PART II SUTHERLAND PLACE (continued 2)

But the riddle of why she did not wish to stop refused to be given up. It renewed itself with each of his apologies. Stumbling ludicrously, she knew that she still wished to go on. What she did not know at that time of her life was that she had secrets that hitherto she had kept even from herself.

Then, all in a moment, the strange thing happened. She felt that colour, that stress and anger never brought there, rise slow and warm into her cheeks. Her glance had merely rested for a moment on that hand of hers that lay slender as a willow leaf in his, but the riddle was a puzzle no longer. Abashed, she had surprised a secret.

She had caught herself wishing—half wishing—she did not quite know what—that she too had taken off her glove.

Her colour lasted for half-a-minute; then, perhaps because of the colour, her voice became matter-of-fact. She glanced up at him.

"I'm sorry you failed in your examination," she said.

Louie was tall, but his head was clear and away above hers. He looked down, earnest, anxious, smiling, all three.

"It doesn't matter," he said. "Why should it?" he added.

Louie had thought that it had mattered a great deal, but she was still a little bewildered. Even out of the answer to the riddle another seemed to have sprung already. She laughed a little.

"Oh—only that one doesn't like to be beaten," she said.

This too he seemed to give profound yet (if such a thing may be) absentminded attention.

"Is anybody ever beaten?" he asked slowly. "I mean, unless they deserve to be?"

Archie and Evie Soames had just overtaken them again, laughing together, as, hand in hand, they took a running glide towards the door. His remark came oddly from a doubly beaten man. What then did he call a beating?... She looked covertly at the two hands again.

"But—mayn't circumstances be too strong for you?"

This again he considered. "Circumstances are strong," he admitted. "But then, if one's a fool, so are a good many other people. There's always that chance, you see."

He spoke as gently as if he had been speaking to a child, but Louie suddenly found herself wondering whether he had accepted the inevitable after all. This hardly sounded like it. She spoke quietly.

"Nobody thinks you're a fool just because you failed—at least I don't."

"Failed?" he repeated, as if puzzled.... "Oh, you mean the examination! Of course I ought never to have gone in for it. (Oh dear, another bump—I'm afraid you find me hopeless.)"

"Not have gone in for it? Why?"

The lion's eyes looked at her in surprise.

"Why? Why, because I failed." He seemed to consider it an entirely conclusive answer.

"But you'll surely try again?" said Louie.

"Eh? 'Try,' did you say?... Oh, the men who have to try are no good. For that matter it's always the duffers who try the hardest. I admit they pull it off, but then things are arranged so that the duffers can pull them off—have to be, I suppose. But the men who aren't duffers——"

He stopped suddenly.

"What?" she said.

But once more she had the feeling that she had only just swum into the field of his vision. It was singularly disconcerting. His smile, which had disappeared, appeared again. He seemed to remember that he was at a dance.

"I suppose you're coming back after Christmas?" he said.

It was not very likely, but she said: "Very likely. You were saying, about the men who aren't duffers——"

Again he got her focus. "Was I? Well, there aren't so many of them that we need bother about them. So you are coming back?"

Louie found him extraordinary, unclassifiable. She could not say that his answers were not ready; they were instant to the point; but somehow they weren't answers. Of course, they were answers if you liked, but they seemed in some way to be private communings as well. She wondered whether he was in the habit of talking much to himself; he spoke rather as if he was—as if, his consciousness of her presence notwithstanding, he considered himself to be as good as alone now.

Louie had heard the expression "second self"—well, this, "second self" or not, was certainly a curious accord. And then he allowed that deliberate, altogether discordant smile (that might just as well have been hooked round his ears like a false beard) to come between, and asked her if she was coming back after Christmas!

Then—this came suddenly—she knew for a certainty what hitherto had hung in doubt—that she would not be coming back after Christmas. She must sit down. Of course, it was to have been expected. She had been unwise to dance.

She spoke faintly. "Please take me to a seat."

Quite automatically he did so. He led her to the E of reference-books. The waltz closed. So did Louie's eyes.

"Please leave me alone for a few minutes," she murmured.

He bowed, and retired as automatically as he had come.

In a few minutes she felt better, but she still sat in the little book-lined recess. Her eyes remained closed, but not now altogether from faintness. She heard Mr. Mackie's voice, apparently a long way off, shouting, "Come on—let's get the ice broken!" and partners were being chosen for the Shop-Girl Lancers. More minutes passed. Louie, her eyes still closed, had begun once more to think of that secret she had surprised within herself.

She doubted herself profoundly now. For all she now knew her nature might contain other such secrets as this that had sent the warm blood into her cheeks at a touch—nay, at the thought of a touch. She might have, so to speak, a basic, unsuspected layer of them, needing only to be stirred to provide surprise after surprise. Those surprises might make all she had hitherto known—all—seem stupid and flat and commonplace. If so, why must the discovery come now? Secrets from herself—now? Impossible!

But, as if limned on her closed lids, she saw the two hands again, her own like a lanceolate leaf, lying within that great masculine engine of his.

And all at once she felt unutterably lonely.

It was some time before she opened her eyes again. By that time Mr. Mackie had succeeded in breaking the ice. The floor shook to the fourth figure of the Shop-Girl Lancers, and Louie saw, beyond the reference-books, the Alcazar beauty swung clear off the ground, a goldfish whirling almost horizontally past. Miss Levey's skirts followed, their owner crying, "Help, help!"... "For it ain't the proper way to treat a la-ady!" Mr. Mackie's jubilant voice sang—and when the figure ended there were shouts and clapping of hands and uproarious cries of "Again, again!"

By-and-by Louie rose. She walked up the room again. At the piano Mr. Mackie, who was to sing, was now confidentially humming the air of his song into the hired pianist's ear. Mr. Jeffries, once more looking as if he needed a niche and a plinth, was standing in his original place, by the folding door. Miss Levine and Archie Merridew were half hidden behind the piano; and Kitty Windus, radiant, was openly flirting with the pale student called Richardson. Evie Soames had just spoken to Mr. Jeffries; she was sulking at Archie's desertion of her. Then Mr. Weston announced, solemnly and distinctly, that Mr. Mackie was about to add to the enjoyment of all present by singing a song entitled "That Gorgonzola Cheese." Applause greeted the announcement, and Mr. Mackie, who had slipped behind the piano for a moment and returned with his coat on the wrong side out, began.

Louie found herself once more by the side of Mr. Jeffries.

"I should like some coffee," she said.

The coffee was in an adjoining room. For the first time since she had been at the School Louie did not want to hear Mr. Mackie.

But the hint was lost on Mr. Jeffries.

"Eh? Certainly," he said, and went away in search of the coffee.

Mr. Mackie sang,

Kitty was laughing almost hysterically.

Mr. Jeffries had returned with Louie's coffee, but Louie barely touched it. Great stupid fellow!

Then he turned to her with some merely banal remark, and Louie, giving it all the answer it deserved, turned and left him.

That unspeakable loneliness had come upon her again.

Louie made no further attempt to talk to Mr. Jeffries. She watched another dance, heard Mr. Weston recite "The Raven," and then went to the cloakroom for her shawl. There she came upon Kitty Windus, who had found it necessary to do up her hair again.

"You surely aren't going?" Kitty exclaimed. She herself was a-tremble with flirtation and happiness. "Why, you're as bad as Mr. Jeffries! Though I will admit that even he came out of his shell for once. I shall begin to think Miriam's right soon!" She gave Louie an arch look.

Louie's opinion was that Mr. Jeffries had never been more completely concealed in his shell than he had been that even, but "Oh, has he gone?" she said indifferently.

"Yes, a few minutes ago. Isn't everything going splendidly! Why, Mr. Mackie's a host in himself!"

"Quite," said Louie, passing her shawl over her head.

"I suppose we shall see you in the morning?" said Kitty. "Everybody's coming to help to clear away."

"Very well," said Louie.

And as the piano broke into the prelude to the waltz cotillion she left.

But she did not leave that dingy Holborn third floor, never to enter it again, without a grateful word to Mr. Mackie. She came upon him on a landing. His trousers were French-chalked almost to the knees with the vigour of his dancing, and for his next song he had put on a false nose with blue whiskers attached to it. He was making sure that the adornment did not interfere with his whistle.

"Good-bye, Mr. Mackie," said Louie, holding out her hand.

Mr. Mackie stopped the whistle. "What, you toddling, Miss Causton?" he said. "Why, we ain't properly warmed up yet!"

"I must go. And"—she smiled almost fondly at him—"I should like to thank you."

Mr. Mackie was quite conscious of desert. "Not at all," he said. "You mean the 'Gorgonzola Cheese,' I suppose? Went all right, didn't it? Never known that song fail yet: it always gets 'em——"

"Oh, for more than that. If you're ever thinking of setting up a cure I daresay I could find you a few patients. You're wonderful. Good-bye."

"Say olive oil, but not good-bye—and Merry Christmas," said Mr. Mackie.

But Louie knew that it was good-bye.