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Hester sprang to her feet eagerly as she heard the front door close, and standing behind the curtain she watched the man, who was already upon the pavement looking up and down the street for a hansom. His erect, distinguished figure was perfectly familiar to her. It was Sir Leslie Borrowdean again.
She resumed her seat in front of the typewriter, and touched the keys idly. In a few moments what she had been expecting happened. Her mother entered the room.
Of her advent there were the usual notifications. An immense rustling of silken skirts, and an overwhelming odour of the latest Bond Street perfume. She flung herself into a chair, and regarded her daughter with a complacent smile.
"That delightful man has been to see me again," she exclaimed. "I could scarcely believe it when Mary brought me his card. By the bye, where is Mary? I want her to try to take that stain out of my pink silk skirt. I shall have to wear it to-night."
"I will ring for her directly," the girl answered. "So that was Sir Leslie Borrowdean, mother! Why did he come to see you again so soon?"
"I haven't the least idea," Mrs. Phillimore announced, "but I thought it was very sweet of him. It seems all the more remarkable when one considers the sort of man he is. He's very ambitious, you know, and devoted to politics."
"Where did you meet him first?" Hester asked.
"It was at the Metropole at Bexhill," Mrs. Phillimore answered. "We motored down there one day, and Lena Roberts told me that she heard him inquiring who I was directly we came into the room. He joined our party at luncheon. Billy knew him slightly, so I made him go over and ask him."
Hester nodded, and seemed to be absorbed in some trifling defect of one of the keys of her typewriter.
"Does he still ask you many questions about Mr. Mannering, mother?" she asked, quietly.
"About Mr. Mannering!" Mrs. Phillimore repeated, with raised eyebrows. "Why, he scarcely ever mentions his name."
She took up a small mirror from the table by her side, and critically touched her hair.
"About Mr. Mannering, indeed," she repeated. "Why do you ask me such a question?"
The girl hesitated.
"Do you really want to know, mother?" she asked.
"Of course!"
"When Mr. Mannering was here last," Hester said, "he asked me whether Sir Leslie Borrowdean was a friend of yours. I fancy that they are political acquaintances, but I don't think that they are on very good terms."
Mrs. Phillimore laid down the mirror and yawned.
"Well, there's nothing very strange about that," she declared. "Lawrence isn't the sort to get on with many people, especially since he went and buried himself in the country. How pale you are looking, child. Why don't you go and take a walk, instead of hammering away at that old typewriter? Any one would think that you had to do it for a living!"
"I prefer to earn my own living," the girl answered, "and I am not in the least tired. Tell me, are you going to see Sir Leslie Borrowdean again, mother?"
The woman on the couch smoothed her hair once more, with a smile of gratification.
"Sir Leslie has asked me to join a small party of friends for dinner at the Carlton this evening," she announced. "Why on earth are you looking at me like that, child? You're always grumbling that my friends are a fast lot, and don't suit you. You can't say anything against Sir Leslie."
The girl had risen to her feet. The trouble in her face was manifest.
"Mother," she said, slowly, "I wish that you were not going. I wish that you would have nothing whatever to do with Sir Leslie Borrowdean."
"Good Heavens!—and why not?" the woman exclaimed, suddenly sitting up.
"I believe that he only asked you because he has an idea that you can tell him—something he wants to know about Mr. Mannering," the girl answered, steadily. "I don't think that you ought to go!"
"Rubbish!" her mother answered, crossly. "I don't believe that he has such an idea in his head. As though he couldn't ask me for the sake of my company. And if he does ask me questions, I'm not obliged to answer them, am I? Do you think that I'm to be turned inside out like a schoolgirl?"
"Sir Leslie is very clever, and he is very unscrupulous," the girl answered. "I wish you weren't going! I believe that he wants to find out things."
Mrs. Phillimore frowned uneasily.
"I'm not a fool!" she said. "He's welcome to all he can get to know through me. I don't know what you want to try to make me uncomfortable for, Hester, I'm sure. Sir Leslie has never betrayed the least curiosity about Mr. Mannering, and I don't believe that he's any such idea in his head. Upon my word I don't see why you should think it impossible that Sir Leslie should come here just for the sake of improving an acquaintance which he found pleasant. That's what he gave me to understand, and he put it very nicely too!"
"I do not think that Sir Leslie is that sort of man, mother."
"And I don't see how you know anything about it," was the sharp response. "Ring the bell, please. I want to speak to Mary about my skirt."
"You mean to dine with him then, mother?" she asked, crossing the room towards the bell.
"Of course! I've accepted. To-night and as often as he chooses to ask me. Now don't upset me, please. I want to look my best to-night, and if I get angry my hair goes all out of curl."
The girl went back to her typewriter. She unfolded a sheet of copy, and placed it on the stand before her.
"If you have made up your mind, mother, I suppose you will go," she said. "Still—I wish you wouldn't."
Mrs. Phillimore shrugged her shoulders.
"If I did what you wished all the time," she remarked, pettishly, "I might as well drown myself at once. Can't you understand, Hester?" she added, with a sudden change of manner, "that I must do something to help me to forget? You don't want to see me go mad, do you?"
The girl turned half round in her chair. She was fronting a mirror. She caught a momentary impression of herself—pallid, hollow-eyed, weary. She sighed.
"There are other ways of forgetting," she murmured. "There is work."
Her mother laughed scornfully.
"You have chosen your way," she said, "let me choose mine. Turn round, Hester."
The girl obeyed her languidly. Her mother eyed her with an attention she seldom vouchsafed to anything. Her plain black frock was ill-fitting and worn. She wore no ribbon or jewellery or adornment of any sort. Negatively her face was not ill-pleasing, but her figure was angular, and her complexion almost anæmic. The woman on the couch represented other things. She was tastefully, though somewhat elaborately dressed. She wore chains and trinkets about her neck, rings upon her fingers, and in her face had begun in earnest the tragic struggle between an actual forty and presumptive twenty. She laughed again, a little hardly.
"And you are my daughter," she exclaimed. "You are one of the freaks of heredity. I'm perfectly certain you don't belong to me, and as for him—"
"Stop!" the girl cried.
The woman nodded.
"Quite right," she said. "I didn't mean to mention him. I won't again. But we are different, aren't we? I wonder why you stay with me. I wonder you don't go and make a home for yourself somewhere. I know that you hate all the things I do, and care for, and all my friends. Why don't you go away? It would be more comfortable for both of us!"
"I have no wish to go away," the girl said, softly, "and I don't think that we interfere with one another very much, do we? This is the first time I have ever made a remark about any—of your friends. To-night I cannot help it. Sir Leslie Borrowdean is Mr. Mannering's enemy. I am sure of it! That is why I do not like the idea of your going out with him. It doesn't seem to be right—and I am afraid."
"Afraid! You little idiot!"
"Sir Leslie Borrowdean is a very clever man," the girl said. "He is a very clever man, and he has been a lawyer. That sort of person knows how to ask questions—to—find out things."
"Rubbish!" the woman remarked, sitting up on the couch. "Why do you try to make me so uncomfortable, Hester? Sir Leslie may be very clever, but I am not exactly a fool myself."
She spoke confidently, but under the delicate coating of rouge her cheeks had whitened.
"Besides," she continued, "Sir Leslie has never even mentioned Mr. Mannering's name in anything except the most casual way. You don't understand everything, Hester. Of course Lena and Billy Aswell and Rothe and all of them are all right, but they are just a little—well, you would call it fast, and it does one good to be seen with a different set sometimes. Sir Leslie Borrowdean and his friends are altogether different, of course."
The girl bent over her work.
"No doubt, mother," she answered, "There's Mary stamping on the floor. I expect she has your bath ready."
An hour or so later Mrs. Phillimore departed in a hired brougham. Her hair had been carefully arranged by a local expert who had an establishment in the next street, her pink silk gown had come through the ordeal of cleansing with remarkable success, and the heels on her new evening shoes resembled more than anything else, miniature stilts. Her face was wreathed in smiles, and she possessed the good conscience and light heart of a woman who feels that she has made a successful toilette. All the vague misgivings of a short while ago had vanished. She gave her hair a final touch in the side window of the carriage as she drove off, and quite forgot to wave her hand to Hester, who was standing at the window to see her go. If any misgivings remained at all between the two, they were not with her. She settled herself back amongst the cushions with a little sigh of content. Sir Leslie was a most charming person, and evidently not at all insensible to her charms. She was sure that she was going to have a delightful evening.
Borrowdean, if he possessed no conscience, was not altogether free from some kindred eccentricity. He was reminded sharply enough of the fact about one o'clock the next morning, when the door of the little house on Merton Street was suddenly opened before he could touch the bell. Framed in a little slanting gleam of light, Hester, still wearing her plain black gown, stood and looked at him. His careless words of explanation died away upon his lips. The fire which flashed from her hollow eyes seemed to wither up the very sources of speech within him. The half lights were kind to her. He saw nothing of the hollow cheeks. The weariness of her pose and manner had passed like magic away. She stood there, erect as a dart, her head thrown back, a curious mixture of scorn, of loathing, and of fear in her expression. She looked at him steadily, and he felt his cheeks burn. He was ashamed—ashamed of himself, ashamed of his errand.
"Your mother," he said, struggling to look away from her, "is—a little unwell. The heat of the room—"
She swept down the steps and passed him. Before he could reach her side she was tugging at the handle of the carriage door.
"Mother," she cried, through the window, "undo the door!"
But Mrs. Phillimore made no answer. When at last the door was opened she was discovered half asleep in a corner. Her hair was in some disorder, and her cheeks no longer preserved that even colouring which is a result of the artistic use of the rouge-pot. Her head was thrown back, and she was apparently asleep. Hester stifled a sob. She took her mother by the arm, and shook her.
Mrs. Phillimore sat up and smiled a sleepy smile. She made a few incoherent remarks. They helped her into the house and into an easy-chair, where she promptly turned her face towards the cushions and resumed her slumber. Sir Leslie moved towards the door, then hesitated.
"Miss Phillimore," he said, "I cannot tell you how sorry I am that this should have happened."
She was on her knees before her mother. She turned and rose slowly to her feet. Sir Leslie never quite forgot her gesture as she motioned him towards the door. It was one of the most uncomfortable moments of his life.
"I am afraid—"
She did not speak a word, yet Sir Leslie obeyed what seemed to him more eloquent than words. He turned and left the room and the house. Without any change in her tense expression she waited until she heard him go. Then she sank upon her knees on the hearthrug, and hid her face in her hands.