The Essential Elinor Glyn Collection. Glyn Elinor
felt rather uncomfortable about his old master, who he knew would not approve of any secret union with Halcyone. Not that Cheiron would reck much of conventionalities, or care in the least if it were a marriage at a registry-office or not, but he would certainly resent any aspect of the case which would seem to put a slight upon his much-loved protge or place her in a false position.
He would tell him nothing about it until it was an accomplished fact and Halcyone was his wife--then they would let him into the secret.
All the details of what she would have to say to her aunts in her letter of farewell on leaving them would have to be thought out, too, so that no pursuit or inopportune prying into the truth would be the consequence.
Of any possibility of her stepfather's ultimate interference he did not think, not knowing that she had even any further connection with him. To satisfy in some way the ancient aunts was all that appeared a necessity. And that was difficult enough. He had certainly undertaken no easy task, but he did not regret his decision. The first and only strong passion he had ever known was mastering him.
But there was yet one more unpleasant aspect to face--that was the situation regarding Mrs. Cricklander. He had assuredly not committed himself or even acted very unfairly to her. She had been playing a game as he had been. He did not flatter himself that she really loved him--now that he knew what love meant--and her ambition could be gratified elsewhere; but there remained the fact that he was engaged to stay with her for Whitsuntide, and whether to do so, and plainly show her that he had meant nothing and only intended to be a friend, or whether to throw the visit over, and go to London, returning just to fetch Halcyone about Wednesday, he could not quite decide.
Which would be the best thing to do? It worried him--but not for long, because indecision was not, as a rule, one of his characteristics, and he soon made up his mind to the former course.
He would go to Wendover on Saturday, as was arranged, take pains to disabuse his hostess's mind of any illusion upon the subject of his intentions, and, having run over to Bristol this afternoon to give notice to the registrar and procure the license, he would leave with the other guests on the Tuesday, after lunch, having sent his servant up to London in the morning to be out of the way.
Then he would sleep that night in Upminster, getting his servant to leave what luggage he required there--it was the junction for the main line to London, and so that would be easy. A motor could be hired, and in it, on the Wednesday, he would come to the oak avenue gate, as that was far at the other side of the park upon the western road; there he would arrange that Halcyone should be waiting for him with some small box, and they would go over to Bristol, be married, and then go on to a romantic spot he knew of in Wales, and there spend a week of bliss!
By the time he got thus far in his meditations he felt intoxicated again, and Mr. Carlyon, who was watching him as he sat there in his chair reading the _Times_ opposite him, wondered what made him suddenly clasp his hands and draw in his breath and smile in that idiotic way while he gazed into space!
Then there would be the afterwards. Of course, that would be blissful, too. Oh! if he could only claim her before all the world how glorious it would be--but for the present that was hopeless, and at all events her life with him would not be more retired than the one of monotony which she led at La Sarthe Chase, and would have his tenderest love to brighten it. He would take a tiny house for her somewhere--one of those very old-fashioned ones shut in with a garden still left in Chelsea, near the Embankment--and there he would spend every moment of his spare time, and try to make up to her for her isolation. Well arranged, the world need not know of this--Halcyone would never be _exigeante_--or if it did develop a suspicion, ministers before his day had been known to have had--_chres amies_.
But as this thought came he jumped from his chair. It was, when faced in a concrete fashion, hideously unpalatable as touching his pure, fair star.
"You are rather restless to-day, John," the Professor said, as his old pupil went hastily towards the open window and looked out.
"Yes," said John Derringham. "It is going to rain, and I must go to Bristol this afternoon. I have to see a man on business."
Cheiron's left penthouse went up into his forehead.
"Matters complicating?" was all he said.
"Yes, the very devil," responded John Derringham.
"Beginning to feel the noose already, poor lad?"
"Er--no, not exactly," and he turned round. "But I don't quite know what I ought to do about her--Mrs. Cricklander."
"A question of honor?"
"I suppose so."
The Professor grunted, and then chuckled.
"A man's honor towards a woman lasts as long as his love. When that goes, it goes with it--to the other woman."
"You cynic!" said John Derringham.
"It is the truth, my son. A man's point of view of such things shifts with his inclinations, and if other people are not likely to know, he does not experience any qualms in thinking of the woman's feelings--it is only of what the world will think of _him_ if it finds him out. Complete cowards, all of us!"
John Derringham frowned. He hated to know this was true.
"Well, I am not going to marry Mrs. Cricklander, Master," he announced after a while.
"I am very glad to hear it," Cheiron said heartily. "I never like to see a fine ship going upon the rocks. All your vitality would have been drawn out of you by those octopus arms."
"I do not agree with you in the least about any of those points," John Derringham said stiffly. "I have the highest respect for Mrs. Cricklander--but I can't do it."
"Well, you can thank whichever of your stars has brought you to this conclusion," growled the Professor. "I suppose I'll pull through somehow financially," the restless visitor went on, pacing the floor--"anyway, for a few years; there may be something more to be squeezed out of Derringham. I must see."
"Well, if you are not marrying that need not distress you," Cheiron consoled him with. "Those things only matter if a man has a son."
John Derringham stopped abruptly in his walk and looked at his old master.
His words gave him a strange twinge, but he crushed it down, and went on again:
"It is a curse, this want of money," he said. "It makes a man do base things that his soul revolts against." And then, in his restless moving, he absently picked up a volume of Aristotle, and his eye caught this sentence: "The courageous man therefore faces danger and performs acts of courage for the sake of what is noble."
And what did an honorable man do? But this question he would not go further into.
"You were out very late last night, John," Mr. Carlyon said presently. "I left this window open for you on purpose. The garden does one good sometimes. You were not lonely, I hope?"
"No," said John Derringham; but he would not look at his old master, for he knew very well he should see a whimsical sparkle in his eyes.
Mr. Carlyon, of course, must be aware of Halcyone's night wandering proclivities. And if there had been nothing to conceal John Derringham would have liked to have sat down now and rhapsodized all about his darling to his old friend, who adored her, too, and knew and appreciated all her points. He felt bitterly that Fate had not been as kind to him as she might have been. However, there was nothing for it, so he turned the conversation and tried to make himself grow as interested in a question of foreign policy as he would have been able to be, say, a year ago. And then he went out for a walk.
And Cheiron sat musing in his chair, as was his habit.
"The magnet of her soul is drawing his," he said to himself. "Well, now