Sinister Street

"No, no," Michael called. "The double doors opposite."

"My mistake," said Guy cheerfully. "But don't worry: the other door was locked. So if you've got a Bluebeard's Closet, I've done no harm."

He disappeared into the big room, and the moment he was inside Michael turned fiercely to Miss Harper.

"Who's is this hat?" he demanded, s.n.a.t.c.hing it up.

"Hat? What hat?" she choked out.

"Why is the door of her bedroom locked? Why is it locked--locked?"

The stillness of the crepuscular hall seemed to palpitate with the woman's breath.

"Miss Haden must have locked it when she went out," she stammered.

"Is that the truth?" Michael demanded. "It's not the truth. It's a lie.

You wouldn't be panting like a fish in a basket, unless there was something wrong. I'll break the door in."

"No, Mr. Fane, don't do that!" the woman groaned out, in a cracked expostulation. "This is the first time since you've been away. And it was an old friend."

"How dare you tell me anything about him? Guy! Guy!"

Michael rushed into the big room and dragged Guy out.

"Come away, come away, come away! I've been sold!"

"If you'd only listen a moment. I could----" Miss Harper began.

Michael pushed her out of their path.

"What on earth is it?" Guy asked.

"Come on, don't hang about in this h.e.l.l of a house. Come on, Guy."

Michael had flung the door back to slam into Miss Harper's face, and, seizing Guy by the wrist, he dragged him up the steps, and had started to run down the road, when Guy shouted:

"Michael, the taxi! The taxi's waiting with our bags."

"Oh, very well, in a taxi then, a taxi if you like," Michael chattered, and he plunged into it.

"Where to?" the driver asked.

"Cheyne Walk. But drive quickly. Don't hang about up and down this road."

The driver looked round with an expression of injured dignity, shook his head in exclamation, and drove off.

"What on earth has happened?" Guy asked. "And why on earth are you holding a top-hat?"

Michael burst into laughter.

"So I am. Look at it. A top-hat. I say, Guy, did you ever hear of anyone being cut out by a top-hat, cuckolded by a top-hat? We'll present it to the driver. Driver! Do you want a top-hat?"

"Here, who are you having a game with?" demanded the driver, pulling up the car.

"I'm not having a game with anybody," Michael said. "But two people and this top-hat have just been having a h.e.l.l of a game with me. You'd much better take it as a present. I shall only throw it away. He refuses,"

Michael went on. "He refuses a perfectly good top-hat. Who's the maker?

My G.o.d, his dirty greasy head has obliterated the name of the maker.

Good-bye, hat! Drive on, drive on!" he shouted to the driver, and hurled the hat spinning under an omnibus. Then he turned to Guy.

"I've been sold by the girl I was going to marry," he said. "I say, Guy, I've

"Look here, Michael, are you sure you weren't too hasty? You didn't wait to see if there was any explanation, did you?"

"She was only going back to her old habits," said Michael bitterly. "I was a fool to think she wouldn't. And yet I adored her. Fancy, you've never seen her, after all. Lovely, lovely animal!"

"Oh, you knew what she was?" exclaimed Guy.

"Knew? Yes, of course I knew; but I thought she loved me. I didn't care about anything when I was sure she loved me. She could only have gone such a little way down, I thought. She seemed so easy to bring out.

Seeds of pomegranate. Seeds of pomegranate! She's only eaten seeds of pomegranate, but they were enough to keep her behind. Where are we going? Oh, yes, Cheyne Walk. My mother will be delighted when she hears my news, and so will everybody. That's what's amusing me. Everybody will clap their hands, and I'm wretched. But you are sorry for me, Guy? You don't think I'm just a fool being shown his folly? And at eighteen I was nearly off my head only because I saw someone kiss her! There's one thing over which I score--the only person who can appreciate all the humor of this situation is myself."

Nearly all the way to Cheyne Walk Michael was laughing very loudly.

CHAPTER IX

THE GATE OF HORN

Guy thought it would be better if he went straight back to Plashers Mead; but Michael asked him to stay until the next day. He was in no mood, he said, for a solitary evening, and he could not bear the notion of visiting friends, or of talking to his mother without the restriction that somebody else's presence would produce.

So Guy agreed to spend the night in London, and they dined with Mrs.

Fane. Michael in the sun-colored Summer room felt smothered by a complete listlessness; and talking very little, he sat wondering at the swiftness with which a strong fabric of the imagination had tumbled down. The quiet of Cheyne Walk became a consciousness of boredom and futility, and he suggested on a sudden impulse that he and Guy should go and visit Maurice in the studio. It would be pleasant walking along the Embankment, he said.

"But I thought you wanted to keep quiet," Guy exclaimed.

"No, I've grown restless during dinner; and, besides, I want to make a few arrangements about the flat, and then be done with that business--forever."

They started off without waiting for coffee. It was a calm Summer evening of shadows blue and amethyst, of footfalls and murmurs, an evening plumy as a moth, warm and gentle as the throat of a pigeon.

n.o.body on any pavement was hurrying; and maidservants loitered in area gates, looking up and down the roads.

The big room at the top of 422 Grosvenor Road had never seemed so romantic. There were half a dozen people sitting at the open windows; and Cunningham was playing a sonata of Brahms, a sonata with a melody that was drawing the London night into this big room where the cigarettes dimmed and brightened like stars. The player sat at the piano for an hour, and Maurice unexpectedly made no attempt to disturb the occasion. Michael thought that perhaps he was wondering what had brought himself and Guy here, and for that reason did not rush to show Guy his studio by gaslight: Maurice was probably thinking how strange it was for Michael to revisit him suddenly like this after their quarrel.

When the room was lighted up, Michael and Guy were introduced to the men they did not know. Among them was Ronnie Walker, the painter whom Maurice had mentioned to Michael as an old lover of Lily. Michael knew now why Maurice had allowed the music to go on so long, and he was careful to talk as much as possible to Walker in order to embarra.s.s Maurice, who could scarcely pay any attention to Guy, so nervously was he watching over his shoulder the progress of the conversation.

Later on Michael called Maurice aside, and they withdrew to the window-seat which looked out over the housetops. A cat was yauling on a distant roof, and in the studio Cunningham had seated himself at the piano again.