The Education of Eric Lane. Stephen McKenna
glancing slowly round over the top of her tumbler at the panelled walls and shining oak table. "And I like your invisible lighting. It's restful, and I hate a glare. What other rooms have you?"
"Kitchen next door," he answered with intentional abruptness; "then the servants' room—you won't make a noise, will you? or you'll wake them up. Bathroom, spare room, my own room, smoking-room. No, the limits of my unconventionality are soon reached; you can finish your soda-water in the smoking-room, and then I'll take you home."
"But I should like to see your room," she answered with the grave persistence of an unreasonable child. "Mine's purple and white in London—purple carpet, purple curtains, purple counterpane—and nothing but white—except the rose-wood, of course—at Crawleigh."
"This is the smoking-room," said Eric, conscientiously firm and unimpressed.
Barbara gave a little gasp of pleasure as he flooded the room with light. Book-cases surrounded three walls, stretching half-way to the ceiling and topped with rose-bowls and bronzes. The fourth was warmed by long rose Du Barry curtains over the two windows; between them stood a Chippendale writing-table. The rest of the room was given up to an irregular circle of sofas and arm-chairs, white-covered and laden with rose Du Barry satin cushions, surrounding a second table.
"I am glad I came!" she cried. "You know how to make yourself comfortable, Eric! Of course, the first cigarette I drop on your adorable grey carpet—you see how it matches my dress?—the first cigarette spoils it for ever. And the roses!" With a characteristically impulsive jerk she dragged the tulle band and artificial flower from her hair, tossed them to Eric and stretched her hand up for a red rose to take their place. "Ah! beloved celibate! not a mirror in the room! I shall have to——"
"Please stay where you are, Lady Barbara."
She crammed the rose carelessly into her hair and dropped on the nearest sofa.
"Do take that coat off and sit down here!" she begged him.
"I'm waiting to take you home."
"But I'm not going home yet. I'm enjoying myself, I'm happy."
"I'm waiting to take you home," he repeated.
She pouted and glanced up at him through half-closed eyes.
"You don't care whether I'm happy or not. You're soullessly selfish!" She looked round and helped herself to a cigarette; then her hand crept invitingly, with the shy daring of a mouse, along the sofa. "I want a match."
Eric took the cigarette and replaced it in its box.
"Bed-time," he said. "This meeting was not of my contriving, Lady Barbara, and, when you've learned the meaning of words, you'll find that it won't affect your happiness——"
His flow was arrested by a startling gasp.
"Oh, it's no good!" Barbara cried. "You're hopeless, hopeless."
To his amazement she had sprung to her feet, angry and disfigured, forgetting to break through his guard, tossing her weapon away; no longer teasing, imperious or purposely reckless; and without one of her disarming lapses into simplicity. It was the mingled pain and anger of a flesh-wound clumsily reopened. The next moment she had collapsed on the sofa, stiffly upright, staring at him with hot eyes. Then the set cheeks and compressed lips relaxed like the scattering petals of a blown rose; her mouth drooped, her eyes half-closed, and she began to cry.
Eric looked in consternation at her puckered, pathetic face, suddenly colourless save for dark rings round the big, hollow eyes. Then he sat down and drew her to him, patting her hand and talking to her half as if she were a child, half as though she were capable of understanding his weighty diagnosis.
"Lady Barbara! Lady Barbara! Are you listening to me? You mustn't cry—really. … It takes away all your prettiness. Now, you were fairly hard on me at dinner, weren't you? But I do possess some intelligence; I didn't need to have Lady Poynter shouting from the house-top that you were ill. You're worn out, you ought to be in bed and you ought to stay there, instead of exciting yourself. Lady Barbara, please stop crying! I don't know what I said, but I'm very humbly sorry. Won't you stop?"
She stiffened herself with a jerk and smiled as abruptly.
"It was my fault. I've not been well and I've been very miserable. Give me a little kiss, Eric, to shew you're not angry with me."
She leaned forward and put her hands on his shoulders again.
"Why should I be angry with you?" he asked with a defensive laugh.
Her hands dropped into her lap.
"You won't kiss me?"
"What difference would it make?"
"I ask you to. What difference would it make to you?"
Eric fumbled industriously with a cigarette.
"It so happens that I've never kissed any one," he said, "except my mother and sister, of course." Then, as she sat hungrily reproachful, he repeated: "What difference would it make?"
"You wouldn't understand … " she sighed. "And yet I thought you would. Where did you get that tray from, Eric? You've never been to India, have you?"
"It was given me by an uncle of mine. Lady Barbara—If it will give you any satisfaction. … "
He kissed her forehead with shame-faced timidity and became discursively explanatory.
"The candle-sticks were looted during the Commune," he began hurriedly. "I was given them as a house-warming present. The clock … "
Barbara was wandering listlessly round the room and paying little attention to what he was saying. She explored the book-cases, ransacked the writing-table and looked curiously at the horse-shoe paper-weight.
"You can give this to me, Eric," she suggested over her shoulder.
"I'm afraid it was a present. Given me on my first night."
"It would still be a present, if you gave it to me. I had one, but I broke it. All my luck's left me since then. Are you superstitious?"
"Not—in—the—least! I keep this for associations and a toy. If I could bring out a play on Friday the thirteenth——"
"If you're not superstitious, there's no excuse for not giving it to me."
She tossed the horse-shoe into the air and caught it neatly with her right hand.
"I'll see if I can get you another one," he promised, "but I don't know whether they're made in England."
"It might make all the difference to me," she pleaded, catching the horse-shoe with her left hand. "It's only a toy to you—a child's toy."
Eric shook his head at her. Barbara pouted and threw the horse-shoe a third time into the air, bending forward to catch it behind her back as it dropped. Eric, watching apprehensively, saw a flash of apprehension reflected for an instant in her eyes; then there was a tinkle of broken glass.
"Oh, my dear! I wouldn't have done that for the world!" she cried, pressing her hands against her cheeks. "I've destroyed your luck now! What a fool I was! Abject fool!"
"What does it matter?" Eric laughed.
"I wouldn't have done that for the world," she repeated with a white face.
"And you're living in the year of grace nineteen-fifteen? It's only—What did we call it? A child's toy. And, between ourselves, it wasn't a very efficient paper-weight. I can assure you I shan't miss it."
"Perhaps you will some day. And then you'll lift up your hands and curse the hour when you first met me."
Eric looked complacently at the airy room, the crowded book-cases, the soft chairs, the bellying curtains and the neat pile of manuscript on his writing-table:
"Aren't