The Philanderers | Page 7

him, and proved the story true. Against Gorley's troops no charge could be sustained; they had only obeyed orders. But Gorley he court-martialled, and the result has been described.
This was the incident which Drake was unwilling to commit to the discretion of the editor of the Meteor. He had discovered Gorley's relations in England, and had written to them a full account of the affair, despatching with his letter a copy of the evidence given at the court-martial. The reply came from the father, a heart-broken admission of the justice of Drake's action, and a prayer that, for the sake of those of the family who still lived, Gorley's crime should be as far as possible kept secret. Drake gave the promise. So far he had kept it, he realised, as he tossed aside the last copy of the Meteor.
At eight o'clock Sidney Mallinson arrived. He saw Drake at the top of the flight of steps in the vestibule, and hesitated, perceiving that he was alone.
'Hasn't Conway come?' he asked. 'I sent to him.'
'Not yet. It's barely eight.'
They shook hands limply and searched for topics of conversation.
'You look older than you did,' said Mallinson.
'Ah! Ten years, you know. You haven't changed much.'
Drake was looking at a face distinguished by considerable comeliness. The forehead, however, overhung the features beneath it and gave to a mouth and chin, which would otherwise have aroused no criticism, an appearance of irresolution. The one noticeable difference in Mallinson was the addition of an air of constraint. It was due partly to a question which had troubled him since he had received the invitation. Had Drake read A Man of Influence and recognised himself?
'I got your telegram,' he said at length.
'Naturally, or you wouldn't be here.'
The answer was intended to be jocular; it sounded only gauche, as Drake recognised, and the laugh which accompanied it positively rude.
'Shall I put my coat in the cloak-room?' suggested Mallinson.
'Oh yes, do!' replied Drake. He was inclined to look upon the proposal as an inspiration, and his tone unfortunately betrayed his thought.
When Mallinson returned, he saw Conway entering the hotel. The latter looked younger by some years than either of his companions, so that, as the three men stood together at this moment, they might have been held to represent three separate decades.
'Twenty minutes late, I'm afraid,' said Conway, and he shook Drake's hand with a genuine cordiality.
'Five,' said Drake, looking at his watch.
'Twenty,' replied Conway. 'A quarter to, was the time Mallinson wired me.'
'Was it?' asked Mallinson, with a show of surprise. 'I must have made a mistake.'
It occurred, however, to Drake that the mistake might have been purposely made from a prevision of the awkwardness of the meeting. The dinner, prefaced inauspiciously, failed to remove the awkwardness, since the reticence under which Drake and Mallinson laboured, gradually spread and enveloped Conway. A forced conversation of a curiously impersonal sort dragged from course to course. Absolute strangers would have exhibited less restraint; for the ghost of an old comradeship made the fourth at the feast and prated to them in exiguous voice of paths that had diverged. Drake noticed, besides, an undercurrent of antagonism between Conway and Mallinson. He inquired what each had been doing during his absence.
'Mallinson,' interposed Conway, 'has been absorbed in the interesting study of his own personality.'
'I am not certain that pursuit is not preferable to revolving unsuccessfully through a cycle of professions,' said Mallinson in slow sarcasm.
The flush was upon Conway's cheek now. He set his wine glass deliberately upon the table and leaned forward on an elbow.
'My dear good Sidney,' he began with elaborate affection, plainly intended as the sugar coating of an excessively unpleasant pill. Drake hastily interrupted with an anecdote of African experiences. It sounded bald and monstrously long, but it served its purpose as peace-maker. Literary acquisitiveness drew Mallinson on to ask for more of the same kind. Drake mentioned a race of pigmies and described them, speculating whether they might be considered the originals of the human race.
'My dear fellow, don't!' said Mallinson; 'I loathe hearing about them. It's so degrading to us to think we sprang from them.'
The peculiar sensitiveness of a mind ever searching, burrowing in, and feeding upon itself struck a jarring note upon its healthier companion.
'Why, what on earth does it matter?' asked Drake.
'Ah! Perhaps you wouldn't understand.'
Conway gave a shrug of the shoulder and laughed to Drake across the table. The latter looked entreaty in reply and courageously started a different topic. He spoke of their boyhood in the suburb on the heights six miles to the south of London, and in particular of a certain hill, Elm-tree Hill they called it, a favourite goal for walks and the spot where the three had last met on the night before Drake left England. London