“I am chucking it away because I must go, if you’ll have the goodness to call a cab for me,” Lily returned with a smile.
She did not like Trenor’s unusual excitability, with its too evident explanation, and the thought of being alone with him, with her friend out of reach upstairs, at the other end of the great empty house, did not conduce to a desire to prolong their tete-a-tete.
But Trenor, with a promptness which did not escape her, had moved between herself and the door.
“Why must you go, I should like to know? If Judy’d been here you’d have sat gossiping till all hours–and you can’t even give me five minutes! It’s always the same story. Last night I couldn’t get near you–I went to that damned vulgar party just to see you, and there was everybody talking about you, and asking me if I’d ever seen anything so stunning, and when I tried to come up and say a word, you never took any notice, but just went on laughing and joking with a lot of asses who only wanted to be able to swagger about afterward, and look knowing when you were mentioned.”
He paused, flushed by his diatribe, and fixing on her a look in which resentment was the ingredient she least disliked. But she had regained her presence of mind, and stood composedly in the middle of the room, while her slight smile seemed to put an ever increasing distance between herself and Trenor.
Across it she said: “Don’t be absurd, Gus. It’s past eleven, and I must really ask you to ring for a cab.”
He remained immovable, with the lowering forehead she had grown to detest.
“And supposing I won’t ring for one–what’ll you do then?”
“I shall go upstairs to Judy if you force me to disturb her.”
Trenor drew a step nearer and laid his hand on her arm. “Look here, Lily: won’t you give me five minutes of your own accord?”
“Not tonight, Gus: you–-”
“Very good, then: I’ll take ’em. And as many more as I want.” He had squared himself on the threshold, his hands thrust deep in his pockets. He nodded toward the chair on the hearth.
“Go and sit down there, please: I’ve got a word to say to you.”
Lily’s quick temper was getting the better of her fears. She drew herself up and moved toward the door.
“If you have anything to say to me, you must say it another time. I shall go up to Judy unless you call a cab for me at once.”
He burst into a laugh. “Go upstairs and welcome, my dear; but you won’t find Judy. She ain’t there.”
Lily cast a startled look upon him. “Do you mean that Judy is not in the house–not in town?” she exclaimed.
“That’s just what I do mean,” returned Trenor, his bluster sinking to sullenness under her look.
“Nonsense–I don’t believe you. I am going upstairs,” she said impatiently.
He drew unexpectedly aside, letting her reach the threshold unimpeded.
“Go up and welcome; but my wife is at Bellomont.”
But Lily had a flash of reassurance. “If she hadn’t come she would have sent me word–-”
“She did; she telephoned me this afternoon to let you know.”
“I received no message.”
“I didn’t send any.”
The two measured each other for a moment, but Lily still saw her opponent through a blur of scorn that made all other considerations indistinct.
“I can’t imagine your object in playing such a stupid trick on me; but if you have fully gratified your peculiar sense of humour I must again ask you to send for a cab.”
It was the wrong note, and she knew it as she spoke. To be stung by irony it is not necessary to understand it, and the angry streaks on Trenor’s face might have been raised by an actual lash.
“Look here, Lily, don’t take that high and mighty tone with me.” He had again moved toward the door, and in her instinctive shrinking from him she let him regain command of the threshold. “I did play a trick on you; I own up to it; but if you think I’m ashamed you’re mistaken. Lord knows I’ve been patient enough–I’ve hung round and looked like an ass. And all the while you were letting a lot of other fellows make up to you . . . letting ’em make fun of me, I daresay . . . I’m not sharp, and can’t dress my friends up to look funny, as you do . . . but I can tell when it’s being done to me . . . I can tell fast enough when I’m made a fool of . . .”