Nobodys Man | Page 4

make friends with her, Andrew. They say that she is half a Socialist.--By the by, how long are we going to stay down here?"
"We will discuss that presently," he answered.
The service of dinner came to its appointed end. Tallente drank one glass of port alone. Then he rose, left the room by the French windows, passed along the terrace and looked in at the drawing-room, where Stella was lingering over her coffee.
"Will you walk with me as far as the lookout?" he invited. "Your maid can bring you a cloak if you are likely to be cold."
She responded a little ungraciously, but appeared a few minutes later, a filmy shawl of lace covering her bare shoulders. She walked by his side to the end of the terrace, along the curving walk through the plantation, and by the sea wall to the flagged space where some seats and a table had been fixed. Four hundred feet below, the sea was beating against jagged rocks. The moon was late and it was almost dark. She leaned over and he stood by her side.
"Stella," he said, "you asked me at dinner when we were leaving here. You are leaving to-morrow morning by the twelve-thirty train."
"What do you mean?" she demanded, with a sudden sinking of the heart.
"Please do not ask," he replied. "You know and I know. It is not my wish to make public the story of our--disagreement."
She was silent for several moments, looking over into the black gulf below, watching the swirl of the sea, listening to its dull booming against the distant rocks, the shriek of the backward-dragged pebbles. An owl flew out from some secret place in the cliffs and wheeled across the bay. She drew her shawl around her with a little shiver.
"So this is the end," she answered.
"No doubt, in my way," he reflected, "I have been as great a disappointment to you as you to me. You brought me your great wealth, believing that I could use it towards securing just what you desired in the way of social position. Perhaps that might have come but for the war. Now I have become rather a failure."
"There was no necessity for you ever to have gone soldiering," she reminded him a little hardly.
"As you say," he acquiesced. "Still, I went and I do not regret it. I might even remind you that I met with some success."
"Pooh!" she scoffed. "What is the use of a few military distinctions? What are an M.C. and a D.S.O. and a few French and Belgian orders going to do for me? You know I want other things. They told me when I married you," she went on, warming with her own sense of injury, "that you were certain to be Prime Minister. They told me that the Coalition Party couldn't do without you, that you were the only effective link between them and Labour. You had only to play your cards properly and you could have pushed out Horlock whenever you liked. And now see what a mess you have made of things! You have built up Horlock's party for him, he offers you an insignificant post in the Cabinet, and you can't even win your seat in Parliament."
"Your epitome of my later political career has its weak points, but I dare say, from your point of view, you have every reason for complaint," he observed. "Since I have failed to procure for you the position you desire, our parting will have a perfectly natural appearance. Your fortune is unimpaired--you cannot say that I have been extravagant--and I assure you that I shall not regret my return to poverty."
"But you won't be able to live," she said bluntly. "You haven't any income at all."
"Believe me," he answered quietly, "you exaggerate my poverty. In any case, it is not your concern."
"You wouldn't--"
She paused. She was a woman of not very keen perceptions, but she realised that if she were to proceed with the offer which was half framed in her mind, the man by her side, with his, to her outlook, distorted sense of honour, would become her enemy. She shrugged her shoulders, and turning towards him, held out her hand.
"It is the end, then," she said. "Well, Andrew, I did my best according to my lights, and I failed. Will you shake hands?"
He shook his head.
"I cannot, Stella. Let us agree to part here. We know all there is to be known of one another, and we shall be able to say good-by without regret."
She drifted slowly away from him. He watched her figure pass in and out among the trees. She was unashamed, perhaps relieved,--probably, he reflected, as he watched her enter the house, already making her plans for a more successful future. He turned away and looked downwards. The