A Young Man's Year

"There's an end of the thing, at all events, at last!" And he looked at Arthur, as it seemed to her, with a curious mixture of anger and fear, a sort of snarling defiance.

"It was not I who introduced the subject or was responsible for its continuance," said Arthur, in the iciest of all his cool voices. "That you must do me the justice to admit, Barslow."

Then an awful pause – even Joe gravelled for a joke – and the most obvious clumsy resort to "a little more music"! The strains failed of soothing effect. On the one side a careful but disdainful courtesy, on the other a surly defiance – they persisted all the evening, making everybody uncomfortable and (as Marie shrewdly guessed) inquisitive. This was something much worse, much more pronounced, than mere 'grating.' There was, on Sidney's side at least, an actual enmity; and Arthur, noting it, treated it with contemptuous indifference.

"Have you had a row with Sidney about anything?" she managed to whisper to Arthur.

"No."

"Have you said anything to annoy him, do you think?"

He looked straight into her eyes. "I haven't spoken to him since we were last here."

Sidney she did not venture to approach in confidence; he was altogether too dangerous that night. She did not know the occasion which had fanned a smouldering hostility into flame, which had changed a mere 'grating' of the one on the other, an uncongeniality, into feelings much stronger and more positive. Even had she known it, perhaps she was not well enough versed in the standards and the moods of men to understand all that it carried with it. Sidney Barslow was not particularly ashamed of what had happened to him in itself: in suitable company he would have found it a story he could tell and be sure of a humorous sympathy; there was nothing to be remorseful or miserable about. As long as a man did his work and earned his 'screw' (and Sidney held a good position in a wholesale linen-merchant's business and was doing well) he was entitled to his amusements – if you like, his dissipations – while he was young at all events. If indiscretions marked them, if one sometimes tumbled over the line, that was in the nature of the case. He would not have minded an encounter with Joe Halliday outside that public-house in the least – no, nor even with young Raymond Sarradet, Marie's brother though he was. Nay, he would not much have minded being seen even by Arthur Lisle himself; for if Arthur had been shocked, Sidney would, in all sincerity, have dubbed him a milksop; the man who would be shocked at a thing like that was certainly a milksop. He was not even afraid of Arthur's betraying him to Marie – not because he thought his enemy above that, but because he had an easy confidence that he could put the matter right with Marie, and a strong doubt whether women objected to that sort of thing so much as they were in the habit of pretending; in their hearts they like a man to be a man, Sidney would have told himself for comfort.

The poison lay elsewhere. Under the influence of his liquor and the stress of his plight – wanting to prove to the policeman, to the 'chucker-out,' to the interested bystanders, that he was not a common tap-room frequenter but a 'gentleman' – he had let himself appeal for his warrant of gentility to the man whom he had derided for thinking himself so much (if you please!) a gentleman. Arthur Lisle's acquaintance was to prove to bystanders, policeman, and chucker-out, that he, Sidney Barslow, though drunk and in queer company, was yet a gentleman! And how had the appeal been received? He could not charge Arthur with cutting him, or leaving him in the lurch. He hated far worse the look he had seen in his enemy's eyes as they gazed steadfastly into his – the fastidious repulsion and the high contempt. True, on the sight of them he had withdrawn his appeal; he had preferred to accept defeat and humiliation at the hands of chucker-out and constable; but the fact of the appeal having been made remained with all its damning admission of inferiority. And that look of contempt he had seen again when Arthur Lisle, in answer to Joe Halliday's clumsy jokes, replied in his cool proud voice that, as he walked home by Oxford Street, he had met with "nothing out of the common." He had met a common fellow with a common woman, and, as was common, the common fellow was drunk. With all the sharpness wherewith humiliation pricks a man, with all the keenness wherewith hatred can read the mind of an enemy, he pointed for himself the meaning of Arthur's careless-sounding words.

He was in a rage, not only with Arthur Lisle, but with himself and his luck – which had indeed been somewhat perverse. Lashing himself with these various irritants, he soon produced another sore spot – Marie Sarradet's behaviour. He was an older friend than Arthur; she had, he declared, backed Arthur up in his airy insolence; he swore to himself that he had seen her smile at it. At any rate she had not backed him up; to a man in a rage, or several rages, it was enough – more than enough for a man of his temper, to whom the desire for a woman was the desire for a mastery over her. And in the end he could not believe that that fragile whipper-snapper with his hoity-toity effeminate ways (the point of view is Sidney's) could be weighed in the balance against his own manly handsomeness, his dashing gallantry; why, he knew that he was a conqueror with women – knew it by experience!

Marie and Raymond, Amabel Osling and himself had made up a four to play lawn-tennis on the hard courts at Acton. They had enjoyed their game and their tea. He and Marie had won after a close match, and were in a good humour with themselves. He was forgetting his grievance against her. She liked him playing games; he was a finely built fellow and looked really splendid in his white flannels; if he ordered her about the court like a master, it was a legitimate sway; he knew the game and played well. When, after tea, the other two sauntered off – for an open and unashamed flirtation – Marie had never felt more kindly towards him; she had really forgiven the bearishness of his behaviour, and was prepared to tell him so after a little lecture, which, by the way, she quite looked forward to giving; for she too was fond of domination. She started leading up to the lecture.

"You seem to have found something since we last met, Sidney. I'm glad of it."

"What do you mean?" he asked carelessly, as he filled his pipe. He did not see her drift.

"Hadn't you mislaid something the other night?" Her dark eyes were dancing with mockery, and her lips twitched.

Now he looked at her suspiciously. "I don't understand."

"You might. I'm referring to your temper."

"I'm not aware that I said anything rude to you. If I did, I apologise."

"I'm not speaking of myself, but of my friends – my guests."

He leant his arm on the table which stood between them. "Meaning Mr. Arthur Lisle?"

"The smoke of your pipe blows in my face when you lean forward like that."

"Sorry!" He laid his pipe down beside him. "Well, the fact is, I'm about fed up with Lisle."

And Arthur Lisle was much in the same case – allowing for the difference of expression – as to Sidney! Marie smiled, but her brow wrinkled. "Sorry you don't like him, but it costs nothing to be polite."

"Well, all I can say is that I shall be very much obliged if you'll ask us on different evenings."

"That's assuming that I'm going to ask you on any evenings at all."

She thought this smart flick of her whip would bring him to reason.

"Oh, perhaps Lisle's going to be there every evening?"

"Any evening that he likes, Pops and I will be very pleased to see him – with or without an invitation." She relented a little; he looked angry and obstinate, but he looked handsome too. "You too, if you won't be silly. Why do you dislike him so much?"

He could not give her the whole reason; he gave what he could. "I see his game. He's always trying to come the swell over me and the rest of us."

"I'm sure he doesn't mean to; it's just – "

"His naturally aristocratic manner?" he sneered.

Marie sat up straight and looked composedly at him. By now she was angry – and she meant to hurt. "That's exactly it, Sidney," she said, "and it's a pity everybody hasn't got it."

She did hurt sorely. He had no code to keep him from hitting back, and his wrath was fierce. "Where did you learn so much about aristocratic manners? Behind the counter?"

She flushed hotly; tears came in her eyes. He saw what he had done, and was touched to a sudden remorse.

"Oh, I say, Marie, I didn't mean – !"

"I shan't forget that," she said. "Never!"

He shrugged his shoulders and stuck his pipe back in his mouth. He was ashamed, but obstinate still. "You brought it on yourself," he grumbled.

"Yes, I forgot that I wasn't talking to a gentleman."

He made one more effort after reconciliation. "Look here, Marie, you know what I think of you – "

"Yes, I do – you've just told me."

"Damnation!" he muttered, pulling at his pipe. Marie, looking carefully past him, began to put on her gloves. Thus Amabel and Raymond found them – with things obviously very wrong. Amabel diagnosed an offer and a refusal, but Raymond thought there must be even more behind his sister's stormy brow and clouded eyes. The journey back was not cheerful.

Marie was indeed cut to the quick. Even to herself it was strange how deeply she was wounded. The Sarradets had never been ashamed of the shop; rather they had taken an honourable pride in it and in the growth of its fortunes from generation to generation. Yet Sidney Barslow's gibe about the counter was to her now unforgivable. It brought into coarse and vivid relief her secret doubts and fears. It made her ask whether she, having made a friend of the man who had used a taunt like that, must not have something about her to justify it. It set her on fire to put an utter end to her friendship and association with Sidney Barslow – and thereby to prove to herself that, whatever her manners might be they were at least too good for such company as his.

Hitherto pretty equally balanced between the two young men, or at all events wistfully anxious that friendship with Arthur should not make impossible her old and pleasant comradeship with Sidney – in whom she found so much that she liked – she became now Arthur's furious partisan. With him and his cause she identified herself. She declared that it was purely for his sake, and not at all in the interest of her own domination and authority, that she had rebuked Sidney, and for his sake solely that she had suffered insult. By a natural turn of feeling she asked in her heart for a reward from him, a recognition of her championship, gratitude to her for having preferred him to his would-be rival; if he were not at least a little pleased and proud, she would feel disappointment and humiliation.

But he would be. And why? Because that was the right thing for him to be, and now in her eyes, at this moment, he could do no wrong. Sidney was all wrong, therefore Arthur must be all right. She could not bring herself to doubt it. And, being all right, he must do and feel all the right things. So he would – when he knew what she had done and suffered for him. Her heart cried out that somehow (as delicately as possible, of course) he must be made to know, to know the full extent of her service and her sacrifice; he must know the insult she had received; and he must consider it as great and wanton an insult as she did.

So her feelings formulated their claim upon him, with an instinctive cunning. It was a claim to which no chivalrous-minded man could be insensible; it was one that would appeal with commanding force to Arthur Lisle's impulsive generosity.

"For you I have quarrelled with my old friend – for you I have endured insult." What could he answer save that in him she should find a better friend, that his appreciation should efface the insult?

"Don't be afraid to come. There will be nobody here that you don't like this time." With these words her next invitation to Arthur Lisle ended.

He read them with a quick grasp of her meaning – of the essential part of it at least. She was on his side! He was glad. Neither for his own sake, nor for the sake of the idea that he had of her, would he easily have endured that she should be on Sidney Barslow's side and against him. Although she did not know what he knew, and had not seen what he had seen, her instincts and her taste were right! He looked forward eagerly to letting her perceive, in some way or other, that he recognised this, to congratulating her somehow on it, to sealing the pact of a natural alliance between them. How he would do this, or how far he might seem to go in the course of doing it, or what further implications might be involved in such a bond between man and maid, his young blood and his generous impulses did not pause to ask. It was the thing to do – and he wanted to do it.

CHAPTER V

THE TENDER DIPLOMATIST

The coming of the Easter legal vacation set Arthur free for the time from professional hopes and fears. He was due on a visit to his mother and sister at Malvern, but excused himself at the last moment. It was not in him to leave London. The Temple indeed he forsook, but he abode in his lodgings and spent his spare time with the Sarradets. Amabel Osling was staying with them, and Raymond was now in close attendance on her. There were two young couples, then, ready for lawn-tennis, for theatres, for concerts, or any other diversion. Yet pleasantest of all were the walks in Regent's Park on the offdays, when nothing special had been arranged, but Arthur would happen to stroll up to the Broad Walk, and Marie would chance to be giving her dog a run. Then they would saunter about together, or sit on a seat in the spring sunshine, talking of all manner of things – well, except of the particular form which Sidney Barslow's rudeness had taken. Somehow, in the end, Marie never could bring herself to tell him that and ask him to be indignant about it. She left the enormity vague and undefined; it was really none the less effective left like that, just as provocative of reprobation for the sinner and sympathy for the ill-used friend. And it was safer to leave it like that; she could never rid herself of the fear that the actual thing, if revealed, might appear to Arthur rude indeed – rough, ill-mannered, as much of all this as one could conceive – but not so overwhelmingly absurd and monstrous as it ought to seem, as the demands of her uneasy heart required that he should find it.