Mr. Waddington of Wyck | Page 4

nor too thick--determination in the thrusting curve of that lower lip--and his chin, which was just a shade too big for it, a shade too big for his face. His cheeks were sunburnt, and a little shower of ochreish freckles spread from the sunburn and peppered the slopes of his nose. She wanted to sketch him.
"Doesn't Mrs. Waddington ever go for walks?" she said.
"Fanny? No. She's too lazy."
"Lazy?"
"Too active, if you like, in other ways.... How long have you known her?"
"Just five days."
"Five _days_?"
"Yes; but, you see, years ago she was my mother's dearest friend. That's how I came to be their secretary. When she saw my name in the advertisement she thought it must be me. And it was me. They hadn't seen each other for years and years. My father and Mr. Waddington didn't hit it off together, I believe."
"You haven't seen him yet?"
"No. There seems to be some mystery about him."
"Mystery?"
"Yes. What is it? Or mayn't you tell?"
"I _won't_ tell. It wouldn't be kind."
"Then don't--don't. I didn't know it was that sort of thing."
Ralph laughed. "It isn't. I meant it wouldn't be kind to you. I don't want to spoil him for you."
"Then there _is_--tell me one thing: Shall I get on with him all right?"
"Don't ask me that."
"I mean, will he be awfully difficult to work with?"
"Because he sacked me? No. Only you mustn't let on that you know better than he does. And if you want to keep your job, you mustn't contradict him."
"Now you've made me want to contradict him. Whatever he says I shall have to say the other thing whether I agree with him or not."
"Don't you think you could temporize a bit? For her sake."
"Did you temporize?"
"Rather. I was as meek and servile as I knew how."
"As you knew how. Do you think I shall know better?"
"Yes, you're a woman. You can get on the right side of him. Will you try to, because of Fanny? I'm most awfully glad she's got you, and I want you to stay. Between you and me she has a very thin time with Waddington."
"There it is. I know--I know--I know I'm going to hate him."
"Oh, no, you're not. You can't hate Waddington."
"You don't?"
"Oh, Lord, no. I wouldn't mind him a bit, poor old thing, if he wasn't Fanny's husband."
He had almost as good as owned it, almost put her in possession of their secret. She conceived it--his secret, Fanny's secret--as all innocence on her part, all chivalry on his; tender and hopeless and pure.
2
They had come to the white gate that led between the shrubberies and the grass-plot with the yellow-grey stone house behind it.
It was nice, she thought, of Fanny to make Mr. Bevan take her for these long walks when she couldn't go with them; but Barbara felt all the time that she ought to apologize to the young man for not being Fanny, especially when Mr. Waddington was coming back to-day by the three-forty train and this afternoon would be their last for goodness knew how long. And as they talked--about Ralph's life before the war and the jobs he had lost because of it (he had been a journalist), and about Barbara's job at the War Office, and air raids and the games they both went in for, and their favourite authors and the room he had in the White Hart Inn at Wyck--as they talked, fluently, with the ease of old acquaintances, almost of old friends, Barbara admired the beauty of Mr. Bevan's manners; you would have supposed that instead of suffering, as he must be suffering, agonies of impatience and irritation, he had never enjoyed anything in his life so much as this adventure that was just coming to an end.
He had opened the gate for her and now stood with his back to it, holding out his hand, saying "Good-bye."
"Aren't you coming in?" she said. "Mrs. Waddington expects you for tea."
"No," he said, "she doesn't. She knows I can't come if he's there."
He paused. "By the way, that book of his, it's in an appalling muddle. I hadn't time to do much to it before I left. If you can't get it straight you must come to me and I'll help you."
"That's very good of you."
"Rather not. It was my job, you know."
He was backing through the gate, saluting as he went. And now he had turned and was running with raking, athletic paces up the grass border of the park.

III
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"Tea is in the library, miss."
This announcement, together with Partridge's extraordinary increase of importance, would have told her that the master had returned, even if she had not seen, through the half-open door of the cloak-room, Mr. Waddington's overcoat hanging by its shoulders and surmounted by his grey slouch hat.
With a rapid, furtive movement the butler closed