The God in the Car

"I'm so blind," said Miss Ferrars plaintively. "Where are my glasses?" "What do you want to see?" asked Lord Semingham. "The man in the corner, talking to Mr. Loring." "Oh, you won't know him even with the glasses. He's the sort of man you must be introduced to three times before there's any chance of a permanent impression." "You seem to recognise him." "I know him in business. We are, or rather are going to be, fellow-directors of a company." "Oh, then I shall see you in the dock together some day." "What touching faith in the public prosecutor! Does nothing shake your optimism?" "Perhaps your witticisms." "Peace, peace!" "Well, who is he?" "He was once," observed Lord Semingham, as though stating a curious fact, "in a Government. His name is Foster Belford, and he is still asked to the State Concerts." "I knew I knew him! Why, Harry Dennison thinks great things of him!" "It is possible." "And he, not to be behindhand in politeness, thinks greater of Maggie Dennison." "His task is the easier." "And you and he are going to have the effrontery to ask shareholders to trust their money to you?" "Oh, it isn't us; it's Ruston." "Mr. Ruston? I've heard of him." "You very rarely admit that about anybody." "Moreover, I've met him." "He's quite coming to the front, of late, I know." "Is there any positive harm in being in the fashion? I like now and then to talk to the people one is obliged to talk about." "Go on," said Lord Semingham, urbanely. "But, my dear Lord Semingham--" "Hush! Keep the truth from me, like a kind woman. Ah! here comes Tom Loring--How are you, Loring? Where's Dennison?" "At the House. I ought to be there, too." "Why, of course. The place of a private secretary is by the side of--" "His chief's wife. We all know that," interposed Adela Ferrars. "When you grow old, you'll be sorry for all the wicked things you've said," observed Loring. "Well, there'll be nothing else to do. Where are you going, Lord Semingham?" "Home." "Why?" "Because I've done my duty. Oh, but here's Dennison, and I want a word with him." Lord Semingham passed on, leaving the other two together. "Has Harry Dennison been speaking to-day?" asked Miss Ferrars. "Well, he had something prepared." "He had something! You know you write them." Mr. Loring frowned. "Yes, and I know we aren't allowed to say so," pursued Adela. "It's neither just nor kind to Dennison." Miss Ferrars looked at him, her brows slightly raised. "And you are both just and kind, really," he added. "And you, Mr. Loring, are a wonderful man. You're not ashamed to be serious! Oh, yes, I've annoyed-you're quite right. I was-whatever I was-on the ninth of last March, and I think I'm too old to be lectured." Tom Loring laughed, and, an instant later, Adela followed suit. "I suppose it was horrid of me," she said. "Can't we turn it round and consider it as a compliment to you?" Tom looked doubtful, but, before he could answer, Adela cried: "Oh, here's Evan Haselden, and-yes-it's Mr. Ruston with him?" As the two men entered, Mrs. Dennison rose from her chair. She was a tall woman; her years fell one or two short of thirty. She was not a beauty, but her broad brow and expressive features, joined to a certain subdued dignity of manner and much grace of movement, made her conspicuous among the women in her drawing-room. Young Evan Haselden seemed to appreciate her, for he bowed his glossy curly head, and shook hands in a way that almost turned the greeting into a deferentially distant caress. Mrs. Dennison acknowledged his hinted homage with a bright smile, and turned to Ruston. "At last!" she said, with another smile. "The first time after-how many years?" "Eight, I believe," he answered. "Oh, you're terribly definite. And what have you been doing with yourself?" He shrugged his square shoulders, and she did not press her question, but let her eyes wander over him. "Well?" he asked. "Oh-improved. And I?" Suddenly Ruston laughed. "Last time we met," he said, "you swore you'd never speak to me again." "I'd quite forgotten my fearful threat." He looked straight in her face for a moment, as he asked- "And the cause of it?" Mrs. Dennison coloured. "Yes, quite," she answered; and conscious that her words carried no conviction to him, she added hastily, "Go and speak to Harry. There he is." Ruston obeyed her, and being left for a moment alone, she sat down on the chair placed ready near the door for her short intervals of rest. There was a slight pucker on her brow. The sight of Ruston and his question stirred in her thoughts, which were never long dormant, and which his coming woke into sudden activity. She had not anticipated that he would venture to recall to her that incident-at least, not at once-in the first instant of meeting, at such a time and such a place. But as he had, she found herself yielding to the reminiscence he induced. Forgotten the cause of her anger with him? For the first two or three years of her married life, she would have answered, "Yes, I have forgotten it." Then had come a period when now and again it recurred to her, not for his sake or its own, but as a summary of her stifled feeling; and during that period she had resolutely struggled not to remember it. Of late that struggle had ceased, and the thing lay a perpetual background to her thoughts: when there was nothing else to think about, when the stage of her mind was empty of moving figures, it snatched at the chance of prominence, and thus became a recurrent consciousness from which her interests and her occupations could not permanently rescue her. For example, here she was thinking of it in the very midst of her party. Yet this persistence of memory seemed impertinent, unreasonable, almost insolent. For, as she told herself, finding it necessary to tell herself more and more often, her husband was still all that he had been when he had won her heart-good-looking, good-tempered, infinitely kind and devoted. When she married she had triumphed confidently in these qualities; and the unanimous cry of surprised congratulations at the match she was making had confirmed her own joy and exultation in it. It had been a great match; and yet, beyond all question, also a love match. But now the chorus of wondering applause was forgotten, and there remained only the one voice which had been raised to break the harmony of approbation-a voice that nobody, herself least of all, had listened to then. How should it be listened to? It came from a nobody-a young man of no account, whose opinion none cared to ask; whose judgment, had it been worth anything in itself, lay under suspicion of being biassed by jealousy. Willie Ruston had never declared himself her suitor; yet (she clung hard to this) he would not have said what he did had not the chagrin of a defeated rival inspired him; and a defeated rival, as everybody knows, will say anything. Certainly she had been right not to listen, and was wrong to remember. To this she had often made up her mind, and to this she returned now as she sat watching her husband and Willie Ruston, forgetful of all the chattering crowd beside. As to what it was she resolved not to remember, and did remember, it was just one sentence-his only comment on the news of her engagement, his only hint of any opinion or feeling about it. It was short, sharp, decisive, and, as his judgments were, even in the days when he, alone of all the world, held them of any moment, absolutely confident; it was also, she had felt on hearing it, utterly untrue, unjust, and ungenerous. It had rung out like a pistol-shot, "Maggie, you're marrying a fool," and then a snap of tight-fitting lips, a glance of scornful eyes, and a quick, unhesitating stride away that hardly waited for a contemptuous smile at her angry cry, "I'll never speak to you again." She had been in a fury of wrath-she had a power of wrath-that a plain, awkward, penniless, and obscure youth-one whom she sometimes disliked for his arrogance, and sometimes derided for his self-confidence-should dare to say such a thing about her Harry, whom she was so proud to love, and so proud to have won. It was indeed an insolent memory that flung the thing again and again in her teeth. The party began to melt away. The first good-bye roused Mrs. Dennison from her enveloping reverie. Lady Valentine, from whom it came, lingered for a gush of voluble confidences about the charm of the house, and the people, and the smart little band that played softly in an alcove, and what not; her daughter stood by, learning, it is to be hoped, how it is meet to behave in society, and scanning Evan Haselden's trim figure with wary, critical glances, alert to turn aside if he should glance her way. Mrs. Dennison returned the ball of civility, and, released by several more departures, joined Adela Ferrars. Adela stood facing Haselden and Tom Loring, who were arm-in-arm. At the other end of the room Harry Dennison and Ruston were still in conversation. "These men, Maggie," began Adela-and it seemed a mere caprice of pronunciation, that the word did not shape itself into "monkeys"-"are the absurdest creatures. They say I'm not fit to take part in politics! And why?" Mrs. Dennison shook her head, and smiled. "Because, if you please, I'm too emotional. Emotional, indeed! And I can't generalise! Oh, couldn't I generalise about men!" "Women can never say 'No,'" observed Evan Haselden, not in the least as if he were repeating a commonplace. "You'll find you're wrong when you grow up," retorted Adela. "I doubt that," said Mrs. Dennison, with the kindest of smiles. "Maggie, you spoil the boy. Isn't it enough that he should have gone straight from the fourth form-where, I suppose, he learnt to generalise--" "At any rate, not to be emotional," murmured Loring. "Into Parliament, without having his head turned by--" "You'd better go, Evan," suggested Loring in a warning tone. "I shall go too," announced Adela. "I'm walking your way," said Evan, who seemed to bear no malice. "How delightful!" "You don't object?" "Not the least. I'm driving." "A mere schoolboy score!" "How stupid of me! You haven't had time to forget them." "Oh, take her away," said Mrs. Dennison, and they disappeared in a fire of retorts, happy, or happy enough for happy people, and probably Evan drove with the lady after all. Mrs. Dennison walked towards where her husband and Ruston sat on a sofa in talk. "What are you two conspiring about?" she asked. "Ruston had something to say to me about business." "What, already?" "Oh, we've met in the city, Mrs. Dennison," explained Ruston, with a confidential nod to Harry. "And that was the object of your appearance here to-day? I was flattering my party, it seems." "No. I didn't expect to find your husband. I thought he would be at the House." "Ah, Harry, how did the speech go?" "Oh, really pretty well, I think," answered Harry Dennison, with a contented air. "I got nearly half through before we were counted out." A very faint smile showed on his wife's face. "So you were counted out?" she asked. "Yes, or I shouldn't be here." "You see, I am acquitted, Mrs. Dennison. Only an accident brought him here." "An accident impossible to foresee," she acquiesced, with the slightest trace of bitterness-so slight that her husband did not notice it. Ruston rose. "Well, you'd better talk to Semingham about it," he remarked to Harry Dennison; "he's one of us, you know." "Yes, I will. And I'll just get you that pamphlet of mine; you can put it in your pocket." He ran out of the room to fetch what he promised. Mrs. Dennison, still faintly smiling, held out her hand to Ruston. "It's been very pleasant to see you again," she said graciously. "I hope it won't be eight years before our next meeting." "Oh, no; you see I'm floating now." "Floating?" she repeated, with a smile of enquiry. "Yes; on the surface. I've been in the depths till very lately, and there one meets no good society." "Ah! You've had a struggle?" "Yes," he answered, laughing; "you may call it a bit of a struggle." She looked at him with grave curious eyes. "And you are not married?" she asked abruptly. "No, I'm glad to say." "Why glad, Mr. Ruston? Some people like being married." "Oh, I don't claim to be above it, Mrs. Dennison," he answered with a laugh, "but a wife would have been a great hindrance to me all these years." There was a simple and bona fide air about his statement; it was not raillery; and Mrs. Dennison laughed in her turn. "Oh, how like you!" she murmured. Mr. Ruston, with a passing gleam of surprise at her merriment, bade her a very unemotional farewell, and left her. She sat down and waited idly for her husband's return. Presently he came in. He had caught Ruston in the hall, delivered his pamphlet, and was whistling cheerfully. He took a chair near his wife. "Rum chap that!" he said. "But he's got a good deal of stuff in him;" and he resumed his lively tune. The tune annoyed Mrs. Dennison. To suffer whistling without visible offence was one of her daily trials. Harry's emotions and reflections were prone to express themselves through that medium. "I didn't do half-badly, to-day," said Harry, breaking off again. "Old Tom had got it all splendidly in shape for me-by Jove, I don't know what I should do without Tom-and I think I put it pretty well. But, of course, it's a subject that doesn't catch on with everybody." It was the dullest subject in the world; it was also, in all likelihood, one of the most unimportant; and dull subjects are so seldom unimportant that the perversity of the combination moved Maggie Dennison to a wondering pity. She rose and came behind the chair where her husband sat. Leaning over the back, she rested her elbows on his shoulders, and lightly clasped her hands round his neck. He stopped his whistle, which had grown soft and contented, laughed, and kissed one of the encircling hands, and she, bending lower, kissed him on the forehead as he turned his face up to look at her. "You poor dear old thing!" she said with a smile and a sigh.