V
He crept up the stairs carefully, trying not to let them creak. At the landing outside his room he paused, looking out of the window. It was a night full of beautiful moonlight, and on the new clock-tower over the garage the weather-vane glinted like a silver arrow. Snow lay in patches against the walls, and the pools amidst the cobble-stones in the courtyard were filmed over with thin ice. As he looked out upon the scene the clock chimed the quarter.
He took a few paces back and turned the handle of the door. He felt frightened to enter. What should he say to her? Would she be in bed and asleep? Would she be pretending to be asleep? Should he say nothing at all, but wait till morning, when he had thought it all over?
He switched on the light and saw that she was in bed. He saw her golden hair straggling forlornly over the pillow. Something in that touched him, and suspicion, always on guard against the softness of his heart, struck at him with a sudden stab. She had plotted. She was a schemer. The forlorn spread of her hair over the pillow was part of the duplicity of her.
He hardened. He said, very quietly and calmly: “Are you awake, Helen?”
The hair moved and shook itself. “Kenneth!”
“I want to speak to you.”
“What is it, Kenneth?”
“Did you—?—Look here—” He paused. How could he put it to her? If he said straight out: “Did you plot with your father to marry me?” she would, of course, say no. He must be careful. He must try to trap her without her being aware.
“Look here—did you know that it was due to my father’s influence that I got Lavery’s?”
“No, was it? It was good of your father to help you, wasn’t it?”
Stupid little fool! he thought. (Good God, that was nearly what his father had said she was!)
He said: “He meant it kindly, no doubt. But you didn’t know?”
“How should I know?”
“I thought perhaps your father might have told you.”
“I was never interested in his business.”
Pause. A sudden sharp wave of irritation made him continue:
“I say, Helen, you might remember whom you’re talking to when you’re at dinner. The Lord Randolph you were saying the uncomplimentary things about happens to be the cousin of the lady sitting on your left.”
“Really? Oh, I’m so sorry, Kenneth. I didn’t know. D’you think she’d be offended?”
“I shouldn’t think she’d trouble very much about your opinion, but the publicity which you gave to it would probably annoy her a little.”
She suddenly hid her head in her arms and burst into tears.
“Oh, Kenneth—let’s go away to-morrow! Let’s go back to Millstead! Oh, I can’t bear this any more—I’ve been miserable ever since I came. I told you it would all go wrong, Kenneth!—Kenneth, I have tried, but it’s no good—I can’t be happy!—Take me away to-morrow, Kenneth. Kenneth, if you don’t I shall run away myself—I simply can’t bear any more of it. You’ve hated me ever since you came here, because I don’t make you feel proud of me. Oh, I wish I did—I do wish I could! But I’ve tried so many times—I’ve made myself sick with trying—and now that I know it’s no good, let me go back to Millstead where I can give up trying for a while. Kenneth, be kind to me—I can’t help it—I can’t help not being all that you want me to be!”
She held out her arms for him to have taken hold of, but he stood aside.
“I think perhaps a return to Millstead would be the best thing we could do,” he said, calmly. “We certainly don’t seem to be having a very exhilarating time here.... Breakfast is at ten, I think. That means that the car can take us down to catch the 11.50.... I’d better ’phone Burton in the morning, then he can air the place for us. Would you like to dine at School to-morrow? I was thinking that probably your father would invite us if he knew we were coming back so soon?”
It was in his mind that perhaps he could scheme some trap at the Head’s dinner-table that would enmesh them both.
She said drearily: “Oh, I don’t mind, Kenneth. Just whatever you want.”
“Very well,” he replied, and said no more.
He lay awake until he fancied it must be almost dawn, and all the time he was acutely miserable. He was so achingly sorry for her, and yet the suspicion in his mind fortified him against all kindly impulses. He felt that he would never again weakly give way to her, because the thought of her duplicity would give him strength, strength even against her tears and misery. And yet there was one thing the thought of her duplicity did not give him; it did not give him peace. It made him bitter, unrestful, an gry with the world.
And he decided, just before he went to sleep, that these new circumstances that had arisen justified him in taking what attitude he liked towards Clare. If he wanted to see her he would see her. He would no longer make sacrifices of his friends for Helen’s sake.