CHAPTER XIII—SHUT OUT.

It’s to be our day, Teddy.”

The gate swung to behind them with a clang. He looked back and saw his father, framed in the window; then the palings of the next-door garden shut him out He was alone with her. It was as though with the clanging of the gate he had said “good-by” to childish things forever.

The world shone forth to meet them, romantic with frost and lacquered with ice. It was as though the sky had rained molten glass which, spreading out across trees, houses and pavements, had covered them with a skin of burning glory. Eden Row sparkled quaint and old-fashioned as a Christmas card. The river, which followed its length, gleamed like a bared saber. Windows, in the cliff-line of crooked houses, were jewels which glittered smoothly in the sunlight In the park, beyond the river, black boughs of trees were hieroglyphics carved on glaciers of cloud. Chimneys were top-hatted sentinels, crouching above smoldering camp-fires. Overhead the golden gong of the sun hung silent At any moment it seemed that a cloud must strike it and the brittle boom of the impact would mutter through the heavens. It was a world transformed—no longer a prison swung out into the void in which men and women struggled, and misunderstood, and loved and, in their loving, died.

Vashti felt for his hand. He wanted to take it and yet—— If he did, people who didn’t understand would think him nothing but a little boy. What he really wanted was to take her arm; he couldn’t reach up to that “Don’t you want to hold it?”

He laughed shyly and slipped his fingers softly into hers.

As they passed Orchid Lodge, standing flush with the pavement, she glanced up at the second story, where the line of windows commenced.

“The people who live there hate me. They’ll hate me more presently. I can’t blame them.”

She hurried her steps. Drawing a breath of relief, she whispered, “Look back and tell me whether anybody saw us.”

He looked back. Two figures were emerging from the doorway—one excessively fat, the other so lean that he looked like a straight line.

“Only the murd—— I mean Mr. Sheerug and Mr. Hughes. I don’t think they saw us.”

“That’s all right.”

She laughed merrily—not on one note as most people laugh, but all up and down the scale. The sparkle of morning was in her voice. Like a flash out of a happy dream she moved through the ice-cold world. People turned to gaze after her. A policeman, stamping his feet on the look-out for some attractive housemaid, touched his helmet She nodded.

“D’you know him?”

“Never clapped eyes on him in my life. A pretty woman belongs to the whole world, Teddy.”

Butcher boys, hopping down from carts, stood thunderstruck. After she had passed they whistled, giving vent to their approbation. Teddy had the satisfaction of knowing that he was envied; he snuggled his hand more closely into hers. Even Mr. Yaffon, the man who was as faded as a memory, raised dim eyes and shrunk against the wall, stung into painful life. His little dog waddled ahead, doing her best to coax him to come on, trying to say, “None of that, Master. You’ve done it once; please not a second time.”

Was it only Teddy’s fancy—the fancy of every lover since the world was created—that everything, animate and inanimate, was jealous of him? Streets seemed to blaze at her coming. Sparrows flew down and chirped noisily in the gutters, as though they felt that where she was there should be singing. Famished trees shivered and broke their silence, mumbling hoarse apologies: “It isn’t our fault Winter’s given us colds in the head. If we had our way, we’d be leafy for you.”

Years later Teddy looked back and questioned, was it love that the little boy felt that winter’s morning? He had experienced what the grown world calls real love by then, and yet he couldn’t see the difference, except that real love is more afraid, thinks more of itself and is more exacting. If love be a divine uplifting, a desirable madness, a mirage of fine deception which exists only in the lover’s brain, then he felt it that morning. And he felt it in all its goodness, without the manifold doubts as to ulterior motives, without the unstable tenderness which so swiftly changes to utterest cruelty, and without the need to crush in order to make certain. In his love of Vashti he came nearer to the white standards of chivalry than was ever again to be his lot In later years he asked himself, was she really so incredibly beautiful? Did her step have the lightness, her face the bewitching power, her voice the gentleness he had imagined? By that time he had learnt the cynical wisdom which wonders, “What is this hand that I hold so fast, more than any other hand? What are these lips? Flesh—-there are others as warm and beautiful Is this meeting love or is it chance?”

He was far from that blighting caution yet Merely to be allowed to serve her, if it could help her to be allowed to die for her, to be allowed to give his all—he asked no more. He carried his all in an ill-wrapped parcel beneath his arm. She observed it.

“Holloa! Brought your luggage?”

“Not my luggage.”

“Then what?”

He flushed. “Can’t tell you yet.”

“Oh, but tell me!”

“I—I couldn’t here—not where every one’s passing.”

“Something for me?” she guessed.

He nodded.

Higher up the street, outside a public house, a hansom cab was standing.

“I must know,” she laughed. “Can’t wait another second. We’ll be alone in that.”

“Where to?” asked the cabby, peering through the trap.

“Anywhere. Piccadilly Circus.”

The doors closed as if folded by invisible hands. The window lowered. They were in a little house which fled across main thoroughfares, up side streets, round corners. He was more alone with her than ever. He could feel the warmth of her furs. He could hear her draw her breath.

“Well?” she asked.

As he placed it in her lap the parcel jingled. “I saved it,” he explained, “for us—for you and me, because of what somebody told me.”

She tore the paper off. In her hands was a wooden box with MARRIAGE inked across it.

“Marriage!” She raised it to her ear and shook it “Money!”

Teddy gazed straight before him. The pounding of the horse’s hoofs seemed no louder than the pounding of his heart. ’Harriet said that five pounds were the least that a lady would expect. “And so—and so—— There’s five pounds.”

He wasn’t looking at her. He didn’t dare to look at her. And so he couldn’t be sure whether she had sighed or laughed. A horrible fear struck him: she might be wondering how so young a person could come honestly by so large a fortune. He spoke quickly. “It’s mine, all of it I asked for money for Christmas. Jimmie Boy paid me for going into his picture; and Hal and Mrs. Sheerug—they gave me——”

“And it’s for me?”

“Why, of course.”

“And it’s all you’ve got—everything you have in the world?” Her arm slipped about him. “You’re the little god Love, Teddy; that’s what you are.”

Traffic was growing thick about them. They came to a crossing where a policeman held up his hand. Through the panes misted over by their breath, they watched the crawling caravan of carts and buses. In the sudden cessation from motion it seemed to Teddy that the eyes of the world were gazing in on them. “A little boy and a grown lady!” they were saying. “He wants to be her husband!” And then they laughed. Not till they were traveling again did he pick up his courage.

“Can we—can we——”

“Can we what?”

“Be married to-day? You said ‘some day’ when you promised.”

For her it was a strange situation, as absurd as it was pathetic. For a moment she tried not to take him seriously, then she glanced down at the eager face, the Eton suit, the clasped hands. In his childish world the make-believe was real. For him the faery tale, enacted for her own diversion, had been a promise. She felt angry with herself—as angry as a sportsman who, intending to miss, has brought down a songbird. Playing at love was her recreation. She couldn’t help it—it was in her blood: her approach to everything masculine was by way of fascination. She felt herself a goddess; it was life to her to be worshiped. All men’s friendships had to be love affairs or else they were insipid; on her side she pledged herself to no more than friendship. Not to be adored piqued her.

But to have flirted with a child! To have filled him with dreams and to have broken down his shyness! As she sat there with his box, labeled MARRIAGE, in her lap, she wondered what was best to be done. If she told him it was a jest, she would rub the dust off the moth-wings of his faith forever. There was only one thing: to continue the extravagant pretense.

“It’s splendid of you, Teddy, to have saved so much.”

“Is it much? Really much?”

“Well, isn’t it?”

His high spirits came back. He laughed and leant his head against her shoulder. “I don’t know. I’m not very old yet.”

“It’s because of that——” She knitted her brows, puzzling how she could break the news to him most gently. In the back of her mind she smiled to remember how much this consideration would have meant to some of her lovers. “It’s because you’re not so very old yet, that I think we ought to wait a year.”

“A year!” He sat up and stared. “But a year’s a whole twelve months!”

She patted his hand. “You wouldn’t like to have people laugh at me, would you? A year would give you time to grow up. And besides, before I marry, there are so many things to be done. I haven’t told you, but I’m going to America almost directly—going to sing there. Five pounds is a terrific lot of money in England, but in America it would soon get spent. Even though you were my husband, you wouldn’t be able to come. You’d have to stay here alone in our new house, and that wouldn’t be very jolly.”

He saw his dream crumbling and tried to be a man; but his lip trembled. “I don’t think—— Perhaps you never meant your promise.”

The trap-door in the roof opened. The hoarse voice of the cabby intruded. “’Ere we are. Piccadilly Circus.”

Vashti felt for her purse in her muff. It wasn’t there. She thought for a minute, then gave the man an address and told him to drive on.

“But I did mean my promise,” she assured Teddy. “Why, a year’s not long. Cheer up. Think of all the fun we’ll have writing letters. Harriet can’t have told you properly about marriage. One has to be very careful. One has to get a house and buy things for it. There are heaps of things to be bought when one gets married.”

“And wouldn’t five pounds be enough?”

She shook her head sorrowfully. “Not quite enough. But don’t let’s think about it. This is our day, Teddy, and we’re going to be happy. Guess where I’m taking you; it proves that I meant my promise.”

When he couldn’t guess, she bent over him and whispered. He clapped his hands. “To see a house!”

“To see our house,” she corrected, smiling mysteriously. “I always knew that some day I’d meet the little god Love; and so I got a house ready for him. It’s a faery house, Teddy; only you and I can see it. If you were ever to tell any one, especially Mrs. Sheerug, it would vanish.”

“I’ll never, never tell. I won’t even tell Dearie. And does nobody, nobody but you and me, know about it?”

She hesitated; then, “Nobody,” she answered.

To have a secret with her which no one else shared, almost made up for the disappointment of not being married. Holding her hand, he watched eagerly the flying rows of houses, trying to guess which was the one.

“It’s in nearly the next street, Teddy.”

“This one?”

“Not this one. Ours has a little white gate and a garden; it’s ever so much cosier.”

They had left the traffic where the snow was churned into mud. Once more it was a world of spun glass, of whiteness and quiet, that they traversed. To Teddy it seemed that the cab was magic; it knew its way out of ugliness to the places where dreams grow up.

The cab halted; the window flew back and the doors opened of themselves. They stepped out on to the pavement. The little white gate was there, just as Vashti had said. A path led up, through snow as soft as cotton-wool, to a red-brick nest of a house. A look of warmth lay behind its windows. Plants, leaning forward to catch the light, pressed against the panes. A canary fluttered in a gilded cage like a captured ray of sun.

A maid in cap and apron answered the bell. She was not at all like Jane, who never looked tidy till after lunch.

“Lost my purse, Pauline,” Vashti pouted. “I couldn’t pay my fare, so had to drive home. The cabman’s waiting.” Pauline had been watching the strange little boy with unfriendly eyes. “If you please, mam, he’s here.” She sank her voice. Teddy caught the last words, “In the drawing-room, playing with Miss Desire.”

Vashti frowned. She looked at Teddy as Pauline had done. He felt at once that a mistake had been made, that there was something that he must not see and that, because of the person in the drawing-room, he was not wanted.

“What shall I do? Stupid of me!” Turning to the maid, Vashti spoke in a lowered voice, “Go up to my room quietly and bring me down my money. We’ll be sitting in the cab and you can bring it out—— No. That won’t do. He might think that I hadn’t wanted to see him. There’d be a fuss. What am I to do, Pauline? For heaven’s sake suggest something.”

“Couldn’t the little boy go and sit in the cab, while you——”

Vashti had her hand on the latch to let Teddy out when shrill laughter rang through the house. A door in the hall burst open and a small girl ran out, pursued by a man on his hands and knees. He had a rug flung over his head and shoulders, and was roaring loudly like a lion. The little girl was too excited to notice where she was going or who were present.

She ran on, glancing backward, till she charged full tilt into Teddy. “Save me,” she cried, clinging to him and trying to hide herself behind him. He put his arms about her and faced the lion.

Balked of his prey, the lion halted. No one spoke. In the unaccounted-for silence the lion lost his fierceness. Throwing back the rug, he looked up. Teddy found himself gazing into a face he recognized.

“Of all the——”

Hal rose to his feet and dusted his knees. He glanced meaningly from Teddy to Vashti. “Is this wise?”

“Shish!” Her lips did scarcely more than frame the warning. “Hal, I never told you,” she said gayly, “Teddy’s in love with me and one day we’re going to be married. That’s why I brought him to see the house. He’s promised never to breathe a word of what he sees, because it’s a faery house and, if he does, it’ll vanish.”

Hal tried to look very serious. “Oh, yes, most certainly it’s a faery house. I’m only allowed here because I’m your champion.”

The boy’s quick instinct told him that an attempt was being made to deceive him. He wondered why. Who was the little girl who had nestled against him? Finding that he was a stranger she had become shy. He looked at her. She was younger than himself. Long curls, the color of Vashti’s, fell upon her tiny shoulders. She was exquisitely slight Her frock was a pale blue to match her eyes, and very short above her knees. She looked like a spring flower, made to nod and nod in the sunshine and to last only for a little while. More spirit than body had gone to her making; a puff of wind would send her dancing out of sight.

“Desire, come here, darling. Say thank you to the boy for saving you from the lion.”

Kneeling, Vashti took the little girl’s reluctant hand and held it out to Teddy. Desire snatched it away and began to cry. A knocking at the door caused a diversion; it was the cabman demanding his fare and asking how much longer they expected him to wait Hal paid; Teddy noticed that Vashti let him pay as if it were his right.

He was mystified; the house and what happened in it were so different from anything he had expected. Vashti had been so emphatic that no one but herself and himself were to know about it, and here were Hal and Pauline and the little girl who knew about it already. Hal’s expression, when he had thrown the rug from his shoulders, had been that of a man who was found out. But his eyes, when they had met Vashti’s, had become daring with gladness. Teddy was aware that he had been brought unintentionally to the edge of a big secret which he could not understand.

The cabman had been gone for a long time. Teddy had been left to amuse himself in the room where the canary hopped in its cage and the plants leant forward to catch the sunlight. It was a long room, running from the front of the house to the back and was divided by an archway. In the back part a fire burned and a couch was drawn up before the fire. He hadn’t the heart to go to it, but stood gazing out between the plants into the street in the exact spot where Vashti had left him. Every now and then the canary twittered, as if trying to draw him into conversation; sometimes it dropped seeds on his head. He didn’t know quite what it was he feared or why. On an easel in the archway he espied The Garden Enclosed, which his father had painted. The little god was still peering in through the gate. Teddy had hoped that by now he might have entered the garden. Like the little god he waited, with ears attentive to catch any sound in the quiet He seemed to have been waiting for ages.

A door in the back half of the room opened. Hal and Vashti came in, walking near together. Vashti looked round Hal’s shoulder and called to Teddy, “Not much longer now. I’ll be with you in a moment.” Then they both seemed to forget him.

Seated on the couch before the fire, their heads nearly touching, they spoke earnestly. Perhaps they didn’t know how far their voices carried. Perhaps they were too self-absorbed to notice. Perhaps they didn’t care. Hal held her hand, opening and closing the fingers, and stooping sometimes to kiss the tips of them.

“I’d come to the breaking point,” he whispered; “I either had to have you altogether or to do without you. It was the shilly-shallying, the neither one thing nor the other, that broke me down.” He laughed and caught his breath. “I tried to do without you, Vashti; there were times when I almost hated you. You seemed not to trouble that I was going out of your life. But now—— Well, if you must keep your freedom, we’ll at least have all the happiness we can. I’ll do what you like. I’m not going to urge you any more, but I still hope for Desire’s sake that some day we’ll——”

“Poor boy, you still want to own me. But tell me, was it hearing that I was going to America that brought you back?”

“Brought me back!” He pressed her open palm against his mouth. “To you, dearest, wherever you were, I should always be coming back. How could I help it? Hulloa! That’s fine.” His eyes had caught the picture. “Where did you——”

“All the while you were angry with me I was having it painted for you. But I shan’t be giving it to you now.” She glanced sideways at him with mocking tenderness. “You won’t need it. It was to be a farewell present to some one who had changed his mind.”

He drew her face down. “My darling, my mind will never change.”

Suddenly she broke from his embrace and glanced back into the room, raising her voice. “You know it’s Teddy that I’m going to marry, if ever I do marry. Why, we almost thought we’d get married this morning. Come here, my littlest lover. Don’t look so downhearted. Champions are allowed to kiss their ladies’ hands. Didn’t Hal tell you? Well, they are, and you may if you like.”

Teddy didn’t kiss her hand. He cuddled down on the hearthrug with his head against her knees, feeling himself like Love in the picture, forever shut out. The soul had vanished from his glorious day. He was hoping that Hal would go; she didn’t seem to belong to him while he stayed. Lunch went by, tea came, and still he stayed. A blind forlornness filled his mind that he couldn’t be a man. In spite of her caresses he felt in his heart that all her promises had been pretense.

Not until night had fallen and she got into the cab to take him home did he have her to himself. The lamps stared out on the snow like two great eyes. Once again it was a faery world of mysterious hints and shadows.

She drew him to her. She realized the dull hopelessness of the child and wondered what would be his estimate of her, if he remembered, when he became a man. Would he think that he had been tampered with and made the plaything of a foolish woman’s idleness? She wanted to provide against that. She wanted him always to think well of her. She felt almost humble in the presence of his accusing silence. She had a strange longing to apologize.

“It hasn’t—hasn’t been quite our day, Teddy—not quite the day we’d planned. I’m dreadfully sorry; I wouldn’t have had it happen this way for the world.”

He didn’t stir—didn’t say a word. She made her voice sound as if she were crying; he wasn’t certain that she wasn’t crying.

“You’re not angry with me, are you? It’s so difficult being grown up. Sooner or later every one gets angry, even Hal. But I thought that my littlest lover would be different—that, though he didn’t understand, he’d still like me and believe that I’d tried——”

His arms shot up and clasped her neck. In the flashlight of the passing street lamps she saw his face, quivering and tear wet. She couldn’t account for it, why she, a woman, should be so deeply moved. She had conjured dreams of a man who would one day gaze into her eyes like that, believing only the best that was in her and, because of that belief, making the best permanent. She had experimented with the world and knew that she would never meet the man; love lit passion in men’s eyes. But for a moment she had found that faith in the face of a little child. The fickleness and wildness died down in her blood; the moment held a purifying silence. Taking his face between her hands, she kissed his lips.

“I’m going away,” she whispered. “Whatever you hear, even when you’ve become a man, believe always that I wanted to be good. Believe that, whatever happens. Promise me, Teddy. It—it’ll help.”