Somebody tapped Soames on the back, and spoke to him; and in the
exchange of those platitudes over his shoulder, he missed her answer,
and took a resolution.
"We're just going in," he said to Bosinney; "you'd better come back
to dinner with us." Into that invitation he put a strange bravado, a
stranger pathos: "You, can't deceive me," his look and voice seemed
saying, "but see--I trust you--I'm not afraid of you!"
They started back to Montpellier Square together, Irene between them. In
the crowded streets Soames went on in front. He did not listen to their
conversation; the strange resolution of trustfulness he had taken seemed
to animate even his secret conduct. Like a gambler, he said to himself:
'It's a card I dare not throw away--I must play it for what it's worth.
I have not too many chances.'
He dressed slowly, heard her leave her room and go downstairs, and, for
full five minutes after, dawdled about in his dressing-room. Then
he went down, purposely shutting the door loudly to show that he was
coming. He found them standing by the hearth, perhaps talking, perhaps
not; he could not say.
He played his part out in the farce, the long evening through--his
manner to his guest more friendly than it had ever been before; and when
at last Bosinney went, he said: "You must come again soon; Irene likes
to have you to talk about the house!" Again his voice had the strange
bravado and the stranger pathos; but his hand was cold as ice.
Loyal to his resolution, he turned away from their parting, turned
away from his wife as she stood under the hanging lamp to say
good-night--away from the sight of her golden head shining so under the
light, of her smiling mournful lips; away from the sight of Bosinney's
eyes looking at her, so like a dog's looking at its master.
And he went to bed with the certainty that Bosinney was in love with his
wife.
The summer night was hot, so hot and still that through every opened
window came in but hotter air. For long hours he lay listening to her
breathing.
She could sleep, but he must lie awake. And, lying awake, he hardened
himself to play the part of the serene and trusting husband.
In the small hours he slipped out of bed, and passing into his
dressing-room, leaned by the open window.
He could hardly breathe.
A night four years ago came back to him--the night but one before his
marriage; as hot and stifling as this.
He remembered how he had lain in a long cane chair in the window of his
sitting-room off Victoria Street. Down below in a side street a man had
banged at a door, a woman had cried out; he remembered, as though it
were now, the sound of the scuffle, the slam of the door, the dead
silence that followed. And then the early water-cart, cleansing the
reek of the streets, had approached through the strange-seeming, useless
lamp-light; he seemed to hear again its rumble, nearer and nearer, till
it passed and slowly died away.