Chapter 42

Peter at dinner was next Vivette, and Atterbury, with Miranda, was at the far end of a long table. He heard only snatches of their talk, enough to show that Miranda entirely outmatched him in conversation and address. She was complete mistress of herself. She had put away all sense of crisis, ignoring the tumult of her late encounter. Atterbury loved all things French, and Peter had many opportunities to notice their enthusiastic agreement.

Peter could not so well recover. Miranda's return had blotted out the last five years. He saw no change in her. She was the woman he had always divined her to be. He had never seen in her the awkward girl whose disappearance Mrs. Paragon had noted. Her refusal to accept him at once and take up their life from the point at which they had parted became increasingly absurd as in numberless gestures, in the play of her spirit made visible, he recognised ever more clearly the girl he had lost. His wonder grew, equally, at the way in which for five years he had ignored her existence. These years now seemed unreal. Surely he had loved her always, and always had been full of her.

If only he called to her in the old familiar way, surely she would no longer play the stranger. She[Pg 319] would recognise their bond, and all this pageant, holding them absurdly apart, would disappear.

Miranda knew how Peter watched her; how he was living himself back into the past; how he was seeking for a sign that she admitted their union. But she would not yet confess that between them a secret current ran even as she talked and laughed and accepted Atterbury's vivacious gallantry. She had yet to hear from Peter why for five years he had made no sign. He deserved at any rate to be put on his defence.

Peter's wonderful last adventure returned upon him in waves of uphappy consciousness, to be decently put away in heroic efforts to entertain his guests, and be the companion of Vivette. But it was always with a start of the mind that he returned to his duties.

Vivette was deeply offended. Peter was again on fire. She had seen him leap into flame at the sight of a stranger. She had not expected her warning to Peter to be so quickly justified. His behaviour to-night, to put it no higher, was a breach of manners. She had taken Peter very seriously, and he now was doing his best to show she had been mistaken. Her face visibly burned when she remembered how intimately she had abased herself. He had touched a deeper vein in her than she had known, but now he was turning her late act to ridicule.

She talked to him only in answers, and several times he found her distastefully watching the [Pg 320]absorbed trend of his attention towards Miranda. Peter was now wholly wretched. Between himself and Miranda a gulf was fixed, and Vivette's hostility aggravated his misery.

At last Vivette and Peter were isolated from the conversation. Their neighbours were each talking on the other side. Peter felt the strain was becoming intolerable. He had turned from watching Miranda to Vivette, and her contemptuous amusement whipped him to a defence.

"This is not what it seems," he said in a low voice.

"Perfection at last," Vivette contemptuously suggested.

"I have known her for years," he pleaded, glancing towards Miranda.

"Really I can't listen. Let us at least bury our own affair."

"I am speaking the literal truth."

Vivette was surprised at his vehemence.

"I am not good at riddles," she said, looking at him closely.

"You don't know what has happened."

"I know," Vivette retorted in a voice that cut him, "that you have had the discourtesy to be smitten with a strange woman within a week of making love to me."

"She is the first woman I ever knew."

Vivette looked closely at Peter.

"It is the literal truth," he said. "Five years ago."

[Pg 321]

Vivette looked from his face, blazing with veracity, to the very sociable stranger at the other end of the table.

"She does not seem to remember," she objected incisively.

Peter followed Vivette's glance towards Miranda, radiantly responding to the talk of Atterbury.

Conversation broke out again on either side, claiming them. Vivette had seen the truth in Peter's face. Her hostility was checked. She felt another kind of interest in Miranda, watching her carefully. When next she had an opportunity of speaking in a personal way to Peter she had discovered that Miranda was less remote from Peter's excitement than she seemed. Her mind rapidly and generously took in the new position.

"What is her name?" she abruptly asked when they were free to talk.

"Her name was Miranda. Her other name was not Le Roy. I had lost sight of her."

"Had you also forgotten her?"

"Till to-night."

"And now," said Vivette, not without sarcasm, "you think you have always remembered."

"How do you know that?" Peter asked.

Vivette looked at his poor face and smiled. "She remembers you, Peter," she said. "She remembers you very well."

"She is utterly absorbed," objected Peter.

"It is overdone," Vivette decided.

[Pg 322]

"Why should she do it at all?"

"You best know if it serves you right."

"She must think I have never cared."

"Your mother arranged this meeting," said Vivette in meditation.

"She must have recognised Miranda from the sketch," Peter explained.

"How did your mother know you would remember her?"

"She knows everything," said Peter simply.

Mrs. Paragon sat quietly with Haversham. Haversham had noticed Peter's strange behaviour, and Mrs. Paragon had already told him the whole tale. The dinner proceeded to an end, its essential currents moving beneath the surface. Miranda, with veiled eyes, admitted by no sign that they in the least affected her. But she was gradually flooded with a tide of happiness. She held it off, allowing it only to polish further the glitter of her surface.

Peter's crowning misery that night was the speeches. Atterbury, proposing him, was unaware of any need for discretion. He tactfully and wittily pinned the toast to his caricature, already famous, of Peter as the Pilgrim of Love. The table roared with delight, and, finding Peter's response lacking in conviction, was more delighted at this further proof that Atterbury's barbs had stuck.

At last the party broke up. Vivette had by that time carefully measured Miranda.

[Pg 323]

"This is good-bye, indeed," she said to Peter at parting. Peter had taken her home to the flat in Soho. His mother had gone with Atterbury and Miranda.

"I'm not sure that I shall go," answered Peter obtusely, thinking of his desolate voyage.

"Precisely," said Vivette. "That is why I am saying good-bye."

Vivette held out her hand. Peter dubiously held it a moment.

"I have treated you very badly, Vivette."

"I am well pleased."

"I owe you so much," he insisted.

She put her free hand on his shoulder and lightly kissed him.

"How good you are, Vivette," Peter fervently exclaimed.

"You're spoiling it, as usual," said Vivette, softly writhing. "Please go at once. I am in the mood to part with you."