it would have been better than this. A sense of pending peril made her positively nervous; she wanted to get away from her companion, and yet for the moment she did not see her way to do it.
Beyond doubt Mr. Lawrence was not a man in whose favour nothing could be said. He was of medium height, had a good figure, and held himself well. He was very fair, with a slight moustache, and a mouth which was firm and resolute. His eyes were blue--a light, bright blue--beautiful eyes they were, but scarcely of the kind which could correctly be described as sympathetic. His complexion was almost like a girl's, it was so pink and white; he seemed the picture of health. His manners were peculiarly gentle. He moved noiselessly, without any appearance of exertion. His voice, though soft, was of so penetrating a quality and so completely under control that, without betraying by any movement of his lips the fact that he was speaking, he could make his faintest whisper audible in a way which was quite uncanny. Whatever his dress might be, on him it always seemed unobtrusive; indeed, the strangest thing about the man was that, while he always seemed to be the most retiring of human beings, in reality he was one of the most difficult to be rid of, as Miss Strong was finding now. More than once, just as she was about to give him his dismissal, he managed to prevent her doing so in a manner which, while she found it impossible to resent it, was not by any means to her taste. Finally, finding it difficult to be rid of him in any other way, and being, for some reason which she would herself have found it difficult to put into words, unusually anxious to be freed from his companionship, she resolved, in desperation, to leave the pier. She acquainted him with her determination to be off, and then, immediately afterwards, not a little to her surprise and a good deal to her disgust, she found herself walking towards the pier-gates with him at her side. Miss Strong's wish had been to part from him there and then; but again he had managed to prevent the actual expression of her wish, and it seemed plain that she was still to be saddled with his society, at any rate, as far as the gates.
Before they had gone half-way down the pier Miss Strong had cause to regret that she had not shown a trifle more firmness, for she saw advancing towards her a figure which, at the instant, she almost felt that she knew too well. It was Cyril Paxton. The worst of it was that she was not clear in her own mind as to what it would be best for her to do--the relations between herself and Mr. Paxton were of so curious a character. She saw that Mr. Paxton's recognition of her had not been so rapid as hers had been of him; at first she thought that she was going to pass him unperceived. In that case she would go a few steps farther with Mr. Lawrence, dismiss him, return, and discover herself to Cyril at her leisure. But it was not to be. Mr. Paxton, glancing about him from side to side of the pier, observed her on a sudden--and he observed Mr. Lawrence too; on which trivial accident hinges the whole of this strange history.
Miss Strong knew that she was seen. She saw that Mr. Paxton was coming to her. Her heart began to beat. In another second or two he was standing in front of her with uplifted hat, wearing a not very promising expression of countenance.
"Where's Charlie?" was his greeting.
The lady was aware that the question in itself conveyed a reproach, though she endeavoured to feign innocence.
"Charlie's at home; I couldn't induce her to come out. Her 'copy' for Fashion has to be ready by the morning; she says she's behind, so she stayed at home to finish it."
"Oh!"
That was all that Mr. Paxton said, but the look with which he favoured Mr. Lawrence conveyed a very vivid note of interrogation.
"Cyril," explained Miss Strong, "this is Mr. Lawrence. Mr. Lawrence, this is Mr. Paxton; and I am afraid you must excuse me."
Mr. Lawrence did excuse her. She and Mr Paxton returned together up the pier; he, directly Mr. Lawrence was out of hearing, putting to her the question which, though she dreaded, she knew was inevitable.
"Who's that?"
"That is Mr. Lawrence."
"Yes, you told me so much already; who is Mr. Lawrence?"
As she walked Miss Strong, looking down, tapped with the ferrule of her umbrella on the boards.
"Oh! he's a sort of acquaintance."
"You have not been long in Brighton, then, without making acquaintance?"
"Cyril! I have been here more than a month. Surely a girl can make an acquaintance in that time?"
"It depends, I fancy, on the girl, and on the circumstances in which she is placed. What is Mr. Lawrence?"
"I have not the faintest notion. I have a sort of general idea that, like yourself, he is something in the City. It seems to me that nowadays most men are."
"Who introduced him?"
"A shower of rain."
"An excellent guarantor of the man's eligibility, though, even for the average girl, one would scarcely have supposed that that would have been a sufficient introduction."
Miss Strong flushed.
"You have no right to talk to me like that. I did not know that you were coming to Brighton, or I would have met you at the station."
"I knew that I should meet you on the pier."
The lady stood still.
"What do you mean by that?"
The gentleman, confronting her, returned her glance for glance.
"I mean what I say. I knew that I should meet you on the pier--and I have."
The lady walked on again; whatever she might think of Mr. Paxton's inference, his actual statement was undeniable.
"You don't seem in the best of tempera, Cyril. How is Mr. Franklyn?"
"He was all right when I saw him last--a good deal better than I was or than I am."
"What is the matter with you? Are you ill?"
"Matter!" Mr. Paxton's tone was bitter. "What is likely to be the matter with the man who, after having had the luck which I have been having lately, to crown it all finds the woman he loves philandering with a stranger--the acquaintance of a shower of rain--on Brighton pier."
"You have no right to speak to me like that--not the slightest! I am perfectly free to do as I please, as you are. And, without condescending to dispute your inferences--though, as you very well know, they are quite unjust!--any attempt at criticism on your part will be resented by me in a manner which you may find unpleasant."
A pause followed the lady's words, which the gentleman did not seem altogether to relish.
"Still the fact remains that I do love you better than anything else in the world."
"Surely if that were so, Cyril, at this time of day you and I would not be situated as we are."
"By which you mean?"
"If you felt for me what you are always protesting that you feel, surely sometimes you would have done as I wished."
"Which being interpreted is equivalent to saying that I should have put my money into Goschens, and entered an office at a salary of a pound a week."
"If you had done so you would at any rate still have your money, and also, possibly, the prospect of a career."
