The Yellow Streak | Page 4

he seems to be good enough for you to
come and stay with ..."
"I only came because you were to be here. You know that perfectly
well. I admit one oughtn't to blackguard one's host, but, Mary, you
must see that this marriage is absolutely out of the question!"
The girl began to bridle up,
"Why?" she asked loftily.
"Because ... because Parrish is not the sort of man who will make you
happy ..."
"And why not, may I ask? He's very kind and very generous, and I
believe he likes me ..."
Robin Greve made a gesture of despair.
"My dear girl," he said, trying to control himself to speak quietly,
"what do you know about this man? Nothing. But there are beastly
stories circulating about his life ..."
Mary Trevert laughed cynically.
"My dear old Robin," she said, "they tell stories about every bachelor.
And I hardly think you are an unbiassed judge ..."
Robin Greve was pacing up and down the floor.
"You're crazy, Mary," he said, stopping in front of her, "to dream you
can ever be happy with a man like Hartley Parrish. The man's a ruthless
egoist. He thinks of nothing but money and he's out to buy you just

exactly as you ..."
"As I am ready to sell myself!" the girl echoed. "And I am ready, Robin.
It's all very well for you to stand there and preach ideals at me, but I'm
sick and disgusted at the life we've been leading for the past three years,
hovering on the verge of ruin all the time, dunned by tradesmen and
having to borrow even from servants ... yes, from old servants of the
family ... to pay Mother's bridge debts. Mother's a good sort. Father
spent all her money for her and she was brought up in exactly the same
helpless way as she brought up me. I can do absolutely nothing except
the sort of elementary nursing which we all learnt in the war, and if I
don't marry well Mother will have to keep a boarding-house or do
something ghastly like that. I'm not going to pretend that I'm thinking
only of her, because I'm not. I can't face a long engagement with no
prospects except castles in Spain. I don't mean to be callous, Robin, but
I expect I am naturally hard. Hartley Parrish is a good sort. He's very
fond of me, and he will see that Mother lives comfortably for the rest of
her life. I've promised to marry him because I like him and he's a
suitable match. And I don't see by what right you try and run him down
to me behind his back! If it's jealousy, then it shows a very petty spirit!"
Robin Greve stepped close up to Mary Trevert. His eyes were very
angry and his jaw was set very square.
"If you are determined to sell yourself to the highest bidder," he said, "I
suppose there's no stopping you. But you're making a mistake. If
Parrish were all you claim for him, you might not repent of his
marriage so long as you did not care for somebody else. But I know
you love me, and it breaks my heart to see you blundering into
everlasting unhappiness ..."
"At least Hartley will be able to keep me," the girl flashed out. Directly
she had spoken she regretted her words.
A red flush spread slowly over Robin Greve's face.
Then he laughed drily.

"You won't be the first woman he's kept!" be retorted, and stamped out
of the billiard-room.
The girl gave a little gasp. Then she reddened with anger.
"How dare he?" she cried, stamping her foot; "how dare he?"
She sank on the lounge and, burying her face in her hands, burst into
tears.
"Oh, Robin, Robin, dear!" she sobbed--incomprehensibly, for she was a
woman.
CHAPTER II
AT TWILIGHT
There is a delicious snugness, a charming lack of formality, about the
ceremony of afternoon tea in an English country-house--it is much too
indefinite a rite to dignify it by the name of meal--which makes it the
most pleasant reunion of the day. For English country-house parties
consist, for the most part, of a succession of meals to which the guests
flock the more congenially as, in the interval, they have contrived to
avoid one another's companionship.
And so, scarcely had the last reverberation of Bude's measured gonging
died away than the French window leading from the lounge-hall on to
the terrace was pushed open and two of Hartley Parrish's guests
emerged from the falling darkness without into the pleasant comfort of
the firelit room.
They were an oddly matched pair. The one was a tubby little man with
short bristly grey hair and a short bristly grey moustache to