§ 8
It took until past two o’clock for the Go Paul Lambone had started to remove the last of the company.
“All hands to the bedmaking,” cried Fay. “It isn’t always like this, Mr. Preemby.”
“Confess I feel tired,” said Mr. Preemby. “Had a long day of it.”
Christina Alberta regarded him with belated compunction. “It just happened like this,” she said.
“Not used to such late hours,” said Mr. Preemby, sitting on his bed when at last it was made, and he did a yawn that almost dislocated his jaw.
“Night,” said Fay, yawning also.
“We’ll turn in,” said Harold. “So long, Mr. Preemby.” The yawning seized upon Harold also. What a face he had!
“Goo-i.”
“Gawooi-i.”
The door closed upon them.
There was much to say to Christina Alberta, but it was too late and Mr. Preemby was too weary to say it now And also he had no idea what it was he ought to say.
A casual remark fell out, “I liked that man with the white hair,” he said.
“Did you?” said Christina Alberta absently.
“He was intelligent. He took a great interest in the Lost Atlantis.”
“He’s stone deaf,” said Christina Alberta, “and he’s ashamed of it—poor dear.”
“Oh!” said Mr. Preemby.
“All this is going to be rather noisy for you, Daddy,” she said, coming to what she had in mind.
“It is a bit ramshackle,” said Mr. Preemby.
“We ought to go to Tunbridge Wells quite soon and look round there.”
“To-morrow,” said Mr. Preemby.
“Not to-morrow.”
“Why not?”
“The next day,” said Christina Alberta. “I’m not quite sure about to-morrow. I’d sort of half promised to go somewhere else—. But it doesn’t matter very much really.”
“I’d like to go to Tumbridge Wells to-morrow,” said Mr. Preemby.
“Why not?” said Christina Alberta as if to herself, and hesitated.
Se walked to the door and came back. “Good night, little Daddy,” she said.
“Are we going then? To-morrow?”
“No.... Yes.... I don’t know. I had planned to do something to-morrow. Important in a kind of way.... We’ll go to-morrow, Daddy.”
She walked away from him with her arms akimbo and stared at those queer pictures.
She spun round on her feet. “I can’t go to-morrow,” she said.
“Yes, I will,” she contradicted.
“Oh, hell!” she cried, in a most unaccountable and unladylike way. “I don’t know what to do!”
Mr. Preemby looked at her with grave and weary eyes. This was a new Christina Alberta to him. She ought not to swear. She did not ought to swear. She’d caught it up from these people. She didn’t know what it meant. He must talk to her—to-morrow. About that and one or two other things. But Heavens! how tired he was!
“You—” He yawned. “You must take care of yourself, Christina Alberta,” he said.
“I’ll do that all right, Daddy. Trust me.”
She came and sat down beside him on his little half-fictitious bed. “We can’t decide to-night, Daddy. We’re too tired. We’ll settle to-morrow. Have to see what the weather’s like for one thing. Wouldn’t do to walk about Tunbridge if it was wet. We’ll decide about everything to-morrow—when our heads are cool. Why! you dear little Daddy! It’s just upon half-past two.”
She put her arm round his shoulders and kissed him on the top of his head and the lobe of his ear. He loved her to touch him and kiss him. He did not understand in the least how much he loved her to kiss him.
“Dear tired little Daddy,” she said in her softest voice: “You are ever so kind to me. Good night.”
She had gone.
For some time Mr. Preemby sat quite motionless in a state of almost immobile thought.
The floor of the studio was littered with burnt matches and cigarette ends and the air smelt of stale smoke and beer. On the blue-painted table stood an empty beer-bottle and two or three glasses containing dregs of beer and cigarette ash.
It was all very different from Woodford Wells,—very different indeed.
But it was Experience.
Mr. Preemby bestirred himself to undress.
That night-shirt of Saxony flannel had still to be unpacked.