And Miles Marbury would be still in Brussels, seeing the cobbled place and the trees on the boulevard, without her. Eve was not a sentimentalist.
“He will miss me,” she told herself with conviction, and she knew that she was glad.
II
“Why are you so grand, Denis, with your loge?”
“It wasn’t very dear,” the Irishman answered apologetically. “They don’t charge much here, at any time, and with the franc what it is, the best seat in the house comes cheap. But I’d a reason for getting my loge, as you call it.”
“Had you?”
Eve spoke absently.
She had been wondering all the evening if she would tell O’Reilly at the last minute that he must find somebody else to share his loge.
Marbury had kept beside her all through the visit to the Congo Museum, and afterwards, but to-night he was sitting beside the Greek lady in the stalls. He was musical, and so was she.
Eve was not.
“It seemed my only chance of a word with you,” said Denis. “We’ve all gone about in herds, ever since we’ve been here, and no one except Marbury has had a look in. Are you going to marry him, Eve?”
“Some people might consider that an indiscreet question,” she said pointedly.
“I’m sure it is, but I want an answer.”
“It’s just going to begin.”
The curtain rose, and O’Reilly somehow put his long legs out of the way and sat down behind Eve.
In the other two seats were a Belgian and his wife.
Eve hoped that they did not understand English, for at every possible moment — and some impossible ones — O’Reilly made love to her.
She had known him for nearly a year, and she was attracted by the ardour of his love-making, and by his intelligence where women were concerned.
She went out with him very often, she had allowed him to kiss her, and she was more nearly herself with him than with any man she knew.
Often, Eve wished that it had been possible to fall in love with Denis.
But he had no money, although, oddly enough, she believed in his future.
Presently he whispered:
“I’ve a piece of news for you. This very day I’ve had a job offered me. And what do you think it’s worth?”
“Forty pounds a year?” she mocked.
“Three hundred, no less! And a hundred — well, nearly a hundred — from what I write, and another odd hundred from backing winners, and so on — that’s practically five hundred a year. Why, it’s riches! If you won’t marry me on that, Eve, will you be engaged to me?”
She shook her head.
“Darling, why not? I swear I’ll make good. This stuff of mine is going to improve — people who really know say that there’s promise in it.”
“I quite believe it, Denis. You know I think your stuff’s wonderful. But don’t ask me to marry you. I don’t want to marry anyone who isn’t rich. I know too much about poverty.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you loved me.”
“Probably not. I’m not being cynical, Denis. I sometimes wish that I could fall in love and be senseless, like other girls — but I just can’t. The other things count for more with me, that’s all.”
The music began again and he made no answer. But in the interval as they stood up to leave the box, he said to her:
“Do you mean that you’d marry a man you didn’t love if he were rich? It sounds old-fashioned, put like that, I admit, but I really should like to know.”
“I’ve never been put to the test, Denis, so I’m afraid I can’t tell you.”
“Eve, that’s pretty nearly the first time you haven’t given me a straight answer to a straight question.”
Eve shrugged her shoulders.
They went out into the wide vestibule where a group of people was already assembled round the buffet. The audience was thronging out into the fresher air.
“Have a lemonade?” O’Reilly offered.
“Thank you, I think I’d like one.”
She sipped the lemonade slowly, when it was handed to her, looking up at O’Reilly.
“I like your green frock.”
“It isn’t — it’s blue. But I’m glad you like it.” She smiled, but remembered at the same time that the blue frock wasn’t paid for. She had bought it on purpose to come to Brussels, and she had bought new shoes, and a new hat, and new gloves at the same time. And none of the things were paid for.
“What is it?” said Denis softly.
The quickness of his intuition moved her, as had often happened before. He observed everything and understood almost everything.
“Here you are—”
‘It was Marbury, with a number of his fellow-delegates to the Conference.
They coalesced.
“Do you know that it has begun to rain?” someone asked.
“Listen!”
The heavy pattering of rain on the roof was just audible above the babel of tongues.
“I told you the weather would break,” Eve said to Marbury. “It’s turned colder, too.” She shivered suddenly, persuaded that the air had grown chill.
“It’s an omen,” Miles Marbury returned gloomily. “Because you insist upon going away to-morrow.”
“I’m thinking of the crossing! I’m such a bad sailor.”
“You’ll go the quick way — via Calais?”
“No. I’ve got a return ticket. It’ll be three and a half hours’ misery for me — more, in fact, since it takes me an age to get over sea-sickness. The train journey to Victoria will be an abomination, I know.”
“Put it off. Don’t go till next Monday. I’ll be able to look after you then — see you through the Customs.”
She shook her head, laughing.
The others joined in, talking and uttering exclamations. Under cover of it all, Marbury said to her in a low voice:
“Let me take you home to-night, won’t you? I’ve a taxi. Don’t go with anybody else. There’s something I want to say to you.”
Eve was surprised by the sudden throb of her own heart.
“Thank you very much,” she said carelessly. “I’d love to — we’ll meet downstairs, when it’s over.”
Denis O’Reilly had either heard or guessed. She could tell by the look, half sad and half quizzical, in his dark blue eyes.
“Well,” he said, as they turned into the corridor again, “if marriage with a rich man is what you want, my dear, I should say that the chance is yours.”
“Don’t blame me too much, Denis; you don’t know what it’s like for a woman to be always hard up. I shall never make money — I’m not clever enough — and what I do make, I shall always spend. Debt frightens me, but I can’t keep out of it.”
“Poor little Eve!”
“You do understand? You’re wonderful!”
“I understand you. Even your extravagance. It’s part of you. If I only had money, Eve, I should adore to give it to you, and watch you spend it.”
“I believe you would.”
“Perhaps it isn’t fair to ask you to tie yourself down to poverty by marrying me — but you see, I don’t believe it would be that. One day, I believe I’m going to make money.”
“But you don’t care about it for yourself?”
“I can’t say I do. But I’d like it for you, sweetheart.”
She sighed.
“You’re very nice, Denis, dear. But it’s no use. And anyway I’m not in love with you.”
“I could make you fall in love with me.”
“I don’t think you could. I’m a very cold person, really. I sometimes think I’m incapable of falling in love with anybody.”
“Even Miles Marbury?”
“Even Miles Marbury. Are you jealous of him?”
“Not really. Of course, he has everything I haven’t got — a name, and money, and a position. Besides, he’s a good fellow — I want to do him justice — he has charm, has Marbury. I’ve often wondered why he hasn’t married
before?”
“I think — it sounds absurd, of course, for me to say it — that he is the kind of man to wait until he fell in love, not too unsuitably. His plays are like that, aren’t they — solid, genuine affairs, full of honest sentimentality.”
“I agree with you about one thing,” said Denis dryly. “You’re not in love with him.”
“Do you despise me, Denis?”
“Good Heavens, no, darling! I love you.” The matter-of-fact tone in which he spoke the words comforted Eve as the most fervent of protestations could never have done.
Denis understood.
In the darkness of the little loge she let her hand lie softly in his.
If Marbury made her his wife, she intended to be loyal to him. She would never let another man make love to her.
But to-night she was still free.
It seemed to her, indeed, that she had never been so near to love.
The Opera came to an end and Denis rose, and put Eve’s light scarf round her shoulders.
“You’ll be cold if the rain has really started. This climate is as bad as the British climate.”
“I’m going in a taxi,” murmured Eve.
“Oh, I know. Are you really going home tomorrow?”
“Certainly. I can’t afford to stay any longer. Luckily, I took a return ticket — I shall reach home without a penny — I always do.”
“You’re not fit to look after yourself. Then it’s good-bye for the present, if you won’t let me take you up to the hotel.”
“Good-bye, Denis, dear.”
He looked down at her, still smiling, and raised her hand to his lips.
“Good-bye, my dear. Good luck to you!”
She caught sight of Marbury’s handsome head, towering above the crowd, and with a parting, pleading glance at Denis, that took leave whilst it appealed, Eve went to join the other man.
III
She perceived directly, that Miles Marbury was nervous.
“You were right about the weather. It’s broken at last. Torrents of rain outside, and very chilly. Will you stand here one minute while I get a taxi?”
Cries of “Taxi!” were resounding on every side of them, and men were dashing out into the street.
Eve noted with approval that Marbury succeeded almost instantly, while other people grew impatient, and excited, and failed.
That was the kind of man that she wanted to marry.
One who achieved things — small as well as great. She wondered with almost desperate excitement if Marbury was going to ask her to marry him.
Directly they were in the taxi, he spoke— “Eve, I want to ask you something — but it’s difficult—”
A pang of disappointment shot through her. Whatever he might be going to say, she was sufficiently experienced in the ways of men to know that this was not the beginning of a proposal.
“Surely you know that you can say anything you like,” she told him gently.
“That’s very sweet and dear of you. I don’t think you could be offended. You aren’t like other girls — not conventional, I mean.”
“No, I don’t think I am.”
“And you know that we’re friends?”
“I hope so, Miles.”
She smiled up at him.
“Eve, I want you to let me help you—” he broke out. “Wait a minute — don’t say anything yet, please. Let me tell you what’s in my mind. You see, I know all about poverty. My parents were poor — frightfully poor. They had a hard job to educate me at all. Even when I left school, I just had a clerk’s job in an office, and had to live as thousands of other young men do. I paid thirty-five shillings a week for my room and breakfast and supper, and I had a pound a week left for laundry, and bus fares, and clothes, and stamps, and doctors or dentists, and pocket-money. So you see, I know. That was less than ten years ago. Since then, my luck has been colossal — I can hardly believe it, even now — but I’m rich, actually. I have a balance at the bank, no bills that I couldn’t pay at a moment’s notice, and enough money invested to give me a four figure income for the rest of my life.”
“It must seem like a dream,” said Eve simply and sincerely. “Mother and I have sometimes planned what we’d do if we suddenly became rich. And we’ve always agreed that the thing most worth having of all, would be that feeling of security. Something at the back of one, so that one need never feel afraid of the future any more.”
“That’s what I want you to let me do for you. I can’t bear to think of you feeling afraid of the future, Eve. You’re not any more conventional than I am myself. Think of me just simply as a friend — not as a man, just a friend, who has the luck to be rich, and wants to share some of it with you.”
“But, Miles — I don’t understand. What is it you want to do? Give me money?”
“You make it sound sordid, almost like an insult, when you put it like that. Eve, you know I like you most tremendously — and I think you like me — a little. If you were another man I’d be able to say: ‘Look here, let me lend you a thousand pounds, just to put things straight. You can pay me back when you like — or never, if you like. I’m not particular.’ And you’d agree, and there’d be an end of it. You’re less conventional than any woman I know — won’t you just take it in that spirit? There’s such a lot of rot talked about money, and it’s such a little thing, really.”
“Do you mean,” said Eve in a low voice, “that you’re offering me a thousand pounds?”
“I’m offering you, as you put it, anything you like that’ll make things a bit easier for you, and prevent your worrying about the future. I simply hate to think of it, Eve.”
“But why?”
“I’ve just told you, that I’ve been up against the need of money myself. I know what it’s like. And it’s been a dream of mine for years, to be able to help somebody else. But apart from everything else — you know I’d rather do something for you, Eve, if only I could, than for anybody in the world.”
She looked at him in quiet amazement. His face was very earnest and not altogether free from embarrassment.
With sudden intuition she knew what he was feeling.
He was strongly attracted by her, in love with her even. It made him unhappy to feel that she was poor, and obliged to give up things that she wanted because she could not afford them.
But he was not, as yet, ready to ask her to marry him.
It was, she felt, characteristic of him to want time ‘for deliberation before taking such a step.
Miles Marbury was English, not Keltic. All the more did his generosity, his wish to help her, touch the generosity in Eve.
She had lived thirty years, and for the last ten of them had earned her own living in the world of Fleet Street. For a dozen men who would make love to her, fight for her if necessary, or help her to retain her job, she knew very well that there was scarcely one who would offer what Miles Marbury was offering — for nothing.
“You’re not angry with me, Eve, are you?”
“How could I be? You’re more generous than anybody I’ve ever known, and kinder. But I can’t accept. I’ve no shadow of a claim on you.”
“That means that you haven’t understood. And I thought you would — that you were the one woman in the world who would understand.” She saw that he looked terribly disappointed. A violent temptation assailed her to take him at his word, accept his offer of money, and rid herself of debt and anxiety at least for a time.
She could relieve her mother’s mind of the rent, and pay their bills, and stay on in Belgium, enjoying herself, for another week.
She felt certain that Miles Marbury was sincere. He meant her to agree to his suggestion and if she did so, his admiration for her would be no whit diminished. She would sacrifice nothing of his esteem.
“Eve!”
“Miles, it’s dear of you. I can’t tell you what I feel about it. I shall never forget what a wonderful friend I’ve found. Listen — will it do if I say that if ever I’m really in a difficulty
, I’ll come to you, just as if you were my brother?”
“But why not—”
The taxi drew up, with a violent jarring jolt, in front of the hotel.
“Don’t get out — it’s pouring — wait.”
But the officious porter of the hotel had dashed out with a large umbrella to hold over the lady.
Marbury paid off the cab.
“Won’t you have a lemonade or something?”
“No, thanks. It’s too cold.”
“Don’t go up this moment,” he entreated.
“I’ll wait till the others come in, then.” Some of their fellow-delegates were staying at the same hotel.
They sat down on the long plush sofa at the far end of the hall.
“At least,” said Marbury anxiously, “you won’t go home to-morrow? You’ll let me arrange about that for you?”
Again she felt herself hesitate.
But something in herself that she could not have analyzed, that was stronger than pride, or expediency, prompted her.
“No, truly, Miles! But don’t think that I haven’t understood, or that I don’t realize all you meant.”
“If we’re friends,” he urged, “couldn’t you let me?”
“We are friends, indeed. I want you to come and see me, when you’re in London again. Not just meet me in town somewhere, I don’t mean, but come out to the ridiculous little house that Mother and I live in, at Hampstead Garden City.
I don’t ask very many people there.”
“I’d love to come, Eve.”
Her ears caught the sound of another taxi outside, and she stood up.
“Here are the others. I’m going to say goodbye to you before they come in.”
She gave him her hand.
“And you’ll really, really be gone to-morrow morning?”
He was holding her hand very tightly.
“Really. But we’ll meet next week. Let me know.”
“Next week is an eternity away. I shan’t be able to wait—”
Like Denis O’Reilly, he lifted her hand to his lips.
“Good-bye,” whispered Eve.
“Good-bye, dear.”
His eyes followed her up the stairs.
Eve entered her third-floor bedroom, shut and locked the door, and with grave dispassionateness reviewed the situation.
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 560