Lorraine had not the smal est idea of what was coming upon her. She knew perfectly well herself that it would be most unwise for a rising young barrister to get talked about with an actress known to have a husband living, and it had made her a great deal more cautious than she would otherwise have bothered to be.
Moreover, Alymer, seeing nothing to gain by making known his mother's fears, preferred not to annoy her with any account of them. To say that he was whol y unaffected by it, however, would be to say too much.
He was, indeed, exceedingly and bitterly annoyed with his interfering aunt, who had obviously tried to make trouble for some petty motive of jealousy. He only hoped that his mother would take her line from him and his father, and maintain a dignified front, unmoved by his aunt's tale-bearing gossip.
He was slightly affected in another way also. It was almost the first time he had seriously considered what the world might say if their great friendship was known. He knew it well enough to believe it would be in haste to put the worst construction on it, though their own immediate friends might stand by them loyal y.
It caused him to consider that construction in a light he had hitherto been protected from by circumstances, for it thrust forward an aspect they had successful y kept in the background. It made him ask the question, What was he prepared to do if his aunt continued her persecution, and some sort of change had to be made in the friendly, delightful intercourse?
He wondered a good deal what Lorraine's own attitude would be. Would she, perhaps, now that she had given him his start, cut al the friendship off for his good, and return to her old friends and admirers? He shrank from the contemplation of such a solution undisguisedly, and meant to continue their pleasant relations if possible.
He certainly wished no change whatever, if it could be avoided.
Lorraine meant everything to him just then, and he could not but know how much his companionship and affection had come to mean to her.
So the next day he paid his customary visit, and talked as usual of many things, but said no word of what had passed the previous night.
Lorraine's room was ful of violets and snowdrops, cushions of them on every side, in lovely array. He moved about looking at them, and she watched him from a low chair by the fire, clad in some new spring gown of an exquisite mauve shade, that seemed to tone with the violet-bedecked room.
It gave her dark eyes something of a violet tint, and her hands looked as white and delicate as the snowdrops. Moving about from mass of blossoms, Alymer, glancing at her, thought she looked younger and lovelier than ever.
"You have a spring air about you," he said, "and al the room seems ful of spring. There is something about it al I like better than the lilies and roses and malmaisons usual y making a display."
"I sent them al to the dining-room," she told him. "Every spring is such a beautiful new thing, it has to be allowed to reign supreme for a little while in here. It gives me rather an ache to see them, al the same" - after a pause - "they make me dream of the smel of the new woodland, that delicious, damp, earthy smell of spring, and al the young, joyful bursting of buds and springing of seeds and the mating birds, and the showers that make the leaves glisten. I feel as if I should like to tramp out across the country in such a shower, and get healthily wet, and be a real bit of the spring for just one week."
"Why don't you go? You are not looking very well, and the country air would probably do you no end of good."
"I don't want to go alone, and I do not know who I could take. Hal is not able to leave, and mother would merely be bored to tears, and Flip Denton is at Monte Carlo. There is no one real y but you and Hal and Flip who would fit in with my spring mood. Any one else would strike a discordant note."
"I wish I could come."
The wish escaped him almost involuntarily, as, with the sight of the spring flowers and the spring scent in his nostrils, he too felt the call of the fresh, wild, vigorous things in his blood.
Lorraine looked at him with a curious expression on her face. Why, she wondered, did he not seriously contemplate coming? Why did he so steadily pursue, as far as she was concerned, his serene and passionless path? She believed he cared more for her than for any one else; and, if so, was it possible the ache sometimes in her heart for a closer bond and resolutely strangled, had no counterpart in his hot, vigorous youth?
Then he looked suddenly into her eyes, as if to see whether she had heard his wish, and what she thought of it. And as their gaze met, she saw the blood mantle to his face, and a half-shamed expression creep into it, as if he had been discovered in a thought that should never have been permitted.
He looked away again to the flowers, and Lorraine turned her eyes to the fire, with a swift wonder in her mind. She felt that something had transpired since they last parted - something she did not know of, and that was entirely different to anything that had crossed their path before. Some new thought had been put into his mind. Something that made him give her that half-shy, half-wondering look.
She gazed hard at the fire, and her pulses began to beat a little fitful y. She knew instinctively that something had come suddenly into being between them, which neither might name, and which was the oldest thing in the world.
And then across her mind, as once before, swept with swift pitilessness a vision of what might have been; of what life might have held for her had she been among the blessed - an aching, tearing longing for a youthful hour she had irretrievably missed. She drew her hand across her eyes, ignoring his presence, shutting him out, seeing only the heavenly joy she had missed.
Supposing such a moment had come to her with such a man, when she, like him, was in the first flush of youth and beauty; of dreams and hopes, and rich believing. What a knight for a lovely maid! What a lover to dream of bashfully and fearfully; and with al her soul one thought of him.
From her vantage ground of much doing and much knowing, she looked back yearningly to the bloom and springtide of life, when al splendid things are possible, and any day may bring the splendid knight.
And instead had come... ah, what?
Well! For her it had been the wolf in sheep's clothing, who, beside all he had robbed her of, had taken all her chance of the one great awakening to blinding joy. Now she could only look upon the joy from afar, seeing a barrier of fateful years, and, like a drawn sword at the gate of her dream, the stern, unyielding decree that has echoed unchanged down the long centuries: "Thou shalt not - "
Alymer was silent too, standing with the thoughtful expression on his face that was so attractive, probing a little nervously into that wish he had expressed, and wondering a little uncertainly just what it meant.
Then Lorraine got up.
"You are grave, _mon ami_; and it is the springtime. Grave thoughts are for the autumn of life - recklessness better becomes the joyful spring."
"Are you ever reckless nowadays?" he asked, watching her graceful movements as she bent down and buried her face in a cushion of violets.
"I am when I smel violets. They may be modest and retiring little flowers, but they hold spring rapture and spring lavishness and spring desiring in their scent all the same."
"Then you are reckless now?"
What was it made him dally thus upon dangerous ground? What was it made him speak to Lorraine as he had never spoken before, on the very day after his mother's admonition? Why did his immense height and strength and the young vigour in his blood suddenly blot out the years that lay between them, and sweep into his soul, the knowledge of his masculinity and might, which of its own nature possessively dominated her femininity?
They seemed al at once to have strayed into an atmosphere, born of that warning admonition, and of their talk, of the reckless, creative spring; and because, in spite of his youth, he was very much a man, and she was a dangerously attractive woman, his pulses leapt fitful y and eagerly with the swift ache that has existed ever since God made man and woman.
Without looking up, Lorraine felt this. The very air about them seemed charged with it, and she too, under some spel of springtime, moved into closer proximity to the splendid knight. She brushed against his arm unconsciously; and looking down on the top of her dark head, he said half-shyly:
"You somehow seem such a little thing to-day, Lorraine, I feel as if I could pick you up, as one does a smal child."
"Please don't," with a low laugh - "just think of my dignity."
"But you are not dignified to-day. You seem as young and light-hearted as the springtime. I feel as if I must be years older than you."
She raised her face suddenly, with yearning eyes:
"Oh, let us emulate the spring this once - let us both be young and foolish and real, and pretend there isn't any one else in the world."
Fore one second he looked at her with wondering incredulity, then, with a tender little laugh he suddenly bent down and folded his arms round her til she seemed to vanish altogether into his embrace, and kissed her on the lips.
"The scent of violets has intoxicated us," he said, and kissed her again.
Then he gently pushed her into her big, deep chair.
"I'm going now. I only ran in to see how you were after that bad headache. You must bring the lilies and malmaisons back to-morrow, or I shal be offending so grievously you will forbid me the flat.
Good-bye!" And without another word he went away out of the room.
Lorraine sat quite stil , and let the spel wrap her round for the precious moments that she could yet hold it. Of course it could not stay. In an hour at most she would be her old, brain-weary self again, with the best of her youth behind her; while he was stil there on the treshold, young and strong and free. But even this one short hour was good. Life had not given her many such. She would fence it round with silence, and solitude, and the scent of violets.
Alymer went out into the streets wondering at himself vaguely, and yet with a pleasant glow of memory. He felt it bewildering that Lorraine Vivian, whose favours were so eagerly sought by men, should have allowed him to kiss her.
It seemed something apart altogether from her generous friendship and helpful influence. It made him pleased with himself, and filled his mind with a yet greater tenderness to her. He knew so much now of her early difficulties and fol owing troubles - of the frivolous, unprincipled mother, and the long, uphill fight. She had honoured him with her confidence in spite of his youth, and now -
He quickened his steps, and his pulses leapt yet more fitful y. Spring was in the air and in his blood, and one of the recognised beauties of London had been gracious to him beyond all dreaming.
It was enough for the present hour. Why ask any inconvenient questions and spoil it al ? Let the future look after itself.
Only one thought for a moment cast a little shadow upon his ardour. It crossed his mind, for no accountable reason, to wonder what Hal would think. He was a little afraid she would strongly disapprove.
But, after all, if she did, what matter? He owed nothing to Hal, and there was no reason why her views should disturb him in the least. Of course it did not... and yet... Hal's good opinion was a thing worth having; and, in short, he hoped she would not know.
It was not that she was straight-laced. She was too near the heart of humanity through her daily toil to be other than a generous judge; but she was also a creature of ideals for herself and for those who would be among her best friends; and she would have known unerringly that no great, consuming love had drowned his reason and fil ed his senses.
It was for that she would have judged him; and for that he would have stood before her direct gaze ashamed. One might be gay and irresponsible and merry, but there were just one or two things which must not be al owed in that category. Instinctively, he knew that in Hal's view he would have transgressed - not because he felt too much, but because he felt too little to be justified.
But why need she know? Why need any one know? He did not think his mother would fol ow up any further the story she had been told, and he would see his aunt about it personal y. It was better to have it out with her, lest she took upon herself to interview Lorraine, and make more trouble stil .
He ran up the stairs to the flat, two steps at a time; and scrambled to get changed for the dinner to which he was going, still feeling a pulsing thrill that, among al men, he was Lorraine Vivian's chosen friend.
In another flat - a bachelor one in Ryder Street - an elderly beau, likewise dressed for a dinner-party, though with the utmost care and precision, instead of a scramble. And to himself he said, as he took a long, last look at the image he loved:
"I must go to-morrow morning and settle this little matter about Alymer. No doubt Lorraine will be amazed to see how wel -preserved I am. She cannot have any real feeling for such a boy, and, after all, a good-looking man of the world - "
He smiled to himself as over a thought that pleased him, and rang for his servant to go out and hail a taxi.