The Paliser case

She could have slapped him. "Then why did you ask me?"

Lennox blew a ring of smoke.

"To have you see it as I do. To have you see that at the first flurry Miss Austen ran to cover. I am quite sure I could show her that she ran too quick, but I am equally sure it is a blessing that she did run. It is not ambitious of a man to want a girl who will stand her ground. Sooner or later some other flurry would have knocked the ground from under and then it might have been awkward. This one let me out."

He stood up, opened the window, dropped the cigar from it. The cigar might have been Margaret Austen.

"What are your plans?" he asked and sat again.

Ah, how much safer that was! Cassy grabbed at it.

"You are the third person to ask me. First, Mr. Jones. Then – then – " But she did not want to mention Dunwoodie or anything about the great cascade of gorgeous follies and she jumped them both. "Then an agent. He asked me yesterday and to-day he had a contract for me and a cheque in advance. He is a very horrid little man but so decent!"

"When does it begin?"

"The engagement? Next week. What plans have you?"

"A few that have been made for me. Presently we sail."

"For France?"

"For France."

It was cooler now, at least her face was, and she got up and switched the light.

"I wish I might go, too," she told him. "But I lack the training to be nurse and the means to be vivandière – canteener, I think they call it." She hesitated and added, "Shall I see you before you go?"

But now from the phonograph in the neighbourly flat, the Non te scordar drifted, sung nobly by some fat tenor who probably loathed it.

Lennox, who had risen with her, asked: "May I come to-morrow?"

The aria enveloped them and for a moment Cassy trilled in.

"Perhaps to-morrow you will sing for me," he continued.

"Yes, I'll sing."

Later, in the black room on the white bed, the fat tenor's tuneful prayer floated just above her. Cassy repeated the words and told herself she was silly. She may have been, but also she was tired. She knew it and for a moment wondered why. Painted hours dancing to jewelled harps are not to be sneezed at. But when they are not yours, when you have really no right to them, it is not fatiguing to say so. A gesture does not fatigue. It is certainly taxing to go to a greasy office, sign your name and receive a cheque. Taxing but endurable. It is not that that does you up. It is argument that tires you, particularly when there is no need for any and you are forced to turn yourself inside out. How fortunate it was, though, that the room had been dark! In the balm of that, sleep took her.

The next day she had many things to do and succeeded in botching most of them. I have no mind for anything, she decided. What is the matter with me? But, at least, when at last she opened the door for him, there was nothing amiss with her appearance.

In the room where the piano was, she sat down on the bench and smiled up at him. "Shall I sing now?"

Lennox put his hat on the sofa. "If you don't mind my talking to you."

"Very good, we will have a duo."

Over the keys her fingers moved, sketching a melody, passing from it into another.

Beside the bench Lennox had drawn the only chair. He looked about, then at her.

"I remember so well the first time I came here."

Her lips tightened, but, suppressing the smile, she turned to him and said and so patiently:

"Is it a song without words you want, or words without song?"

Lennox leaned toward her. It was then or, it might be, never.

"It is you I want."

Cassy turned from him. Her fingers, prompted by a note, had gone from it into Gounod.

"Will you marry me?"

"Certainly not."

It was as though he had asked her to go skating. To mark the absurdity of it her voice mounted.

"Le printemps chasse les hivers —"

The words are imbecile but the air, which is charming, seemed to occupy her wholly.

"Et sourit dans les arbres verts– "

"I know you don't care for me but couldn't you try?"

"Eh?" Cassy stayed her fingers, reached for a score on the top of the upright. "I thought you wanted me to sing."

"I want to know whether you can't ever care for me."

It sang about her like a flute. Something else was singing, not the bird in her throat, for she had hushed it, but a bird in her heart. It had been singing ever since he had entered the room. It had been singing with her the duo of which lightly she had spoken. But it was singing too loud.

Hastily she replaced the score, pulled at another, shoved it back.

"Won't you tell me?" Lennox was asking.

It will burst, she thought. Sidling from the bench, she went to the sofa, looked at it as though she had never seen it before, and sat down.

"Won't you?" he repeated.

She glanced over at him. Apparently now she was calm as you please.

"People marry out of optimism, or at any rate I did. I have had my lesson, thank you."

Lennox stood up. "You have suffered – "

"I read somewhere," she cut in, "that we have to suffer terribly before we learn not to suffer at all." Pausing, she added: "I suppose then we are dead."