It was a relief when, after a last attempt, he passed into the corridor leading to the house. I could breathe, I could think; I could look back over the last half-hour and examine my conduct. I was not satisfied with it, because I had frustrated love--even that kind of love; and yet I asked myself how I could have acted differently.
In substance I asked the same of Larry Strangways when he came to dine with me next day. Hugh being in Philadelphia on one of his pathetic cruises after work, I had invited Mr. Strangways by telephone, begging him to come on the ground that, having got me into this trouble, he must advise me as to getting out.
"I didn't get you into the trouble," he smiled across the table. "I only helped to get you the job."
"But when you got me the job, as you call it--"
"I knew you would be able to do the work."
"And did you think the work would be--this?"
"I couldn't tell anything about that. I simply knew you could do the work--from all the points of view."
"I know you've done it. You couldn't do anything else. I won't go back of that."
If my heart gave a sudden leap at these words it was because of the tone. It betrayed that quality behind the tone to which I had been responding, and of which I had been afraid, ever since I knew the man. By a great effort I kept my words on the casual, friendly plane, as I said:
"Your confidence is flattering, but it doesn't help me. What I want to know is this: Assuming that they love each other, should I allow myself to be used as the pretext for their meetings?"
"If you're only dragged into it to the extent of this afternoon--"
"Only! You can use that word of a situation--"
"Yes, it was; it was playing the game--as they only play it who aren't quitters but real sports."
"But I'm not a sport. I've the quitter in me. I'm even thinking of flinging up the position--"
He, too, smiled, his head thrown back, his white teeth gleaming.
"You think you've caught me, don't you? But you've got the shoe on the wrong foot. I said just now that it might be their affair as to whether or not it did them any good to have you as the pretext of their meetings; but it's surely your affair when you say they sha'n't. Their meetings will be one thing so long as they have you; whereas without you--"