Lady Dale and her daughter on to the quay, where a carriage was waiting for them.

Lady Dale went forward to speak to the driver, and Rushworth turned to the girl he still intended should be his wife.

“If we don’t meet again before the end of September, I do want just to say one thing to you, Bella.”

He spoke in so peculiar, and in so very earnest, a tone, that Bella’s heart began to beat.

“What is it you want to say?” she asked, her voice sinking almost to a whisper.

“I’ve said it before, and now I want to say it again----”

Bella looked at him fixedly. Thank God, she hadn’t betrayed herself. But what was this he was saying?

“I do want you to make real friends with Mrs. Lexton--I mean, of course, after you and Lady Dale are back at Hampton Court, when Jervis Lexton will have begun work in my London office. His wife, poor little soul, hasn’t any real friends, from what I can make out.”

“Yet she seems to know a good many people, Miles. When we were looking through those picture papers yesterday, she seemed to know almost everyone who had been snapshotted at Goodwood!”

“I was thinking of real friends--not of those stupid gadabouts who are here, there, and everywhere,” he said with a touch of irritation.

And then they heard Lady Dale’s voice.

“I think we ought to be off, Bella. It’s nearly half-past ten, and you know they lunch early at the château.”

Rushworth wrung Bella’s hand. “I’m sorry you’ve had to leave the yacht so soon.”

But his voice had become perceptibly colder. He was disappointed, even a little hurt. He had always thought his friend Bella not only kind, but full of sympathy and understanding. Yet she had spoken of his new friend with a curious lack even of liking, let alone sympathy.

When Miles Rushworth came back from seeing the Dales off, he found Ivy Lexton sitting on the now deserted deck. There was a pile of newspapers on the little table which had been brought up close to her deck-chair, and she was pretending to read the Paris _New York Herald_. Convinced that Miles Rushworth intended to be with her the whole of the long sunny morning, she was not only surprised, but also very disappointed, when he said cheerfully:

“Well, lovely lady, I’ve a hard mornin’s work before me, for there’s a whole pile of letters and telegrams waiting to be answered. Cook’s man has found me an excellent shorthand writer, so I hope to be through in a couple of hours.”

Her face suddenly became overcast, and he felt tempted, for a moment, to throw aside his work. But he resisted the temptation.

“Would you rather laze about here or take a walk and meet me at the Royal?”

“I’ll go into the town. There are one or two little things I want to buy. What time shall I be at the hotel?”

He hadn’t meant to meet her till one o’clock. But for once the old Adam triumphed.

“Let me see? It’s half-past ten now, let’s meet at twelve-thirty. We’ll have an early French lunch, and then we’ll go for a motor drive, or do anything else that you feel like doing. From what I can make out, the others can’t be back till seven, if then.”

Ivy waited till she had seen him disappear into the state-room which was the one retreat on the yacht where Rushworth never asked any of his guests to join him, and about which they all felt a certain curiosity. Then she put down the paper she still held in her hand, and, closing her eyes, she began to think.

What manner of man was this new friend of hers? He must “like” her surely? “Like” was the ambiguous term Ivy Lexton used to herself when she meant something very different from “liking.” Yet he had never said to her the sort of thing that the men she met almost always did say, and on the shortest acquaintance. Stranger still, he had never asked anything of her in exchange for what had become considerable and frequent benefactions. True, Rushworth’s gifts had almost always been useful gifts. He had never, so to speak, “said it with flowers.” That had puzzled her a little, made her sometimes wonder as to what his real feelings could be. Never once--she had made a note of it in her own mind--had he mentioned Bella Dale during the three weeks when they had been so much together in London.

So it had been a disagreeable shock to find Lady Dale and her daughter already established on the yacht, and on the happiest terms of old friendship with everyone on board. Again and again during the week’s cruise, Ivy had asked herself anxiously whether Miles Rushworth could really “like” such a dowdy, matter-of-fact girl as was Miss Dale? Yet now and again when she saw them together, talking in an intimate, happy way, and when she heard them alluding to events which had happened long before she knew Rushworth, there would come over her a tremor of icy fear, for well she knew that, from her point of view, a man friend married was a man friend marred.

It was to her a new experience to be in close touch with such a real worker as was Miles Rushworth. There was nothing in common between him and the idle, often vicious, and for the most part mindless young men who drifted in and out of the spendthrift world in which she and Jervis had both been so popular as long as their money had lasted.

She got up at last, and went into her luxurious state-room to fetch a parasol. It was a charming costly trifle, matching the blue coat and skirt she was wearing, but large enough to shelter her face from the sun. Her quaint little sailor hat, a throw-back to a mode of long ago, while very becoming, was quite useless from that point of view.

She walked slowly along the deck, hoping against hope that Rushworth would see her and, leaving his work, join her; but as she passed his state-room she heard his voice dictating.

The French of all ages and both sexes are lovers of beauty, so in a small way Ivy Lexton’s progress through the picturesque old town of Dieppe was a triumphal progress. Most of the people she passed turned and looked after her with unaffected admiration and one man--she felt instinctively that he was some important person--followed her for quite a long way. But it was very hot, and in time she grew weary of the crowded streets. Taking as her guides a couple who were carrying their bathing costumes and towels, she went after them up a shady by-way and so through the old gateway leading to the wide lawns along the sea-front, which are the great charm of Dieppe.

What an amusing, lively, delightful place! Against the deep blue sky rose the white Casino, and the parking place was crowded with serried rows of motors. Along the front groups of Frenchwomen, for the most part wearing white coats and skirts, strolled about with their attendant cavaliers.

Her spirits bounded up; she felt herself to be once more what she had not felt herself to be at all on Rushworth’s yacht, in her own natural atmosphere again. And, to add to her satisfaction, she soon spied out the Hotel Royal, brilliant with flowers and blue and white sun-blinds.

The Angelus chimes rang out from one of the old churches, and the gay crowd began to move slowly towards the villas and hotels which form the sea-front side of the incongruously-named Boulevard de Verdun.

Ivy walked into the cool hall of the hotel, and sat down in an easy chair with a sigh of pleasure.

How she wished she was staying here instead of on the yacht! She delighted in the atmosphere of gay bustle and care-free wealth and prosperity of all the happy-looking people who were strolling past her on their way to the restaurant. She enjoyed the glances of covert, and in some cases of insolent, admiration thrown her way; in fact she was kept so well amused that she gave quite a start when she heard Rushworth’s voice exclaim, “So here you are, little lady! I’ve been looking for you everywhere. I thought you’d be out of doors.”

She got up, and then he said something which filled her with dismay.

“Among my letters this morning there was one from a very old friend of mine, a man with whom I worked during the war. He and his wife have a room in some back street, for they’re not at all well off. So I thought it would be a good plan to take them for a drive this afternoon. I felt sure you wouldn’t mind?”

“Of course not!”

She felt bitterly disappointed, but she would have been more than disappointed had she known that Rushworth had deliberately asked these old friends to join them, in order to put temptation out of his way.

He added, a little quickly, “I felt rather a brute not asking them to lunch, but I was so looking forward to my lunch alone with you.”

“I’d been looking forward to it, too,” she said in a low voice.

And then there did come across him a sharp, unavailing pang of regret that he had been so stupidly quixotic, and instantly he made up his mind that their drive should not last more than two hours. After all, he and Ivy were both decent people, and dear friends to boot; why shouldn’t they go back to the yacht to spend a quiet happy hour or two, alone together, before the others returned?

They had a delicious lunch, the sort of lunch that Ivy enjoyed, in an airy room full of chattering, merry, prosperous-looking couples.

Then, after they had had coffee, they went out and slowly sauntered to the little garden at the foot of a great cliff on which stands an ancient stronghold. It was cool and quiet there, and the only person with whom they shared the garden was an old lady exercising her Persian cat on a lead.

They sat down in silence. Rushworth was smoking a cigar, Ivy a cigarette. Suddenly he threw away his cigar, for there had come over him a wild, mad impulse to put his arms round her. But, instead, he moved a little farther away.

She, too, suddenly flung away her cigarette, and turned to him, “I sometimes wonder, Mr. Rushworth, if you know how awfully grateful I am to you for all you’ve done for me--and for Jervis.”

He saw that tears were in her eyes, and he took her hand and clasped it closely. He was saying to himself, “Poor little darling, it would be the act of a cad, of a cur, to take advantage of her gratitude and--and loneliness.”

“You’ve nothing to be grateful for,” he said quietly, and then he released the soft hand he held. “It’s a great privilege to meet someone who really deserves a little help. A man who is known to have money is there to be shot at,” he smiled a little grimly. “Any number of what are called deserving objects are presented to his view. The real problem is to find the people who want helping, and who won’t ask for help.”

He sincerely believed that the woman to whom he was addressing those words fell within that rare category.

Suddenly he got up. “I see the Actons,” he exclaimed. “I told them three o’clock in front of the Casino--they’re a little before their time.”

It was a wonderful drive to Tréport, and Ivy, rather to her own surprise, enjoyed it. Partly, perhaps, because Rushworth’s old friend, James Acton, “fell for” her at once, to the amusement of his good-humoured, clever, middle-aged wife. They stopped at the Trianon Hotel on their way back and had some early tea; but even so it was only five o’clock when they returned to Dieppe and dropped the Actons.

Dismissing the car, they began walking towards the harbour. At last--at last they were alone.

In the Grande Rue Ivy stopped, instinctively, before a minute shop, a branch of a famous house of the same name at Cannes and Deauville.

The window contained but one object, to Rushworth’s masculine eyes a rather absurd-looking trifle, for it consisted of a lady’s vanity bag which looked like a tiny bolster of mother-of-pearl. The clasp consisted of a large emerald set with pearls.

“What a lovely little bag!” exclaimed Ivy ecstatically.

“D’you like it?” Rushworth was filled with a kind of tender amusement. What a baby she was, after all!

“Like it? I adore it!”

“Then I’ll give it you--for next Christmas!”

“You mustn’t! It must be fearfully expensive,” she cried.

But he had already gone into the shop. With something like awe, she watched him from the pavement shovelling out bundles of thousand franc notes on to the narrow counter behind which stood a white-haired woman.

How rich, how enormously rich Miles Rushworth must be!

As he joined her, Ivy saw that the precious bag was now enclosed in a soft leather case which had evidently been made for its protection. He put his delightful gift into her eager hands, and said, smiling:

“The elegant old dame in there--she looked like a marquise herself--declares that the clasp of this bag was once a brooch belonging to the Princesse de Lamballe, Marie Antoinette’s friend.”

“How wonderful!”

He looked at her quizzically, “I said I hoped it wouldn’t bring you bad luck! She quite understood the allusion,” which was more than Ivy did.

“It was made, it seems, to the order of a lady who supplied the jewel for the clasp. She’s suddenly gone into mourning, and as they had made it they consented to try and sell it for her. It was being sent on to their Deauville branch this very afternoon. It’s been here a week, and the old lady admitted that she hadn’t had a single inquiry for it!”

Ivy had now opened the case and taken out the wonderful little bag, her eyes dancing with pleasure and gratitude. She told herself with satisfaction, that, given the right kind of frock, she could use it by day as well as by night.

There was a very practical, shrewd side to Mrs. Jervis Lexton. But it was a side of her nature which she was slow to reveal to her men friends.

As they went on board the yacht a telegram was handed to Rushworth. Carelessly he tore it open, read it through, and then handed it to his guest:

Tremendous affair taking place here to-morrow midday. French President unveiling monument to fallen. We propose staying the night in excellent hotel. Shall be back by tea-time.

Charlotte Chattle.

Ivy looked up. There was joy in Rushworth’s face--and more than joy, for the eager, half-shamed look Ivy had so often seen on a man’s face was there also. But all he said was:

“This means that we shall have a quiet little dinner alone together, you and I.”

“That will be very nice,” she answered quietly.

“I’ve a good deal more work to get through so shall we say half-past eight? We might have dinner in what I call my sea-study. I always dine there, when I’m alone on the yacht.”

Just as she was leaving him, she turned and said gently:

“Don’t you think you ought to have a little rest after all the work you did this morning? Why not wait till to-morrow?”

There was such a sweet solicitude in the tone in which she uttered those words that Rushworth felt touched.

“Work’s the only thing that makes time go by quickly,” he answered, and then, in a low, ardent tone, he added, “When I’m not with you, I’d far rather be working than idling----”

A sensation of intense, secret triumph swept over Ivy Lexton. She felt that the gateless barrier Miles Rushworth had thrown up between them was giving way at last. To-night would surely come her opportunity of lifting their ambiguous relationship from the dull plane of friendship to the exciting plane of what she called love.

She turned away, and then, a moment later, she stayed her steps, and looked back to where he was still standing.…

Small wonder that during the three hours that followed that informal parting, Rushworth, while mechanically dictating business letters, was gazing inwardly at a lovely vision--an exquisite flower-like face and beseeching, beckoning eyes.

Chapter Four

When Ivy came out of her state-room at half-past eight, the great heat of the day had gone, and old Dieppe harbour was bathed in a mysterious, enchanting twilight. She had put on to-night a white chiffon frock which made her look childishly young, and, as she floated wraithlike down the deck towards him, Rushworth caught his breath.

He had been waiting for her--he would have been ashamed to acknowledge to himself for how long, though he knew that she was never late. Jervis had no sense of time, but punctuality was one of Ivy’s virtues.

“I’m afraid you’ll think my sea-study rather austere!”

“Austere?”

His lovely friend hardly knew the meaning of this, to her unusual, word. Eagerly she walked through into what was the floating workshop of a very busy man, though something had been done this evening to disguise its real character. Two great bowls of variously coloured roses stood on the writing-table; and in the centre of the state-room was a small table set for two. On an Italian plate in the centre of the table was heaped up some fine fruit.

“How delicious!” She clapped her hands. “Who would ever think we were on board a ship?”

“You are the first guest of mine who has ever come through this door.”

He longed to tell her, he wanted her to know, that she held a place apart from any other human being in his life.

“How about Miss Chattle?”

“Charlotte least of all! Once she was free of this room, I should never be able to get her out.”

“Not Miss Dale even?”

The colour rushed into Rushworth’s sunburnt face, and Ivy noted it with a jealous pang, as he answered more gravely, “No, not even Bella. I made up my mind--and I’m a man who once he has made up his mind, well, sticks to it--that this state-room should be my bolt-hole, as well as my study. It’s understood by everyone on board that when I’m in here, I won’t be disturbed.”

He pointed to a telephone instrument. “If the yacht catches fire, my skipper has permission to ring me up.”

The short dinner was served well and quickly by Rushworth’s own steward; but neither of the two felt in the mood for talking in the presence of even the most unobtrusive third. Each was longing, consciously longing, to be alone with the other.

During that half hour when he had been waiting for her, aching for her, Miles Rushworth had faced up to the fact that he was madly in love with Ivy Lexton, and that he would give everything he valued most in the world to have her for his own.

But his passion for another man’s wife--so again and again he assured himself--was of an exalted, noble, and spiritual quality. Never would he allow that passion to become earthly. He admitted, at long last, that, as regarded his own peace of mind, he had been unwise to see as much of Ivy as he had done in London. But he had dreamt, fool that he had been, of a friendship which should be prolonged even after his marriage to another woman. During those three weeks he had also thought often of the girl whom he meant to make his wife. Ivy should be his friend and Bella’s friend--their dear, dear friend.

But since they had all come together on his yacht Rushworth had had a rude awakening. He knew now that Bella Dale was his dear, dear friend, but Ivy Lexton was the woman he loved.

At last dinner, which had seemed to them both intolerably long, was over.

“Would you like coffee served on deck?” asked Rushworth.

But before Ivy could answer, the steward intervened. “It’s just begun to rain, sir,” and as he said the word “rain,” there came a flash of lightning, followed by a peal of thunder.

Ivy’s host turned to her. “We shall have to stay here, unless you’d rather go into the saloon?”

“I’d rather stay here,” she said in a low voice.

“Shall I pull down the blind, sir?”

“You may as well.”

In a minute the man brought in coffee, and then they heard him running along the deck through the pelting rain.

Ivy’s hand lay on the table. She looked at it--her fingers were twitching. She felt, with joy and triumph, the tenseness of the atmosphere between them, and, for the first time, something in her responded to Rushworth’s still voiceless passion.

“I don’t want any coffee,” she murmured.

“Neither do I.”

They both rose. He looked across at her. “You’ll find that sofa over there comfortable, I think.”

He uttered the commonplace words in a strained, preoccupied tone. The summer storm outside seemed at one with him, shutting them off from the world.

Ivy walked across to the little couch, which was just large enough for two, and, after a perceptible moment of hesitation, he followed her.

For a moment he stood silently gazing down into her upturned face. Then he began moving forward a chair.

“Won’t you sit down here, by me?” she asked, looking at him with her dovelike eyes.

“Shall I? Is there room?”

“Plenty of room,” she said tremulously.

As he sat down, there came another vivid flash of lightning, followed by a peal of thunder louder than the one before.

He turned quickly to her: “You’re not frightened, are you?”

“I am--a little.”

And then all at once she was in his arms, and he was murmuring low, passionate words of endearment and of reassurance between each long, trembling, clinging kiss.

How he loved her! And how wonderful to know that she, poor darling, loved him too. He felt as may feel a man who, after wandering for days in the desert, suddenly comes on an oasis and a cool stream.

But even now, when every barrier between them seemed miraculously broken down, Rushworth kept a certain measure of control over himself.

“I’m going to pull up the blind and put out the light,” he whispered at last.

A moment later they were in darkness, though now and again a vivid flash of lightning illuminated the harbour through sheets of blinding, torrential rain.

He strode back to the little couch, and sank down again by her; but he resisted the aching longing to take her once more into his arms. Instead he took her soft hand in his, while he muttered in a broken voice, “I’ve been a brute! You must forgive me.”

She answered in a stifled voice, “There is nothing to forgive.”

“I’ve been to blame all through!”

Then, in a tone he strove to lighten, “I ought to have labelled you ‘dangerous’ from the first moment I saw you.”

She melted into tears, and remorsefully he whispered, “Have I hurt you by saying that?”

She shook her head; but she pulled her hand away.

“Listen, Ivy?”

It was the first time Miles Rushworth had called her by her name, and for that, Jervis, poor fool, had thought him old-fashioned and over-formal.

“Yes,” she whispered submissively.

“We’ve got to talk this out--you and I.”

“Yes,” she said again, wondering what he meant by those strange words, and longing, consciously, even exultantly, longing, for him to take her again in his strong arms.

“I’ll begin by telling you something I’ve never told to any living being.”

He uttered those words in so serious a tone that Ivy felt a thrill of fear, of doubt, go through her. Had he a woman in his life whom he would not, or could not, give up?

“I was twenty when my father died, and before his death we had a long private talk. Quite at the end of our talk, he made me give him a solemn promise.”

Rushworth stopped a moment. He was remembering what had been the most moving passage up to now in his thirty-five years of life. It was as if he heard the very tones of his father’s firm, if feeble, voice.

“At the time my promise seemed easy to keep. Indeed, I was surprised he thought it necessary to exact it.”

“What was your promise?” Ivy whispered, and she came a little, only a little, nearer to him.

“My promise was never to allow myself to fall in love with a married woman. Though it hasn’t always been as easy as I thought it would be, till now I have kept that promise. But now I’ve broken it, for I love you. Love you? Why I adore you, my darling----”

Again he waited, and Ivy felt oppressed, bewildered. Many men had said that they adored her. But no man had made that delightful, exciting admission, without showing strong apparent emotion.

Rushworth had uttered the words calmly, collectedly, and staring straight before him.

“And I can’t help myself--that’s the rub,” he went on, in the same matter-of-fact voice. “Indeed, I’m afraid I’m going to go on loving you all my life,” he smiled a rueful smile in the soft darkness which encompassed them.

“But of course I knew, even then, when I was a cub of twenty, what my father really meant. There is a part of my promise to him I can keep; and what’s more--by God, I intend to keep it!”

She was moved, thrown off her usual calculating balance, by the strength of his sincerity, and also made afraid.

“What d’you mean?” she faltered.

“It’s true that I love you--I didn’t know there could be such love in the world as that which I feel for you, Ivy. If it would do you any good for me to jump into that harbour out there and be drowned, I’d do it! But I’m going to keep my love for you sacred, and I’m going not only to save myself, but I’m going to save you, my darling, darling love.”

He took her hand again, and this time he kissed it.

Ivy burst into bitter tears, and Rushworth put his arm around her.

“I know how you’re feeling,” he whispered brokenly. “My poor little darling! But for God’s sake don’t cry. I can’t bear it. You’ve nothing to be ashamed of--it’s been all my fault.”

“Can’t we go on being friends? It’s been so wonderful having you for a friend!” she sobbed.

“Of course we’ll go on being friends--dear, dear friends. But lovers--no! I’m going right away--it’s the only thing to do.”

He was telling himself that of course she did not understand--how could she, gentle and pure if yet passionate creature that she was?--the strength of his temptation. She would never know, indeed, he must never allow her to know, what she meant to him, and all he was about to give up for her sake. A sweet, loving wife, children, in a word, a happy, normal life--all that Bella Dale had stood for in the secret places of his heart.

He was brought back to the present by her agitated, agonised, “Going away? Surely you’re not going away, now?”

He waited a moment without answering her. A frightful struggle was going on in his heart, his conscience. Then, at last, he answered the, to him, piteous question.

“Do you remember my once telling you of my sister? Of how I longed for you to know her--but that she was too ill for me to take you to her.”

“Yes,” she murmured, trying to remember.

She had not been really interested, only secretly glad that Rushworth’s widowed sister was not well enough to see her. Ivy Lexton did not care to be brought in contact with her men friends’ mothers or sisters. They never liked her, and she never liked them.

“My sister saw a new specialist this week, and he says she ought to winter in South Africa. She’s horribly lonely--her husband was killed in the war, and--and now I’ve made up my mind to go with her. You do agree that it’s the best thing--indeed, the only thing for me to do?”

There was something in his tone as he uttered the question that made her feel that, for the moment, at any rate, no plea would move him.

“I hate your going so far away,” she moaned.

“It’s the only thing to do,” he repeated in a hard tone.

“I’m afraid you despise me,” she said very low.

“Despise you? Good God! I honour you----”

And then all at once she was again in his arms.

Moved out of her false selfish self by the strength and reality of his emotion, “I love you,” she murmured, clinging to him between their kisses. “I shall always love you,” and believed she spoke the truth.

Surely, surely, he wouldn’t go away now?

The door opened, and in the darkness they sprang apart.

“The hotel has sent the car for you, sir. It is now on the quay.”

“The car?”

A feeling of surprise and despondency swept over Ivy.

Rushworth got up. For a moment or two, it seemed like eternity to him, he found he could not speak.

Then he said, “I’m afraid I must go now, Mrs. Lexton. I’m sleeping at the Hotel Royal to-night. A business friend of mine is staying there, and we are going to have a talk before turning in. He is going to Paris to-morrow morning.”

Addressing his servant: “I’ll be coming in a minute. The storm’s over, isn’t it?” he added.

“I think it is, sir.”

“Then put on the light again, and take the despatch-box that’s over there on my writing-table to the car.”

Rushworth waited till the sounds of footsteps on the deck outside had grown faint. Then he came back to Ivy, but he had once more regained possession of himself.

“I want to tell you, now, what I didn’t mean to tell you till the last day of our trip. Some cousins of mine have a charming flat in the Duke of Kent Mansion, close to Kensington Gardens. They want to let it for six months, and I’ve just taken it in the hope that you and your husband will live there till you have found something you like better.”

“You’re too good to me.”

She looked crushed, defeated, humiliated.

“Ivy! My precious darling----” the yearning cry escaped him.

Slowly she lifted her head, and her eyes, swimming in tears, her trembling mouth, longing for his kisses, beckoned.

He leapt forward, and she fell upon his breast. “Must you go away? I don’t know how I shall live without you,” she sobbed.

As at last he tore himself from her arms, “Oh God,” he exclaimed. “If only you were free!”

Chapter Five

“Look at lucky Olive Larnoch. A month ago she didn’t know where to turn for sixpence!”