The Divine Fire
May Sinclair
CHAPTER LXIV Page 2
"Oh well, you can't help your feelings, can you?" she said softly. "Anybody may have feelings--"
"Yes, but a decent chap, you know, wouldn't let on that he had any--at least, not when the girl he--he--you know what I mean, it's what I mustn't say--when she and the other fellow weren't hitting it off very well together."
"Oh, you think it might make a difference then?"
"No, I don't--not reelly. It's only the feeling I have about it, don't you see. It seems someso orf'ly mean. Razors wouldn't have done it if it had been me, you know."
"But it couldn't have been you."
"Of course it couldn't," said the miserable Spinks with a weak spurt of anger; "that was only my way of putting it."
"What are you driving at? What ever did you think I said?"
"Never mind what you said. You're making me talk about it, and I said I wouldn't."
"When did you say that?"
"Ages ago--when Rickets first told me you--and he--"
"Oh that? That was so long ago that it doesn't matter much now."
"Oh, doesn't it though, it matters a jolly sight more. You said" (there was bitterness in his tone), "you said it couldn't have been me. As if I didn't know that."
"I didn't mean it couldn't have been you, not in that way. I only meant that you'd have--well, you'd have behaved very differently, if it had been you; and so I believe you would."
"You don't know how I'd 'ave behaved."
"I've a pretty good idea, though." She looked straight at him this time, and he grew strangely brave.
"Look here, Flossie," he said solemnly, "you know--as I've just let it out--that I'm most orf'ly gone on you. I don't suppose there's anything I wouldn't do for you except--well, I really don't know what you're driving at, but if it's anything to do with Razors, I'd ratnot hear about it, if you don't mind. It isn't fair, really. You see, it's putting me in such a 'orribly delicate position."
"I don't think you're very kind, Sidney. You don't think of me, or what sort of a position you put me in. I'm sure I wouldn't have said a word, only you asked me to tell you all about it; you needn't say you didn't."
"That was when I thought, p'raps, I could help you to patch it up. But if I can't, it's another matter."
"Patch it up? Do you think I'd let you try? I don't believe in patching things up, once they're--broken off."
"I say Flossie, it hasn't come to that?"
"It couldn't come to anything else, the way it was going."
"Oh Lord"--Spinks buried a crimson face in his hands. If only he hadn't felt such a horrible exultation!
"I thought you knew. Isn't we've been talking about all the time?"
"I didn't understand. I only thought--_he_ didn't tell me, mind you--I thought it was just put off because he couldn't afford to marry quite so soon."
"Don't you think three hundred a year is enough to marry on?"
"No--I suppose he must think of himself a little too."
"Oh well, no; if he's a decent chap, he thinks of his children."
Flossie's face was crimson, too, while her thoughts flew to that unfurnished room in the brown house at Ealing. She was losing sight of Keith Rickman; for behind Keith Rickman there was Sidney Spinks; and behind Sidney Spinks there was the indomitable Dream. She did not look at Spinks, therefore, but gazed steadily at the top of Mr. Partridge's head. With one word Spinks had destroyed the effect he had calculated on from his honourable reticence. Perhaps it was because Flossie's thoughts had flown so far that her voice seemed to come from somewhere a long way off, too.
"What would you think enough to marry on, then?"
"Well, I shouldn't care to do it much under four hundred myself," he said guardedly.
"And I suppose if you hadn't it you'd expect a girl to wait for you any time until you'd made it?"
"Well of course I should, if we were engaged already. But I shouldn't ask any girl to marry me unless I could afford to keep her--"
"You wouldn't _ask_, but--"
"No, and I wouldn't let on that I cared for her either. I wouldn't let on under four hundred--certain."
"Oh," said Flossie very quietly. And Spinks was crushed under a sense of fresh disloyalty to Rickman. His defence of Rickman had been made to turn into a pleading for himself. "But Razors is different; he'll be making twice that in no time, you'll see. I shouldn't be afraid to ask any one if I was him."
Vainly the honourable youth sought to hide his splendour; Flossie had drawn from him all she needed now to know.
"Well," said Flossie a touch of maidenly dignity, "whichever it was, it wasn't likely to be Keith."
Spinks's face would have fallen, but for its immense surprise. In this case Rickman ought, yes, he certainly ought to have told him. It wasn't behaving quite straight, he considered, to keep it from the man who had the best right in the world to know, a fellow had always acted straight with him. But perhaps, poor chap, he was only waiting a little on the chance of the Beaver changing her mind.
"Don't you think, Flossie, that if he tried hard he could bring it on again?"
"No, he couldn't. Never. Not if he tried from now till next year. Not if he went on his bended knees to me."
Poor Spinks was so earnest, so sincere, so unaffectedly determined not to take advantage of the situation, it dawned on Flossie that dignity must now yield a little to diplomacy. She was not making the best possible case for herself by representing the rupture as one-sided. "To tell you the truth, Sidney, he doesn't want to try. We've agreed about it. We've both of us found we'd made a great mistake--".
"I wish _I_ could be as sure of that."
"Why, what difference could it make to you?" said Flossie, turning on him the large eyes of innocence, eyes so dark, so deep, that her thoughts were lost in them.
"It would make all the difference in the world, if I knew you weren't making a lot bigger mistake now." He rose, "I think, if you don't mind, I'll 'ave a few words with Rickets, after all. I think I'll go up and see him now."
There was no change in the expression of her eyes, but her eyelids quivered. "No, Sidney, don't. For Goodness' sake don't go and say anything."
"I've told you everything--everything I can."
"Yes; but it's what you can't tell me that I want to know."
"Well, but do wait a bit. Don't you speak to him before I see him. Because I don't want him to think I've given him away."
"I'll take good care he doesn't think that, Flossie. But I'm going to get this off my mind to-night."
"Well then, you must just take him a message from me. Say, I've thought it over and that I've told you everything. Don't forget. I've told you everything, say. Mind you tell him that before you begin about anything else. Then he'll understand."
"All right. I'll tell him."
Her eyes followed him dubiously as he stumbled over Mr. Partridge's legs in his excited crossing of the room. She was by no means sure of her ambassador's discretion. His heart would make no blunder; but could she trust his head?
Up to this point Flossie had played her game with admirable skill. She had, without showing one card of her own, caused Spinks to reveal his entire hand. It was not until she had drawn from him the assurance of his imperishable devotion, together with the exact amount of his equally imperishable income, that she had committed herself to a really decisive move. She was perfectly well aware of its delicacy and danger. Not for worlds would she have had Spinks guess that Rickman was still waiting for her decision. And yet, if Spinks referred rashly and without any preparation to the breaking off of the engagement, Rickman's natural reply would be that this was the first he had heard of it. Therefore did she so manoeuvre and contrive as to make Rickman suppose that Spinks was the accredited bearer of her ultimatum, while Spinks himself remained unaware that he was conveying the first intimation of it. It was an exceedingly risky thing to do. But Flossie, playing for high stakes, had calculated her risk to a nicety. She must make up her mind to lose something. As the game now stood the moral approbation of Spinks was more valuable to her than the moral approbation of Rickman; and in venturing this final move she had reckoned that the moral approbation of Rickman was all she had to lose. Unless, of course, he chose to give her away.
But Rickman could be trusted not to give her away.
"Oh, so she's told you everything, has she? And what did she tell you?"
"Why, that it was all over between you, broken off, you know."
"Well no, why should I? Of course it's true if she says so."
Rickman reflected for a moment; the situation, he perceived, was delicate in the extreme, delicate beyond his power to deal it. But the god did not forsake his own, and inspiration came to him.
"She seemed to think you wouldn't mind her telling me. She said you'd understand."
"Oh yes, I think I understand. Did she tell you she had broken it off?" (He was really anxious to know how she had put it.)
"Yes, but she was most awfully nice about it. I made out--I mean she gave me the impression--that she did it, well, partly because she thought you wanted it off. But that's just what I want to be sure about. Do you want it off, or don't you?"
"Is that what she wants to know?"
"No. It's what I want to know. What's more, Rickets, I think I've got a fair right to know it, too."
"What do you want me to say? That I don't want to marry Miss Walker or that I do?"
Spinks's face flushed with the rosy dawn of an idea. It was possible that Rickets didn't want to marry her, that he was in need of protection, of deliverance. There was a great deed that he, Spinks, could do for Rickets. His eyes grew solemn as they beheld his destiny.
"Look here," said he, "I want you to tell me nothing but the bally truth. It's the least you can do under the circumstances. I don't want it for her, well--yes I do--but I want it for myself, too."
"All right, Spinky, you shall have the best truth I can give you at such uncommonly short notice. I can't say I don't want to marry Miss Walker, because that wouldn't be very polite to the lady. But I can say I think she's shown most admirable judgement, and that I'm perfectly satisfied with her decision. I wouldn't have her go back, on it for worlds. Will that satisfy you?"
"It would if I thought you really meant it."
"I do mean it, God forgive me. But that isn't her fault, poor little girl. The whole thing was the most infernal muddle and mistake."
"I'm glad for her sake that she found it out in time. I'm not the sort of man a girl like Flossie ought to marry. I ought never to have asked her."
"Upon my soul, Rickets, I believe you're right there. That's not saying anything against you, or against her either."
"No. Certainly not against _her_. She's all right, Spinky--"
"I know, I know."
"Then you think, you really _do_ think, that there isn't any reason why I shouldn't cut in?"
"No, Heaven bless you; no reason in the world, as far as I'm concerned. For God's sake cut in and win; the sooner the better. Now, this minute, if you feel like it."
But still he lingered, for the worst was yet to come. He lingered, nursing a colossal scruple. Poor Spinks's honour was dear to him because it was less the gift of nature than the supreme imitative effort of his adoring heart. He loved honour because Rickman loved it; just as he had loved Flossie for the same reason. These were the only ways in which he could imitate him; and like all imitators he exaggerated the master's manner.
"I say, I don't know what you'll think of me. I said I'd never let on to Flossie that I cared; and I didn't mean to, I didn't on my word. I don't know how it happened; but to-night we got talking--to tell you the truth I thought I was doing my best to get her to make it up with you--"
"I was really, Razors. I do believe I'd have died rather than let her know how I felt about her; but before I could say knife--"
"She got it out of you?"
"No, she didn't do anything of the sort. It was all me. Like a damn fool I let it out--some'ow."
Nothing could have been more demoralizing than the spectacle of Spinks's face as he delivered himself of his immense confession; so fantastically did it endeavour to chasten rapture with remorse. Rickman controlled himself the better to enjoy it; for Spinks, taken seriously, yielded an inexhaustible vein of purest comedy. "Oh, Spinky," he said with grave reproach, "how could you?"
"Well, I know it was a beastly dishonourable thing to do; but you see I was really most awkwardly situated."
"I daresay you were." It was all very well to laugh; but in spite of his amusement he sympathized with Spinky's delicacy. He also had found himself in awkward situations more than once.
"Still," continued Spinks with extreme dejection, "I can't think how I came to let it out."
That, and the dejection, was too much for Rickman's gravity.
"If you want the truth, Spinky, the pity was you ever kept it in."
And his laughter, held in, piled up, monstrous, insane, ungovernable, broke forth, dispersing the last scruple that clouded the beatitude of Spinks.