The Essential Writings of Marie Belloc Lowndes. Marie Belloc Lowndes

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      Chapter VII

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      Only Harber, the woman who, after having been maid to Katty during her troubled married life, had stayed on with her as house-parlourmaid and general factotum, was aware of how very often Mr. Pavely called at Rosedean on his daily walk home from Pewsbury. To-day he had hardly pressed the bell-knob before the front door opened. It was almost as if Harber had been waiting for him in the hall.

      As he put down his hat and stick he was conscious of feeling very glad that he was going to see Katty. Mrs. Winslow had again been away, was it for four days, or five? It's true that for part of that time he himself had been to London, and very busy, but even so the time had seemed long. He told himself that he had a hundred things to say to her, and he even felt a little thrill of excitement as he followed the servant through the hall.

      And Katty? Katty, who the moment she had heard the front-door bell had quietly begun making the tea—she always made tea herself, with the help of a pretty spirit lamp—Katty also felt a queer little thrill, but for a very different reason. Since they had last met she had come to a certain resolution with regard to Godfrey Pavely, and though she did not mean to say anything to-day even remotely bearing on it, still it affected her, made her regard him with rather different eyes.

      It is a great mistake to think that coldness and calculation always go together. Katty Winslow was calculating, but she was not cold. For once she had been quite honest when writing that odd little postscript to her letter of thanks for Godfrey Pavely's wedding present. Godfrey had, in very truth, been her first love, and she had suffered acutely in her heart, as well as in her pride, when he had run away. Even now, she felt as if there were a strong, secret, passionate link between them, and there was no day when she did not tell herself that she would have made the banker a perfect, and yes—a very happy wife.

      Godfrey came into the drawing-room with a pleased, eager look on his face. He took his hostess's hand in his, and held it for perhaps a thought longer than he would have held, say, Mrs. Tropenell's hand. But the hand he now held was a soft, malleable little hand, not thin and firm, like that of Oliver's mother.

      Katty was smiling at him, such a bright, friendly, pretty smile. "Sit down," she said softly. "And before we begin talking, take a cup of tea. You look very tired—and you're late, too, Godfrey. I was beginning to think that you weren't coming at all!"

      And then he said something which surprised her, but which somehow chimed in quite surprisingly with what had been filling her busy, active brain of late.

      "Jim Beath has been with me most of the afternoon," he spoke wearily, complainingly. "I had to ask him to lunch at the Club, and he stayed on and on."

      Now the Beaths were by way of being intimate friends of Katty Winslow, and Jim Beath was a client of Godfrey Pavely.

      "Oh, but that's very interesting!" she cried. "I've been wondering so much how that affair is going on—I do so hope it will be all right!"

      And then, as she saw a shocked look come over her visitor's narrow, rather fleshy face, she said in a low voice, "You know how I feel about the divorce laws, Godfrey. I can't help it. They're horribly unfair—so—so ridiculous, in fact!"

      As he remained silent, she went on, insisting on her own point of view far more than was her usual way when talking to her self-opinionated friend: "Don't you realise how hard it is that two people utterly unsuited to one another should have to go through that sort of horrid farce just in order to get free?"

      He looked at her uncomfortably. Sometimes, even now, Katty startled him by the things she said. But how pretty she looked to-day, bending over the tea-things! Her burnished hair was dressed in thick soft coils, her white, well-manicured hand busily engaged in pouring him out just the cup of tea he liked, with the exact proportions of milk, cream, and sugar that were right—and which Laura never remembered.

      So it was mildly that he answered: "I don't think the Beaths ought to want to get what you call 'free.' Divorce was not instituted to meet a case like theirs—" he hesitated, and then with a certain effort he went on: "Divorce was instituted to meet a case like yours, Katty."

      Godfrey Pavely was weary of the Beaths and of their divorce plot—for so he called it to himself. There were other things he wanted to talk to Katty about. Besides, he did not think that that sort of affair was a nice subject of discussion between a man and a woman, however intimate. In some ways Godfrey Pavely was very old-fashioned.

      But she wouldn't let it alone. "Divorce ought to meet a case like theirs," she went on obstinately.

      "My dear Katty! What would happen to the country if all the married people who didn't get on with one another were to separate?"

      And then, looking at her defiant face, a most extraordinary and disagreeable suspicion darted into Godfrey Pavely's mind. Was it possible, conceivable, that Katty was thinking of Jim Beath as a second husband for herself? The thought shook him with anger and with repugnance. He felt he must have that out—here and now.

      "Do you like Jim Beath?" he asked slowly; "I know you've been seeing a great deal of them this last year. In fact, he mentioned you to-day."

      She could read him like a book, and she remained silent long enough to make him feel increasingly suspicious and uncomfortable.

      But to-day Katty was not in the mood for a cat-and-mouse game, so she answered deliberately: "No, Godfrey, I can't say that I do like Jim Beath! I've tried to like him. But—well, I do thoroughly understand Nita's feeling towards him. He's so sarcastic—so hard and unsympathetic!" She waited a moment, then added significantly: "Still, I think he's behaving awfully well now. He'd have been quite willing to go on—he told me that himself. But when he saw that Nita was really unhappy, and that she was getting fond of another man, he made up his mind that he would do all he could to make her free."

      Katty was playing rather nervously with the edge of the pretty tea-cloth, СКАЧАТЬ