Nobodys Man | Page 4

he enquired.
"Lady Jane Partington of Woolhanger--a daughter of the Duke of
Barminster. Woolhanger was left to her by an old aunt, and they say
that she never leaves the place."
"An elderly lady?" he asked, merely with an intent of prolonging a
harmless subject of conversation.
"On the contrary, quite young," his wife replied. "She seems to be a
sort of bachelor-spinster, who lives out in that lonely place without a

chaperon and rules the neighborhood. You ought to 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