”
“Yes—that we are not going to break our hearts now that it’s over.”
Clare thought his tone horribly business-like and indifferent.
“Oh no! We sha’n’t break our hearts any more! We are not children.” Her voice was thin and bitter, with a crying laugh in it.
“Look here, Fan!” said Brook suddenly. “This is all nonsense. We agreed to play together, and we’ve played very nicely, and now you have to go home, and I have got to stay here, whether I like it or not. Let us be good friends and say good-bye, and if we meet again and have nothing better to do, we can play again if we please. But as for taking it in this tragical way—why, it isn’t worth it.”
The young girl crouching in the shadow felt as though she had been struck, and her heart went out with indignant sympathy to the little lady in white.
“Do you know? I think you are the most absolutely brutal, cynical creature I ever met!” There was anger in the voice, now, and something more—something which Clare could not understand.
“Well, I’m sorry,” answered the man. “I don’t mean to be brutal, I’m sure, and I don’t think I’m cynical either. I look at things as they are, not as they ought to be. We are not angels, and the millennium hasn’t come yet. I suppose it would be bad for us if it did, just now. But we used to be very good friends last year. I don’t see why we shouldn’t be again.”
“Friends! Oh no!”
Lady Fan turned from him and made a step or two alone, out through the moonlight, towards the house. Brook did not move. Perhaps he knew that she would come back, as indeed she did, stopping suddenly and turning round to face him again.
“Brook,” she began more softly, “do you remember that evening up at the Acropolis—at sunset? Do you remember what you said?”
“Yes, I think I do.”
“You said that if I could get free you would marry me.”
“Yes.” The man’s tone had changed suddenly.
“Well—I believed you, that’s all.”
Brook stood quite still, and looked at her quietly. Some seconds passed before she spoke again.
“You did not mean it?” she asked sorrowfully.
Still he said nothing.
“Because you know,” she continued, her eyes fixed on his, “the position is not at all impossible. All things considered, I suppose I could have a divorce for the asking.”
Clare started a little in the dark. She was beginning to guess something of the truth she could not understand. The man still said nothing, but he began to walk up and down slowly, with folded arms, along the edge of the shadow before Lady Fan as she stood still, following him with her eyes.
“You did not mean a word of what you said that afternoon? Not one word?” She spoke very slowly and distinctly.
He was silent still, pacing up and down before her. Suddenly, without a word, she turned from him and walked quickly away, towards the hotel. He started and stood still, looking after her—then he also made a step.
“Fan!” he called, in a tone she could hear, but she went on. “Mrs. Crosby!” he called again.
She stopped, turned, and waited. It was clear that Lady Fan was a nickname, Clare thought.
“Well?” she asked.
Clare clasped her hands together in her excitement, watching and listening, and holding her breath.
“Don’t go like that!” exclaimed Brook, going forward and holding out one hand.
“Do you want me?” asked the lady in white, very gently, almost tenderly. Clare did not understand how any woman could have so little pride, but she pitied the little lady from her heart.
Brook went on till he came up with Lady Fan, who did not make a step to meet him. But just as he reached her she put out her hand to take his. Clare thought he was relenting, but she was mistaken. His voice came back to her clear and distinct, and it had a very gentle ring in it.
“Fan, dear,” he said, “we have been very fond of each other in our careless way. But we have not loved each other. We may have thought that we did, for a moment, now and then. I shall always be fond of you, just in that way. I’ll do anything for you. But I won’t marry you, if you get a divorce. It would be utter folly. If I ever said I would, in so many words—well, I’m ashamed of it. You’ll forgive me some day. One says things—sometimes—that one means for a minute, and then, afterwards, one doesn’t mean them. But I mean what I am saying now.”
He dropped her hand, and stood looking at her, and waiting for her to speak. Her face, as Clare saw it, from a distance now, looked whiter than ever. After an instant she turned from him with a quick movement, but not towards the hotel.
She walked slowly towards the stone parapet of the platform. As she went, Clare again saw her raise her handkerchief and press it to her lips, but she did not bend her head. She went and leaned on her elbows on the parapet, and her hands pulled nervously at the handkerchief as she looked down at the calm sea far below. Brook followed her slowly, but just as he was near, she, hearing his footsteps, turned and leaned back against the low wall.
“Give me a cigarette,” she said in a hard voice. “I’m nervous—and I’ve got to face those people in a moment.”
Clare started again in sheer surprise. She had expected tears, fainting, angry words, a passionate appeal—anything rather than what she heard. Brook produced a silver case which gleamed in the moonlight. Lady Fan took a cigarette, and her companion took another. He struck a match and held it up for her in the still air. The little flame cast its red glare into their faces. The young girl had good eyes, and as she watched them she saw the man’s expression was grave and stern, a little sad, perhaps, but she fancied that there was the beginning of a scornful smile on the woman’s lips. She understood less clearly then than ever what manner of human beings these two strangers might be.
For some moments they smoked in silence, the lady in white leaning back against the parapet, the man standing upright with one hand in his pocket, holding his cigarette in the other, and looking out to sea. Then Lady Fan stood up, too, and threw her cigarette over the wall.
“It’s time to be going,” she said, suddenly. “They’ll be coming after us if we stay here.”
But she did not move. Sideways she looked up into his face. Then she held out her hand.
“Good-bye, Brook,” she said, quietly enough, as he took it.
“Good-bye,” he murmured in a low voice, but distinctly.
Their hands stayed together after they had spoken, and still she looked up to him in the moonlight. Suddenly he bent down and kissed her on the forehead—in an odd, hasty way.
“I’m sorry, Fan, but it won’t do,” he said.
“Again!”
