The Truants. A. E. W. Mason

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СКАЧАТЬ Pamela came, at all events, to count upon him as a most reliable friend. Having duly achieved that place in her thoughts, he disappeared for ten months and returned to town one afternoon in the last week of June. There were letters waiting for him in his rooms, and amongst them a card from Lady Millingham inviting him to a dance upon that night. At eleven o'clock his coupé turned out of Piccadilly and entered Berkeley Square. At the bottom of the square the lighted windows of the house blazed out upon the night, the balconies were banked with flowers, and behind the flowers, silhouetted against the light, were visible the thronged faces of men and women. Warrisden leaned forward, scrutinising the shapes of the heads, the contours of the faces. His sight, sharpened by long practice over wide horizons, was of the keenest; he could see, even at that distance, the flash of jewels on neck and shoulder. But the face he looked for was not there.

      Lady Millingham, however, set his mind at case.

      "You are back, then?" she cried.

      "This afternoon."

      "You will find friends here."

      Warrisden passed on into the reception rooms. It seemed to him indeed that all the friends he had ever made were gathered to this one house on this particular evening. He was a tall man, and his height made him noticeable upon most occasions. He was the more noticeable now by reason of his sunburn and a certain look of exhilaration upon his face. The season was drawing to its end, and brown faces were not so usual but that the eyes turned to them. He spoke, however, the fewest possible words to the men who greeted him, and he did not meet the eyes of any woman. Yet he saw the women, and was in definite quest of one of them. That might have been noticed by a careful observer, for whenever he saw a man older than the rest talking to a girl he quickened his pace that he might the sooner see that girl's face. He barely looked into the ball-room at all, but kept to the corridors, and, at last, in a doorway, came face to face with Pamela Mardale. He saw her face light up, and the hand held out to him was even eagerly extended.

      "Have you a dance to spare?"

      Pamela looked quickly round upon her neighbours.

      "Yes, this one," she answered. She bowed to her companion, a man, as Warrisden expected, much older than herself, and led the way at once towards the balcony. Warrisden saw a youth emerge from the throng and come towards them. Pamela was tall, and she used her height at this moment. She looked him in the face with so serene an indifference that the youth drew back disconcerted. Pamela was deliberately cutting her partners.

      Another man might have built upon the act, but Warrisden was shrewd, and shrewdness had taught him long since to go warily in thought where Pamela Mardale was concerned. She might merely be angry. He walked by her side and said nothing. Even when they were seated on the balcony, he left for her to speak first. She was sitting upon the outside against the railing, so that the light from the windows streamed full upon her face. He watched it, looking for the change which he desired. But it had still the one fault he found with it. It was still too sedate, too womanly for her years. It happened that they had found a corner where flowers made a sort of screen, and they could talk in low voices without being overheard.

      "I heard of you," she said. "You were shooting woodcock in Dalmatia."

      "That was at Christmas."

      "Yes. You were hurt there."

      "Not seriously," he replied. "A sheep-dog attacked me. They are savage brutes, and indeed they have to be, there are so many wolves. The worst of it is, if you are attacked, you mustn't kill the dog, or there's trouble."

      "I heard of you again. You were at Quetta, getting together a caravan."

      "That was in February. I crossed by the new trade route from Quetta to Seistan."

      She had spoken in an indefinite tone, which left him with no clue to her thoughts. Now, however she turned her eyes upon him, and said in a lower voice, which was very gentle--

      "Don't you think yon might have told me that you were going away for a year?"

      Warrisden had gone away deliberately, and as deliberately he had abstained from telling her of his intention. He had no answer to make to her question, and he did not attempt to invent one. He sat still and looked at her. She followed the question with another. "Don't you think it would have been kinder if you had written to me once or twice, instead of letting me hear about you from any chance acquaintance?"

      Again he made no answer. For he had deliberately abstained from writing. The gentleness with which she spoke was the most hopeful sign for him which she had made that evening. He had expected a harsher accusation. For Pamela made her claims upon her friends. They must put her first or there was likely to be a deal of trouble.

      "Well," she said, with a shrug of her shoulders, "I hope you enjoyed it."

      "Yes. I wish I could have thought you would have enjoyed it too. But you wouldn't have."

      "No," she answered listlessly.

      Warrisden was silent. He had expected the answer, but he was none the less disappointed to receive it. To him there was no century in the history of the world comparable to that in which he lived. It had its faults, of course. It was ugly and a trifle feverish, but to men of his stamp, the men with means and energy, a new world with countless opportunities had been opened up. Asia and Africa were theirs, and the farthest islands of the sea. Pamela, however, turned her back on it. The new trade route to Seistan had no message for her. She looked with envy upon an earlier century.

      "Of course," he resumed, "it's pleasant to come back, if only as a preparation for going away again."

      And then Pamela turned on him with her eyes wide open and a look of actual trouble upon her face.

      "No," she said with emphasis. She leaned forward and lowered her voice. "You have no right to work upon people and make them your friends, if you mean, when you have made them your friends, to go away without a word for ever so long. I have missed you very much."

      "I wanted you to miss me," he replied.

      "Yes, I thought so. But it wasn't fair," she said gently. "You see, I have been quite fair with you. If you had gone away at once, if you had left me alone when I said 'No' to you two years ago, then I should have no right to complain. I should have no right to call you back. But it's different now, and you willed that it should be different. You stayed by me. Whenever I turned, there were you at my side. You taught me to count on you, as I count on no one else. Yes, that's true. Well, then, you have lost the right to turn your back now just when it pleases you."

      "It wasn't because it pleased me."

      "No. I admit that," she agreed. "It was to make an experiment on me, but the experiment was made at my expense. For after all you enjoyed yourself," she added, with a laugh.

      Warrisden joined in the laugh.

      "It's quite true," he said. "I did." Then his voice dropped to the same serious tone in which she had spoken. "Why not say the experiment succeeded? Couldn't you say that?"

      Pamela shook her head.

      "No. I can give you no more now than I gave you a year ago, two years ago, and that is not enough. Oh, I know," she continued hurriedly as she saw that he was about to interrupt. "Lots of women are content to begin with friendship. How they can, puzzles me. But I know they do begin with nothing more than that, and very often it works out very well. The friendship becomes more СКАЧАТЬ