spent his time pleasantly between Meriton and his rooms in Jermyn Street. He had access to much society of one kind and another, and was universally popular; his frank delight in pleasing people made him pleasant to them. With women especially he was a great favourite, not for his looks only, though they were a passport to open the door of any drawing-room, but more because they felt that he was a man who appreciated them, valued them, needed them, to whom they were a very big and precious part of life. He had not a shred of that indifference – that independence of them – which is the worst offence in women's eyes. Knowing that they counted for so much to him, it was as fair as it was natural that they should let him count for a good deal with them.
But even universal favourites have their particular ties. For the last few months Harry had been especially attached to Mrs. Freere, the wife of a member of Parliament of his own party who lived in Grosvenor Street. Mr. Freere was an exceedingly laborious person; he sat on more committees than any man in London, and had little leisure for the joys of home life. Mrs. Freere could take very good care of herself, and, all question of principles apart, had no idea of risking the position and the comforts she enjoyed. Subject to the limits thus clearly imposed on her, she had no objection at all to her friendship with Harry Belfield being as sentimental as Harry had been disposed to make it; indeed she had a taste for that kind of thing herself. Once or twice he had tried to overstep the limits, elastic as they were – he was impulsive, Mrs. Freere was handsome – but he had accepted her rebuke with frank penitence, and the friendship had been switched back on to its appointed lines without an accident. The situation was pleasant to her; she was convinced that it was good for Harry. Certainly he met at her house many people whom it was proper and useful for him to meet; and her partiality offered him every opportunity of making favourable impressions. If her conscience needed any other salve – it probably did not feel the need acutely – she could truthfully aver that she was in the constant habit of urging him to lose no time in looking out for a suitable wife.
"A wife is such a help to a man in the House," she would say. "She can keep half the bores away from him. I don't do it because Wilson positively loves bores – being bored gives him a sense of serving his country – but I could if he'd let me."
Harry had been accustomed to meet such prudent counsels with protests of a romantic order; but Mrs. Freere, a shrewd woman, had for some weeks past noticed that the protests were becoming rather less vehement, and decidedly more easy for her to control. When she repeated her advice one day, in the spring after Andy Hayes came back from Canada, Harry looked at her for a moment and said,
"Would you drop me altogether if I did, Lily?" He called her Lily when they were alone.
"I'm married; you haven't dropped me," said Mrs. Freere with a smile.
"Oh, that's different. I shouldn't marry a woman unless I was awfully in love with her."
"I don't think I ought to make that a reason for finally dropping you, because you'll probably be awfully in love with several. Put that difficulty – if it is one – out of your mind. We shall be friends."
"And you wouldn't mind? You – you wouldn't think it – ?" He wanted to ask her whether she would think it what, on previous occasions, he had said that he would think it.
Mrs. Freere laughed. "Oh, of course your wife would be rather a bore – just at first, anyhow. But, you know, I can even contemplate my life without you altogether, Harry." She was really fond of him, but she was not a woman given to illusions either about her friends or about herself.
Harry did not protest that he could not contemplate his life without Mrs. Freere, though he had protested that on more than one of those previous occasions. Mrs. Freere leant against the mantelpiece, smiling down at him in the armchair.
"Seen somebody?" she asked.
Harry blushed hotly. "You're an awfully good sort, Lily," he said.
She laughed a little, then sighed a little. Well, it had been very agreeable to have this handsome boy at her beck and call, gracefully adoring, flattering her vanity, amusing her leisure, giving her the luxury of reflecting that she was behaving well in the face of considerable temptation – she really felt entitled to plume herself on this exploit. But such things could not last – Mrs. Freere knew that. The balance was too delicate; a topple over on one side or the other was bound to come; she had always meant that the toppling over, when it came, should be on the safe side – on to the level ground, not over the precipice. A bump is a bump, there's no denying it, but it's better than a broken neck. Mrs. Freere took her bump smiling, though it certainly hurt a little.
"Is she very pretty?"
He jumped up from the armchair. He was highly serious about the matter, and that, perhaps, may be counted a grace in him.
"I suppose I shall do it – if I can. But I'm hanged if I can talk to you about it!"
"That's rather nice of you. Thank you, Harry."
He bowed his comely head, with its waving hair, over her hand and kissed it.
"Good-bye, Harry," she said.
He straightened himself and looked her in the face for an instant. He shrugged his shoulders; she understood and nodded. There was, in fact, no saying what one's emotions would be up to next – what would be the new commands of the Restless and Savage Master. Poor Harry! She knew his case. She herself had "taken him" from her dear friend Rosa Hinde.
He was gone. She stood still by the mantelpiece a moment longer, shrugged shoulders in her turn – really that Savage Master! – crossed the room to a looking-glass – not much wrong there happily – and turned on the opening of the door. Mr. Freere came in – between committees. He had just time for a cup of tea.
"Just time, Wilson?"
"I've a committee at five, my dear."
She rang the bell. "Talk of road-hogs! You're a committee-hog, you know."
He rubbed his bald head perplexedly. "They accumulate," he pleaded in a puzzled voice. "I'm sorry to leave you so much alone, my dear." He came up to her and kissed her. "I always want to be with you, Lily."
"I know," she said. She did know – and the knowledge was one of the odd things in life.
"Goodness, I forgot to telephone!" He hurried out of the room again.
"Serves me right, I suppose!" said Mrs. Freere; to which of recent incidents she referred must remain uncertain.
Mr. Freere came back for his hasty cup of tea.
The Park was gay in its spring bravery – a fine setting for the play of elegance and luxury which took place there on this as on every afternoon. Harry Belfield sought to occupy and to distract his mind by the spectacle, familiar though it was. He did not want to congratulate himself on the thing that had just happened, yet this was what he found himself doing if he allowed his thoughts to possess him. "That's over anyhow!" was the spontaneous utterance of his feelings. Yet he felt very mean. He did not see why, having done the right thing, he should feel so mean. It seemed somehow unfair – as though there were no pleasing conscience, whatever one did. Conscience might have retorted that in some situations there is no "right thing;" there is a bold but fatal thing, and there is a prudent but shabby thing; the right thing has vanished earlier in the proceedings. Still he had done the best thing open to him, and, reflecting on that, he began to pluck up his spirits. His sensuous nature turned to the pleasant side; his volatile emotions forsook the past for the future. As he walked along he began to hear more plainly and to listen with less self-reproach to the voice which had been calling him now for many days – ever since he had addressed that meeting in the Town Hall
