Читать книгу The Making of a Soul - Kathlyn Rhodes - Страница 4

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For a moment there was a silence fraught with a thousand possibilities. Then Owen sprang from his seat and crossing the intervening space, as it were in a bound, seized his friend savagely by the shoulders.

"Say that again, Barry! Say it if you dare!"

With a fury of which he was unconscious he shook the other man violently; and Barry broke away with an expression of annoyance.

"Good God, Owen, what do you think you're doing? What do you mean by attacking me like this!"

"I'm going to knock your damned head off for telling me a lie!" His tone was dangerous. "How dare you say that Vivian is married when you know she is engaged to me?"

"Look here, Owen." Barry stood facing him, panting a little. "It's only because you're my pal that I don't retaliate in kind. Any other man who calls me a liar has to go through it, and that's a fact. But as it's you, and as I know I've done the business badly—well"—his voice grew suddenly wistful—"let's sit down and talk it over quietly, shall we?"

Something in his tone made the other man turn cold; and when he replied his manner had lost its vehemence.

"See here, Barry, I'm sorry I attacked you like that. The fact is, I … I think I can't have understood rightly what you were trying to tell me. You said something just now about Miss Rees being married to Lord Saxonby. Well, what, exactly, did you mean?"

The very quietness with which he spoke made it still more difficult for Barry to answer him.

"I meant just what I said." He fidgeted nervously with a cigarette as he spoke. "Miss Rees was married—quietly—to Lord Saxonby this morning."

"Lord Saxonby? You mean that chap who hung round her before I went away?" Owen's voice was studiously self-controlled, but his hand shook as he played with a silver pencil-case on the table before him.

"Yes. That's the man."

"I see." For a moment he bent his head over the table, and when he looked up Barry understood that he had accepted the truth at last. "So she's played me false, has she? Married another fellow without troubling to let me know. Well, there's no more to be said, I suppose. I must make up my mind to be the laughing-stock of my friends, to be pointed at by men and women, jeered at in the clubs, as the fellow who was jilted … thrown over for another fellow!"

He paused; then resumed in a louder tone.

"It's an ugly word, Barry—jilted. And by Jove, it's an ugly thing. Odd how naturally women take to it, isn't it? They won't steal, as a rule—draw the line at murder, but they think nothing of making damned fools of men who are insane enough to believe in them!"

He laughed bitterly; and his eyes looked grim.

"It would have been quite easy to let me know, wouldn't it?" He flung the question at his friend. "A sixpenny wire—even a cable wouldn't have ruined her, would it? And it would have been much less brutal than to let me come home expecting to find a blushing bride waiting for me!"

"I expect she … she thought you'd see it in the papers," said Barry rather lamely. "Although it was kept pretty quiet here there were paragraphs about it, of course, and she may have supposed you would see them."

"Hardly the thing to leave it to chance," said Owen drily. "After all, when one gets out of an invitation to dinner, one generally sends an excuse; but … " he broke off, and his eyes blazed suddenly " … look here, Barry, you know, and I know, that this woman has played a low-down trick on me. I thought her—well, no matter what I thought her—but anyway I know her now for what she is. And I'll be infinitely obliged to you if you'll be good enough to drop the subject now and for evermore."

"I say, old chap, I'm awfully sorry——"

Barry's impulsive speech got no further, for the other raised his hand to cut it short.

"All right, Barry, we'll take it all as said. Henceforth no such person as Miss Rees—I mean Lady Saxonby—exists for me; and if you'll remember that it will make things easier for us both."

"Very well, Owen." Barry felt emboldened to light a cigarette; and then, with a tactlessness born of mental discomfort, he asked a blundering question. "What shall you do now, old man? Have another shot at big game for a bit, or what?"

"Another shot—I say, Barry, why on earth should I go back the moment I've got home? Oh, I see!" He smiled cynically. "You mean town won't be very pleasant for a bit? Well, I daresay it won't, but thank God no one will dare to say much to me!" His jaw squared itself rather aggressively. "But I don't intend to quit. On the contrary, my firm intention is to remain here, do some good work, and, incidentally, marry."

Barry swung round and faced him, openly surprised.

"Marry? But—whom?"

"Oh, I don't know … at the moment; but someone. You look astonished, Barry! Why shouldn't I marry? Ah, I see! You think because one woman's turned me down no one else will care to risk her happiness with me! Well, of course my value is considerably depreciated, no doubt; but after all, men are in the minority, and I daresay I'll be able to find some girl to take pity on me!"

"Don't talk like that, Owen!" Barry spoke hastily, and his blue eyes looked rather stern. "You don't want a girl to take you out of pity, do you? That's not much of a basis for a happy marriage, is it?"

"No, Barry." He took the rebuke well. "I was talking like a fool. But honestly, I do mean to marry—as soon as possible. Oh, I daresay I'm taking it the wrong way, but it seems to me that there's only one thing for a man in my position to do, and that is to show that he's not heart-broken because one unscrupulous woman has treated him badly!"

"That's all very well—but what about the other woman? Are you going to marry the first girl you meet, irrespective of love, or what are you going to do? I can understand your feeling for Miss Rees has changed its nature—love and hate are akin, I know, but still——"

"No, Barry, you're wrong." He spoke very gently. "I don't hate Vivian. Why should I? She merely exercised her feminine prerogative and changed her mind. Besides, one only hates big things. Vivian isn't big. She's very small, or she'd not have done this thing. If she'd asked me to release her, I'd have done it, and never have uttered a reproach. It's the heartlessness, the unnecessary cruelty of this that hurts me so. I loved her, Barry, and she knew it. Loved her in the right way, in the way a man should love the woman he's going to marry; and my love meant so little to her that she chucked it away without even telling me she was tired of it."

"But to marry, out of revenge, as it were, is small too."

"Out of revenge? Come, Barry, what are you thinking of?" Owen rose and spoke with an eerie joviality. "There'll be no revenge about it! Mayn't I marry and settle down like another man? I'll guarantee that the first woman who wants me can have me; and if she plays the game she shan't regret it, for I'll play it too!"

"But where will you look for her?" Barry could not understand this attitude of mind.

"Look for her? Oh, I'll look for her all right—and she'll turn up, never fear!" He moved restlessly. "There's always some woman ready to enter a man's life when he throws the door ajar—and here I'm positively flinging it open, inviting the little dears to come in!"

"But, I say, Owen"—Barry looked anxiously at his friend—"you … you'll be careful, won't you? I mean, you won't let any twopenny-halfpenny little chorus-girl, or … or girl out of a shop come in, will you? You see, if you let them all know. … "

"Chorus-girls are sometimes worth a good deal more than twopence-halfpenny," Owen reminded him quietly, "and I daresay a girl out of a shop would make a jolly decent wife. But I wasn't contemplating them when I spoke."

"Of course not," assented Barry hastily. "I only meant——"

"You only meant to give me good advice," said Owen, more kindly than he had yet spoken. "All right, old man, I understand. You must forgive me if I'm cross-grained to-night. You see I've had a shock——"

He broke off abruptly.

"There, I'm not going to whine about it. It's over, done with, and a new chapter's started." He yawned ostentatiously. "Barry, I shall call upon your good offices as best man yet—unless you hurry up and marry Miss Lynn first."

"Oh, Olive and I are in no hurry!" He laughed a trifle awkwardly. "You see, she is so young—only just eighteen—and her people won't hear of it for a couple of years."

"Well, that will soon pass." He turned towards the door. "I must be off now, Barry—it's late, and I'm pretty fagged. See you in the morning, I suppose?"

"Of course. I say, Owen, sure you won't stay here to-night? I can give you a bed, you know."

"Thanks awfully, old chap, but I'd rather get home. I've heaps of things to see to. Thanks all the same."

Still talking, the friends crossed the hall, and Barry unlatched the door of the flat.

"Well, so-long, Barry. Awfully glad to have seen you again." He gripped the younger man's hand, and Barry understood what the grip implied.

"Good-night, Owen. See you to-morrow."

Two minutes later Owen had disappeared round a bend in the staircase; and Barry went slowly back into his sitting-room, feeling curiously tired, as though he had been indulging in some violent physical exercise.

"Poor old chap! What a beast that girl is!" He had never liked Miss Rees, and now felt, naturally, that his dislike was justified. "But I hope to goodness he doesn't go and do anything rash. He's got a pretty good head on him, though, and I daresay a lot of this talk is mere bravado."

He turned off the light and went into his bedroom. On the dressing-table stood a silver frame holding a photograph; and Barry took up the frame and studied the portrait carefully.

"Olive, you'd never play me a trick like that, would you! My God, I hope you don't! It would just about kill me to have to lose faith in you!"

The deep eyes looked up at him candidly, the sweet mouth seemed to smile; and with a sudden blissful certainty that the original of the photograph was as true and straightforward as the picture proclaimed her to be, Barry put down the frame again, and began, whistling, to prepare for bed.